Many early game play forays into the Forgotten Realms were library “mini-campaigns.” That is, free programs provided to the public at the public libraries I worked at (first at the Don Mills regional branch, and later at the smaller Brookbanks community branch). Aimed at young adults, though I stretched that a bit when both bright children and interested (or suspicious-of-witchcraft) adults wanted to play, too. These were weekly four-hour slots, for the same day on thirteen (why thirteen? I haven’t the faintest; ask my now-deceased bosses) consecutive weeks. Which meant that if I was a railroading-type DM, I could happily build to a predetermined climax, knowing when things would end, but also handed me the problem of getting things rolling quickly, and maximizing enjoyment for the players by getting them to mesh as a team as rapidly as possibly.
faceless
That’s why I hit upon the idea of charters for adventuring companies, so the Player Characters would have a “set” initial goal or mission (which was included in the charter; which amounted to a formal written version of this verbal explanation, which was actually given by a Court clerk in Cormyr to the party: “We’re letting you potential troublemakers wander about our kingdom armed to the teeth because we need this, ah, dangerous little problem taken care of, and our soldiery and local Watchfolk are busy”). I also gave them pregenerated characters to play because the back stories of the characters set out clearly why and how they’d come together as a group, and firmly established that they trusted each other, and because it saved time. I minimized player dissatisfaction with the characters through two means: providing twice as many pregens as were needed, to hopefully give everyone a wide choice of character class, gender, gear carried, and backgrounds with personal skills and interests, and an encounter with a magical effect in the first “dungeon” that altered them (simulated by allowing them to re-roll some or even all ability scores, if they wished).
The nice thing about writing up detailed backgrounds for the characters is that I was able to build in sideline skills for each PC: this one has apprenticed as a blacksmith, that one was an accomplished weaver, this one could forage and trap game (and prepare and cook the results), that one was a stonemason, this one was a skilled archer, and so on.
These skills invariably got called upon during adventures, in a sort of Boy Scouts Go Hunting Monsters manner, but they also gave the PCs something to fall back on when they needed coin to buy food or rent a roof over their heads or buy tools or weapons: everyday jobs.
Which in turn kept the PCs tied to local communities, gave me chances to feed them hints as to adventures, approaching perils, and so on through local gossip (overheard at work), and let me build a supporting cast of Non-Player Character locals (the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker) that the PCs could go an consult, or buy a spare dagger from, or ask to interpret something old, written in a tongue they didn’t recognize.
Over time, this supporting cast becomes the equivalent of regulars on a television show or movie series: familiar faces who can be relied upon to add colour, move the story along, gripe or jest or fulminate and in so doing make the setting feel more real and plant adventure hooks or opportunities in the minds of players, and make everything that happens “feel more real” and the achievements of PCs matter—because their heroics aren’t being done in front of a featureless backdrop to and on behalf of imaginary placeholder characters, but people they feel they know.
Some of whom may even become friends—and we can never have too many friends. Even imaginary ones. Or, the writer within me may add fervently, especially imaginary friends.
In the Realms, I simply put into the law of Cormyr the royal decree that outlander (foreign) wizards had to register (and part of that registration was a promise not to work spells within the realm without authorization), and that anyone carrying weapons beyond a belt knife that weren’t part of their daily work gear (soldiers could of course go armed, woodcutters would have their axes, hunters with permits their bows and arrows or quarrels) had to have their weapons tied with peace-strings to prevent swift and easy arming (archers had to carry bows unstrung, with their strings carried separately from the bows)…and that adventurers couldn’t “go adventuring” (seek adventure or go bounty hunting) without a charter. They could hire on with Cormyrean citizens as warehouse or caravan guards, or personal bodyguards, but if they wanted to go on forays on their own, they had to seek a charter from the Royal Court (the big building full of courtiers, behind the Royal Palace, in Suzail) or from “local lords,” the King’s Lords (or Lady Lords) in other communities around the country (not “Lords” or “Ladies” who held those titles because they were nobles; much of the reasoning behind restrictions on outlander adventurers wandering Cormyr heavily armed was to stop nobles hiring them to use on each other or the Crown, creating trouble and then denying, plausibly or otherwise, that they had anything to do with it). So my limited-duration library campaigns had a first mission built in…the undertaking of which would lead the PCs into half a dozen other adventure hooks to entice them, and usually uncover a dark conspiracy (or even their own framing for something!) that would point energetically at follow-up adventures.
Yet they knew, going into battle, that at any time they could retire, either temporarily (while healing, or to lie low for a bit) or permanently, to earn coins with their other skills. And all the time they were poking into ruins or dungeons or wilderlands and battling monsters, they were acquiring skills for yet another potential profession: that of guide, for hunters or prospectors or merchants who wanted to get from Hither to Yon in one piece, with their trade-goods more or less intact.
Which, circling around again, made everything at the gaming table seem more real. The setting felt like a real place, with taxes and rent to find, and the next meal, and laws and the enforcers of such laws to respect—only hopefully more exciting and dashing than real life.
But then, as one of my players said, “I can’t fly on the backs of dragons in real life. Or buy a castle. Besides, I like your chip dip, so I’ll be back every week.”
That’s why I hit upon the idea of charters for adventuring companies, so the Player Characters would have a “set” initial goal or mission (which was included in the charter; which amounted to a formal written version of this verbal explanation, which was actually given by a Court clerk in Cormyr to the party: “We’re letting you potential troublemakers wander about our kingdom armed to the teeth because we need this, ah, dangerous little problem taken care of, and our soldiery and local Watchfolk are busy”). I also gave them pregenerated characters to play because the back stories of the characters set out clearly why and how they’d come together as a group, and firmly established that they trusted each other, and because it saved time. I minimized player dissatisfaction with the characters through two means: providing twice as many pregens as were needed, to hopefully give everyone a wide choice of character class, gender, gear carried, and backgrounds with personal skills and interests, and an encounter with a magical effect in the first “dungeon” that altered them (simulated by allowing them to re-roll some or even all ability scores, if they wished).
The nice thing about writing up detailed backgrounds for the characters is that I was able to build in sideline skills for each PC: this one has apprenticed as a blacksmith, that one was an accomplished weaver, this one could forage and trap game (and prepare and cook the results), that one was a stonemason, this one was a skilled archer, and so on.
These skills invariably got called upon during adventures, in a sort of Boy Scouts Go Hunting Monsters manner, but they also gave the PCs something to fall back on when they needed coin to buy food or rent a roof over their heads or buy tools or weapons: everyday jobs.
Which in turn kept the PCs tied to local communities, gave me chances to feed them hints as to adventures, approaching perils, and so on through local gossip (overheard at work), and let me build a supporting cast of Non-Player Character locals (the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker) that the PCs could go an consult, or buy a spare dagger from, or ask to interpret something old, written in a tongue they didn’t recognize.
Over time, this supporting cast becomes the equivalent of regulars on a television show or movie series: familiar faces who can be relied upon to add colour, move the story along, gripe or jest or fulminate and in so doing make the setting feel more real and plant adventure hooks or opportunities in the minds of players, and make everything that happens “feel more real” and the achievements of PCs matter—because their heroics aren’t being done in front of a featureless backdrop to and on behalf of imaginary placeholder characters, but people they feel they know.
Some of whom may even become friends—and we can never have too many friends. Even imaginary ones. Or, the writer within me may add fervently, especially imaginary friends.
In the Realms, I simply put into the law of Cormyr the royal decree that outlander (foreign) wizards had to register (and part of that registration was a promise not to work spells within the realm without authorization), and that anyone carrying weapons beyond a belt knife that weren’t part of their daily work gear (soldiers could of course go armed, woodcutters would have their axes, hunters with permits their bows and arrows or quarrels) had to have their weapons tied with peace-strings to prevent swift and easy arming (archers had to carry bows unstrung, with their strings carried separately from the bows)…and that adventurers couldn’t “go adventuring” (seek adventure or go bounty hunting) without a charter. They could hire on with Cormyrean citizens as warehouse or caravan guards, or personal bodyguards, but if they wanted to go on forays on their own, they had to seek a charter from the Royal Court (the big building full of courtiers, behind the Royal Palace, in Suzail) or from “local lords,” the King’s Lords (or Lady Lords) in other communities around the country (not “Lords” or “Ladies” who held those titles because they were nobles; much of the reasoning behind restrictions on outlander adventurers wandering Cormyr heavily armed was to stop nobles hiring them to use on each other or the Crown, creating trouble and then denying, plausibly or otherwise, that they had anything to do with it). So my limited-duration library campaigns had a first mission built in…the undertaking of which would lead the PCs into half a dozen other adventure hooks to entice them, and usually uncover a dark conspiracy (or even their own framing for something!) that would point energetically at follow-up adventures.
Yet they knew, going into battle, that at any time they could retire, either temporarily (while healing, or to lie low for a bit) or permanently, to earn coins with their other skills. And all the time they were poking into ruins or dungeons or wilderlands and battling monsters, they were acquiring skills for yet another potential profession: that of guide, for hunters or prospectors or merchants who wanted to get from Hither to Yon in one piece, with their trade-goods more or less intact.
Which, circling around again, made everything at the gaming table seem more real. The setting felt like a real place, with taxes and rent to find, and the next meal, and laws and the enforcers of such laws to respect—only hopefully more exciting and dashing than real life.
But then, as one of my players said, “I can’t fly on the backs of dragons in real life. Or buy a castle. Besides, I like your chip dip, so I’ll be back every week.”
