General Rules

This section covers both mechanical changes as well as the setting specific information necessary to make a West Marches style game work well.

Campaign Scope
This is a game about exploration and adventure on the frontier. To quote directly from the Rollplay West Marches Game (where about 90% of our other content is borrowed from):

"You are an adventurer because you feel a strong call in your bones to adventure. The boredom of a calm life doesn't appeal to you – you are driven to leave behind the safety of civilization and explore the wilds to make your name. Regardless of what drives you, you are driven. You choose where to go and what to do. There will be a handful of obvious choices, but you don't by any means need to take them. The adventure is in your hands."

In metagame terms, this is a player-driven open and persistent world campaign setting without an upfront goal or established plot arc.

Planning and Preparation
All adventures are player-driven. It is the responsibility of the players to organize through any means they desire (our Discord Server is useful for this). At a minimum, three players must determine which characters they are bringing, where they would like to adventure in game, and when they would like to play. This information is bounced off the DM and if everything works out a game is scheduled. As a courtesy, please don't plan sessions less than 24 hours in advance in order to give the DM preparation time. The exception to this is if a session was canceled and you are simply trying to reschedule - the preparation should be already complete so feel free to move times around as needed.

Adventures are assumed to be self-contained. They begin and end inside the walls of Lastport or in the future another friendly settlement or outpost. There are exceptions to this - many of our episodes have not been long enough to actually complete an adventure and these adventures span multiple sessions. The only hard rule so far is that multiple adventuring parties cannot be in the wilderness simultaneously.

Party Makeup
Parties must be composed of at least three players, and no more than six. Any combination of players and their characters are allowed to participate. Characters may be of any level, role, and class. A player must play one of their own characters, characters may not be shared.

Persistence
Any actions which change the game world persist between sessions and parties. If a party mounts an adventure to a dungeon that was just cleared out by another group, they can expect to find evidence of this. Fewer monsters might roam the halls or a whole new faction may have moved in to the power vacuum. Treasure might be largely absent but secret rooms might be easier to detect and open without defenders.

As a result adventures might turn into semi-competitive affairs, with characters racing to clear out locations before another group does, or players jostling to be included on a big expedition in order to get a share of the loot. This behavior is encouraged and there is no method of "reserving" an adventure for yourself other than going on it first.

Lastport
The town of Lastport is safe. This is an out of game guarantee that for whatever reason, harm will not befall the town. Characters residing there, especially those characters not currently being controlled by a player, are safe. At no point will a player come back to the game and find their character worse (or better!) off than they left them.

There is something of a trade-off to this rule. As of now absolutely no adventure is to be found in the city or in civilized lands to the east. Characters are meant to be adventurers and explorers and only boredom or retirement exists in those places.

Allowed Materials
Material from the Player's Handbooks is always allowed. Material from supplemental books is allowed only with request and DM review, to try to minimize the need for extensive reading and to limit power creep from additional material.

New Characters
Players may make as many characters as they wish. A player may only bring one character to each session. Characters earn experience and wealth independently of one another. All characters begin at level 1 with 100 gold pieces to purchase starting equipment with. One week of cheap meals and poor common room accommodations are assumed for new characters staying at The Last Stand. Anything nicer or longer-term still costs coin. Characters of any level may adventure together.

Backgrounds
Borrowed from Dungeons and Dragons Fifth Edition, backgrounds are an added layer to character generation which provide a thematic start point for a character. They provide a brief concept of a character's history before they became an adventurer, and provide tables of traits, bonds, flaws and ideals to choose from. As a small bonus for establishing these items, characters receive a useful background feature, free training in a specific skill, and some additional equipment. Backgrounds are completely optional but strongly suggested, especially for new players. See the full page on backgrounds for more information.

Other Items
There are several other rules and systems in play too significant to fully describe here but still worth mentioning. They include:
 * Advantage
 * Adventuring Motivation
 * Downtime
 * Town Improvements
 * Travel and Exploration

Changes or Additions
Nothing is set in stone. If you want to make an addition, change or simply outright remove something you think is terrible speak with the group and the DM and reach a more amicable agreement!