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My absence of posting in the last couple days is partially because I don't know much what to do in the downtime before the show; Does Haahqae have to go fetch the guards and get them on duty,or are they expected to arrive on time? And it's partially because I've been rather busy these past couple days. Hopefully my schedule will clear up a bit soon.

The guards are expected to show up on time on their own.

Anyway, don't sweat it. Things always slow down during the weekend, and this is a holiday (in the States) in particular.

Holiday in Canada too, just ours is 3 days earlier.

So while I'm at it:
Happy (late) Canada day
and
Happy (early) Independence day
everyone!

Hey, djhyland, if you don't mind, I had some questions about Arulia's past.

Namely in her motivations in joining the Holy Guard and then subsequently quitting.

Her backstory suggests she only joined because she wanted to be a warrior, like her father. It also says she quit because while satisfied with the Holy Guard, she wanted 'more.' I was wondering if you could elaborate on that any further for me. Also, did she ever actually believe in the Seekers and what they were doing? Or like Kendra, was it just a job for her? Was she okay with the more morally questionable things the Seekers did (like closing the gates after the first 10,000 and letting everyone else starve/freeze outside, arresting those who disagreed with them, and hiring goblins to fill out the Holy Guard ranks)?

suh dudes.

Someone want to tell me why I am saving gully dwarves now?

You'd have to ask spyguy about that. He's been partially NPCing Felran.

The party came across a small tribe of gully dwarves in the sewers (12 of them, including children). The woman who hired you said you needed to wipe out every living thing bigger than a rat down there, so technically that would include the gully dwarves.

Shima wants to kill them all, and evidently Ne-Chanz and Felran voted to find a way to relocate them.

Actually, Ne-Chanz doesn't much care. Felran didn't seem like the type to wholesale slaughter them. Correct me if I was wrong.

That was my impression too, tbh.
Hence the messing about with the countdown, to give time for the player to post, but not waiting forever.

Okay, Haahque, there are a few things to go over before the performance.

According to the Bard's Handbook, the cost of a performance is 1d4 silver for each person you want to attend. This cost covers advertising, security, building the stage, setting up the chairs, and so forth.

You said Haahqae is looking to get at least 90 guests (out of the 900 off-duty baaz soldiers) to attend. I rolled 90d4 and got 237 silver, which was rounded up to 24 steel pieces. You stated you wanted to charge only 5 silver for each attendee, correct? Half of the normal rate.

The book says that to determine how many people show up, you need to roll a reputation check and a proficiency check. As Haahqae is juggling, then that will be his proficiency check. As for his reputation...well, he doesn't have a score for that...yet. We'll have to tally up what's he has accomplished so far and figure out what that is.

Anyway, this is done for each performer. But Haahqae is the only performer, so he's the only one to worry about. So if he fails both checks, nobody shows up. If he passes one check but fails the other, then 45 people show up. If he passes both checks, then 90 people show up.

So if nobody shows, he's failed and not only doesn't earn any coin, but has wasted 24 steel. If half show up, he earns 22.5 steel. That's a loss, but only barely. If all 90 show up, he earns 45 steel. That's a profit of 21 steel coins. According to the book, half of the profit is given to whoever owns the facility (in this case, the army). But since the army is tax free and he's doing this just for them, that will be waived and he can keep the full profits.

Does all of this sound right to you?

While that works for an interpretation of the rules, I find it rather strange for a couple reasons.

First of all, the number of people that attend seems to have nothing to do with how well advertised the event was, and also has nothing to do with the price of the event. But those rules Haahqae could have set the price to 100 steel per seat and sat at home brooding all weekend and turned a much larger profit then setting a competitive price and advertising (assuming he passes either check).

Secondly it seems strange to me that the number of people that show up is so directly related to the size of the venue. If Haahqae had set up 300 chairs, sure it would have cost him more silver (why? but yes), but he would have an audiance that was 3x larger on average, just because they had more places to sit.

So, while what you stated is an accurate representation of how I read the rules. I feel like they're open for interpretation and that you can take into account other, more important factors, as to figure out how many people show up. I'm rather hoping to fill at least 60% of the seats for a small profit, if not more. (I also feel like the rolls *could* include more possible audience sizes then 0%, 50% and 100%) I can make suggestions I would consider reasonable if you want.

Edit: as an example, to expand upon my point. Right now, reading the rules as they're written, Haahqae could increase the price of the show to 1 steel piece and have no negative impact on the number of customers who show up and pay. Is this how you read the rules as well?

Haahque wrote:First of all, the number of people that attend seems to have nothing to do with how well advertised the event was, and also has nothing to do with the price of the event. But those rules Haahqae could have set the price to 100 steel per seat and sat at home brooding all weekend and turned a much larger profit then setting a competitive price and advertising (assuming he passes either check).

Well, common sense plays a role, too. Obviously, if he charged 100 steel a seat, nobody would show up and he would earn nothing, no roll needed (not even the soldiers have that much coin on them).

Advertising was part of the 24 steel (90d4 silver) he put into the production. He only spent enough coin to advertise to a maximum of 90 people. There is a direct correlation here. If he had spent, say, 900d4 silver instead, his advertising would have been spread far enough to reach a maximum of 900 people.

Since he is charging only 5 silver instead of a full steel, this will improve his relationship with the Dragonarmy faction by more than normal. It won't affect attendance, however.

Haahque wrote:Secondly it seems strange to me that the number of people that show up is so directly related to the size of the venue. If Haahqae had set up 300 chairs, sure it would have cost him more silver (why? but yes), but he would have an audiance that was 3x larger on average, just because they had more places to sit.

Well, again, the 24 steel (90d4 silver) he spent on the production included things like how many chairs there were, and how much space he was given. Had he spent more, then he could have potentially had a bigger audience.

Haahque wrote:(I also feel like the rolls *could* include more possible audience sizes then 0%, 50% and 100%) I can make suggestions I would consider reasonable if you want.

I'm open to suggestion. I don't see how audience sizes could be more than 0/50/100%, though, as there are only two rolls to make. You either fail both, pass both or fail one and pass the other.

I'll listen to whatever suggestions you have, but let's try not to make things overly complicated, as well.

While I understand the price being for advertising and reaching a potential market; I don't see a direct correlation. Haahqae would not be able to reach a huge audience (900 people or more) unless he is able to hire people/purchase fliers etc to advertise for him, even then it's hard to get that large an audience in such a short time. On the flip side, if he's advertising by himself, it's quite possible to reach a small potential audience without spending anything -> he had 4 potential attendees as soon as he announced the show to the guards in front of the barracks, and that didn't cost him a single copper.

Secondly I'm assuming that the proficiency check is Haahqae's ability while he was advertising (as how well he performs isn't too important to deturmine how many people show up, instead it effects his reputation for future performances).

So you can start with the proficiency and reputation checks, each one could be:
Huge failure (fail by more then 5 on a d20): 0%
Minor failure (fail by less then 5): 10%
Success (success by less then 5): 40%
Great Success (Success by more then 5): 50%

Then you can adjust the audience by the 2 other factors:
How reasonable the potential audience is given the advertising: Reduce audience to 0 or up to 20% more. Average = no change.
Assess how reasonable the price is: Reduce audience to 0 or up to 20% more. Average = no change.

If the audience ends up being larger then the venue can support, they generate no additional profit, as the extras are turned away or find free seating.

Haahque wrote:I don't see a direct correlation. Haahqae would not be able to reach a huge audience (900 people or more) unless he is able to hire people/purchase fliers etc to advertise for him...

That is the correlation. He spent money on advertising, and that included things like fliers, paying people to spread the word, and so forth. We didn't roleplay any of it out, because that would be boring; so it all happened during downtime (just like we didn't roleplay out him finding security and negotiating a payment with them, hiring those carpenter apprentices to build the stage and chairs, etc., etc). But it was what I meant when I said 'pay for advertising.'

Haahque wrote:So you can start with the proficiency and reputation checks, each one could be:
Huge failure (fail by more then 5 on a d20): 0%
Minor failure (fail by less then 5): 10%
Success (success by less then 5): 40%
Great Success (Success by more then 5): 50%

Okay, but what happens if one check is a great success but the other check is a huge failure? Does that just balance out to a regular success?

From my suggestion it would be:
Great success = 50% + Huge Failure = 0% = 50% of potential audience show up.
This can then be adjusted by up to +40% (=70%) by picking a low price and a small audience, or down to 0% from picking a high price and a large audience.

I don't really understand the necessity in making things so much more complicated, though. The system in the Bard's Handbook seems pretty workable to me. Why the need to complicate it further? If I understand that, maybe I can understand what it is you are trying to do.

In the meantime, we should calculate his reputation score, since that will be important. We can assume his reputation was 0 (Unsung) when he first arrived in Haven. He did several performances during that time, but only for room and board and only at the crappiest inn in town. But I'll go ahead and roll 2d4 and...got 1,2 = 3, so his reputation when the game started was 1 (Accepted). That seems right to me.

According to the Bard's Handbook, reputation increases in only two instances: at level up and when a significant performance is put on (in which case it is checked right before the performance begins). This is the first time Haahqae has put on a significant performance, so any previous reputation increases were due to a level up.

We'll only count level increases in the Thief class, since that's closest to bard. He reached level 2 at the end of chapter 3. So let's calculate the modifiers for a reputation increase between levels 1 and 2.

* He put on a show (+1)
* He completed a local quest (+2)
* He completed a local adventure (+1)

(Not sure what the difference is between a quest and an adventure. Thought they were the same thing. I'm guessing here that a quest is something you are hired to do, while an adventure is something you do on your own? Then again, nobody knows Haahqae was involved in freeing Daxia, so should I even count that one? I guess it doesn't matter.)

The books reads, "A d20 is rolled and any modifiers...are applied to it only if their total is negative (if the net total modifier ends up being positive, it is simply ignored). If the result of the d20...is greater than or equal to the bard's current reputation, then the reputation increases one category."

*rolls 1d20* I got a 10, so his reputation improves to 2 (Known).

He reached level 3 at the end of chapter 5. So between chapters 4 and 5:

* He put on a show (+1)
* He completed a local quest (+2)

*rolls 1d20* I got a 4, so his reputation increases to 3 (Noted).

Finally, he reached level 4 in chapter 8. So between chapters 6 and 8:

* He completed a local quest (+2)

*rolls 1d20* I got a 20, so his reputation increases to 4 (Good standing).

So his reputation is currently 4. To pass a reputation check, he needs 4 or less on a 1d20. So with today's performance, he has the opportunity to improve it to 5 (Liked).