Remember, it is your responsibility to find ways to bring this homework into actual play. I will help and will try to incorporate what I can, but the rest is up to you. Meta-discussion of how you would like to bring it into play (e.g., "I think it would be awesome if my demon-worshiping brother was our guild contact") is highly welcome! Also, you only gain the experience points when the homework is posted to this blog; excepting the extra xp for coolness and other such value judgments, you can just log the new experience when you post.
EXPERIENCE WHICH CAN BE EARNED BEFORE MARCH 5TH, 2013
Character Background - Up to 350 xp
Create a convincing character background. For every two words of story that are written, your character gets one experience point, to a maximum of 200 xp. There are an additional 150 xp floating around for interesting ideas, amusing incidents and the number of useable adventure hooks.
Character Appearance - Up to 100 xp
A written description of your character is worth 50 xp. A picture, either hand-drawn or photocopied from another source, is worth an additional 50 xp.
Create an NPC - 150 xp.
Create a description of somebody your character has very strong feelings about. Perhaps an enemy, a long lost love, a family member, etc. Your character gets 1xp for every two words written, to a maximum of 100. Providing a picture or written description of the NPC is worth an additional 50 xp.
Questionnaire - up to 250 xp
Complete a questionnaire on behalf of your character. Give as short or long an answer as you wish. The base experience point award will be 150 points (5 per question answered), but there will be a bonus of 100 xp for imaginative, amusing or particularly insightful answers.
1. Who is the most important person in your life?
2. Where do you want to be in 20 years time?
3. What are you most scared of?
4. What makes you happy?
5. What is your idea of a good evenings entertainment?
6. If you were not an adventurer, what would you be?
7. What item would you not live without?
8. When was the last time you cried?
9. When do you want to have children?
10. If you were an animal, what would you be?
11. What is your favorite bard song?
12. Do you prefer the town or the country? Why?
13. What was the last thing that made you laugh?
14. If made to decide, would you rather be deaf or blind? Why?
15. What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?
16. If you had to describe yourself in five adjectives, what would they be?
17. How do you want to die?
18. What is the worst thing someone has done to you?
19. Who do you admire?
20. How much is a pint of mead?
21. How old are you?
22. What was your family life like?
23. Where are you from?
24. How did you become the character class you are?
25. When did you meet your companions?
26. How has power changed you?
27. What do you think of mortals?
28. What motivates you to be a hero?
29. Who or what do you worship?
30. What would drive you to commit murder?
Recent History - 200 xp
There is only one limitation on your recent history - it ends with you being hired by Garavel to join the caravan attempting to reclaim kel-Maraneh. Write about your character's thoughts of the two months leading up to this event. You should describe their feelings of the current situation and what positive and negative things have happened to them. Maybe they would like to comment on how your character feels about being sent to a new and strange area. You get 1xp for every two words written, up to a maximum of 200 xp
Home Region - up to 300 xp.
Detail your characters homeland/village/suburb/tribe. The campaign world is still pretty open to player invntion at the moment. Go crazy and do whatever you want. Up to 100 xp will be awarded for a map of the region, while up to 200 xp will be awarded for a description of the area, its local history and government, as well as a general idea of important NPC’s of the region. There is no real favoritism displayed on the type of region you choose. Writing about a small town is worth just as much as a general country/ society overview.
TOTAL EXPERIENCE POSSIBLE: 13450 xp (!)
EXPERIENCE WHICH CAN BE GAINED BETWEEN SESSIONS AFTER MARCH 5, 2013
Party Relationship - up to 100 xp.
This task can only be completed after the first session. Write a paragraph or two on how your character feels about each of the other individuals in the group. You get awarded 1 xp for every two words written, to a maximum of 100 xp.
Journalling - up to 400 xp
Write something describing the events of the previous session or any other session previous, provided you haven't journalLed it already. Include character reactions and such. 1 xp per 2 words, maximum 400 xp.
Repeated Assignments - Varies
Between sessions, you can repeat ONE and only ONE of the assignments in the first section of this document for the same number of xp. You can repeat any of the assignments at any time (i.e., if after the first session, you create a second NPC, you can still describe your home region after third session), and you can only gain the xp if the assignment is significantly different than any of the previous versions of the assignment (meaning that the questionnaire is unlikely to be often repeated).
TOTAL EXPERIENCE POSSIBLE: 500+ xp per inter-session period
EXPERIENCE TO BE GAINED IN PLAY
Cookies - up to 200 xp
Every player is given ONE and only ONE cookie at the beginning of every session. They may not eat this cookie. It is to give to someone who did something they thought was cool. They may NOT give it to themselves. Each cookie is worth 50 xp at first level.
Food - 50 xp
If a player brings food for the group (and I mean both enough and of the right nature to be consumed by the entire group), they gain 50 xp.
Resolve a Condition - 50+ xp
See the upcoming Conditions post.
Fulfill an Aspiration – up to 150 xp
At character creation, choose three Aspirations for your character. Aspirations are goals for your character. They’re also statements to your DM that show the types of stories you want to play through.
Aspirations are simple statements of intent; things that can be accomplished within the scope of the game you’re playing. If you’re playing a single session, be sure to choose realistic and short-term goals or goals that are already very close to fruition. If you’re playing a single story arc that should span a few weeks of game time, choose similar short-term goals, with one expressing longer-term interests. Even if you’re set to play a game you intend on running a year or more, don’t choose more than one very long-term goal. Ideally you should be able to accomplish at least one of these Aspirations per game session.
It’s important to phrase Aspirations as active achievements or accomplishments. Do not phrase them as avoidances. “Do not betray my friends” isn’t really an appropriate Aspiration. Instead, consider “Prove my loyalty to my friends.” Phrasing as an action as opposed to a lack of action helps to determine when the Aspiration is met and when it should be rewarded.
When choosing Aspirations, use them to help to customize your character and give her identity and purpose outside of whatever plots the DM cooks up. Find a balance between being general enough that the statements can be fulfilled realistically, and being specific enough to inform on your character’s identity. Use the listed examples as a jumping off point.
If you’re interested in seeing certain things happen to your character, note them as Aspirations. Or if you expect something to occur, it would be worth noting it. If you know tonight’s story will deal with an angry ghost with a penchant for eating human flesh and you never seem to roll well when your character’s using her Medium Merit, it’s worth using as an Aspiration. In that example, you might phrase it, “Fail in communicating with the dead.” That way, while your character might fail in her efforts against the ghost, you’ll be rewarded for achieving the Aspiration.
Sample Aspirations: Achieve a promotion at work; Make something that’ll outlast me; Prove my loyalty to the team; Show myself I’m not cursed; Give something important to someone in need; Put myself in mortal danger; Forget responsibility and enjoy myself; Get a new car; Show restraint when tempted; Indulge my addiction; Say my last goodbyes; Volunteer at the cancer center; Meet a ghost; Interview my idol; Plant a garden; Show respect to my enemies; Establish a new identity; Learn what hurts shapeshifters; Have a one-night stand; Escape jail; Replace my broken guitar; Tell a long-kept secret; Say no without regrets
Sample Long-Term Aspirations: Put my daughter’s ghost to rest; Take control of the company; Become a parent; Take down the mayor; Outlive my boss; Pass on my most important skill; Become fully independent; Bring an end to the Chosen of Mammon; Find the witch that cursed my family; Become independently wealthy; Master my chosen art; Become a vampire; Find my soul mate; Prove my father was wrong about me; Buy back our ancestral home; Show the world that fairies are real; Open a branch in three nations; Become psychic; Uncover my mother’s killer’s identity; Find an unknown biblical gospel; Prove my uncle wasn’t insane; Discover the cure for mortality
For the first session of play, you might not have a good enough sense of your character to choose Aspirations. I recommend you give it a try anyway, and if during the first session the Aspirations you’ve chosen just don’t fit with the way you’re playing the character, change them. No harm, no foul.
After you’ve started playing the character, you might still find that an Aspiration becomes inappropriate or that it becomes impossible to fulfill. For example, a character might have a long-term Aspiration of “buy back our ancestral home.” During the third chapter of the story, the home burns down. Buying it back is now impossible. Or, for a less dramatic twist on that premise, what if the character discovers that his family has been using that land to conduct unholy overtures and sacrifices to the God-Machine for decades. Maybe the character doesn’t want the place anymore. What does that mean for the Aspiration?
If circumstances warrant it, a player can change Aspirations between chapters with the DM’s approval. This shouldn’t become a way to ditch goals that aren’t coming together quickly enough. Rather, it’s an option to keep the character’s goals in line with the natural flow of the story.
If your character fulfills an Aspiration, you gain 50 xp. At the end of the game session, replace the Aspiration. Choosing a new Aspiration is an excellent activity between games or to handle before the next game session.
Critical Failure – 10+ xp
Whenever a player rolls a critical failure, they gain 10 xp, plus 1 xp for each subsequent “level” of critical failure (i.e., for each “1” rolled after the first)
You may choose to turn any normal failure into a critical failure once per session. Should you do so, you gain 20 xp instead of 10.
Critical Success – 5+ xp
Whenever a player rolls a critical success, they gain 5 xp, plus 1 xp for each subsequent “level” of critical success (i.e., for each “20” rolled after the first)
Getting Nearly Killed – 100 xp
Gain 100 xp for every combat in which your character is reduced to 25% or less of their hit points.
Showing Up – 25 xp
You receive 25 xp simply for showing up to the session.
Carousing – ?? xp
If you end a session in an appropriate place, you can purchase xp with gold by rolling on the carousing table.
TOTAL EXPERIENCE POSSIBLE: ??? xp
INCREASED EXPERIENCE AWARD BY LEVEL
To reflect the fact that the number of experience points necessary to advance in level increases each level, certain of these awards (player relationship, journalling, cookies, food, resolving conditions, aspirations, critical failure, critical success, getting nearly killed, and showing up) will increase in size by 25% each level.
For example, the maximum xp award for a party relationship is as follows (this just so happens to also be the percentage by which the other awards can be multiplied):
1st level: 100 xp
2nd level: 125 xp
3rd level: 156 xp
4th level: 195 xp
5th level: 244 xp
6th level: 305 xp
7th level: 381 xp
8th level: 476 xp
9th level: 596 xp
10th level: 745 xp
11th level: 931 xp
12th level: 1164 xp
13th level: 1455 xp
14th level: 1818 xp
15th level: 2276 xp
16th level: 2842 xp
17th level: 3552 xp
18th level: 4440 xp
19th level: 5551 xp
20th level: 6938 xp
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