Living Citadel

The Living Citadel campaign is an episodic, open table, dynamic, rolling campaign. It is a dynamic, persistent, shared setting. What all of this means is that it's available for anyone, with any character, whenever you want to play. Basically, I'm trying to set up the absolute most informal premise for regular or irregular gaming possible. Easiest without just playing Progress Quest, at least. This will be something of a city-based West Marches style campaign. Show up when you can. Show up when you want to.

Citadel is a big place. There's lots to explore, see, do, screw, screw up, buy, sell, and break. And that's just Infernus. It's huge. It's old. It's complex. It's exciting. It's busy. It's also still not nearly to the occupancy that it was years ago before the zombies. There's lots to do. There's plenty of room for growth, and it's rather easily accomplished. I'm making this a Citadel and environs campaign, focused mostly around the Roost.

Rules
Okay, here are the rules; there are three of them. One is that any two or more players can grab me for a session, pretty much anytime. There is no more game night, at least not right now. Any night is now potentially game night. Rule two is that any one player can hit me up for some one-on-one game stuff. It's not an actual play session, but spoken bluebook/admin type stuff. Or, we can talk mechanics and shit over some brews. Rule three is that anyone can use the website. We have a whole board dedicated to exactly this sort of shit, just sitting there empty. You don't have to start a new PbP; just post what you're doing or saying like it was across the table, and people will hopefully respond. Yes, you get experience for that.

All right, all right, there's more than three rules. Rule number four is the Game Master lies, apparently.

For your own sanity, and the Game Master's, try not to wander too far for too long. You can make it to any of several nearby villages in a day, and other towns within a few day's walk (i.e. within that one session). Or, boats can take you hella far and back again in fairly short order, compared with walking everywhere. If you end the session in or near Citadel you'll be alright.

While I'm not going to worry overmuch about timelines—why start now—the only way that some of these things are going to work is that events absolutely must be sequential. The events of your session yesterday happened before this afternoon's—no matter who all showed up for either—and forum posts between the two happened during that interval. Trust me, if we don't do it this way, it'll start driving everyone bonkers trying to deal with forked timelines.

Expansions
Play whichever of your characters you want. Anyone who can conceivably be in or get to Citadel is open. We're going for easily accessible fun, rather than a coherent solitary narrative. Play a Mineran character if you want, but it's up to you to figure out how you are getting to and from.

To maybe help people out, I'm expanding a couple of other options. One is that you can run as many characters at once as you can handle. Use the augmented secondary character guidelines if you'd like. That is, some of your characters could be part of the same organisation, one could be the employer of a couple others, one of your characters could be the protégée of another, et cetera. Play twins, play lovers, play a whole diverse and chaotic cast of malcontents, play a whole damned army if you'd like. Experience points only go so far, so I don't foresee this being terribly abused.

The second expansion is that anyone who wants to can be a Game Master. I don't care if this is just roping some poor half-drunk schlub into a one-off outside the pub, or if you are willing and able to make a regularly scheduled cohesive campaign out of it. The caveat is that the things that happen in game, frelling happened. Adjust your liquor intake accordingly. Things that happen to the characters in your session affect when they're in mine, and vice-versa. Likewise, big events can shape all of the linked story arcs. Or sandboxing, or whatevs.

Game sessions are not necessarily just a bunch of one-offs. We can—and almost surely will—continue linking adventures together into a broader story. But be advised that, as a Game Master, if you end things on a cliff-hanger, or as a player you wander off early, you might not like the way things play out. If you aren't there to ensure things turn out the way you want them, or another Game Master picks up where you left off, events might go in a completely different direction. Try not to leave too many things hanging. Conversely, deliberately hanging plot threads tend to just sit there, so try not to do that too.

Experience
Experience points are gained for time in play. Each hour of good, quality, productive gaming is worth 200 experience points. This can be a prolonged battle, just roleplaying (where no dice are ever rolled) or a more administrative session where we do lists and maths. These are all good gaming, and get the full award. Just hanging out and BSing is still worth 100 points. It's quality time with your troupe, even if you are just talking about Game of Thrones or something. You are in charge of tracking your own experience. This way, the Game Master doesn't have to note your comings and goings, or how much you are personally gaming.

Bringing in new players for this is a real plus. To incentivise, a new player who shows up with a character and actually plays grants the inviter a thousand experience points. After the new player has played five game sessions (and they don't have to be sequential) the one who invited them gets another five thousand. These awards are per X chromosome. Note that this is 'shows up with a character'. Expecting me to spend the session building a character for you negates this award. Hit me up beforehand if you want help.

Hosting a session is worth 400 points. Bringing a group together is worth 500. Contributing snacks is worth 300. Full meals or lots of beverages is worth 500. Posting online can gain you extra points, whether this is on the Bragging Rights thread, a recap, or blue-booking. It all counts, and is worth at least a hundred points. Furthermore, there are player bounties for contributing to the game world. These include making new: skills, magic traditions, NPCs, maps, weapons, societies, Elder Kingdoms, and other stuff. These are generally worth 200-1500 experience points.

Short sessions are fine. Most experience awards are per-session, so that works out in your favour. Long sessions are even better, using the 100-200 points per-hour award scheme. Using the doubling of experience for a 'good' hour means that the entire troupe is sort of charged with keeping the pacing, but also with keeping the plot entertaining.

What do I need?
So, we're playing in Citadel. We're playing whenever you can get even just a few of you together. Solo stuff is also online or by hitting me up. If you want to play in a given session but can't, we understand, do the forums or something for that day, or set something else up to better accommodate your schedule. We'll adapt, and the game will go on. Trust me, Midian will continue to spin without you for a bit.

Bring your own plot hooks. Since this isn't a standard campaign, the Game Master cannot be expected to maintain a cohesive narrative. It'll be enough of an effort in keeping things straight among the various sessions. Though I'll be throwing out some ideas here and there (during game, on the forums, and just BSing in social settings) you are expected to come up with the things you want to do on your own. Get a session together just for that; that's awesome. I'll be using a modified Lines in the Water mechanic for plot hooks and behind the scenes stuff, but ideally you should have your own agendas.

You just need yourself, a Game Master, and one other player. One-on-one sessions just aren't the same, but you don't need the whole troupe. If you just want your character to do one thing, find a time where you and one other player (plus Game Master) can get together. That's it. I can't make this any simpler or more convenient. Oh, wait, I can: use the forums, Luke. If it's absolutely impossible for you to get one other damned player, do some play-by-post stuff. The same guidelines apply. That is, handle this all piecemeal, and make T-Bone sort it all out. You can just post the things you want to do, get a reply, and go from there. You don't have to get invested in a big, drawn-out, separate forum game if you don't want to.

I don't exactly sleep or work very many hours in a week, so I'm available to Game Master, like, a lot. The longer I go without gaming, the more I want to screw with the ruleset, and the closer Midian comes to looking like a very complex version of Calvinball meets Fear Factor. Or translating the whole game into Lojban. Exclusively in Lojban.

Play any one of your characters you'd like. Play a bunch of them. Swap them out frequently, or play multiple ones at once. I don't care. Play whatever you want to, and can handle. We'll be using the entourage rules and secondary characters as needed anyway, and this isn't exactly a conventional campaign.

You have authority to pull together your own troupe for a session. Need a certain skillset? Ask the player of that character. Don't want to play with a specific individual? Don't invite them.

PCs should come up with their own plot hooks. This is especially true for the Living Citadel Campaign. To this end, each character needs one or more motivations &/or goals. Maybe a motivation and a goal. As an example, Gunna's motivation is to build things, and her goal is reset with each completed project. She now has a (more important) secondary motivation to raise her kids. This applies to NPCs as well. Volgor's motivation is to keep Citadel peaceful and functioning well. His goals are to advertise for citizens of the city and for his pet project: the arena. His former goal was to restore his magic, and his current goal is to find Cassandra and get revenge (oops, too late). An additional motivation is to discover new necromancies. The Librarian's motivation is to stay in the library (and in Midian, without being exorcised/banished). His goal is to read everything, and get new books. Magnus's motivation is more power, and keep his fellow Vampires in check. His goal is to expand Magnose Primera and Infernus. Lucien's motivation is building his legacy. His goals are increasing Infernus, advancing the Brotherhood, and assisting his family behind the scenes (including Gwini and Caerwyn). Clay's motivation is to be liked; his goal is to have a good time. Clay is simple like that.

To make things easier for you and the Game Master for those time you cannot play have an 'off time' default action. That is, what can we assume that your character is doing (if for some reason we need to) when you aren't actively playing? Are you stinking drunk at the Roost? Are you working a day job? Are you researching in your lab or the Library? Are you going shopping? Are you picking up hot guys? Are you practising your fighting skills? Are you just wandering the streets? Are you instead just lazing about, maybe sleeping in your room all day? Not only make a default, but ask at the end of the session (or when the player wanders off…) what their character is doing from there forward. For example, Kritot's default actions are split between working shifts at the CCC and practising fighting. What he's doing next, assuming he can't play next time, is taking care of his mount, Bunny.

You don't need a character to start playing. Ideally, you will have one, but we will make reasonable accommodations for new players. If you are just starting playing Midian you can use an NPC, or use on from the stable of characters drawn up for just such an occasion. Options include: Roosters, bar staff, Aerenidae, Kritot's Bruisers (though the latter are currently on the island of Tataramoa) or patrons of the Roost (admittedly a pretty fucking broad category). We will post these online for public use. Note that these are pick-up characters to be used for future needs, not a pile you can pull from to keep, though I'm kind of okay with people liking a character enough to continue using it.

Living Citadel will remain an episodic open table with an uneven schedule, but the Soul Bay campaign will have an ongoing timeline. Something will occur weekly on the forums regardless.

Keep updated with the blackboard and campaign notes.

Things to remember
This is not a regular campaign with set session times and a unified troupe. As such there are a few things to remember:

You track your own experience points. Most of these are based on time, so it is up to each player of keeping track of when their own hours played. Other experience points are gained for things like organising a session, hosting, et cetera. These are clearly laid out, so it is up to you to add those in as appropriate.

You are responsible for your own stories. One of the strengths of this sort of campaign is that you can gather your own hand-picked group of players/characters to advance one of your own goals. If you want something done, then do it. In my experience, most Midian Game Masters are amazingly adaptive when it comes to letting you chart your own course. This is a pretty sandboxy kind of game, and the Living Citadel is designed just for this.

Ideally, every character has a default course of action for the times when they are not actively played. Not everyone can make it to every session, and we'd like to know what you are up to then. Let the Game Master know what you are doing before you leave, have a default that we can all just assume, blue-book your actions on the forums or as blog posts, or else we might have to resort to the away-from-table table.

Experienced Midianites know that this is not a high-fantasy game. Don't expect easy piles of treasure. You'll want a place to live and a source of income (or at least food). The other player-characters might get sick of you sponging off of them all the time. Yes, this means you'll probably have to get a job and pay rent. Don't worry too much, though. There are still plenty of cheap rooms in Citadel near the Roost.