During the afternoon of the first Rules Day, we spent a lot of time discussing some of the larger mechanics of the game that we don’t usually examine: journeymen levels, death, etc. The purpose of the discussion was to make sure that these underlying mechanics are still serving the purpose they’re intending to serve and change them if not.
I have done the best to include our reasoning as much as possible, but because of the immense amounts of time involved and the volume of discussion spent on each item, it’s not practical for me to include a full outline of the whole discussion for each topic. If you need clarification on topics below or have concerns about them, please contact me and I will try to outline the decision-making process more thoroughly.
Here are the topics we discussed and our conclusions:
Backstories
Backstories have been an ongoing discussion through the year; we officially made the change from a rolled/wholesale backstory system to a chosen/piecemeal backstory system for this season. You can find the new backstory charts, along with instructions for how to use them, in the resources section.
This change was made for a variety of reasons:
Firstly, it eliminates randomness from the equation; players who have a character concept in mind can use the charts to build the character they are after without worrying about taking up GM time.
Secondly, it marks a shift away from mechanically-based backstories and into story-based ones; this levels the playing field for new players, and also helps to scaffold building a character for players who are not as experienced with roleplaying (while allowing experienced role-players room to practice their skills as well).
Lastly, the piecemeal nature of the charts allows for a wider variety of character builds – all told, the current charts allow for 3 Billion unique starting builds!
Character Development Questions
Character Development Questions is something we tested this summer to help players develop their characters beyond creation. In the morning, the GM has a question for players to answer about their characters; after a couple minutes to consider, answers are shared out (when appropriate). We have decided to implement Character Q’s in both leagues starting this season, with the understanding that players are not required to share answers – both due to time constraints and to prevent meta gaming about factors that are sensitive to particular characters.
Character Slots & Character Retirement I
With the green-light on a new backstory chart system, we took some time to reconsider how many character slots are appropriate. Part of the function that character slots have previously allowed for was to let players mill a few characters until they got something they liked – something which is mostly unnecessary in a chosen/piecemeal system. Another major purpose of character slots was to help players balance new and old characters, which brought discussion about character retirement into the equation as well. Ultimately we decided to change the nature of characters entering and exiting the story, and came up with a set of guidelines to address character load.
We decided to base character entry and exit on an improvisation game called “Triangles” – in sum, Triangles works with three people on stage playing a scene for an audience; the person who has been on stage the longest looks for an in-scene reason to leave in order to make room for a new person from the audience to join the scene. Under the system we came up with, new characters can join the story at any time; but if a player decides they want to stop playing a character to free up some space in their roster, they must come up with a plausible reason for their character to leave and play it out in-game.
Older characters from previous seasons follow slightly different but similar rules. We no longer have a specific point in the season where old characters “come out of retirement” to join new characters; old characters can join the party at any point in the season, provided they have a good reason to join the party at that time and have received approval for that reason from the GM. The purpose for this is to preserve each season as its own story and maintain narrative consistency: older characters are part of other seasons’ stories, and while it makes sense for them to cross paths with a current story when it’s relevant to that character’s arc, it only makes sense for them to cross paths with the current story when it’s relevant to that character’s arc. We have agreed that otherwise the current story should focus on the current characters who have had a stake in it from the beginning.
Regarding character slots: because players can generally get characters they are interested in under the new backstory system, we have done away with a hard character slot limit. We have agreed upon a soft character limit of three, mostly as a guideline for how many characters it’s practical to juggle at once for storytelling and XP purposes – but players may choose to bring in more characters if they want. Character retirement has thus been largely done away with as a mechanic. However, some of this discussion also has to do with character timejumps; make sure to check that section for additional information.
Journeymen Levels
The purpose of journeymen levels has generally been to give new players a chance to learn the fundamentals of the game before they have to learn with class skills; after some discussion, we agreed that journeymen levels are still fulfilling that purpose and do not need to be changed. We did have a brief aside into the rate of character leveling and how quickly we want characters to proceed through journeymen levels, and agreed that midway through the second event of the season (usually October) is about the right timing for reaching first level in a class (Adult League only).
Death
Death encompasses several topics: the deathbag, stone effects, and how often you pull for death. We briefly discussed whether we still wanted to use a deathbag system, and agreed that we like the deathbag and would like to keep it. Following that, we discussed the stone effects of the deathbag itself; it was brought up during the season that the memory loss effect is both not fun and difficult to roleplay, and that we might want to look into changing how the stones work. There followed a brief discussion about two ways to do it: either having several differently-colored stones that each have unique but smaller effects, or continuing the stacking system we use now where the number of dark stones drawn determines a single effect. We chose to keep the stacking system, but change what the cumulative stone effects are.
Discussion of changing cumulative stone effects included talking about how many levels of effects we want; we decided to change the levels of effects from three stones to five stones in order to allow a larger (but gentler) gradient between a clear pull and PDing. At this point the decision fell into my court because I needed time to look through how death works in-game in my world and what stone effects would best express that. I will post a draft of that gradient once I’ve finished writing it up, but currently it is still pending.
Lastly, we discussed when you pull your character’s deaths. The agreement was that Death Comes at Sunset – meaning that you pull all of your character’s deaths once at the end of the day (or at dinner before night missions during campouts). This was done in part because it minimizes the amount of time we have to spend on the deathbag – but primarily because it has in-game implications that are interesting and fun to play with.
Timejumps & Character Retirement II
Changing how we do timejumps was a topic discussion primarily because of issues in my life that prevent me from addressing timejumps the way we do currently. The system we came up with is intended to be a stop-gap measure until I am able to do timejumps the previous way again; it also incorporates fallout from our decision to do away with character retirement.
Timejump elements that were important to us to preserve centered primarily around continued growth and development of older characters. We wanted to ensure that older characters still had opportunities to pursue their goals and continue their arc, and for timejumps to still be tailored to those characters’ arcs. We also wanted players to be able to keep all their old characters and have the ability to bring them back into the story when their arc crossed paths with a given season’s story again.
Under the new timejump system, your characters fall into two categories: “active” and “inactive”. When you send in your timejumps each season, you pick two older characters to be “active” for the next season; these characters send in timejumps with longer goals as normal. You also send in timejumps as normal for any new characters you made the previous season, even if they are intended to be inactive the following season. Inactive characters do not get timejump goals, but instead get a list of five keywords or phrases and a location that they are spending their timejump in.
Come the new season, Active characters are the ones that players can petition to have join the party during the new season; inactive characters cannot. However, if an inactive character’s keywords become relevant to the story and their location/proximity allows it, an inactive character can become “activated” (their status changed to Active) and they can petition to join the party as well. Any characters who became activated during the season may also send in full timejumps in order to wrap up loose ends before they return to their inactive status for the next season. Managing whether characters activate or not is done by the GM, although players may check in with the GM if they think a character might be a candidate for activation.
To recap:
- New Characters: Start in the story by default and can send in a regular timejump.
- Active Characters (x2 max): Are set during a timejump, send in a regular timejump goal, and can petition to join the party next season at any time.
- Inactive Characters: Get five keywords/phrases and a location instead of a timejump, and cannot petition to join the party next season.
- Activated Characters: Are activated when their keywords become relevant, may petition to join the party when activated, and get a “going to sleep” timejump afterwards.
Actions
We discussed actions for similar reasons as timejumps; the decision here is also a stop-gap measure until I am able to return to the action system we have been using. In sum, we have reduced the number of actions a player can send in over a year to a base of five; to compensate, these actions will weigh heavier and count for more than they did previously. Additionally, these actions are exchangeable; players who do not feel that they will use all their actions in a given year may choose to give their actions to other players who need more action slots. Both players just need to be included in the email so that I can keep track of who is using whose action pool.
Lastly, we discussed making an actions chart for me to use as inspiration when writing players’ actions; players offered to help make said chart so that its creation would go faster. I will make a doc for collaboration on said chart at some point in the near future.
XP Rewards
This was a discussion about adding a new mechanic for XP, based on an interaction that happened last season. During the interaction, several players came to me and remarked to me that a specific other player had done a great job RP’ing, and asked if that player could get extra XP.
The interaction was reminiscent of a mechanic in another roleplaying game called “awesome points” (source: Old School Hack), wherein players can give awesome points to other players for playing the game well. Awesome points are part of the leveling-up system in the given game system, and only allow a party to level up once everyone has given and gotten a certain number of awesome points. The purpose of the awesome points system is to help create and reenforce a positive environment for gaming in, and to encourage players to support and acknowledge each other for a job well-done.
The adaptation of an awesome points system to our game goes as follows: after players return from a mission and while XP is being calculated, if a player thinks another did something particularly noteworthy that mission, they can nominate that player for an additional bonus XP. If they can get support for the motion from a few other players, they can petition the GM with their reasons why, and the motion will be either accepted or rejected. Under this system, (1) you cannot nominate yourself, and (2) players are expected to use the system to encourage newer players or players who are not usually at the forefront of the game. The GM approval/disapproval mechanism is to stop individual players from gaining a disproportionate amount of XP from the rest of the party (and from disproportionate bonus XP from being rewarded in general) and to reenforce the nomination expectations.
The Inn
The inn covers several topics: Innkeeper Nights, NPCs, and XP rewards. These are all specifically in reference to the online inn that players can roleplay in between events, not the inn scenes during events.
Innkeeper Nights refers to something we tried last season to encourage more participation in the inn; essentially, innkeepers would come into the inn once in a while to be available for discussion, both as a way to get to know each innkeeper better and to discuss topics that we don’t normally have time for in the inn. These were scheduled in advance so that players could plan around their own schedules to join. We decided to keep innkeeper nights, with the addition that players can request particular innkeepers if they have specific topics they want to discuss.
NPCs was a suggested addition to innkeeper nights. They would be similar in principle, but with regular people in the town instead of with innkeepers; and would also serve to help provide setting information and exposition early on. These would be unscheduled and happen as needed. We decided to try NPCs out this year to see how they go.
Inn XP was discussed after being brought up during the previous season that not everyone has as much free time as they would like to participate in the inn and, because an XP reward was attached to roleplaying, it left players a little behind in leveling relative to the rest of the party. We agreed to do away with inn XP in general both for this reason and for reasons discussed in the morning’s Reward vs. Incentive discussion (see the post on game philosophy). The sole exception we agreed upon was extending the awesome points system to the inn. As with regular awesome points, players involved in the RP cannot nominate themselves, and a motion still requires group support and GM approval to pass.
Chronicling
Chronicling was discussed in regards to both medium and rewards. We agreed overall that we don’t like Google Drive as a way to post chronicles because it’s inconvenient to post on and to read from. We came up with possible alternative mediums to post chronicles on, but haven’t settled on a decision; I can update everyone that I have since come to the conclusion that using the blog to post them is a bad idea because it will likely be difficult to find older chronicles. Otherwise, I will continue looking into other mediums.
Chronicling rewards was discussed in the context of the morning’s conclusion on Rewards vs. Incentives. It was generally agreed-upon that giving tradecraft levels for chronicling was not sufficient motivation to write them, and as such we decided to do away with tradecraft lvls etc as rewards from chronicling. Responses were discussed as a far more effective motivator, whether it came in the form of out-of-game comments or in-game responses. Regarding out-of-game responses, that mostly means that whatever medium we use for chronicles should include a way to comment. Regarding in-game responses, we decided that it would be fun to let players play one another’s NPC family members – so that if chronicles come in the form of writing a letter home, characters can receive a letter back.*
(*This was not discussed explicitly during the rulesmoot according to my notes, but I think it makes sense to apply this to the inn as well, particularly to characters’ dependents – they can choose to have other players play them if they wish.)
Rules Days
We briefly discussed whether we liked the current rules day schedule (once a year during the timejump) and whether we wanted to change it; we agreed that the current schedule works fine and that we only need to discuss rules once a year.
Junior-Adult League Age Boundaries
Lastly, I was looking for player input on whether the boundary between junior and adult league should be at 14 or 15. Factors we looked at were when players already tend to stop playing junior league, what the social developmental difference is between a 14- and 15-year-old, what’s going on in a players’s life (particularly school-wise) at those respective ages, and the comfort level of older players at discussing mature topics around and with players of those respective ages. We also discussed the difference between players moving up from junior league and players joining new, and the different factors that each one poses.
For new players moving up from Falnorian junior league, we eventually settled on 14. Reasons included (1) it is the natural break point for when players start leaving junior league, (2) there is very little difference developmentally between a 14- and 15-year-old, and (3) it’s already a transitory period for 14-year-olds as they are moving into high school. However, we decided to change the point in the season during which players moving up can join. Instead of joining at the beginning of the season, these players join at the beginning of the summer.
The purpose of having a summer joining is to ease the transition into a new game both for newer and older players. This is the period of time when much older players will be returning from college, which means that there are more of them around to give guidance, model adult league behavior expectations, and help answer rules questions. We also felt that it helped give newer players something easy to do while they are learning the ropes for Adult League: other players can help fill them in on the story rather than having to figure it out on their own, and experienced players can offer newer ones easy “niches” to fill that are both helpful to the party in its current state and mean that newer players can focus on learning one part of the game at a time.
For new players joining on their own, we settled on 16 as a new age minimum. This is in part because we would like an older demographic in general; it is also because having some existing familiarity with players from junior league helps adult league players navigate sensitive and mature topics, and without that familiarity it’s preferable to have players joining from an older starting place.
Falnorian Games 
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