It's "Felder-reach" you animal. And it is a continent in which the entirety of our story takes place. War is a non-issue, peacetime has been all people have known for as long as they can remember. A place that just does its own thing, and is not really bothered by outside forces. Think a Scandinavian country, Luxembourg, or CANADA.
Okay but how does this interface with the character I should make?
That's a great question, thanks for reading it.
The world, magical items, the monsters (in every sense of the word), the lore, and most importantly the characters, the story, and the mystery. All from scratch.
However, races, classes, skills, spells, basic equipment and weapons are still what is in the PHB.
Please read this very important note, as if you're feeling like Feldereach may not be for you after all, this is an open invitation to drop out, no questions asked. Once you've read this over to decide.
I was just doing the dishes, and a rogue drop of water landed on an alien magnet I have on my fridge.
Let me back up.
I've been re-writing this in my head for the last few weeks, and I figured I'd better finally send it before the next episode. Also, I'm sorry, but I believe the coiner of "tl;dr" was a time traveler who had just come back from reading this.
First things first -
You are more than half-way through the campaign. I say that for a few reasons.
If anyone is holding back their character from interfacing more with the rest of the party, the world, the mystery, letting their backstory, or who they are becoming take more of a center stage, I hope me letting you know how much is left in the campaign will help you calibrate this for how you want to spin your own character's yarn before it's too late.
Of course this is how long I think is left if you guys go down the points of interest I THINK you will. Speaking of this: I think sometimes you may be questioning how much you're on a pre-written story railroad versus how much you are shaping things. Valid question. Simple answer: so far the myster(ies) you've been solving happened in the past, before your characters came into the picture. Read into that what you will.
But the way I've been looking at it is this: I think of how you're playing Feldereach as there is a long thread attached at the hip of all 6 of you. That's your story, your experience, what you're doing about the mystery. And as you pull it wherever you want, tugging it in ways I'll never expect, I just make sure that there are always these posts dug in the ground of where you pull the thread. And there are these metal rings at the top of each post that as you pass them, the thread hooks through. And those posts are very specific themes and motifs - visual, spoken and unspoken, and musical (including the occasional Asian robot werewolf sound from Brad’s phone) that are so important to me, the campaign, and something you can all look back on when we're done. And the posts are also pieces of the mystery of course. All hints along the way. I have always known the answer to the mysteries, and all the characters and places involved. We'll see if you get to these answers, how you get there, and most importantly what you end up doing about it as you uncover more and more.
That last part is why you playing the story, and it not just being a book or something, is absolutely vital. You have absolute player agency, and I hope you feel that.
Maybe a better way to sum up my ethos for the relation between you as players and me as the GM is from something I have posted on my wall above where I write: It's my job to paint you all into a corner with each part of the campaign, and then it's your job as players to figure out how to walk up the wall.
To let you know how much more of a time commitment there is left. (Obviously before adding in the variable of the Lasertron schedule which stretches everything out.)
Second -
Okay, so more about how much time you've spent so far, and how much time is left.
I think I made a big mistake when we were first starting. I still called it D&D. Deep down, I knew D&D was never going to be for me. But I thought I could still shape it to be for Feldereach. It became clear as we went on and what would best serve the experience was that I should've just called it its own roleplaying experience, that uses D&D just when there is combat and skill checks. I have no interest and certainly no time to make my own mechanics system, we all already knew the 5e system, so it was convenient. But I should've just called it a unique roleplaying experience from the beginning, because no matter how many years and different types of players D&D goes through, I don't think it can be divorced in people's minds from ultimately being crawl, combat, loot, repeat. I'm only being reductive to be concise. (“‘Concise’?” you say, laughing but the type of laugh where air just comes out of your nostrils.) Never calling it D&D would've told you before you committed what NOT to expect, I think, and let you know sooner if you'd like it or not.
Because for me, the aforementioned type of D&D (or similar system) just will never do it for me. I've started calling that rollplaying, instead of roleplaying. And of COURSE it is fine for people to like D&D just for that. Some people want to just have that specific type of fun, and it shouldn't be looked down on. But even the most complex, unpredictable, meaningful combat and crawling is still just rollplaying to ME. Before it sounds like I’m looking down my nose, know that I'm actually holding my head underwater for all of this. I could never do that type of D&D, or make a video game or whatever like that, and other people are doing it as well as it could possibly be done. (Some of you are reading this right now.) To me, since there are now quick-hitting video games, you can get these calories from that. Empty calories to me, TO ME. Important and just as valid and smart calories to others. Or playing a sport, or a quick board game or something. But I'm the psycho that doesn't even feel full from that, at least not for as long as a time commitment as a campaign is. I can't watch a procedural TV show because the characters and world state reset every episode. I can't play Tetris or Mario because it doesn't transport me, it doesn't make me feel anything. "But Matt, don't you ever just want to shut down and want something simple?" Guys, I am a nut job. Not a hipster or some high-brow sophisticate, because I know that's how this is sounding. Just. A. Nut. Job. But at this point in my life, the only thing I am always seeking out is to either tell a story, be told a story, or do both with others. And now I wanted to see if anyone would have interest in that as well.
Enter Feldereach. We were going to play an RPG, so getting that itch scratched from the other mediums I mentioned wasn't an option. And I would never dare to just do the classic D&D I mentioned because a) I could never do it as well as the people that do that b) a lot of you already play in 153468369 campaigns. If you're going to go against the rules, you better respect them and know why they existed in the first place. So mine had to be different, and it had to be something you could only get from me. Otherwise how dare I ask you to invest time, effort, and emotion into my campaign?
So would people want to PLAY this dark, sad mystery RPG? With a lot more theatre (dialogue and roleplaying) and sometimes some combat and skill challenges? Are RPGs even the place to be made to feel something, to be confronted with things in real life as we get older we wish would leave us alone? Should I just get them all some minis and tankards and hope it distracts them? Should we continue constructing Mega Table every session when we know someone’s rickety shins are always banging into its cold and unforgiving metallic legs?
Well I figured I'd try to see if you 6 would be a captive audience for the campaign. If after reading this, you don't think Feldereach is for you, I understand and as I said I take most of the blame. Because what I'm really worried about is any of the 6 of you feeling like the time you HAVE given (we've been playing for over a year), or the character you created that may be one of your favorites was wasted on Matt's bizarre emotional mystery RPG. You are free to message me and let me know you want to drop out. No questions asked. I mean it. Your character will also die unceremoniously with a bat in their rib cage though.
Because BELIEVE me, if you're not feeling it at the table when we play, I can feel that you're not feeling it. And neither one of us wants that. It sucks.
SO anyways, LATELY I've been thinking all this over maybe because we've had some less classically-exciting episodes in a row that unfortunately are cursed by being very spaced out in real world time. I am always my worst critic, but I also am the only one of you that knows why each and every part of the campaign is happening and important. So I'm not an idiot, I realize that sometimes when we have two dialogue-heavy episodes in a row, it may not be everyone's cup of tea. (It's important to note though that if they're not your cup of tea, unfortunately they wouldn't feel like they've taken up such a big part of the campaign as a whole if we were able to play every 2 weeks. They'd feel more like well-spaced peaks and valleys. But I made the decision a long time ago when it was clear this would be next to impossible to play with 3 of us working at Lasertron that I can only pace the campaign by the episodes. By the actual game. Not by the real world passage of time and our schedules. So in the end, when we look at all the episodes one after another, hopefully you'll think it was well-paced.)
However I need to be clear NOW, and I think if I would've called Feldereach its own roleplaying experience and NOT D&D from the beginning it would’ve really helped: episodes where you all just try to put together the pieces of the mystery, or go through an old weird house and find more pieces of the puzzles are still going to be a huge piece of the rest of Feldereach. And I am here to declare loud and proud: this type of play is the MOST FUN to me. Maybe I am crazy and really am alone in finding solving a dark, sad mystery fun. But I really, really do. My favorite television show of all time is The Leftovers, and my favorite movie trilogy is the Before Trilogy, which says a lot. So if you don't think you'll enjoy more of that, Feldereach may not be for you after all. But you may want to read a few more paragraphs first.
I think we are probably all in agreement that the most fun-in-the-classic-sense-of-the-word part of Feldereach is the skill challenge. And of course there will be more of these. But to me, solving the overall mystery, puzzling it out between all of you at the table, is actually one giant macro skill challenge that takes up the whole game. It's just sometimes I'm not always asking you to roll a check for Think.
A good example of why Feldereach is the way it is: I was trying to explain the other day why random combat encounters just wouldn't be happening left and right in Feldereach, or at least the sliver of Feldereach our story lives in. In the game world, everywhere you've been so far has been a city or town, and Feldereach is already a civilized place, but especially so in the cities and towns. So there aren't just bandits or monsters waiting around every corner. In thematic terms though, this is not a story where people just hurt people. They hurt people for a very specific reason, and in fact that is the main thing you are uncovering as the mystery. That can't be overstated enough.
Feldereach was never a whodunit, it was always a whydunit.
Very important though: as you venture deeper down on the map and deeper into the story now, things of course are going to become more untamed and dangerous. And yes that does mean combat as well. And of course, as we get closer to the end, it will be less about finding out, and more about doing-something-about.
Anyways, I ended up writing this on too little sleep, too late into the night, and it should be edited and re-ordered, but I have one really specific type of OCD: when I get strong beliefs about some bit of pop culture in my head, I need to say it ALL.
In summary because I am really worried this will come off as sounding like me looking down my nose at traditional D&D, video games, etc.: those types of campaigns, of media are all just as important as what *I* find fun. Not less than. And I could never do them as well as the people who make them (which includes some of you reading this). And I should’ve called this its own unique roleplaying experience from jump street. In a little while though, we'll find out if the only person who is looking for this in their life right now and finds it fun is indeed just me. Because as Brayden has said since that fateful day when he saw me unapologetically eating a plain bagel, absent of even a single schmear of creamed cheese: "you fucking alien." Remember that alien magnet on my fridge? The water droplet landed right below its eye. I am the fucking alien, alone in the galaxy with my love of sadness.