GATEWAY TO ADVENTURE

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The Polychronopolis campaign

In tone, the campaign will go in the Sword and Sorcery rather than High Fantasy direction (Conan rather than Lord of the Rings). In practice, it aims to be a true Sandbox, rather than a story-path. Players will have great agency and choice of activities, goals and adventures. However, this will put some burden on the players, because the Judge will need time to prepare. Players will be required to tell the Judge far enough ahead for him to be ready. I've outlined the procedures you'll need to follow for this to work below.

Character Status: Each of the three or more characters that a player has will be defined in one of 3 statuses.

PLAYER RESPONSIBILITIES

What do I as a player need to do before a game session?

What do I as a player need to do at the beginning of a game session?

What do I as a player need to do at the end of the game session?

SELECTING AN EXPEDITION

A Cold Expedition: The basics of selecting an expedition involve first looking at the Main Map and the Zone Descriptions. Then choosing a place that might be a good candidate to look for treasure. Choose a Zone whose Encounter Difficulty Level is close to your characters' levels. A lower EDL will be easier, but less rewarding, a higher EDL will be harder but more rewarding. A set of Ruins might have buried treasure; a Cave might have a dragon or troll; a Forest might have Owlbears or Elves (probably Owlbears). Sites likes caves, ruins, dungeons, henges are likely to have more foes and treasure grouped together than would simply wandering around a zone.

Goal Oriented Expedition As the campaign progresses, the players will gain knowledge of the world, through encounters and through the acquisition of rumors. Expeditions at this point might be planned based on such knowledge, rather than simple numbers.

Random Encounter System There is a system for random encounters in the Zones and in the City Wards and small towns. It involves drawing playing cards, where the suites are tied to types of events (Spade: Obstacle, Heart: help, Diamond: Wealth, Club: fight). Complete details at this link: Encounters.