Adventuring Phase Length

[Tantavalist]

Apologies if this is a topic that's been raised before, but it seems like Adventuring Phase turns up far too many results to search through them all.

On page 213 of the Revised Core Rulebook, it is stated that 'The amount of Experience points to give to players has been calculated considering an average of 3 sessions of play for each adventuring phase. Keeping this pace, each player will receive an average of 6 Experience points, plus 1 or 2 additional points, at the end of each story."

However, on page 282 of the book it says 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 per character, enough to see them rise to excellence in about 15 years."

There is clearly a very big gap in the basic assumptions about play in these two statements, both from the same edition of the main rulebook. Is one of these a misprint? Has one survived from the older edition when it was supposed to be edited out?

I've personally been leaning toward the three sessions per year idea when I look at the game purely because of how long it'd take to play through Darkening of Mirkwood at a 4-6 sessions per year average. But if the game was balanced for 13xp per year, do PCs using the other way end up underpowered?

[zedturtle]

Yeah, one is saying that you'll get about 6 XP per adventure, the other is saying that you'll get about 13 XP per year. So, two adventures per year (and lots of us use this rate).

Darkening of Mirkwood assumes that your players will be getting up to their own stuff as well as its outline. So it gives you about half of what you need.

When we get there (so close now!), I'm just going to adjust to one adventure per year... I might give them bonus XP but I'll probably scale any encounters instead.

[Tantavalist]

Well, that answers that. Three adventure phases per Fellowship phase, and two Fellowship phases per year.

This now just leaves the issue that with weekly sessions it'd take a minimum of three years to run the complete Darkening of Mirkwood campaign, and probably closer to four when RL issues causing missed sessions are factored in...

[zedturtle]

Well, that answers that. Three adventure phases per Fellowship phase, and two Fellowship phases per year.

This now just leaves the issue that with weekly sessions it'd take a minimum of three years to run the complete Darkening of Mirkwood campaign, and probably closer to four when RL issues causing missed sessions are factored in...

8-9 years for me, doing one adventure per (game) year, fourish adventures per (real) year.

[Falenthal]

This now just leaves the issue that with weekly sessions it'd take a minimum of three years to run the complete Darkening of Mirkwood campaign, and probably closer to four when RL issues causing missed sessions are factored in...

Have you counted holidays in? I'm running the campaign interwoven with ToW weekly, and I can't shake the fear that, in 4 years time, some of us will have new jobs or whatever and have to leave the party. I would hate to leave such an awesome campaign unfinished, but that's the risk we have to take... Frodo didn't think he would reach Mount Doom, but one step at a time, he did against all foresight.

[Majestic]

Figuring out how much Experience Points to hand out per session or adventure is still really tough to do, especially because it seems that every group can have vastly different lengths of play time or session length.

When the Clarifications and Amendments document came out, with it's rough guidelines of about how much XP to award per time frame, I sat down and broke down all the numbers to come up with the proper ratios.

Our games tend to run a bit longer than some. So tonight, for instance, we started at 5 p.m. (which meant with some late arrivals and going over some OOC stuff we didn't really start proper until about 6). We then played past midnight, so over 6 hours of playing. In that time we completed the entire adventure "A Darkness in the Marshes" from "Tales from Wilderland".

My players tend to stay on task and accomplish their mission objectives, for the most part, and so they usually will earn about 6 Experience Points for such a session (which sometimes might end up taking two gaming nights).

[Falenthal]

Our games are usually 3 hours long. I give 2 XP per session.
Once an adventure has been finished, I give an additional 1XP per every 2 sessión (or part thereof) that the adventure lasted.

For example, we finished the Marsh Bell in one session: 2XP for the session, and 1XP for finishing the adventure = 3XP for one playing session/one adventure
Words of the Wise is going to last 2 sessions: 2XP + 2XP for the sessions, and 1XP for finishing the adventure = 5XP for two playing sessions/one adventure
Clearing the Path lasted 3 sessions: 2XP + 2XP + 2XP for the sessions, and 2XP for adventuring during more than 2 sessions = 8XP for three playing sessions/one adventure

I think that's more or less how the RAW recommend it, at least as far as I understand them.
Eitherway, I think that linking the XPs to the sessions is still confussing.

[Dunkelbrink]

Well, that answers that. Three adventure phases per Fellowship phase, and two Fellowship phases per year.

I believe that there might be some misconceptions regarding the terminology still floating around. An adventure phase is the same thing as an "adventure". It can last a few or several sessions. But it is not the same thing as a "session adventuring". That becomes important for some abilities, like the rules for Songs in Rivendell or the Ranger's Foresight of their kindred.

After each adventure phase comes the fellowship phase.. In the RAW it's recommended that the phases lasts for half a session or so. If it marks the end of the year (which will always be the case of you play one adventure a year) it also includes Year's end undertakings and the LM might allow the characters to perform two undertaking.

Our sessions last for about 3-4 hours and we play approx. 2 adventures a year. We role-play a lot and our sessions are not that "effective". A typical adventure from Tales of Wilderland would take about 4-5 sessions to finish.

I give only 1 XP per session, and a bonus of 1-2 after an adventure. I believe a higher rate of XP than this would make the heroes become too powerful too quick. But in this I realize I stand out against both the RAW and other forum users. But even with this pace the players have reached 3 in both Valour and Wisdom (4 in one case) and it's only the end of 2948! Darkening of MIrkwood has just begun. It would be sad if the heroes were to retire just a few years in due to being to powerful.

[Fridokind Wargaug]

8-9 years for me, doing one adventure per (game) year, fourish adventures per (real) year.

I have the same problem. We (our group) lives over 600 miles apart but we meet quite regularly for weekends. On this occasions we do almost nothing but play, so in average we accomplish one and a half adventures per weekend, when we play. Additionaly to ToW, which we have finished (skipped two adventures though) and DoM we have a bunch of side quests, e.g. every one of my players has a quest to get a legendary weapon and such. So we'll probably need 8 years, too, until we're finished with DoM...

But at least, there will be a hole bunch of new campaigns until then

[Angelalex242]

I've found it varies by genre.

Weekly games on Fantasy Grounds usually give out 1 or 2 XP per session.

Long, slow games on Rpol.net give out 6 XP per adventure, or 12 if a whole year passes.