The Joining

[Saisei]

Hi guys,

Now that Set 2 has been out for a while (and there's a wave of activity on the forums) I'm wondering has anyone had their party, or a member of their party, join the Grey Wardens yet?

I'm curious as to how you handled it. Did you make it a 3d6 roll where trips got you killed, or a TN 14 test where failure got you killed, as suggested in the GMG. Or did you take a different route?

[shonuff]

I would never have them do a a roll a TN or die. Too random, IMO. Maybe stat points or a level (my house rule for levels would be easier to gain/lose than RAW), but even that seems a little harsh.

[empyrien]

Depends on the level of deadliness in your game. I haven't had any Joinings yet and I'm not sure if I will have any at all in the campaign. I don't like killing characters in my games because I prefer the players to get attached to their characters -- it makes the roleplaying more enjoyable and I find it's more fun as GM to emotionally torture the characters over the longer term rather than just killing them outright. Having said that, if the players do decide to do something either incredibly stupid or deadly (like the Joining) of their own volition I would let them die.

On the other hand I know a lot of GMs run deadly games where it is expected the people will be rolling up new characters fairly regularly in which case having your life decided on a single dice roll isn't such of an issue.

I know the rules say it's completely random, but I would probably make it a Constitution (Stamina) test. If the player failed badly with a 1 on the dragon die then they would die.

[Saisei]

I had toyed with the idea of having waging the fight internally. Say once the player(s) drink the blood they collapse (which seems to always happen) and it plays out in their head (kinda like the fade) so they have to be strong enough to fight back.

something like that maybe. Make it deadly but the outcome is in the players hands

[shonuff]

That's a very solid idea.

[Ghostdanser]

I had toyed with the idea of having waging the fight internally. Say once the player(s) drink the blood they collapse (which seems to always happen) and it plays out in their head (kinda like the fade) so they have to be strong enough to fight back.

I likes that idea (steals it for future reference and/or expansion).

[Saisei]

If you expand on it let me know! I won't be running the Joining for a while.

I was thinking that maybe they could encounter either a creature that would basically be what they would become if they were transformed into a darkspawn (like how Grey Wardens end up anyway), or possibly something to do with the Archdemon. Maybe have something like the Mouthpiece of Sauron from LoTR that is the voice of the Archdemon, and the voice drives them insane and kills them unless they can silence it (maybe trap it in a cell inside their head so that only bits and pieces can get out, like when they dream)

[Admiral Yacob]

My group is going to go through it soon and I'm thinking an advanced Con(Stamina) test. Something like TN 14, Threshold 15, Failures allowed 5. This would allow them to be fairly likely to survive but does put the threat of death out there (though I will allow all to live and likely just injure the pride of those who fail in some way).

[Elfie]

If my players end up joining the Grey Wardens (which seems unlikely at this point, but anything could happen), I would absolutely allow for instant death from a single die roll. I WOULD tell the players (OOC) that the trials of joining have the possibility of causing death, but not explain now (they'll probably assume some sort of combat). And I would ask them whether they want a "true to the setting" level of mortality (no bonus TN 14) or a "better for long-term storytelling, but still possibly fatal" level of mortality (triples on 3D6) . But there's no way they're joining the Grey Wardens and simply surviving by virtue of being attached to their characters.

I WOULD do it much like in the video game though where there would likely be NPCs joining at the same time, one or two of which might go first, and if any of those NPCs died as a result and the players tried to bolt, they could TRY to fight their way out of the situation, but it would be incredibly hard.

[empyrien]

But there's no way they're joining the Grey Wardens and simply surviving by virtue of being attached to their characters.

There should definitely be some chance of dying when taking the Joining and if they are attached to their characters at that point that just makes it all the more poignant. Death can be random, pointless and unfathomable. It's just a question of what is the appropriate level of deadliness for a given campaign.

And I would ask them whether they want a "true to the setting" level of mortality (no bonus TN 14) or a "better for long-term storytelling, but still possibly fatal" level of mortality (triples on 3D6) .

I'm not sure how "true to the setting" the TN 14 no bonus test is. That only gives roughly a 1 in 6 chance of surviving, completely random. I got the impression from the books/games that the odds were better than that. They also talk about only the strongest surviving the Joining so I was really surprised that the test wasn't linked to Constitution. Especially given the ease with which a notable dwarf passes the Joining in DA:Awakenings.

The triples on 3d6 is a 6/216 or a bit less than 3 percent chance of dying but it seems a bit counter intuitive. In a game where triple 6s is normally the best roll you can get, all of a sudden it's instant death? I don't like it.

They talk about Grey Wardens typically conscripting higher-level characters, but if the chance of surviving the Joining is completely random then that statement doesn't really make sense to me. At least if it was linked to a stat like Constitution then there would be a game mechanic reason for this preference, in that higher level characters are likely to have higher Constitution and hence more likely to survive the Joining.

[Elfie]

"Strongest" doesn't mean constitution though or they'd never get mages.
Also for a statistical reference, in the joining in DA:O, 2 out of 3 recruits die during the process.

What about TN18 with a bonus to the roll equal to half your level (rounded down).
So for a level 1 character, that'd be a TN 18, nearly impossible. And for a level 20 character, it'd be a TN 8, a decent shot at surviving.


This keeps it based on the strongest surviving, but not giving one class an advantage over another. And you could adjust the starting TN depending on how fatal you want it to be.

[Ghostdanser]

If you expand on it let me know! I won't be running the Joining for a while.

The immediate thought that came to mind was having them fight a shadow version of themselves in a fade like setting. Basically having to overcome the darkness that is trying to overwhelm them. I'll need to thunk on it...

[empyrien]

"Strongest" doesn't mean constitution though or they'd never get mages.

Given that they start with the lowest hit points I would actually argue that mages have the most incentive to invest in Constitution out of the three classes, especially as it's a secondary stat so it doesn't detract from their Magic score.

Also for a statistical reference, in the joining in DA:O, 2 out of 3 recruits die during the process.

I would classify DA:O as a 1 out of 2 survival rate, with the third death technically not actually due to the ritual itself. In Awakenings depending on your decisions the survival rate can be as high as 5 out of 6 recruits.

What about TN18 with a bonus to the roll equal to half your level (rounded down).
So for a level 1 character, that'd be a TN 18, nearly impossible. And for a level 20 character, it'd be a TN 8, a decent shot at surviving.

Nice. I like the idea of linking the bonus to the PCs level as an alternative to Constitution.

Personally, as a GM I'd feel bad about insta-killing a level 11+ character though, but that could just be me. I would maybe have a lower TN, or set the bonus equal to the PC's level with triple 1s always meaning death regardless of the bonus. YMMV

[Arimmus]

I did a joining during the playtest, and that was it. Most of My players wanted to do a Joining ritual, just to try it, and I had it as a TN 13. I really had no other information to go off during the playtest, so i winged it. Also that was before dragon age 2 when more information about the Wardens was out. Now THat i have better rules, I limit the allotment of Grey wardens, if they become one, they better have a damn good reason, as they aren't a social club.

[si1vergecko]

In one of my games we did indeed do the joining and we used the option where you died if you rolled triples. I do agree with the fact that the TN 14 Con save is certainly game accurate. Oghren's joining certainly gives a good argument since all that happened to him was his eyes clouded over but other then that was pretty unphased which survived everyone since most tend to pass out if they survive.

As for the risk most of us that that play the table top game also played the video game so we certainly acknowledge the fact that the setting alone brings a chance of death.

Don't quote me on this but I have it stuck in my head for some reason that the survival rate of the Joining from the game on average is 1/4. I would not exactly use Awakening as the best measuring stick for survival rates because yes one character does fail the joining and the rest survive but I am sure that it was mostly to get across that the joining is fatal so someone had to die and everyone else survives because they are named characters and they survive for plot reasons.

[shonuff]

I would classify DA:O as a 1 out of 2 survival rate, with the third death technically not actually due to the ritual itself. In Awakenings depending on your decisions the survival rate can be as high as 5 out of 6 recruits.

It's better than that. In DA:O, Alistair said that only one died from his group and so dying in the Warden's group is an anomaly. In Awakenings, 5 survive and 1 doesn't.

[Loswaith]

Keep in mind that the Wardens tend to be very selective in who they choose to join the greay wardens as well. Picking people they think will pass the joining. See the part about the joining on the DA wiki
In DA:O Duncan mentions the player being chosen specificially, and even with the Human Noble path, is checking out the character a bit on the sly because of considering the PC a good choice (sure all can be scratched up to plot reasons, but it still makes allot of sence not to pick potentials you dont think will pass the joining).

I'd likely be more inclined to make a roll the basis of a player being selected (unless I had story reasons to do otherwise) for the Joining itself (possibly even having a roll with a small chance the PC will die), though likely get the player to do a small writeup of the whys and what-fors of their joining indoctrination.

[Sync]

I had toyed with the idea of having waging the fight internally. Say once the player(s) drink the blood they collapse (which seems to always happen) and it plays out in their head (kinda like the fade) so they have to be strong enough to fight back.

something like that maybe. Make it deadly but the outcome is in the players hands

One of my players has his character's immediate goal as joining the wardens. I hadn't given it much thought as yet - my game is loosely following the CRPG and the characters are still making their way to Ostagar.

But this is a good idea. Make a short fade-like sequence in which the charcter faces a darkspawn opponent (or two) he has to fight: if he wins the fight, he survives the Joining; if he dies he fails the Joining.

Still an element of randomness involved (dice rolls for combat) but less randomg than making a single live-or-die test.

[Hellebore]

A couple of our characters wanted to be wardens, the rest didn't (I didn't). We didn't use the test or die rules though, didn't see much point. The players would then create new characters they wanted to be wardens and the cycle would continue until they didn't want to be a warden, the GM wouldn't let them be one, or they survived. So they were weakened and collapsed, but didn't die.

This is the side text in my organisations document regarding Joining:

The Risks of Joining

As an optional rule you can incorporate risk into joining any organisation. This puts them in line with becoming a Grey Warden. Whether through secret life-threatening rituals, hazing gone wrong or botched initiation mission, joining any organisation is risky. Whenever you do join an organisation roll 3D6. If you roll a triple the character has met with some kind of misfortune and died.
This functions the same way as the Grey Warden joining ritual and should only be used if such a ritual is also being employed. Similarly, if you don’t see the point in threatening characters with death if you don’t want to actually kill them, such a test need not be taken for any character joining any organisation. A sense of challenge can still be generated by inflicting penalties on a character’s tests or reducing Health for a certain number of days due to the side effects of said ritual/hangover/post traumatic stress from committing your first murder etc. The lead up to the joining of an organisation can also be arduous, presenting the character with difficult tasks rather than a test or die scenario.

Hellebore

[Elesten]

When I did it, I gave each player 3 options. First was to simply pass. The other two were an "easy" and "hard" roll. Both had the same affects, except the hard increased the risks. It was a d100 roll (I had been going for 3d6, but my group decided they wanted more room to pass or fail).
They could either:
Flat out fail (the character died)
Barely pass (the taint influence was strong, and every time they fought darkspawn they had to roll a willpower check or take a penalty as the taint tried to convince them to join the darkspawn)
Pass (no penalty or bonus)
They passed easily (think Oghren in Awakening. I described it as they "bonded" with the taint, giving them a bonus to detect the darkspawn)

For the hard table, I increased the willpower TN and gave a +1 to hit or damage for the easy pass.

Went down well. Those who didn't want to risk their characters got through, and those who wanted a challenge got it.

[newbiedm]

I'm going with the "roll triples and die" idea. The game showed how random and deadly it can be. So will I.

They really, really, really, wanted to go the Grey Warden route. So there are possible consequences for that.