Initiation Quests (was Re: Changing rune affinities?)

From: Kenrae <kenrae_at_...>
Date: Sat, 18 Dec 2010 12:18:55 +0100


> Re: Changing rune affinities?
> Posted by: "hairyorlanthi" mdawson_at_...m hairyorlanthi
>
> Further, without digging through a whole lot of tertiary materials I don't have the spare cash for, I'm certain I don't have enough info to really run initiation quests. Nor am I terribly thrilled by the thought of running them, since the whole point is to end up with the starting character the player
> wants! Awkward if he fails--reminiscent of previous experience in old Traveller, where your character could die before he was ever played!

I've run initiation quests and they have always been great. In my current campaign, I started by running the quests into adulthood (not into the particular cult, they just became lay members of the pantheon after this). Then I made the individual cult initiations, and then we started playing the "real" campaign. For these events the costly success rule is very useful - something I rarely use otherwise. The players couldn't fail at initiating, but having bad luck with the dice had consequences. For example, one player had a bad defeat that made him acquire the "Fear Uz" trait. Another one had a complete victory in the final conflict and returned with a magic spear. We all had a lot of fun so I consider it was a success.

Cheers,
-Sergi Díaz

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