Logistics & Timeslots (updated - Story 2 started Oct 17th)

Start date
Aiming for around the 11th of April, with the potential for a soft opening on the 4th of April if we've got enough players by then.
UPDATE - we'll soft open on the 4th of April. This means that this first week will open early (the 4th), but last two weeks to allow new players to join. The official events will therefore move a little slower than normal to allow new player participation, but they'll be up on the opening weekend.

New players are welcome to join while we're in progress.

How long does each game day last?
Each game day should last a week, with the first week probably lasting two weeks to get everyone up to speed if we manage a soft opening on the 4th of April.

In between scenarios (Like the tournament at Riverrun), there we be a break of a few weeks in real life. In the game world, several months will pass and there will be events for houses and chances to pursue personal goals, but these will be handled in a more abstract fashion than the scenarios.

How does each game day work?
- Each game day is divided in to 12 timeslots (an early/mid/late slot for each of morning, afternoon, evening and night).
- Remember you need to sleep for eight hours!
- You can only post in one thread per timeslot.
- See below for a link to the current schedule of official events:
viewtopic.php?f=45&
t=3

Timeline (Year/Month)

124/10 - Dragon's Dance 1: Tourney at Riverrun
124/10-125/1 - Personal stories
125/4 - Against the Mountain Clans
125/7 - House Evenets
125/10 - Dragon's Dance 2: The King's Justice

Story 2: The KIng's Justice
- Day 1 - opening
- Day 4 - a royal aide arrives
- Day 7 - a verdict delivered
- Day 8 - departure

Reader wrote:
- Remember you need to sleep for eight hours!

Well... actually you don't.

Sleep

Finally, Endurance also determines how long a character can go without
sleep. All characters can go a number of days without sleep equal to their
Endurance rank. Each day thereafter, the character takes a cumulative
–1D on all tests. Once the penalty dice equals the character’s Endurance,
the character collapses from exhaustion and sleeps for 2d6+6 hours.

Someone with endurance 7 could theoretically go a week before even starting to take penalties. Even someone with endurance 2 can push themselves for a couple days before they start to flag.

Sleeping should also be two or three time slots rather than gauged in hours. You should also decide if those time slots need to be contiguous or if it's okay to take a naps.

.

oh, I'll have comments once I get back next week. Probably.

You're welcome to not sleep, following the rules in the core books. People might think you're a bit weird even before you start taking penalties. :;
):

Eight hours of sleep should be more or less contiguous (a brief break to conduct an affair/murder a rival is acceptable and indeed, encouraged). In the unlikely event that everyone is deprived of slots, I'll cut the requirement to six hours/three slots.

Reader wrote:You're welcome to not sleep, following the rules in the core books. People might think you're a bit weird even before you start taking penalties. :;
):

This is assuming that they are interested enough to notice.

It also wouldn't be unusual for a character like mine to start sleeping in the late slot of Night on Day 1 and the early/mid Morning slot of Day 2

If it's in character, it's in character.

Don't sweat the sleep stuff too much.

Nathaniel Mason wrote:

Sleep

Finally, Endurance also determines how long a character can go without
sleep. All characters can go a number of days without sleep equal to their
Endurance rank. Each day thereafter, the character takes a cumulative
–1D on all tests. Once the penalty dice equals the character’s Endurance,
the character collapses from exhaustion and sleeps for 2d6+6 hours.

Someone with endurance 7 could theoretically go a week before even starting to take penalties. Even someone with endurance 2 can push themselves for a couple days before they start to flag.

That cries out for a houserule. That much sleep deprivation is fatal, no matter how tough you are. Further, nothing in there specifies how much sleep is necessary. As written you could sleep one timeslot (2 hours) a night and be fine (I'm afb, so that may be covered elsewhere).

Nathaniel Mason wrote:Sleeping should also be two or three time slots rather than gauged in hours. You should also decide if those time slots need to be contiguous or if it's okay to take a naps.

In BitW it was based on timeslots, I presume the same will be done here. Very good point about naps, though.

Also, it seems like sleep should be related to the fatigue rules somehow.
How about this:

Every morning when a character wakes up they must make an endurance test with a difficulty based on the number of timeslots they have slept the previous day (including naps):
Slept for 4 timeslots (8 hours): TN 0
Slept for 3 timeslots (6 hours): TN 3
Slept for 2 timeslots (4 hours): TN 6
Slept for 1 timeslots (2 hours): TN 9
Slept for 0 timeslots (0 hours): TN 12
For every DoS, the character may remove a point of fatigue. If the check is failed, the character gains a point of fatigue.
If failing the test would cause the character to exceed the normal limit of fatigue, they instead take an injury.
For every full day (past the first) that you do not sleep at all, you take a -1D penalty on this test.

The narrator may, at their discretion, require a character to make a will test to remain awake.

Note that most people will be able to make do with only 6 hours, no problem (in fact if you have endurance 3 or higher you auto-succeed at it, under normal circumstances).

I'm not sure if this would work best in addition to the normal fatigue recovery or in place of it.

Note: as I mentioned before in BitW, I like to tinker with systems. I won't be offended if this is not used. :mrgreen:

Must admit I didn't anticipate this being a hot topic. :;
):

I'll houserule it and half the maximum time with no sleep (round down) if people abuse this and the game turns in to "
The Walk"
or "
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPMEW2klP6U.

Otherwise, I'll stick with rules as written to avoid more house rules.

Reader wrote:Must admit I didn't anticipate this being a hot topic. :;
):

For fighty, jousty, noble characters, sleep is not really an issue.

For sneaky, intriguey, spy-y characters, sleep can be a problem since they are often operating late into the night and still might have obligations during the day.

For example, my Day 1 might look like:

Morning Early: Sleeping
Morning Mid: Sleeping
Morning Late: Pick up tidbits of rumor. Hear the captain of the guard is embezzling
Afternoon Early: Watch the Arrival of the Queen (Pickpocket keys from the local guard captain while he is distracted).
Afternoon Mid: Search the Captain's office while he is on patrol.
Afternoon Late: Take an afternoon nap.
Evening Early: Disguise myself as a page at the Feast.
Evening Mid: Intrigue the local whisperer to investigate the Captain
Evening Late: Welcome guests at the brothel and gather information.
Night Early: React to the Bold Arrival!
Night Mid: Entertain a client, chosen for his money, status or potential information.
Night Late: Sleep.

A Noble's day might look very different. He probably just goes to bed at Evening Late and spends the night sleeping. Not all of us have the luxury of just sleeping for eight ours. Unlike nobles, some of us work for a living.

.

That looks fine with the afternoon nap.

Glad to have our intrigue specialists and allrounders to provide variety!

Reader wrote:Otherwise, I'll stick with rules as written to avoid more house rules.

No problem. I would not be surprised if such odd rules for sleep made it through the playtest process because they never came up during the playtest. Similarly I doubt they will be an issue in this game. I just sometimes can't help but tinker. Especially when it lets me procrastinate on a paper I'm writing.

Nathaniel Mason wrote:For fighty, jousty, noble characters, sleep is not really an issue.

For sneaky, intriguey, spy-y characters, sleep can be a problem since they are often operating late into the night and still might have obligations during the day.

A Noble's day might look very different. He probably just goes to bed at Evening Late and spends the night sleeping. Not all of us have the luxury of just sleeping for eight ours. Unlike nobles, some of us work for a living.

Maybe for the boring sorts of nobles. Those that are up past the crowing of the cock (to borrow an evocative phrase from Shakespeare) partying will have odd sleep schedules too. Besides, the middle of the night is the perfect time for an illicit meeting of the carnal sort...

And work is overrated.

The sleep rules on p. 207 fall under the Sustenance heading on the same page. The second paragraph makes a rather important point (bolded for emphasis):

Tracking sustenance helps maintain a sense of realism and can create dramatic tension when characters go without food or water - or have been manning the battlements for several days without sleep. However, these rules are not designed to simulate reality;
they are here to augment game play. For the most part, if the characters eat at least one good meal each day and have a steady supply of water and rest, ignore these rules. Only worry about them when the characters go without some or all of these vital resources.

In other words, the rules being debated are not intended to simulate day-to-day life, and characters are expected to live as normal people most of the time, no matter how tough they are, and that means regular meals and sleep. Requiring 6-8 hours of continuous sleep (3-4 time slots), as was done in BITW, is perfectly in line with this. Should anyone attempt to push their limits just because the rules say they can go X number of days before collapsing with exhaustion, I suggest an old school solution - the narrator either lets you use the rules as written, or makes an on the spot ruling if he thinks that the rules are poorly thought out.

Seriously, all that's required of us here is to play our characters as normal people, not supermen.

fendrin wrote:
Maybe for the boring sorts of nobles. Those that are up past the crowing of the cock (to borrow an evocative phrase from Shakespeare) partying will have odd sleep schedules too. Besides, the middle of the night is the perfect time for an illicit meeting of the carnal sort...

Medievaly, it was quite common for there to be two four hour sleep intervals. There was usually an hour interval in between for... 'spiritual contemplation and reflection'.

Yeah, this thing about bundle all one's sleep into 8h is a relatively new phenomenon.

And many places, they haven't gotten on the trend either. Siesta during midday, fiesta long into the night. I kinda like the concept.

At any rate, it's a "
keep within reason and carry on"
sort of thing IMO.

Updated with good news - April 4th "
soft open"
due to the high numbers of characters we've got already.

See first post for details - essentially, first week opens earlier but lasts two weeks to ease everyone in and make it easier for new players to join at the very "
start"
- they can still join mid tourney.

FYI all - objectives will get a final pass near launch to adjust VP required appropriately for house population.

"
Soft Launch"
starts tomorrow! Please finalise your character sheets, goals and "
three key questions"
answers in your private forums.

Day 1 will run for two real life weeks as we all try to get up to speed.

New characters still welcome (as they will be throughout the tournament).

Reader wrote:"
Soft Launch"
starts tomorrow! Please finalise your character sheets, goals and "
three key questions"
answers in your private forums.

Day 1 will run for two real life weeks as we all try to get up to speed.

New characters still welcome (as they will be throughout the tournament).

Have you gotten in touch with Kyl Farwynd from BITW? I noticed that he replied to your PM on BITW, asking if new characters were still welcome?

Well spotted, hadn't seen that.

Dragon's Dance has begun!

Day 1's official events are up, but players should also feel free to make threads to showcase their arrival, meet fellow characters and lay the seeds for their personal schemes.

So, has it been decided how long this first week will be, or will this week just last till the players have done their intrigues?

Day 1 has been set to last two weeks. See the update to the first post.

Yeah, I was just wondering if it was 2 weeks ish, or exactly 2 weeks, thanks for the info:)

BitW had a tendency to prolong one day for an extra week, but this game already seems like it is going faster. We will see.

Any updates on the schedule? Anyone knows anything? Things seems to have halted a bit. Please don't die on me!