Goodman Games

Would you make the PC funnel ( Portal) start in Hirot or a nearby village and have a year pass by or something?

How do you transition from the funnel to full blown classes without? I mean they start out as peasants then they're casting spells and performing mighty deeds. How are you handling this?


thanks,

Alex

ps- starting a game in two weeks. . .

Anyone who survives "Portal" should level, and that portal should be outside of their own village. Fast-forward a few weeks or months. Think of it as montage. Then have them travel to, or pass by, Hirot for some reason. That adventure starts with the assumption that the adventurers are "travelers".

Remember that most villages never leave their villages. Only merchants, royalty or adventurers "leave" their homes. It is assumed, playing a Fantasy Adventure Game, that the characters are now adventurers when they get their first level. You don't have to role-play every single moment of their lives. Cut to the chase (i.e. the stories worth telling.)

That is my plan exactly. I am wondering if they are going to add adventure locations to the World of Aereth map or just let us make it free fall world.

We are playing Sailors now..my plan depending on survivor count is to run "Portal" with another group of characters..maybe some of the 1st level survivors of "Sailors", maybe not, but so we have enough 1st level PC's to then take on "Doom of the Savage Kings". In our little world- which is currently about 25 miles square..Sailors Keep is within 8 miles from their starting village and the Standing Stones are within 5 miles of their Village, "Hirot" is up the road within 15, I have mountains and another town within 25 miles to North for "People of the Pit"...I say combine em' all, until they're dead!

I really like the idea of these locations being comparatively close, yet in a small-scale kind of way. Nice!

I was thinking of having Portal output them in some unknown/slightly known area and then they have toadventure/travel back to their home area.

Tweaking the map, a bit last night..along with the general point of this thread...I made the Standing Stones of Portal the same Standing Stones of Doom. they are just a little further away from the home village and closer to Hirot. As a tie in ::::SPOILER ::: the map found in the hem of green cloak in the Beastmen Tower in Sailors isnt so much a map but a description of the centennial event that triggers Portal. so there is my tie in Sailors/ Portal/ Doom tie in all within two villages. Now my people still need to survive Sailors and that I'll find out this weekend.

I ran Portal last night and we had a blast. Twelve zeros went in and 6 came out. The party bailed on the last encounter, when they were so close to a combat-free victory! My idea with combining Portal and Doom is that the zeros are from Hirot (hmm "Zeros From Hirot" might become the first DCC filk). They entered the portal in autumn, and when they came out, it was spring. They think that six months have passed while they were in the portal. However, TWO HUNDRED YEARS and six months have passed! Hirot will not be the village they remember ...

Man ... Scott Kellogg for the win. So fun.

//H

I'm still solving how to promote the zeroes to first level in a way that makes some kind of sense.

The time passage is really classic, and I approve!

I am now giving XP after each encounter, and characters level when they do. For me this means any non-magical classes just get better at what they do. It is a real function of experience. For clerics, their divine patron gives them more of his attention. Initial level as a cleric is divine election...the god fills the vessel with his power. Can happen anywhere, anywhen, when 0-level peasants challenge great things. Wizards get the chance to learn spells, but don't actually learn them immediately, so this is fine with me, too.

I came up with a house rule to allow wizards and elves to learn spells on the fly. You can find it here: http://ravencrowking.blogspot.ca/2012/0 ... ls-on.html

I also allow significant animals that survive the funnel to gain more hit points: http://ravencrowking.blogspot.ca/2012/0 ... -to-0.html

Recently, running Sailors on the Starless Sea, most of the surviving PCs levelled after the encounter with the Chaos Leviathan. (A few, who were picked up as extras in the tower, have not yet levelled). From the point of view of the characters, they were just some schlubs who, having survived something awesome, were filled with greater confidence (and hence prowess). We also ended up with a cleric who, interestingly enough, is Chaotic, and thus is filled with dark power from the Chaos Temple.

The session ended with the dwarf calling out the beastmen instead of trying to sneak up the ziggurat. The ship is swarmed, and the beastmen have dragged several PCs onto the beach, and a couple to the foot of the ziggurat. The funny thing about that happening is that the dwarf is one of the few 0-lvl characters left in the group!

Anyway, suffice it to say that my initial concerns about levelling in situ have dissipated. It works well, and can have all kinds of awesome results.

RC

Having the wizard not immediately learn spells is brilliant. Magical things will begin around the character. Flipping the point of view with the cleric class, nice. The diety takes an interest in YOU. I just watched Jason and the Argonauts, where Hera and Zeus are playing with Jason while on Mount Olympus. Cool that this would come up again as a topic.

That wizards don't learn their spells immediately is the RAW in DCC, so Joseph Goodman gets the kudos on that.

Spontaneous election (when the spirits/gods pick YOU) is not only very much in keeping with the source material, it is also in keeping with folklore, shamanic practice, and older ideas about deities. Following the RAW, where clerics are touched by the gods immediately, but wizards must work for it, is a strong reinforcement of that traditional view. And, consequently, the view espoused by Appendix N stories.

I have to say that, the more I play with and delve into DCC, the more my admiration of the design grows. There are not many games out there where familiarity breeds not concern for the cracks in the rules, but admiration for the implication of the rules combined with appreciation for those very same cracks (which allow the game to flex in this particular case).

It doesn't get much better than this. I absolutely love this game.

RC

I'm having trouble finding this in the book. Where is it?

Check the section on magic, and the Judge's Rules. Particularly, page 124:

Learning a spell: Just because a wizard finds a description of how to cast a spell doesn’t mean he can actually pull it off. Your character must make a check to learn the new spell to which he is exposed. Your judge will give you the criteria for this check.

and page 315:

Learning new spells with level advancement: When a wizard advances to a new level, he knows a new spell. “Knowing” a spell works as follows.

1 If the wizard has heard stories of a new spell (through adventuring, another character, discovering a spell in a scroll or tome, or other game activities), he may identify that spell to learn. If not, his potential new spells are randomly determined (see below).

2 The wizard must dedicate some time to learning and practicing the spell. Assume at least one week per spell level, though it may vary.

3 The wizard may need to seek out a place where the knowledge is found, and may need to pay a price for that knowledge. See below for more on this.

4 When the wizard has studied the spell sufficiently, he makes a check against DC 10 + spell level. The check consists of 1d20 plus his caster level plus his Intelligence modifier. If he passes, he learns the spell. If he fails, he cannot attempt to learn that spell again until he has advanced another level.

It seems like the implication here is that a first level wizard starts knowing a certain number of spells, and the rules apply to gaining additional spells beyond those known at first level. It didn't occur to me that advancing to first level from zero would satisfy these conditions as well.

"At 1st level a wizard determines 4 spells that he knows, representing years of study and practice."

How does knowing spells work? The rules say, study and a check, and possibly other criteria if the judge so chooses. It is even suggested that a 1st level wizard be given access to more than four spells, so that he has backup if he fails to learn one of those initial spells. That seems to me to indicate rather strongly that this process applies to 1st level as well as subsequent levels. If it didn't, the PC couldn't possibly fail to learn a spell.

Which actually works really well for character growth occurring as XP are gained, per the book.

RC

Right, it's that sentence that made me think, "How does this fit into the zeros' backgrounds?"

Well, I finally combined Portal with Doom and we didn't level the PC's till after the module was done, even though they had 15 XP by then. We all agreed that it was non-sensical to level up on the spot, it just didn't work for us. ( mainly the DM, me of course)Anyways, the good news is that 11 zeros bit the dust but 8 made it through in spectacular fashion.

When we leveled up to actual classes, I told them that about 6 momths had passed and they were able to study, train, etc... to gain their new abilities. They then heard of a great city to the west called Bard's Gate where fortunes and adventure could be had, so off they went.

They will run into the Village of Hirot along the way and after , if I think they need it, maybe a part of Lost City of Barakus. Then, when they get to Bard's Gate maybe they'll get involved with Slumbering Tzar. I think I can fit People of the Pit in the wastes to the north of Bard's Gate.

anyways, love the game, it's been very fun.