Author: Jon

Agora Core Episodes

The final section of this blog is the episodes themselves. I have been recording the audio for each episode as we have gone on, since the beginning. I have then provided some background and allowed the rolls of the dice to be displayed on YouTube.

If anyone wants to recommend a better approach or if anyone likes this style, please let me know. Also, if the length of each episode could be shortened or is about right.

I will provide links when I refer to a particular episode, but series 1 (following the characters during their Level 1 character statuses) is now available to view.

Agora Core – Series 1

DM Notes

The other ongoing section of this Roleplay blog will be Dungeon Master (DM) Notes. This is a fun, section and a behind-the-scenes or perhaps more aptly behind-the-Schemes look at what occurs during the campaign. More likely than not, the players have not taken a road that the DM had prepared in advance, and very likely the players have not behaved at all predictably. This provides both awkward and delightful moments where the storyline rails are removed and anything goes. DM Notes will taker a closer look at elements of the storyline that went untold or were unravelled!

Characters

As part of creating any roleplay, characters are an essential part of it, especially when you factor in the Player Characters (PC) who drive the story and are the reason for creating the roleplay scenarios – to be played out and to see what happens next. Along the way, the Player Characters will meet many intriguing, charming, dangerous, downright despicable, duplicitous or law-abiding non-player characters (NPCs) with whom they can interact. This section will aim to give you the lowdown on who these characters are, what their purpose was and how ‘fleshed out’ they really were.

Welcome!

I started creating this roleplay back in late 2015 as I had developed a craving. This wasn’t a simple itch, it was deeper than that. I had run weekend roleplays before, collaborating with other Dungeon Masters (DM)/Games Masters (GM) within the friendship groups that shared the love of fantasy and storytelling along with my Brothers and myself. These could be very rewarding but also very frustrating because the amount of work didn’t amount to the gameplay length – this was especially true with collaboratively run roleplays where ideas could be sacrificed for a cohesive storyline or if players wanted to stick with certain groups.

So my deeper itch involved taking the time to create a new fantasy roleplay from scratch and finding players who were prepared to do it for the long haul – from Level 1 and up!

The other desire was to try and use the new 5th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons. This was designed to be a lot simpler than the system I was used to – version 3.5 – and relied more on story-telling. I had also taken the time to develop a character creation system in excel, and wanted to put it to good use.

As I type, we are nearing the end of the players’ time as Level 2 characters. It has been very interesting seeing how the players have interacted with the storyline and with each other. This has affected my levels of preparation and style as a DM and it will continue to evolve along with the players as we learn about the roleplay system and about the world known as Agora Core.