Wednesday D&D: The On-Going Adventures!

CALLING ALL HEROES: THE ONGOING ADVENTURES, ACT II

A semi-open, open-world, emergent adventure for Dungeons & Dragons, 5th Edition (2024)

The Premise

During 2022, 43 adventurers joined our open-world, open table to explore The Land*, a sparsely populated northern region to the west of Faerun across the sea. The premise was simple: we had a land mass with all sorts of features (the open world), and together, we’d discover what they were, through play. Heroes entered the world either once or over many sessions, each time leaving some small imprint of their time for others to pick up in the emergent story. This is what was meant by the open table.

In Act I, we established the world, the powers, and major locations along the easternmost coast of The Land. For Act II, these adventures will continue, but now with a little more direction (and a slightly tighter game loop).

What can I expect?

The Ongoing Adventures (Act II) will be a standalone series of adventures, designed with the intention of drop-in/drop-out play. Sessions will be based on the interests and goals of the players convening for that night, flavored to either the social, combat, or exploratory pillars of tabletop roleplaying games.

Behind the scenes, the DM will keep track of Reputation with different factions and how the antagonists of the world respond to the actions of the players, former and current. These consequences will inform future adventure hooks, and the emergent story will develop from there. You can always follow along with what happened at this link (just navigate via the Outline tab). 

What the DM recommends you bring:

If it's your first time attending Ongoing Adventures, come with a level 3 character (or, if you're up for more of a challenge, level 1), built with the 2024 rules**. Each session, you’ll have the chance to level-up based on the difficulty of the mission you take on, but it is not expected that every player character will be at the same level (or even Tier of play!). In addition, the beginning level may change as we collect more time at the table.

More information (and house rules) will be explained at the table and at this link (where the DM will write updates of what happened). If this is your first time playing D&D 5e (or first time playing in a while), you're welcome to attend; just come 15-30 minutes earlier if you have any questions. Otherwise, once you sign up, expect an e-mail from the DM approximately 24-hours from the start of the event for more instructions.

*The overland map comes from Dyson’s Dodecahedron; ideas for this type of play sourced from the open creative community under which all ttRPGs thrive, but especially come from Justin Alexander’s Open Table Manifesto and also Free League’s Forbidden Lands. 

**The table will use the 2024 rules to keep things a little tighter (and so we can learn them). However, if you wish to use content from the 2014+ era, just talk with the DM (his favorite class, after all, hasn’t been ported over yet!)