Campaign Timeline

Overview: The One-Year Game

As specified in Campaign Creation, your FFZ campaign is expected to last about one year in actual, real-world time. While the specifics can, will, and should vary based on your own personal schedule and that of your players, FFZ wants to make it easy on you by providing a skeleton on which you can (if you'd like) hang your campaign.

It should be noted that this campaign timeline may be assumed and referenced, but it is not enforced — it is a guideline, to help steer your hand as a GM, but it is not a requirement.

From the most basic level, this consists of:

• A number of Challenges equal to the number of people in the party for every encounter (4 is assumed).
• One Encounter for every hour of play.
• One Session per week, each one lasting 3-5 hours.
• One Adventure per month (on average), lasting about 3-6 sessions each. You Level Up at the end of each adventure, having faced about 10 individual challenges per character (so, 40 is assumed for the party).
• One Arc per season (on average) of about 3-4 Adventures (roughly, every 5 levels)
• One Campaign per year, consisting of about 3-4 Arcs (roughly, every 15 levels).

This assumes that the "average group" meets about three weeks out of the month. Every month, you will get one adventure.

The Campaign Timeline talks you through every step, noting which sessions are especially key. It notes each challenge, each award, each session, adventure, and arc.

Session 1: "Prelude"

[Adventure 1, Arc 1]
Session 1 is when the big themes of the game are introduced, including (especially) the PC's and the Villain. Consider this similar to the part of an FF game before the logo pops up — rescuing Princess Sara in FFI, or kidnapping Princess Garnet in FFIX, or the Mako Reactor mission in FFVII. This is an introductory session to get people used to interacting with each other, the characters, and the world.

What defines the prelude is often a "beginner's dungeon," which is fairly easy but often introduces concepts that will be used and re-used in future encounters.

Session 1: 10 Hooks

1. The PC's must save a princess.
2. The PC's must kidanp a princess.
3. The PC's must escape from a rampaging beast.
4. The PC's must grab an item necessary to finish building a bridge.
5. The PC's must survive a crashing airship.
6. The PC's must accomplish a mission as part of their country's war.
7. The PC's must defend a figure under their protection from assassins.
8. The PC's must destroy a location important to a villain.
9. The PC's must liberate a town from goblins.
10. The PC's must put down a plague of zombies.

Session 1 Checklist

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• Introduce the PC's
• Get the players familiar with their character's abilities
• Challenge the party in a big battle or two.
• Introduce any sub-mechanics, house rules, or sub-themes you want to use going forward. If they're going to be a big part of your game, show a glimpse of them, at least, in this first session.
• Have the characters accomplish something at the end.
• Plant the "villain seed," but keep the actual villain distant.

Hour 1: Begin with a Bang (Encounter 1)

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It's often useful to open the game right away with a dramatic encounter or scenario to get the players used to their characters in combat and in archetype. As a GM, you can use your introductory questions to frame this encounter. The cliche is to have the PC's meet in a bar and have a fight break out. The Adventure Path uses the Goblin Cave Rescue Mission as a generic start. Have the motivations of the PC's lead them to the encounter — each character believes this first encounter will lead them closer to what they desire.

It's usually best if the encounter is a combat encounter of some sort, in order to set the stage for action, though if you're taking a dramatically different tone, it's OK to use a different sort of encounter. It's OK if this encounter is easy or basic. Don't worry too much about frills, and any frills you DO include should feature prominently in the rest of the campaign. This is setting the stage for what will come in the future.

Hour 2: Motives (PC Interaction)

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After the din dies down, take a moment and reflect on each character, and why they are there. Have each player describe their character — their way of dress, their manner of speaking, or any other details the rest of the party may know. Feel free, as the GM, to describe why they all have found themselves in this situation. Keep NPC's at bay for now — this is time for the party to form their first bonds.

Hour 3: A New Callenger Appears! (Encounter 2)

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The first "real encounter" of the game should occur after the PC's have introduced each other and perhaps explored their environments a bit. Now each knowing what the other can do, the limits of their ability are tested in a fairly pitched battle against some efficient enemies who also have learned what is fighting them.

During this battle, try to target the weakness of at least one or two characters, to have the party depend on each other. You can use some simple gimicks (such as battlefield adjustments, elite monsters, or a surprise encounter) to make this rather more pitched than the first encounter. If you pulled your punches at all for the first battle, don't pull them here — in fact, don't be afraid to punch a little harder than normal to make up for your earlier light touch.

You may also try a different sort of encounter in Hour 3, in order to emphasize a non-combat style, if you wish, but try to keep mini-games out of it, unless your mini-game is going to be a signfiicant portion of your main campaign.

Hour 4: Mission Complete (Encounter 3)

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This is a good time to introduce the Boss monster of the introductory mission. Press the players to the limit, let them unleash their Limit Breaks, and try to KO at least one of them.

This is also the point in which the "villain seed" might be planted. Because the villain should form a reoccuring counter-point to your party, placing them in some sort of contact with the villain's subordinates, or at least the themes associated with the villain, might be key, here. Think about how in FFVI, the Empire comes searching for Terra after she wakes up, or about how FFX begins with an attack by Sin, who then dominates most of the rest of the game as a threat. Though FFVII doesn't have you directly fighting Sephiroth, the themes of life and rebellion are there, and it does introduce you to Shin-Ra, who caused Sephiroth's villainy in the first place. With this model, you probably won't be meeting the villain itself, or any direct representative, but you will have cause to explore further. Of course, sometimes you may meet the villain itself! The original FF had you fighting Garland at the end of the Prelude, who later transforms into Chaos, the end-boss of the original FF game. As the GM, you should have a pretty clear idea of what the villain is, and so you can insert the PC's into the villain's on-going story at this point.

As a final note, the session should end with the characters actually accomplishing something, setting off a chain of events that leads them further down the narrative's path. This should be a success for them (assuming they aren't killed by the encounters, of course), if only a minor one. Having a success here builds momentum that may help carry carry the party through the encounters ahead. Let them save (or kidnap) the princess, escape the beast, end the goblin rule, generally let them get closer to their goals. You can take away all of their hard-earned accomplishments at a later date (specifically, at a time in which they'll hate the villain all the more for it), but for now, they can have their cake and eat it, too.

Session 1 Awards

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Award approximately 1/2 of the treasure (including gil) you need to award for this level. This can be found after slaying the boss, either as a reward, or as the creature's own collection. Since this is Level 1, most of the treasure rewards will (eventually) take the form of job-specific weapons for the characters. If you can't justify these items as part of the general hoarde, you can always make sure the PC's have the gil and items needed to synthesize such an item. The reason you're awarding this quantity is due to the "positive reinforcement" angle mentioned above: this is a success for the PC's, and their rewards reflect that.