02 - Ongoing Guidelines

Read this one after your first game!

Character Progression

Upon completing a session, a character gains experience and loot based on the following table.

Players must work out the distribution of magic items among themselves though sometimes the DM may choose to assign certain items to certain characters.

Levelling up can be done with a DM (after the session or at the next session) or by the player. Hit Point gains are at the standard value as listed in the class description (rather than actually rolling).

If a player writes an in-character diary entry and posts it in the Facebook group or the Discord diary thread for others to read they will receive a 10% bonus to exp and gold for that session. Other diary formats such as artwork are also accepted so long as the player can work out how to share it with the community.

Purchasing Magic Items

A player can purchase mundane items using the cost in the Players’ Handbook. Selling mundane items returns half of the cost of the item.

A player can purchase magic items for their character by expending their gold. This can be done independently or they can ask the DM for their next session to include a trip to a magic item shop if they prefer. Magic items cannot be sold or transferred.

The gold cost of items is listed in the following table.

Rumours Continued

Characters will receive  Rumours through the course of play. These will be plot hooks within sessions for the character to investigate further and will be the premise for a future session. A player can have more than one Rumour at a time (and they may be connected). There is no obligation to ever follow up on a Rumour.

A player can create Rumours for themselves based on their back story or what they want their character to do next. This could be about finding a missing person from their back story, or seeking a particular magic item, or something else. Players need to talk to a DM to plan their Rumour.

A session generally will be to investigate a single Rumour. Following up on Rumours is a very good way to get a character involved in the story of the world and gather power of their own, the best rewards from sessions often go to the Rumour host.

There are also ongoing stories in the world that involve dozens of players at once, these are the story threads. We have a discord server where we discuss these and anyone can get involved with any story and seek a session to further that plot in whatever way they are interested in (within reason).

Session Make-Up Guidelines

The range of levels allowed in a game is up to the DM of that game. This will be in the event title. The maximum number of people in the game is up to the DM of that game.

The level range available from a game depends on the tier of play. A game’s tier is defined by the lowest level player in the game.

Tier 1 - Range 2 (i.e. 1-2, 2-3, 3-4, 4-5)

Tier 2 - Range 3 (i.e. 5-7, 6-8, 7-9, 8-10, 9-11, 10-12)

Tier 3 & 4 - Range 4 (i.e. 11-15, 12-16, 13-17, 14-18, 15-19)

The same exact group of players should generally not meet twice in a row. After playing three games with one other player, a player should not play with them again until they have played without them at least once. The player that organises a session can invite specific other people to their quest, to a maximum of two. Other player spaces should be open to the community. A rare exception to this is an “extended one-shot” where a DM may run one very long session or 2-4 normal sessions in a row with the same players to complete a single Rumour. In this case the players are unable to join any session other than the extended one-shot sessions until it is concluded.

The idea of these guidelines is to make sure different groups of people get together and play and that isolated groups do not form for more than a couple of sessions at once.

Downtime

In general it is assumed that characters have time between missions but this cannot provide any mechanical benefits. With one exception, if a player shares their downtime activity in the Discord chats, or contributes to a Plot Thread or Rumour, they are awarded Inspiration for the start of their next game.

Between sessions a character is assumed to fully reset to their maximum ability. All spent charges of abilities and items that replenish are restored to full, items can be attuned or un-attuned, prepared spells can be changed etc. Each session is always started at full capacity.

Spells and abilities with permanent effects or that persist beyond a long rest (such as Find Familiar, Find Steed, Heroes’ Feast, or Goodberry) can be in place at the start of a session, having been cast at a suitable time before the last long rest (costly components must be expended in the usual way). This requires the explicit approval of the DM of that session.

Characters cannot gain mechanical benefits from swapping anything between each other within a session or between sessions.

Character Death and Retirement

In the event of character death at lv3 or above the player will make a new character, at lv1-2 the player can make use of the Mulligan feature. The session in which the character died does not score exp, gold, or loot. The magic items possessed by the deceased character are functionally lost from the world.

A player may also decide they want to switch to a new character, they can do this at any time between sessions; this is known as taking Retirement. Players can request a final mission of some specific kind with a DM to give their character a send-off before retirement. In this case the character either dies in the session, or retires after it. No player can ever retake control of a retired character or their gold/items, but they may persist in the world as an NPC under DM control. Players may still have input on the path of their character after retirement and DMs may consult the player on their use in the world. A lost character sheet (with no back up) constitutes retirement, the last confirmed level they were at is considered their level for the purposes of creating their replacement.

The new character is made with the usual creation rules with the following changes.

- They are created at the lowest possible exp of the level below the character who died.

- They have 500 gold per character level and can spend this as normal on items and magic items.

If a character dies within a session and can be revived before the end of the session by the Revivify spell they are not dead. If a character is dead at the end of a session they are dead, and their death is permanent. There are no spells, items, or effects in the East Ridings setting that can bring anything back from the dead except Revivify and Wish. Revivify cannot in any way be extended beyond its one minute timeframe. With the Wish spell, unless used within the session in which the character died, the player cannot retake control of the character as per retirement rules.

Becoming a DM

Anyone can become a DM, there is no audition process, a player just has to talk to an existing DM about the way we organise, run, and record things (and read the extensive document we have on the subject). In advance of organising a first game there is some reading to do and some behind-the-screen rules to stick to.

Thanks for joining us! Hope to see you in a game soon!

Read on to the next document when you are ready to DM a game.

'''Thanks for joining us! Hope to see you in a game soon!'''