How To GM In Alvena

GMing is a privilege; an honor; and a chance to create something magical. Below are the rules and guidelines for running games for Heroes of Alvena.

• Pickup Games: In the spirit of Sandbox style gaming, you can run a Heroes of Alvena game without being a fully sanctioned GM; and then use that game as a resume of sorts for becoming a full-fledged Game Master. However you must adhere to the GMing guidelines set below just as an official GM. It's encouraged to Apply for GM membership after your first or second GMing session; if not before.
  • Failure to adhere to the rules for GMing can result in the game being declared void, and further GMing sessions will be under increased scrutiny; with repeated offenses resulting in revocation of GMing rights. GMing is a privilege and shouldn't be abused.

• Challenges, Experience, and Rewards: Encounters should be built at least roughly by the Pathfinder Game Mastering guidelines. If you're following these guidelines closely, you should have few problems.
  • Players cannot receive enough experience to level up more than once in a single session. If a player would gain enough experience to gain two levels, he or she adds the experience but only levels once, and may level again at the end of his or her next session. Additionally, XP is awarded at the end of a session, not during. While it is fine to declare XP after each encounter if you wish, the XP isn't added until the end of the session for this reason.
  • There should never be an item worth more than 25% of the Wealth By Level of a character an adventure is designed for as part of the adventure's treasure. This unbalances the flow of the game, and can cause disputes as single high-value items are much harder to fairly split by players.
  • Avoid adventures where party members are completely useless. Running a game where every enemy is immune to magic is very irritating if you are playing a caster, for instance. This is triply so if it is for nonspecific reason or for "plot purposes" or anything that is primarily driven by GM fiat. Of course, this is in regards to the extreme. If you're uncertain if your adventure is acceptable, feel free to ask and a council member or myself will look it over for you and give you the yes or no, and possibly advice or ideas.

Notice
This covers the basics. More will be added later; but if you follow these rules you will likely do well as an Alvena GM.

GM Tokens

GMs may earn a number of "XP Tokens" for GMing HoA games. GM Tokens are used to advance a Player Character (PC) that they play when not GMing. Since GMs do not typically participate in games that they are running as a player, a GM's PC characters may fall behind in both experience and treasure as the GM runs more and more games for the community. For this reason, XP Tokens have been added as method for keeping things as close to even as possible.

• Gaining XP Tokens: Whenever a HoA sanctioned GM runs a game, he or she earns an XP Token. The minimum amount of time spent GMing, per token, is 4 hours. This means that a GM cannot run multiple "short games" to rapidly acquire GM tokens (such as a pair of 2 hour games); but GMing an 8 hour marathon game would result in 2 tokens; and so forth. A GM may collect and hold as many XP tokens as desired.
• Spending XP Tokens: An XP token may be spent to grant one of your characters experience points and treasure equivalent to an encounter of equal challenge rating (as per the fast experience progression) as found on the Gamemastering page. Thus if a token is spent on a 1st level character, the character would gain XP for a CR 1 encounter (400 XP) and wealth equal to a level 1 encounter (400 gp). It takes roughly 3 sessions worth of XP tokens for a PC to gain a level entirely through XP tokens; as though the PC was part of a 4 player party and encountering 4 equal CR encounters per session.
• PCs as NPCs: Under the rare circumstance that a HoA sanctioned GM runs a game which involves one of his player characters as an NPC within the party (rare but sometimes used in complex story arches), the GM does not receive an XP Token for the game, and instead earns experience as normal for the adventure. If the PC does not actively assist the party or participate in anything that awards experience or treasure (such as not fighting monsters, not dealing with traps, not helping with puzzles, etc) and is around only for dialog and scene purposes, the GM gets an XP token. This is actually the preferred method of GM-PC interaction; as it prevents accidental favoritism (or the appearance of) to the GM's PC while he or she is GMing.