Editing Shattered Lands (section)

==House Rules==

Every particular group has their own style of play that they are most comfortable with - some of you have played for eons, and some of you are quite new to the whole experience.  We will all bring something different to the table - but here are some things you can expect when you are playing with me.
===Magic Items and Rewards===
Anyone familiar with the Dark Sun setting - or anyone having read that primer up above at least - should have noticed by now that magic is not so common.  As such, magic items aren't as easy to find or get access to in Athas.  What this means is that characters will likely receive fewer magical items - and the ones you do receive should be treated as treasures and rare artifacts.  To make up for the fact that you won't be wandering around the wastes like christmas-trees of loot, there are some changes we'll be making.

====Breaking Shit====
If you have a non-metal weapon, it might break.  On a natural 1 - you are in danger.  You can choose to accept the miss - and save your weapon... or reroll the attack.  If you re-roll your attack, your weapon WILL break - but you stand a chance of hitting with the attack.  If you just broke your shiney magical obsidian sword... I'm sorry.  Fixing a broken weapon is usually not worth it - unless it was magical... and that'll probably be something you'll need to either repair yourself (Good luck...) or have someone else repair for a cost (in favors or in cold stinking hard cash).

So there you have it - if you roll a botch, you can save your weapon and miss the attack - or press your luck for a hit and have it break. 

====Inherent bonuses====
We'll be using the suggested system for inherent bonuses that scale with your level - and I'll be summarizing that here shortly for your convenience. Note that these bonuses don't stack with magic items - so if you have a higher bonus from a magic item, use that INSTEAD.

====Masterwork Stuff====
Masterwork armors and weapons and magical goods of all shapes and sizes basically all have parallels in the game - the big difference will be found in the way you describe your gear and whatnot - metal goods, weapons, and things of that nature will be HARD to get your hands on. If it's light armor - it's probably hides and feathers, and medium and heavy armor is probably carapace, hides, scales and things of that nature.... use your imagination.

====Boons, Favors, and other weird stuff====

Boons are magic-like effects that can be granted to you by Sorcerer Kings, or earned via your glorious deeds in the arena, or through some other crazy mechanism.

Favors replace some of the money rewards you'll get.  Let's face it - it's hot, and you don't want to be lugging around sack after sack of ceramic coins.  That's heavy, and someone's likely to rob you and take your money.  Favors have the same kind of game effect as money without the burden of carrying it around.  The way it works is basically IOUs with different factions.  Doing a job for a templar might earn you favor you can spend with other templars in that region.  Being a badass in the arena might earn you favor with the general public, that you could possibly use for room and board ... or safe haven... 

I reserve the right to reward my players as I see fit... 

===Cheat===
It's well known that DMs cheat ALL THE TIME. I'm going to cheat too.  If I cheat, it'll be to make the game more interesting, challenging, or because I am having a bad day and I feel like killing the entire party.  That said, I will try to keep it to a dull roar unless I think it's warranted / looks awesome.  I expect that my players - who are a bunch of shifty, cunning bastards - will also cheat from time to time.  That's fine.  But if you are going to cheat, all I ask is that you do so to make something awesome.  If you cheat to "Win" you are doing it wrong.  I'll take notice if you always roll 20's for example.  That's boring, and you'd probably really hate it if the monsters also started rolling all 20's all the time, too.  That's boring.  I'm a big believer in gaming karma - make awesome things possible and awesome things will happen.  Do boring things and boring things will happen (such as character death.)

===Character Death=== 
It's Dark Sun, and if you didn't read the above primer let me restate: It's a brutal, deadly world.  Someone's probably going to get hurt and die.  It happens.  If it happens to you, it wasn't personal - and we'll get you back in the game ASAP with a shiny new character and some new story hooks to get you involved. DON'T PANIC.  That said, as a DM in Dark Sun my goal - oddly enough - isn't to kill you all.  It's to facilitate you guys (and gals) in telling an awesome story about some badass mamma-jammas that rock their way around the world nearly-dying every step of the way.  I think near death experiences are way better than actual death experiences - especially since you can have more than one of them.

I'm not going to coddle anyone, but for my part I will make sure that for every "Certain Death" situation there should be several avenues to proceed with only horribly terrible wounds instead of death.  It's not my goal to have rocks fall and everyone die.  Also, bribery works wonders - contact your friendly DM with more details on how you could bribe him out of a Rock-Falling sort of encounter. See also "Cheating".

As a mechanical side to things, there's no divine power source, so there's really no "Raise Dead" ritual.  Wizards can animate the dead through powerful defiling magicks... but that's probably not what you want to do with you beloved friend's newly dead body.  Finding a way to raise someone from the dead would likely be an entire adventure on its own - something you may wish to investigate if it arises.

===Awesome vs. Accurate===
In the struggle between rules and cool things, cool things almost always wins.  I don't know every detailed rule in existance, and I certainly don't keep up to date with errata and changes - and I don't expect my players to be walking dictionaries of the game materials (it'd be nice if you know something, however).  So if you want your character to do something that just awesome beyond words, go for it - we'll sort out the rules implications as we go along.  I'll try to keep consitant - and you all can help me out on that by keeping track of awesome shit you've done and keeping the results in mind when you try your next stunt.

Trying out cool things (whether they work or not) will be good for you - exciting stuff makes me happy, and Happy DM = Fabulous Prizes.

Bogging down play with looooong or unecessary rules-bickering will be bad for you.  See above "Character Death".

That said, if you have an honest question about rules, or whether or not you should even attempt some silly maneuver, that's what the Out-Of-Character thread in the forum is for. Please use it as much as you like for the purpose.

===Lazyness and Flakery===
People are busy. People are lazy.  Sometimes you just can't post.  Sometimes I can't post.  It happens.  If it happens too much, it might slow down play - and I might decide that we need to move things along.  If you know you won't be around (on vacation, sick, dying, getting married to a zombie cactus) then put something up on the OOC thread, or email me personally, or send someone a text message or something -and we'll sort it out.  Otherwise, we'll have your character follow the party around dumbly, as if struck by sun sickness, worthless and mute - until you let us know what to do with them. 

Also, some of you might know that your DM is a terrible person and a horrible flake.  I will try to keep this to a minimum.  If I'm gone without notice for more than a week, I give you permission to start harassing me until I come back.  If it happens that I have to go anywhere or take any time away, I'll do my best to notify you and give you all something to do in the interim.

===Run With It===
This is an extension of Awesome vs. Accurate.  Just to emphasize - if something is cool and nobody has called anyone out for being a flagrant CHEATER then my suggestion is to just run with it.  If I hate you, or if whatever is going on isn't helping the plot forward, or if you deviate from the railroad that I've painstakingly put you on, I'll just edit the post as necessary after talking to you first.