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Post by FirstMate on Jul 28, 2019 11:47:30 GMT 7
Player's Blog
This thread is for Players who want to write an article or blog related to the campaign, the pathfinder, or tabletop RPG in general. It aims to serve as a place for player expressing their opinions or analysis (or creative narration) in a civilized manner. This thread is not for replying or discussing the posts, thus such posts will be immediately deleted by Admin.
General Guide
English. Due to the rules of the free forum from Proboards, you need to write your article in English.
Civilized. Netiquette still applies, therefore please write in a civilized manner, with no personal attacks in expressing your opinions.
Antiplagiarism. Please only post your own creations.
Self-Manage. Feel free to edit your post to refine and revise it; it would be better if you also put update & revision details at the end of the post.
One Post. Please make sure your article/blog/narration fits to one post only.
Public Domain. Please keep in mind that your writing is put on public domain. Please put how you want your work to be treated according to Creative Commons at the very least.
Free Format. You do not need to follow a certain format or writing style, as long as you keep in mind about the points explained above.
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Post by FirstMate on Aug 2, 2019 11:15:03 GMT 7
For DMs: Preparing Sessions for ARC
by: Sil
Introduction
Arcadia Recon Charter is a collaborative campaign with various players and DM, run in a shared world (time and space) with one another. Due to its collaborative nature, it has a tendency for unplanned overlapping or overstepping boundaries and comfort zone between players. If there are many players and/or their demographics vary wildly, the risks of conflicts also rise maybe exponentially.
Some players with enough playing (or running) hours on conventional non collaborative campaigns (especially one-shot) might be confident on how to trick the system to avoid paradox; but those who have too much playing (or running) hours of collaborative campaigns could opine that this paradox should never be underestimated and that preventing is the better medicine. Sometimes paradox could appear even with prevention attempts, and it can breach the setting and campaign coherency, which could means the need of another layer of suspension of disbelief. Or worse, the 'retcon' which actually will bring more paradox due to player's mixed memory. It is safe to say that collaborating in a shared campaign is very different than running as single DM (or playing under single DM), and has so many differences with one-shot sessions.
That aside, the ARC collaborative campaign has tried its best to provide cushions for possible paradoxes, and assuming the players all following the guides, then the risk of paradoxes should have been lowered significantly. Hopefully, the buffers are enough as well for honest mistakes and simple misunderstandings that (almost) always happen in such collaborative environment.
Scope
Due to the multiple DMs there are several possible of overlapping, even with already limiting space (by Dedicated DMs managing the space) and time (by a Calendar and timeline that keeps moving forward). One of the overlapping matters is the story. With more DMs, it is quite often that same (or similar) idea of a session could be run by another. It is quite inevitable since sometimes the muse is fickle and visited several people at once and shared the same idea. Nevertheless, this one is quite normal to happen.
One thing to reduce the chance of this to happen is by keeping an open eye to the reports, and also to submit reports properly. Being ignorant to others would surely brings trouble on this aspect. And should it happen, then maybe it is best to just let it go. Duplicate events can replicate itself after all in the real world. Similarly, there is the 'art-booking' channel on the discord server to serve the purpose of another synchronization attempt for not using duplicate image, as some players might prefer some certain identity. Of course, it is a matter of etiquette to for be considerate to others by not claiming/booking too much of artwork that will not be used intensively; by only booking the images for extremely important NPCs could help at this aspect.
Other than that, a delegated semi-feodal system on Dedicated DMs should do well enough to synchronize the time and space aspect. This also means that all DMs must follow the guide regarding their scope and limitation, lest they will jeopardize the guide-abiding players, and bring troubles for many players by risking (or ruining) the campaign or setting coherency.
Session Types
After enough basic arguments and reasons on why following the guide is important to maintain campaign and setting coherency (and the fun or enjoyment of as many players as possible), we then proceed on running a Session in ARC. This post will not discuss on how to run a good sessions and such, as that would bring much wider discussions which usually ends at various aspects being important and that there is no magic formula for it.
This post will, instead, discuss on several 'basic types' of sessions: Normal Session, Short Session, and Micro Session, since it is related to the simplification of rewarding (200xp, 100xp, and 50xp chunks).
Closing Remarks
On this short post, we have discussed shortly regarding collaborative environment and the importance of guide to maintain setting and campaign coherency. We also proposed a simple idea on preparing a session: Normal, Short, and Micro, due to the nature of real life business from the players.
Another matter for consideration, the reward system of this campaign is also tied to the experience points reward (per 50xp reward), which would streamline the planning if we focus on 50xp chunks in preparing our sessions.
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Post by ⚜️ Sil ⚜️ on Oct 3, 2019 11:04:58 GMT 7
Microsessions in ARCby: Sil
Introduction
Arcadia Reconnaissance Charter (ARC) campaign is a multi-DM campaign, designed with a certain situation in mind: the random schedule of players, who do not mind a simple (or any game as long as decent enough) than not playing at all. It is based on a relative opposite paradigm of "no game is better than any game" (it is obvious that no game is better than a bad game, but arguably one could pose a question on how can we know a game is bad without playing first): "good enough game is better than no game" (which, we could argue using the same rhetoric above).
For an ideal game with ideal players and ideal DM and ideal time schedule where everything fit like a glove, these things are not important at all; no need multi-DM, no need micro-management, no need rules and guides even. But for those who cannot afford to have such ideal situation, the multi-DM offers a chance for 'decent enough game'. Far from perfect, but hopefully just enough to scratch that itch.
After long experiments supported by many people, the campaigns are slowly refine themselves, at one aspect or another (with sometimes sacrificing other aspects). Still, one problem remains: sometimes the random schedule is so random, that sitting for straight three (or even two) hours are not possible. However, normal play-by-post took a lot of time, focus, energy, and sometimes (more often than not, in certain groups) dragged on too long and too far, locking the characters from other sessions (which then beat the purpose of multi-DM campaign; there have been campaigns grind to a halt due to locked characters).
Thus the Microsession is born.
Microsession: Definition
The idea of Microsession is simple. It is quite similar to downtime activity, or pseudomission, or simple chose your own adventure. It is like compressed session, with minimal interactions and encounters, but still offer some level of 'participation' to the campaign (which, contribution and participation, or feeling left-out, usually are the main problems of multi-DM campaign).
Basically Microsession consisted of several scenes (just like session), but due to the minimal interaction, it becomes compressed events instead of to-and-fro communications. Its lack of interactions means that this game is not for everyone; and due to the 'play-by-post' nature, it can stretch to several days.
Then, who are the target players for Microsession? Put simply, the target players are those who cannot standby for long, but do not mind spreading the attention for several posts on some predetermined time; quite similar to play mobile game during work break.
Microsession: The Planning
To plan a Microsession, a DM must first prepare the general layout of the session, and also plan the important scenes to be shown. A DM might make the multi-branch scenes depending on the result of previous scene, just like a simple choose-your-own-adventure story. Nevertheless, it is important to keep in mind that the scenes must serve a good narrative, clear, and offer possibility of 'no interaction'. Most of the interactions could happen off-screen due to the random schedule of players (outside the agreed schedule).
Another difficulty would be preparing the challenge for Microsessions, which also relates directly to rewards. Due to its nature, the only possible method for this kind of Microsession is by simplified rolls, or borrowing the term of 4e, Skill Challenge.
Converting to Pathfinder 2 (which is more rigid than 4e on some matters) is relative easy, and we can break down the general scenes based on the EXP:
- 20 EXP: Hard DC of Task Level of APL, or if limited option then Normal DC of Task Level of APL.
- 30 EXP: Very Hard DC of Task Level of APL, or if limited option then Hard DC of Task Level of APL.
- 40 EXP: Impossible DC of Task Level of APL, or if limited option then Very Hard DC of Task Level of APL.
- Consequences: aside from story, the failed characters also receive damage equal to a monster's damage (APL -1 for 20exp, APL for 30exp).
- Critical Success can help improving an Ally's roll result; Critical Failure means double the consequences.
- On each scene, also allows 1 round of Combat, in case healing or buffing is needed.
- Conditions can persist until the end of next scene, or even the end of session, depending on the severity.
Concluding Remarks
Using the simple framework above, planning for the rewards of Microsession could be done with relative ease. This is far from perfect as it is just a simplification, but it could serve to help a 'decent enough' game. One most important note is, due to the lack of interaction and relatively 'free exp', a Microsession should have a good narrative that could lead to improving the campaign, and to provide memorable adventures too.
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