Patrols:
Patrols cost $1 per hour of the patrol to play.  These are held at one of the multiple trail sites we use, convene in the parking lot and begin with the outset onto the trail.

Earning Experience
Emphasis is not on what you kill or accomplish but on surviving and participating as a player character. Experience is rewarded based on the amount of time you play; allowing a simple cook, performer, smith or other artisan to advance at the same pace as a valiant warrior or adventuring caster.

Experience for short patrols (usually only 3-4 hours) is a flat 1 experience per hour. Players are still encouraged to NPC and we usually run two short patrols back to back to allow everyone a chance to play once and NPC once ensuring there will be opponents available at both games.

For longer events, such as feasts and camp outs, all players are expected to contribute to NPC roles. As such, per an agreement with the players decided at a player-ref meeting, experience at such events is capped at 3/4 of the time you actually participate whether you NPC or not. The other 1/4 of the time it is expected that you will be fulfilling NPC roles as assigned by the ref running the event. For example if the event is 12 hours long the most you could get is 8 experience and we'd expect you were filling an NPC role for the remaining 4 hours you attended. You can, however, choose to play all 12 hours of the event but you will still only get 8 experience and if your character dies even while not earning experience the character death will still count. Rather then force a player who's completed their cap for play time experience we wanted to allow them to remain in game if they had good role playing reasons to do so or if they didn't have a good breaking point to step out to begin NPCing yet. Sometimes there are just things going on your character absolutely wouldn't leave even if you know they are risking death and gaining no experience for it.

At Camp Outs, players who are camping on site are expected to remain in character the entire time. This doesn't mean you have to be in character when you're in the rest room or showering or such but we ask that if you aren't in character you refrain from interacting with all the other players who are playing their characters. Most people come to a camp out expecting a certain atmosphere and many are willing to go as far as to be in character the entire time and having other people standing around out of character is not only distracting but has led to more than a few character deaths when either PCs or NPCs made assumptions based on the number of people in a camp site only to discover that there was only 1 player there in-character who was suddenly out-numbered and alone facing unfairly greater odds than anticipated. Players who spend too much time falling out of character while they are supposedly in character may be penalized by earning less experience for the event.

To further reward those full-time players camping on-site who are in-character before and after scheduled play hours, there is an additional 3 experience available each day (1 per morning / 1 per evening). The amount earned is prorated based on what time the player arrives or leaves from the event. (Show up at midnight Friday night and you will get only 2 bonus exp as a full time camper for that night, etc)

Non-campers are not eligible for the additional experience even if they chose to attend outside the scheduled hours. They are certainly welcome to stay and participate in-character.

Its also important to note that some character types (mages and power users) need 8 hours down time at night. If you are a person who typically sleeps less than 8 hours and you want to be up and join in the fun after hours speak with the refs about playing an NPC character for a while. Since this is outside of play time there's no experience or compensation issues involved but during that time your character will be considered to be sleeping or studying in your tent and you can come back as some generic character visiting camp so you can hang out and continue playing with the rest of the players. You won't be penalized for playing such an NPC but your character also won't be able to use anything (information, gold, etc) that the NPC earns.

NPC Compensation
NPCing (playing a Non-Player Character) is taking time off from playing your character to help fill the roles of the characters met by the players.  We have many NPC roles throughout the course of an event.  Taking time off to NPC is highly encouraged.  By each taking time to NPC you're ensuring that others will have the opportunity to meet lots of characters while playing and they should be doing the same and NPCing as well so that you'll have the same opportunity.  To determine if NPC roles are available check in at the NPC camp (sometimes refered to as Monster Camp by other players).  There should be a sign-in sheet displaying how many NPC slots are available at any given time and you can sign up in advance if you want to ensure getting a continuous block to avoid multiple down times for your character.

While you're fulfilling NPC roles, your character is off adventuring or working or doing something else and life goes on for them.  From a plot standpoint typically nothing will happen.  Your character won't be killed or harmed while you NPC.  Since you aren't actively playing your character they also aren't receiving any experience during this time.  To compensate people for the time they spend NPCing, your character is doing some task (adventuring, working, etc) and making money.  For every hour of NPC time you fulfill at a camp out (up to 6 hours) or scheduled Patrol you'll receive gold for the character you are playing at the event.  The amount earned depends on the rank of the character you have attending the camp out or, in the case of full-time NPCs, based on the rank of the character they choose to be earning the rewards for at the outset of the event.

Rank: N-5	5 gold / hour
Rank: 6-10	10 gold / hour
Rank: 11-15	15 gold / hour
Rank: 16-20	20 gold / hour
Rank: 21+	25 gold / hour

Full-Time NPCs at feasts and camp outs receive additional possible rewards and benefits.

At a camp out, a full-time NPC may exceed the 6 hour limit of pay and receives the equivalent of 12 hours of pay.  Alternatively, they may:

• opt to either receive a random item (or items in some cases) that their character recovered while you were NPCing. They may have discovered the item while adventuring or were perhaps given in in payment for some task your character performed.  These random items could be magical items, potions of healing or scroll or other such valuable items but you won't know what it is until you receive it. 
• or, they may opt to choose to buy one single item off a list of rare and hard-to-obtain items.  This list will change at each event and you'll have no idea what might be on the list. These may be rare and wonderful items that characters may have to adventure years to find and may never otherwise obtain but you'll have the opportunity to purchase the item then and there at the base cost to obtain such an item.  In some cases this may mean you spend anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand gold but you may wind up with an item that no one else in the game will ever acquire. If you wish you may bring the item into game at the next event that character attends or you may speak with a ref to have your character acquire the item in-game at some later event if you prefer.

At a feast. a full-time NPC gets paid for the full 6 hours of NPC time or may receive a randomly chosen item but the rare item list wont be available.