A question regarding campaign pacing

[EPenna]

So, I've been rereading TOR and (especially) the Revised Edition update doc in preparation to running The Darkening of Mirkwood, and I came up with the following info:

- on p. 198 of the Adventurer's Book, it's stated that "The default pacing of gameplay for The One Ring sees a group of adventurers take part in one adventure per year of game time."

- on p. 120 of the Loremaster's Book, it's stated that "The suggested pace for a The One Ring campaign sees the Loremaster and his players take part in four to six sessions of play for every year of game time. This translates roughly to an average yearly rate of 13 Experience points for every character."

- on p.9 of the TOR: Revised Edition Clarifications and Amendments doc, in the Experience Points Awards Ratio box, it's stated that "The amount of Experience points to give to players has been calculated considering an average of 3 sessions of play for each complete Adventuring phase. Keeping this pace, each player would receive on average 6 Experience points, plus 1 or 2 additional points at the end of each story."

If you've read all three entries, you might guess what my problem is: on average, players are going to get 7 or 8 XP per Adventuring Phase. You'are also supposed to have one Adventuring Phase per year, on average. And yet, as a Loremaster you're also supposed to be handling an average of 13 XP per year, which is almost twice the recommended award of your average Adventuring Phase.

My question is: does anyone know the designer's intention regarding this? 13 XP on average per year obviously requires more than one Adventuring Phase (two, on average), are we supposed to ignore the one Adventuring Phase per year bit on the Adventurer's Book? Or should we stick to it and either bump up XP gain per adventure or assume the 13 XP per year statement on the Loremaster's Book is a mistake?

I'm inclined to have more than one Adventuring Phase per year, myself, especially before the Lieutenant's return to Dol Goldur in 2951. That way, Player Heroes have a few years to become more competent and famous and form alliances before shit really hits the fan.

In any case, I'm interested in knowing how fellow Loremasters are pacing their campaigns, regardless of the designer's original intent (although I would also like very much to know what's Francesco's opinion about this, too).

[Rocmistro]

EPenna:

I have no comments on your observations. I've noticed the same thing.

All I can say is, what I've worked out is:

2 Adventures per year.
Each adventure is roughly 3-4 sessions.
Each session generates on average about 1.5 XP. So, 8 x 1.5 = 12 XP.

[Hermes Serpent]

I've tended to do it as 1 XP for turning up to play, 1 XP extra for advancing the story/plot in a session and a bonus of up to 50% of awarded XP at the end of an Adventure Phase for good roleplay during those sessions. I tend to be on the slightly generous side with AP, expecting characters to accrue around 12 or so AP in an Adventure Phase.

I use a calendar made by someone on the old forums with the M-e months and cross off time as it happens and often making an executive decision about the length of a Fellowship Phase based on what the players want to accomplish and what time of year it is. For example if they want to do a quick rest, re-equip and update skills etc and an undertaking that could be reasonably accomplished in a shortish time I may allow 2-4 weeks but if that would take them close to the Winter season I'd extend that to taking the whole season and have them set off in teh Spring. Mind you I'm not using the published adventures so YMMV.

[zedturtle]

I'm with Rocmistro, I generally try to do two Adventuring Phases per game year, I find that more satisfying. Once we get down with Tales, I will probably drop down to one AP in most years. My longest running TOR game is PbP; it takes us about three months of real time to run an adventure. So Darkening at the pace I'm thinking I can run it will take 8-10 years of real time.