The Ongoing Campaign as Competitive Advantage

I've played many other RPG games through the years, and still like to run one-shots of other systems from time to time, but I keep returning to D&D as my primary game, particularly when it comes to running an ongoing campaign.  I'm finding there are elements D&D brings to the ongoing campaign that other game systems don't match.  Many of these game mechanics that support the ongoing D&D campaign are the same elements decried as "unrealistic" or "artificial and gamist" by D&D's detractors; however, they're the foundation of D&D's endurance in the hobby.

I'm sure I'm not the first blogger to highlight these properties, but it's important to establish my thoughts here as it will have implications for structuring this "wide area sandbox" about which I've been musing.

Class Structure
The confluence of classes and levels creates forward impetus for the players.  Characters grow in power incrementally with each level gained.  Class differentiation supports archetypes and simplistic character niches; class differentiation creates roles, propelling an adventuring party towards team-based play and group strategies.

Americans crave incremental advancement, and the class and level system is a powerful psychological pull towards repeated play and the importance of an ongoing campaign.

Adventure Structure
The level structure intrinsic to D&D also supports a diverse and hierarchical bestiary that makes it easy for the dungeon master to populate adventures with monsters appropriate for specific character levels; the estimable nature of these threats make it easy for players to gauge the types of challenges their group can handle.

The story structures most common to D&D - the dungeon and the hex crawl - are easy to create and populate within the fantasy genre.  The limiting nature of the dungeon geography forces the player group to consistently make micro-choices during exploration from a finite number of options. This is an important feature to ensure timely decisions and a fast-moving game.  Even a hex crawl structure, which seems to imply wide open choice, only allows 6 options to leave a hex, and it's likely the group will have basic information about the terrain in the surrounding hexes to inform the decision process.

Objectives in D&D are also simplistic; advancement happens through the accumulation of experience points, and experience is awarded primarily through the recovery of treasure.  Both the dungeon and hex crawl structure are intended to provide exploratory environments that facilitate the discovery and recovery of treasure.

Campaigning
A series of consecutive D&D adventures form an ongoing campaign.  The advantages of the class and level system emerge in campaign play; incremental advancement encourages players to stay with the same characters over time.  The transparency of threats within the D&D adventure structures allow group decision making on the macro scale as the group weights relative risk versus reward.  It could mean choosing one adventure site or another in a hex crawl setting, or choosing one dungeon level over another in the dungeon setting.

As a community, one of the strongest arguments we've been promoting in favor of old-school gaming is how a properly structured D&D campaign empowers player choice.  The level structure allows players to manage the ratio of risk versus reward for themselves; this supports a player-driven game that allows the players to plan and execute their own agendas.

Concept Games
Most other games do not copy D&D's structure of classes and character levels on the player side, or the strong hierarchy of threats by level for the game master to employ.

Here I'm speaking of all those strongly typed games that emulate specific genres - whether it's the various superhero games I've played (V&V or Mutants & Masterminds), the Sci Fi (Traveler), or horror games (Call of Cthulhu, Trail of Cthulhu, Vampire or Werewolf).  In most of these genres, it requires the DM to prepare a much stronger story in order to engage the players.  Only the Sci Fi games support creation of a "sandbox" similar to D&D, but lack the transparency of threat analysis inherent in D&D's bestiaries that support a simplistic evaluation of risk versus reward.

Concept games are plenty of fun, but I find the burden they place on the DM for story is something that pushes me away from using them in long campaigns; I much prefer running one-shots or short campaigns that focus on specific story arcs for other RPGs.

So now we come to the reason for laying out my argument for D&D's strengths vis a vis other games; as I'm thinking through the Library de la Torre concept as a wide area sandbox, I'm pondering what aspects of that campaign structure do or do not take advantage of D&D's competitive advantages.

Unfortunately, Sunday chores beckon, and the NFL games are just starting up, so I'll need to continue this line of thought tomorrow!

Gothic Greyhawk Game 41 - A Noble Sacrifice

Cast of Characters:
Mordecai, a Cleric-6: Adam
Forlorn, an Elf-5 (1): Bo
Mister Moore, Magic User-6: Mike
Shy, a Fighter-6 (3):  JR
Leonidas the Paladin-4:  Nogal
Digit, the Elf Thief-5:  Z

Henchmen:
Phat Kobra, a Dwarf-5
Zeke, a Fighter-4
Grumble the Smug, Halfling-5 (3)
Serge, a Fighter-4
Ireena, a Fighter-5
Donavich, Cleric-4


=========================================
AD&D 1E, I6 Ravenloft
=========================================


It was the morning after another snowstorm; the group spent some time debating the merits of trudging up the mountain in the snow to go back into the castle's crypts, versus tackling an objective closer to town - finally taking care of "The White Lady".

The White Lady is a female vampire, dressed in a dirty and tattered white night gown, that has haunted the outskirts of the village; the player characters encountered her at least once early on, when she ambushed them when they were late returning after a foray into the castle; she drained a few levels from Starkweather, but was quickly driven off.  At that time, they didn't have the resources to trace her to her lair, but they learned the whereabouts of her nest from the gypsies a few sessions ago and were just waiting for the right time to go after her.  Today was the day.

The group trudged across the snowy fields surrounding the village to the wild stream that cascaded out of the mountains, and followed the rocky banks until they found the tumbled down boulders and cave mouth of the vampire's lair.  Melt water had created huge icicles blocking the entrance to the cave, so the first order of business was to smash the ice and open the way.  It made a ton of noise, even above the burbling water behind them.

Kobra the Dwarf and Grumble the Halfling crept in, and Kobra snuck forward to use infravision to see the back of the cave; unfortunately, when he peered over a rock, the vampire lady was waiting for him and she put the whammy on him with her hypnotic gaze.  That was when the group out on the river bank began to hear the yips and howls of the approaching wolves she summoned.

"Let's get ready to Gruuuumble!" has become the halfling's battle cry, and he charged the vampire wielding the Sunsword as a two-handed sword, maxing his damage and scoring a phenomenal hit.  It's funny how, over time, the exploits of certain characters  become larger than life, and the halfling's ability to charge into the nastiest combats and score the big hits is becoming commonplace - he's been affectionately nicknamed 'Grumble the barbarian' for consistently bringing a big swing.  That didn't stop him from getting level-drained the next round when the vampire retaliated, though.

Kobra waded forward to swat at the clerics and keep them from casting spells, and he foiled a Hold Person intended to neutralize him.  Meanwhile, the rear of the party formed a defensive wall around the mouth of the cave, and Mister Moore started blasting wolves with the wand of fireballs.

The wolves were blasted to smithereens, and the vampire could only take a few hits from the paladin and Grumble the barbarian before exploding into mist and fleeing for her lair - the Sunsword does +10 damage each time it hits a vampire.

Here's where things got interesting - the vampire mist fled to the back of the cave and disappeared through a crack between the boulders - too small for any characters to follow.  Kobra used his stone work abilities to determine that there were hollow voids deeper in the rock, and perhaps the vampire's sleeping area was actually further back, unreachable.

A dilemma!  They knew they had part of a day - something like 6-8 hours - where the destroyed vampire would be regenerating its corporeal form and was vulnerable; how to get back there and slay it before nightfall?  They hated the thought of letting yet another vampire escape.  After reviewing all their magical options, and the possibility of mining their way in (which could take days), they decided the one sure thing was to use their last potion of gaseous form to follow the vampire.  But this would be a one way trip; once the person materialized* on the other side, there might be no way out; they only had one potion.

It was decided that someone would be given the continual light coin, extra food and rations, and a volunteer would be determined to take the potion, go gaseous, materialize on the other side, and slay the vampire.  That person would need to hole up and hope the group could dig them out before their supplies ran out!  There was also the risk of a cave-in along the way.

The henchman Zeke, fanatically loyal to his boss Mordecai with his 17 charisma, volunteered.  He loaded up with gear, made his good-byes, and quaffed the potion.  He found the vampire sleeping in a cramped space beneath a hollow created by the boulders, and waited for the potion to wear off; then he destroyed it with stake and garlic and called back to the group.  They could hear him calling through the rock, and figured he was about 30' back.  He said there was ice back there, and guessed maybe there was a chimney or way out up above.

Some of the group went back to town to get mauls and pick axes, while others started clearing snow out above the rock fall to see if they could hear Zeke's tapping and estimate if it was easier to dig him out from above.  They found the place where a seam between the rocks created a narrow chimney; Kobra felt they could chip and move enough rocks to widen the area within a couple of hours.  On the other hand, he missed his mining check and couldn't assure Zeke or the rest of the group that it was any safer; there was still a chance of a collapse.  At the end of the digging, I asked Zeke's player to make his roll; there was a 10% chance the rock removal destabilized the whole structure, resulting in a cave in.

He rolled a 1 on a d10.

Everyone recoiled in horror as the ceiling rock dropped into the space, crushing the chamber where Zeke was awaiting rescue.  At the game table, my jaw dropped as well.  The whole build up to this moment had involved a clear understanding that whoever went back to finish the vampire might never come out again; the players all knew it was most likely a one way trip.  But then there seemed to be a clear chance at rescuing their heroic henchman, only to see a freak accident snatch his life away at the moment of rescue.

The characters removed their helmets at the cave-in site and had a moment of silence for Zeke; Mordecai the cleric vowed that when spring came, he would have the woods cleared here and build a monument honoring Zeke's sacrifice.

With heavy hearts, they trudged back to town.  Another vampire was destroyed, but it was a costly victory.


*Old school editions vary whether the gaseous person is naked or gets to carry their stuff with them; one of those quirks in our beloved game. My table rule is the clothing and gear goes with...

A Survey of Travel Rules, Land and Sea

I had the chance to compare different editions of D&D and compare how they advised the DM to handle travel.  The system in the BX / Rules Cyclopedia / Labyrinth Lord chain seems like it will work just fine, and was clearer than the 1E DMG.  Encumbrance amounts yield overland movement rates of 6, 12, 18, or 24 miles per day, for unencumbered people; on a riding horse it becomes 48 miles per day.  If I can get a 24 mile per hex scale to work for area maps of Europe, hex counting becomes easy for distance travel; I'm just not sure how well it breaks down into subhexes.

A typical day of travel can be reduced to a series of rolls; a daily chance to become lost if not following roads; a daytime encounter chance (1 out of 6) and a nighttime encounter chance (1 out of 12).  Note:  the Cyclopedia recommends using a d12 for the nighttime roll instead of a d6; the assumption is a camped party is less likely to run into trouble.

Does an average of 1 encounter every 6 days through settled areas make sense?  Here's how I look at it; every day, the group is passing through cleared lands, farms, through cross roads and little hamlets, into woods, and so on.  Lots and lots of mundane encounters occur as the group passes farmers, peddlers, merchants, goodwives and other ordinary folk; that 1 out of 6 chance per day just represents the opportunity to have an interesting or violent encounter with a potentially hostile force.  It seems like it will work, I just need to put together appropriate tables for settled lands.

Nighttime encounters are a bit different; villages and towns should be common in the Europe of 1650 so most of the time a traveling group would be staying at inns.  I’ll use the 1 out of 12 chance when the group is camping outside, and the nighttime encounter would use the standard outdoor tables.  Inns and taverns present excellent role playing opportunities and involve a concentration of similar travelers, so I'll need to come up with some kind of carousing / complications table for staying at inns.  There's a balance between keeping long distance travel colorful but not bogging it down with too much minutiae, either.

I've been scanning A Mighty Fortress for ideas; it's an AD&D 2E supplement for the Elizabethan and early 17th century, and has lots of ideas worth borrowing (including an approach to firearms). That book suggests using monthly living expenses and requiring all period characters to gamble; it's an interesting idea, but maybe it no longer fits in the 17th century once Calvinism and the Puritans have had an effect on European culture?

Moving on to the sea, all the BX series of games have similar rules for ocean travel; each day also begins with a handful of rolls - figuring out the wind and weather conditions and the wind direction, the chance for a random encounter, and a chance to be lost.  It seems to me like both ocean and land travel could be handled by a spreadsheet like my calendar and weather sheet, so days or weeks of rolls could be generated in advance, speeding the presentation of the narrative at the table.

I don't know how much wind direction actually varies over the ocean; would wind in the real world reverse 180 degrees from one day to the next?  I understand the importance of the trade winds, Coriolis force, and how ocean currents and the westerly's affected travel to and from the New World; trips that took 2 months to reach New England could be done in a few weeks catching the westerly wind and the gulf stream back to northern Europe.  Absolutely random wind directions don't make a lot of sense when seasonal winds are known, so maybe wind direction should only be a deviation from the norm.

Charlatan over on Mule Abides has posted a bit on play testing his saltbox; one of the proposed  rules he's calling "Blood in the Water"; on the open ocean, having one ocean encounter creates another encounter check.  The other idea was to have a chance for something else to happen; I'm thinking this includes all sorts of nutsy stuff you'd expect to happen on a long journey - ship damage, torn sails, broken masts, risks of scurvy, chances of mutiny, fire, all sorts of hazards.  So a sailing hazard table is in order, or some other way to loosely handle wear and tear on the ship; bad weather would increase the chance of a hazard or the severity of the hazard roll.

More things that go on the do-list:

• Settled area encounter tables
• Nighttime carousing encounters
• Guidelines for monthly living expenses
• Updated wind and weather rules
• Ocean encounters
• Ship hazards table

I had a funny thought for area maps - I'm wondering if a European atlas would work?  I'm not a fan of using hex overlays on transparency, but it would save a ton of time trying to track down maps; some atlases even have relief.  Anyway, it would pretty much eliminate area maps from the do-list and get me working on all these random tables right away.  I'd just make an assumption that major towns and cities were occupied since the 17th century, and highways and major roads were roads and trails, respectively.  I'd just need to use a highlighter or something and redraw various borders.

The Bard, a Weird Fantasy Specialist

Hope there's room on the bandwagon for one more...

I've never liked the idea of the Bard class, but I've been reading the Prydain series out loud to my son, and the bard character Fflewdurr Fflamm starts to grow on you after a while.  The funny thing about Fflewdurr is that he really hates magic - he wouldn't be caught dead doing little druid or magic user tricks.  Then again, he's a pretty crappy bard, too.  However, I've warmed to the idea of wandering storytellers that gather bits and pieces of lore and can entertain folks with song and music.

Here's the approach I'd take to sliding the bard into a game; I'd use the LOTFP Specialist class (James' replacement for the Thief) and just add skills to cover the bard's mundane capabilities.  Presto chango, instant bard.  (A free version of the LOTFP rules are available here: Lamentations of the Flame Princess).

In case you haven't seen the LOTFP take on the thief, the specialist, the character assigns 2 points to their skills each level (they start with 4 skill points to assign).  It allows for a highly customizable specialist, and rewards a group that has multiple specialists - one could focus on bushcraft, stealth and sneak attack, the other could specialize in locks and traps.

Adding skills to the LOTFP skill list lets us cast the bard as a mundane jack-of-all-trades that knows how to perform and has picked up a bit of oddball knowledge.  Works really well as a skald, too, and doesn't require any new classes.

New skills:  ­ Performance (1 in 6), ­ Lore (1 in 6)

Performance:
If the bard is able to perform for an audience for at least a half hour, he can add his performance skill as a charisma modifier to any reaction or morale roll for the audience members, as long as the roll isn't made more than a day after the performance.

Lore:
Whenever the bard encounters an item with legendary significance, this skill may be used to try and identify the item and recall a piece of lore or history about it that would exist in song or poem.

I realize some folks want the bard to have magical capabilities; this can be achieved through magic items that can only be used by characters with sufficient skill in Performance.  Thus we can explain legendary bards like Orpheus, and have simpler magic items like lutes that can put monsters to sleep.

Energy Drain and the Modern Player

Oh October, how I love the month long countdown to Halloween.  In between posts discussing the wide area sandbox, I'll get back to writing about some appropriate monsters (Mythic Monday style) and post more ideas on putting seasonal cheer into your D&D game - and by 'seasonal cheer', I mean fear and horror.  Let's start with a quick discussion on that blight on players everywhere, the Energy Drain.

In most old school games, the dangerous undead drain one or more energy levels with a successful attack.  This reduces the character's experience total to the mid-point of the next lowest level, with a corresponding reduction in abilities and hit points.  It's nasty.  As a result, it's the one common monster ability that players hate the most, and it succeeds in generating a fear reaction whenever an energy draining undead shows up.  The other thing that's totally excellent about energy drain is its complete lack of subtlety.  In fast-moving abstract combat, a monster needs to be able to do its trick quickly and make an impression before it explodes in a shower of XP.  Even if an energy-draining undead is quickly dispatched, each attack has the ability to leave a lasting mark on the characters.

But there's another side to the energy drain argument; a lot of us are in an aging demographic with limits being placed on our time due to work and family; the days of 10 hour D&D marathons on a weekend are long gone.  Weekly games are becoming bi-weekly and monthly.  I have vague memories of playing D&D every day after school in the 80's when MTV was also cool.  People play D&D for entertainment; if a game element proves to be so demoralizing as to remove all fun from the game, you risk losing players, and losing months of real-world effort building up a character is demoralizing.  There's just not enough players out there for the DM to unequivocally turn a deaf ear to all complaints.  I'm just being pragmatic.

And so out come the house rules and the discussions.  The ones I usually see involve alternate abilities for the undead (like replacing energy drain with ability score damage), or changing the level and availability of  the Restoration spell - as in, why is Raise Dead a 5th level spell but Restoration is 7th level?  You're better off dying than getting energy drained.  3.5 style D&D gives you a saving throw against energy drain, and I've seen that discussed as an option as well.

I do love the energy drain for its fear effect, but I also want to see the players return each week; early in the campaign we agreed on a house rule that meets both objectives.  A level lost through energy drain will return for each week of rest in between adventures.

It's been an interesting house rule; psychologically, the players think of the energy drain as being only temporary even though they're carrying it around for a longer period of time - the drained levels don't come back until they take weeks of rest.  In the current game, Forlorn is level 1 (should be 5); Grumble is temporarily 3 from 5; Shy the Fighter is 3 from 6; Starkweather had been drained down to 1 but was then killed by the Banshee.  Week in and week out, the group is actively heading back to Castle Ravenloft to clear out the remaining undead while they have momentum, so there's been no chance to take weeks of downtime - they're starting to accumulate a lot of missing levels.

I tend to think the old approach might have been better for the players, since they've earned enough experience to get those drained levels back.  We'll have to discuss if the "player-friendly" house rule is really better for them - if adventures are short, with long periods of downtime between adventures, it's clearly better for the players to 'heal' energy drains.  Grinding out the crypts of Castle Ravenloft, with its large and varied population of undead, hasn't allowed that rest and downtime and they've carried energy drains longer.

The Nerf Turn Undead poll is over so it's time for a new one - let's hear about Energy Drain; how do you use Energy Drain in your game?

The poll is on the right.

An Approach to Building the Wide Area Sandbox

I'm thinking about what it would take to build the foundation for the wide area sandbox.  Let's say I'm going forward with the idea to build out  a campaign based on the Library of de la Torre idea from the other day; here's the recap of the idea:  at the beginning of the game, the players or a patron inherit the library of a dead priest, who was an investigator into things evil and malign; between the books in the library and the priest's journal and notes, the group gets access to dozens and dozens of plot hooks scattered around Europe, the Mediterranean, and even overseas.

Here's how a typical plot hook could be presented:

Journal Entry, December 1620:  After our army defeated the Bohemians at White Mountain, the sorcerer Cernobog quit Prague and was forced to leave his ill-gotten treasures behind.  I investigated the salt mine briefly to see if I could recover his infamous grimoire, but a guardian thing was left behind along with traps for the unwary; the army moved on before I could return.  After the war, the Order needs to revisit this place, recover Cernobog's treasure, and ensure the servants of the evil one don't regain the grimoire.  (DM's note:  the battle of White Mountain would have been 30 years ago; there's a reference later in the journal that de la Torre never made it back to the salt mine before his death.)

For purposes of the rest of this post, let's assume that many of the leads are of a similar nature to that journal entry; they hint towards opportunities that may or may not still exist, but will require quite a bit of travel to properly investigate.

What I hope to do in this post is identify the types of tools, tables, and documents that one would need to run the wide area sandbox; hopefully it will highlight some of the challenges vis a vis the typical micro-sandbox, and some kindly readers will offer good suggestions as well.

Maps & Travel Systems
Where are the players starting?  Spain, France or England?  I can see good arguments for making the home base near Paris, London, or Cordoba.  Regardless, most plot hooks will require long distance travel.

Europe is settled and travel is common, but many areas are depopulated after the Thirty Years war, and there are still the risks of bandits, highwaymen, plague, and so on.   Because of the distances, I'm going to examine if overland travel should be more abstract than the typical micro-sandbox requiring a hex-by-hex crawl - it calls for a strategic scale.

I'm going to spend some time comparing the various long distance travel systems presented across My Favorite Editions(tm) of D&D to compare ideas.  I'm expecting a workable campaign map scale would be 30 mile hexes or 24 mile hexes, but I know I've seen some continent maps that have used 72 miles per hex - Mystara stuff, maybe.  Still, there's a strong argument to have detailed (real maps) behind the scenes just to know where everything is - an atlas of Europe would seem pretty useful, along with lists of 17th century settlements.

I'll also want to come up with some simple systems for determining encounter chances and encounter types when traversing mundane, settled areas, and adjudicating complications depending on whether the group stays in inns, camps, or seeks private lodgings as they crisscross Europe.

Local areas that require exploration will get the tactical map treatment - dungeon site maps, 6 miles per hex wilderness, or small area maps.

Settlements
There are probably tens of thousands of settlements across 17th century Europe, and I have no interest in detailing all of them.

The Sine Nomine approach in Red Tide and Stars Without Number really showed me the way here; to build settlement tags (customized for 1650's Europe) to facilitate the presentation of interesting settlements, and to  use similar systems for cities and courts.  (I have a post describing the Red Tide sandbox approach; reading that book really helped move me along this path of considering the wide area sandbox).

For major settlements or important places, it won't be hard to lift some historical details from the real world; I just don't want to get too caught up in endless research (too much historical accuracy is a rabbit hole in this type of campaign).

Encounters
Most encounters on the road will be mundane; the D&D world of 1650 still has it's monsters and magic, but they exist outside of the spotlight, in the margins.  The biggest need for customizing encounters (and this applies to settlements, too) is coming up with cultural notes to help drape local color over encounters and settlements as the group crosses regions.

Kevin of Sine Nomine posted some good advice the other day; make sure to have cultural specific Name list, Dress, Language, Cuisine, Laws and Customs to transform a generic encounter of "brigands or bandits" into Bavarian deserters, Turkish raiders, or French highwaymen.

Maritime Challenges
A big draw for placing the campaign in the 17th century is the New World and the age of piracy; I'll be making sure some of the more lucrative plot hooks involve the Spanish possessions in the New World.

Similar to doing a "textual analysis" of the old school stuff around long distance travel, I'll do the same thing for maritime travel and encounters; I know various bloggers have tackled running 'saltbox games', so I'll want to see what kinds of techniques have been developed out in the community already.  Down the road, I'd love to detail the Caribbean as a large scale saltbox.

Firearms
I'll include rules for firearms; they're mundane armaments in the world of 1650 and will be encountered quite a bit, even if the players realize that hand weapons are still the most effective for "dungeons".

Arcane magic will either be extremely rare or toned down; actual cannons will be the battlefield artillery, instead of say, fireballs.

Fun Stuff
Of course, the whole point of the campaign setting is to build out the creative, fun stuff - the contents of de la Torre's library, including a couple of dozen initial plot hooks, arcane tomes, perhaps some new spells, maybe even an unusable artifact or two.  There's all sorts of stuff you can put into the players hands right from the start, knowing they can't access it until they have the right knowledge or do the research - hopefully requiring an adventure along the way.  One nice benefit of doing that September challenge of short adventures - I know I won't have any problem coming up with dozens of interesting things for the library.

I'll develop some organizations and NPCs moving in the same space as the players - things like secretive groups within the major churches seeking these places for themselves; cabals of arcane practitioners after lost knowledge; rival mercenaries and treasure hunters seeking the loot; dark cultists looking to recover their own lost artifacts.

Although the campaign anticipates a lot of far flung travel, I still think I'd start with a more detailed home base area, with some local adventure opportunities to get things started (and trust the veracity of de la Torre's observations).  Travel costs money, and unless the group gets funded by a patron or organization, they'll need treasure before hitting the road.

Optional Stuff
With all of the long distance travel opportunities, it's quite likely trade and arbitrage will come into play - either on land or sea.  The upcoming ACKS rules I've play tested a few times have basic rules to support trade economics in a D&D setting; I'd probably start by seeing if ACKS economics could be adapted to the post-Renaissance.

I'll also need to decide if the rules as written do a good enough job for resolving duels and rapier fighting.

Objectives
Initially, the campaign would be about exploring some of these leads to see what kind of looting or scavenging could happen, while the group avoids the problems of post-war Europe.   As the characters learn about some of the threats out there, maybe the motivation changes, but it's safe to assume a degree of avarice when starting out and let it evolve from there.

The List
Here's what the do list currently looks like:

• Continental maps
• Travel system
• Settlement generation tables
• Cultural research
• Encounter tables
• Maritime rules / saltbox stuff
• Firearm rules
• Detailed home base
• Library contents
• Books, artifacts, journal and more
• Plot hooks - dozens!
• Organizations and NPCs, Beneficial and Malign
• Optional Stuff
• Economics, duels

What kind of stuff am I missing?  How would you approach making the continental maps, and where would you place the home base - I'm mainly considering England, France and Spain (because of the overseas opportunities) but should consider the Netherlands for the same reasons.

Other things where I could use suggestions - good sources for 17th century culture (it's clear I'm off to the library); also - recommendations on whether travel should be more abstract and played out day-by-day. 

Happy October!

A temporary new (old) look for the Lich House - the zombies return, as we get ready for the best month of the year.

Hope you all enjoy the autumn as much as we here on the east coast; the leaves are turning, the kids have been out apple-picking, football season is in full swing, and it all ends with Halloween.  What's not to love?