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I have run several TOR one-shots in the past. Now, we have time and intentions to play a campaign. We'll be using Tales from Wilderland for that purpose. It's my first time using advancement rules and I don't know how much power level is needed to confront the 'final boss' in that book. My question is:

Is it advisable to put a few adventures in between so players get some extra experience/advancement points? (considering The Marsh-Bell and Words of the Wise).

Thanks.

Recent threads (past couple of days) seem to suggest that progression/power creep might be too fast, not too slow.

I guess it will depend on how many adventures you play during the campaign. If you rush through the years, the characters will not be as strong as if you weave the story in your own campaigns. Also, it will depend on if your players insist on not changing characters during the 30 years of the campaign.

Yusei wrote:I guess it will depend on how many adventures you play during the campaign.

There will be 4-5 adventurers in our company. I read that each TfW adventure takes 2-3 sessions to complete.

Remember I'm talking about TfW here, not DoM. I think we will be creating new adventurers when we play DoM. I'm following the power level thread.

Yeah, I don't know. The speed of advancement seems about right to me.

My group is about halfway through Crossings at the Celduin, the second-to-last adventure in TfW.
We've averaged about two to three sessions per adventure, so they're about to fight the army at the Crossings and head right into that nasty final bit on the Withered Heath, and they've got 14 experience points each. Which isn't that much in the grand scheme of things. They also average about 2-7 advancement points per adventuring phase.

And I'm terrified at the prospect of them facing down the Gibbet King with his Black Uruks, plus all the other Orcs in the tower (and that Cave Troll.)
Which is to say nothing of Raenar!

Oh, sorry, I misread and thought you were talking about DoM. I played TfW with four additional adventures, using the official guidelines to give XP/AP, and the group did fine. They even had it a little too easy against the Gibbet King (but they didn't try to fight Raegnar, of course).

@PaulButler: It seems a bit low to me. According to the rules, they should get at least 1xp per session, plus 1xp if they're progressing towards their objective, plus 1 xp per 2 sessions at the end of the adventure. Assuming you played every adventure in two sessions, that should give them between 18 and 30 XP after 6 adventures.

Yusei wrote:
@PaulButler: It seems a bit low to me. According to the rules, they should get at least 1xp per session, plus 1xp if they're progressing towards their objective, plus 1 xp per 2 sessions at the end of the adventure. Assuming you played every adventure in two sessions, that should give them between 18 and 30 XP after 6 adventures.

Well, I don't give out the "objective" XP just as a matter of course. Since this campaign was started with the beginning of TfW, and most of the early adventures are fairly episodic in nature, I haven't been giving out those Objective points at all. The Fellowship doesn't have a stated objective anyway, as they sort of found themselves together as a matter of convenience and have developed friendships along the way. I imagine that stated objective will come at the end of TfW.

As for the 1 XP per 2 sessions at the end of the adventure, the rules state that those "supplementary" experience points should not exceed 1xp per 2 sessions, which would suggest that that is the maximum. The way I read those rules is that they are rewards that should be given when appropriate, but not always.

RAW (emphasis mine)
"The final bonus is meant to reward the group of players for their commitment to the game, especially if they achieved something remarkable. Players who solved a difficult situation in a clever and unexpected fashion, or interpreted their characters with conviction, or constantly showed respect for the source material certainly deserve the bonus."

I give out these bonuses, sure, but certainly not all the time. Indeed, at the end of Crossings of Celduin, I daresay that those bonuses are written into the adventure (the 1-3 bonus points awarded based on how long they held the crossings.)

I think merely handing out a point for every two sessions of adventuring is what is causing people to think that their rate of advancement is too high. I wonder how many LM's automatically give out those bonuses plus the "objective" bonus? It's not a bonus if it just happens all the time is it?

YMMV. I like low-powered games, and always have.

PaulButler wrote:YMMV. I like low-powered games, and always have.

I think you have the progression on the low side but taking the RAW it should be a lot higher but I'd rather be in your position than the one others (and me) find ourselves in having given out XP as per the RAW and are realising there's no where for the players to spend their XP.

Again, the RAW has another mechanic that awards things based on the end of a session - so RPers playing for the same amount of time but in game sessions lasting 2 hours are going to get more XP than those playing in sessions lasting 6 hours. That's actually a particularly broken rule.

I do think XP should be rewarded per adventure, rather than game session. I think if the RAW had been written in such a way then XP spend would have been more in line with steady growth as it would have been transparent and easily measurable for designers and testers to see how PCs would be developing.

Rich H wrote: I do think XP should be rewarded per adventure, rather than game session. I think if the RAW had been written in such a way then XP spend would have been more in line with steady growth as it would have been transparent and easily measurable for designers and testers to see how PCs would be developing.

I am of the opinion that it's perfect the way it is.
The fact of the matter is that in any game (of any system) that I've run or played in, the game master was manipulating XP awards to tailor his game to the desired style of play.

I am not one of those people that think RPGs should be perfectly quantified and/or balanced. Quite the contrary. Perfectly defining XP awards based on monsters killed or objectives reached? That's the old school D&D way.
That way lies madness.

I have discovered that the way that I am doing it works best for my game.
Will there be more substantial "bonus" XP awards as the players become more comfortable with the game and their characters? And as the Fellowship "Objective" becomes a defined thing? Yes, of course.

But I'm in this for the long haul. (I have always preferred very long term campaigns, so DoM is right up my alley.) So we're still in the fresh new characters without much stake in the world part of the game. Completing TfW will be their first major accomplishment. Things will grow in narrative importance from there, and the PCs will grow. But seeing as how it's only been about two in-game years since this whole thing started, and I plan to play for another 30 at least, I'm pretty happy with where the characters stand.

It will also eliminate the problems so many others see as potentially game spoiling for them, as discussed over here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1021

PaulButler wrote:I am not one of those people that think RPGs should be perfectly quantified and/or balanced.

I certainly don't think it should be 'per game session' as per the RAW as game sessions vary in length between groups.

PaulButler wrote:Perfectly defining XP awards based on monsters killed or objectives reached? That's the old school D&D way.
That way lies madness.

I don't think anyone has suggested that here, have they? There's a vast amount of distance between awarding XP per monster and setting out XP gain based on adventures undertaken. An adventure/quest/what-have-you is a recognisable story measurement that although can vary in size and scope it can be assessed using guidelines and official material as to what XP awards can be offered. Currently the rules discuss XP awards by game sessions which leads to the issue I described in my previous post. It's a similar problem to awarding Fellowship Pool refreshes at the end of a game session rather than at key moments within the story/adventure.

PaulButler wrote:It will also eliminate the problems so many others see as potentially game spoiling for them, as discussed over here: viewtopic.php?f=7&t=1021

Absolutely. That's exactly my point, you've adopted some rules not really as per the RAW for XP advancement. Most others haven't, they've followed the RAW, which is why this thread and the one you've linked to above are discussing such issues. If the RAW would have been a little more defined, offered some more detailed advice, or been thought out and executed as I've described I don't think people would be having the issues they now have. I'm not saying it would have solved the problem, but it would have alleviated it somewhat. My way would have had game groups on the same XP (or thereabouts) after each adventure whereas the RAW varies this dramatically depending on how long the group's game session lasts. Based on that rule, it's actually impossible for a designer/writer to build a campaign for another group and understand how they are going to progress through it, and set challenges based on XP accrual, because they really have no idea how much XP a group has accrued in one adventure due to it being based (mostly) on game session length rather than actual things done in the adventure(s). They can suggest XP levels that PCs should be at before attempting an adventure but this is an issue if the writer is trying to put together a campaign with sequential elements/scenarios.