First year of Mystara campaign
This August it's already a year since, after ending my Planescape campaign, I started a new one in the world of Mystara1,2 and was lucky enough to maintain weekly sessions (and sometimes more) throughout the whole year.
The ruleset I'm using is Dark Dungeons3 which is the most complete free clone of Rules Cyclopedia4, though it's still lacking some important rules such as Encounter Distance and Evasion and Pursuit procedures, but adds some additional features, like full 36 levels of demihuman progression and red powder firearms. In any case, it has a more clear layout, especially in the Weapon Proficiencies section.
In this post, I would like to overview the first year of adventuring and the results achieved by the players in the lands of the Known World.
Contents
- Additional sources
- Character generation rules
- Parties and locations
- Calendar and Reputation table
- Player characters statistics
Additional sources ↩
While the Rules Cyclopedia has an appendix with an overview of the Known World, you'll need much more for long-term campaigning. The most essential sources for the additional setting materials I'm using:
- Vaults of Pandius — the most vast and irreplaceable source of all things Mystara, including the Threshold Magazine.
- Gazetteers of Mystara, both official and fan-made. Here are the ones that had seen the most use during the first year of play:
- GAZ1 The Grand Duchy of Karameikos — the "default" starting point and the location of most Basic-level modules.
- GAZ3 The Principalities of Glantri — not as well detailed as GAZ1 geography-wise, but essential if you have a goal-oriented magic-user. Extensive rules on magic craft and research included.
- GAZ10 The Orcs of Thar — important if you suddenly have an orc wearing a helm of alignment change as one of your new player characters, or if you want to play a party of raiding humanoids in Broken Lands.
- GAZ11 The Republic of Darokin — worth it for the Merchant class and Mercantile Trading rules alone.
- Dawn of the Emperors: Thyatis and Alphatia — for the detailed information on both great empires and some optional rules.
- PC Creature Crucible series — for the additional playable classes of creatures of the forest, the sky, the sea, and the night. Also contains some thematic adventures.
- AC9 Creature Catalogue for the additional monsters of Mystara.
- Dungeon magazine for the additional modules.
- Dragon magazine for the extra inspiration, special rules, and custom classes.
- Basic Fantasy adventure anthologies for even more modules.
Character generation rules ↩
The classic "3d6 in order", but allowing a full reroll if the sum of ability adjustments happens to be lower than +1.
To avoid the unnecessary prolongation of the Basic-level adventuring, if a character of 2nd or higher level dies, that player's next character will have a bonus starting experience equal to 1000 XP per level of the dead character. Moreover, if the player wants to join another party, the new character will have half of the current XP of the least experienced character in that party. This way, the newly created character won't feel like a burden and liability for a party of higher-level characters.
Parties and locations ↩
Starting in Karameikos, the players soon developed a collection of characters exploring the neighboring regions of the Known World. Current active groups are adventuring in:
- Karameikos (average level 7)
- Thyatis (average level 5)
- Glantri and Ethengar (average level 8)
- the whole Known Wolrd as a group of traveling merchants (average level 4)
During their travels, some characters also visited the Five Shires, Darokin, Alfheim, Ylaruam, and the Northern Reaches.
Currently explored regions of the Known World on Roll 20 Jumpgate.
Calendar and Reputation table ↩
To keep track of the multiple parties and their action in the world, I've employed a spreadsheet-based calendar system which I've already described before. Through one real-time year, we went from 999 AC to the start of 1002 AC in the game world.
There is also a separate sheet tracking the reputation of each character among the faction and important persons of the world. Every 2 points of reputation grant a 1-point bonus or penalty on the relevant reaction rolls when a character asks for a big favor and such.
A part of the player characters' reputation table.
Player characters statistics ↩
And here's a quick breakdown by classes and levels achieved. I've omitted rare non-standard classes and characters who didn't achieve the second level yet (except those who died trying). Numbers after / represent the number of dead characters for each level.
| Class | Total | Dead | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cleric | 7 | 2 | 2 / 1 | / 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Dwarf | 2 | 2 | |||||||||
| Elf | 8 | 3 | / 1 | 2 / 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Fighter | 11 | 3 | / 2 | / 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| Halfling | 1 | 1 | |||||||||
| Magic-User | 6 | 3 | / 2 | / 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | ||||
| Mystic | 2 | 1 | 1 | ||||||||
| Thief | 8 | 4 | / 1 | / 1 | / 1 | 2 / 1 | 1 | 1 |
Most popular classes
- Fighter (11)
- Elf & Thief (8)
- Cleric (7)
- Magic-User (6)
The raw combat power of fighters takes the first place, while the versatility of elves and thieves share the second. Spell-oriented clerics and magic-users lag behind, while almost no love at all is given to shorter demihumans and mystics.
Largest lethality
- Magic-User & Thief (50%)
- Elf (37.5%)
- Cleric (29%)
- Fighter (27%)
Don't know about you, but I see a clear dependency on the size of hit dice here. Also, note the rapid reduction of lethality rates past the 3rd level.
Number of high-level (6+) characters for each class
- Fighter (5)
- Cleric, Magic-User, Thief (2)
- Elf, Halfling, Mystic (1)
I should probably attribute it to their survivability, but there are already two 9-level fighters in the campaign. Spell-casters and thieves share the second place. Some are already establishing their domains, while others elect to travel some more.
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