Adventure Roadmap

All adventures are from Darkening of Mirkwood. The first four adventure will be:

  1. The Wizard’s Man
    (GM: Robert) — T.A. 2947
  2. The Folk-Moot of Rhosgobel
    (GM: Mason) — T.A. 2948
  3. The Questing Beast
    (GM: John) — T.A. 2949
  4. Secrets Buried
     (GM: Stan) — T.A. 2950

Game Schedule

Here’s our schedule that puts us on an annual cadence of 11-12 Thursday games and 8-9 bonus games per year. Below are 21 games for the next 12 months.

  • Thur. — July 6 (Wrap-up Arnor Campaign)
  • Thur. — Aug. 3 (Kickoff: Robert as GM. Players Pick PCs in Advance. Stan will play a Hobbit Treasure Hunter)
  • Thur. — Sept. 7
  • Thur. — Oct. 5
  • Thur. — Nov. 2
  • Fri. — Nov. 10 MERPCon (VETERAN’S DAY, 3 bonus games: 9-1, 1:30-5:30, 6-10)
  • Sat. — Nov. 11 MERPCon (2 bonus games: 9-1, 1:30-5:30 OR 1:30-5:30, 6-10)
  • Thur. — Dec. 7
  • Thur. — Jan. 4
  • Thur. — Feb. 1
  • Sat. — Feb. 17 MERPCon (2 bonus games: 9-1, 1:30-5:30 OR 1:30-5:30, 6-10)
  • Mon. — Feb. 19 MERPCon (PRESIDENT’S DAY, 2 bonus games: 9-1, 1:30-5:30)
  • Thur. — Mar. 1
  • Thur. — Apr. 5
  • Thur. — May. 3
  • Thur. — Jun. 7

Attendees

We have five main characters (Robert, Mason, John S., Stan, and Emory) with other characters considered side characters due to more erratic attendance of Craig. (John B.’s attendance TBD).

Core Players

  • Robert
  • Emory
  • Stan
  • Mason
  • John S.

Side Players

  • John B. (or maybe John is a core player if he can attend all the games?)
  • Craig

Campaign Structure & House Rules

  • Leveling: We’ll use Redmark-style leveling: one game each at levels 1 and 2, then Level number of sessions at each level thereafter.
  • Picking a Middle-earth Name: Names are an amazingly important part of keeping the tone of Middle-earth. Tolkien’s Elvish names actually have roots that have meaning. Don’t make up a name; rather, select a name appropriate to your race and culture from either this PDF https://www.dropbox.com/s/h4z37hx3yhpgj9r/AiME%20Names.pdf?dl=0 or this wiki http://merp.wikia.com/wiki/Names.
  • Non-Iconic Names: Don’t use names like Gandalf, Thorin, Beorn, etc., already used by iconic characters in the books.
  • Unique First Letters: I would ideally like all characters to have unique first letters to their names to avoid confusion.
  • Group Consensus and Names & Backgrounds: Lastly, please review all character names and character backstories past the group to get group consensus (to make sure you selected the right culture and everyone is happy with the tone and sound of names and backgrounds, etc.).

GM Structure

  • Lead GM: Robert is the lead GM who manages the GM schedule and assigns adventures based on co-GM feedback and availability.
  • Co-GMs: Stan, Mason, and John S. are Co-GMs who also run games. Co-GMs run Campaign adventures (Darkening of Mirkwood adventures as assigned by Robert), or Side Quests (created by Co-GMs and run as needed).GMs will need to be a little meta in order to coordinate and not step on other storylines.
  • Omens & Premonitions: Since we have multiple GMs, Robert has first dibs on resolving premonitions. If rumors and insights come up that pertain to a plotline tied to a GM who’s not running the game, that Co-GM can be called on to adjudicate the question.
  • Side-Quests: Stan (and others that want to) will have 1-shot, single-session ‘side-quest’ adventures that can be popped in as needed and are relatively location agnostic. This way if a GM falls ill or can’t attend, and is mid-way through a multi-session story arc, we can run the side-quest and return to the main storyline with the current storyline GM returns.
  • Stick to Canon: Stick to Tolkien’s ‘canon’ (Legendarium) as documented by Cubicle 7 sourcebooks and the writings of Tolkien.
  • World Scale: Adventures are generally village-scale. We will add village-scale holding rules if needed.
  • Pacing of Games: With resolving Fellowship Phases and adjudicating Journeys, a 4 hour session might only have time for 3 scenes, making many adventures space 2-3 sessions. GM who run adventures which span multiple sessions should coordinate to make sure they will be able to run those games in back-to-back in consecutive sessions. If an illness or conflict causes the GM to miss a session mid-adventure arc, a Co-GM should run a single-session, side-quest adventure.
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