At the end of the world . . .

Beyond civilization.

South of the great planes.

Over the most untraveled mountains.

Across the grand desert.

Something stirs.

Restructure in a Fantasy Game

re·struc·ture

rēˈstrək(t)SHər/

verb

1. organize differently.

   "a plan to strengthen and restructure the game"

We have a large group, enough for two games. We have those who like 5th and progressive games and systems that keep with current trends in gaming and those who like old school, change is bad, stick with one system and play it for life.

This gives us room to try things, like splitting up the games and nights. This way we can get some of the things we want, like late night games, RPG Gaming vs. Rule Book Strict Gaming and allows us to choose where we want to go.

Thinking out loud here.

PLAN A:

We have Sunday 6-10, which is lame. 4 hours is not enough time to do anything worth wild. The late start and the early end are not what I am looking for. Pushing the game 6-12 is much better or even 5-11. This gives us a good 6 solid hours of gaming in a night.

We could alternate Sundays. Two weeks of 5th and two weeks of Pathfinder, but we've been here. We've done this many, many times and counting the number of character sheets I have for these games that have come and went, I foresee the same ahead. This also means at the current time only 4 hours of gaming over two sessions a month. 8 hours total in 30 days.

If we pushed the Sunday game to 6-12 with 6 hours, and did the trade off 2 for 2, you pick up an extra 4 hours or one extra play session a month. So your two weekends becomes the equivalent of three having a 6 hour game. Now three games of 5th or three games of Pathfinder can be played in two weekends a month.
PLAN B:

Of course Sunday is taken. So my plan is Saturday nights 7-1. This is perfect time, as it's a later starting game, going late into the night and still a solid 6 hours of gaming. Now for me and maybe many others, Sunday morning is a day which we may have to work. For me it's every second Sunday and I start at 9am. This would allow me to get out of work Saturday night, play late, and either one weekend have Sunday off not having to get up or still give me enough time to sleep before working Sunday.

The later start means more serious and getting into the game right away. All the supper stuff is done, the sun is down and it's time to game. The playing till 1 am means that after game on a Saturday night with a possible day off Sunday we can go out for a beer, get some food, hang out at someones house talking gaming or get in a game of something on a console not worrying about Monday.

PLAN C:

Splitting the group is easy. We have 9 people including DM's. This is perfect for making two groups, one of 4 and one of 3 (Not counting DM's). Saturday's game can be played with a mere group of 3 for Pathfinder, while the more popular Sunday's game having 4. Most have expressed interested in only playing one game and while we don't want to keep starting a second game and end it only months later over and over, this is a way to keep it thriving for time.

Now obstacles for this would have to be places to play. Lately we have had many places to play and with returning players we might have even more. However this hinges on everyone being able to play late at one of these places if the host can't have it loud into the night. I would have to get a bigger table for here, but can make due for 3 players currently. Also car's are an issue at the moment until something comes along, but the concept is what I am aiming for.

Running two games & late night atmosphere

13 years this fall of 2015 we have been playing and the game is entirely different now vs. over the years. Now we play Sunday nights from approx 6 pm to 10 pm.

In the past we would play from 5 pm to about 12 Midnight, then it got shortened to 11 pm. Somewhere over time we pushed back the start time to allow for getting kids supper and settled and move to 6 pm and then with early am jobs we shortened the game from 11 pm to 10 pm.

I am no fan of this new short game, finding that before a good 5 room dungeon with a good 2-3 combat based encounters would take the night, now is changed to 1-2 rooms and allows one fight. I know life changes and job's start early (as do mine 7:30 am Monday's and every 2nd weekend 8 am sat and 9 am Sun), but with Dan's wanting to run a second game we can look at a few new options.

• Our game continues Sunday night like always and Dan's game is a Friday or Saturday night running late enough to compensate for people who work am, but allowing going super late for the alternate weekends (if applies) where we don't have to work am.
• Our game switches with Dan's, allowing him to run the Sunday slot, and move Pale Moon to a new night, running late night games. (Again based a bit on schedule)

I will provide some reasons for this later desired game in a sec below. 

Also ideas on the second game. Is it to be a pathfinder based game or a 5th edition based game? Is the game in his world or set in Pale Moon? Just some points I wasn't to clear on. Do we still run our gaming group under our "Under the Pale Moon Gaming" or do we have maybe some new players for each game, making new game groups?

Today my wife had "The Gamer's" on when I got home so I sat down and watched some of it. The main thing I liked and had forgotten about was the late night game mentality. In the past we ran late, we were always dead tired by the end of the game in that stay up late kinda way and I liked it. 

In the movie they play late, one game ran to 2 am for example and after each game the player go out to celebrate at a local waffle house. This reminds me of me and buddy's going out to a place like "The Husky" which is a 24/7 truck stop diner. You can get breakfast at 3 am if you wanna. I really like this feeling of "Hey I don't work in the am" and going out to talk more about gaming, chill and get some food before taking off for the night. 

Before this I was also looking a lot at small articles in my Dragon magazines which had to do with "3 am Games" and a series of RPG books called "Midnight". I have always like the feel of late night gaming and want to do some. My campaign setting as always has been dark, inspired greatly by Ravenloft, Diablo and Conan, the world is generally not sunny and the PC's don't travel and quest by mid afternoon daylight. In fact most games are based in the late fall with overcast skies and constant storms.

Some exceptions were the great journey south to bright sunlight and brilliant blue skies of the Savage Continent, but that was a rare exception. Most games, were uncovering a secret in a haunted town at night by lantern light, or treading through the snows of the elven lands in cover of darkness to infiltrate a demons tower, going down into the ground to the Underdark or through a portal to the shadow plane at times even traveling to the dread realm it's self Ravenloft to raid a castle or stop a villain.

Many games include vampires and werewolves, late night creatures and taverns with suspicious characters who venture in after dark looking for entertainment. This is no change to what, we play just a more insightful look at our sad, dim world which rot's under the pale moons influence. As in the write up the people of this world are broken and depressed, the common city dweller can be driven mad by the influence of the lingering moon and never travels outside the safety of the walls.

Ok the end was rambling, but what I wanted to take from this was if there were two games up, what do we want to play and what night best works for everyone? There are going to be lot's of scheduling conflicts, but I think two games is good for the group and allows a more diverse party. Thoughts?

So what are the plains? What is a walled city? Why am I frozen to death?

Let's think about what "The Plains" are exactly. Well according to Wikipedia "Plains" are worded as "In geography, a plain is a flat area." 

Hmm well this is very confusing still. Let us look at an example "The Great Plains" in real life. Again taken from Wikipedia "The Great Plains is the broad expanse of flat land, much of it covered in prairie, steppe and grassland, that lies west of the Mississippi River tallgrass prairiestates and east of the Rocky Mountains in the United States and Canada. This area covers parts, but not all, of the states of Colorado, Kansas, Montana,Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, and Wyoming, and the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The region is known for supporting extensive cattle ranching and dry farming.

The Canadian portion of the Plains is known as the Prairies. Some geographers include some territory of northern Mexico in the Plains, but many stop at theRio Grande."

Below is the accompanying photo

Here are some other examples of "Plains" as you can see if this was winter and one was alone in this area for miles and miles and hours upon hours and had no where to shelter as the photos shows, as well as no way to make a fire with the clear lack of trees and the clear lack of animals and food I believe one would be fucked. 

Here are some winter examples:

Again as we can see, there is NO shelter, this is NO food and there is NO firewood about for a campfire. Understanding geological features should be easier with these illustrations to show you the vast plains that encompass our main walled city and why yes just hours from it, it is desolate.

Let's take a second to consider a walled city on the plains. Below are some examples to illustrate the point.

These are examples of a major walled city surrounded by low laying plains. I hope this helps to give a better understanding of why it would be a terrible, terrible, terrible idea to wander out into the plains in the dead of winter with no supplies, no landmark, goals' or shelter.

Let's finally take a look at what would happen if you did such a think and laid on the ground in -10 weather for the night.

Again I hope this illustrates the bad time you would have if you attempted such a thing and why an ill-formed party, plan or adventure could take a terrible turn . . .

Setting up camp May 2015

Adventuring Time Spent:

Estimated 48 days or 1.75 months of adventuring so far. As well as time lost while spent on the Savage Continent in the south (Est. 1/month), which puts us at about 2.75 months in.

(Journey to southern haunted town 15/d; north to Rankin 3/d; tower of the mage and Rankin 3/d; home to Ashura begin journey south 1/week; southern adv 3/d; ship to space 1/week; space and Torch town 5/day; ready to return home with an estimated 5/days journey.)

Starting in "Early Fall" (sept), would be almost end of "Late Fall" (nov), however adding in time from southern journey puts us approx end of "Early Winter" (dec).

Assuming all goes well, we should reach Ashura almost "Mid Winter". At this point the PC's have to decide if they are going to settle in for the winter or continue to adventure during the cold months.

On lands and taxes:

Based off several factors and only being gone (rounded up) 3 months and one of said months being in the winter which is past harvest season and farming is done until spring. Assuming the average farmer makes between 10-20 gold a month or so and that a % of this would be taxed the PC's aren't going to get rich renting out to farmers.

While renting land to farmers will add income, it will not be substantial and furthermore the land is still taxed by the crown. Basically having farmer on your land will negate any monthly upkeep fee you owe the city in taxes.

Goals and Achievements:

As we adventure as a Pathfinders group, helping her to accomplish tasks for her patron we become more and more known. Here are some of the goals we've achieved

• Recovered a Scroll of Prophecy
• Recovered a magical orb that controls weather
• Gained information on a magical artifact called the "Time Egg"
• Gained information on a magical helm which allows a ship to fly through space
• Gained information on a distant world about "Technology", other worlds and foreign plants as well as recovered a new race called an Android and a girl who speaks a distant language

Who's left standing:

• Mentys the Fighter / Jeff
• Er'Sul the Alchemist / Ryan
• Vix the Cleric / Drake
• Oscar the Ranger / Shane
• Kit the Rogue / Dan
• Remy the Sorcerer / Eddie (Waiting at the Tavern)
• Poshmint the Summoner / James (Waiting at the Tavern)

Spell Jammin

A great ending to a starbound campaign! 

The PC's board the vessel of Captain Krista "Jugs" Moorcastle and her crew which has been outfitted with a magical spelljamming helm found buried in the lost southern Savage Continent. 

Simple barmaid turned pirate whore

Once aboard the PC's are in for a wild ride through the very stars! They pass the moon and can clearly see what appears to be a forest upon the surface, however with the speed the ship moves once away from the gravity of their planet the group quickly find themselves in deep space fighting a void dragon. 

Krista gives the order to activate the Numerian device and opens are portal to a distant galaxy. Here the party is sucked in by the new planets gravity and sent down to the world below the hard way. 

They set out with Gen to explore the new planet, while the captain fixes her ship, readies it for sail and does some exploring of her own. 

In the small town of Torch the PC's quickly find they are needed to re-ignite the torch that has gone out so the smiths can craft skymetal again. They befriend a young alchemist girl named Val who is a great aid to them as they go under black mountain to save her father figure and learn what has caused the town much trouble. 

They end up thwarting an android clerics plans and re-igniting Torches forge, saving the town from poverty. 

Now they set sail for home, back to Ashura.