Campaign News February 13

PLAYERS & CHARACTERS

I am very pleased to share that after a 6-month+ hiatus, Cole has rejoined the game. In last night's session his character Finnan surged from 4th place to 2nd place on the Leader Board as well as shifting his own place on the Player board from 4th to 3rd by a narrow margin.

Counter-balancing Cole's return, Adam joined Liam on temporary hiatus. These players and their characters will remain on the leader board until 185 days have passed without joining a session, although their characters will still be in the record.

Competing with the good news of Cole's return is the additional good news that Barry plans to try out refereeing in Erin! (The astute may have noticed my name at the bottom of the Player Leader Board for the last couple of weeks.) There is no specific plan yet for when that will happen, but Barry has been reading up on the rules and otherwise preparing to referee a session. I am very much looking forward to getting a character in the game!

Everyone in the game is invited and encouraged to take a go at refereeing. Not only does it give me a chance to play too, but also it helps make players even better at playing the game. 

SCHEDULE

Regrettably, I have had to cancel this month's scheduled Saturday session on Feb 21. Please remember, though, that I will run unscheduled sessions on request, my own schedule permitting. If you were hoping to play that session, but you have other days on which you could play when no game is scheduled, please reach out to me and any of the players to try to arrange an unscheduled session.

Instead of requesting an RSVP from every player for every session, we've switched to a "default attendance" sort of plan. Under this new scheme, the players have registered with me their "default" attendance days. A few days before each session I'll send out a reminder and a response is required only from players attending a session outside their default days, and those not attending when they would normally default to attending it.  Over the next month or two, please let me know how well or poorly this new RSVP and reminder scheme works for you, and any adjustments you'd like to see in it.

TIPS & TRICKS

Character Progression - Part I

Overview 

Characters in the game go through a number of stages in their development, and the path they follow will vary, of course by player choice, but also by class. Skillful play requires thinking about one's character's current situation, as well as where the player would like the character to go, development-wise, and where it is best suited to go in that regard.

Low level characters, up through at least 3rd level typically, start with the "classic" dungeon delve. The dungeon environment has some controls on it which keep the dangers within a predictable range. The range may extend above what the characters are capable of dealing with, but only by so much, and generally recognizably. The dungeon can be returned to throughout the characters' careers, but other pursuits which are more practical for middle and upper level characters, generally offer greater reward to risk and/or time ratios.

Mid-level characters, that is a minimum of 4th level, and more commonly 5th through about 8th level, have better options available to them. First they have more exposure to the campaign world, so they are apt to have contacts, allies, and enemies whom they've accumulated amongst NPCs and other players' characters. They have a greater understanding of the game world's dynamics, politics, and economics as well, so they can participate in more meaningful ways than what the dungeon offers. At this level, characters often have the capability to take on larger numbers of better organized enemies, smashing monster lairs where the treasure is likely to be much higher per hit die of defeated enemy than in the dungeon. At this level, mages have spells around the use of which operations can be centered. Fighters can command substantial military forces, just a 4th level fighter, for example, could command as many as 200 soldiers and 28 officers. Clerics can offer perfect protection against death by infection or disease, cure blindness, and remove magical curses at 5th level, and by 9th level, bring their dead comrades back to life.

High-level characters, particularly those whose classes offer "name level" capability for dominion, may begin playing an entirely different game from what most players think of as "D&D." Clerics, Fighters, and Rangers at 9th level, and Wizards and Illusionists at 11th level, may build strongholds, clear territory, collect taxes, and grow a domain. Their game becomes political, economic, and military on a grander scale than other characters' games. Druids, assassins, and monks have their own end games which focus on internecine struggles within their institutions. Thieves at this level focus on building institutions and while their exploits may rival those of the domain builders, but they operate within the domain of another. The paladin never attracts followers (except an intelligent horse), never exercises dominion, and is stuck forever in an extended mid-level game.

Beginning Strategy  

For first level characters, the options are very limited. Characters need to band together, probably pooling their gold, in order to meet what I would call the "minimum adventuring requirements." That is, a party numbering at least 6, and ideally 9 members, at least 3 of whom have a class level. The remainder can be heavy infantry mercenaries (0-level men-at-arms) equipped with at least padded armor, helmet, wooden shield, spear, and hand ax. That equipment will cost 17 gold per man, and for a 1-month agreement, plus 1 day of hazard pay to accompany the party into the dungeon for their first expedition, brings that cost to a minimum 21 gold per man. In order to afford 3 to 6 such helpers, the party will need to minimize their costs, buying limited armor (studded leather at best) and probably no bows or crossbows. The party and the mercenaries need provisions for the expedition,  sacks for the treasure recovered, and torches to see what they're doing.

A party's first dungeon delve is a make-or-break event. If the characters don't come out of it with enough gold to upgrade their arms & armor, and that of their mercenaries, and to round out the group to at least 9 members, then they may as well not come out at all. It's possible too go on after bad luck, a few bad rolls early, but unless they carried out enough treausre to go back for a second expedition with at least a slightly improved or larger force, they're done and might as well fall on their swords. Players in this situation should almost certainly throw their character away and try again with a fresh, new one.

The Low-Level Game 

If the new character survives a successful first delve and hauls away enough treasure to upgrade his equipment and/or his support, he or she needs to maintain momentum. Monthly upkeep costs work against the character throughout his or her career, but as these costs increase linearly, the character's capability increases geometrically, and the monthly upkeep will become less important. At the lower levels though, through 3rd or so, upkeep is an important consideration. Similar to upkeep, the monthly disease and parasite checks can slow down and even kill a character. The best defense against this is to play frequently so that the character has plenty of gold, and to find allies, either NPCs or other players, who can cure diseases and earn sufficient favor that they would be willing to come to the characters aid if stricken. Doing a favor for the church or even a mid-level druid can earn promises in return which end up saving a character from random death outside the session.

Every return from the dungeon should be followed by an examination of what can be done to make the character more effective and efficient at treasure extraction. The best armor that can be afforded should be purchased for the characters and the party's employees as soon as it can be afforded. Horses will get the party to and from the dungeon site more quickly, reducing the number of chances for dangerous wilderness encounters to occur. More mercenaries to guard the animals left outside the dungeon can be hired. A base of operations near the dungeon can be bought or built. A cleared dungeon itself, can become a base of operations, and if it's near resources and can be accessed by vehicle, it can become an early source of income.

Placing a lower level PC in the service of an NPC as a henchman offers a way to protect against the drain of monthly upkeep. For players managing multiple characters especially, this helps with the reality that the character might not be played for several sessions at a time. This arrangement offers a couple of other advantages. For one, the NPC employer will have an agenda and will ask services of the PC, services that are likely to gain the PC experience and wealth in some measure, and save the player the work of deciding what to do next. Second, it connects the character more deeply to the details of the settings. The player may develop allies among the NPC's allies or employees, discover situations in the game world that can be exploited for gain, and learn less obvious truths about local politics, for example.

Conclusion

After each session, think about what the character has just gained and how that could be used to increase the character's gain in the next session. Constant, measured ambition is the key to winning in the early game.

Next time I'll share a brief take on the mid-level game.

 

Campaign News January 31

PLAYERS & CHARACTERS

Although there are now four potential new players who have expressed interest in joining, none of them played in January. Nor was there any participation in the online session. In fact, only one of the four sessions scheduled for the month was attended, and that by only two players. This was not the surge of participation I predicted in mid-December last year, but I remain optimistic that it will pick up shortly.

I made use of the lull to play a group of characters about 650 years in the past in fictional Wessex. Doing so has been not just enjoyable, but good practice for competitive play and an opportunity for me to refine my refereeing tools and techniques. I may write up how that has played out so far. 

As advertised, all the characters were synchronized to the "global clock" two days ago. Today every character in the game is at April 9, 1480. Of those eleven extant characters, only one executed productive downtime orders with its slack time.

SCHEDULE

The next scheduled session is Tuesday, February 3rd. As a reminder, the full schedule for the year is laid out graphically for your convenience. Please RSVP for each session a week in advance if possible. Besides being helpful to me, this gives you the chance to make plans with the other players in the session without using session time on such decision-making and even sorting out any equipment purchases, mercenary hiring, and so on ahead of the session. That leaves more time in the session for gold and XP acquisition!

TIPS & TRICKS

Disease and Infestation 

As it happens, a player asked about disease a couple of days ago, and a character happened to be affected by a parasitic infestation with the check that was due today.

Last July I touched briefly on the game's disease and parasitic infestation rules. Recall that every month, every PC in the game needs to make rolls to check for these health mishaps. I make these rolls in the players' private Discord channels so you can see your characters' rolls there. The odds are normally quite low that anything will befall the character, and in the cases when it does, this is typically that the character is simply unable to go off adventuring or the like for a period of time while the affliction runs its course and the character recovers.

If the character is not meeting his or her upkeep requirements for the month when this check occurs however, the chances of a mishaps increase, and the consequences are more likely to be fatal.

If a character is not meeting upkeep requirements, he or she is "sleeping rough," and will add the "filth" and "improperly cooked meat" modifiers. This increases the likelihood of contracting a disease by 1% and of infestation by 3%. Even with these modifiers, the chances are quite low, however a number of these afflictions, if even moderately severe, can leave the character "totally disabled" for a week or more. For the "un-housed" character, that means death.

In the 21 game months that this game has been running, with a total of 27 characters, there have been four occasions of a character suffering from disease or infestation. In the first case, the character was not meeting his upkeep and knowingly exposed himself to communicable diseases. He became completely disabled for 3 weeks and permanently lost 3 points each of strength and constitution. [Today that character would have died, but I had not yet clearly stated that rule to the players, so being "totally disabled" while sleeping rough was not fatal.]

The second and third cases happened in the same month and location as each other, oddly enough. One of the characters was mildly afflicted and couldn't perform strenuous activity for a week. The other one died from stomach parasites. Both of these characters were meeting their upkeep requirements and had no penalties, just bad luck.

The fourth case happened today. This time to a character "sleeping rough." Although the respiratory infestation caused no permanent damage, the character is totally disabled for a week, and will have another week of no strenuous activity and recovery. This is the last character not making monthly upkeep to survive being totally disabled.

I imagine that many players would wonder why these rules are in the game and why they should be followed. Aside from the pat answer that not following the rules equates to not playing the game, I can see very interesting implications from these rules.

Having a chance of your character dying for really no good reason, merely the passage of game time, creates pressure on the player to preserve the character. The first way to do this is to meet the character's upkeep requirements. That upkeep costs 100 gold per level per month. A character that is being actively played should have no problem keeping up with that monetary demand. The gold only becomes a problem if the character is allowed to languish in inactivity too long. The second way to preserve one's character, is to take direct precautions. Any disease or infestation contracted naturally from these check can be cured by a 5th level cleric or a 3rd level druid. Hire one. Or do a favor for the local church in exchange for a guarantee of care. At the very least, hire a house servant to take care of the character should he or she fall ill. Any character that has survived a single, moderately successful dungeon delve ought to be able to afford a house and a couple of servants, probably a guard or two.

Playing actively and planning ahead are the bulwarks against losing a character to random disease.

 

Campaign News January 13

Getting the Most from Downtime

Characters all have a great deal more time on their hands than that which is played out during game sessions. Skillful players will use this time to their characters' advantage. 

Character Agency 

One key to understanding how downtime works and how to use it to your characters’ advantage is consciously considering the level of “character agency” the character has in different circumstances. That is to say, how much direct control you are exerting over your character as its player versus how much control is handed over to the character itself (via the management of your impartial referee). For simplicity, I’ve described four levels of agency here, but it is of course a continuum, not four discrete settings.

1. Immediate: This low level of character agency is typical in actual session play. The referee makes only minimal assumptions about the character’s actions, relying on the player to respond, moment-by-moment, to the circumstances of the setting.
2. Managed: This level of character agency is often applied in session play as well, when time is accelerated for cross-country travel, resting periods, and so on. The player doesn’t describe actions for every moment of play, but rather has indicated what the character will do and a stop condition, such as “my character returns to town.” At this level of agency the referee will not present every minor detail of the setting that might be noticed by the character to the player. Instead the referee only mentions those circumstances which might reasonably cause the player to consider the character changing his plan, or otherwise demand attention, such as a possibly hostile encounter.
3. Removed: Outside a session, a player may provide a general disposition or high-level course of action for a character to pursue such as performing duties in an organization to which he belongs or traveling from one town to another between sessions. At this level of agency, the character is trusted to handle the details of whatever happens without player intervention until the end of the character instructions are reached--unless something extraordinary happens in the setting that could influence the player’s decision. The referee will report the consequences after the fact, possibly even conducting combat on the character’s behalf.
4. Autopilot: In this rarely employed level of character agency, the player instructs the referee to fully manage the character’s actions and choices. The player might describe instructions for the character to a very specific level or only a very general one. The player might also indicate conditions under which the character should exit “autopilot” mode. While in the mode, the character might encounter any number of situations which require decision-making that unless the player has specified how to be handled, are decided by the referee.

In normal session play, we switch, largely unconsciously, between the “immediate” and “managed” modes of game play. In downtime, the “removed” mode is typical, but “autopilot” is a useful option in some circumstances.

Downtime Options 

Idling: When a player has not provided any instructions for their character outside the session, the referee will assume that the character is “idling.” That is, the character accomplishes nothing, remains where he or she is (hopefully within the relative safety of civilization), and incurs the normal upkeep expenses. The character is very likely to stay alive, but will not advance in any way. 

Training: Most of the players in this campaign have, at some point, taken advantage of downtime to improve their characters or accomplish objectives using a "removed" or "autopilot" level of character agency. Doing so requires having an objective in mind. Learning to read and write has been a downtime objective for a couple of characters in this campaign, for example. Training for the next level is another good example.

Working: It's possible for a character to make part or all of his or her upkeep costs in a job. Job pay can even exceed those costs for characters who have developed sufficiently valuable skills such as those needed to be a spy, a sage, an alchemist, an engineer, and a few others as described in the DMG. This option can work in downtime at any level of character agency. Some of the options do carry risks, however. Many jobs aren't well-suited to a character sporadically disappearing on adventures and later reappearing either.

Research & Information Gathering: Another good use of downtime which requires little in the way of specific goals or instructions, is information gathering, or researching a specific topic. This might be conducted at any level of character agency, but would typically be a removed sort of activity. Most likely, the player would want to know the results once the character knows them, and possibly issue new orders for subsequent downtime based on those. 

Characters have the same tactical infinity in downtime that they do in session play. How that is used is limited only by the player's acquired knowledge of the setting, ability to think ahead, and willingness to investment time in the game outside of sessions. That investment can be quite low and still produce valuable results..

Operationalizing Downtime

Outside the game session time passes for characters at the same rate as real world time, so three days after the last session in which you played a character, three days have passed for that character. In the game sessions, however, time is sped up and slowed down as desired or needed for game play. Most often, an evening's session of 3 or 4 hours will cover several days, maybe even weeks, of character time. This means that characters in the session have moved further into the future than characters who were not in the session. That creates opportunities.

Whichever character(s) have been played the furthest into the future set the "global game clock." That date advances one day in the game world each day in the real world. Characters that were not played in the most recent session will be further in the past, and the gap between their date and the "global game" date is what I call their "slack days." Slack days can be used in downtime instantaneously. In this manner, a character that is behind another might use downtime to travel a couple of days to where that character is without the global clock also moving forward a couple of days.

To gain the most advantage from downtime, consider how much time you as a player have to dedicate to managing it between sessions.

• A fairly small investment is sufficient to set a character on a specific objective with a high level of character agency such as learning a skill or finding out information.
• If you have sufficient time to manage your character in more detail between sessions, it's possible to accomplish more without knowing ahead of time all of what it is you'd like to accomplish with the character. As their initial steps are completed and reported by the referee, you can issue new instructions.
• A player can also take the approach of trying to accomplish a more ambitious goal without managing it so closely by setting the character off with agency closer to "autopilot," having the referee manage the character's actions.

I will generally err on the side of providing less character agency rather than more, if it's unclear whether the circumstances encountered in downtime trigger player intervention based on the player's instructions. A player wishing to send a character deep into its own agency will need to be quite explicit about that intention.

Conclusion

Use your character's time wisely and it will get more done, provide you with more information about the setting and the game, and advance more quickly. I am always happy to help players who are unsure how to use their characters' time figure that out!