Hey everyone,
I will soon be starting my first 'long' campaign as DM (I've done some one-shots), and as a group we decided on Hell's Rebels. I have decided to start out with using the Rebellion rules, and after one or two sessions using it we will evaluate whether to continue with it or drop the rules.
However, I am not 100% sure how to track the time in order to know when it is time for an upkeep phase. It says at the end/start of every week, so are they expecting me to accurately keep a calendar or tally mark the days in order to know when a new one starts? It might be a very common thing to do, I just know I personally never had to because I only ran short adventures before and I cannot remember my previous DMs doing so.
So I hope someone here can enlighten me. Do I track the days accurately or did people here use different solutions (was personally thinking at the end of every other sessions or something)?
Much appreciated =)
Each time you go through the rebellion process it represents a week of time. I basically just interweave the weeks with the adventures--my theory is that running an organization takes a lot of "off-screen" work and the adventuring happens around the organizing and leading parts. I don't track days and just guesstimate time elapsed, and it's fine.
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So I hope someone here can enlighten me. Do I track the days accurately or did people here use different solutions (was personally thinking at the end of every other sessions or something)?
Work backwards. Players will know a week has passed from the fact that you're calling for rebellion management checks.
I didn't use the rebellion system but one of my players tracked the days/weeks anyways. It was pretty easy to do and made it so that the players could look back on what they achieved and when. She had printed out a blank calendar and would write a small description of anything major (Eg: "Salt works") to remind everyone when things happened.
It was really nice to look back on and see it all filled out.
I maintain a calendar - there are plenty of Golarion calendars out there on the inter webs and I keep track of days - what happens when and we run a turn of the rebellion every Sunday. One of the players keeps a log of play sessions and we keep each other in sync on what day it is, what happened on which day, etc. I think the tracking and passage of time helps the players feel connected to trade-offs between their actions, having the Rebellion do something, creating magic items, etc.
I quickly changed to just announcing that a period of time had passed, and giving them the option to allow more time to pass.
So after resolving a plot item, I would say they take a few days to rest/recover/fence the loot/maintain their cover stories. It has worked well and removed a lot of micro-managing.
I also found a very cheap calendar at staples to count days and weeks. It is great for putting reminders down for things that happen during the next rebellion.
Thank you everyone, this has been really helpful. I do not have a player who will track time or log sessions, but I will probably guesstimate the days/weeks while using a calendar to approximate what happens in a week.
Thanks again!
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I always keep a campaign calendar when I run or play. Doing so in Hell's Rebels will be incredibly beneficial, especially in Book 1 as the missions and events run off the Rebellion weeks as they pass.
At the beginning of each Rebellion week, it's probably a good idea to not only run the Upkeep Phase, but to see what your players want to do during the week. It's a natural spot to use the Downtime rules from Ultimate Campaign. Ask them what Rebellion Activities their teams will perform and check to see if any Events take place. Once you have all those choices made, have them make the organization checks for their Team(s), give them a short narrative of the week's happenings and then make the checks to react to any events.
In between Rebellion weeks keep track of the days they spend adventuring. Our campaign started in April of last year (Gozren 28th, 4718 AR) so our Night of Ashes happened just after Abadar's Taxfest Holiday so Thrune got all the coin in the city during his takeover (Hellknights are not cheap).
We are just about to finish book 2 and Thrune will be offering his "gifts" to the champions of the people on the Chelish Holiday of Signing Day, which falls on the second Oathday of Rova which in our in-game calendar is about a week away from when the Silver Ravens will finish clearing the Lucky Bones and about 3 weeks since they publicly turned in the evidence of Varl Wex to the Durotas of the Rust Gate in Old Kintagro (enough time for Thrune to have items crafted).
--Vrock around the clock