Continuing on from the rules of reality in the Dreamlands, here's how the game sessions themselves will be structured. As you can see, I'm going for a kind of episodic West Marches feel, where a large pool of players can participate in a single campaign, with different PCs joining forces each session to form an adventuring party and continue their explorations.
1. Each session begins with the PCs drinking the Sardo brew and entering the Dreamlands. The name of a monolith may be spoken at this point, if desired. It is the players' responsibility to remember the names of any monoliths they encounter.
2. The referee shall set an alarm clock, determining the end time of the session semi-randomly. A reasonable time should be set, but with enough variance that the players can't predict when the session will stop. When the alarm goes off, that's it -- the PCs awake immediately, bringing with them any treasure on their persons.
3. Any "in town" stuff (planning, buying equipment, learning spells, etc) shall be conducted between sessions, either by each player on his or her own (using appropriate equipment lists and so on), or in consultation with the referee and/or other players via email or whatever.
4. All characters spend 10% of their total wealth between sessions (to be deducted at the end of a session, after XP has been allocated). This covers their (presumably fairly extravagant) living expenses, equipment maintenance, religious offerings, random taxation, and so on.
I really like the monolith system. It's a fun little mechanic.
ReplyDeleteIt was actually inspired by a friend of mine who's into computer RPGs... I was talking to him about my ideas for the Dreamlands, and he suggested the mechanic. Something similar exists in various computer games apparently.
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