Aging characters? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Aging characters? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
ZapatistaC
10-20-04, 01:35 PM What kind of things do people here do to age their characters? It seems like to create a feeling of urgency for the characters to be excited about, things need to be happening to that character on a pretty frequent level. The problem with that, is you end up with 14th level characters that are like 19 years old.

How are people reconciling this?
ZapatistaC
10-20-04, 02:03 PM has no one figured out how to deal with this?
PenderGrass
10-20-04, 02:10 PM Not sure where you are seeing a problem. It is a simple matter of just tracking time.

Use a d12 to determine the Birth Month (if you use a 12 month calender) and so on.

When the PCs birthday rolls around, tell the Player to add a year to his PCs age.

Simple.

****
ZapatistaC
10-20-04, 02:20 PM The problem isnt as simple as saying ok a year rolled around.

If I am playing and encounters are happening on a consistent basis(like daily). Or the campaign is heated up and people are doing a number of things in a week they will raise levels extremely fast.

I do keep a tally of the days that go by, and the problem is that one year is just about to go by and I have a level 12 character. What kind of things to people do to have more time go by, so that a year happens quicker.

Part of the problem here is that I have a party that is very interested in staying in the same area. So, they dont travel much, and that seems to be one of the biggest ways to add time to a game.
PenderGrass
10-20-04, 02:32 PM Since your game is already underway adding training times to your Home Rules would probably not be a good idea (but it is a way to enforce a required amount of 'down time').

Other ways to add days, weeks, months....

1. Research Items/Lore/Mystery - need to know what makes your enemy tick? it's gonna take time to find out.
2. Construction Time - PCs need an Item to complete a mission, well sit down and wait in our handy waiting room, there is the coffee, the Crystal Ball and some scrolls to help you pass the time.
3. "It sure is quiet..." - Ever hear of nothing going on? Well, that is exactly what is happening - implementing this is easy for a DM: "Well, it has been 6 months since there really was anything to do - but now you find yourself besieged by pleas of help..." this leaves no choice for your Players.
4. Weather - The place is snowed in. Sorry. Wait for Spring.

Those should help.

Remember you are the DM - but also remember, having your PC get messed up by aging is no fun in most games (not nearly as great as out in the "real world" where being old and weird is a plus and enjoyable).

****
Snytherion
10-20-04, 05:24 PM Part of the problem here is that I have a party that is very interested in staying in the same area. So, they dont travel much, and that seems to be one of the biggest ways to add time to a game.

force them to travel, say: "the item you seek is in the north. No I am not going out there, you do that"

easy enough
The Shaman
10-20-04, 05:38 PM (not nearly as great as out in the "real world" where being old and weird is a plus and enjoyable).
:heehee
Phelot
10-20-04, 06:00 PM I usually don't have a problem with that.
Healing potions don't grow on trees (not in my campaign).
By the time my adventure is over, the PC are usually in bad shape.
They must heal..that takes time. If they have a serious wound, I may call a severe blow to the left arm. This will take 6 months off your adventuring time or more.
Not to mention the time it takes to repair the armor or weapons. To gather more equipment. I also don't pass out magics and gold easily. You are DM, you determine the adventure and the time away.

Perhaps they return to their home and found it was raided..they must make repairs to the home..all of their loot that was hiden under the floor boards is gone. They must do it the old fashion way..repair and rebuild.
I use this for the most part and none of my PC don't mind it.

My campaigns or stories are in 2-3 parts (always). Just cause you defeat the keep doens't mean its over. After they finish 1 full campaign, I age them 1-1 and 1/2 years. Depending on ailments...where a Cleric can be found to stablize the PC..so on. They may have to travel to Harrowdale to find a certain Cleric who specializes in a certain disease. I could go on forever.
Either way..if you add it up, only the humans have to really worry about age.
Most other races (not all) live a hella long time.
1 full campaign= 1-1 and 1/2 years of age.
Look at it this way also....when a PC gets too high of a level, ages and has everything he needs...I feel it tends to get boring..make a new PC and start over..keep things fresh. PC in my campaign tend to last 2 real time years. Then we all agree to make new ones and maybe this time live near Baldur's Gate.
Wish ya luck and take care.
Phelot
::stand back and let my magic do the work::
Cantankerous
10-20-04, 06:48 PM It's easy enough to add good sized strokes of down time between scenarios. Have you read any of the original Conan novels. The ones that are generally considered to be the canon of that series span a period of more than fifty years. The main way the time frame is accomplished by the writers (Howard primarily with Carter and deCamp accounting for the partial pieces that were mainly written from Howard's notes) is by the use of downtime between stories; and Conan was a BUSY guy for a hero in the main stream of the fantasy genre.

In my past campaigns I've covered spans long enough in game years (and almost seven years of gaming time, about 300+ sessions)that the great grand children of a few the original characters were beginning to show up, a period of more than 90 years all totaled. Only one of the original characters, all humans, was still alive, now as an PC-NPC, but that's beside the point. She was 117 years old and a nineteenth level Arch-Mage/Illusionist-Spy Kit (2e game) who was still active (and still run by the original player when in ahigh enough powered setting) and still Mata Hari-ing her way across the continent when the game had to shut down because I moved across the country.

The kind of continuity that this can bring is priceless. It's another way of providing the players with a living, breathing game that they can loose themselves in.

Isshia

Isshia
Didge
10-20-04, 07:20 PM Well, the good old fashion way of slowing things down is...*drum roll please*......

Weather. Yes, that's right weather. The PC's want to go out and adventure? Well, the season is changing and winter is coming, ain't no sense in going out in the cold, now is there? Sure there'll be some stuff out and about in winter, but that's not "adventuring" weather. Especially to those who are rich enough to wait it out until it's a 'bit warmer'. Or if they're in a tropical area, institute a hurricane or floods, or some such natural disaster which is tying up resources, time, and keping individuals from getting out and doing things.

Another thought came to me as I was typing (a rarity I know), but why not involve them in a time sensative plot. Not a "you must do x in y number of days or the world will be destroyed" plot, more of a "you must wait for x and then do y, else the world will be destroyed" sort of thing.

I like the other suggestions above too. Travel is a key component that alot of folks forget to mention. Even if there isn't a great distance between the place the PC's are headed from and where they are going to, things can still happen to slow them down. The ship they are on gets damaged in a storm and is set adrift for x days, or even months. The caravan they travelled with broke their wheels in the mud, and being the nice guys that PC's typically are helped "guard" the caravan, while replacements were sent.

Use your imagination and soon time will speed by. Or go for a style of campaigning I call "shoot-from-the-hip" in which the PC's level very quickly, but things are happening incredibly quickly to the point where they don't have downtime to shop, re-equip, rest, etc. to the point where the PC's feel they are just barely ahead of the impending doom that will destroy the world. Either choice is good, so long as you are comfortable running it that way. I might even suggest a little of both to vary things up a bit.
shaga
10-20-04, 07:45 PM Have you tried counting they days your players adventure and rest? I thought I had the same problem when I asked one of my pc to star count the days… it toke me by surprise when I saw that time goes by quickly. Just think of it if there is a wizard, sorcerer, cleric in the party they will need to rest to get their spells back, and in the first levels that’s about every 3 to 4 encounters, now if they need 13,3 encounters to level-up (dmg rules) that’s a lot of resting. Plus traveling and the other stuff mention above.
I also feel the obligation to mention that as a player I hate the “you must hurry doom is near!!” kind of campaigns. I just can’t live a town with out taking a few strolls around and meeting the locals :)
The Shaman
10-21-04, 03:30 AM I'll add a bump for travel and weather - both can burn up a lot of time, at least until the party can teleport or use other magical means of travel. Long sea voyages can grow longer when the ship is becalmed, roads and bridges can be washed out by floods, mountain passes are blocked by snow or avalanches, and so on.

Roleplaying is another option: the PCs need to see a particular noble but he has appointments and won't give them an audience for several days, the merchant they're supposed to meet was delayed and won't return to town for another week, they must deliver a message and return with a response and the reponse takes several days and a number of meetings by the town elders to prepare, the duchess they are to escort to court takes days to pack her slowing moving wagons and insists on a detour en route, and so on.

Keep careful track of the amount of time spent and you'll find that even a relatively straight-forward adventure can take up a fair chunk of time - add in these kinds of normal delays, and the the passage of time will start to seem much more reasonable, at least in my experience.
FriendoftheDork
10-21-04, 04:09 AM You can just insert downtime, atleast after they have adventured for awhile. I mean, think about being in a war, for months and years with no leave, no relief? You'd go nuts. And PCs loves downtime, when they can do what THEY want, and do soemthing else than just fighting THIS weeks BBEG. Especially if you have wizards in the party, or others wanting to make magical items, do charity, get involved with politics, train with great masters and so on.

You could just say: two months pass, but I would ask the players what they want to do in the meantime, and you could suddenly spawn an adventure right there! it helps if they've met some NPCs already (in a non-martial way) and have some idea of the lay of the land...
Wayward Son
10-21-04, 09:14 AM I'm a big downtime fan, myself. Not every adventure has to be an end-of-the-world-if-we-don't-stop-X-right-now type, either. Play around with different adventure types, especially at lower levels. For example:

The 1st level PCs are sent on errands by their respective mentors to gather information or items relating to some innocuous topic. In the overview, they are taking the first steps on a very long journey. Not only is the information or item hard to find, it's in an out-of-the-way location, forcing them to make a difficult trek through the mountains/across the desert/over an inland sea/etc. They have some encounters along the way, and get some XP.

When they get there, they have a hard time bargaining with whomever has the info/objects until the topic of "the recent troubles" comes up. If they will only investigate and help them out, the info/items are theirs. A few weeks or months pass tracking down and eliminating the troubles. They get what they came for, then leave.

They then have the return trek back across whatever they crossed to come here, but this time they have a little more experience and knowledge of what waits for them. However, the seasons have changed and travel is difficult or impossible (as it's the rainy season, monsoon season, sandstorms, heavy snows, etc.) They must wait it out and puzzle over what they came to get. Perhaps a clue or two about its true purpose comes to their hands, and the PCs develop some doubts about their mission. Lots of RP potential here.

The way back opens up, and they move on. The trip is dangerous, but survivable. They return to find the mentor that sent them is dead/dying/imprisioned/missing/etc. Now they must figure out what happened, why the mentor was attacked/taken, and what needs to happen with the info/item they recovered. Months are spent pouring through the mentor's notes, petitioning the authorities, and contacting the mentor's allies. Some conflicts arise as the PCs either get close to the truth or brush against unrelated secrets of others.

Eventually, the PCs piece the information together and find out what they believe must be done. The forces that tried to silence the mentor move against them, and then they have to race to complete their task. The story culminates with a large conflict between the PCs and their allies, and the forces trying to stop them. The result of the conflict determines if the PCs succeed or fail, and the aftermath, good or bad.

With the right setup, this can eat up two years of in-game time, and bring the PCs to between 3rd and 5th level. It can also be stretched and filled to take longer and bring the PCs to higher levels, or condensed and lightened to reach lower levels in less time. It's up to you.

Then, downtime. The world is safe, so the PCs go about their lives, tend to obligations and develop their skills. A few years pass, then part of the aftermath of their first campaign comes to light. They regroup and set out again, facing tougher opponents and a more complex plot this time.
CzarGarrett
10-21-04, 09:35 AM I generally try not to allow more than 3 or 4 levels per year in game time.

That can account for plenty of research and down time for healing.
ChaosEvoker
10-21-04, 05:52 PM Well, I noticed the same thing: aging becoming irrelevant. But relaly, if you think about it. If YOU had the ability to chuck 40 ft wide balls of fire, and were fighting stuff such as oh idk....*picks up MM quickly and opens randomly* Hydras everyday. I think you'd be a little more experienced, and therefore, powerful than your average joe. It's not really that unplausable. But I woudln't go for things totally beyond players control, like bad weather. I mean, my players get REALLY mad when I go the Deus Ex Machina route. "Sorry YOUR STUCK!" But I guess it depends on how accepting your players are.
ganda1f
10-21-04, 06:07 PM I've seen this dealt with in two ways:

1) Distance and travel time.
A friend of mine ran us through a campaign which was low in magic, and where long distances over hazardous terrain needed to be traversed. When we were sent to take back an outpost that had recently been taken by Orcs, it took us six weeks of (in game) travel time to get there (through rough, tricky terrain) and another eight weeks to come back (winter had arrived). Build those kinds of travel times into a campaign and characters will begin to age very quickly indeed.

2) The eighth to tenth level 'hump'.
I ran a campaign where the characters managed to get to above eighth level in less than a year and a half of in-game time. However, at that point most of the characters began legnthly projects. The magician had to track down books for his library, the Fighter needed to supervise construction of his brand new keep, the rogue wanted some time to recruit for his security company ... all of this took an extra year of in-game time.

Add to that the extra stuff that characters like to start doing at higher levels (creating magic items etc) and you have a campaign which suddenly, in-game, slows down tremendously.
The Shaman
10-21-04, 06:16 PM I mean, my players get REALLY mad when I go the Deus Ex Machina route. "Sorry YOUR STUCK!"
I prefer to think of weather and such as more terra ex machina - if the going is never tough, if the weather is always cooperative, if ships are never becalmed, if fords are never flooded, if mountain roads are never blocked or damaged, then that's really not a terribly vibrant world to me.

I enjoy backpacking. There are someplaces I can't get to very easily in the spring due to snow cornices blocking passes. Once I can get into the backcountry I have to be careful which creeks I cross and at what time of day (big stream = crossing early in a.m. when water level is lowest). Later in the summer some of these same areas will have no water available, so I know that I may have two or three days of dry packing ahead of me, with only the water I can lug in my pack, provided that the spring where I usually fill up hasn't run dry or been hopelessly fouled by cattle.

I enjoy kayaking. There are some days when conditions are too rough for me to manage safely, and there are times when conditions start out great but deteriorate, which means I have to make some hard decisions fast. I have to think about wind, currents, swell, tides, and whether or not I have a safe place to land or at least a sheltered cove where I can hide.

For travelers without either modern means of getting around or magic, these are all commonplace considerations, and should affect how players make decisions and utilize their time in a world where walking or riding on horses or in wagons is the norm. Setting out into a storm should seem like a really bad idea, at least at low levels - this is a good opportunity for the characters with good Survival skills to show off their acumen with weather forecasting: "Clouds say storm coming - not go for three days."

The same sorts of delays apply to NPC interactions. Just because the adventurers are in a hurry doesn't mean everyone else in the world is, too.

"YOU'RE STUCK," is neither implausible nor unreasonable, IMHO.
ChaosEvoker
10-23-04, 06:11 PM Yeah I see where your comign from at the same time though the bad weather shoudl ahve a point other than "Oh well, I felt liek adding a couple years onto your character sheets so have fun!" *shurugs* Like I said, its partially a matter of how accepting your players are...
The Shaman
10-23-04, 08:21 PM Yeah I see where your comign from at the same time though the bad weather shoudl ahve a point other than "Oh well, I felt liek adding a couple years onto your character sheets so have fun!"
Absolutely.

In the best case scenario, players think twice before heading into the mountains in winter, or to sea during hurricane season, and so on. It should be a function of life in the game-world, not a way to bog down the players.

Unless someone or something is causing the bad weather, of course...

;)

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ZapatistaC 10-20-04, 01:35 PM	What kind of things do people here do to age their characters? It seems like to create a feeling of urgency for the characters to be excited about, things need to be happening to that character on a pretty frequent level. The problem with that, is you end up with 14th level characters that are like 19 years old. How are people reconciling this?
ZapatistaC 10-20-04, 02:03 PM	has no one figured out how to deal with this?
PenderGrass 10-20-04, 02:10 PM	Not sure where you are seeing a problem. It is a simple matter of just tracking time. Use a d12 to determine the Birth Month (if you use a 12 month calender) and so on. When the PCs birthday rolls around, tell the Player to add a year to his PCs age. Simple. ****
ZapatistaC 10-20-04, 02:20 PM	The problem isnt as simple as saying ok a year rolled around. If I am playing and encounters are happening on a consistent basis(like daily). Or the campaign is heated up and people are doing a number of things in a week they will raise levels extremely fast. I do keep a tally of the days that go by, and the problem is that one year is just about to go by and I have a level 12 character. What kind of things to people do to have more time go by, so that a year happens quicker. Part of the problem here is that I have a party that is very interested in staying in the same area. So, they dont travel much, and that seems to be one of the biggest ways to add time to a game.
PenderGrass 10-20-04, 02:32 PM	Since your game is already underway adding training times to your Home Rules would probably not be a good idea (but it is a way to enforce a required amount of 'down time'). Other ways to add days, weeks, months.... 1. Research Items/Lore/Mystery - need to know what makes your enemy tick? it's gonna take time to find out. 2. Construction Time - PCs need an Item to complete a mission, well sit down and wait in our handy waiting room, there is the coffee, the Crystal Ball and some scrolls to help you pass the time. 3. "It sure is quiet..." - Ever hear of nothing going on? Well, that is exactly what is happening - implementing this is easy for a DM: "Well, it has been 6 months since there really was anything to do - but now you find yourself besieged by pleas of help..." this leaves no choice for your Players. 4. Weather - The place is snowed in. Sorry. Wait for Spring. Those should help. Remember you are the DM - but also remember, having your PC get messed up by aging is no fun in most games (not nearly as great as out in the "real world" where being old and weird is a plus and enjoyable). ****
Snytherion 10-20-04, 05:24 PM	Part of the problem here is that I have a party that is very interested in staying in the same area. So, they dont travel much, and that seems to be one of the biggest ways to add time to a game. force them to travel, say: "the item you seek is in the north. No I am not going out there, you do that" easy enough
The Shaman 10-20-04, 05:38 PM	(not nearly as great as out in the "real world" where being old and weird is a plus and enjoyable). :heehee
Phelot 10-20-04, 06:00 PM	I usually don't have a problem with that. Healing potions don't grow on trees (not in my campaign). By the time my adventure is over, the PC are usually in bad shape. They must heal..that takes time. If they have a serious wound, I may call a severe blow to the left arm. This will take 6 months off your adventuring time or more. Not to mention the time it takes to repair the armor or weapons. To gather more equipment. I also don't pass out magics and gold easily. You are DM, you determine the adventure and the time away. Perhaps they return to their home and found it was raided..they must make repairs to the home..all of their loot that was hiden under the floor boards is gone. They must do it the old fashion way..repair and rebuild. I use this for the most part and none of my PC don't mind it. My campaigns or stories are in 2-3 parts (always). Just cause you defeat the keep doens't mean its over. After they finish 1 full campaign, I age them 1-1 and 1/2 years. Depending on ailments...where a Cleric can be found to stablize the PC..so on. They may have to travel to Harrowdale to find a certain Cleric who specializes in a certain disease. I could go on forever. Either way..if you add it up, only the humans have to really worry about age. Most other races (not all) live a hella long time. 1 full campaign= 1-1 and 1/2 years of age. Look at it this way also....when a PC gets too high of a level, ages and has everything he needs...I feel it tends to get boring..make a new PC and start over..keep things fresh. PC in my campaign tend to last 2 real time years. Then we all agree to make new ones and maybe this time live near Baldur's Gate. Wish ya luck and take care. Phelot ::stand back and let my magic do the work::
Cantankerous 10-20-04, 06:48 PM	It's easy enough to add good sized strokes of down time between scenarios. Have you read any of the original Conan novels. The ones that are generally considered to be the canon of that series span a period of more than fifty years. The main way the time frame is accomplished by the writers (Howard primarily with Carter and deCamp accounting for the partial pieces that were mainly written from Howard's notes) is by the use of downtime between stories; and Conan was a BUSY guy for a hero in the main stream of the fantasy genre. In my past campaigns I've covered spans long enough in game years (and almost seven years of gaming time, about 300+ sessions)that the great grand children of a few the original characters were beginning to show up, a period of more than 90 years all totaled. Only one of the original characters, all humans, was still alive, now as an PC-NPC, but that's beside the point. She was 117 years old and a nineteenth level Arch-Mage/Illusionist-Spy Kit (2e game) who was still active (and still run by the original player when in ahigh enough powered setting) and still Mata Hari-ing her way across the continent when the game had to shut down because I moved across the country. The kind of continuity that this can bring is priceless. It's another way of providing the players with a living, breathing game that they can loose themselves in. Isshia Isshia
Didge 10-20-04, 07:20 PM	Well, the good old fashion way of slowing things down is...drum roll please...... Weather. Yes, that's right weather. The PC's want to go out and adventure? Well, the season is changing and winter is coming, ain't no sense in going out in the cold, now is there? Sure there'll be some stuff out and about in winter, but that's not "adventuring" weather. Especially to those who are rich enough to wait it out until it's a 'bit warmer'. Or if they're in a tropical area, institute a hurricane or floods, or some such natural disaster which is tying up resources, time, and keping individuals from getting out and doing things. Another thought came to me as I was typing (a rarity I know), but why not involve them in a time sensative plot. Not a "you must do x in y number of days or the world will be destroyed" plot, more of a "you must wait for x and then do y, else the world will be destroyed" sort of thing. I like the other suggestions above too. Travel is a key component that alot of folks forget to mention. Even if there isn't a great distance between the place the PC's are headed from and where they are going to, things can still happen to slow them down. The ship they are on gets damaged in a storm and is set adrift for x days, or even months. The caravan they travelled with broke their wheels in the mud, and being the nice guys that PC's typically are helped "guard" the caravan, while replacements were sent. Use your imagination and soon time will speed by. Or go for a style of campaigning I call "shoot-from-the-hip" in which the PC's level very quickly, but things are happening incredibly quickly to the point where they don't have downtime to shop, re-equip, rest, etc. to the point where the PC's feel they are just barely ahead of the impending doom that will destroy the world. Either choice is good, so long as you are comfortable running it that way. I might even suggest a little of both to vary things up a bit.
shaga 10-20-04, 07:45 PM	Have you tried counting they days your players adventure and rest? I thought I had the same problem when I asked one of my pc to star count the days… it toke me by surprise when I saw that time goes by quickly. Just think of it if there is a wizard, sorcerer, cleric in the party they will need to rest to get their spells back, and in the first levels that’s about every 3 to 4 encounters, now if they need 13,3 encounters to level-up (dmg rules) that’s a lot of resting. Plus traveling and the other stuff mention above. I also feel the obligation to mention that as a player I hate the “you must hurry doom is near!!” kind of campaigns. I just can’t live a town with out taking a few strolls around and meeting the locals :)
The Shaman 10-21-04, 03:30 AM	I'll add a bump for travel and weather - both can burn up a lot of time, at least until the party can teleport or use other magical means of travel. Long sea voyages can grow longer when the ship is becalmed, roads and bridges can be washed out by floods, mountain passes are blocked by snow or avalanches, and so on. Roleplaying is another option: the PCs need to see a particular noble but he has appointments and won't give them an audience for several days, the merchant they're supposed to meet was delayed and won't return to town for another week, they must deliver a message and return with a response and the reponse takes several days and a number of meetings by the town elders to prepare, the duchess they are to escort to court takes days to pack her slowing moving wagons and insists on a detour en route, and so on. Keep careful track of the amount of time spent and you'll find that even a relatively straight-forward adventure can take up a fair chunk of time - add in these kinds of normal delays, and the the passage of time will start to seem much more reasonable, at least in my experience.
FriendoftheDork 10-21-04, 04:09 AM	You can just insert downtime, atleast after they have adventured for awhile. I mean, think about being in a war, for months and years with no leave, no relief? You'd go nuts. And PCs loves downtime, when they can do what THEY want, and do soemthing else than just fighting THIS weeks BBEG. Especially if you have wizards in the party, or others wanting to make magical items, do charity, get involved with politics, train with great masters and so on. You could just say: two months pass, but I would ask the players what they want to do in the meantime, and you could suddenly spawn an adventure right there! it helps if they've met some NPCs already (in a non-martial way) and have some idea of the lay of the land...
Wayward Son 10-21-04, 09:14 AM	I'm a big downtime fan, myself. Not every adventure has to be an end-of-the-world-if-we-don't-stop-X-right-now type, either. Play around with different adventure types, especially at lower levels. For example: The 1st level PCs are sent on errands by their respective mentors to gather information or items relating to some innocuous topic. In the overview, they are taking the first steps on a very long journey. Not only is the information or item hard to find, it's in an out-of-the-way location, forcing them to make a difficult trek through the mountains/across the desert/over an inland sea/etc. They have some encounters along the way, and get some XP. When they get there, they have a hard time bargaining with whomever has the info/objects until the topic of "the recent troubles" comes up. If they will only investigate and help them out, the info/items are theirs. A few weeks or months pass tracking down and eliminating the troubles. They get what they came for, then leave. They then have the return trek back across whatever they crossed to come here, but this time they have a little more experience and knowledge of what waits for them. However, the seasons have changed and travel is difficult or impossible (as it's the rainy season, monsoon season, sandstorms, heavy snows, etc.) They must wait it out and puzzle over what they came to get. Perhaps a clue or two about its true purpose comes to their hands, and the PCs develop some doubts about their mission. Lots of RP potential here. The way back opens up, and they move on. The trip is dangerous, but survivable. They return to find the mentor that sent them is dead/dying/imprisioned/missing/etc. Now they must figure out what happened, why the mentor was attacked/taken, and what needs to happen with the info/item they recovered. Months are spent pouring through the mentor's notes, petitioning the authorities, and contacting the mentor's allies. Some conflicts arise as the PCs either get close to the truth or brush against unrelated secrets of others. Eventually, the PCs piece the information together and find out what they believe must be done. The forces that tried to silence the mentor move against them, and then they have to race to complete their task. The story culminates with a large conflict between the PCs and their allies, and the forces trying to stop them. The result of the conflict determines if the PCs succeed or fail, and the aftermath, good or bad. With the right setup, this can eat up two years of in-game time, and bring the PCs to between 3rd and 5th level. It can also be stretched and filled to take longer and bring the PCs to higher levels, or condensed and lightened to reach lower levels in less time. It's up to you. Then, downtime. The world is safe, so the PCs go about their lives, tend to obligations and develop their skills. A few years pass, then part of the aftermath of their first campaign comes to light. They regroup and set out again, facing tougher opponents and a more complex plot this time.
CzarGarrett 10-21-04, 09:35 AM	I generally try not to allow more than 3 or 4 levels per year in game time. That can account for plenty of research and down time for healing.
ChaosEvoker 10-21-04, 05:52 PM	Well, I noticed the same thing: aging becoming irrelevant. But relaly, if you think about it. If YOU had the ability to chuck 40 ft wide balls of fire, and were fighting stuff such as oh idk....picks up MM quickly and opens randomly Hydras everyday. I think you'd be a little more experienced, and therefore, powerful than your average joe. It's not really that unplausable. But I woudln't go for things totally beyond players control, like bad weather. I mean, my players get REALLY mad when I go the Deus Ex Machina route. "Sorry YOUR STUCK!" But I guess it depends on how accepting your players are.
ganda1f 10-21-04, 06:07 PM	I've seen this dealt with in two ways: 1) Distance and travel time. A friend of mine ran us through a campaign which was low in magic, and where long distances over hazardous terrain needed to be traversed. When we were sent to take back an outpost that had recently been taken by Orcs, it took us six weeks of (in game) travel time to get there (through rough, tricky terrain) and another eight weeks to come back (winter had arrived). Build those kinds of travel times into a campaign and characters will begin to age very quickly indeed. 2) The eighth to tenth level 'hump'. I ran a campaign where the characters managed to get to above eighth level in less than a year and a half of in-game time. However, at that point most of the characters began legnthly projects. The magician had to track down books for his library, the Fighter needed to supervise construction of his brand new keep, the rogue wanted some time to recruit for his security company ... all of this took an extra year of in-game time. Add to that the extra stuff that characters like to start doing at higher levels (creating magic items etc) and you have a campaign which suddenly, in-game, slows down tremendously.
The Shaman 10-21-04, 06:16 PM	I mean, my players get REALLY mad when I go the Deus Ex Machina route. "Sorry YOUR STUCK!" I prefer to think of weather and such as more terra ex machina - if the going is never tough, if the weather is always cooperative, if ships are never becalmed, if fords are never flooded, if mountain roads are never blocked or damaged, then that's really not a terribly vibrant world to me. I enjoy backpacking. There are someplaces I can't get to very easily in the spring due to snow cornices blocking passes. Once I can get into the backcountry I have to be careful which creeks I cross and at what time of day (big stream = crossing early in a.m. when water level is lowest). Later in the summer some of these same areas will have no water available, so I know that I may have two or three days of dry packing ahead of me, with only the water I can lug in my pack, provided that the spring where I usually fill up hasn't run dry or been hopelessly fouled by cattle. I enjoy kayaking. There are some days when conditions are too rough for me to manage safely, and there are times when conditions start out great but deteriorate, which means I have to make some hard decisions fast. I have to think about wind, currents, swell, tides, and whether or not I have a safe place to land or at least a sheltered cove where I can hide. For travelers without either modern means of getting around or magic, these are all commonplace considerations, and should affect how players make decisions and utilize their time in a world where walking or riding on horses or in wagons is the norm. Setting out into a storm should seem like a really bad idea, at least at low levels - this is a good opportunity for the characters with good Survival skills to show off their acumen with weather forecasting: "Clouds say storm coming - not go for three days." The same sorts of delays apply to NPC interactions. Just because the adventurers are in a hurry doesn't mean everyone else in the world is, too. "YOU'RE STUCK," is neither implausible nor unreasonable, IMHO.
ChaosEvoker 10-23-04, 06:11 PM	Yeah I see where your comign from at the same time though the bad weather shoudl ahve a point other than "Oh well, I felt liek adding a couple years onto your character sheets so have fun!" shurugs Like I said, its partially a matter of how accepting your players are...
The Shaman 10-23-04, 08:21 PM	Yeah I see where your comign from at the same time though the bad weather shoudl ahve a point other than "Oh well, I felt liek adding a couple years onto your character sheets so have fun!" Absolutely. In the best case scenario, players think twice before heading into the mountains in winter, or to sea during hurricane season, and so on. It should be a function of life in the game-world, not a way to bog down the players. Unless someone or something is causing the bad weather, of course... ;)