Persistent World Player Guide

The Persistent World (called the PW) system is what TorontoDnD uses to allow random groups of players to play with random GMs at various levels, while still being able to grow their characters, level up, and gain sweet loot.

Table of Contents

What is the Persistent World system?

The Persistent World system is a set of rules and limitations, allowing you to play recurring characters in a wide variety of drop-in games. Your character(s) can level up, buy magic items, and go on adventures when it fits your schedule.

For players, the PW system defines:

  • What character options you are allowed for use. This includes backgrounds, feats, species, classes, subclasses, spells, and magic items. You can find a complete list here.
  • When your characters level up.
  • How much gold your characters get at each level and how much magic items cost.
  • How many magic items your characters can bring on adventures with them.

Supported Game Systems

Currently, the PW only supports the Dungeons & Dragons 2024 (aka D&D 5.5) ruleset. Content from the 2014 rules is not permitted. Beyond the core books, we evaluate new books as they are released and approve as much content as we can for player use. We currently do not support any 3rd party content. A complete list of all available character options is available here.

In addition, the PW system does not support the following mechanics for players:

  • Bastions (2024 DMG)
  • Crafting (2024 PHB/DMG)
  • Circle Magic (Heroes of Faerûn)

What events use the PW system?

Some of our events require that you use a character you have registered in our PW, while some do not. Regardless of the event type, anything you attend that requires a ticket gets you a session reward.

Event Type Character Requirements
Roll For Adventure 		PW Required
Roll For Dameage 		PW Required
Roll For Pride 		PW Required
Newbie Night 		Characters provided, eligible for PW after event
Anything But D&D 		Characters provided at event, not PW
Side Quest 		Characters provided at event or special rules for creation, not PW
RPG University 		Non-Gameplay
Creative Sessions 		Non-Gameplay
Social Events 		Non-Gameplay

Character Creation & Registration

While our PW events have pregenerated characters you can use, you can also bring your own, providing you follow a few rules:

  • We only use the D&D 2024 (5.5) rules. Anything prior to the publication of those rules is not allowed. Before picking options for your character, make sure they are approved.
  • You cannot manually roll your own stats. If you want to roll your ability scores, you will have to do that when you register your character on the site. Otherwise feel free to use the standard array or point buy methods
  • Your character has to start at level one.

After creating your character, you can register them here. You will be asked to complete some basic details, then you are all set!

Character Progression

When playing in our Persistent World system, your character will level up based on the number of sessions they have played in and receive gold at every event. To track these things, you will need to register your character on our website. This will also track your magic items, hit points, class levels, and more. This does not replace your character sheet, but augments it with a traceable history of your character's growth from event to event.

  1. Before your first session with a character: From your character list, click the "Add Character" button. If you would like to use a pre-generated template, select “From Template”, otherwise select “Standard”. If you pick “Standard”, please make sure your character conforms to our character creation rules.
  2. When you sign up for an event: If you know the character you are using, go to the detail page for the event and click on the “Attendees” tab. Select "Assign Character" in the action drop-down menu at the right of your name. This will let everybody see who you are playing. If a character has a short description, a tooltip will display when you roll over their name. If your character has a sheet attached to their profile, the link to the sheet will be visible on the tab.
  3. At the start of your session: Confirm that your GM knows who your character is and what magic items you are bringing on your adventure. Some GMs may ask for more information such as Armor Class or Passive Perception, so make sure you have that information.
  4. After your session: Go to your list of characters and from the action drop-down menu on your character, select "Apply Session" and follow the prompts. Sessions may be applied to any character, but they must be at least in the same level range as the ticket. For example, if you have a session credit from a L1 - 4 table, that session can only be applied to characters who are L4 or below, so you can’t apply it to your L5 character. Sessions that have a level range lower than L1 - 4 or no listed level range are all credited as L1 - 4. These kinds of sessions include Newbie Nights, Anything but D&D, Side Quests, RPG University, Creative Sessions, and Social Events.

What can I bring to a session?

Level Range Permanent Healing Potions Consumables
L1 - L4 2 2 2
L5 - L8 4 4 4
L9 - L12 6 6 6
L13 - L16 8 8 8
L17 - L20 10 10 10

To ensure some sembance of game balance, there are limits on how many purchased magic items you can bring to a session with you. They are based on the level of your character, and are shown for each category of item as per this table. Common magic items and magic items created through class features or spells do not count toward this limit.

Note: all player characters must also adhere to the D&D 2024 attunement rules, which typically (but not always) allows for attunement to a maximum of 3 items at a time.

Are there any special rules during sessions?

Because of the nature of our games, we do have a few special rules to keep in mind:

  • All player characters are considered Humanoid for any prerequisite or effect that requires them to be Humanoid. For example, a Faerie character counts having both the Fey and Humanoid types.
  • Unless otherwise specified by the DM for that specific session, characters always begin at full health and resources (as if they had just completed a long rest).
  • If you receive anything in session that provides a mechanical benefit (gold, magic or mundane items, abilities etc...), those things are lost at the end of the session. Applying a session to your character will reward them with gold, which can be used to purchase items that do persist.

Session Rewards

In order to ensure some semblance of balance from one table to another, we strictly limit the rewards from a session to what is listed on the table below. The rewards per session match the level range of each table, and can be spent as soon as the gold is in the character’s inventory.

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

One-Off Characters

When attending our PW games, the general idea is that you start with a Level 1 character and level them up by playing at our events. Unlike PW characters, a one-off character has not progressed through prior Toronto DnD sessions. If you want to want to play at a game but do NOT have an in-range character, you may use a one-off character in some cases:

  • L1 - L4: Because you can always make a new character, you will always have the option of playing in these. If you don't have one ready, you can use a L1 pre-generated character (available on site) and apply the session to another character. No L2 through L4 one-offs are allowed.
  • L5 - L8: The use of one-off characters at this range is fine, provided you are not consistently doing this to level up L1 - L4 characters without actually playing them at lower levels.
  • L9 and higher: These are highly sought after spots and are generally reserved for the players who have progressed their characters to the appropriate level. If there are still spots at a table within 48 hours of the event, you can sign up and play a one-off character.

Character Death

Sometimes your character can be the victim of bad rolls, bad planning or reckless actions. When this happens you can send them to their grave by going to their detail page, and selecting "Kill" from the action menu at the top right.

However, your character is not lost forever! Instead of applying the session from the game that killed them to another character, you can donate it to the Necromancer’s Guild and they will resurrect your PC. Your dead characters will be in the graveyard tab of your character list. From the character detail page, select "Resurrect" from the action menu at the top right. Pick a session and that's it, they are back in the waking world!