2022/23 - Woodshire

Contact: Woodshiregms@gmail.com

In-Character Information

IC announcement posted to Community Boards in Stow, Woodford on Ash, Woodbury and a couple of postings around the Barony, including in Heusenburg:

FUNDS AND PERMISSIONS GRANTED FOR NEW MILITIA!

It has been announced by the Lady Aspall that a grant has been issued for a new militia to be formed in the region of Woodford on Ash. Posts are provisionally for a year, with the possibility to extend subject to the success or failure of the unit. A wage of 1G/patrol is offered.

Applicants should present themselves at Woodford on Ash by the last week of the harvest for enrollment. The patrols are to begin from the autumn.

IC information that is commonly known about the area:

To the north-east of the Barony lies the region of Woodford. Bordering both the Orcish Wastes and the Highlands, it was originally settled in a frontier manner a couple of generations ago, and is now starting to transition from ‘border settlement’ to ‘stable township’. The area is known to include several towns, a mine, an Archive for the temple of freedom, and a local market, hospital, courts and temples, and sits in a locale with both forested and farmland regions. The most common religious affiliation is with Might, followed by Balance and Druidism, but the area is still within the Barony, and thus subject to the standard Justice based legal system. Lady Aspall is the honorary Defender in charge of the area.

More in depth IC information, including a map, may be found on the site here.

Out-of-Character Information

On an OOC basis, this is a skeleton outline for the local area. The GMs are happy to (and will if needed) fully flesh-out the entire area, including local flavour and NPCs, but for this campaign we are offering players the opportunity to have their character have grown up and lived in the area prior to the campaign’s start. For those that remember it, this is similar to the Shire campaign setup. Whilst the main thrust of the IC advert is asking characters to join the Woodshire militia, if your character wishes to get involved to help support and patrol (whilst not being strictly under oath) then that’s fine. There are a number of influential NPCs who can ask for their interests to be overseen by a plucky patrollee without joining.

Therefore we invite players to specify their family, position and history within the area and, within reason, we will write it into the setting. The most important thing is that the setting isn’t meant to be homework. If you have a concept but not the time to read through the setting then you are welcome to submit a character (resident or not) and we’ll work with you to make them fit. If you’d rather talk to us about an idea before reading then we’re happy to signpost you to information or to talk you through it.

So that we can avoid first-come-first-served-itis, can meld everyone’s character concepts into the area and resolve any clashes, we are asking all submissions to be made by the 11th August 2022. We then hope to have the setting published and finalised by the first week of September, which will then include everyone’s character details publicised as appropriate so you, the players, can then work out who would know who.

If you do not want your character to be that involved or have a separate concept where they come from elsewhere, this is fine as well and your character will be a newcomer to the area. Characters will gain different things from being a resident or a newcomer so don’t feel like one way is better than another. Similarly, if you are not interested in playing, we would be very grateful for anyone who would like to adopt a long term NPC for the area that requires phys-repping. Please get in touch with the GMs if this is the case.

There are currently no restrictions (outside those given by the char refs) on legal races and guilds for characters. Existing characters are welcome to join the campaign when the games reach an appropriate level, but they will need to either move to the area or provide a reason why they are getting involved despite not being a resident. Please don’t hesitate to ask us about any ideas that you have, we’re happy to chat via your preferred medium.

What We Need From You!

At a minimum, we would like your character’s name, age, pronouns, race, class and guild, along with a sentence or two of backstory and what their day job is. If your character is not from the local area and does not have a complicated backstory, provided we receive this by the 19th Sept, this is fine.

At a maximum, we would like the above, plus a completed character questionnaire (see below), plus the names, ages and occupations for their family, plus no more than 2 A4 pages of backstory. If the number of NPCs in your character’s family exceeds 10, we may need to have a word about logistics. If you would like your character’s backstory to be part of the local area, it must be received by 11th August 2022. If you miss the first round then don’t worry, you are welcome to join the setting later as either a resident or a traveller and we will do our best to fit your character in. It may be that you want to wait and see what others are doing.

What You Can Expect From Us & Vice Versa

This is a heroic campaign where you will get to be The Good Guys in a player-versus-enemy scenario. We hope to get you emotionally invested, and have a decent set of reasons why your characters get to be the big damn heroes, rather than having high level NPCs ride to the rescue. While there may occasionally be different objectives given to individual characters, at no point will we write a game or scenario that can only be resolved by PvP. We will have NPCs overseeing the party and available for escalations and mediations in cases of conflicts which are making people struggle. While there may be games which involve horror elements, these will be clearly warned ahead of time and structured in such a way that you do not need to interact with these to participate. There will be a limited
downtime system, and we will strive to let you play your character in as 3-dimensional a manner (or not if you prefer!) as we can.

From the players we expect people to cooperate with the games and with each other. We expect everyone to keep in mind this is a game where everyone, including GMs and monsters, are supposed to have fun, and all should participate with one eye on enabling both your own enjoyment and that of other people. At the same time, this is a system where death and failure are possible, and sometimes actions, through bad choices or sheer luck, have consequences, and players should be aware of this. While the GMs will do their best to include everything people want, there are logistical limits and we are both mortal humans with full time jobs and sleep requirements, and there may come points where we have to say no. Similarly, while we delight in character building exercises like downtime roleplay, we have limited time and energy, so we would like people to refrain from any downtime roleplay that would require GM involvement (going for a meal or a stroll is fine. Claiming you have defended a battlement from invading shambling mounds is not) or involves combat that has a risk of death. Similarly, if such downtime RP causes enough emotional impact that it may affect a character’s uptime behaviour, we would appreciate being sent a very short summary of what happened. We would also ask everyone refamiliarise themselves with the Sensitive Topics section of the code of conduct and bear this in mind in terms of backstory and roleplay.

The wiki on Scabard will be a living site that will reflect changes. It is possible to sign up (for free) to the site and register as a player (we’ll create a small page for your character) which means you can receive email alerts of the updates. The site will only ever contain public information that can be heard be rumour or found out through formal channels, it will not contain private character information.

Extras To Be Aware Of:

There will be a limited downtime system,where you may choose from a list of options to take. The results of this downtime will be given to you on either Saturday evening or the Sunday morning before a game, with the intention that you react to any outcomes on the game itself. The downtime system is designed to add extra flavour for those who want to participate and have the time to do so; if you cannot, your character will not be left behind. It is possible to set a ‘default action’ for your character that they will perform in the absence of any other directive.

The campaign is planned to be 15 games plus a 36 hour, running Sept-May. Priority will be given to new players first, followed by play/monster ratios. We ask existing players to plan their attendance and play requests accordingly.

There may occasionally be opportunities for a third person to act as a coGM or monster wrangler for us, either in addition to Emma and James or to replace one of us if we have to miss a game. If interested, please let us know.

We are tentatively planning at least one IC meal. If there is zero interest, we will scrap this, and conversely if there is a lot of demand, we will do more than one.