Maelstrom Rules - Downtime

Key Concepts
To support the Maelstrom campaign, Profound Decisions manages an active downtime system allowing you to make items, learn new skills and research new spells between events.

It is not possible to die or to kill another character as a result of your downtime actions. However, you can send armies to invade your opponent’s lands and commit acts of espionage, sabotage and piracy. You can perform as many actions as you can fit in the IC time available to you.

If you do not submit a downtime request then random actions will be assigned to your character. These actions will be to create items using skills that you know or to learn new skills. The website contains a full list of the actions available to your character.

Players are allowed to send IC communications via email but IC internet noticeboards are not permitted.

Eligibility
Every player in the Maestrom campaign is allowed a single primary character who is eligible for a dowtime. Regardless of how many characters you play at events, you will only be allowed a downtime for the one that you nominate as your primary character.

Your primary character will only receive a downtime if you have attended the preceding event. If you miss an event then your primary character will not be allowed to submit a downtime for the following period. If your primary character controls men-at-arms, ships, buildings or resources you will still be able to submit a downtime for them, regardless of if you attend an event.

If your primary character controls one or more retainers then you will be allowed to submit a downtime for each one. A retainer is capable of doing anything that a normal character with the same skills could achieve, but they can only learn new skills if they are taught by another character or they are able to learn by studying with an item or at a location.

Downtime Tickets
To resolve some of the problems related to ongoing player involvement in the campaign we are going to allow players to purchase a downtime only ticket. This ticket will entitle you to a full normal downtime for the period following the event, instead of attending the event. The cost for a downtime ticket will be fifteen pounds but seven pounds fifty of this is immediately refundable against the purchase of your next event ticket.

You can only be eligible for one refund at once. If you purchase downtime tickets for two consecutive events then you will only receive one refund. You can only purchase a downtime ticket for a character that has attended an event in the last year. No refunds will be available for players who bought tickets but did not attend events before Reckonings.

Downtime tickets will be available up to two weeks after an event. If you purchase a downtime ticket for an event then the full price is refundable if you attend the event. None of the standard Profound Decisions discounts apply to downtime only tickets.

Constraints
You have three months of IC activity between each event that can be used to carry out actions. Each action has a set amount of time required to complete it, depending on the skills that you know, the equipment that you own and the help that you receive from other characters. You can submit your actions by mail, but the website allows you to use an interactive form tailored to your character to compose your downtime request.

Profound Decisions uses a computer system to moderate the downtimes and generate the returns. Because of this, all downtime submissions consist of the actions that you have selected for your character and any ships, men-at-arms, buildings and resources that they control. It is not possible to submit free text in support of a downtime.

IC Communications
IC internet based communications via noticeboards, email lists and chat forums are not supported by the Maelstrom campaign, and you must not use them. Other mediums for IC communication, such as private email, phone, etc are fine and any messages that are sent are considered to have been written down and sent by a suitable IC courier.

And so it began......

Dawn breaks, war looms, the evil Lord is gathering his armies to wage a campaign of destruction upon the free peoples of the world. It is up to I, Sir Maximilan Pegasus to stop him, with my trusted band of adventurers we must gather the enchanted sword of Tek, the Shield of Way-Lem and the amulet of Subsidence and together we shall slay this abomination! “TIME FREEZE” And bam, the fantasy world fades away, the enchanted sword of Tek in my hand is a rubber sword smothered in coloured ribbons with a laminated card cable tied to the hilt, I look down and I’m wearing plastic armour and unflattering heropants, and the magical world of my imagination washes away to reveal a field in Wigan, but you know what? It’s larp and I’m a larper, it’s what I do.
I started larping when I was 17, I’d never role-played before, I’d never played D&D or Warhammer, never played WoW or any form of online game, I’d never even read Lord of the Rings, I feel somewhat privileged that I hadn’t done any of those things, I think it gave me an untainted attitude towards what larp could be, I had no preconceptions about saving the maiden fair, slaying the dragon or smiting the liche, to me it was just a new thing to try.
It was cold, really cold, 10am on a September morning, the rain was battering down and I’d been given a faux fur tunic, a mouldy old sword and been pointed towards a man and told, “You’re monstering, there’s the ref he’ll tell you what to do.” I obeyed, I played wave after wave of zombies, orcs and various line monsters and to be honest, was cold, bored and hungry. That is, until lunchtime, the teams switched sides, I got into the kit I’d scrounged up, as with most first timers, a black trenchcoat. I took the mouldy old sword, stood with my fellow adventurers and it hit me, I’m a god damn hero!
Pow, there it was, a new larper was born.