Eastmark 3: Told By An Idiot, Trust Me

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As I get older, it becomes increasingly apparent that the world was not made for people with knees. No, it was made for some kind of naked lemur with spring-loaded legs and a plenary of cartilage. My knees hurt when it rains, or is about to rain, or rained recently in the recent or distant past, or if it hasn't rained at all. My back hurts when I think about sneezing. When I get up from a seated position I make the kind of pitiable moan that would have a porn director call "Cut! Jesus, are you okay? We're trying to titilate here, you sound miserable, this is not sexy at all."

And so it might seem odd that I really like including the inexorable march of time in my TTRPGs, given the ravages it has decided to burden me with. Maybe you think it's like a car crash victim introducing recklessly sluicing trucks as a constant dungeon feature, or Leonardo DiCaprio including a woman getting older in his D&D campaign.

Pictured: A young woman about to become undateable to a celebrated Hollywood star.

But this post isn't about the savage predations of time (or the predations of Leonard DiCaprio for that matter). It's about structuring the passage of time as a campaign element, both generally and in my Eastmark open-table campaign.

What Can Time Do For You?

I play in a regular streamed game of King Arthur Pendragon run by my friend/whipping-boy Eric Vulgaris. Our campaign began in the year 485 A.D. and is, at the time of this post, just past one hundred episodes in the year 531 A.D. I'm playing Aescewine de Winterbourne-Gunnet, daughter of my first character Gareth de Winterbourne-Gunnet; the landscape of the County of Salisbury is a tangle of relations and rivalries through the decades. And that texture is only possible because of the game's strict adherence to a schedule, to the progression of year after year in a meaningful way.

Pendragon is a game deeply concerned with legacy, and legacy is exactly the thing I want to play with in my Eastmark campaign.

Time ended up being an answer to several questions I had yet to answer, actually. Among them:

• How do I ensure dedicated players don't dramatically outstrip more casual ones?
• How do I model PC contributions towards the world?'
• How do I shore up the natural content limitations of strict 2-3 hour sessions?
• How do I allow players to express their characters as something more than tomb-grubbing murderrobbers?

In the end, I did the following.

Cap Adventures Per Year

There is a hard cap of 3 adventures per in-game year; these were lightly fluffed as cohering to seasons (spring, summer, autumn). Lightly because inevitably there would be groups in which not everyone had played the same amount. This seemed a reasonable amount of leash to collar dedicated players with.

Downtime Endeavors

After each adventure session, each player was allowed to choose a "Downtime Endeavor". At the end of the year, there was a special opportunity to take two Downtime Endeavors during the nominal winter season (in which adventuring was simply not practicable). Further, there were some Downtime Endeavors only available in the winter. These Downtime Endeavors run the gamut from practical to fluffy, and allowed me to introduce things like Renown (tracking how famous a PC is) and Heirs (the PC you'll play if your current one bites the big one).

The Heirs in particular are how I hope to build a sense of legacy. If a PC dies, their stuff is gone. Renown--political clout they could heave around on behalf of themselves or factions--is gone. Unless the PC has an Heir in which case some of that equipment and clout gets passed along.

"RIP and all, gimme his sword that thing slaps"

Renown and its expenditure, paired with tracking year-by-year, also help me both forecast the changes happening in the region and give players a lever to impact them. The King of Kaltheas wants to make the Eastingway safer? The PCs can help clear out old forts along its course, and contribute Renown towards renovating them. The following year they'll have some shiny new havens from which to start adventuring.

It's also where I hope to handle PC ambitions if they want to build their own strongholds-- this is, after all, an OSR-esque game system. Domain management is not outside its remit though I will admit I'll have to consider how a player-run stronghold impacts the West Marches model of play.

As always, I have stolen shamelessly and without regret from The One Ring 2e.

• Gather Rumors - PC may ask for new information about an established adventure location, or receive hints towards an undiscovered adventure location.
• Meet With Faction- A PC completing a task for a Faction must choose this. If they do not have a task from a Faction, they instead receive one.
• Update Maps - This PC may re-roll one die (theirs or someone else's) in the next Journey they take.
• Strengthen Fellowship - Gain 1 Bond with another PC who takes this option; additionally PCs may teach each other 1 Song they know.
• Study Magical Items - Unlock/reveal all magical properties of any acquired items.
• Learn/Write a Song - Choose a type of song and give it a name; Lay (used in Councils), Song of Victory (used in Combat), Walking-Song (used in Journeys).
• Carouse - Lose 1d20% of whatever treasure you earned in your previous adventure. During the next winter, gain +1 Renown for each time you chose this Downtime Endeavor.
• Heal Scars - Lose 1/2 your accrued System Shock. If this is chosen during winter, lose 1 Trauma instead.
• Designate An Heir (Winter Only) - Cannot be chosen if you have one already. Name a character who will take up your current one's torch if they fall; they can be a relative, a friend, a confidante, a lover, an apprentice etc. Establish their Attributes/Background in the usual way. If your current character dies, you may play this Heir-- they inherit the dead character's equipment along with 10% of their Renown and silver (rounded to nearest whole integer).
• Raise an Heir (Winter Only) - Cannot be chosen more than 5 times in the course of your character's career. Spend 500 silver and 5xp to give your Heir a roll on the Growth of Learning tables for their Background.
• Contribute Renown (Winter Only) - You may spend Renown towards a project (community or personal). If there are monetary requirements for the project you may contribute those as well.

Those should give you an idea of how I'm structuring the passage of time via player-oriented undertakings. Will it work? I don't know! Why would I know? I'm not a guru, I'm not Mister Mystic over here with a crystal ball. How dare you, how dare you expect so much of me. I write on this goddamn blog to please you and you're coming after me like this? You punk, you disreputable dog.

Anyway, next post I'm probably going to have some thoughts on the sessions I've run along with organizing information from those sessions.

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