Community Update

TorontoDnD 2.0

Hey all, the last couple months have seen a great deal of change for the TorontoDnD community. While some of it may not be highly visible as of yet (other than the website) there is a lot going on behind the scenes in order to make the organization more scalable and less dependent on any one single individual. To that end, we have started to more formally involve the community in some of the processes that are required to keep things running. The first crack at this is the formation of our Community Advisor program. To all the people who volunteered for this and have helped with all of this behind the scenes work, thank you, thank you, thank you. This group of awesome humans have so far:

• Finalized our code of conduct
• Created our first official content standards
• Developed our complaint resolution procedure
• Tested the crap out of the website during development
• Began the framework for rules decisions going forward (details soon)
• Started work on an actual social media strategy

More information in regards to applying for inclusion in this group and what the requirements are will be made available in the near future.

The New Website

Although the new site has lots of little issues and there are a ton of features to add, it is now at a point where I consider the first version to be “done”. Of course the website will never be really done, as there will always be things to improve, but for today it fulfills most of the main functions of the group sufficiently. Hooray! But that begs the question, what’s next?

Further development on the site will largely be done in periodic releases. I’ll implement features, fix bugs, make tweaks etc and then release to anybody interested in testing such things. There will be urgent fixes that will happen sporadically, but as much as possible these releases will happen every 2 to 4 weeks depending on the scope of work etc. I will shoot for shorter sprints than longer when possible.

In terms of what specifically is next, here is what I intend to work on in no particular order:

• Various small features and bug fixes - Too many too list here!
• Automated cancellation of tables - If there are less than three players three hours prior to the start time of a table, it will automatically be cancelled. Attendees will be notified, tickets will be cancelled automatically etc. We can build an override for games/events where having less than 3 players is okay…
• Automated last minute ticket notifications - If a ticket is cancelled for an event that is otherwise sold out, and this happens less than 24 hours prior to start time, a Discord notification will be sent to a new channel labelled #last-minute-tickets or something along those lines
• Backup GMs - basically if you want to signup up as a backup GM you will be able to do this. If you do, this information will not be public in any way. If the table hits the point where it would be otherwise cancelled then the backup GM will become the official GM. If they have a ticket assigned to them there will be an option to have it auto-cancelled and refunded as well. If there are multiple backup GMs one will be picked randomly.
• Event calendar reminders - Each table page will have a downloadable calendar notification. This could also be added to the purchase receipt email but that might be weird in cases where you buy a bunch of tickets.
• Public characters - Right now the only things that are shared for your character are their name, short description and potentially your linked character sheet. For this update we would add a “public” switch. Any characters set to public would be browsable and fully viewable. We could also build out some basic stats just for fun like characters by species, class, level etc…

Note that within each dev cycle where I am working on one of these things I will also be making various bug fixes, and a ton of backend features to make managing the system automated and scalable. There will be plenty of stuff being done that you never even see but makes the life of admin easier. If you have an idea for a feature you think we should implement you can let us know here.

Rule Adjustments

We had the first meeting of the Rules Committee and discussed a whole ton of stuff. How this committee will be working on an ongoing basis will be talked about shortly, in the meantime here are some rule adjustments that as of this moment are in effect:

PW Signup

One-off Characters - High Level: When signing up for a high level table (L8+) you should have a character that has actually progressed through our level system from level one onwards. If you want to play with a one-off character please wait until 48 hours before the event to sign up. This makes sure that people playing these tables will know how their character works and also make sure that players who have put in the sessions get first dibs.

One-off Characters - Low Level: When playing at an L1 - L4 table, if you do not have an in-range character please just make an L1 character. The intent of the rule that allows people to play a one-off character was to make sure everybody can play, not to let people create a higher level character and use it to avoid going through the levelling process.

High Level Character Assignment: For tables L8+ it is strongly encouraged that players assign a character to the table they are attending well ahead of time. Running high level tables can be a more challenging endeavour for the GM and it can be difficult to build an optimal adventure when they don't know what abilities the PCs will have.

Character Creation

• Any backgrounds that provide feats or spells are not allowed. We will add a complete list of feats and backgrounds to the allowable options section shortly.
• Minor consumable items DO count against the max amount of items a player can bring on an adventure EXCEPT for basic healing potions. Just regular ones, not superior etc.
• Regardless of what race you play, your PC will be considered as having the humanoid tag for all mechanical game effects.
• The Rhythm Maker’s drum is now an allowable option

Gameplay Rules

• Magical effects that allow you to conjure or animate things may be subject to GM house rules for the sake of expediency. Common examples might include
  • Limiting the number of conjured/animated elements.
  • Requiring conjured/animated elements to act in swarms.
  • Implementing a strict time limit for your turn.
• When balancing tables to account for differing PC levels GMs usually use the current hit die rule. They can optionally provide ASI and or level features if they want. This is at the sole discretion of the GM, players should respect the GMs decision without argument regardless.

Session Rewards

The gold awarded per level has been adjusted to match our typical level ranges for simplicity:

Level Range	Gold	Sessions Per Level
L1 - L4	500	1
L5 - L8	1000	2
L9 - L12	2000	3
L13 - L16	4000	4
L17 - L20	8000	5

The Coming Months

Over the next few months you can expect to see improvements made to the website and further integration of the community advisors into the operational aspect of the group. There are also some cool new events coming towards the end of the summer plus some other surprises that aren't quite ready to be shown just yet. In short, we're just getting started!

Thanks to everybody for being a part of this community and making it as welcoming and awesome as it is, I'm looking forward to seeing it grow and get even better in the months and years to come!

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