tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2657266526705426756.post344002215837188005..comments2024-03-26T04:58:54.326-04:00Comments on The Wandering Gamist: Tooling for 1:1 Timescale Gamesjedavishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08586249502818922886noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2657266526705426756.post-24284719463907211952021-10-04T08:34:03.702-04:002021-10-04T08:34:03.702-04:00We run a 1:1 wilderness campaign with no more civi...We run a 1:1 wilderness campaign with no more civilization than a trading post to come back to. (5e with lots of homebrew and house-rule sidegames; new blog at dndnerds.org)<br /><br />For travel during a session, we use a bunch of homebrew charts and the caller picks up one of every die type and rolls them all together once per 4-hour watch or once per 6-mile hex - my charts are designed so that it starts on a d10 roll and branches out from there, but that includes the chances of an encounter, signs of an encounter, weather changes, resource challenges, non-combat encounters, flora/fauna, and a bunch of other stuff. Happy to share those if anyone needs them for inspiration. It makes travel interesting and takes session-time to accomplish but isn't overbearing. <br /><br />For between-session downtime we use a Slack instance with a #bluebooking channel, which is useful in a couple of ways: it allows 'active downtime players' to accomplish their downtime in a central place, and it allows me to keep track of who's where when by using Slack's /remind function to notify future me that something has occurred. So if someone is at the trading post and undertakes a downtime action that will take 5 days, I just say '/remind me "Caradoc finishes smelting ore" in 5 days' and 5 days later Slack will remind me of that and I can post in our #bluebook channel that Caradoc is done and that he's available for new downtime. Or I can set the reminder directly to Caradoc's player instead. Not sure if discord has the same /remind capability but this has made the calendaring aspect pretty seamless for us. I typically post a quick summary in the #bluebook channel each morning of who's where. I also use /remind to help me keep track of off-screen monster movements and patron player agent actions. <br /><br />Players can undertake travel between locations during downtime but it's not risk-free - they still roll on the same charts as a caller would in play and encounters can happen; when they do we typically use a simplified combat roll and interpolate consequences from it. I probably wouldn't kill a player on a downtime combat roll gone wrong but if it goes poorly enough they could end up captured, lose gear, mounts, or NPCs, or could end up badly wounded and unavailable for the next session as they recover. <br /><br />I also have 4-5 long-distance patron players controlling factions spread through the wilderness, who I also interact with on Slack or by email - they get a monthly sitrep from their majordomo and a list of domain action options, they chooses some projects to pursue and dice are rolled to see how that will go over the course of the month. So far, player interaction with these factions has been low, but there have been intersections. <br /><br />My GM notebook is a physical notebook, but anything the players need and some of my session notes and location notes live on a Notion instance (notion.so) so that the players can see the house rule subsystems and so I can cut and paste things from the internet that I want to keep track of. Works pretty well and allows low-maintenance basic databases in the form of charts that expand into pages. <br /><br />So I don't think you necessarily need a whole huge programming project to make it work, but I do agree that a 1:1 campaign benefits from some digital tools to make the GM's life much easier. For me those are Slack (and its /remind feature) and Notion, but I'm sure there are many other ways to make it all sing. <br /><br />Dave Yhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09485345030558890105noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2657266526705426756.post-34348531579885582882021-10-04T02:29:40.729-04:002021-10-04T02:29:40.729-04:00I run a game in a similar fashion, and I've se...I run a game in a similar fashion, and I've set it up so the players tend to run out of resources in about the same amount of time that we want to stop. That's the key.mAc Chaoshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17960006143198050576noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2657266526705426756.post-78788615193034975312021-10-03T00:09:58.889-04:002021-10-03T00:09:58.889-04:00This is sort of a persistent problem in open-table...This is sort of a persistent problem in open-table dungeoneering games, noted by Rients back in '08 ( https://jrients.blogspot.com/2008/11/dungeons-dawn-patrol.html ), and not particular to 1:1 timescale. I believe I have read that there was a norm at Gygax's table that you didn't end a session in the dungeon, but I don't know how exactly it was handled (penalties for staying over, or just not calling it a night until you made it out, or...?)jedavishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08586249502818922886noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2657266526705426756.post-36635881398318926012021-10-02T23:02:26.434-04:002021-10-02T23:02:26.434-04:00How does dungeon crawling work in this? If they a...How does dungeon crawling work in this? If they are 8 levels down do they just get out. The party can't stay in it? That confuses me.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17690743781700166627noreply@blogger.com