What is a Sanctuary?

[Rich H]

Do you allow individuals to take the Open Sanctuary undertaking?

Yes, effectively, when it's logical for one or more characters to have it rather than all the characters, I do. Generally, all the players open a sanctuary together but I allow the flexibility for sanctuaries such as Thranduil's Halls to be open to elves, woodmen, etc but not to dwarves and similarly for places like Erebor. Obviously, events within a campaign may change this - eg, Beorn opened his home as a Sanctuary to all the PCs after the events of "Kinstrife" including Thogrim (the dwarf PC).

How do you handle a Fellowship where the individual players do not all share the same sanctuary? For example, if the Fellowship all have Woodmen-town as a Sanctuary and you add a new player-hero to the group who only has the default starting Sanctuary of Lake-town, would you allow them all to spend a Fellowship Phase in Woodmen-town? Perhaps informing the new player he/she must take the Open Sanctuary as his/her undertaking?

I'd allow them to stay and rest (the other PCs vouch for them - wouldn't require a roll) but certain Undertakings may be off limits to them - eg, Sanctuary specific Undertakings, being able to Heal Corruption twice, etc whereas that wouldn't be the case if they held the location as a sanctuary.

[beckett]

Do you allow individuals to take the Open Sanctuary undertaking?

Yes, effectively, when it's logical for one or more characters to have it rather than all the characters, I do. Generally, all the players open a sanctuary together but I allow the flexibility for sanctuaries such as Thranduil's Halls to be open to elves, woodmen, etc but not to dwarves and similarly for places like Erebor. Obviously, events within a campaign may change this - eg, Beorn opened is home as a Sanctuary to all the PCs after the events of "Kinstrife" including Thogrim.

How do you handle a Fellowship where the individual players do not all share the same sanctuary? For example, if the Fellowship all have Woodmen-town as a Sanctuary and you add a new player-hero to the group who only has the default starting Sanctuary of Lake-town, would you allow them all to spend a Fellowship Phase in Woodmen-town? Perhaps informing the new player he/she must take the Open Sanctuary as his/her undertaking?

I'd allow them to stay and rest (the other PCs vouch for them - wouldn't require a roll) but certain Undertakings may be off limits to them - eg, Sanctuary specific Undertakings, being able to Heal Corruption twice, etc whereas that wouldn't be the case if they held the location as a sanctuary.

Perfect! This is incredibly helpful! Thanks, Rich.

[Rich H]

Perfect! This is incredibly helpful! Thanks, Rich.

No problem, fella. I'm not saying it's perfect but as long as you have a set of players that are engaging honestly with the game system and not looking to simply find loopholes/exploits then I don't see a problem in allowing individuals to open specific sanctuaries.

Thinking about it further, if only one PC had a place as a sanctuary (eg, Gilbrannon and Thranduil's Halls) and the other (3) PCs wished to stay there then I'd maybe require some kind of test or even an Encounter for the group for this to be successful. Maybe have a range of successes with results ranging from refusal and being turned away all the way up to effectively being able to use it as a Sanctuary (for this Fellowship Phase alone). Some nice RPing opportunities and adventure hooks could also be introduced as well.

... Now back to the writing.

[Beran]

Personally, I think that if opening a sanctuary is so important to PCs then it should be role played out as part of the story narrative, and not done off stage during game downtime.

[Rich H]

Personally, I think that if opening a sanctuary is so important to PCs then it should be role played out as part of the story narrative, and not done off stage during game downtime.

... What's game downtime? It isn't the Fellowship Phase, at least not how my group play that out. It has a slightly different feel to the Adventuring Phase but I wouldn't say it's "off stage".

[Beran]

Personally, I think that if opening a sanctuary is so important to PCs then it should be role played out as part of the story narrative, and not done off stage during game downtime.

... What's game downtime? It isn't the Fellowship Phase, at least not how my group play that out. It has a slightly different feel to the Adventuring Phase but I wouldn't say it's "off stage".

My group must have been doing things incorrectly then as the Fellowship Phase in our camapgin was more administrative then RP.

[Rich H]

Personally, I think that if opening a sanctuary is so important to PCs then it should be role played out as part of the story narrative, and not done off stage during game downtime.

... What's game downtime? It isn't the Fellowship Phase, at least not how my group play that out. It has a slightly different feel to the Adventuring Phase but I wouldn't say it's "off stage".

My group must have been doing things incorrectly then as the Fellowship Phase in our camapgin was more administrative then RP.

I don't think it's a 'wrong' way of playing - I'm sure many groups do play it as an admin session but it [the Fellowship Phase] seems to allow PCs to take more narrative control and to drive the story rather than the LM. Also, if you run it more as admin and Opening a Sanctuary is an undertaking within such an 'admin phase' then how do you marry this up with what you said above "opening a sanctuary is so important to PCs then it should be role played out as part of the story narrative, and not done off stage during game downtime"?

[Beran]

Well, obviously there is a certain amount of RP opportunity during the game that would lead to opening a sanctuary. Like saving a Woodman settlement from orc raiders. That puts the PCs in the postion to be afforded the opportunity to open said settlement as a sanctuary, but the actual negotiation to do so would be "off stage" during the Fellowship Phase. In my mind the actual opening of the sanctuary should be actively played out by the PCs during the Adventure Phase.

[Rich H]

Well, obviously there is a certain amount of RP opportunity during the game that would lead to opening a sanctuary. Like saving a Woodman settlement from orc raiders. That puts the PCs in the postion to be afforded the opportunity to open said settlement as a sanctuary, but the actual negotiation to do so would be "off stage" during the Fellowship Phase. In my mind the actual opening of the sanctuary should be actively played out by the PCs during the Adventure Phase.

Not dissimilar to how I'd run that, except I'd continue the RPing into the Fellowship Phase when the players announced their intentions. So what occurred within the adventure would be used by the players to decide that opening the settlement as a sanctuary would be appropriate and that role-playing would occur within the Fellowship Phase when undertakings are made.

[Beran]

I see a bit akin to the Social Warfare rules in A Song of Ice and Fire RPG. Why do you need a mechanic to do something that could just as easily be Rp'd out? It certainly makes for a more interesting game that way, IMO.