Tideland Empire Game: Session Report 01-14-24

Stumbling over rules

The Tideland Empire game last night was a bit of a kerfuffle. The issue comes from the fact that Obsidius Falx has a Seal of Chaos with which he is forcing a summoned genie to produce silk, with the goal of using his followers and henchmen to run a mercantile venture from his capital to both The Holy City and the elven nation of Lidari. Bad market assessment rolls from his liaison in The Holy City (contacted via Scry and Telepathy), meant he had no idea what the demand modifiers were there. However, he had perfect knowledge of the modifiers for Lidari's trade hub (silk +3). In a foul twist of fate, we decided to do the mercantile run to The Holy City first. This proved our undoing. The session was fine right up until they met with their first city in Consecratia, a medium town known as Festal, the festival city. There they discovered the -1 silk demand, and Obsidius, currently playing the second in command on the mission said "boss doesn't care how much the silk sells for, just that it sells." As the referee, I knew his intention was to gain XP on these characters via the mercantile venture, and I also knew the the profit was going to be counted against the base cost of silk, since it was acquired as treasure (in that it was produced by a Seal of Chaos, which is treasure). So I messaged the player and asked if he was sure, since he wouldn't get XP here, only to realize that he was under the impression that it was against the actual price of the silk, i.e. free. Now, we had discussed selling of free merchandise before, but that was weeks ago when this venture was first being planned. Secondly, I had never directed sent him the rules that applied, only linked the section.
So now, we were in a pickle, because quite reasonably the player would not have done this trip at all, had he been operating under the correct assumptions. He would have went to Lidari, since he had perfect information and a good demand modifier on silk. As the misunderstanding was partly my fault as the ref, I didn't feel as though he deserved to simply waste a session on this learning experience. However, there were other players who are the the Reichstag game, namely Barca and John L. Angularus, and they had some say on how the situation was rectified. So some deliberations took place, and we determined to roll back the session to the point where they sailed for Consecratia as opposed to Lidari and go from there. Note, this happened because I have good players, if the affected player had been throwing a fit about it, the consequences would have been different. However, this is my resident rules lawyer and he plays by the rules when he is aware of them. So rolling back and redoing was agreeable to me and the other players. With that preamble, on to the amended session report.

Dramatis Personae
Fastal Fairgraves - Level 1 fighter with +2 CHR
Menditiri - level 2 mage
Calidan - Level 1 thief with Elven Cloak
Barduk - level 3 battlemage
Clak, Torgar and Hacfinn - Level 0 mage apprentices

Ship: The Deep Cut
Crew: 1 master mariner, 11 sailors, 15 light infantry as guards

Day one: A Strong westerly wind carried the crew upriver in the inland lake called the Sapphire. They anchored outside of Marshbottom, ruled by minor elector Viscount Larian.
Day two: Spent a day assessing demand for silk and dyes and pigments (-2, -1). Fastal was accosted by a street urchin who tried to pick his pockets. A stout fist sent the boy limp into the dirt before the guards hauled the blackguard to the stocks.
Day Three: The westerly wind remained, but slackened to a gentle breeze. They sailed out of the Sapphire and into Salamander's Gulf. They did meet the titular salamander, a large serpentine beast as big and as fast as any ship. The Salamander was content to simply cruise along side them for the better part of a day, ensuring they meant no harm. The arrived and anchored outside of Willowweid, the Elven trading port.
Day Four: They docked and unloaded their wares into a wagons to begin selling. Then anchored the ship.
Day Five: Sold 2 Stone of silk for 996
Day Six: Sold 2 Stone of silk for 996
Day Seven: Sold 2 Stone of silk for 996
Day Eight: Sold 2 Stone of silk for 930
Day Nine: Sold 2 Stone of silk for 864
Day Ten: Sold 2 Stone of silk for 864 - 1 GP
Day Eleven: Sold 2 Stone of silk for 864
Day Twelve: Sold 2 Stone of silk for 864
Day Thirteen: Sold 2 Stone of silk for 798
Day Fourteen: Sold 2 Stone of silk for 798 2 ST
Day Fifteen: Sold 2 Stone of silk for 732 2 ST
Day Sixteen: They departed Willowweid, and now had to struggle against a strong westerly wind. Even their Master Mariner's skill was of little avail and they stopped near the mouth the Gulf.
Day Seventeen: The wind slackened and they were able to sail inland. They spied the salamander once again who eyed them balefully but did not attack.
Day Eighteen - Upon reaching the Sapphire, they come upon an odd sight. 4 merman taking a giant sturgeon. The beast was almost dead, and Menditri decided to Mage Missile it for sport, killing the beast. The Mermen took offense to their prize being stolen and attack the vessel, rather ineffectively against the barrage of Mage Missiles from the mage's on board.
Day 19: The wind to a gentle easterly breeze, they were able to return to Crookhollow safely.

Once there, the XP was calculated, which led to another issue. Did the Duke's henchmen own the silk? Since they were the Duke's men (and because it was 2 am and I was ready for bed) I decided yes, the Duke's retinues were the owners for this ventures. In which the gross sold was 9,702 GP vs the base price of 7,326. That leaves a profit of 2,376 GP, plus 1590 XP from monster kills is 3966 XP total, for 566 XP on the seven members of the voyage. Not bad for basically no risk to those involved, given the good monster reactions and the fact I forgot to roll city encounters in Lidari. Overall, it ended up being a good night of gaming, despite the stumbling over rules. We are considering shifting to a completely cooperative game for the Reichstag section, as there were several fog of war breaches in the course of explaining the rules and why things were in question. Namely, the existence of the genie sweatshop, and the Seal of Chaos.

In hindsight, I should have simply banned the treasure rolling section of advanced character generation when setting up this game. It has caused far too many issues because my players rolls were insanely strong. I also should have made the scale much much smaller, perhaps only a single six mile hex per person. But we are here now, and despite this session, the players are still invested and we are still enjoying the game. Therefore the game continues!

I will be back with updates on whether or not adjustments are made on the competitive side, and if they are, the domain reports will be out much earlier than initially anticipated. So for now!

Sail On,
-ShockTohp