Helsport Player's Guide
This is a useful survival toolfor an aspiring player.. Welcome to Helsport. This guide gives you an overviewof the city that you will need to be able to survive. The philosophy behindHelsport is that all things are possible. This will be the hardest mostfluid campaign in which you are ever likely to play, so a brief overviewof my philosophy of playing and D.M. management might be helpful. Firstly,I am not what players call a "killer D.M." I am also not a walkover whenit comes to how players inhabit my campaign. If you are successful in thiscampaign it will be due to your own abilities as a player, rather thanbecause of any substantiveactions I might take. Secondly I still rememberwhat it was like to be a playercharacter. I tried to learn how to runa campaign after years of careful incorporation. Put simply, I think Iknow what makes for a fun game. I have played some characters for yearsat a time, and also the "one off" characters and tournament characters as well. In each of these instances I am amazed at the differences in D.M.s and how they handle interactions. Some of the best campaigns and characters I associated with were low level affairs where just surviving for a fewhours seems to be enough of a reward. I have also been associated withcampaigns where my characters were near gods with abilities that requiredsuch an obtuse understanding of the most up-to-date rules that leads tono challenge andmuch perusal of the rules.

I wish Helsport will become a synthesis of the two extremes. You must think in this campaign. It is something which most players can do, but often do not do. More often in my campaign youwill be desperately trying to further your goals in a very hostile environment. My N.P.C.'s are intelligent and have their own agendas. Very seldom willthey mesh very well with the desires of the P.C.s. When you are unluckyenoughto meet a monster played by me you will be terrified, and if youdo not think, you will be horribly dealt with. To put it simply, if youhave a poor plan for an encounter with a few orcs you will find that Iwill show little mercy. There have been many times where a so called "superior"player with his near godlike character has been defeated and killed bya handful of orcs played by me. I am your adversary. Your pleasure shouldderive from meeting me fairly in my world, and besting what creativityI throw at you. My pleasure willcome from the creation of a dynamic fictivework, and the challenges createdbyyour increasing abilities.

The Rules You Are Stuck With.
Tactical Studies Rules circa 1975.What you say? Yes, these are the rules. I have actually adapted and grownwiththe various rules but the foundation is in the original three bookworks andthe supplements through Swords and Spells. Why? Simple almostno one has access to these works anymore and also because there is an impressiveamount of balance and creativity in these little brown pamphlets. Anotherreason why I use them is because it is economically cheaper for both youand me. This may take a bit of explaining. The rules I am most familiarwith are the original AD&D rules. At the time I was most actively playingyou only needed to have the D.M. Guide, Player's Handbook, Deities andDemigods, and Monster Manual. Most players at that point really only hadto buy one book and did not need the rest. Then something began to happen.First it was the publication of TheFiend Folio, and then it was more andmore expansive permutations of the rules.Unearthed Arcanea to me markedthe beginning of what I refer to as "intensive"D&D. Put simply youhad to have intimate and complete understanding ofeach newpermutationand publication of the rules. Before a single hack orslash eachpersonpaused and looked up the rules as if it was a review oflaw before theSupremeCourt. That's when I stopped playing. I did not understandwhyI had to continuallybuy new supplements just to be able to compete. Timewent on and with theexceptions of a few wargames like Panzerblitz andSquadLeader, I ceased wargaming.The hunger grew for one more crack atwhat hadbeen over a decade of habit.

What brought myself out of retirement was what was quite possibly the poorest run campaign I had ever seen. Mydorm had a very large group of what I call the third generation players.They each had massive collections of T.S.R. Publications and used themwith abandon. I just could not understand what these twenty or so peoplefound so entertaining in such a badly run campaign. Slowly but surly Iinserted myself into their campaign. I wanted to observe them as they gamedand find out why they kept coming back for more. They were some of themost entertaining and well-rounded people I had ever met. At one pointtheir campaign became a "Spelljamming" campaign. This campaign coincidentallycoincided with the release of these rules by T.S.R. To do it right everyplayer was allowed to create a 30th level character in whatever class theywished. Out come the publications dealing with each class and everyonewent furiously to work figuring out all the abilities inherent in eachultra powerful 30th level character. At first I was veryreluctant to evenparticipate in this nonsense, but I saw a way to make onehell of a statement.I made a small request to the D.M. and asked if I couldplay a first editionBard. He agreed, but only if I did not have any magicalweapons oritems.He had lavished hoards of such items on the other playerswho were usingthemost up to date rules for the classes they had chosen toplay. I surprisedhimwhen I accepted his condition. The first encounter wehad was withsome unbelievably powerful mindflayer craft. It was the killerD.M. scenarioin action. The 30th level characters were clearly no match forsuch a powerfulcraft. The other players went into a panic and began releasingspells andmissile weapons. The D.M. laughed because he was sure to crushhis players.He knew the rules pertaining to the awesome craft, while theplayer couldnot possibly know all the rules associated with such high levelcharacters.I took my bard to the poopdeckwhere the inanimate ramming wasabout totake place and began playing my nonmagical bagpipes. At 30th levelundersecond edition rules, the bard has thedruidic abilities to warp woodinunbelievable quantities, which is what Idid. TheD.M. was furious, andwas saying that I could not do that, and that'snot intherules. It wasinthe rules. I made my point that they were playingrulesandnot D&D.Thecampaign soon devolved and I felt very responsible.Whiletheold campaignunder the old D.M. sputtered on I thought back to thelastcampaignI hadrun around the creation and expansion of the fictitiouscityof Hel'sPort.I offered it up for a second permutation. I had to simplyputit out thereforthe players to investigate and see what happened. Theybecamedumbfoundedandaddicted. No one knew how many hit points they hador evenwhat levelthey were.They were amazed that the city government wouldexecutea playercharacter fortrivial offenses. They were amazed that theyhad tofindjobsin order to eat,and even pay taxes. While they did make ageneralmessofthe city, they didenjoy themselves and became the most insistentplayerswith which I have everdealt. Eventually the old campaign died,and I wastheonly game in town. Whatfollowed was one of the most creative,if slightlymad campaigns I ever ran.The only thing I would have donedifferently wasto force them out into theswamp more frequently. If youasked them what levelsthey were, most wouldhave probably told you theywere playing at least a10thlevel character. Ibet they would be shockedto learn that the highestlevelcharacter was a 4thlevel cleric, and mostof them were no better than2ndlevel.

So what does this mean to you in the third incarnation of Helsport? It means I am offering you a challenge unlike anything you have ever done before. Put simply I want each of youto become the preeminent character in your class. I want you to becomepowerful enough to become as legendary as Lum the Mad, or Tenser. I wishyou a funentertainment from the mundane world. Now as to rules and howI expect youto play. I will expect a familiarity by you with the Player'sHandbook, Inthat you will have the abilities and limitations of each classto understand.I have taken ideas from the latter works. For example Ilike the idea of spelljammingand movement through the crystal spheres.Do I own those works? No, but Ido know how to use the creativity of theidea behind spelljamming. If thiscampaign becomes directed by you to gospelljamming then I suppose I willhave to see what the actual rules are.So while I use the original rules Iam not ruling out other newer rules.Some basics I insist on are that youhave a developed character. What evercharacter you have, he will have someinitial reason for being in or goingto Helsport. After that though the creationof the biography is yours toexpand. You can suggest your biography, enemiesand benefactors, it's upto you to make your character a living being.. Themore developed yourcharacter is by you, the more likely he or she will beto become centralto some aspect of the campaign. You will never know whatyour hitpointsare or what your experience level is. Why? Do you know whatthese are inreal life? I want you to attempt that spell casting, or combatwith thatfoe based on your gut instincts ofsuccess are not on what yourhitpointsare. You are required to seek out mentorsfor training and preparingyourcharacter. Experience does not just happen. Youwill be in a rule transparent environment. By this I mean that most of the time, except for ability roles, you willnot be consulting the rules. You must trust me to know the rules well enoughto be able to be fair and impartial. When I do not know a rule, or howexactly an event or ability is handle, I may put your character on "pause"and ask you to research the rules while I D.M. for other players. BecauseHelsport is both a city state and a larger environment around the cityitself, player characters will invariably be doing separate things. Itwill often require separate gaming with one or two players while the otherswait. While you are waiting to continue playing try thinking ahead of whatyou shall do. Mostof the time while I am D.Ming for another player I amalready thinking ofwhat to do for you. I need you to be prepared for actionwhen I get back toyou. When combat occurs I will need you to know yourdexterity and strengthbonuses, what your weapons are, and what your generaltactics will be. RememberI will not tell you how damaged you are, or howdamaged your opponent is.You will know what damage you are doing to himbecause you will roll yourown hits and damage. I will tell you littleabout the plunder you acquire.I will not say you have just picked up a1000g.p. gem. I will say you havepicked up a gem stone. If you have seenthis type of stone before, I mightsay you have picked up a stone thatlooks like a ruby. If you become veryexpert in stones, after several yearsof game time of course, I might saythat the stone looks like the rubyyou sold to Trader Mac for 1000g.p.'s lasttime. To just spoon feed youthe results would rob you of the experience ofactually developing yourcharacter. But wait does that mean that I might sella 1000g.p. gem to a dishonest trader for say 10g.p.'s? Yes, you probably will.

You will make many mistakes as your characters develop, but provided that you are able to keep them alive,the learning of the ability to recognize the worth of an item will giveyou aslight clue as to your actual level. OK. so what happens in a nowin situation?Most likely you will die, or some such similar occurrence.Your goal is touse your exceptional character in such a way that he ispowerful enough toget out of such a situation, and you become a good enoughplayer to avoid such a situation in the first place.

 
PS: Greg has a tendency to ramble, we just smile and nod a lot and kick his ironlung to make sure it isnt clogged with cigarette butts.