What You Know

Everyone grew up on stories of what the world used to be like, though no one who lived through The Fall remains to tell them. Passed down through the generations, they speak of powerful magic harnessed to build great cities and instantly travel between them. Mystic portals that gave access to realms beyond our own material plane. A great empire that ruled the world and a time of plenty for its people. There are also stories about what caused it to fall, but the reasons - and who was to blame - vary wildly. Whatever happened, life today is very different. As the cities fell and resources dwindled, disease and violence was all too commonplace. Survivors banded together in fortified communities within their ruined cities, doing their best to endure. One thing was certain, outside the safety of those walls - here be monsters.

You grew up in the outpost of Shatterfall, built among the ruins of the city of Kerduun in the Shattered Isles. The bravest among you venture out into the ruins beyond the walls. For wealth or renown? To salvage old technology, or perhaps reclaim more of the old city from the dangers that lurk there? Your reasons are your own, but one truth unites you all. The call of adventure is in your bones. You choose where to go and what to do. You will make your own destiny.

The adventure is in your hands.

About Project Red

At Project Red, we strive to provide for the players. We’re here to create a game that involves player agency and story advancement from those decisions. As well, we want the game to feel personal and as if each player can have an impact in the world somewhere. We strongly believe that D&D 5e is about forming a narrative that weaves your character and the world together. We want the games to feel as if each one is a home game; where the DM has reign to create a fun and interesting narrative without feeling constrained. With these things, it necessitates that we have a strong, trusting relationship from players to DMs and DMs to players.

These will be the hallmarks of our game: trust, interpersonality, and fun.

How to Join

The number of players in Project Red is limited to balance the number of players with the number of scheduled weekly games. Please check the New Player Application Status in the Project Red subreddit or contact a subreddit moderator. If new players are being accepted, details on how to apply will be posted.

Player Responsibilities

The difference between a West Marches style game and home campaigns is how the community interacts with each other between games to achieve goals or explore the wilderness together. In a game with a large number of DMs and players, communication is key. In order to do this the players are in charge of creating and joining games as well as making After Action Reports to keep other players up to date. As a player you are expected to do this:

• Follow the code of conduct.
• Join the discord and engage with the community there.
• Be active on the subreddit .
• Create or join Games on the subreddit by contacting the DMs.
• Write AARs after games to inform your fellow players of your adventures.
• Update the Player Wiki

Reddit

The Project Red subreddit is restricted. You must be an approved member to post.

Discord

We use Discord for our voice communications while in game. In addition to that, Discord allows for the sharing of information quickly and easily for our players. Beyond that, we also have between session RP channels for hopping into the RP scene to meet your fellow characters and develop your character. Most people format their RP for ease of use.

• Type a Message with an Asterisk (*) on either side to italicize your message. This is usually used to indicate narration
• Type a message with two asterisks on either side or quotation marks around it to bold your text. People usually use this to indicate speech.

RP is in no way required for the purposes of advancing your character.

Personal Conduct

Wheaton's Law is the Golden Rule. Don’t be a dick.

An online community is bound to contain a variety of viewpoints and opinions. While it can lead to a richer overall experience, it can and will lead to conflict if you don’t follow Wheaton’s Law. Examples can include cyber-bullying, passive-aggressive behavior, direct flaming, amongst others. We’re all adults here, if you have an issue, handle it like an adult. While the DM team will try it’s hardest to monitor for individual instances of rule infractions, it falls upon our users to conduct themselves in a way that encourages a frank and fair exchange of views in a fun and friendly atmosphere.

Respect the DM team: our staff of DMs are volunteers who love this game and who spend a great deal of time attempting to maintain and develop an engaging setting for everyone to play D&D in. That being said, if you have a complaint or a concern, come to us. Ultimately, we’re all friends here playing a game. We will listen to your complaints and provide as much info as possible. We believe in transparency whenever possible, and will provide not just answers and judgements, but the reasoning behind them. Sometimes though, a decision will be made that you don’t agree with. It’s important that we be able to discuss this as adults without it harming the game.

Group Review Process

The DMs will enter a chat session with the affected user, and present their case to enforce a warning or ban. The user will have a chance to respond and to present any supporting materials that they might have (screenshots, files etc) to support their case. Once both sides have been presented, the team will make a decision within 24 hours whether or not to retract or proceed with any action. Regardless of the outcome, the user will receive a written explanation of any decision made.

DM Group Review Process

DMs will enter a chat session to discuss the evidence presented. As in the regular group reviews process, the accused person will be given an opportunity to present any supporting documentation. Once both sides have been presented, the mod/dm team will make a decision within 24 hours whether or not to retract or proceed with the warning/ban. In the case where action is taken against a DM, their suitability as a community leader may also be re-examined.

Any DM who is found to be guilty of a rules violation will be subject to the same penalties as any user (warning > suspension > permanent ban). In the case where a scheduled game may be impacted by disciplinary action, the game will be rescheduled with an alternative DM, or cancelled (the decision will be up to the original game convener).

Races

Players are allowed to select from all published subraces of the allowed races EXCEPT winged tiefling:

• Aasimar
• Changeling
• Dragonborn (including Variants)
• Dwarf
• Elf
• Feral Tiefling
• Firbolg
• Genasi
• Gnome
• Goliath
• Half-Elf
• Halfling
• Half-Orc
• Human
• Kenku
• Kobold (Tinker Kobolds and Volo's Den Kobolds) - The Urd Wings feat is not allowed at this time.
• Lizardfolk
• Tabaxi
• Tiefling
• Triton
• Variant Human¹
• Warforged

Subclasses

We currently allow subclasses from the PHB, Sword Coast Adventurer's Guide, Xanathar's Guide to Everything. UA Revised Ranger is allowed for all subclasses. Subclass race restrictions do not apply. For example, you can play a Gnome Bladesinger.

Barbarian: Ancestral Guardian, Battlerager, Berserker, Storm Herald, Totem Warrior, Zealot

Bard: Glamour, Lore, Sword, Valor, Whispers

Cleric: Arcana, Forge, Grave, Knowledge, Life, Light, Nature, Order, Tempest, Trickery, War

Druid: Dreams, Land, Moon, Shepherd, Spore

Fighter: Arcane Archer, Battle Master, Cavalier, Champion, Eldritch Knight, Purple Dragon Knight, Samurai

Monk: Shadow, Drunken Master, Four Elements, Kensei, Long Death, Open Hand, Sun Soul, Remastered Four Elements Monk

Paladin: Conquest, Devotion, Redemption, Ancients, Crown, Vengeance

Ranger: Beast Master, Gloom Stalker, Horizon Walker, Hunter, Monster Slayer, UA Revised Ranger

Rogue: Arcane Trickster, Assassin, Inquisitive, Mastermind, Scout, Swashbuckler, Thief

Sorcerer: Divine Soul, Draconic Bloodline, Shadow Magic, Storm Sorcery, Wild Magic²

Warlock: Archfey, Celestial, Fiend, Great Old One, Hexblade, Undying

Wizard: All the Schools, Bladesinger, War Magic

We are treating the UA/custom content as a play test. If we see that any of these races/classes/subraces are deemed to be overpowered we may ask you to rebuild your character.

A note on extreme character optimization, aka min-maxing

Death happens. It will not be sought out specifically. It will not be planned for. This does mean that lucky crits or poor decision making in game could result in your death but they will not be the focus of games. This is meant to emulate a home game in feel and pacing. Players should not feel the need to minmax in order to survive - in fact, they may find that lessens the challenges and therefore the fun of the game.

Weekly Roll Over

Game weeks will rollover at 00:01 GMT Monday morning. (i.e. midnight GMT between Sunday and Monday).

Creating a Game

The DMs will post their availabilities in the DM Availability Calendar. Notice that all the times are listed in MST. Clicking the "Google Calendar" button in the bottom right corner will open up the calendar and convert it to your time zone. The times listed here are considered a window for a game. This doesn't mean your game is going to go on for 10 hours. Ideally, games should run for 3 - 5 hours. If you need to start a bit earlier or go slightly over, talk to your DM about it! As always verify with the DM that the time you pick is going to work. Once you have a time slot that works for you, message the DM in Discord and work together to get a game set up. You should message a DM with a hook and an approach.

Advertising a Game (LFG)

Once you have agreed on an adventure and time you should post an LFG (Looking For Group) on the subreddit. There is a template available.

When you post an LFG you are not allowed to apply to any games for that week (because you already have one). This does not affect your ability to apply to games in any other week, or asaps during the week that you have an LFG. To allow a variety of players to create LFGs/book DM time, you can only have one game booked at any time (i.e. you can only own one LFG).

Applying For a Game

Players are allowed 1 scheduled game per week. You can apply to as many LFGs as you want (please include priority), but once accepted please remove your applications from the other LFGs as a courtesy to others.

ASAP Games

Sometimes a player needs to drop out, or a game cannot be filled. In this case, the DMs will post an ASAP announcement in Discord. Players are allowed 1 ASAP game per week, on top of their one scheduled game as listed above.

If a game cannot be filled because all available players have already met their asap cap, at the DMs discretion the game can be set to ‘free for all’ and will not count for any cap.

Weekly Game Caps

We can’t guarantee that every player will get a game every week, but that is our goal. With that in mind, we will be restricting the number of games each player can play per week to the following:

• 1 scheduled game per week. You can apply to as many LFGs as you want* (please include priority), but once accepted please remove your applications from the others.

• 1 asap game per week.

• If a game cannot be filled because all available players have already met their asap cap, at the DMs discretion the game can be set to ‘free for all’ and will not count for any cap.

Pausing A Game

If a game runs long, the party has the option of pausing, and picking back up at that point for a second game. The following rules will apply:

• Only one pause per 'expedition' is allowed. At the end of the second/resumed game, the party must return to town.

• While paused, the location is locked and no other games can be run in that location.

• While paused, the game is considered 'in progress' and players are not allowed to talk about it (i.e. 'no talking about games until you are back in town' rule applies).

• While paused, player RP is still allowed, but should be assumed to be before the party left on expedition (i.e. the 'timey wimey rule').

• Except for exceptional circumstances (which will require the approval of the entire DM team) the game must be resumed in the next two game weeks with the same DM and the same party. At the weekly rollover of the second week, if the game has not resumed, it will be assumed the players chose to return to town, and the location will be unlocked for play.

AARs will be rewarded with Action Points and a 50 XP bonus.
Qualifying AARs will be listed at the end of each weekly mega. Spending an action point allows a player to add a bonus d4 to any d20 roll, possibly changing an outcome. You can decide to spend the point after making your roll, but it must be announced before you learn the outcome of the roll. Only one action point can be added to any roll. Unlike inspiration, action points are not a binary system. You can have more than one at a time, but can only earn one per week.

Adventuring

Adventuring in Project Red follows several tenets:

• The town is surrounded by a large wall and is considered safe with the exception of special events that the players will know of in advance.
• Adventures will not take place in town. Explore the wilds and find your story.
• The wilds generally grow more dangerous the further you travel, this is not always true and remember: running is always an option.
• The players have persistent effects on the world and it will dynamically change around them.

Classes

Conjuring and Summoning Spells

The biggest concern we had with these spells was that the additional creatures could lead to significantly longer combats. We’ve decided to trust you. These spells will work RAW, for now. Please be prepared to run any conjured/summoned creatures efficiently. If combat time/etc. becomes a problem, we will revisit this ruling in the future.

Gentle Repose

Resurrection magic will work RAW with one exception. Gentle Repose will not be recastable on the same body/part. (Note: If a player is reposed, and then resurrected, and later dies again, for the purpose of this ruling this will count as a new body and can be reposed again. Our intention is not to prevent dead players from being successfully returned to town and resurrected, even multiple times, but we do want to prevent the possibility of a ‘collection of fingers’ resurrection farm scenario).

Identify and Attunement

As it stands in 5E, Identify is a useless spell for Identifying items, as the properties of an item can be learned during a short rest. For Project Red, we would like to use the following ruling: Identify will work RAW and also reveal if an item is cursed (but not the curse itself). Players are required to take a 24-hour rest to discover the properties and/or attune to an item, but this will not reveal the presence of curses. Items that have had identify cast upon them do not require 24-hours to attune, but instead can be attuned on a 15-minute short rest.

Produce Flame

The flame in your hand can also be used as a melee spell attack.

Wild Magic

We have modified Wild Magic slightly. After a player casts a non-cantrip level spell, they will roll a d20. If the number rolled is equal to or below the level of the spell, a Wild Magic Surge is triggered. Using Tides of Chaos always results in a Wild Magic surge.

Travel

The “Travel” system will use the DMG Gritty Realism. So a Short Rest will be 8 hours and a Long Rest will be 24 hours. What we’re looking at is having encounters while physically travelling spread throughout the week, so basically maybe an encounter or two per day, depending on rolls and what’s happening . Keep in mind that we’re going to try to avoid having “random” encounters for the sake of having an encounter, in general every encounter should matter. Prepared spells can be changed after a long rest can instead be changed at dawn instead if dawn comes before your long rest finishes.

PoI/Dungeon

Now once you get to a POI/Dungeon, we shift to a different system. This system will incorporate a three phase system. Once in a POI/Dungeon, the system will incorporate a Short Rest, Long Rest, Recuperation system.

• Short Rest(15 Minutes): As written in the Player’s Handbook, except that the duration of the short rest needs to be at least 15 minutes long and you can only roll 1/4 of your Hit Dice (minimum: 1, rounded up). Song of Rest can be used to restore an additional dice worth of hit points to their party. You can benefit from only two Short rests per day. Abilities which “recharge” on a short rest will recharge during this 15-minute period. This change makes combat more routine, since characters can quickly recover from skirmishes and low-stakes battles.

• Long Rest(8 Hours): As written in the Player’s Handbook, except that long rests(8 hours in length) no longer allow a character to regain hit points naturally, but you can use Hit Dice. You can only benefit from one long rest per day. Abilities which “recharge” on a long rest will recharge during this 8-hour period and exhaustion will reset. When you take a long rest, you gain the benefits of a short rest as well. Spent Hit Dice do not reset on a Long Rest.

• Recuperation(24 Hours): This replaces the healing which a long rest would normally provide. A character must perform only non-combat downtime activities for a period of at least 24 hours to replenish their hit points and hit dice as per the rules in the Player’s Handbook for a normal, non-homebrewed long rest. When you recuperate, you can gain the benefits of a long and short rest as well. Items are only able to be Attuned during a Recuperation phase.

New Key Words

Followers

When a player chooses to retire their character, their character becomes a Follower within the town. Followers can only be created by characters that have gone out on at least one adventure. Followers have three attributes: Hit Points, Level, Special Abilities. These Followers will be publicly tracked and show their Hit Points, Level, and any Special Abilities that they may have. Followers will then be under their player’s control and they can choose which building their Follower goes into. Some buildings will require Followers of higher levels to be useable.

A Follower’s Hit Points are determined by the Hit Points of the character when they retire. There is a direct correlation between the two Hit Point totals.

Followers are separated into level tiers that follow the player level tiers. When a Follower is created, if they have reached the max level of a player tier they are considered to be in the follower tier below. For example, a level 4 character that retires and gets turned into a Follower will be a level 0 Follower. However, one that retires at level 5 will be a level 1 Follower.

When a Follower is created, the traits and features that the character has are adopted by the Follower. For example, if your character has learned how to craft an exotic weapon from a faction, your Follower will have this trait. If that Follower is then placed in a Blacksmith, the exotic weapon will be available to purchase for the whole town.

Runescribing

While out adventuring in the world, you may find armor or weapons with these ancient sockets still intact. You may also find socketable gems or inscribed runes. When you socket these into an item, that item will require attunement to wear.