In which the party does some research

 A few months back, quite early in this campaign, the party found themselves in a large village with a small "library."  They were seeking info on a specific type of demon and on silver smelting practices.  I was completely unprepared.  I set a CR in my head, let them roll.  They failed and it was unsatisfying for all.   

Did a little research of my own and stumbled across the Pathfinder rules.  Modified them a bit as follows and we'll see how they work in practice.

All libraries (personal and public) will have a stat block which includes the following: a CR, a Complexity rating, which reflects the intricacy or confusing nature of the library’s contents, a “language,” a research check based on the knowledge contained therein (based on relevant skills with insight or investigation for general knowledge.) Some libraries grant a bonus on Research checks based on the nature of that library’s collections. A library’s Complexity rating serves as the DC for Research checks that attempt to unravel that library’s clues.

Library research is done in an 8 hour block. An assistant can reduce that block to 5 hours and a second assistant can reduce it to 3 hours. After the time is spent the researcher makes a Research check. A successful Research check reduces the library knowledge points (think hit points) by 1, plus one for each 5 over the required roll. Reducing kp to 0 concludes research in that facility and grants XP to those doing the research.

Example: Morigan the fighter and Kona the ranger go to the small library in Crysrift (population 2655) to research the “demon” they are to confront in the wilderness. This small “collection” has a CR of 2, a complexity of 10 and a mere 3 kp, mostly in the area of local knowledge, animal handling, nature, medicine and survival. Kona brings a +3 insight bonus. After 5 hours the RC is rolled. Anything over a 7 would reveal knowledge but as the area of research isn't really covered no information might be found. A roll of 17 or greater would reduce the kp to 0 and disclose that everything that CAN be learned here has been learned. 

 Edit to add:  Building a library!

 1.  Nature of the collection.  Most libraries will have at LEAST local info.  Roll a d10 for every 10k people and add an area of knowledge.  If you roll a six PICK area, AND roll again.  Any time a subjecy is RE-rolled, add an "area of concentration.

1. Arcana (ancient mysteries, magic traditions, arcane symbols, constructs, dragons, magical beasts)
2. Dungeoneering (aberrations, caverns, oozes, spelunking)
3. Engineering (buildings, aqueducts, bridges, fortifications)
4. Geography (lands, terrain, climate, people)
5. History (wars, colonies, migrations, founding of cities)
6. Local (legends, personalities, inhabitants, laws, customs, traditions, humanoids)
7. Nature (animals, fey, monstrous humanoids, plants, seasons and cycles, weather, vermin)
8. Nobility (lineages, heraldry, personalities, royalty)
9. Planes (the Inner Planes, the Outer Planes, the Astral Plane, the Ethereal Plane, outsiders, planar magic)
10. Religion (gods and goddesses, mythic history, ecclesiastic tradition, holy symbols, undead.

2.  Establish CR. It's the level of the highest member of the party

3.  Determine complexity.  Base CR + 10 + 10%  rounded up .

4.  Calculate Knowledge points.  Complexity * 3

5.  Make sure there's time pressure

6.  Establish research thresholds.  If kp < 25 there's info every 5.  If kp>30 there's info every 10.

Example.  Current party goes to Capitol City.  Library collection includes all ten areas.  CR is 7.  Complexity is 20.  KP is 60.  We'll need 5 steps of information.

 

In which we find gemstones

 

Having a BALL tinkering with the trade system. Got the first draft implemented and working smoothly so it was time to branch out.

First giant step: Gems. Followed up on The Tao's handling of gems and jewelry and LOVE the result. We'll see how it stands up to practice.

Second step: Textiles. Everything was woolen until I added cotton, hemp, flax and silk. Cotton's lengthy growing season makes it very limited in my world. Would love to construct denim but it just doesn't make sense. GREAT opportunity for an enterprising party that catches on to this. But now when there's cloth to be purchased there are options and the players have choices to make. Oh – I threw two bolts of silk into a treasure chest a few weeks back. They still haven't figured out what it is or how much it's worth.

Third step: game/wildlife. Haven't done NEARLY as much as as I need to here but have made a start (with winter approaching) so I wanted to have SOMERTHING in place. Much work remains to be done here re: value, volume and locations. See also fish: fresh/salt water.

Fourth step: Horse differentiation. Draft, war and riding. There's also a horse breeding culture which produces the top quality of each but they're rare. Should provided some “amusement” down the road.

Fifth step: Cereals. Barley, wheat, oats, corn, rye, rice and hops. Am now working my way through the various craftsmen to produce specialized products. Different breads, brews and distilled beverages. A variety of livestock feeds. And different other food products – can't have oatmeal without oats!

The rest of my prep for the coming session will involve tweaking inn and tavern offerings, designing some specifically requested leather goods, and an attempt to tweak my availability and buy-back numbers, based as usual on the groundwork (both productive and “this way lies madness”) from Alexis.

My other “vanity project” is including some “cultural specialties.” Example: Dwarven ale requires dwarven hops which only grows in dwarven territory. The aforementioned horses. There's a Celtic based music culture that produces the best musical instruments. You can find instruments in many places but those with their “touch” (ingredient) are more expensive and far superior. A misuse of the trade system? Also need to differentiate fruits, vegetables and fowl. Considered beef and dairy cattle but doesn't seem worth it right now. Also tinkering with a “page” mentioned by Alexis which will automate providing a crude shopping list to players based on resource availability. I am LOVING this lonely fun.

In which we breeze right up to third level where all the good stuff.

 First session. First level PCs awaken in a casket confronted by a skeleton (each carrying a small non-magical tchotchke that may or may not be relevant) outfitted like themselves. They have to kill it to exit the sepulcher. So we begin with a nice light combat to get everyone used to the initiative rules. To say nothing of the existential questions which may reappear throughout the campaign. The party comes together in the “common room” and are unable to piece together anything resembling a story … yet. They rest and have a “random encounter.” More role-playing. A final encounter blocks “the door out” and guards the loot. It was overcome successfully and the session ended. Everybody gets bumped to second level by virtue of surviving the first adventure. We use email to update character sheets and divide the loot.

Second session. Party exits the tomb and finds itself in the middle of nowhere. Surrounded by forest and gently rolling hills, but with open grassland to the south. The hint of mountains to the west. I had assumed the open fields would be the most likely direction of travel since the could make good speed. Instead they opted to chose a random number and head off into the woods. No worries. This decision took about half an hour. We then discussed procedure for wilderness travel, exploration and foraging. Ranger managed to find food for the day right off the bat. Bard (!) managed to keep them on course. DM managed to throw a set piece short adventure at them cleverly disguised as a random discovery. The hook played into one character's back story and at least two other player's general tendencies. In last campaign's questionnaire they said they wanted some “stranger” monsters. So I gave them a quickling. More of a nuisance than anything else. One of them got shrunk, but the spider minions were defeated. And we ended the scene with the quandary of how to deal with the now-tiny fighter. The plan was to bump them all another level upon completion of this (or whatever encounters they had) heading into Session three but that didn't happen. Had one player absent session one and another (the now short guy!) session two. So after the NEXT session I'll move all but one to level three … and he'll go to level two. They'll have earned xp's to get them about 25% of the way to 4^th (I'm using UA Three Pillar advancement.) By the end of the next session they will have had several combats, several skill checks, wilderness travel, magic use and hopefully at least one social interaction. Pretty much covers it.

Third session. No idea. But I have a week. I do a “three horizons” kinda thing. I know what 2, 6 and 20 mile hex they're in. I'll prep the surrounding hexes for each level. Already have KIND of an idea of what's there. I'll live and die by my random encounters. I'll have a few placed encounters. Nothing major. They MIGHT finally get out of the woods. And when they come to “civilization” and realize they're living in a post-apocalyptic limited technology (even for a mideavil fantasy world) fantasy world the REAL fun begins.

Gotta get my campaign arch written. It's STARTED but little more than a germ. Gotta start thinking about fronts. Wanna try to design an adventure using a couple of the templates pushed by luminaries like Sly Flourish and Guy Scandlers. And the trade / econ system. But this graph is all long term stuff so no worries.