Special Technical Rules

Ending a session somewhere other than Deadpoint

Ideally, sessions are structured so that the party always starts and ends at our safe HQ. Keeps things neat 'n' tidy. But what if you're deep in some remote cavern, or embroiled in an undercover spy mission for a rebel pirate captain? Thematically, it may come to pass that it makes more sense for the party to stay where they are until next time.

This sorta breaks the West Marches ideal, because now that group of people are locked in to a degree—if they play a session with others not involved in this mini-campaign, how do we make sense of it? Here are some possible solutions:

1. Quick fix: Locked players use different characters until we have a session with the original crew.
2. If an upcoming session has most of the OG crew, we come up with a reason for the non-locked player's characters to sub in, assuming the absent locked players are cool with the sub. If going this route, we should try to figure out who's more likely to play in the coming weeks before the session ends to get that absent player consent up front.
3. I will probably put a general time limit (e.g. two IRL weeks) on these situations regardless: the locked party will be forced to abandon their mini-campaign if we go too long without a resolution (i.e. it starts affecting the smoothness of scheduling).

Building levels

Some of the places in Deadpoint have XP and levels, such as the AOS Study Hall or the Market. They'll follow the same level table as players.

They gain XP in a fuzzy, DM-has-yet-to-solidify manner. Typically, player interaction or bringing them resources will do the trick. The town or the resident NPCs of the buildings will gain abilities as these levels rise.

New character roll-ups can be at the level of the lowest level building in town. So if all town buildings are at least Level 3, new characters start at Level 3 (optionally). Characters that had to work for their levels are time-honoured in some way too—example here.

Living expenses

Update

See Downtime on Deadpoint for detailed information on living expenses.