DNDMMO

Declaration of Intent

So the intent of this story is to use DnD rules as a base and means of controlling outcomes of actions. The setting will be an MMO that is roughly like the one present in the anime Overlord. I'm choosing this not because I'm a fan of the series, but because its framework is very convenient and there's a lot of systems fleshed out by the writers to make for a fairly smooth adaptation to DnD. Mostly because the MMO in the anime is based on DnD's rules. Plus using an MMO as the tone instead of a "real" fantasy world with real stakes makes for a more light-hearted story. Although I am heavily relying on Overlord for concepts, we won't be using that world as the MMO's setting. We'll be making our own up. We will be using some of Overlord's concepts and systems to expedite the process of all this though.

Classes
The main difference between Overlord's rules and DnD's rules is that you start with a base class that can level up to 15, then specialize in a 'high' class that can level up to 10 and then eventually reach a 'rare' class that can only level up 5 times. It seems everyone can multiclass and tend to multiclass a LOT to get particular skills from other classes to make a character tailored to their tastes. The max level any starting class could have is 15. So while in DnD the max level usually attained is like 20? 30? The framework for this campaign will need to be balanced so we can have fun up to level 100. Or maybe 40. We'll see.

Oh yeah, we're definitely copying this system, and when you tell me the classes you want your character to have beyond their beginning/basic class, we can talk about how you will unlock the other classes. Some of it will just be from leveling up and combat experience, other classes your character picks up will have to be unlocked through their personal story progression.

http://overlordmaruyama.wikia.com/wiki/Job_Classes maybe this'll inspire you a bit.
http://overlordmaruyama.wikia.com/wiki/Shalltear_Bloodfallen/Abilities_and_Powers a character study, showing some variance in classing.

For example:

Necromancer (level 15 max)
Lich (level 10 max)
Elder Lich (Level 10 max)
Eclipse (Level 5 max)

You have racial and class abilities whose total adds up to your current level. The max level is 100 but can be bypassed with certain high-end items. In the game the anime is set in, players would lose 5 levels of experience upon resurrection, which was used to respec, in a way, but was also a large set back, and the player lost their most valuable piece of equipment upon dying. Dunno if we'll use that or not.

The spell tiers are like DnD's. Sort of. DnD seems to start at 0 and go up to 9. Overlord's spell system starts at one, going up to ten, and anything stronger than 10 is called Super-Tier magic.
http://overlordmaruyama.wikia.com/wiki/Tier_Spells
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Sorcerer/Wizard_Spell_List
Refrences. We can compare the spells of DnD and overlord to help with balancing our stuff as well.

To make the campaign last to level 100 it'll probably comprise of several campaigns across multiple continents/countries. We'll probably need to change how the game's numbers scale up and roll modifiers. We'll obviously be able to use our own made-up classes, multiclass into DnD's vanilla classes if we want, etc. We'll review each other's character bio/sheets so we can agree that what we're planning to do is considered balanced and settle any disputes.

I'm really tired, so this is probably a little unclear/incomplete but hopefully you get the gist of things. Please feel free to submit any ideas, such as bio format, websites to use for character sheets, ideas for countries, towns, dungeons, absolutely anything.

My intent for a character is one that's pretty similar to a wild magic sorcerer in DnD, who has a spell that casts a random spell. He or she would also have a kit of average/below-average spells for utility. I'd like to be the party's main craftsman, crafting/repairing/improving our gear, maybe enchanting it.

Guilds

Pretty sure we'll be wanting to make a guild cuz it's taking place in an MMO setting, so I'll touch on some stuff regarding that. We'll use this concept since creating a Guild Weapon sounds like an interesting story arc for the campaign.

When guilds form, they must create a weapon that symbolizes their guild. It appears to be a lengthy process, and regardless of how poorly it is crafted, it will be an unparalleled weapon. As expected, if anyone were to wield the Guild Weapon, it would be the leader. However, if the weapon were ever destroyed, players in the guild would get the [Symbol of Failure] title above their heads. It has no other function than being a make of shame, and can only be removed by the members of the destroyed guild remaking their guild from scratch.

It is interesting to note that some classes are unable to get the title from their guild being destroyed, and some classes are only useful for destroying guild weapons and nothing else. I believe the latter suggests there are classes whose only function is to perform exact, singular tasks in the game. Or maybe that is how all classes are and why multiclassing is so prevalent.

Abilities

Magic, Martial Arts...other stuff. We'll start with Magic. Once again, we're using Overlord as a concept reference that we will build our own ideas off of, not copying their world and mechanics. We'll probably adopt Tiered Magic since DnD uses such a system as well.

The spell tiers are like DnD's. Sort of. DnD seems to start at 0 and go up to 9. Overlord's spell system starts at one, going up to ten, and anything stronger than 10 is called Super-Tier magic. In Overlord, tier 3 was the highest talented people could get to without guidance. 4 was the highest people could get to WITH guidance. Any magic higher than tier 6 is the stuff of legends. There is also Runecraft and Wild Magic. I know DnD has Wild Magic, which is something used by sorcerers and tied to dragons, I know it is tied to dragons in Overlord though.

Refrences. We can compare the spells of DnD and Overlord to help with balancing our stuff as well. Give those inexperienced with DnD a better idea of what we're trying to do.
http://overlordmaruyama.wikia.com/wiki/Tier_Magic (provides summaries on how the npcs perceive the strength of the different tiers of magic)
http://overlordmaruyama.wikia.com/wiki/Tier_Spells
https://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/SRD:Sorcerer/Wizard_Spell_List

There is no kind of tiering system for Martial Arts, and they seem to function like DnD's class abilities really. The wiki sums it up as the magic of warriors, cultivated through intense training, requiring immense stamina and focus to execute. Apparently it takes a novice a year to cultivate a martial art technique, which is done through experience in battle, not a training room.
http://overlordmaruyama.wikia.com/wiki/Martial_Arts

Universal Forces
Chaos - The "random fun" element that when used makes anything possible. Many players hate its presence in the game because it makes it possible for even solid strategies fall apart in pvp, and forces Order to be part of many builds.
Order - Is used to decrease the likelihood of random occurrences, often employed during delicate operations to keep random npc/creature encounters from occurring or to contain chaotic energies. Players view it as a mostly a counter to Chaos, but can be used to buff
Life Skill rolls for when players gather/craft. Mostly a utility force.
Elemental - Fire, water, earth, air, light, darkness, lightning...generally just used to exploit weaknesses of elemental opponents, but they each have their own situational utility.
Nature - Often used to heal dead or warped earth, can have a disruptive effect on magic/the unnatural.
Life - Healers are all about this. Items enchanted with this have a tendency to protect and heal.
Death - Usually associated with necromancy and decay, damage inflicted by this force has no aspect and bypasses nearly all defenses. Assassins naturally favor this force and worship gods related to it.
Time - The passage of time, manipulation of it usually involves acceleration, deceleration, and stopping.
Space - Space. Literally empty space. Good for making bags of holding.
Fey - Bound to mana and magic in its purest form.

Enchantments
Chaotic items simply have random effects based on the strength of the enchantment on them.
Cursed items have a very strong benefit in exchange for a very bad negative effect.
Blessed items have a moderate positive enchantment, can only be wielded by the "pure/good-aligned", and bonus damage against unholy creatures.
Death items have bonus damage that bypasses at least one kind of defense, may deal a percentage of the targets health in damage, have a high crit chance, or higher than usual crit damage.
Space items can be used to redirect projectiles, create portals, or hold lots of stuff.
Fey items deal magic/arcane damage, protect against magic in general, increase mana, can energize certain mana-fueled constructs, basically a spellcaster's favorite enchantment.
Time items manipulate time, can make things rust faster, grow slower, stop moving, and make things that are in stasis move again.
Life items heal, protect, deal bonus damage to undead.

Updates
So I guess as far as numbers go we'll just scale everything up to 5x what DnD does for its 20-level system. So at level 100 your character would be 5x stronger than a normal DnD character, numbers-wise.
There remains the difficulty of making characters higher than level 20 feel more powerful than level 20 characters during roleplay though, since I'm assuming level 20 characters are strong as hell in DnD.
Maybe we should just give our characters more skill points to work with per-level, and instead make the level cap 40? And settle for only scaling things up to double the cap of DnD?

https://orcpub2.com/ I guess you can use this to make your character up, use as a reference for a lot of DnD information, and for making content for the rp. I really dunno the limitations of the site, seems nice though.
https://roll20.net/compendium/dnd5e/BookIndex You can use this as a free alternative to the guide books probably. Though there are free pdfs of the playerhandbook and monster guide and all that.

ooh this story sounds great! I haven't seen Overlord, but I'm familiar with DnD and other "MMO"/isekai anime, mainly Konosuba and Grimgar. Anyway, I can definitely definitely help with any of those aspects of the story for sure!

I'd want my character to be a thief/rogue, and his class levels could go something like this:

Rogue
Thief
Guild Master
Nightingale

and maybe in later levels he can multiclass, for example learning magic. His new class would be Mystic Rogue or Nightblade or something. Idk I'm just spitballing here but this all sounds interesting and fun!

I'll be doing something akin to a minion/summon class with support roles thrown in.

Beastmaster ranger type class.

Of course you would.

it's my prefered class dingus.

razor for the last time, this isn't Dungeons and Dra-oh wait...yeah it is nvmd carry on

There are limits to the sort of beasts they can tame.

Pretty sure in an rpg like the one in Overlord you would be able to tame almost anything. There might be special cases for immunity though. And class-based restrictions on taming/controlling other creatures.

Though it seems 'World-Class' rarity items in Overlord can bypass any kind of logic or defense a creature has, unless it possesses a World-Class item itself. Though these items are extremely powerful, they have their limits too, and require a large amount of time investment to create. They can only be found as a drop, though items rivaling their power can be created by players through great effort. Some World Items can only be used once, before materializing at some other random point in the world.

Although if razor gives his animal a personality, I swear to every god in the world that I will hit him with a salami.

It's okay to give certain animals a personality. In Overlord Ainz rode a giant mythical hamster with a pathetic personality after all. Legendary creatures, creatures with highly developed intelligence by virtue of their species, special cases...these are fine. Though the DM would be the one determining the personality of the creature, which is probably going to be me. Bleh.

Editted the OP by the way, to include Guilds, Spells and Martial Arts. Mostly just more stuff to introduce these concepts to people unfamiliar with DnD or the way Overlord added flavor to these things.

Also i guess we could take a vote on the setting. I just wanna go with high fantasy overall, but maybe have towns or cities that follow sub-themes like steampunk or whatever.

Also I was wondering what kind of party we would be, what our broad goal would be.

I was thinking that the MMO would be really new, and exploration would be a big thing. Being a group focused mainly on exploration could be neat. It would make leveling up not as big of a deal since gaining power would take a backseat to exploration. And if the punishment for death is losing levels and gear, rather than paying tons of gold like in DnD(I think that's how it works?), then with us being mostly about exploration, losing levels wouldn't feel as brutal as it could be if we were focused on dungeon crawling.

Also updated the main post a little about how for certain, really special/badass classes I will be requiring our characters to go through grueling personal quests that will hopefully bring them to the brink of death and test the party's skills to the limit to make the acquisition of the advancement have a big impact, even for those who didn't get much out of the quest personally.

Rose Hollow for a possible town location? Could be a place that not only deals with flowers but also alchemical stuff like potions and healing salves. It would need a draw towards it though. Couldn't be a place to just pass through. Perhaps an event of some sort that would yield a reward, like a monster invasion or someone important was snatched away and must be brought back.

Yeah, that sort of stuff is all acceptable. Would need to be fleshed out though.

We could all toss ideas around for that over time.

would it be alright if I brought in ideas from a personal story I've been working on to kind of test them or flesh them out? Because I have two race ideas that might work for this

also, to respond to your resurrection cost thing, in 3.5 edition of DnD, you'd have to use 5,000 gold in diamonds as a spell component for resurrection, and also a cleric to cast it

Goblins as a PC race?

Ah, I see. Yeah you can test out your stuff in the story sarge.

Goblins could be a PC race, sure. Pretty much anything can be a player character race if you can make up balanced stats for it and produce some good lore for the race.

Also other than town and locations, another important thing for us to develop is the fundamental forces of nature/reality.

Should chaos and order have representative races/several of them to differing degrees?
what about extra-planar forces manifesting in the world?
How should items express the properties of these forces if they are enchanted by them in some way?
I'm currently working on that kinda thing I guess. Working from the ground up.
Starting with universal forces, their history and relations, and progressing towards locations and finally quests, important npcs, etc.

RACE PROPOSAL:

Bun-Bun race: A race of long lived humanoid people of short height characterized by their rabbit ears and tail. They have a natural affinity for magic, but they can still be found taking on trades of all kinds. They have a racial bonus in charisma, naturally, as people of other races might find them appealing in all sorts of ways. Interestingly, though they do have a lifespan of 200 years, there has never been a documented case of a Bun-Bun succumbing to old age as it is usually outside elements that leads them to their demise such as battle wounds or disease. Another defining characteristic of them is that they seem to stop aging altogether at the peak of their pubescent growth and remain this way well into old age. Might need help with stat allocations for these guys. As for the name, I though Bun-Bun would be silly if said in a more serious manner such as consensus reports or so.

Race Proposal:

Dragonid Race: A rare race of dragon-human hybrids bred by an ancient cult of warlocks. They have, since then, gained their independence as a people, but you'll find no dragonid villages or towns. They live in seclusion, either living by themselves or with their immediate families. That being said, they have no culture to speak of, some eking out a modest existence from the land, and some giving in to their dragon instincts and hoarding gold and treasure. They are characterized by their tails and wings, and the members of their race can have any assortment of horns and/or fins on their heads. They also possess scales on their extremities, and sometimes their faces. These scales are more resistant to physical damage than most low-level armors, and the people themselves are more resistant to fire. Some dragonids have been known to be more in-tune to their dragon essence, and have mastered their wings for flight, or breathe fire. Dragonids can have green, blue, red, and even yellow colored scales, but these have no basis on resistances or abilities. The ancient warlocks that created the race only used your bog standard fire-breathing dragons to make the dragonids, so you won't find any aquatic ones or lightning ones or what have you.

stat bonuses:

STR: +2
INT: +1

Do they come in just chromatic or Metallic too?