Continuing characters

"In this world, is it the hallmark of the young to view life and death as transient?"

- Berserk

Long-term survival is always a chancy thing, especially in a dark fantasy game. A number of factors may come into play that may affect this. Most notably, a character may not live to a ripe old age if he or she is slain in battle or just sleeps with the wrong prostitute. Additionally, a campaign may end prematurely because the players' troupe separates for whatever reason, or just moves on to other campaigns. However, there is certainly a possibility that a character may live and be active in play for a long time. Some of the salient factors regarding a character's long-term play are detailed below. An additional technique for long-term game play involves supplementary characters (secondary characters and legacy characters) and will be addressed later.

Aging
This is something of a reverse to character growth and experience—a similar method is employed. Rather than petition the Game Master to increase skills, attributes, backgrounds, traits, and other character elements, you must instead justify why they should not be lowered due to disuse or the slow and steady decline of aging. The Game Master should consider the age and general health of a character—older characters or ones leading harder lives may find it harder to keep attributes, et al. in peak form. Likewise a character's expected longevity is also an important consideration—an immortal Elf will suffer neither senility nor cancer, but a Hobgoblin in her 50th year must indeed worry about such possible impairments to her fighting strength. Of course, immortality is not a guarantee against the effects of time; a Pixie who no longer exercises will still begin to lose her breath more easily, and may see a decline in attributes from disuse. An additional factor for a Game Master to consider is the length of time since a character last used a particular skill or ability, and how often it has been used previously. While they say that "you never forget how to ride a horse," it is certainly possible for skills to weaken from disuse just as surely as a muscle. As regards the lowering of attributes, the first to go are generally physical and miscellaneous (with the notable exception of Common Sense). Mental attributes generally stay sharp as long as they are well used—but can decline at least as rapidly as bodily health from disuse. Among the social attributes, Appearance is of the greatest concern to many shallow people as they age. However, both the Hobgoblins and Formourians are more likely to consider someone physically appealing far longer than other cultures might. For example, a famed actor in Formour may still be considered 'sexy' past 50 years of age, but that same person would just be considered 'old and unappealing' by a Bizzannite or Heldan.

Different cultures treat aging and their elderly in different fashions. Among the Heldans, youth and vigor are heralded, however this is mitigated somewhat by the longevity of the Dwarves that live there—comprising more than a third of the population. Though a Dwarf can have far longer to perfect his or her craft, the energy and innovation of the young is still prized. Interestingly, once a Dwarf dies, his or her status is suddenly elevated from 'doddering old fool' to 'revered and learned ancestor'. Foolish indeed is the person that would cross a bitter old Dwarf, who may have devoted the last century to the art of treacherous revenge, and has nothing left to lose… Trolls typically try and live life to the fullest. As their life spans vary so widely, a Troll never knows how much longer he has left. A Troll may drop dead from cancer in his early 40's, or may instead stay vivacious up towards the end of his fourth century. Hobgoblins highly prize their elders. One who has lived to an advanced age is assumed to have a good measure of toughness and guile. Conversely, Hobgoblins do not prize dying of old age. For them, a far more honourable death is to fall in combat to a worthy adversary. Killian also hold their elderly in high regard. This is a natural outgrowth of the highly structured nature of their society. Each person's place in their culture is denoted by their obligations to one higher on the social ladder: child to parent, peasant to lord, husband to wife, and so forth, all the way from the lowest beggar to the Empress herself. As a person ages, those to whom she is obligated become fewer, and those who are now obligated to her continue to grow in number. For this reason, one of the Empress's titles is The Lonely One as she no longer has the comfort of being socially obligated to anyone. Formour is interesting in that it seems to favour neither the young nor the old. Rather, both energetic youth and wise experience are esteemed equally and separately for their own merits. Of course, this can leave those adults in the middle feeling left out—being seen as having neither fresh new ideas nor sagacious advice. Similarly, far to the east the Orcks do not seem to place an emphasis on either youth or age. Their culture is based strongly on individual merit and a strong drive for survival. Among the Orcks, surviving childhood is a remarkable feat, and continuing to an old age even more so. Their neighbours in the plains and forests, the Ogre tribes, don't seem to even be aware of someone's age at all. Ogres don't even count their birthdays like most other cultures do. In the Firp's swamplands, youths are considered inherently foolish, at least to some degree. However, the great respect that they show towards their elderly really doesn't begin to show until a Firp has passed 50 years of age, and many do not live long enough to enjoy that heightened respect.

Campaign Pacing
Another important element to long-term campaigns and characters is in how the story is paced. A character journal is of tremendous assistance here. Pacing a campaign is when you highlight and expand the interesting bits, and shorten the dull ones. Long stretches can be covered with something as simple as, "After three more months, you finally reach the distant shore." There are many opportunities for long breaks in the action. Injured characters need time to heal; broken bones can take months to completely set properly. Travel time is much longer in a world without cars, planes, or trains. Farms can be harvested, children raised, towers built, and baronies ran. There can even be long lulls in the action where the characters simply don't do anything interesting, and just loaf for a time. One way to think of pacing is to imagine a movie. The scenes cut right to the drama and action, and skip such details as the drive there. While it is impossible for a campaign to be paced as quickly as a movie—otherwise it would wrap up on two hours—it is a worthwhile goal towards which to strive. To continue the visual analogy to a long-term campaign, it may be more useful instead to think in terms of a television series. In a good series, the pacing is tight within the episode, the characters grow over time (that's 'grow as people' not 'get more powers'), and your interest is maintained week-to-week. A long-term campaign can run exactly the same way, with each session being one episode (of course, this particular 'show' is mostly one long extended multi-parter, think soap-operas). Chapters in a campaign are another good way to structure long-term campaigns. That is, you may all be part of a mercenary company in Byzant for several months of game play, and later become travelling merchants in Formour. It is not necessary to completely restart a new campaign with all new characters, but instead a new 'chapter' in the characters' lives starts.

Life Goes On
Not only do the characters affect the world—as it likewise affects them—but also other factors come into play 'behind the scenes'. For example, while they take a trip to the Orckish Highlands in Osterre, the pregnant girlfriend left behind gives birth, and must begin to raise the child herself. While the mercenary company wages war, taxes back home are being raised. The trick is to have things happen whether the player-characters are involved or not, but not to have things happen too quickly. Rumours, stories, news, gossip, bulletin board postings, and other in-game elements can be used to enhance the feeling that things are moving all around the characters, other than those plots in which they are directly involved. Ideas for some of these outside-plots can come from the Rumour Mill section, forum games—or forum posts about other games, unresolved plot threads, or just the Game Master's musing about how things are going in other parts of the world.

When the characters leave home for sometimes years at a stretch, some aspects of life may remain exactly as they left them, but quite a few others will have changed significantly. For example, the road still swerves around the old oak tree in the center of town, but Old Man Mung no longer runs the mill. In his place is his young son, now with children of his own. The youngest of which, Sheila, is now pregnant out of wedlock with the cooper's son. It's these little details that can really bring the game world to life.