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I'm GMing for a group that are about seven or eight sesssions in to the campaign that comes in the starter set. We've had two players leave over time due to unforeseen circumstances, and we'd like to add a new player in to fill out the party a little.

I'm wondering what the best way to "level up" the new player's character to about the same stage as the other characters is, given Dragonbane's advancement system. I could have them create a starting character, and then give them a series of upgrade opportunities, maybe picking half by their choice and half randomly assisgned, across all their abilities, and just repeat that the number of times the group has had sessions, then at the end give them about as much money as a character in the party who hasn't spent much on equipment has and let them go shopping for common things.

Does that seem fair? And am I missing anything?

If that's a reasonable way of doing things, what would you say is an average number of upgrade opportunities per session? I'm bad at estimating that sort of thing. I asked my players, and they seem to think "about ten" feels reasonable, but they also seemed somewhat uncertain.

Many thanks for any advice.

I don't know what you mean exactly with upgrade but the norm in this game is to give a new character one Advancement Roll for each session that the campaign has lasted, so if you have played eight sessions, a newly created character will get eight Advancement Rolls. Roll these one at a time just like the newly created character has passively been earning one Advancement Mark each session that has past.
To this he also earn the same number of Heroic Abilities that has been awarded by the GM so far in the campaign. He also is awarded an Heroic Ability for each skill that reaches 18 by these bonus Advancement Rolls.

When it comes to equipment, the new character will soon by up to specs.

Thank you for the reply!

I don't know what you mean exactly with upgrade but the norm in this game is to give a new character one Advancement Roll for each session that the campaign has lasted, so if you have played eight sessions, a newly created character will get eight Advancement Rolls.

Advancement rolls were what I was talking about. In an average session, each character should get something like ten or so of these, generally, I thought? One per session seems scant. That is, unless I've been misinterpreting the rules this whole time (which is possible). They'll get an advancement roll for each time they rolled a dragon or a demon during the session, as well as for each of the end-of-session GM questions that they can answer "yes" to. Since the rolls they get to make are semi-random (being a sampling of the skills they used, but selected by whether they rolled a demon or dragon), I was assuming some random factor to which skills they could choose each cycle.

Is that not the case?

None of the party have earned new Heroic Abilities as of yet, so I can skip that for the new players. Nobody has brought a skill up to 18, nor has any been awarded for heroic deeds yet. They're still what feels like relatively early in the campaign, and the book suggests that awarded-by-the-GM heroic abilities should be rare enough to be about one per standard adventre.

A character earns an Advancement Mark during gameplay if they roll a Dragon or a Demon. When they do they mark the box next to the skill. No more Advancement Marks can be earned for that skill during the session and at the end of the session, since the white box is marked, he can't put any of the free Advancement Marks there.

So earning ten plus Advancement Marks in a session is a lot. I have played this a lot and I have never seen that. Especially since you don't roll that many skill rolls in this game like you do in older games, except for weapon skills if the group is very much into combat.

The reason he only earns one is that the newly created character hasn't risked anything. By rolling for a skill, you risk something, he hasn't pursued any of his goals, so he earns one Advancement Mark. Since this new character doesn't have as high Skill Levels as a PC that has been played from the Get Go he will succeed a little more often when he roll Advancement Rolls.

A character earns an Advancement Mark during gameplay if they roll a Dragon or a Demon. When they do they mark the box next to the skill. No more Advancement Marks can be earned for that skill during the session and at the end of the session, since the white box is marked, he can't put any of the free Advancement Marks there.

So earning ten plus Advancement Marks in a session is a lot. I have played this a lot and I have never seen that. Especially since you don't roll that many skill rolls in this game like you do in older games, except for weapon skills if the group is very much into combat.

This is interesting. How many Advancement Marks would you say that your players earn in an average session? (And that's the length of that session?)

We've been doing exactly what you describe above, but my players roll a lot of Dragons and Demons. And there are a fair number of rolls per session, I generally find. In addition to combat, there's a lot of bushcrafting, hinting, fishing, etc., that are all happening pretty often as the party travels around. Plus, according to the core rulebook, at the end of each session you should ask five questions of your players and award an Advancement Mark in an unmarked skill of their choosing for each question to which they say, "Yes." Usually, they're able to say yes to, say, four of the five questions. So that's another four marks right there.

I'm not saying they actually advance on that many skills, but they definitely roll on a decent number per session. They suggested ten. I'd be surprised if it weren't at least eight.

Oh, and to answer my own question, a "session" for us is something like 5 hours.

The players only make skill rolls if there is something at risk, if it means something. What that means can of course differ from adventure to adventure, session to session. Our sessions are about 3-4 hours long and my players have earned (through skill rolls) anywhere from none to a handful, two or three being the average. The main reason for this is that not all characters are making all the skill rolls in every situation and even with skills that usually a lot of players roll for if you earn a mark in a skill you can't earn more marks in that skill until the next session.


When it comes to the questions, well how to interpret this will be up to the GM but in our group:

Did you participate in the game session?

That's one.

Did you explore a new location?

This doesn't happen every sessions since the PCs aren't exploring adventure locations every session and when they do explore one, it may take more than one session before the adventure location is considered explored.

Did you defeat one or more dangerous adversaries?

Not all NPCs/monsters are dangerous. A combat between the PCs and some highwaymen aren't that dangerous if the PCs easily win the fight. A monster that was killed in one round was clearly not that dangerous. What dangerous means can differ from group to group. A group of travelling merchants and scholars may be in some serious danger if facing some ordinary highwaymen.

Did you overcome an obstacle without using force?

The obstacle in questions here must be of a very dangerous natur otherwise it would be comical. Jumping over a stream is not something that should be worth a mark.

Did you give in to your weakness (optional rule)?

In order to earn a mark for this the PC must face his weakness. It must mean something. How often a PC will have the opportunity to do this depends on the weakness and what adventure you play.

In our group, the PCs usually earned two of these five, three if they managed to play out their weakness, one more during those sessions when they finish exploring an adventure site.
The PCs in my group have at most earned about seven marks in a session, but that's rare, most the time, they will earn a handful. I also don't allow exploits like rolling for a skill just to get a chance to earn mark, a skill roll must mean something. To face your weakness must really be something that has an impact for the character, not just that a PC take one silver more than the others to fulfill the Greedy weakness.

But every GM and group will do what fits them best, there is no right or wrong. If the PCs in your group earn so many marks each session, they will also become more experienced fast, so you may have to adjust for that. Just as you may have to adapt if you only play one hour sessions by giving free marks and roll for advancements every two or three sessions. If you play for very long, you might want to divide your game night into two sessions. When we played FbL we had very long sessions (6-8 hours) and we divided them into two sessions each game night (one before and one after food break) for experience reasons.