March Announcements (3.31)

3.28 - Please Fill Out the Survey!

We're reaching out with a humble request: if you haven't already, please take a moment to share your thoughts in our Winter Feast Survey. Currently, we've received only 7 responses, and your input is crucial to us. 🌟🙏

👉 https://forms.gle/prKzWYTNjdDDrJ2Y8 👈

Your feedback helps us understand what made it special for you and how we can make future events even more magical. 🧙‍♂️🌈

3.25 - Janurary BOD Summary

Apologies for the delay, but we're excited to share a recap of our Janurary BOD meeting with you! Despite the delay, we wanted to ensure that all members are kept in the loop about the important decisions and discussions that took place. Additionally, we want to remind everyone about our upcoming BOD meeting in April and encourage your participation. Your input and engagement are invaluable to us as we work together to shape the future of our community. Read on for a summary of our recent meeting and mark your calendars for the next one!

You can read the minutes in full along with the BOD, Committee, KGE & Game Staff Reports at https://docs.google.com/document/d/1V5SeV7MOtFlpglihq44VqRsAys_o2R_GWY1BZFklzI0/edit

Highlights: J. Boulianne appointed as Media 1st.

Still accepting of applications of Quartermaster 1st to be discussed at the April BOD meeting. https://kanar.club/blog-posts/2023/quartermaster-1st-and-media-1st-open-staff-positions

Creation of the Logo Committee. Learn more about it - https://kanar.club/blog-posts/kanar-logo-competition

Proposals to update multiple SOP documents were approved. Specifically:
K1G-001 K1 SOP 23.02 to bring the CBM title in line with the other positions of the same level. Additionally a grammar correction, and rephrasing of sections to be gender neutral.

1.1-KGE-RO 23.10 to change verbiage to be gender neutral and fix an old acronym to be updated.

1.3-KGE-SPS 23.01 to change verbiage and update an old acronym.

K1G-002 POL 001-007 23.02 to change verbiage and update an old acronym.

K1-POL-002 now reads:
The use of tags in Kanar is vital to the game play. It is the intent of this policy to set up a process that shall enforce the use of tags without slowing the pace of the game as a whole. Therefore, the Kanar Game Staff Operations Managers (KGSOM) have set forth this statement of policy to be followed by all members of K1.
In order for your Player Character (PC) to use or carry any item requiring a tag, you must have both a physical representation (Phys Rep) and an item tag. Crafting Materials are an exemption to this policy; they do not require you to have a physical representation. However, crafting tags may be stolen.
If the Phys Rep is lost or taken, and there is no item tag to be found on you, then the item is still considered lost / stolen by a thief.
Items that a PC or Non-Player Character (NPC) could not physically carry require the use of a "Deed of Ownership". A deed of ownership is a piece of parchment with the word deed written on it, what it is a deed of, and the tag number it is associated with. Deeds of Ownership are stealable.
Armor worn by a PC cannot be stolen unless physically removed. You may only have armor tags on you that you have physical representations for.
Temporary Tags that are issued during the current event are stealable without a physical representation present. If a tag is lost and there is no Phys Rep, the item is lost forever. If a PC still has their Phys Rep, but the tag is lost, they may get the tag back.

K1G-001 K1 SOP 23.02 that allows the splitting of the rulebook into multiple documents. The Kanar Rulebook will be divided into the following book types: The Core Rulebook and Supplementary Rulebook Codex(s).
The Core Rulebook: This document will contain the core mechanical aspects of the game, which are deemed to be integral to the operation of the standard aspects of the game. Supplementary Rulebook Codex(s): These documents will supplement the Core Rulebook; they are intended to allow for more in-depth game play without bloating the Core Rulebook and its core mechanics.

Subclasses approved.

View the 2024 Rules - https://drive.google.com/file/d/13nVa6Ja9ndjtu0G_u89391Mur2t-ONgV/view?usp=drive_link

View the Kanar Subclass Codex - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Gz6VTivThE1heD9yD6PjIsAg_HtduZgt/view?usp=drive_link

View the Kanar Master Spell Codex - https://drive.google.com/file/d/1MeefhzffmSLFhGVIeBnh6RkGqlqCFevL/view?usp=drive_link

Stay Sparkly!
~ Tashina O.
Odd Year Rep

3.24 - Seasonal Reminder of the Personal Safety Policy

Hello, players! Safety 1st Kiri here. I've had a few questions this event about what to do if roleplay on field gets a little intense and causes some worry about whether the feelings are in character or out. Below is KGE policy #18, which covers personal safety while at our games. Please make sure you're especially familiar with the process for how to check on other players during gameplay. It's a long post, but important to know. Thank you in advance for taking the time to read through!

Personal Safety

Personal safety is important to Kanar Gaming Enterprises, Inc. We hope members make informed decisions before playing the game. Therefore, the KGE Board of Directors has set forth this statement of policy to be followed by all members of KGE.

1. KGE sponsored games, like K1, use padded facsimiles of melee and ranged weapons in simulated combat.

2. KGE recommends that every player wear an athletic supporter, padded gloves, and safety goggles.

3. Pregnant members may attend KGE events as non-combatants.

4. During any sponsored game a participating member may break character, putting their hand over their head and speaking out-of-game, to let other participants know that they are not feeling real-world safe in the situation. If needed, a hold may be called. Participants should assess their gameplay, consider whether they are roleplaying in line with the code of conduct, and either find a way to safely re-engage in gameplay or disengage from the situation entirely. Any participant can choose to walk away from any situation they feel is unsafe.

This guideline should be followed when handling unsafe situations:

If a participant communicates that they feel unsafe and is able to communicate what is making them feel unsafe, the participants involved are encouraged to have a short discussion on how the situation can be changed to resolve the issue.

• If a solution can be reached, players are encouraged to re-engage in gameplay with changes made.
• If a solution can not be reached or the changes do not remedy the situation, the unsafe participant is encouraged to disengage from the situation and seek out a member of staff as needed.

If a participant communicates that they feel unsafe and is not able to communicate what is making them unsafe:

• Without a communicated way to resolve the issue, it is highly recommended that the participant disengage from the situation and seek out a member of staff as needed.

If a participant is concerned that another participant is feeling unsafe or unwell, they are encouraged to put their hand on their head and briefly check in. We recommend the following methods:

• Verbally, by quietly asking if everything is 'mundanely okay' and getting a verbal response from the other participants. This should not interrupt surrounding gameplay unless a hold needs to be called.
• Nonverbally, by giving a thumbs up and receiving either a thumbs up for safe or thumbs down for unsafe.

If all participants are safe, gameplay should continue. If they are not, participants should follow the resolution guide listed above.

If a participant is leaving the event due to not feeling real-world safe, a member of the Safety Response Team must be informed of the issue before the participant leaves the property so an investigation can begin. The Safety Response Team member must report the situation to Safety 1st for further investigation. If needed, see the guideline for extreme situations below.

In case of extremely unsafe situations, the following procedure should be followed:

• A hold should be called by the participant that does not feel safe.
• A member of the Safety Response Team must escort the unsafe-feeling participant to an out-of-game area.
• If a member of the Safety Response Team is not present, the participant who called the hold should designate someone to escort them to an out-of-game area and stay with them until a member of the Response Team arrives.
• The Response Team member or designated escort and unsafe participant will walk off the field of play with a hand over their head. The escorting party will designate someone to call off the hold for those not involved with the safety issue once they are fully clear of the situation.
• A Response Team member will remain with the participant at all times until the situation is resolved or the participant leaves KGE property.
• A member of Play Master, Game Master, and Safety Staffs are required to address the situation with the other participants involved, investigate whether rules or policies have been broken in the situation, and deliver warnings and removal from gameplay as warranted. This is to be done in an out-of-game area which may not be the same area where the unsafe-feeling participant and Response Team member have gone.
• If the participants involved are removed from the event, a member of the Board of Directors must be contacted to escort the removed participants from the field of play as per procedure.
• If the situation is investigated by a member of staff who is not the head of their department, their department head must be notified of updates as soon as possible.
• Disciplinary actions must be documented with the Safety department.
• If the investigation determines that action beyond the scope of the GM, PM, and Safety staff is required, a Judicial Review Board Request should be submitted by the unsafe-feeling participant. The Board of Directors will review the investigation findings and actions suggested by the investigating party and determine whether removal from a staff position, suspension, or removal from KGE is warranted via the Judicial Review process.

Thank you for reading to the end! If you have any questions about any of this, please talk to me on field or send an email to safety@kanar.club.

-Kiri, Safety 1st

3.22 - Start of 3/22/2024 Game pushed back to 7:00 pm

Good afternoon, KGE Membership:

While we are all excited to start the 2024 Kanar Season, The Game Master Staff, Safety Staff, and Building & Land Department have all met and agreed to push the start of today’s event back to 7:00 pm due to inclement weather and poor road conditions. Players can still access the property before 7:00 pm, but “Game On” will not start until that time. This is in hopes that members and staff have extra time to travel to the property safely.

We do not make this decision lightly as we respect our membership's commitment to the game and the playtime you dedicate to your characters.

With thanks,
The Game Master Staff, Safety Staff, and Building & Land Department

3.22 - Formatted Rulebook and Codex

Hello All!

The final formatting for the 2024 rule book as well as the subclass and master spell list Codices has been completed and is now viewable of the downloads section of the website! Link: https://kanar.club/downloads

Thanks,
P.M. Staff

3.22 - Fighter certification

Hello All!

The link provided bellow is the written part of the fighter certification, take it early now instead of verbally on field to speed up the process!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeaT2SEar3DlHr5Ql8NjDHCS2PSvfwAldxRla-s3zU5H8LhMg/viewform

Thanks,
-P.M. Staff

3.22 - March Hype Post

As Spring fights to break free from the grasp of winter, Ilverash awakens and starts the new year in uncertainty. The army of Narrdmyr sits at the border, waiting to strike. The North has become reclusive. The King is absent from the public eye. The swamp holds tight to its secrets. What enemies lie in wait for our returning heroes?

3.4 - Feast Survey

Hello everyone!

🌈 Take a moment to fill out the 2024 Winter Feast Survey and let us know what worked, what delighted you, and how we can make next years even more magical! 🧙‍♂️✨

👉 https://forms.gle/rgnszKjRFKg671RZ6

Tashina - Odd Year Rep / Feast Coordinator

Photo by Arsalan Arianmehr on Unsplash

2020 Rulebook Version B

2020 Rulebook Version B

You provided some good feedback regarding our rules changes at the end of last year, and we listened to it. We proposed the resulting changes at the next possible Board meeting, which was this last weekend, and they were accepted. This video describes ALL of the changes that have been made to the Rulebook since the end of the 2019 season. We will have a Q&A thread about them soon, please save questions/comments for that thread to avoid confusion.

Video Transcript

hi folks my name is Matt, I am currently a member of our board of directors and prior to that I was the head of our 2019 rule book committee. there were some changes that the 2019 committee made to our rule book they're going to take effect in 2020 and we wanted to let you know what those were. a couple of notes before we get started . first off these changes were put out in a couple of different phases, so if you had heard something if you read previous version of the rulebook, please know that the documents that are being issued in this video cover all of the changes between 2019 and 2020. so all of its in one place. secondly we're trying to provide you as much information as possible we want you to approach us with any questions. so there's three documents that are going to be provided with this video one of them is the rule book itself with all the updates. the second one is a list that I'm grading off of right now that lists just in brief what the changes are and then the third one is going to be a spell conversion guide because we've made some changes to the spell list and we want you to know exactly which old spells equal which new spells and what the changes are to those once you've read all that information please please feel free to ask us questions and you know approach me or a member of our play master staff we're all very happy to answer any questions that you have we're going to go over these in brief right now but yeah once you've read the rule book I'm sure there's more in-depth information if you have more questions just let us know so but we thought we put a video because seemed to work out pretty well for last year's changes and we thought we'd do that this time too I have a list of 21 total changes we're going try to go through these as briefly as possible so I'm not taking up too much of your time number one we've overhauled the master spell list there's been a lot of changes to it let's see the biggest ones are probably that some of the categories have changed we'll get into that a little bit more later but a lot of the names have changed so whereas previously you had a whole bunch of different spells that did damage at different levels that had basically the same effects we tried to put those in line as much as possible so that if you have three spells that do the same thing at different levels and different levels of potency rather than being you know breadth of the dragon and breadth of the lizard and breadth of the fire-eating whatever now it might be lesser firestorm firestorm and greater firestorm this will be a little bit confusing at first we understand that we're gonna understand if people accidentally call it spell names incorrectly for the first year here there for a little while until we used to it but we think long terms can make it a lot easier for everybody to understand it and probably the there's a couple of names that have changed there's a couple levels that have changed we used to have sleep and slumber which were two different spells that did the exact same thing but they were on one was on the fire error list and one of them was on the bardic list the dispel levels got changed to the same level with that but probably the biggest change to it and again you'll want to look at that that conversion list is that we've added a lot of spells to the bardic list prior to this change bards had access to half as many spells as some of the other classes it was just a massive imbalance there the spells are in the same line there along the same theme as they were before bards have not gotten damaged spells which they didn't have before anyways but they've gotten a lot of new ones what's important to note about this is that even if you were a master bard before even if you had all of the spells at that time from the master spell list that does not mean that you have all of these new spells now if you do not already have the spell in your spell book you need to learn it there a real list of which ones those are you can learn those a couple of different ways either you can learn it by way of plot or a module that you went on and NPC to taught you spell something like that or you can use the spell research skill to to learn that from the master spell list but take a look at that conversion guy it'll give you more information about that number two we're going to require recipe books for Alchemy's and toxins this functions a lot of the same way as our current spell books do our crafts are people with craft book binding or book binders now have the ability to create recipe books it works a lot of the same way if you're an alchemist or a toxin person you are going to have a book with recipes for creating those specific toxins and Alchemy's so reading up the spell the rule book for more information about that number three clarification clarify that non damage resistances follow the same progression as damaged ones unless otherwise stated magical and then physical that means that unless something specifically states otherwise such as a spell when you take damage it first gets applied to magical armor and then physical armor ear wearing and then magical body points and then physical body points that's pretty straightforward probably isn't something any of you really but through to had heard previously or were too confused about but we just clarified that for a couple of situations number four clarify that in the case of someone physically attacking and non-combatant any safety response staff member may address the issue this does not require the direct tension of a GM if you see someone with a noncombatant sash on the field you should not be attacking them no matter what there should not even be combat that's occurring within ten feet of them this change means that if any safety response staff member so a member of our Board of Directors member or field staff several other people if they see that happen they can approach you about that directly they don't have to wait for a member of GM staff we want to emphasize there's a lot of reasons if somebody can be made a noncombatant and it's very important that combat doesn't happen around them so please pay attention to that number five this is probably one of the larger ones as well we've updated racial skills to a new model which will be calling racial resistances which provides each full-blooded race with two resistances rather than skills with costs that vary from class to class what I should mention is we have talked to the CBM well what I should say first is that that means that our full-blooded races like halflings dwarves and so forth they get two resistances like resist sleeper resist charm based on what your race is as well as you know changes to body points and whatnot rather than getting like ranged group or damage control so we've we've talked to our CBM staff about that and this is in their purview this is not under authority is play master staffer rulebook committee to change that but they're pretty sure that I can't imagine we're going to be taking a skill away from you let's say you're a halfling and you really like ranged group I can't imagine we're going to take that skill away from you you will probably have to pay for it in order to keep it but we're not going to make that change regardless your wishes our CBM staff will be forthcoming with more information about them but we didn't we didn't want you to get worried about that up front um in any case moving on number six add the option of denoting a weapon special materials using a white ribbon or cloth tied to the weapon in a visible spot which has been marked correctly we're doing this because latex weaponry is becoming a lot more prevalent out there there's a lot more people that are buying expensive latex weapons and we don't want you to have to damage that with tape or with paint so what this will allow is read the rulebook for the exact wording on how to do it but it'll allow you to put a cloth to tie a cloth around it that represents it appropriately it's not marked with the correct colors but will no longer require you to damage your weapons number seven changed the requirements for memorizing spells on field so that any spell regardless of level requires 10 minutes to fill a slot want to be clear about this because there was some confusion during this winter about it when you walk on field at 8 a.m. or whatever you do after dawn you can start play with all of your spell slots filled you don't have to wait hours to do that what you have the option of doing though is leaving one or more spell slots open and then deciding later the day oh there's been a lot of undead that have been coming through I want to fill that spell slot with an undead spell rather than you know a protection spell so this opens up more more options for people to do that but definitely you don't have to spend eight hours preparing spells it is considered good form it's not a rule book when it's considered good etiquette that if you are caster to spend some time role-playing preparing your spell's it's just good roleplay we suggest it we highly recommend it but it's not required number eight clarify the projectile weapons past their benefits on to their ammunition the arrow or bolt is only a method of interpreting whether the attack is successful or not if you have a silver bow and you attack a creature that arrow is dealing silver damage this is one of those places where practicality and simplicity are more important than realism in our game we realized that if you want to be so you know in real life if you want to be shooting silver arrows you better go make a bunch of silver arrows but for the purposes of this game if you have a bow that deal that adds one damage to every shot that's fired that's a property of the bow the weapon and the arrow is just a method to show that you hit somebody same thing with like cold steel bows they deal cold steel damage regardless of what the arrow happens to be made out of number nine note that a character may only have one boon and one protection spell of each element active on them at one time and items can only have one augment spell active on them list of whatever element it is this is part of the spellbook changes take a look at those categories have been changed but you can have one boon of each element and one protection spell of each element active on you at any point in time that is eight different spells that you could have active on you items however can only have one spell one augment spell on them whether that's a fire spell or a wire spell you only have one let's see note that you can make a copy of a spell book by physically copying everything in the book on field if you want to make a backup of your existing spell book and you have a tag for a second new spell book you can make a copy of your existing one by writing down everything from it into a new physical representation that means you are going to copy every word of every incant every description spell description word every duration every name of every spell from your old spell book into a physical representation for a new one if you do that you can copy your spell book it's gonna be tweeted quite a time-consuming process but it allows you to do it where it wasn't before number 11 make spell concentration process more visible and engaging by requiring casters to hold one arm extended away from their body with an empty hand in order to maintain a concentration spell you can no longer just cast a concentration spell walk that way and say yeah I've been keeping an eye on you know James back there he's I'm still concentrating you can't do that what you need to do is you actually need to hold your hand out in point as the person that you're maintaining that concentration on in order to do that if you drop your hand concentration ends number 12 we've changed the name of a couple of different skills that were a little bit confusing to new players previously we used to have three spoke 3d skills called read magic cleric lore and bard song these skills did not let you read anything new they were not lore skills what these skills let you do is have the ability to cast those spells either from a spell slot or from a scroll so these skills are now called fighter air ability earth water ability and Bartok ability those skills now let you cast those spells one other thing of note regarding that is that what was called Bartok ability before is now called musical training so musical training is the ability to physically non magically sing compose music and so forth number 13 reduce the area of vapor toxins from a six foot radius to a five foot radius this just makes it conform with other spell areas we've got some spell areas that are five foot radius we have no spells that are six foot this will prevent you from having to go is it the spell that's six feet or is it the toxin that's the area of the vapor it'll be clear this time number fourteen we have noted each spell with whether it can be made into a potion a scroll or an enchantment when you look at the new spell list it's going to save bindings P s and/or E on there if the spell has bindings P it can be made into a potion if it has s listed as a binding it can mean either scroll if it has et listed as an binding it can be enchanted something this clears up a lot of community a lot of miscommunications and confusion about what's bells could be put in what familiar allow enchanted items to be recharged using a spell the same name regardless of the list it came from previously if you had an item that was enchanted with darkness spell and you needed to you cast that darkness spell and he needed to recharge it a bard with a darkness spell who's prepared for the day could not recharge that for you it had to be a fire air caster that did so that's no longer the case now if somebody has a darkness spell prepared and you have an item that needs that spell cast into it it can do so that does work now we'll make things simpler especially with some of the changes regarding Bartok spells number 16 this is probably the one that I'm most excited about is allow for an unfilled crafting system we you now have the ability to go on field and roleplay creating something using your craft skill this is not potions this is not Scrolls this is not toxins or traps this is specifically regarding stuff that's like craft book binding craft chandlery craft brewing stuff like that there is now a way that you can go on field and you can create an item by role-playing that and how that's done is let's say that I have craft weapon smithing I'm going to need physical representations of tools that I am using to craft that so I would imagine for weapons smithing I'd use an anvil and a hammer one of them is going to be need to be marked with yellow tape or ribbon and that item needs to be put down on a flat surface like a table like the ground something it's not going to move once that's put down you are going to use the rest of your physics to roleplay crafting for two hours for two hours you need to stay within 10 feet of that item and it cannot be moved you'd spend that time role-playing doing that if you get attacked and chased off if you go further than 10 feet from that item the anvil in this case then you need to start all over as if you had spent no time doing so you can you can make another attempt you can makes many attempts as you want during the day but if you get interrupted either being by chased away from the item or having the item moved at all then you need to start the time over if you've successfully spent two hours doing that crafting process you have two options of what to do at that point if you have a crafting skill regardless of whether it is a master crafting level five craft skill or not um you can go to a staff member and get a tag for a non master crafted item you've spent that two hours if I was I'm a Brewer I'm excited to go brew on field I spend that two hour process role-playing brewing I can go to a staff member and get one non master crafted item that I could normally craft in four weeks or less and I can get that tag which is a great bonus I cannot make something that would take more than four weeks to craft and I do still need to pay the cost of making that item the other option is if you are the master of a craft if you have a level 5 crafting skill um you can instead of making something from scratch you can choose to upgrade a non master crafted item to a master crafted item so as a brewer if I have a non master crafted bottle of ale that I have a tag for I can spend that two hours and then go and have it upgraded to a master crafted bottle of ale again same restrictions I can it can only take me four weeks I cannot craft Aled that would normally take me eight weeks I can only craft the one item and I do have to pay for the difference between the non master crafted item and the master crafted item the the creation costs for but we can do that unfilled now should be should make for some amazing roleplay and some wonderful atmosphere next number seventeen reduced the cost of faunal or so that it's the same for all classes rather than being more expensive for clerics this is something that I don't know why it didn't happen last year I think it just fell through the cracks for some reason faunal or the study of animals ended up being more expensive for clerics this should not happen so you if you are a cleric that had faunal or congratulations you are getting 10 points back and it'll be the same cost for all classes going forward next allow a character to assess how many body points of damage a willing or unconscious character can be healed for by using first aid for 30 seconds so how first aid is going to work going forward is you can spend up to 60 seconds performing first aid on someone different things happen depending on how long you spend doing after 10 seconds you have the ability to tell whether a character is unconscious dying or dead that means can they be healed to consciousness do they need a life spell or do they have to be resurrected and what that also does after that 10 seconds is it lets you cause additional death blows to creatures who are not dead yet we'll get to that in just a minute but at 30 seconds if the character that you are performing first aid on is either unconscious or is willing for you to know you you can then learn how many body points they have and what their maximum is so you can now spend 30 seconds and figure out exactly how many points you need to heal somebody so you don't have to spend a whole regeneration spell every single time it's more information for you this is out of character information you know it you still can't express it to other people but you know and then at 60 seconds as usual if you can restore one body point to an unconscious character so if you've been standing there for a whole 60 seconds a full minute and the character is unconscious you can heal them for one body they can get conscious again so yeah that is the new first-aid next one clarify that death blows are cumulative and that you must use first-aid to cause more than five death blows to a character the cumulative part means that you if I if you're unconscious and I come over and deal to death blows to you and then Mike behind me deals three more death blows to you you've taken five you no longer have to count that you just say death blow death blow and so forth the person who is taking the deathblows needs to count those and keep track and if you don't keep track correctly that's cheating and you can get dinged for that but the other part of that is that some of our characters have an ability called damage control and there are some creatures that have a similar ability where it takes more than five death blows to kill them to actually bring them from unconscious to dying um how this is going to work going forward is if you are a character that is being death blood first of all there's no more playing possum to get out of it if you are restrained webbed whatever if you are pretending to be unconscious and someone deals you a death blow you are dropped to zero body points and that counts as your first death blow but then you know if you've taken five death blows and you know if you have taken five death blows then you can ignore the rest of them unless if a character uses first aid for ten seconds and finds out oh this person's taken five death blows but they're not dead they're just unconscious then that person can continue dealing death blows to you it's a bit complicated it's less complicated than it was before it is more straightforward but as always if you have more questions about that let us know we're happy to clarify clarify that all siege weapons biz reps are approved by play master staff only on an individual basis because these trebuchet z' catapults ballista they're so unique and there's so many different ways to create a physical representation for one on field these are going to be individually approved by the playmaster staff there's no guidelines for it put in our rulebook basically if you want to create one of those come see a play master staff we'll have a discussion and give you some tips on how to best go about that and finally there is a section that I really highly recommend that you read it's a couple of paragraphs that's in the rulebook now called the narrative honor system this is very important and it's a huge step forward for our play master staff and our rules officials on field what it says is that a rule system even a really well-crafted one can't cover every single possible situation every single circumstance and with you know a hundred or more people per event on field staff can't be monitoring every player every minute of the day you as a player are responsible for helping to create a wonderful immersive game by following rules and adhering to our guidelines we trust you with some of that stuff but sometimes if if a rule isn't covered if something strange happens like let's say you and an opponent to throw a spell packet at the same time they collide midair and go off to different directions that's a one-in-a-million chance that's not something we need a rule in place for but gosh that's what is what happens um at that point people creative it's perfectly logical in a situation like that for one character to say to the other oh no you countered my spell because the packets didn't hit each other or didn't hit here the people that's okay what we want you to do is show showcase the epic of our characters of our players player characters and the other part of that is that if something strange happens on field if you can't come to an agreement with somebody if you go on to a person and said we need to work this out this is strange this is kind of weird one-off situation and you have a disagreement or you can't find anything in the rule book that would even remotely cover it come see a play master staff member it's perfectly okay we have a couple different options for what we do at that point more than likely what a play master staff will do is issue what's called a field clarification for you it means that for the duration of that event this is how this is going to happen and it lets us then go back and discuss it as a rule book committee staff or as play master staff it lets communication about that happen after that but that that ruling we can issue it to you right then but it's only for the duration of that event at that point we can go back and talk about it and we can decide is this something that is likely to happen a lot going forward is this something that needs to be written down in the rulebook and if so we can issue a clarification for that if it's a one-in-a-million thing it doesn't necessarily need to be written down the rulebook it just needed to be that clarification for that event but as always things with rulebook can get heated people are very passionate about their characters and we're very passionate about maintaining a balance and maintaining a fair system but we really do value your feedback we got a lot of good feedback this time and that's the changes you've shaped how we've made this world look respectful discourse is wonderful when we really appreciate it so we look forward to that in continuing to of all things were hoping we've made a lot of major changes over the last couple of years we're hoping going forward that we can make less huge changes we still want to take your feedback we still want to change things as needed and and put good feedback into place into into practice but we yeah we're gonna go forward with a little bit dress less drastic changes we've gotten a lot of things done and we really appreciate your patience during all this we really look forward to playing with you this year hearing your feedback encountering any clarifications that have to happen and yeah beast is it about three weeks guys we really look forward to playing with you so every night

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Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

2020 Rulebook

New 2020 Rulebook

Below you will find links to the 2020 version of our Rulebook (which does not take effect until next year), a list of overall changes which have been made, and a detailed list of changes made to our Master Spell List.

We realize that you will have questions about these changes (though probably much fewer than last year). We do plan to post one or more videos walking you through each of the overall changes, but a good portion of our staff is very sick at the moment and cannot record those on a few hours' notice. We hope to record and post them later this week, but we ask for your patience.

Any questions you comment with on this post will be taken into consideration while recording them, but staff will not be answering directly. As always, the official method to request a rules clarification is still through the Playmaster Form.

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2020 Rulebook Survey

Good morning, players:

The PM Staff and RBC would like your feedback regarding a couple of the changes implemented in the 2020 Rulebook. Please feel free to discuss as you wish, but staff will be reviewing the results of the survey directly. This survey will remain open for up to one week.

Thank you for your time.

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Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

New Rulebook Clarifications

We’ve had a great reaction to the new rulebook with several clarifications. We don’t want you to have to read several pages of clarifications on top of the new rulebook so we’ve created an updated version of the rulebook with all clarifications added into it.

Video Transcript

Hi folks back again with another video update for you the last couple of video updates that we issued went really well they were really well accepted people seem to enjoy them better than just a wallet text on the Facebook group so what we're gonna do going forward is whenever we have something to communicate to you that's more than just a simple quick statement that involves a little bit more in-depth communication we're going to try to do one of these video updates for you the reason that we're doing this one in particular is threefold first we really wanted to thank you we recently had a Q&A; thread on our Facebook group and because we knew that you were gonna have a lot of questions about the new rule book and about the character updates new character sheets and so forth so we wanted to give you a place to do that and it went wonderfully guys we really appreciate the the civil tone that you brought to that we had very little anger very little insulting there was no you know none of the usual internet trolling and we really appreciate that what we ended up with instead is just some wonderful clarifications some answers some places that you came to us and said hey I'm not sure this made sense or I'm not sure this is working the way that you thought it was and because of that we were able to post those clarifications to our play master clarification log which is available both it's linked to both from our website which is kinda hard at Club as well as the Facebook group so all of those answers you can see in one place just by visiting that it's a really good bunch of information but we want to go one step further with that we don't want you to have to go read an entire rule book and then read several pages of clarifications that were issued we want you to have all the information in one place so that's what we're doing this week before the March event we are going to be issuing a new copy of the rule book to the connect club website that includes all of those clarifications so any place that you know the text wasn't clear it's been clarified and all that information is included right in the rule book for you so we really hope that that's helpful we're sorry we're seeing a new copy you know so quickly but it's kind of to be expected that when large changes are made that we need to follow up on a little bit um the most obvious place that we're following up on that is kind of the third point for this video there is one clarification that's being made that's really more of a rules change and we wanted to give you as much information about that as possible we had a couple people asked both on the Q&A; thread and through our play master forum about how three particular skills interacted and that is shield which is the individual weapon skill shield group which is a weapons group that includes buckler and shield and then the shield bash skill which with this new addition of the rules we made shield bash a general skill to try to make it more clear and more understandable how that skill in particular worked how it interacted with the individual weapon skill and with the group and it didn't work it did not make it more clear what we found in during the course of answering those questions for people is that there was a lot of confusion about it still about how it worked and how it was supposed to work and even some of our staff members didn't fully understand how the skill worked to one degree or another so we were faced with the choice we can either one issue a really long clarification saying hey this is how this is supposed to work and you know next time we make a big rules change update it'll be part of this or the other option that we have is that we could just change this one rule we can make this one change to the rules to make it easier to understand and clear for everyone that's what we decided to do is that second option we talked to the board of directors and got approval for it and what we're going to be doing is removing the shield bash skill I say we're moving but not really getting rid of it it's going to be rolled into the shield skill so if you have the ability to use a shield either from an individual weapon skill or from the weapon group when this goes into effect you are going to automatically be able to make that attack with it that you would normally have to have the shield batch skill ever to do so one thing that I should mention is that technically according to our bylaws any rulebook changes whether that's for clarifications whether that's for a major rules change or anything like that it has to be provided to you for one month prior to a taking effect we will be posting this new rule book before the March event here but what that means is that this change doesn't technically go into effect until the April event when your character sheet is updated between the March and April event you'll see that if you had the shield bash skill previously it's going to be removed from your sheet now there's a couple of different ways that this can work for you depending on your circumstance if you previously did not have or if you previously had the shield skill or the shield group skill nothing's going to change in your character sheet what you do get is you now have the added bonus ability of making that shield bash attack with your shield if you choose to so you don't lose anything you just get a new ability if you previously had both shield bash and either shield or shield group shield bash is gonna be removed see they actually get a bunch of points back which is great you retain all of your ability to make a bashing attack with that weapon and you get points back so bonus for you if you had the isolated strange situation where for some reason you had shield bash the skill but you did not have either shield or shield group what we're going to do is if possible we are going to when shield bash is going is removed we're going to replace it with the individual shield skill so you won't have to train additionally for it just instead of shield bash you will have shield so for mages warriors and rogues this is going to mean that there's absolutely no difference to your point cost it's just that shield the skill shield will be on your sheet instead of shield bash the one group of players that this could work differently for in specific and it's a highly specific group is if you are a cleric that has shield bash currently but not shield or shield group either CBM will be getting in contact with you or contact them directly and it's only for that very small I'm not actually even sure that anyone playing the last couple of years has that particular situation but if you are a part of it let us know and we will work out a fix that works for both you and us but for the vast majority of people what this means is the either getting points back or you're getting an additional ability that you didn't have before yeah so that's what we have for this update that book should be posted as soon as possible it's going to be visible visibly different from the previous one because of the first page instead of saying revised January 2019 it's going to say revised March 2019 if you have any questions at all please feel free to email us play master staff at p.m. one at canard org or just submit something through the the play master form which is an even quicker way of communicating to us we check that even more quickly thanks for listening really appreciate your patience and have a great time this weekend.

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Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash

2019 Rulebook Changes

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This past Board of Directors meeting, several updates to the Kanar Rulebook were approved. Below you can find the new rulebook as well as two videos explaining the changes and how this will affect players. The Playmaster staff will be meeting with the newly elected Character Book Marshal soon to discuss how to handle character updates and the issuing of new character sheets which align with the recent revisions. Once those processes are set, they will issue a third video with information about what the players can expect from that process.

If you are new the game you don’t need to watch the videos or worry about how things used to be.

This is a rough overview of rulebook changes proposed to the Kanar Board of Directors in January 2019.

Information about point cost changes to the rulebook being proposed to the Board of Directors in January 2019, and why they are being made.

This video describes the process our CBM staff will be using to issue new character sheets following recent rulebook changes, as well as options players have in response to the changes.

Video 1 Transcript

Hi folks my name is Matt we haven't met I'm a member of our play master staff and I'm also a current committee chairman we wanted to make a few videos for you today because we've made some changes to the rule book and some of them are fairly significant we wanted to give you as much information as possible well don't be as transparent as possible so we're actually going to be making three different videos this first one is going to go over just a rough overview of the changes we've made to the rule book the second one is going to go over one change in particular that we know that a lot of players are going to want some background information so why and how we came to that change and the third one is going to come out a little bit later and once we've had a chance to talk to the new CBM and go over a couple of options about how we're going to get your a new character sheet to you for the beginning of the new player, so some of these changes are fairly simple and straightforward try to move through them as quickly as possible because some of the later ones are a little bit more significant and I want to give you as much information about that is possible the first thing we want to let you know is that if you have any questions or concerns about this please feel free to come and talk to me or any member of our play master staff we're very open to criticism we can't promise them will change something because you don't like it but we we will listen and if it's a concern for most of the player base we want to make sure that we're making good changes, so we appreciate you very with mr. day's process without further ado the first thing we're going to change for this new rule book is the effects of blonde alliance char monster and charm person spells remain so the target is only effective for five minutes right now there are all different durations and actually this was a change that was brought to the board a while ago and they accepted it just for some reason it enjoyed it and we'll look until now so we want to make sure it meaning in this time secondly we're going to change the length of weapons that a thrown spell can be cast through to 32 inches instead of 30 inches that length is the max limit for a few different weapons so this way you'll know that I can cast a thrown spell through any short sword rather than some short swords and not others that sort of thing we're going to clarify that more tactics skills can be stacked unit and only benefit from one war tactics skills you can fi people giving you a +5 damage it's pretty straightforward it's already how its play we just want to clarify a few of these changes like that next we're going to implement a minimum the shield size of 200 square inches this just differentiates between buckler's and shields you can't have a full sized shield it's only the size of a hamburger we want to make that clear people another one we're just clarifying is we're staying with the upper limit of a weapon length is not inclusive we've got a few people to think that they have an item that is both a short sword and a long sword because oh it's 32 inches so it's the maximum length of a short so we're gonna it's the minimum length of a long sword so it counts as both that's not true if it meets if it's on that line it falls into the larger category just 32 inches it's a long sort of measure next we're going to remove the words entirely of the caster's own creation for barbecue spelling contagion requirements as long as you're singing a song that fits in that it's period that's not a modern rock song we're okay with use with bars using that as datian we don't expect them to rate original music to cast their spells we're going to remove any worry regarding time applause discounts for crafting masteries from the rulebook we're going to put that out of the econ pro view they've kind of been handling it so far already says really isn't gonna change a whole lot except that now they can make that more flavorful they can start doing things where you know you might get a discount if a certain material is incredibly plentiful or it might cost a little bit work it's very very rare we're just rather than nailing it down to the rule book we want to give them the option for that to do more with that next we're going to correct fizz rep guidelines for forum rock still rocks can be made from other materials they have to conform to the materials color chart basically some people are under the misconception right now that thrown rocks are just like rocks historically when you look at what we call it throwing rock in game it's more of a shotput that's why it takes a weapon crafter to make one for you because they're filing off all the rough edges and making it a usable thing and when they're doing that they should be able to make that shot clip from other materials mithril they would stuff like that it doesn't happy stone so it's just kind of something we're adding literally is really adding it we're just letting you do more with it next we're going to change the name of the spell plant growth to regrowth it's very straightforward the spell doesn't read doesn't work plants it just repairs damaged ones that words already in there it's please wanted to clarify next we're going to change the diamond dust alchemy so that it works on all melee weapons as it stands right now before the change it only works on bladed weapons we had people coming up and asking if they can get or make an alchemy that works on blunt ones we didn't see anything game breaking about allowing diamond dust what kind of weapon this as well so no it does next we're going to clarify the mystic rune skill with practical information about what the skill provides it's the way it's worded in the rubric right now is a little bit confusing or vague what we want the skill to do is it lets you create symbols or sigils that are enchanted during the enchanting process it gives you the knowledge of how to do that and it also gives you the knowledge of what you can do with Demi and change the different Demi enchanting things interview with that so we want to clarify we're also going to state that during the channel process basic enchantment creates glyphs Demi enchantment creates worthies it's again it's not going to change the way that a champion is done we just want to clarify I would make it easier to understand for new players that are learning and changing and we also want to make it clear on the item tag so that when you pick up something it says glyph of fire you know that once you cast it once you're going to have to have a recharge doesn't do it once per day just by reading those three or four words next we're going to explain that mining can be formed using craft masonry and appropriate lures we had folks approaching us asking forget to add a mining skill to the book and we were looking at it and there's so many skills that work together already that we think this is another thing that we work like that with craft masonry and stone more you can go to a wine and you can extract marble and credit and other stone materials that you can use with craft masonry and metal or you can go and extract metal ores like mithril or silver oil and so forth so that'll let people get more out of things that they're already role-playing them thoroughly using it just makes it clear next we're going to clarify how tags will function on the field with or without an appropriate physical representation obviously if you have a tag and a phys rep you are going to be able to use the item as normal but we had a lot of questions about how is it handled if you just have the tag and this is one of those things that we like if there is a more elegant solution to it down the line we'd love to go ahead and you know add more about that but for right now what we're doing is if you have the tag but not the fist wrapped that tag is an item called a writ or a deed and it represents that item so you can take that tag and go off field and find that you know if you just have the tag you can't use the item but you can sell it you can hand it to somebody and carry it around with you if you're killed it can be looted off of you if they search you in a place where you have they take the item and they can go get it but if you don't have a fist up you can use it it's pretty straightforward next we're going to create a process for detecting and removing disguises but we even it exists right now per the wording once you put on a disguise that's it it can't be removed nobody can tell we're going to change it so that if you are restrained knocked unconscious something like that and someone has the skill to create this guy's they can search you and they they'll be able to tell that it's in disguise read the book for more information the exact wording but it just fix this kind of a loophole existed next we're going to raise the damage of bows and crossbows from three normal order for normal again very straightforward we we thought that you know it takes so long to to reload a crossbow to knock a new arrow and shoot it then it's not game breaking to give it an additional point of damage it kind of makes things a little yeah so we want to do that next we're going to add a standardized list of common status effects and change the different references in the rule book to do that like right now we've got a spell called paralyze and a toxin that causes paralyzed but there for some reason we think that they're two different effects they shouldn't be they're going to cause a status effect called paralysis and the effects of it are listed in the rule book and yeah it it simplifies things it makes them less confusing for new players it also reduced our by quite a lot because of redundant unnecessarily worried so we thought it was a good team next we are going to change the list of available individual wet weapon group skills to eliminate redundant weapons basically we've especially in the poor arms area we've got multiple weapons they have the same requirements they can look identical but they've got different point costs but they do the same damage it's just it's kind of ridiculous to do that we can eliminate some of those that not lose any value for their name and doing it just make it more simple so take a look at the list that's in there now what defines a weapon now is how long it is whether it has a cross guard that can block a blade from coming towards you and if it has a head that could hook up in the weapon of shield that's what makes a difference now and because we reduced we got rid of a few skills that were duplicates of each other it also allowed us to reduce the number of weapon groups out there so now when you get a weapon group you get access to a lot more things for it's really a good thing we're also going to update the weapon crafting guidelines and it's an appendix that was added to the end of the book last time and we got to reading it we realize there's also a lot of redundant wording in there so be sure that we simplified it it shows you how to craft a good weapon Fortin are a good offer and also references some more modern materials that were the guy who was being written somebody thought it was a good change then there's four smaller changes that make up a bigger change to Armour we are going to increase the number of AP provided by the armor skill for purchase to five AP and we're going to increase the amount of AP provided by armor to five points per letter ten points for composite 15 points for chain in 20 points for plate this way your the number of times they buy our remove is going to match the number of points that you get from a section and it make it easier for new players to understand that you will be wasting or pieces of armor in doing it with that we are going to decrease the maximum ap to 100 the maximum number of points of armor that you can have we got to talking to the current GM in former GM's about it they thought it would really help with reducing the power gamma field and make it easier for them to rate encounters by reducing that from if it gets 120 to 100 it also makes it easier for players to max um if that's world what they want to do so we thought it was a good positive changer we're also going to remove armor stacking restrictions previously if you had a section of plate with a second chain underneath it the chain was worth less AP than it normally was that it normally would be we see no reason for this if you want to put four different kinds of armor on their legs and be tired all day you should get fully paid for that if you want to put it on your arms and not be able to move your arm go for it it'll also allow people to costume the way that they want to it ways that might look a bit better we don't see a resolution last thing we're going to raise the amount of AP repaired by the men's fell from for AP to five AP just so it falls away it's pretty straightforward we are going to change the body point progression for all races and classes to make them more standardized and easy to understand rather than having several different progressions all in different you know metrics and everything we are going to there's going to be three progressions for races and three progressions for classes if you are a mage you are going to gain body points the slowest of the classes clerics and roles are next higher and then warriors get the best body points per level in the same way with races elves and halflings are going to gain body points the slowest on that end ORS and humans will end half-breeds will be in the middle on that and then obviously half half holders are going to gain a lot of body points as they go up the other small change with this is that everyone starts out with eight body points this means that no matter if you're a halfling mage or a half warrior you can go on field and take a couple of hits from Goblin without falling down immediately we think that's going to be new players feel a lot better come explore different options we are going to revise racial mechanics for simplicity clarity that balance them better there's a couple different things that are going to happen here one all characters get 140 points to start rather than being you know certain skills being that cost to be increased by certain percentage or increased by another one everyone starts out with 140 points to buy skills and then if you are willing to put on prosthetics or makeup and play a race you are going to get a certain number of skills for you for that check the book for more information we are also going to change the racial costuming requirements for halflings currently they say that you have to be under a certain height players can't choose their heights and we don't want to limit people from playing the race that they want to but in literature hobbits and half labels the only things that differentiate them from humans are that they're shorter and they have hair on the back of their hands of their feet so what we're going to require is that halflings wear fur on the back of their hands whether that's a piece of fur a prosthetic that's put on a spirit gum or we don't even mind if it's like a fingerless flesh-tone love that's got four so to the back of it that's fine too as long as it's visible they are not human we are going to create a simplified standardized list of more Skills that complies with the current field practice take a look at the book on this one it's a bit of an involved change what it means is that when you buy a lower skill based skill is going to be all that you need on field you can purchase specializations additional ones and they'll be good in between events and other modules but that's the only thing I think revive the last change and it's what's going to be discussed in the next video is we're going to revise skill point costs across the board it's a bit of an involved one we want to give you as much information as possible so view the next video or motion thank you.

Video 2 Transcript

Hi folks this is the second two videos that we're doing about some of the changes that are being made to the rule the first one if you haven't seen it already be sure to go back and take a look at that one before you view this one and also if you're kind of new to working if you're not fully familiar with the rule book yet we actually recommend don't don't watch these all just take a look at the rule book and get familiar with it you shouldn't have to learn how you know things were before in order to get used to the new system we don't why you confused and on those lines if you have any questions please come talk to me or either prefer the play master staff or anything but this video in particular it's going to discuss changes to point costs scope one costs in particular and the wise and the house behind that because we know you're gonna have questions about the first thing to take note of is that skills have been recategorize in the current book they're categorized according to a lot of different stuff like there's certain skills that just fall over the category brogre skills which are just skills that we think world should have and we don't think it should be that way the new categories are going to describe how you can purchase a skill how many times you can purchase it whether there's an escalating cost and so forth for example individual weapons groups surprise attacks and most general skills are one-offs you just at once and you have that skill that's what it is whereas physical skills and lower skills you can purchase multiple times at the same cost so for like physical skills stuff like Bruce's charm you can buy it multiple times every time it costs you 30 points or lower skills you buy them once it's whatever the listed cost is if you choose to buy it again to specialize in something then it's the same cost to connect you trade skills are all five levels the same cost which is good and item creation like toxins alchemy scrolls potions and so forth they have nine levels you just purchased the skill one time per level and each level is at an escalating cost whereas spell slots nine levels you can buy them multiple times per level obviously and it's an escalating cost so the second difference and it's probably we talked a little bit before in the last video about how weapons are being changed individual weapons what my group skills first off because we have fewer individual weapons they can fit into a smaller number group weapon groups and what we're actually doing this we're trying to reduce the cost of weapon groups as the base cost of it by quite a bit so to kind of encourage newer players to buy a weapon group first that lets you try out a whole bunch of different weapons and see when you're familiar with not really we need to enjoy more and then go buy the individual weapons skill to kind of specialize it it further before you start buying other skills the best for those and then as far as individual weapon costs they're quite a bit different than they were before it's because now weapons are based on the same three things as we talked about the last video the longer the weapon is the more points that will cost to buy that that individual weapon is skilled polearm is obviously going to cost more points than a dagger in the same way if a weapon is allowed to have a cross card something that can block a weapon blow or catch it that that's a couple of points on top of that base cost and then if it has like an axe or hammer head something you can pin a weapon or pull a shield with it again that's another couple of points on top of that so that's where those costs came from to go further it's important to talk a little bit about how we calculated cost behind the scenes if this sounds dry fast forward you don't have to watch this video anything like that but what we did was we came up with a base cost for each skill and that's the amount of points that it cost a character to purchase it if they have a very easy time learning that skill so let's say I'm pulling this this example out of thin air I don't know if it actual point costs or not but let's say that fortune-telling should be easiest for mages so we decided that the base cost for that is 10 points mages have that 10 points and then for other classes there's a multiplier that's added to it either you know 1 times it's just the base cost one and a half times which is a little bit harder for that class to learn it over 2 times if it's very hard for that class to learn it in the case of spell slots it's actually 3 times that's the one time that it goes up more than that for all non spell slot skills we wanted it so that it is not more than twice as hard for any character to learn a skill that it is for any other gear so in that case you know if it's if fortune-telling is easiest for mages for at 10 points let's say it's a little bit harder for rogues and clerics dormant so they get it at 1.5 times so it costs 15 points and let's say that it's just real tough for a warrior to learn for some reason and they get at 2 times it cost them 20 points it's done so if something's off by 5 or 6 points when you're looking at the cost of the skill that's probably what it once was we had to set a base cost and we had to set up multiplier for each each class and we tried to get it as close as possible but sometimes that just met a few difference if you have more questions with logic behind that feel free to ask us so most of the other differences in costs arise from the fact that we actually listed out all of the different skills for each class their costs and we figure out averages across costs in order to balance be better when you look at point costs if a class gets very few it gets a poor body point progression if they don't get a lot of body points over the course of their career they should be getting skills cheaper then a character that gets a lot of bodies so for this reason mages have the worst body points they also have the cheapest skills warriors have most body points they have the most expensive skills as well the difficulty with this was when it came to clerics we've known for quite a while players of militant stamina versatility the clerks in our game as it exists they're just broken they're by far the most powerful class of the game to the point that it's kind of unfair and we didn't really understand the extent of that until we sat down on it figured out all the averages what we found was that clerks had the second best body points in the game but they had the cheap skill costs by far to the point that they compared with warriors they got their skills 30% cheaper than orders which is just just not okay so we had to balance that in our first way that we went about that the first way that we tried it was we said we don't want to put clerics at the point yet by doing this as much as we could possibly avoid that so what if we gave them the lowest body points what if we gave them equal to mages well when we gave the body points that were equal to mages they still had to lose some skill points and when we did that we got a lot of concern from other staff members and from the board we talked about it because there's a lot of clerics that want to be able to fight that's part of what they've done and we don't want to discourage that we won't even be able to do what you want to do but the fact is is that right now clerks are good at everything they're good at making potions they're good at making squirrels are going to be enchanting casting spells fighting so many different things that that there's better it needs to that that point class needs to go to someplace so we finally decided on the place that has to be increased for players is enchanting if we're not going to make their all their weapon skills exorbitant costs if we're not going to make it impossible for them to make potions or Scrolls if we're not going to make it impossible for them asserts water magic something has to go up to balance that out and it's got to be a chairman so with this change mages learn enchanting skills the cheapest I have 1 times robes and warriors still learn it at two times so it's twice as hard for them to do it we were able to put clerics in the middle it's it's one and a half times as expensive for them as it is for mages which is still an increase we understand this and we're willing to talk about it for those players who are clerics they're thinking you wanted chanting or they got into it chanting we understand that this might be a frustrating change for you but something had to change and we're very willing to talk about this to communicate about it so just just come and see us we can talk through it but that is the change we kind of decide on so the other couple of things that are changing when we talk to past staff members and experienced players they felt the surprise attacks what we used to call the robe attacks they're a little bit too powerful for their point cost you can use them an unlimited amount of time times you just have to surprise somebody which is very very powerful so on one hand we increase the cost of surprise tenex slightly for rogues and that it's more expensive for other classes in exchange for that what we did was we tried to decrease the cost of a lot of crafting skills at least keeping the same made them cheaper food in some areas so that it's it's easier to free to be able to make stuff we can we can provide that benefit to players because we increase its price tactics the other change that's kind of trying to major at least worth building is what we used to call damage plus and now it's going to be two different skills because what we had was in a very in elegant way before the first four times he purchased the damage plus ability it was somewhat cheaply was still one most expensive skills in the game but it didn't increase a whole lot and then between four and five it went up steeply we wanted to keep doing that even with this new scheme of you know base costs multipliers categories and how that had to happen is now there are four skills damage and if damaged one at a damage two three and four that are general skills that you can find that add that they're fairly expensive they're a little bit cheaper for workers and they used to be a little bit and then after that and it damage for is a prerequisite for a new skill that's a Marshall Marshall skill called massive damage and that gives you your 5th point of extra damage and the costs for that go up quite a bit hundreds of points each additional what this is going to do is it's gonna make it more expensive linking for people just to don't point that what we've had is once you get a certain point in game you've got points to spare you start dumping it into damaged horses with this you can still do that but it keeps becoming more and more expensive so we can kind of close that power gap between extremely veteran players and nobody feels like when you're still gaining something you're still progressing but it's not that after a few years you're just out of the gates so those are the basics of that change again let us know if you have any questions there will be a because of these changes these point cost changes we need to reassure you a character sheet and if for some reason like for clerics that we're changing if you did go into point debt we want to provide you different options rather than just saying this is the way it is but what we need to do is with the new board meeting and there being a new CBM elected we need to talk to them about what options that allow for that and then we're once we do that we're going to issue a third video with information about that about how we're gonna need your character sheet and so forth so I appreciate greatly the patience with this and your understanding as we're working to make our game better we truly believe what we're trying to do that we truly believe that we're clear that thank you for watching this and again just keep communicating with us.

Video 3 Transcript

Hi folks this is the third video on the three that we were saying we're going to put out we appreciate you being patient why we worked on this I'm a member of our play master staff and our rule book committee but a lot of the things that we're discussing in this video we needed to get clearance from our new CBM character manager which is kindly I'm able to do that so that I can kind of speak on her behalf here so first off we want to give a really big show that a really big thank you to our beta testers when we first started looking seriously and making some point cost changes our primary concern was that we didn't want to make it horrible for everybody we didn't want to put everyone in two-point debt or even most of our players I know of one at least one time in our history where that did happen and it didn't go over very well there was a lot of very unhappy players and we wanted to avoid that if at all possible so what we did was we asked players if they would be willing to share their character sheets with us so that we can run the numbers on them and test these out and we did have a good number of players and we were willing to do that which we were really appreciative of by having access to those we were able to run these numbers and we found that less than about a third of those sheets went into even a single point of debt and of that third half of them would be able to make up that just by attending an event or two so we thought that that was a very reasonable margin for these changes and we decided to go forward with them based on that so we couldn't have done that without you know the openness of those players and as a thank you since your sheets are already in the database like we've already transferred them over to a new character sheet order to test out these changes you're gonna be getting your sign now it's your character updates first now that's from the CBM side your GM updates are going to come out of the same schedule there were before but you're actually sheets are gonna be going to you first as I make here so we really appreciate the as far as the actual update and transfer process how this is going to go is we have a lot of paperwork to do I really can't underestimate how much there is to do here not only do we need to take recent character sheets and put them into a new character sheet format a new database but we also still need to apply the updates from the November sign out and then it isn't just the characters that had that attended the November event we're actually going to be doing all of the characters that attended in 2018 so that we have those on hand just in case so we are adding volunteers to our CBO staff which we've already talked to but even with those volunteers this is going to take time we are expecting to have all character updates sent to you by February 15th we ask that you be patient with during this process fortunately so far everyone's been absolutely marvelous were incredibly grateful but if we do have you know players that become verbally aggressive or start acting unreasonable you know build their top it's going to have to be the end of that conversation for right then until people can kind of collect their tempers and ease up a little bit we're going to be doing our best to be professional with you and provide the best customer service that we can but in the same way we need you to understand that we're volunteer staff we're not being paid for this we're just members of this club with you we're just your friends so we appreciate your civility during this your kindness we appreciate it as far as the new sheets themselves I want to tell you a little bit what to know what to expect from those the new character sheet is going to be in what's called Google sheets it's an online database that's going to give us a lot more options for managing this which should reduce you know staff time and effort the staff have put in there and so we can you know just have a better time doing that pay attention working the new sheet is going to automatically calculate a lot of things related to experience body points and levels and so forth so there's gonna be a lot fewer accounting errors there were none before what they did happen we just want to eliminate those in order the big advantage to you the thing that you might be excited about is that instead of sending you a copy of the spreadsheet in your updates you're just going to be sent an internet link a link to a web page and it's gonna be a link to that spreadsheet or database that link will be automatically updated in real time when a member of CPM staff applies your update to it so what that means is that you're not gonna have to around with you know explainer copies duplicate copies of you know character sheets and not being sure which one is the most recent you'll have one link and you can see it updated in real time now the thing that you as a player be be cautious about is when we send you that link you need to keep it in a safe place that you can keep track of if someone else if you provide that link to somebody else they will have access to view your character sheet you can't close that off at a later time so it's a security thing you need to keep an eye on but yeah it's it'll be instantly visible we're incredibly proud of it it's going to love you know work from our end and a lot of errors and generally better it's going to be an attacked format just like this current one is but that first page that very first tab of the spreadsheet is actually going to list all your skills and like how many spell slots you haven't so forth the number of body points you have level so you can actually just print that front page off use it like an actual character we're really proud so when you do receive that sheet by February 15th we want you to take some time to look at it first we review it because it's going to be different than your regular one first off your skills might be changed slightly this is due to the fact that some skills were removed and others had you know prerequisites that were slightly changed for instance you might have noticed from the the new rule book that there's no longer a nice skill that dagger is listed as being anywhere between six and I want to say 24 inches which is the total length of both knife and dagger from before so if you had nice before you're going to have dagger on this new sheet so just be aware that if you have a slightly different skill set that might be why but there there's not going to be a bunch of that or a trailer that it is possible when we are changing these over we're going to give you the most compatible skills that we can based on our CBN's best judgment if you for instance if you have handle toxin the prerequisite for that was changed from poison or because there's no longer a poison Lord now it's for or fall or if you are for some reason assigned floral or but you say hey I would rather have fun the Lord let us know that's something it's very easily changed not you know to your advantage to change it necessarily will just get you updated the other thing that might have changed is your total remaining points as and the number of XP that you have left to buy skills there's two reasons as when changed one is in very rare case is if there was an accounting error with your previous sheet this new sheet is going to fix it it automatically read totals all your skills it takes the amount of XP you've earned over the course of your career and then deduct the correct amount of points from skills the blog from its automated so if there wasn't a count of here that might count for a small part for many many more people the reason is going to be because you know what cost is changed because of this you might end up with more XP than you used to have as far as XP that's free that you can use to you know immediately buy skills if you end up with extra great good for you if you end up with a negative number in that box it's what we call point debt and there's a couple of different options for dealing with this that we're going over here we have four different options for you once you receive your characters your name character sheet you will have two weeks from the date that you are sent your new character sheet to decide which of these four options you want to go with now just a heads up will not be completely restating characters we will not be giving you free XP but we do have much different options that we think for most cases it's going to meet your means and let you continue playing your character the way you want to as best as possible with the new system the first option which is a default option is just to state what if we don't hear from you within two weeks we're going to assume that you're staying with this option and what that is is if you nothing changes you keep your same skills so you just continue playing as normal you just got you shootin your character sheet if you have if you are in point debt and you decide to stay put that's okay you get to continue playing with all of the skills that you had before what you will need to do is you need to earn enough XP to make up that point at that negative number before you can buy new skills the second option is only four characters who went into debt and you can only choose one of these four options you can't mix and match between to be traded for but the second option which is only four characters who are endpoint debt is you may choose a number of skills to forget in order to make that point debt back up what you would do in this option is you would send us a list of skills that you prefer to forget and we will start at the top of that list we're removing those skills from your character sheet until it's removed you've pointed this you cannot remove more skills then you can't choose to forget more Skills than the amount of point debt that you have it's only up to that it's only so that you know if you want to immediately start purchasing other skills rather than waiting to make up that point day you can do that right away the third option is a bit more drastic and it is open to anyone regardless whether you have point out or not you may choose for you know during those two weeks to change your class for instance if you are amazed you can choose to be a warrior a robe or cleric now if you choose this you keep the same skills that you currently have it's not like if I'm choosing to change from a cleric to a mage that I can swap my you know earth water spells for fire air spells you're going to keep the exact same skills that you already have it's just going to change your class that's going to recalculate your skills according to the new class and I mean for some characters like if you're a fighter that's bought a ton of weapon skills and you say I want to be a mage now it might actually put you into a lot more point that you don't then get to choose to refund any skills you have to stay with that point but this is an option that we wanted to be able to extend to if the new you know class point costs the fourth option is actually something that game staff approved earlier this year and you might have already noticed it in the is available at any time but we wanted to offer it to you as soon as possible in case you wanted to do anyway and that's you can choose to or title your character if you're playing Bob declared and you just with these new changes Bob is never going to be able to do what you wanted to and you just rather play a completely different character you could choose to retire Bob in that case you will be provided 40 percent of the amount of XP that you earned not including your card for a sturdy XP but 40 percent of the total XP d earned you'll be provided to put towards a new character if you choose that option let us know as soon as possible so we can get started on helping you creating a character so those are our four options again if we don't hear from you within two weeks we're going to go ahead and assume that you wanted to stay put which is the first option as far as characters no like we said we are going to process all the characters that played in 2018 if the last time that you played was sometime in 2017 or earlier we're not automatically gonna process your character sheet what you're gonna do is if you come to play again we hope you do but when you come out to play in 2019 you're going to use your old character sheet for that first event as it is and then when you do that sign out at that point we will recalculate things and send you the new character sheet once you are sent that new character sheet you will have the same two weeks that players are currently getting to choose between those four options so we really really hope that you you folks like the options that we've been able to put forward here we want to do whatever we can within the framework that we have to give you as many options as possible to you know keep you happy playing your character we're really excited about this year we're looking forward to it and they want you to be too so the liver gall from here is this is the last video we put enough for right now we're going to get to work on this we will talk to our new CBM into our play master staff and we're going to be having a Q&A; thread on the Facebook group because we know that with these changes you're gonna have a lot of different questions that you'll want to ask and we'd like to give you answers as quickly as possible with that so we're going to try to have a very structured Q&A; burger than that it will get back with you a goal but that's going to happen just like everything else please be patient it's not going to be within the next week or so if you do a question with during that time feel free to email us or put it into the playmaster Foreman well you know how we here again we just really really appreciate your support through this process a lot of our own staff are going to point that over this but everybody that's involved with this really believes in the changes that we're making we hope do you do too so thank you for playing.

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Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

April 2018 BOD Meeting

Below you will find the Agenda and minutes for the 2018 April Board of Directors meeting.

The Play-Master Staff the next installment in the ongoing process of changes to improve readability, grammar and minor clarifications in the Rulebook. 

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Thanks to Breather for making this photo available freely on Unsplash

January 2018 BOD Meeting

Below you will find the Agenda and Minutes for the 2018 January Board of Directors meeting. Additionally an updated rulebook was passed threw the meeting, the changes were to include an updated format of the skills chart.  

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Thanks to Breather for making this photo available freely on Unsplash