Installing Disease Procedures

Once you've got a calendar and the players are used to switching their characters in and out for whatever reasons, you can institute disease rules. I really don't know whether I'm going to use these long term or not but I want to test them out with my guys in the coming weeks.

On the Calends, each player checks disease for each of his PCs and NPCs. One check a month is fine. If they come up sick, there was probably some incubation period.

A Mild illness lasts 1d3 weeks. It precludes adventuring and fighting in wars, but not other activities.
A Severe illness precludes all activities. It lasts 1d2 weeks and taxes the patient 50% of his Hit Points, which will then recover normally. It is followed by 1d2 weeks as Mild.
A Terminal illness lasts 1d12 days, then demands a Save vs. Poison each morning, or die. Effects of a Terminal disease are permanent until healed through magic or something similarly fantastic.

If at any time STR, or DEX reach 0, the character is in a coma at zero Hit Points.
If at any time INT or CON reach 0, the character is dead.
If at any time WIS reaches zero, the character cannot receive meaningful sensory information.
If at any time CHA reaches zero, the character has lost the ability to communicate whatsoever.

Cure Disease can fix almost any disease. A hedge wizard, witch, druid or priest may have knowledge that will help a character or even cure them. These services come at a price. 

Quick Hits II

Only PCs and Retainers level up! And then, only Retainers with character levels. Ones with only Hit Dice do not. 

Any other characters befriended or employed by the PCs stay as they are while so employed, unless promoted to Retainer. 

Monthly rotation:

On the calends, check for disease

On the second week, pay upkeep/rent

On the ides, we check for omens

On the fourth week, there is market day and possible rumors. 

Running Downtime

Once the several players get the hang of it, downtime is as satisfying as open expedition season is. As a reminder, here is the world calendar. 

Orange is Harvest, Yellow is Haven, Pink is Holiday, Blue is Open, Green is Sunday and Purple is War. 

During Harvest and on Sunday, every injured character heals a hit point and disease-like conditions progress. They may also hear rumors. No action is permitted. 

During Holidays, hit points and conditions progress; the players may hear rumors; and they will interact with townsfolk. This means they can have safe, in-town adventures and advance subplots. Merchants will have their best stuff and enough money to buy the most valuable items from players. It is also the best time and place to recruit henchmen and specialists and to disseminate information (true or false.)

During War, players will hear revelations but not of a personal nature, for any and all couriers will be carrying military information. An exception to this is if a PC is called to his lord’s Court to join the war council or diplomatic effort. 

During Haven, the weather is too bad to go on expeditions. Players can do anything except proper dungeon or hex adventuring. This is the time for romance, politics, and the deaths of characters in the story, PC and NPC alike. The characters can also write scrolls and make other magic items. 

During Open season, the players can do anything including adventure, but are still bound by the structure of Sundays and the allure of Holiday festivals.

One job of the Referee (or alternatively the calendarian) is to let the table know what seasons are coming. Letting the players know will help them better plan their character’s activities. 

Don’t be afraid to run some downtime events away from the table, especially one-on-one events. Use texts, calls, emails or in-person visits. 

Downtime is great because the Referee really gets to hand the world over to the players. “What is your character doing?” is a much more open-ended question thence. 

If Haven (especially) is coming up, give the players plenty of notice, preferably at the end of the session prior to the season change. 

When downtime comes, remind the several players what the possible game activities are. Then ask someone to offer his character’s course of action. Once the players get the hang of it, they will have lists ready to go for each of their characters. 

When you give them advance warning and then again when the calendar changes, the Ref will recapitulate as follows. 

Frame the story so far. 

Clarify story hooks. 

Define downtime options again. Here are some you can mention:

• Build a Stronghold
• Craft Items
• Gain Renown (perhaps throw money around, suck up to the Lord, or undertake public works.)
• Practice a Profession
• Recuperate 
• Research
• Perform Sacred Rites
• Plan a Heist
• Run a Business
• Seek Romance
• Sell Magic Items or Valuables 
• Sow Rumors
• Squander
• Train Retainers
• Train to Your Next Level

Such downtime activities help tie characters to the story.

The season will change again of course, but you will find, more and more, the players want their characters to do more than just kill the orc and take his pie. 

The Aluvian Calendar

 For the year 998:

Click to embiggen

During the Harvest, everyone in town must help. If a character isn't sick, dead, or aiding the harvest, he will be hanged on October 7th.

During Haven, the weather is too bad to go on adventures in the dungeon or overland, but characters can take care of indoor business.

During Holiday, exertion is strictly prohibited. Daily fines are 10 GP plus 100 GP per character level. 

During Open season, there are no restrictions on character actions.

On Sunday, no business will be done. Characters who are already out of town can keep moving (although they really shouldn't.) Clerics who exert themselves on Sunday will find they have no spells for eight days and nights. 

I rule that Anticlerics can work normally on Sunday. Instead, they are similarly restricted from sundown on Friday to sundown on Saturday. You could do that too, or that might be too complicated for your group.

During War, the characters must be available to the war effort in some capacity. No adventuring or other business takes place. Refusing this duty is desertion, which is, again, a hanging offense. 

Life and Death

People age. In a campaign that observes and honors Father Time, characters will get old and die (except for Elves, who don't.)

We presume that the character has made it to majority. For Men and Hobbits, this is age 16-21 on March 1st their first year, unless the player decides to make them older. 

When the character then enters play, we generate its birthdate with 1d12 for the month, followed by  1d32 for the day of the month. (Use this dice roller.) If these rolls result in a date that doesn't exist in real life, then the player will pick the birthdate. The character was born under an auspicious star. It gets a +1 CHA and +1 to all saves permanently. 

Regardless of the figure's actual birthdate, the calendar matriculates on March 1, the start of the spring season. The character gains a year and we check for aging effects. 

At Middle Age,  add 1 to each mental stat and subtract 1 from each physical stat. At each subsequent age category, subtract 1 from each physical stat.

Morbidity:

When a character is old, the Referee shall throw each spring to see if they will die in the following winter. If so, he will throw to set the date of death. Both of these throws will be held in secret. (It makes sense though for the Ref to mark that day on the calendar. When it approaches, you may want to tell the player beforehand so it is not a complete surprise.) 

Starting at age 55, Men have a 20% chance to die of old age the following winter. That chance goes up 1% every subsequent year. 

Dwarfs start getting old at 82. At that age, they have a 10% chance to die the following winter, which increases by 2 every third year. 

Elfs do not have natural morbidity. 

Starting at age 70, Hobbits have a 20% chance to die the following winter. That chance goes up 1% every subsequent year. 

A character who is slated to die will die d% days after November 30. 

On Time

Gary famously said that you can’t have a meaningful campaign without strict timekeeping. He had his reasons and they were good reasons: an open table with up to 50 players playing in the same campaign world, dropping in and out as their schedule permitted. He has to keep strict time to keep the events of the campaign world straight for all of them! 

Even if your campaign has different pressures and challenges than his early campaigns did, you will benefit from strict timekeeping as well. 

In my campaign, we observe several time periods. 

The Round is one minute long. This is good for fights, chases, holding your breath, beating the clock. 

The Turn is ten minutes. This is good for exploration and problem-solving, torches and wandering monsters.

The Day is good for overland travel. It measures off healing, spell recovery, and brewing a potion among other things. 

The week is good for spells and spell research. In my game, there are quite a few weeks during which adventuring is quite impossible, due to festivals, harvests, wars, diseases, bad omens, terrible weather, and simply healing up. Characters can spend some of those weeks doing other things like courting maidens and writing scrolls, for instance.

The season is helpful in the same way weeks are. 

The year is very important because characters age and the state of the world at large will change. Favorite NPCs will die. PCs will retire and die. Babies who were born will come of age, and become potential PCs or helpful NPCs themselves. 

I keep a calendar for this reason, with regular events and chances for unusual ones. There are “blue” weeks which are good for adventuring; “yellow” weeks which are good for town events; and “red” weeks and days, where characters are all going to be indisposed. 

For in-game time, once into the dungeon and out again is usually one day, but sometimes longer if the several characters camp out somewhere. 

No one moves or works on Sundays, Christian or not. Exertion is forbidden across Aluvia. There are other days when activity is strictly prohibited for religious reasons as well. 

I’ve tried renaming the weekdays and months. It’s unnecessarily complicated. Saying January and Tuesday is much easier on the brain and doesn’t break verisimilitude. 

NEXT TIME: Character Age and Aging