Saving the world on a Sunday afternoon
The People of the Campaign award was granted to those who on an OOC basis actively made the GMs’ lives a little better and easier for the duration of the campaign.
All campaign-related emails should be sent to seedsofchangeplot@gmail.com and given an appropriate subject line (“Character Submission”, “Downtime: <name>”, “Setting Query”, “Mission Report: <foo>”, “Game Feedback” etc.) so we can easily find your email later if we need to refer back.
Unless we specifically say otherwise in advance the following guidelines will apply to all campaign games:
We will be aiming to have game debriefs up by the following Wednesday night where possible if there are two games back to back, and IC briefs up by Friday lunchtime at the latest to give people a chance to decide which games to play. We will also endeavour to keep the available player information up to date, so please ask questions if there is anything you feel you should know (anyone asking what the plot is/who the bad guy is will be afflicted with badgers).
This year we are using specific colours of flour (day) and glowsticks (night) to mark out things that people can see.
Flour
Glowsticks
The next submission deadline is: Downtime is finished.
Characters will have opportunities to do some limited actions in between games outside of the scope of the normal rules. During a downtime period, you will be allowed to commit one downtime action; simply email us a description of what your character wants to do with the title “Downtime: Character Name” by the deadline we set.
An action could be:
The more people you get involved and the more downtime periods you spend on an action, the more likely you are to get something useful out of it. However, please bear in mind that there are limits on what can be achieved in downtime (as the majority of the plot will occur in uptime) but what your character does will at the very least influence the attitude of the NPCs around them. Also bear in mind that we are simple and easily confused folk and thus will take what you send us literally, so be absolutely certain that what you send us is what you mean – and be specific! As an example, if you send us “Talk to NPC” with no topic or questions then you could get a response based on whatever’s on their mind at the time – which may or may not be relevant to what you actually want to know.
If you want to do a group downtime, one person should email on behalf of the entire group and copy everyone else involved in on the email. The others can add detail through further emails if they want, but attempting to add new actions may invalidate the downtime for the entire group.
At the end of each downtime period we will produce a scenery post for actions and investigation results in addition to a more detailed email; if your character wants to do something in secret, please make this clear in your email – they may still appear in the scenery post but full results of Things Found Out won’t be made public. As we have restricted time available due to Real Life™ conversations-with-GM-NPCs will be largely restricted to either a general result response or, if there is time, a chat at the pub – non-GM-NPCs can sort out their own schedule, but please be polite when asking them for downtime.
The next deadline can be found at the top of this section. Attempts to do more than you’re allowed will result in your character losing all downtime for that period and it will be assumed they spent a week doing nothing but the day job.
Normal rules-based time-based actions such as item making, ritual-script writing, holy symbol making, manufacture, training with your Guild etc does not count as downtime as this is assumed to be covered by doing the day job. However, please don’t take the mick – if a rules-based action says “this takes all day”, then don’t assume you can travel across the map and poke things with a stick at the same time…
If you don’t have time or inclination for downtime, don’t worry – uptime actions will carry more weight than downtime ones and any public downtime research results will be made generally available (as it is assumed that responsible investigators and researchers will tell their Guilds and so on).
Default Actions
If you don’t think you’ll find time each week to tell us what you want your character to do, or just as insurance against Real Life™ getting in your way at some point, you can submit a Default Action for downtime if you wish. If we don’t receive a downtime email from you we will assume that your character is doing their Default Action and work them in accordingly. If we do receive one, that will override the Default action.
Default Actions will kick in from the next available downtime period from when we receive the email.
In the local area the main forms of currency found are the Kingdom Groat and Florin, the Eagles Standard and the Arborian Token. If you wish to carry money on games to be spent during uptime we will provide the requested physreps at the beginning of the game and reclaim them at the end – the difference will be recorded on BladesDb under loot/fines during the debrief. If you do not have the physreps with you on the game, then you do not have the money with you and will need to find alternate methods of payment.
While the local banks accept all of these at a standard exchange rate (1g = 1GSt = 1AFT), they may be worth more or less depending on the NPC with whom you interact – and some will prefer barter. All banked money will be stored as Kingdom Groats.
Local Currencies
1 Kingdom Groat = 10 Kingdom Florins
1 Eagles Gold Standard = 10 Eagles Silver Standards
1 Arborian Favour Token = 10 Arborian Trade Tokens
Your character is one of this year’s intake of new patrolees. You may be someone local to the area who wants to do something their parents didn’t do as a living, you may be someone sent there by your Guild as a ‘gentle’ introduction to patrolling, you may be someone who’s travelled over one of the borders and is giving the patrolling life a go as a way to ‘earn’ your Kingdom citizenship. You may have heard of the events of 111/112AE and be keen to find out more on the scene – or hope for a repeat of the adventure. You may have other, more questionable motives, but are presenting an outward face of keen and acceptable to those that have the final say on your presence – for now… There are reasons for anyone, from the keen newbie to the jaded veteran, from the outdoorsy adventurer to the timid bookworm, to have applied and been accepted for the year’s intake. This is not a continuation of the Shifters campaign so no prior knowledge/link to that campaign is necessary.
As a minimum please email the GMs at seedsofchangeplot@gmail.com with your character’s name, race, class/guild and a bit of background/personality, and we’ll go from there. The more you give us the easier it is for us to give you ways to interact with the setting (or mess with you later). If your character is local to the area we will definitely need to know in advance to give you a potted history and relevant local information in addition to what you can find in these pages – we are willing to negotiate on creating NPCs to support backstory if needed.
There are no restrictions on available character races, classes or guilds outside of the normal TL restrictions; however, be aware that the local garrison and Guilds are not idiots and as such those who can’t work with other people are less likely to be allowed to go out on patrols without a good reason. There is also room for the unaffiliated but they will still need to convince the local patrol administration to let them come on patrols – and keep letting them, which depends on the reactions of your fellow characters and the NPCs. If you are not sure, or if you have an idea that doesn’t fit with this but you think can be made to fit, talk to us and we’ll see what can be done.
Note: we are willing to discuss how character ideas can be made to fit the setting or give a bit more detail on aspects of the setting if you have an idea but aren’t sure. We are not willing to pick your character for you out of a list of ideas, nor make a character for you unless you are a new or newish player.
If you want to play something ‘interesting’ (e.g. non-standard race, suffering from some sort of long term magical effect, time travellers etc) please talk to the Character Refs and get agreement from them; likewise, if your character interacts with another character in the system (relative, player culture etc) please talk to the player in question first. We will want confirmation from the Character Refs/player that they are happy with what you’re doing before we will agree to anything.
Until we have agreed that the character is acceptable, we will reject them from games, so it is in your best interest to talk to us sooner rather than later…
Extra possible character inspiration questions can be found on the Character Inspiration page. If you want to send answers to us for further flavour feel free, but it is no way obligatory. Likewise, if you would like to send us an IC reference from your Guild, Laird, probation officer, headmaster etc. so Mr Proots knows what he’s in for, feel free.
Once your character is accepted it would be appreciated if you could keep an up to date version of your stats in their Notes section of their Profile so we know what sort of things to expect from them (at least in terms of stats). To give people new to the system a hand, we will try to find you an experienced ‘buddy’ who can help you with statting and rules questions for the year – you can also consult the OOC message boards or drop us an email if you get stuck.
Existing characters can also join the campaign under the same rules as above but you will be asked to wait for the game rank bracket to catch up to your character’s rank bracket first as normal – however you may be allowed to be present in the area before that point for downtime/DPC interactions, please ask if this is something you would like to do.
All Guilds have living space for their members, so unless told otherwise we are assuming that characters will either live at their Guildhouses or the Patrol Hall between missions.
As this is a previously-used campaign area, we would like to know a) which existing characters are currently living in the area and b) which existing characters have family/backstory in the area. There may be opportunities for you to NPC if you so wish, and there may be plot that indirectly affects characters through their background that we will need to let you know about as it occurs. Please email the GMs at seedsofchangeplot@gmail.com to let us know.
As we are using an existing campaign area, there may be scope for the existing local PCs to appear as DPCs or at IC meals. Similarly there are no mystic forces stopping other non-campaign characters appearing in downtime or at IC meals. However, please be aware of the following:
In short, if your character is not part of the campaign, please talk to us if you wish to do something that will have an influence on the campaign before you do it, and expect there to be consequences if you don’t.
While Tony LARP is not normally a PvP system, this year there may be PvP elements due to character choices. As such we would like to make it clear that: