The ale is flowing, spirits are high, and three things catch the party's eye:
1)
A small list tacked half-hazardly to a well used pole. It contains advertisements for magical items of dubious quality and a posting that says, "Alchemical Shop-Minders Wanted". At the top, in dark, blood-red ink and wide, sans-serif letters, it says, "Craig's List".2)
A mysterious gentleman with a long, white beard lurks in a shady corner, staring at the party from underneath a dark, hooded cloak. Several times, he has started to stand and move toward the party, but he quickly changes his mind. He periodically mutters something about a ring.3)
A dwarf sits at the bar, war hammer leaning on his stool, blankly staring at his ale and not drinking it. Engraved on the hammer is a masterfully designed image of a dwarf, an elephant, and a butterfly. The dwarf is making a plaintive gesture. The elephant is laughing. The butterfly is dead.I'm looking for four to five people to play a fantasy RPG. In playing the game, you will also be worldbuilding it. I will not play every NPC; I will just play the important ones. That means that if you need a shopkeeping assistant to talk to, or a love interest, or anything of the sort, just create them. If you aren't sure how our elves are better, make them so.
The three caveats to this rule are as follows:
1 - I reserve the right to veto creations in extreme circumstances (eg: against the site rules)
2 - If you come up with some elaborate backstory for a race in your head, but don't demonstrate any of it in your writing, then that backstory doesn't exist yet
3 - Group worldbuilding means that all of our creations can be added to; this means that nothing we create will be specifically ours aside from our characters. If you make an incredibly elaborate backstory for elves, and then someone adds to elves and takes them in a different direction, then too bad.
In other words, go off of what's been posted, and then add to it. If you need to make up an entire race and kingdom to justify some small thing, just do it.
Rather than post 16,000,000 words on the backstory of the dwarves or something in the IC, put in the OOC. Exposition dumps in the OOC; IC is for introducing/acting upon new elements of the setting.
I will do my best to collect races, kingdoms, etc on the zeroth post of the OOC.
The setting which I'm going for is a trope-filled, tongue-in-cheek, fantasy setting with magic, stock fantasy races, probably some sort of pantheon of gods, and the inevitable kingdom or two.
This is sort-of like DnD without the tabletop elements.
Characters:
Characters will grow as the adventure progresses. After each module, you'll receive loot - part of that loot might be a new spell or strength training. Obviously, I'll tailor these to the characters. Alternatively, you could spend time in town learning new bardic songs or reading up on animal tracking. Character advancment, in other words, can happen organically, so long as it's RP'd (nothing is free).
All of that means you should not start out very powerful; leave room for your character to grow. Aim for slightly-better than normal.
In addition to the character sheets, the party should know each other. To that end, I've made a party sheet for everyone to fill out via decisions in OOC.