Job Board Campaigns

I want to get to playtesting PJS as soon as I can. To that end, I want to devise a campaign structure that will allow me to do that (and account for things like changing systems/mechanics abruptly, resetting back to Level 0, and creating as many situations as possible) while being simple and easy to communicate to people or even newbies what to be in for.

So my patently uncreative brain came up with something. A campaign not set on Aeros, but some other blue marble in the same multiversal expanse. A world that would truly built one session, one adventure at a time outward from but a single settlement. Hell, a single tavern.

THE FIVE TENETS OF A JOB BOARD GAME

1. In every town, there is a capital T Tavern. And in that Tavern is a capital J Job Board, with capital J Jobs on it.

2. There will always be 5 Jobs posted. If you complete a Job, it will be replaced. If you go to a new town, there will be different Jobs posted.

3. A Job will have a short description, some way to start the Job, and a payment of some sort listed. None of this necessarily has to be complete or accurate. It’s all diegetic. Some Jobs may look like one thing and turn out to be another. Some Jobs may be very dangerous for very little pay. Not all Jobs are created equal.

4. Your characters are not special. They’re dime a dozen sellswords who show up to these Job Boards looking to make a little cash and a little infamy. You will die with impunity, if you do not keep your wits about you and/or don’t know when to take a tactical retreat. Not all Jobs will be doable, at least with certain approaches.

5. Anything can happen. Anything can carry over. This will be a bumpy ride, hold on to your hats.

SOME SIDE NOTES:

• Trade in 5,000s to level up. You don’t gain Levels from doing Jobs, just by getting filthy rich and spending it all on ale and bards in town.

• If a party gets stuck out on a Job and won’t be returning to a Job Board, the game might follow that party on their non-Job Board based adventures and become a more standard campaign, or the camera might pull away from them and back to some Level 0 schmucks in a Tavern.

• People can hop in and out as they please. Since the only way people level up is with silver shillings, missing a session’s worth of loot acquisition sucks on its own.

• If someone shows up at the session the group finishes a Job and takes their cut of the loot, that’s called “being shrewd” and good on them for it.

• Not all Job rewards are in coin. Maybe they get a property, a favor, or a magic item instead?

And that’s a Job Board campaign. If you get enough DMs running these in similar systems, perhaps you could get up a network where PCs can use the same characters and take Jobs from any DM? Like a cool sort of Flailsnails thing…

Anyways. Back to the PJS redrafting and playtest-polishing mines.