Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 SignalNoise Sep 08, 2014 12:49:39	I want to get a 5e campaign rolling at my local gaming store. The way I'm structuring it is that anybody can show up or miss a game whenever I run it on a given day. Each night I run it will be a simple little "mini adventure" taking no more than 3 or 4 hours, real time to conclude. Each "episode" may or may not tie in to a bigger overall plot.   If things manages to take off and goes for a while, what are some good ways I can manage vast level disparities between players who show up to all my games and those who can't show up as often? And how about brand new level 1 players showing up for the first time in the middle of the campaign?   I was thinking about handling it by homebrewing all my own monsters specifically tailored to addressing the level disparity and class compositions on a given night, and also having something happen to the lowest level players to give them temporary hit points so they don't just immediately die if harder monsters show up.   I'm also wondering if this will work since instead of the recommended 6 or so fights a party will get into before they take a long rest, I can only do one or two "big fights" in a given session. I think I can still keep things interesting by having monsters come in waves during a fight, so a combat encounter is one or two larger epic battles instead of a series of smaller fights. But I'm not entirely certain that would work. I'm open to suggestions in this matter as well.   I'm also willing to hear any other problems a campaign structured like this might cause, as well as advice to address those problems.
#2 Centauri Sep 08, 2014 13:12:54	Have new characters come in at the same level. Done.   Create fights that aren't entirely about taking and dealing damage. Look at movies where there's a goal that must be achieved. The tough guys hold the line, while the weaker ones perform the task, or vice versa. Or it's like a tower defense game, trying to keep the monsters from crossing a certain point. The weaker characters can man turrets or the like, or get into position to create rockslides or whatever.   Isn't "bounded accuracy" supposed to help with this kind of thing?
#3 Thoughts_My_Aim Sep 08, 2014 13:41:05	Tricky one.   Having everybody just level up together could work, but might actually prove counterproductive in the long run, since if people really are just "dropping in" then they might wind up having to level their characters from 4th to 8th level at the start of a four hour session, which might eat into game time.   If you're not making any predictions about who might actually be there, then I'd just suck the level disparities up - Centauri makes good suggestions about giving weaker characters things to do.   I'd also suggest just rolling dice less, and relying more on getting players to narrate their characters' actions, and being generous with auto-successes for proficiency. Combat might be particularly tricky, but I think you can probably fudge it.
#4 Atheosis Sep 08, 2014 13:43:27	I would recommend using a structure that casts all the players as part of and adventurer's guild, order of some kind, or the like.  Then you can just use a running campaign level that all characters match no matter if they are repeat players, first time players, or just show up every once in a while.  You can have NPC members of the same organization that represent different level members.  I think this would provide what you are looking for.
#5 Keen_Man Sep 08, 2014 13:54:36	I let players come and go as they need they just get less xp if they play less. In 5th the difrence between a 2nd level fighter and a 4th level fighter swinging a sword is pretty minimal. I had one character die at 3rd, the player roll up a new 1st level and he caught up to their level by the time the party was late 4th level and even had more xp than one player who missed a session.
#6 LongTimeLurker Sep 08, 2014 13:58:24	​If you can get people to schedule ahead of time who's going to be there, then the Western Marches style of gameplay would work excellent for what you're looking to do. ​ ​My phone dislikes this web site, so I can't post the link, but if you google for "western marches grand experiment" it's the first result.
#7 woif Sep 08, 2014 14:11:32	I used to run a campaign like this in 4th as I couldn't get the sae group of people to show up every week. I had a house rule that if somebody wanted to come to the game they had to text me the night before so I could plan out the session. I kept everybody at the same level because it was a necessity in 4e, but I'm sure it wouldn't b so bad with the bounded accuracy of 5e. Returning players could either level up the old PC or introduce a new one each session, which as great for people wanting to test out anew class or role. As faras the narritive goes, the party was an adventurers guild based out of the town pub and every week somebody would come in with a quest and any PCs that were present would accept and go on a little 1shot journey, usually involving recliming an artifact, protecting a location, or guarding a caravan. I tried to make an overarching story a few times, but my group didn't have en9ugh week to week memebers for anybody to get invested.
#8 Shiroiken Sep 08, 2014 14:15:41	This is actually pretty easy to fix, because this was how D&D used to be played back in the day (other than the 3-4 hour sessions).   Setup a base of operations (town, city, or whatever) that everyone returns to at the end of every session. Design several areas of adventure based on various levels of play (the "teirs" in the PHB should work). Design a few plot hooks for those areas that you can quickly develope into full adventures (in a week's notice), and drop rumors of them over several sessions. At the end of every session, unless you already know what adventure you are doing next, ask the players what sounds like they would like to check out next time. Announce that adventure (and it's suggested levels) at the gamestore.   Adventures should be able to work for several levels of play (other than level 1, characters within 2-3 levels of each other are seldom severely out of balance). If the average is lower than expected, or if fewer players arrive, reduce the difficulty of combat as needed. If someone shows up without an approprate level character, let them build and play something of the minimum level of the rest of the group (less earned treasure). In case of brand new players (whom I strongly suggest you start at levesl 1-3), I recommend having an introductory adventure or two on hand to switch over to (most experienced players should be good with this). The hard part of this is knowning when to call it a night, because you cannot stop mid-adventure, as all the PCs must return to town (even if you have to hand-wave it).   Keep track of time from session to session, because players who show up semi-regularly should adjust their downtime (activities and expenses) accordingly.
#9 AriKanen Sep 11, 2014 0:10:19	The least amount of work might be to use Pathfinder Society Scenarios and adapt them to 5e (which isn't as time consuming as coming up with adventures whole cloth).  Use a particular season, which have over arching storylines.  With a little more work you can also fit it into FR or pretty much any standard fantasy setting.
#10 BW0222 Sep 11, 2014 12:09:24	The RPGA and other sanctioned events have had this problem for years. I recommend looking at how they handle things.   First, you can't have six fights per long rest. Modules need to be discrete and fully completed within the time period. Typically four to five hours. Aim for four as it takes time to start the game, do character introductions, and do paperwork at the end of the game. Unfamiliar players also don't necessarily fight/play well together and new players may need extra time leaning the rules. That typically means a maximum of three or maybe four combat encounters. A balanced fight in D&D can take an hour.   Second, you need to have your character creation rules posted so that players arrive with relatively balanced characters suitable for the game and setting. Look at the RPGA guidelines for these -- point buy, standard races, setting details, no evil alignments, starting gold, which equipment is available, etc. You should also look at how the RPGA systems handle treasure, experience, and things which persist between adventures -- i.e. log sheets tracking gold, experience, and special/magical items which they obtained. You should also have rules for what equipment folks can/can't buy between adventures.   Third, you should include a set of three or four pregenerated characters. 1st-level, various races and core classes, with simple backgrounds. Use these for people who show up with invalid characters or no character. Don't waste table time allowing them to make up new character -- unless they arrive well early and someone else can help them. Allow the player to play one of those characters and give him a log sheet, but allow him (if he wants) to make up a new character for next session and apply the XP and treasure to that character.   Forth, RGPA modules tend to have tiers. Say Tier 1 is 1st-3rd. Tier 2 is 4th-6th, Tier 3 is 7th-9th, etc. When you make a module up, you include different encounters for each tier. For example, in one encounter a group of orcs attack. At Tier 1, there are three orcs and a 2nd-level sergeant. At tier 2, you have five 2nd-level sergeants and an ogre. At tier 3, you have nine 2nd-level sergeants, three ogres, and a 7th-level orc captain. Try playing with numbers, consumables, spells, etc. to make combat more challeging at higher tiers rather than entirely new stat blocks. Similiarly, there should be more treasure at higher tiers. Traps should be more deadly. XP should be rewarded for the adventure by tier. Say 300xp in tier 1, 600 in 2, 900 in 3, etc. Given another 25% for good roleplaying which you can add to any character.   Fifth, when players arrive, determine their average character level. (Total PC levels / number of PCs). Then, subtract one if there are less than four players, add one if there are more than five. This then gives you a tier which the players are in. If a character is outside of the tier the group is playing in... they receive half the XP. If someone has a character more than two tiers higher, ask them if they want to play a 1st-level pre-gen or make another character to play through. If a 1st-level PC is playing in a tier 2 or highly, give them hit points as if they were third level.   I recommend you include a fair number of roleplaying, puzzle, and other encounters such that lower-levels paying at higher tier tables can have some roleplaying or contributions to the group. I also recommend a fairly generic setting or one which is published -- Forgotten Rhelms, Greyhawk, etc. Finally, I would include some type of system which accounts for players easily playing together and having people come and go. I.e. everyone is a member of a mercenary guild, a secret society, etc. such that they can be assigned tasks and/or are expected to adventure together.
#11 ankiyavon Sep 11, 2014 13:59:32	Shiroiken wrote: