Post by Gryphyx on Nov 9, 2014 21:19:15 GMT -7
Heya Folks,
We're aiming to officially "Launch" the Dragons Gate Campaign in about three weeks, give or take a week. We've been finalizing a lot on the back end and are ready to go with some of the things you've been waiting on. Here's a quick look at what we've put in place and what's left in preparation for launch.
Structure
In the last month there have been delays in our progress as a lot of the key decisions were waiting on a couple of us who were otherwise engaged. Any one individual is going to get busy so a structure that bottle necks at one or two people will experience this far too often to be healthy for the community. We don't want to see this happen so we've made some changes in our leadership structure. We've established a leadership council where each individual is empowered to make decisions and that will remain able to make decisions in the event that one or two individuals goes MIA for a time. This leadership council is currently fully staffed and ready to go. In the event that we grow the leadership, or seek a replacement, we will reach out to those individuals who have been the most positive in the community and productive in the campaign.
EXP Scaling
Our experience table is set to scale upwards so that more sessions per level are required as you rise in level. We still believe that this is the best approach for Dragons Gate. However, our original scaling was a bit too aggressive and simply required to much play time to level at higher levels. We've corrected this by reducing the scaling to an increase of one session/level every few levels, instead of the former two. You can see the new scale here.
Characters will retain their current xp value so this may cause a handful of characters level. Go ahead and level unless you are already level 6. At launch we will remove the level cap but for now it remains. If you would end up with enough experience that you should be level 7, you will keep that experience but remain level 6 until launch. In this case, you will not gain and further experience.
Downtime
A lot of you have been waiting for this. As a system that doesn't get used much, we wanted to make sure that we gave it careful consideration to make sure that what was in place made sense for our persistent world. In the end, we decided that the stock rules in Pathfinder are, for the most part, a good start. Effective immediately, you may begin using those rules, with the following changes in mind:
Time: Like current magic item crafting, all "downtime" activities operate on a 1:1 time ratio with real time. Thus in a week of real time you can do a weeks worth of crafting. This holds true despite in-game calendar time progressing four weeks during that same real time week.
Mundane Crafting: We are improving mundane crafting. It works as per the rules with two key exceptions. First, instead of rolling for your progress each week, you do so each day. Second, the number of coins you receive are in gold instead of silver. For example, if the rules say you get 50sp, you instead get 50gp. Raw materials for mundane crafting are changed to 50% of item cost.
Downtime Units: Any given character will only have one set of "downtime". This remains true regardless of constructs, summons, familiars, followers, magic items, or any other thing that by the regular rules could be used as an autonomous crafter.
For now, tracking downtime will be left to you. For models on how to track it on your player haven character thread you can look at any of the current magic item crafters.
As with everything in Dragons Gate, things may change. Our setting is different and we must remain diligent for things that truly break the game. If you do something that breaks the game, or seriously impacts other players fun, we will stop it.
No Downtime XP Gain: At this point you can't gain exp through downtime.
What's Left Pre-Launch?
Now that we have the key systems in place we are turning to three main things: GM cohesion, our first world plot, and out of game character interactions. You'll start seeing some of the out of game character interaction stuff pretty soon. Within a day or two you'll start seeing IC character threads in the Player Haven section of our forum. This week we're going to open up a new, persistent table for RP purposes. Any of our GMs will be able to "run" sessions in there but these will be largely RP sessions and largely player driven. The GM might cause things to happen, simply to act as a catalyst, but this is really a place for characters to start to form relationships and opinions about one another.
The GM cohesion and world plot stuff will of course be in the background.
We're almost there folks!
Gamingly,
The Leadership Council
*edit 11/10/2014: added the restriction against downtime exp gains.
** edit 11/10/2014: Raw materials for mundane crafting are changed to 50% of item cost.
We're aiming to officially "Launch" the Dragons Gate Campaign in about three weeks, give or take a week. We've been finalizing a lot on the back end and are ready to go with some of the things you've been waiting on. Here's a quick look at what we've put in place and what's left in preparation for launch.
Structure
In the last month there have been delays in our progress as a lot of the key decisions were waiting on a couple of us who were otherwise engaged. Any one individual is going to get busy so a structure that bottle necks at one or two people will experience this far too often to be healthy for the community. We don't want to see this happen so we've made some changes in our leadership structure. We've established a leadership council where each individual is empowered to make decisions and that will remain able to make decisions in the event that one or two individuals goes MIA for a time. This leadership council is currently fully staffed and ready to go. In the event that we grow the leadership, or seek a replacement, we will reach out to those individuals who have been the most positive in the community and productive in the campaign.
EXP Scaling
Our experience table is set to scale upwards so that more sessions per level are required as you rise in level. We still believe that this is the best approach for Dragons Gate. However, our original scaling was a bit too aggressive and simply required to much play time to level at higher levels. We've corrected this by reducing the scaling to an increase of one session/level every few levels, instead of the former two. You can see the new scale here.
Characters will retain their current xp value so this may cause a handful of characters level. Go ahead and level unless you are already level 6. At launch we will remove the level cap but for now it remains. If you would end up with enough experience that you should be level 7, you will keep that experience but remain level 6 until launch. In this case, you will not gain and further experience.
Downtime
A lot of you have been waiting for this. As a system that doesn't get used much, we wanted to make sure that we gave it careful consideration to make sure that what was in place made sense for our persistent world. In the end, we decided that the stock rules in Pathfinder are, for the most part, a good start. Effective immediately, you may begin using those rules, with the following changes in mind:
Time: Like current magic item crafting, all "downtime" activities operate on a 1:1 time ratio with real time. Thus in a week of real time you can do a weeks worth of crafting. This holds true despite in-game calendar time progressing four weeks during that same real time week.
Mundane Crafting: We are improving mundane crafting. It works as per the rules with two key exceptions. First, instead of rolling for your progress each week, you do so each day. Second, the number of coins you receive are in gold instead of silver. For example, if the rules say you get 50sp, you instead get 50gp. Raw materials for mundane crafting are changed to 50% of item cost.
Downtime Units: Any given character will only have one set of "downtime". This remains true regardless of constructs, summons, familiars, followers, magic items, or any other thing that by the regular rules could be used as an autonomous crafter.
For now, tracking downtime will be left to you. For models on how to track it on your player haven character thread you can look at any of the current magic item crafters.
As with everything in Dragons Gate, things may change. Our setting is different and we must remain diligent for things that truly break the game. If you do something that breaks the game, or seriously impacts other players fun, we will stop it.
No Downtime XP Gain: At this point you can't gain exp through downtime.
What's Left Pre-Launch?
Now that we have the key systems in place we are turning to three main things: GM cohesion, our first world plot, and out of game character interactions. You'll start seeing some of the out of game character interaction stuff pretty soon. Within a day or two you'll start seeing IC character threads in the Player Haven section of our forum. This week we're going to open up a new, persistent table for RP purposes. Any of our GMs will be able to "run" sessions in there but these will be largely RP sessions and largely player driven. The GM might cause things to happen, simply to act as a catalyst, but this is really a place for characters to start to form relationships and opinions about one another.
The GM cohesion and world plot stuff will of course be in the background.
We're almost there folks!
Gamingly,
The Leadership Council
*edit 11/10/2014: added the restriction against downtime exp gains.
** edit 11/10/2014: Raw materials for mundane crafting are changed to 50% of item cost.