Getting in to Adventure

The scenario is the bridge between the characters and the world. But how do your characters find themselves gathered at the Many Ways Inn?

Roll a die:

1. Runaway: whether from a cruel or dull situation, you had to escape.
2. Landless: through conflict or other chances, you have lost all your prospects and must, perforce, begin again.
3. Summoned: whether by a letter from a patron or some other call, you are brought here to answer.
4. Commanded: a patron or lord has ordered you to join some mission or venture.
5. Happenstance: pure chance or a series of unfortunate events brings you to this juncture.
6. Choice: Perhaps worst of all, you have chosen a life of danger and uncertainty.

What the character will do and encounter (the scenario) comes before mechanics (the game system). And although every scenario needs a setting, consider not just the “where” of the adventure but the “when…”. A scenario is not just a place, it’s a challenge, a dynamic, with constraints and possibilities, that the characters approach organically.

Here’s a simple starter.

Mutton and Marauders

Two ettins, Nygel and Treffor, have crept down from the Garshaws barrens to remedy their hunger, rounding up a small flock of sheep and a shepherd for good measure. Unknown to anyone, grimlock rustlers on a similar mission have picked up the ettins’ trail, and so rescuers, trolls, and grimlocks are set to intersect near a site* at the base of the Garshaws.

Nygel, Ettin [3] - Armed with tree-root club
Towering, massively strong, dull-witted, slow

Treffor, Ettin [3] - Armed with nocked axe, heavy hides act as crude armor
Lean, strong, sly, greedy

Grimlocks [1] a troop of 13 - Armed with spears, daggers, oddments of armor
Ragged, half-starved, nasty; dangerous when cornered, or when able to surrounded and sneak-attack an opponent

* Note that the adventure site is left open, with an eye to continuing the adventure. Is it a cave, leading into greater depths; or a stone circle near a partly exposed barrow-tomb; or a ruined hill-fort, a remnant of better times for the kingdom?

Resolution

The key to play-the-world or FKR resolution (the game system or rules) is not that every action is determined by referee fiat, but that the players concentrate on their characters and the situation, and the referee is ready, through judgement and experience, to resolve their efforts with tools that are both fair and simple to use.

It’s not that there are no mechanics, but that the mechanics are compact and easy enough to generate the chance element that means that the play is not simply dictated but develops in unexpected and dramatic ways as it runs.

Of course, the right tools that are also fair and simple require some judgement or a sense of what works at the table. This might well come from one’s experience of another game, but for anyone new to this style of play, it means that some guidelines, however slight, are useful.

So, here’s a brief rundown of the Tinkerage’s current resolution toolkit.

Roll and Read

Roll and read for characters assumes that characters have a fair, but by no means certain, chance of success, based on the conditions and their own aptitudes.

• Roll 2d6 and read the outcomes, adjusting to circumstances: 2–3 (fail); 4–5 (mishap); 6–8 (standard - the expected outcome); 9–10 (good); 11–12 (great).
• Can roll opposed and read for active opponents. Resilience rank breaks ties in opposed situations.
• Modifiers of +1/-1 are very rare, for exceptional circumstances (magical gear, terrible conditions).
• For a specific aim or outcome, like shooting a bow at a distant target, also read to meet a threshold number within the basic ranges: 6-8 is within standard range of difficulty; 9+ hard, and so on.

Combat is a kind of challenge where characters attempt to inflict strikes on their opponents while maintaining their own guard. A hit of sufficient force inflicts a strike, and when strikes are greater than a character’s resilience they are struck down. A character struck down may be stunned, injured, disarmed, or even killed or in a critical condition.

Screening rolls

For the referee, a single die is often the best tool. A screening roll is a quick roll of a die to clarify a situation or filter out a range of possibilities. 

• Roll for quality or conditions: 1 is worst, 6 is best.
• Roll for questions of probability: 2+ is very likely, 6+ is very unlikely.

Play the Adventure, not the Rules

Look back and think about Mutton and Marauders. The ettins are tough — unless the characters find a way to weaken them first, they should be harder to hit even for the strongest warrior in the group. Maybe roll and read and look for 9+ to hit? What if a character is hit by Nygel’s tree-root club? Make a screening roll to see how bad that strike is. The grimlocks aren’t strong individually, but what if they get the drop on the characters during the hunt, are they then defending at -1 or worse? What is the weather like when the characters set out to track the ettins — there’s another screening roll, perhaps.

And finally, if you don’t care for 2d6, then grab a d10 or put a classic d20 on the table. Think in terms of percentages? Then roll a d100. Know the rough chances of success and failure, give the characters a decent chance when they make a decent choice, and you have the core of freeform play at hand. Sooner or later the dice will surprise you and your players, and that’s when the adventure begins.

Geting in to Character

 Those who meet at the Many Ways Inn are a curious group, driven by many strange paths to seek adventure, after their fashion.

Every game, free-form or otherwise, rests on the interaction of characters and world. And although the referee is the arbiter of the given world, players and their characters represent the active inhabitants and movers of that world. Player characters are there to question and explore. These questions can reveal even to the referee opportunities and realities that were never before apparent.

Characters briefs: in the world, not the numbers

The peoples of Arihmere, townsman and peasant alike, have long settled within stout walls and hedges.

In a free-form system, characters are not defined primarily by mechanics but the terms of the world itself. 

So, we begin with the character’s descriptive brief: a short summary of abilities, background, and calling.

It’s sometimes useful to throw the dice for inspiration to shape your character's background, but there's always choice and room any character concept that appeals.

Roll or select an attribute, a feature of your character that is distinctive and characteristic.

1. Strong
2. Agile
3. Tough
4. Clever
5. Learned
6. Bold

In the largely feudal realms of Arihmere and about, determine a social station: roll 1d6 low to high, or work out a background with your referee.

1. Outlaw, outcast, or an outlander
2. Serf
3. Peasant
4. Freeholder
5. Wealthy
6. Gentry (petty nobility, knight)

Most individuals come from a manor or village attached to a stronghold, but on a roll of 6 they may originate in a larger city or town.

Weave together station and background with a calling. All along the Wolves Lane, we find those who fight, those who work, and those who study.

1-3: called to toil and trade

4-5: called to arms

6: called to faith and learning

For example, a high station and martial calling would suggest a knight errant. A lower standing a soldier or levy. A peasant, called to toil and trade, may be a sort of crafter, or perhaps a forester. An urban freeholder may well be a merchant or artisan.

Character record

Now we're ready to introduce your character with a few notes and mechanics.

Assign three notable abilities related to to their:

• attributes (characteristics or physical and mental features)
• skills and training related to calling and background
• Player characters have one distinction (a special ability, characteristic, or knack that makes the character unique).

Resilience

For the purposes of play, characters have an initial Resilience rank of [2].

Resilience is used to assess how many major impacts or injuries the character can withstand, and also their general level of ability and expertise.

0: Unranked—weak or untrained

1: lowly — commoners, levies, harriers

2: adventurers (start here) — trained militia, soldiers

3: skilled —veterans, captains, tough creatures

4: experts — strong, deadly

5: masters — champions, exceptional, monsters

6 or more: legendary — heroes, dragons

Many ways in (to the FKR)

The Many Ways Inn is famous for standing at the meeting of three great roads on the chaotic margins of the Harrowmarch, and infamous for the many adventurers and ne’er-do-wells who gather there seeking rumors of suspect ventures.

Over the last couple of years(!) circumstances as well as interests have guided the tinkerage farther in the  direction of free-form, minimalist rules — or the Free Kriegsspiel Roleplaying (FKR) style of gaming, lead by play worlds, not rules principles.

Now there are plenty of resources online to learn more about FKR, and the Green Dragon and Fighting Fantasy systems I’ve discussed earlier are also an introduction to this style, but in the next few posts I’m going to delve into some of the many ways in to free-style gaming that have developed.

But first, a note about FKR play.

FKR is based on the innovation of the original “frei kriegsspiel” wargames, where detailed and systematic resolution methods were discarded in favor of an experienced referee or adjudicator. 

Hence, a free-form toolkit has these elements:

• A world, being the shared setting for the game and its scenarios. This world can come from an existing game (like the dungeon-y system), an existing fictional world (like the Star Wars universe or Middle-earth), or, of course, the referee and players’ own invention. That being said, the world serves best as a starting point: it’s a place to enter and explore, to map and develop. And although a trend in some FKR circles has been to lean towards playing in existing fictional worlds and genres, for me it’s the creation of one’s own world with rules-light play that offers the most fun and challenge, while (as I’ve said in my Play ALL the Books posts) it’s hugely productive and fun to ransack all the sources you have at hand for tools and inspiration.
• A format for characters. This is usually diegetic, meaning that simple description tells you about the character in terms of the game-world, not with reference to detailed metrics like stats and ability modifiers, hit points, skills, and so on. See Getting in to Character here, for an example.
• A resolution system that is as minimal as possible, so that it operates behind and not in front of the character’s choices. See Getting into Adventure for an example.

The key to play-the-world or FKR gaming is not that every action is determined by referee fiat, but that the players concentrate on their characters and the situation, and the referee is equipped to apply, through judgement and experience, with a set of tools for resolution that are both fair and simple to execute. It’s not that there are no mechanics, but that the mechanics are compact and easy enough to generate the chance element that means that the play is not simply dictated but develops in unexpected and dramatic ways as it runs.