Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 AriKanen Jul 30, 2014 14:51:04	This might be a bit premature, since we haven't seen the full adventure yet, but how do you plan on getting players in and out of the campaign.  What I mean is, in Pathfinder Society, players play a scenario each time they show up for organized play.  So for instance, a player knows "My character has played through Scenario A,B, E and F"  So they are still able to play Scenarios C and D.    In Tyranny, will there be "chapters" or some way to distinguish whether or not a player has already played through that part of the campaign?   Should they then not be allowed to play that part of the adventure again? or Should we encourage the group to explore an area where no one has explored yet?  How would level variation, or difficulty of any particular "chapter" effect the way we do this?    Ideally it would be the same 3-7 people showing up every week and they could play through the whole story together, but that's not really how organized play works in my experience.     And also, I would want to avoid, breaking the story up so that it feels like a complete railroad, dividing up the module into parts 1,2,3,4, and 5 and trying to run all players through in that order.     Any ideas on how you plan on handling this, or any suggestions from Organizers?  Or will more DM info be released on how to handle players as they drop in and out during the course of a season?
#2 Alphastream Aug 01, 2014 11:36:12	I suspect you are talking about Hoard of the Dragon Queen. I think how you handle it is up to you. There are always issues if someone can't make a session or if you need to combine tables one week. I would generally (not an official response) still allow a player to do some overlap with the same PC if it can't be avoided and still receive rewards (especially if they have to skip another session).  Another way to do it is they can play but can't receive XP/etc twice. That's probably closer to the official way to do it.    If you run Expeditions those are 4-hour individual adventures and for those you can only replay with a different PC. (See the Replaying Adventures sidebar in the new Players Guide).
#3 Pauper Aug 01, 2014 13:47:19	It seems pretty clear that a player who missed a session would miss out on any XP, gold, and magic items awarded during that session. A player who missed an entire episode would also miss out on any downtime and renown awards given out for that episode, as well as all the rewards for the individual sessions within that episode.   I would guess that Hoard of the Dragon Queen will be organized into episodes, but that the episodes are not quite as compartmentalized as Pathfinder Society scenarios. This would mean that a player who didn't get credit for an episode in Hoard would not be able to replay just that episode to pick up the rewards.   A few other possible questions open up based on how frequently you play and how long the sessions last:   - If a player shows up for at least half the sessions in an episode, but misses the final session in the episode, does he lose the downtime and renown awards for that episode? (Downtime and renown are only awarded at the end of a full episode, per the DnDAL Player's Guide.)   - If a player only shows up for the final session in an episode, does she still receive the downtime and renown awards for that episode?   - If there are 'global' rewards given for completing the full adventure, how many completed episodes are required for a player to qualify to receive those rewards? Can a player receive those rewards even if she doesn't attend the final session of the adventure?   It would be hard for the global admins to give a specific response to these questions, as a 'fair' answer might differ depending on how your sessions go -- do you play once monthly but manage to get through an entire episode when doing so? That's different from a group that plays twice weekly for two hours at a time and thus requires numerous sessions to get through a single episode. At the same time, though, it would be wholly appropriate for the global admins to provide guidance -- for instance, that it's not intended for a character to receive full episode awards if he's only participated in a single encounter of that episode, and likewise not intended for a character to receive 'global' adventure rewards for only participating in a single episode.   In the end, though, it's up to your group to decide on what a fair system of restricting rewards would look like, given how your group plays. This is especially true if you are playing Hoard in a 'home game' group, where you could conceivably cancel or reschedule sessions more easily than if you were running the game in a public venue with an expectation of regularly scheduled sessions.   -- Pauper