The fluff indicates that Wizards and Priests have a long educational process. It would seem that it is highly unlikely to move into one of these careers once the game has started without a massive amount of down time to account for the training necessary. Similarly, one may have been a Coachman before deciding to become an adventurer, but how does one become a Coachman in game? Taking a job as a Watchman would seem to interfere with one's ability to adventure, no? I just realized that if you run only episodic adventures, you can just assume a reasonable amount of elapsed time between adventures and have all career changes occur off camera. However, I was thinking of the problem for those that run an on-going campaign.

I know we had these same issues in previous editions, but the rulebook only covers the mechanics of changing careers. I'm surprised that the ToA has no discussion of how to address this within the story of the game. I thought it might be helpful to start a thread where we discuss this. Some career changes may be easy to rationalize by fulfilling a role in the group, like a Way Watcher becoming the party's Scout. Others are going to require a PC to seek out a trainer, actually take a job, and will require the GM to incorporate that into the campaign. For example, during TEW back in 1e, I had a player who wanted his character to become a Priest of Ulric. That character entered a temple and sat out the majority of DotR. The player created another PC so that he could play through that part of the campaign, who then parted ways with the party once his original character completed his initiation and was available to rejoin them.

How do others handle this issue?

Read the second Gotrek and Felix novel? Therre they get hired as ratcatchers in the city and stays there for months doing that. So if one moves into another career you stay in that career for a while, the group then should reside in the vecinity of the jobs they have.

The other way for those that dont really care about the careers as actual careers is see them as as progression and not actual jobs.

I go for the first, if the player is going to be a whatchman, is is one, and need to do his job, otherwise I would not let him advance in the career at all, and actually, any advance he would garner from a session, he could not use on career spesific stats before he followed up on it.

I found that the amount of career options in v1/2 covered this as there was always something to move to even on the move in campaigns. V3 has a relative dearth of careers at the moment (not a criticism, just an observation) and so there are some potential issues - such as what career the poor Wood Elf Envoy moves to.

I'm going to get round this by running a static campaign with the adventurers having a base. Then they are able to actually take jobs - and maybe even get a salary.

I include some down-time in my campaigns. We figure out the months that pass, how the characters will be living, and the amount of money they could expect to make. Often this puts the characters in different locations.

In one campaign, a player had started a little dive of a pub, and the down-time was ended when his pub was burned to the ground. He went around gathering up his friends, having to spend some living cash for about three weeks waiting for the Scout to get back; if I remember correctly.

Anyway, it only takes about 30 minutes of roleplay time to settle everyone's character into a career and temporary home, do some basic math to see how much extra change they have in their pockets (or how much they lose - rarely), and get back to the campaign.

It does mean some people will have to sit on some XPs for a few gaming sessions from time to time, so your players may not be able to handle that sort of thing. But it does add to the "realism" of the setting when people aren't dashing off from one adventure to the next the way real people go to work. It also allows for characters to develop attachments to NPC's and other things that you can then use to crush the players. . . uh, or uh, make the campaign BETTER. Yeah, that's it.

I was likewise a little surprised that they didn't address this in the ToA. Seemed like a great topic for the budding GM.

When I write my campaigns or otherwise thread together a series of adventures, I make a point to leave time in there for things like training, career transfer, etc. If the storyline is always proceeding at a break neck pace, then you lose the narrative awesomeness that arises from the career system. That said, it can be problematic, and so I am always on the lookout for a suggestions.

Now that careers aren't tied to exists or the like, I am trying to rethink my process in managing this. Some of my thoughts have lead me down an interesting idea... forcing a temporary career change for a session or two.

An example: the PCs (a grey wizard apprentice, a gambler and a merc) are branded outlaws. During this period (1-2 sessions) the PCs lose access to their current career schemes for advancement. They are all handed a copy of the Outlaw career card and special talent (this does not cost them advancement points). They would presumably gain 1-2 advancements while being Outlaws, which they could spend immediately on Outlaw advances, or save up for when they can return to their regular jobs once they clear their name. As a consequence, they can in the future move back (or stay) in the outlaw career for 1 less advance cost.

But back to the topic: right now my PCs are banded together out of circumstance. How do I keep them together for something longer term? Which leads to the question: when the apprentice goes back to school (for how long? training on the job?) how do I get them back together?

During the downtime, I am inclined to do the following:

• Have the vocational career characters try to make some money. We'll chat briefly about the sort of stuff they want to do, and then we'll make a series of career related rolls to see how much money they accrued (taking out expenses). In the example of a watchmen, we might have a little "interview" of sorts at their new town/city.
• Education based careers (mages, clergy, students, etc.) return to school, temple etc. and refocus on their continuing education. One nice hook for education types is whether they have to bring in their tuition for the year (hence why they went off to make a bit of shrapnel).
• Award 1 EXP for the on-the-job experience.

What I sometimes do, is if I have a good player-generated hook for a character, we'll play through a scene or two with the other players acting as NPCs in the skit/action.

I don't think the GM should bear all the weight of this on his/her shoulders.

Making the GM square circle of divergent PC interests etc. would be worth starting with the Party Tension meter already ramped up by 1 for every PC who made the GM do that work of heavy-hand forcing why they are all once again in same place (since clearly those forced together once again by fate rather than their own choice won't be getting along as well).

One approach is to (a) agree there will be some downtime and each PC can have one scene to try to accomplish something during it, scene can be shared, perhaps earning 1 XP if it is in keeping with any theme chosen for campaign (TOA p.33); (b) GM gives some foreshadowing of the next adventure so that Players can then do the next thing which is © Players author your character hooks with a view to how they will come back together, perhaps the GM revealing the "initial hook" of the adventure (e.g., if it was Day Late, Schilling Short, you will all be in same small rural location awaiting an overdue coach - now you propose why you're there).

The player should then author how "around the time the next adventure starts my master I'm apprentice to/noble I'm agent of/duties as a Roadwarden/legal authorities I'm fleeing" will have cause to have me be [wherever].

This passage of time also lets PCs have personal life and get older, not be 22 year olds who have 8 careers under their belt etc.

Rob