Narrative adventures at the Green Dragon pub

#Repost#

A speculative sketch, loosely inspired by the (rumored?) free-form, improvised gaming of early designers and players. 

What if other great world-builders took this path?

A game and story at the Professor's table

Professor T--'s group meets at the Green Dragon pub at least once a week. They play a curious game, which resembles more a story or a piece of theatre, inspired by German "free" Kriegsspiel, and best described as a sort of guided adventure in an imaginary realm.

Materials required are: plentiful supplies of paper (exam booklets are common), pens, pencils, common dice, and occasionally chess pieces and chequers, to mark the places of all the participants in a combat.

Each of the players brings a notepad and a sheet of paper dedicated to their "character". On this sheet are many notes, including the character's name and particulars, their salient characteristics, story and lineage. There is also space for lore regarding the history of each kindred, intermixed with notes on quirks, such as the dwarfs' ability to light fires wherever needed, and snippets of common knowledge, including fragments of elvish legend. Room is set aside for lists of gear and other trinkets that the character carries. We have seen characters described as elves, dwarfs, burglars, woodsmen, rangers, knights, hunters, and wizards, among many others!

The professor also arrives with several notebooks, closely filled with extensive notes, glossaries, and background materials, and many maps and sketches.

When play begins, the professor outlines an intriguing situation, continuing an adventure that clearly started some time ago. Each player replies with their preferred course of action, and the professor then responds with whatever happens next, prompting another player to reply, and so on. Journeys, skirmishes, traps, discoveries, and many curious encounters are all resolved by discussion, plain common sense, and the turns of the story. If the players are wise and attentive, they will usually overcome such difficulties. If they are foolhardy or proud, then their situation will deteriorate.

From time to time the outcome of some action is at issue or more than reasonably uncertain, and then the professor will call for a roll of the dice, and perhaps consult one or more of the many small tables scattered among his notes. One table, labelled "Luck or Craft", is often referred to, thus:

2-3... Horrible
4-5... Poor
6-9... Tolerable -- well
10-12... Marvel. elvish! [sic]

When the dice roll, ones are to be feared, and called "the evil eye". Sixes are highly prized, and sometimes called "the crown".

A thoughtful player who demonstrates the great resolve (or skill) of their character, is sometimes permitted to roll three dice and tally the best two.

Brief and intense fights take place from time to time. Such skirmishes rarely continue for more than a few "turns", with the rare exception of protracted battles. The professor is not sentimental about armed combat, and such scenes are short and deadly. The players will usually prevail (although combat always involves rolls, and so an element of risk), but if they misjudge their position, challenge dreadful foes, press their luck too far, or succumb to blood-lust, even the strongest will fall, memorably.

Another curious table, much used, is kept at hand during such battles:
5... goblin, spider, wolf
6... orc or grt. goblin
7... man-at-arms, grt. orc
9... troll, giant, fell beast
10... capt., wyrm, wraith
12... drake, horror

Now and then, the professor will make a "secret roll" of his own design, to judge how things go by chance, or to see if the characters blunder into, or across, something unseen, or are taken by surprise, or put in an interesting situation by happenstance.

Character may indeed be dazed, poisoned, wounded, enchanted, wearied, and so forth, and must make note of these effects and bear the consequences until the matter is resolved.

When the adventure (or chapter) is concluded, it is time to rest, tend to wounds, and divide any treasures found.

A skirmish at the Green Dragon pub

As has been noted elsewhere, at some of its most dramatic moments, the professor's curious mix of tale-telling and game can involve combats, about which the professor is remarkably clear-eyed.

Such encounters, be they skirmishes or pitched battles, arise from the scenario and choices made in play: they are never forced for their own sake, and the players' characters often (but not always) have a chance to avoid them. Rarely, if ever, do two equally matched opponents stand forth for a gentlemanly bout.

Sometimes, whatever playing pieces are at hand, from chess-men to checkers, may be first arranged to show the rough situation, but this is far from necessary, and short encounters may well be resolved without them.

Whoever chooses to act and move first, whatever the consequences, does so. If the characters are ambushed, then they must respond to the ambush. If they charge or strike, then they have the initiative. From then on, each move and counter-move is resolved as most makes sense. Every player may take some sort of action before the turn is ended.

Given the risk, dice are rolled to resolve each combat. Each player rolls, and the professor adjudicates the outcome based on their skills, tactics, armaments, and position. Usually, a roll of six or more is required for the character to hold their ground and at least keep up their guard. Depending on the foe, a higher roll may be required to strike and prevail. For example, we see in the notes that a "man-at-arms" or "greater goblin" may be slain with a roll of seven or more, but a fearsome troll is wounded only on a roll of nine or more, and a dragon struck on a twelve only. More formidable foes may withstand several hits before they are felled. Even so, when allocating hits, the higher the roll, the better.

A roll of less than 6 means that some sort of setback, a blow, hurt, or wound, is suffered. The lower the roll, the more severe the consequence. The professor is unsparing of both sides, and so a player who rolls low may be wounded, dazed, or even felled and left-for-dead. Some enemies wield dreadful weapons, which may leave a festering wound or even sickness of spirit.

Players look always for sixes – the "crown" on the dice they roll, and two crowns are unstoppable. A single crown indicates a minor boon or advantage. Perhaps the blade bites deep, hampering the foe, or an opponent can be daunted or forced to retreat. Ones, the "evil eye" are feared. A single one may show a disadvantage or complication, but double-ones indicate an evil turn. When ones and sixes appear at the same time, the roll is an alarming close call, with gains and losses for both sides!

Fights do not necessarily end in death. Stern opposition may indeed cause the enemy to falter, but they may flee, or regroup, or attempt to surround the adventurers or even split them. Many goblins could retreat from a single warrior, only to turn and launch arrows at his shield to weight it down. By this token, wise warriors know when to flee, and when a threat is beyond their powers. Recklessness and blood-lust are not rewarded in the Green Dragon game.

Against the most dreadful monsters, only a cunning strategy, knowing the fatal flaw in a dragon's hide or the means to pierce the spell that protects an ancient horror, has any real chance of succeeding. There is always a place for heroism, though, and even a common soldier may hope to defeat the old and strong and cruel if he or she is stout-hearted and battle-wise.

BRP for Middle-earth

Over the last few years, I've had great success running a Middle-earth campaign in Basic Roleplaying (BRP) using the compiled rules from the BRP "Big Gold Book" (BGB).

Why BRP? Because it's a very flexible rules-medium system which runs smoothly at the table and makes sense even to beginners, and once the rules are understood in principle there's little need to frequently reference the rule book. The relatively realistic rules fit with the tone of Middle-earth, the details and the sense of hardship, but there are still opportunities for heroism. Combat is swift and decisive. And most of what a player and the GM need to know is located on the character sheet.

But because BRP is such a broad collection of options, here are the particular options I use for adventures in Middle-earth.

I'm also sharing my BRP-ME character record sheets, as character sheets in BRP contain a lot of rules information, as well as my thinking on this adaptation.

Character creation

• For skill point allocation, use the BRP heroic option (325 points), so that character can be highly capable in at least a few areas. However, no skill should begin at higher than 75%, as 80% is the point were success begins to feel almost automatic. 
• Use the personal point pool (INTx10) for custom and cultural skills. 
• The extra skill points from personality type option (Step 6) are not used.
• I also use skill category modifiers to add a connection from ability to skill for characters, but prefer the simpler bonuses (based on INT or DEX, see p. 31). In future, I plan on basing Communication on APP/2, Physical on CON/2, and Combat on STR/2).
• For typical Middle-earth races, such as elves, dwarves, or hobbits, I use the stats in the creatures section of the BGB or the old Runequest 3 Creature Book, making adjustments on the fly as necessary. As a rule, the tall Edain get a bonus for SIZ.

Skills

• Obviously, many of the BGB skills, from Psychotherapy to Science to Demolitions, are not suitable for Middle-earth, so strip these out.
• Not caring for the clunky skill name Fine Manipulation, I use Devise to represent tampering with locks, traps, and other small mechanism (in any case, mechanical locks will be very rare in Middle-earth).
• All characters have a knowledge of their own culture equal to their Own Language skill.
• I use the skill Bearing rather than Etiquette. Bearing represents how well characters carries themselves in social situations, whether the rules of etiquette are known to them or not: think of the first meeting with the Riders of Rohan, or Frodo greeting the elves in the woods, or even Bilbo welcoming unexpected dwarves into his parlour.
• I allow martial characters to train in the Martial Arts skill, representing their combat discipline, be it the Dunadan longsword or elvish blade. This is a very powerful skill, which should advance at no more than 1% a step, to a maximum of DEX+STR. It reflects the fearsomeness we see in characters like Boromir or Aragorn, who can slay many foes with a single strike.

In general, characters make the most use of their weapons skills, as well as Spot and Stealth and Track. First Aid is often in use. Insight is a popular skill with my players, for getting a read on NPCs.

Combat options

• To speed combat, use Hit Points with Major Wounds (not location hit points).
• My players, however, are particularly fond of aimed shots with missile weapons. I assign these a difficult rating, but adjudicate a Major Wound like effect if the shot hits a particular target (such as the knee joint of a troll).

Fatigue

The RuneQuest 3 fatigue points option being too cumbersome to track, I use a simple fatigue check, to represent the weariness that often afflicts characters in Middle-earth. Fatigue is based on a Stamina roll. The first failure inflicts a -10% weariness penalty. The second failure makes all rolls difficult due to fatigue. The final failed roll brings exhaustion. This Stamina roll is adjusted by whatever amount current encumbrance exceeds STR (if Enc is not more than STR, there is no penalty).

Magic

Magic can accomplish grand and marvellous things in Middle-earth, but it is also rare and often subtle. And it is not clear that the mortal races, such as common men and hobbits, can inherently use magic of any sort. Hence, the magic options in the BGB are not well-suited to Middle-earth. The simplest option is to restrict magic to figures other than adventuring PCs. However, if you think it necessary to introduce limited magic:

• Elves use spells similar to RuneQuest spirit magic, with effects that could be taken for extraordinary skill or grace (such as bladesharp or sure-shot or silence). A simple Luck roll is used to activate a spell. The spells add bonuses (5% /+1 per magic point) to actions.
• Wizardry, if used at all, should be skill-based and centred on certain skills or areas of study, such as Smoke and Fire, Silence and Disguise, Beasts and Birds, and so on.
• All spells that dominate the will of others are sorceries, and inherently corrupting.

Finally, the BRP Central site downloads page has a wealth of options and rules for BRP styled Middle-earth, based loosely on the Decipher Lord of the Rings RPG and many other sources.

The One Ring RPG - a review

The One Ring Roleplaying Game, from Cubicle 7, the latest game that aims to create a roleplaying experience specifically for Tolkien's Middle-earth, is a fine game: well-designed, beautifully produced, closely and thoughtfully integrated with the background material. It is also one of the most restricted and procedural games in the Tinkerage collection.

Character creation, for instance, shows a lot of thought. Characters are deeply rooted in their cultural background, and character traits are evocative and interesting. But creating a character is largely a question of choosing options from a list, and although the cultures of Wilderland (Woodsmen, Beornings, Bardings, forest elves and dwarves) are represented, there's no option to play, say, a roaming Gondorian knight or a Rohirrim tinker – although in honour of The Hobbit, halflings are perfectly plausible player-characters. Now, other cultures are slowly being added as new sourcebooks are produced, but this restriction of the scope of character creation in the core rules to the types of the area represents the game's aims: narrow focus with exceptional depths, leading to guided play.

The core mechanic is elegant and nicely evocative, combining a single linear roll for effort on a d12 (with a "Sauron" face for automatic failure and a "Gandalf" face for automatic success) with a pool of d6s for skill and extra levels of success. These dice are rolled against a simple target number (with a nice fatigue mechanism to boot, meaning only the upper digits of skill dice are counted if the character is weary). But with this simple mechanic, there are procedures for almost every aspect of play. There are procedures for encounters with potential patrons and allies, based on a "tolerance" rating and multiple rolls. There are detailed procedures for travelling – one of the strengths of the game is this journeying system. And the abstract combat system requires a multistage approach from surprise to initiative to combat advantage and positioning. All this means that new loremasters will, unless very familiar with the rulebook, find themselves skipping or forgetting many of the stages of play. Speaking of which, there are even procedures for abstracting adventuring play (the adventure phase) from experience and character development (the fellowship phase).

If this weren't enough, there are points for everything. Attributes aren't just standing values, you need to spend a point of Hope to add an attribute score to a roll, unless it's going to a favoured skill, in which case you add the attribute's favoured value. Along with Hope, you spend Endurance; just keep it above Fatigue, or you become Weary (and keep Hope above your Shadow, or you end up Miserable). For encounters, you get Valour and Wisdom, and there are also your Fellowship points, and your Standing, which you keep up by spending Treasure points, and so on. To be fair, all RPGs have their lists of tallies and expendable hit points and fatigue points and so on, but play in The One Ring feels like a great big character points economy with a lot of interdependent values always in flux.

All of this helps to encourage deep, considered play with a detectable Tolkien theme, as characters are pitted not just against external dangers and weariness but the influence of the Shadow and personal corruption as well, but there is a fine line between rules that encourage a particular style of engagement and rules that force a  structure onto player choice, and the shadow of TOR's game design is this sort of prescriptive approach to play itself. Overall, TOR does a fine job of evoking and instilling a sense of Middle-earth and Tolkien themed roleplaying, but one can't help but think that a lighter hand on rules and sub-systems and more evocative and entertaining setting detail could have made this game into a true classic.

[This review is based on a reading of the core rulebook in PDF format, and is not a report on actual play.]

Unexpected Journeys - An RPG for "The Hobbit"

Notes

Since it's the holidays, this light RPG system is inspired by the brilliant Freeform, Universal (FU) system by Nathan Russell. If anything, it’s a little simpler than FU, as it’s designed to capture something of the simplicity and swift pacing of fantasy adventures in the style of “The Hobbit” (the movies or the book, depending on your tastes).

The FU system uses no numbers, only descriptions, which allows a great deal of flexibility but also the chance to bring together characters of quite different status and ability (such as wondering wizards and homely halflings). The probabilities are very granular, and largely advantage the characters, except when chances are against them.

Characters

Characters have three descriptive qualities, or descriptors:

Kin: A lineage, background or kind (such as Dwarf, Hobbit, Dunadan, or Elf).
Calling: A profession or main area of knowledge and skill (such a burglar, warrior or ranger), which may be only an aspiration when you begin.
Trait: A special attribute or ability that defines you (such as nimble, hardy, swift, or stern).

Putting your descriptors together defines your character:

Stern Dwarvish Warrior...
Nimble Hobbit Burglar...
Hardy Dunadan Ranger...

Of course, you may have some equipment and possessions, or nothing but your waistcoat.

Adventuring

When you meet a hazard or trial:

• Pick up one die if it is something any of your kin could attempt.
• Pick up one die if it is something any of your calling could attempt.
• Pick up one die if your character trait or ability applies.

Roll all the dice you have, and take the best result:

1: Mishap the worst outcome, with complications or losses
2-3: Awry - failure, thwarted or crooked
4-5: Square - a success, sound
6: Boon - a success, with a benefit or a clear advantage

GM: Three dice are usually enough. If there are more dice in play, perhaps the roll could be passed over and the next challenge arise?

Danger

Dangers or conditions may cause you to set down one or more of your dice, as the GM directs. But you cannot set down your last die. Roll one die for each danger after your last die and take the lowest die you roll.

Battle

In battle, make the same check as an adventuring roll, but the GM may cause you to set down dice if you are matched, or daunted, by your foe.

In battle, you may be hit and wounded if your attack goes awry, or worse. If you are hit, you may have cause to roll to check your Wounds and Weariness, as below.

Wounds and Weariness

If you are wounded, or grow weary, pick up a die and roll. Then check the result.

6: Hale
5-4:  Shaken, then hurt
3-2: Weary, then wounded (a condition against you)
1: Out of play - GM will rule on consequences

Pick up another die when you have good armour, proof against your attacker. Set down dice against deadly attacks (such as a morgul blade). Depending on the result, the GM may also assign a suitable condition.

The latest check sets your current status. If the next roll is higher than your current score, lose one point instead. Lose nothing if the roll is a 6.

Monsters and other foes may start weakened or have several dice to use up before they fall.

Good rest and other healing will restore your condition towards Hale.

Other Conditions

You may be affected by other conditions, such as becoming Lost, Frightened, Daunted, Despairing or Enchanted. The GM will tell you when a condition will also affect your rolls. Some conditions may be easy to remove or overcome, whereas others may require considerable healing or success to cast off.

At times, and with luck and skill, you may inflict conditions, as well as wounds, on your foes (such as terrifying goblins, or enraging wolves).

Hope

Every character begins with two points of Hope or Courage. You can cancel the effects of a condition with a point of Hope, or expend one point of Hope at any stage to gain another die to roll.

Gear

Generally, the gear you carry will not affect rolls, although if you lack equipment, this may be a condition against you. Only rare, strong magic can add dice to your rolls.

Long Tales

As you adventure, you may gain new descriptors at certain points, becoming Wise or Nimble or Travel-worn. However, you may also gain a Shadow, such as Pride or Greed, which acts as a negative condition for certain rolls you attempt.

Notices

This work is based on FU: The Freeform/Universal RPG (found at http://nathanrussell.net/fu), by Nathan Russell, and licensed for our use under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).