1. This not a huge problem for me. This is a regular occurrence. New people have joined our tables, not just new to Arcanis but new to any roleplaying game. These are people we are teaching the very basics of game mechanics. We have rerun the first 4-5 modules of the Blessed Lands Arc (soft points and hard points) twice, and we are currently going through the Crusade Arc for the third time. We have rerun them for these new players who have stayed longer than 3 modules. And they have greatly appreciated being able to build their own character from 1.1. This then ties into point number 2. As for the old players, we have some great players here that have lots of character ideas, and love the opportunity to replay modules with new concepts, to try them out, or have different experiences, like Haakon_val'Ishi mentioned in his post.
2. I think what you are really saying here is established players will be bored replaying/rerunning the same adventures over and over just to try new character concepts and have a convention official character. I don't have an answer to that problem. But that is because I play with great players, who level a tertiary or quandary character to the module minimum, to try out their idea, don't want a cert, and just fill the spot at the table. If you want a secondary character to be as high as your primary, and you don't want to go through all the modules, but can still take the secondary to conventions, I'm not really comfortable with that. Maybe you should start another discussion about trading certs you've earned from one character to another, or something like that.
If a character died-we are talking about people who have secondary or tertiary characters already building levels. I have yet to meet a player who has a single character, with all their certs, and never took the time to build or try a secondary character, or build a secondary and never took a cert, tertiary or higher sure, but no certs on a secondary, never seen it. But statistically these people must exist I suppose. I think Nierite did a poll on this kind of info.

I believe that neither of your huge problems are things that good people, and a strong fan base, can't over come.
Isn't that one of the purposes of this thread? Find a solution to the Con vs homeplay experience, so we can get more people interested in the game, and less people upset by the difference between those who go to cons and those who don't. Your solution to increase the XP and gold on leveling certs, closes the level/gold gap, but takes away from the people who have spent the time being part of the campaign from the beginning. Releasing the BIs which have always been central to the story, gives home players, whether new or old, the opportunity to not feel like they missed out. Give those Con goes the full package, gold, items, 500xp for a double rounder, and give the homeplay releases 1/4 the gold, no items, 1/2 the xp, or how ever you want to break it down. But if a new player (or you want a secondary character) to be as high as the character from the beginning, it needs to be earned not given.

All I can say is I wish I lived near you! I am now an active Arcanis player, but I came late to the game, and I can not find the crusade arc to play, to save my life. We have about 1 - 2 players in our greater area. To pull in two tables worth we have to pull from a pretty large area, meaning people need to be willing to drive about an hour. I can say, that we can not get replay tables together. I don't know anyone itching to learn. We don't have an active enough table to invite new players to. And we can't even put together a replay of the crusade hard points online, apparently, or at major cons. So, if your home campaign population is able to sustain all those early modules, I envy you, but it is not the norm.



If we had quintuple the fan base, you may be correct, since that would give us a larger pool of players to pull from. But with the system as it currently is, replaying very old modules is not a sustainable way to get x.p. into secondary characters.

toodeep can you play online? We run a game every other Monday afternoon (since that seems to be the common day off for three of the major players) from 3pm until we finish typically around 7-8PM. Dante (D. T. Chappell) plays with us on a regular basis via the Internet (not sure of the program) and sees the board via my friend's Ipad camera and interacts with us via video link. It's a bit cumbersome but seems to work okay. We are currently playing Crusade mods. Tomorrow we are playing For Hate's Sake and in the coming weeks I will be running Cardaxx Rising and Kiss of the Beautiful Devil. It might be possible to accommodate you in future dates if you are looking for earlier Crusade mods. Unfortunately the weekends are out for us because of work and prior commitments to other games.

I guess we have to agree to strongly disagree. What you discount as overcomable, I see as huge problems that can prevent players from joining or cause old players to leave.



Again, I disagree. Maybe the players I know well are "good" in different ways than those you know well. I don't know any players that care if new players/characters start at the same level that their long-played characters are. If the leveling certs gave all the same "goodies" as playing all the mods, then people would complain but the leveling cert for Arcanis gives nothing like that (much lower xp, far lower gold, and nothing else).



Why? How does it hurt any players or the campaign if new characters can start at "established" levels? On the other hand, forcing new characters to start at tier 1.1 can hurt players (unable to find games) and the campaign (fewer players joining/staying).

First off, my apologies for not having read every reply to see if this had already been mentioned. I got through the first two pages but am running short on time right now.

Why not simply reverse the decision on releasing the BIs for home play? With the exception of those events that *cannot* be re-run (LARPs, the special dungeon delve a few years back, the Vault, etc), why not release everything?

If the biggest issue with home playable BIs is that the situations faced round-by-round are dynamically linked to how well the PCs do in previous rounds, isn't it possible to write a 'base-line' for each round while writing the BI? It'll take a little extra time up front, but if done right, it could almost be in 'release ready' state the same day as the actual BI. I mean the story, start to finish, is already written, so the key points won't change based on what the players at the Con do.

No, this is not the reasn why BIs are not released for home play. This dead horse has been beaten enough without an actual solution, so I don't plan to reverse my stance on this at this time.

If I may, what are the primary reasons? I'm sure you or Tony or another had mentioned it the past, but I cannot recall them.

James, the reason is that if we offer BIs and other special events for home play, turnout at the actual event plummets.

I guess that that is another side of the discussion that hasn't really been mentioned: the business side. Could we just monetarise the certs/rewards other than xp and make it a freemium game in the same way as many computer games? BI is available to play at tournaments etc or homeplay if a special pass is bought? Want to level your character? Buy the bonus xp pack!

Please note:I don't expect these suggestions to be taken seriously.

Actually, for a decently put together PDF (nothing overly 'professional', no art, just the BI and stat blocks, etc), I don't think $50 would be a terrible asking price. That would give the players that cannot make cons a chance to play the BI and get all the rewards, and PCI still gets some income. Those that can go to the con still have the incentive to play AT the con and people at home don't miss out. Hell, they could even toss the con-goers a bone in the form of the time-limited boost or whatever, as has been discussed, so they still get a little extra for playing at the con.