Once your character has some goals, then there are lots of things to do towards achieving them.
Sometimes it’s straightforward, for example there was a Dawnish character collecting information to put in a book listing the heraldry and sigils of all the groups at Anvil, or as many of them as possible: the Dawnish Houses, the League Guilds and Churches and Troupes etc., Wintermark Halls, the Highguard Chapters and so on. So that involved talking to people and asking them about their groups and symbols.
Myself, I’ve been playing the same character since Empire started: a violinist in a theatre-troupe in the League. The troupe is a Night coven, but the first priority every event is putting on at least one performance of at least one play. We have enough of a reputation that we get requests and commissions. For example, once there was someone planning a competition for chocolatiers, and he paid us to advertise it and encourage people to enter: we wrote a brief humorous sketch and wandered around doing repeated performances of it. There’s the more conventional putting-on-a-play sort of things as well. And yes, when we do rituals, we use dramaturgy (and sometimes music).
There’s also the pure-music stuff, for fun and/or profit: playing violin in a concert, or for people to dance to, or at a party, or to add drama to a fire-spinning show at night, or just enjoying jamming with other musicians.
If we’re not busy rehearsing or performing or talking to people to make arrangements for things, we go along to Conclave, and/or to other smaller meetings of mages to discuss stuff. Interesting things going on, and/or things to care about, argue about, be intrigued by…
If we cast the Signs and Portents ritual, then afterwards we usually find the person who’s gathering the information that people have been getting from it (and other such divinations) to share ours and learn what others have experienced, and ponder on how any of it relates to things that are going on. Once one of the visions/portents seemed clearly applicable to something else we knew, so we went and told the relevant people about it and that helped them with what they were doing. I suggest finding out about those if you enjoy the puzzle-solving, but then to work out what they mean you’ll have to go around learning other things, finding out what other people have been doing, until you find “Aha! So that’s what that’s about!”
Somewhat more self-contained puzzles are more likely to come from Eternals and/or their Heralds.
Another member of the troupe often spends time helping out at the hospital.
We have some regular custom for casting a ritual to improve the production from forests, and occasionally for other rituals that we offer.
Some time is spent just socialising, whether talking in a bar or at a neighbour’s camp, or singing (or playing fiddle) round a campfire, or hosting an evening of conviviality in our own comfortable tent…
There are many kinds of competitions: music, other performance, painted/drawn art, fighting, panache, chocolate-making, song-and-poetry… so many kinds of characters might want to participate, or to spectate: my character has done a fair bit of each.
Often though, it’s possible to latch on and get involved with something that someone else is doing and wants help with, or is talking about, or whatever. A lot of things I’ve done are one-off atypical things.
Just reading the newspapers takes quite a while… and then gives you things to talk about, and sometimes you see things particularly relevant to your character’s interests.
), or is that not allowed? Is the trader’s row a certain street at Anvil? Do all nations have national fairs (if this is on the wiki just point it out to me - I haven’t seen it anywhere). I had no idea there was a foot the ball Marcher festival! It makes me wonder what other festivals/fairs etc I have missed.
Skills like Hallow and Annointing can help here as they can give people a pointer towards virtuous action and some fun roleplaying effects.
How many newspapers are available?