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Just some miscellaneous notes on how things roll in The Waste. DMs may add to this as issues come up.
1. EXTENDED RESTS AND MILESTONES
We're going to make explicit what was sort of an implicit practice with Eastern Expanse. Regardless of how long an adventure takes in the fiction, extended rests are taken at session breaks. That is, each time you have a TW game counts as one "day" for mechanical purposes - you accrue milestones, and you can only use Daily powers 1/session.
This rule may be relaxed if anyone schedules a marathon session that runs more than 5 hours.
2. PLAYER-VS-PLAYER VIOLENCE
In general, there is nothing stopping you from harming another PC. If you catch one in the area of your spell and crit them (I may have done this once), you can hurt them.
However, most TW adventures are not designed with lots of PVP violence in mind. The general rule is don't be an ass about these things. Accidentally catching someone in a fireball, well, it happens. Ganging up on the new guy because you don't want to split the loot is not cool unless everyone at the table (including the new guy) is having fun with it. At the DM's discretion, in non-PVP scenarios, PCs may be protected from PVP damage.
If you're the kind of player who is inclined to say, "hey, my guy just hates Eladrin, I'm playing my character!" as you ruin someone's fun, grow up or join a PVP scenario.
Some scenarios for TW will have the possibility of betrayal and PVP violence, and some may be designed around it, though (such as many arena battles). These will be clearly marked! If it is a quest, the quest listing in the "Slaves Wanted" forum will say so, or the DM will say so when the quest is discovered in play. If you and a group of friends just want to, say, head out to the ruins you saw over the ridge last time, you can choose whether to allow PVP - by default, the game is assumed to be non-PVP in such cases, unless there's unanimous consent. If you choose to play in one, you are implicitly consenting in advance to the possibility that other PCs may waste you, and the DM will let the dice fall where they may.
3. BUYING AND SELLING STUFF
Most of the economy in The Waste will be player-driven. At least, most of the interesting economy.
There are several NPC stalls in The Bazaar that let you take care of mundane transactions. You don't really need to interact with these on the boards or in play - you're just on the honor system to add items and subtract gold or vice versa as appropriate. The posts there are basically to give a bit of flavor and any notes on pricing we may need to establish. In a nutshell, Marduk's Sundries can sell you mundane equipment and will buy it off you, and the Templar's Historical office will effectively disenchant magic items you have no use for (at a steep fee - profit opportunity for any PC with the disenchant ritual!). There's a bookshop that will sell ritual books (but not scrolls - you need to be able to learn the ritual to benefit from them, basically).
One important thing to note is that you CANNOT purchase magical items from the NPC stalls. Any magic items you acquire will have to be found in The Waste or purchased from other PCs.
PCs can, of course, charge whatever the market will bear for goods and services. For transparency's sake, we ask that anyone trading stuff establish a "market stall" in the forum, and that transactions be posted in that thread.
4. SIMPLIFIED RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR RITUALS AND "SURVIVAL DAYS"
Maybe it is for you, but it's not that exciting for me to manage things like how many rare herbs I have vs. how many ounces of residuum. So don't worry about. PCs can just use the cash value to represent any component costs for rituals they cast.
Also, this extends to "survival days." PCs are assumed to use their resources wisely to buy the necessaries of survival in the desert. The DM will just assess you a cost of 5gp per survival day used. If you can't pay it, you may suffer the consequences.
5. RAISING THE DEAD
As the chargen post notes, rituals for which Religion is the only key skill are not generally available in Dark Sun. One important consequence of this is that the Raise Dead ritual may not be easy to come by. There is no standard bazaar NPC who can raise the dead for cash.
That said, Athas did once have Gods, and so it is possible that the Raise Dead ritual was recorded by one of those long-ago worshippers and preserved under the sands for some hardy adventurer to find (and, perhaps, charge through the nose for).
And, the dry desert climate of Athas provides natural mummification for most corpses. We will allow the Raise Dead ritual to work on a body, regardless of how long it has been dead (though, of course, if there was a TPK or no one wanted to lug a dead body around, it may require an expedition into The Waste to recover the body for ressurection).
1. EXTENDED RESTS AND MILESTONES
We're going to make explicit what was sort of an implicit practice with Eastern Expanse. Regardless of how long an adventure takes in the fiction, extended rests are taken at session breaks. That is, each time you have a TW game counts as one "day" for mechanical purposes - you accrue milestones, and you can only use Daily powers 1/session.
This rule may be relaxed if anyone schedules a marathon session that runs more than 5 hours.
2. PLAYER-VS-PLAYER VIOLENCE
In general, there is nothing stopping you from harming another PC. If you catch one in the area of your spell and crit them (I may have done this once), you can hurt them.
However, most TW adventures are not designed with lots of PVP violence in mind. The general rule is don't be an ass about these things. Accidentally catching someone in a fireball, well, it happens. Ganging up on the new guy because you don't want to split the loot is not cool unless everyone at the table (including the new guy) is having fun with it. At the DM's discretion, in non-PVP scenarios, PCs may be protected from PVP damage.
If you're the kind of player who is inclined to say, "hey, my guy just hates Eladrin, I'm playing my character!" as you ruin someone's fun, grow up or join a PVP scenario.
Some scenarios for TW will have the possibility of betrayal and PVP violence, and some may be designed around it, though (such as many arena battles). These will be clearly marked! If it is a quest, the quest listing in the "Slaves Wanted" forum will say so, or the DM will say so when the quest is discovered in play. If you and a group of friends just want to, say, head out to the ruins you saw over the ridge last time, you can choose whether to allow PVP - by default, the game is assumed to be non-PVP in such cases, unless there's unanimous consent. If you choose to play in one, you are implicitly consenting in advance to the possibility that other PCs may waste you, and the DM will let the dice fall where they may.
3. BUYING AND SELLING STUFF
Most of the economy in The Waste will be player-driven. At least, most of the interesting economy.
There are several NPC stalls in The Bazaar that let you take care of mundane transactions. You don't really need to interact with these on the boards or in play - you're just on the honor system to add items and subtract gold or vice versa as appropriate. The posts there are basically to give a bit of flavor and any notes on pricing we may need to establish. In a nutshell, Marduk's Sundries can sell you mundane equipment and will buy it off you, and the Templar's Historical office will effectively disenchant magic items you have no use for (at a steep fee - profit opportunity for any PC with the disenchant ritual!). There's a bookshop that will sell ritual books (but not scrolls - you need to be able to learn the ritual to benefit from them, basically).
One important thing to note is that you CANNOT purchase magical items from the NPC stalls. Any magic items you acquire will have to be found in The Waste or purchased from other PCs.
PCs can, of course, charge whatever the market will bear for goods and services. For transparency's sake, we ask that anyone trading stuff establish a "market stall" in the forum, and that transactions be posted in that thread.
4. SIMPLIFIED RESOURCE MANAGEMENT FOR RITUALS AND "SURVIVAL DAYS"
Maybe it is for you, but it's not that exciting for me to manage things like how many rare herbs I have vs. how many ounces of residuum. So don't worry about. PCs can just use the cash value to represent any component costs for rituals they cast.
Also, this extends to "survival days." PCs are assumed to use their resources wisely to buy the necessaries of survival in the desert. The DM will just assess you a cost of 5gp per survival day used. If you can't pay it, you may suffer the consequences.
5. RAISING THE DEAD
As the chargen post notes, rituals for which Religion is the only key skill are not generally available in Dark Sun. One important consequence of this is that the Raise Dead ritual may not be easy to come by. There is no standard bazaar NPC who can raise the dead for cash.
That said, Athas did once have Gods, and so it is possible that the Raise Dead ritual was recorded by one of those long-ago worshippers and preserved under the sands for some hardy adventurer to find (and, perhaps, charge through the nose for).
And, the dry desert climate of Athas provides natural mummification for most corpses. We will allow the Raise Dead ritual to work on a body, regardless of how long it has been dead (though, of course, if there was a TPK or no one wanted to lug a dead body around, it may require an expedition into The Waste to recover the body for ressurection).
Last edited by dhlevine on 2010-08-28, 13:44; edited 2 times in total (Reason for editing : added resource notes, raising the dead)
