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.

Ramshackle rules and roles

While tinkering with the free-form Fighting Fantasy rules, it strikes me that the simple trio of characteristics and basic tests can be adapted with relative ease and speed for a wide variety of worlds. Here's one such adaptation.

Ramshackle

The vast, labyrinthine structure, from Gormenghast to the Hayholt, from the citadel of Nessus to Mampang, is as important a part of fantasy as the underground dungeon. Here, I’ve adapted the Fighting Fantasy rules for playing in places that tower as far above as descend below, anything from immense ramshackle piles to sprawling cities.

Adventurers

Our adventurers use the attributes:

• ABILITY (like Skill, begins at 7)
• ENDURANCE (like Stamina, begins at 1d6+6)
• COURAGE (like Luck, begins at 1d6+6)

Courage works just like LUCK in FF. It represents bravery, resolve, and the character’s readiness to take — and dodge — extreme risks. Courage is worn down by every danger the character encounters, but restored by significant victories, small acts of grace and kindness, and fortuitous choices.

Character standing

One's position, or social standing, is a critical part of your background in the convoluted and sometimes archaic society of the ramshackle pile. 

Choose, with GM approval, or roll a die on the list and take +1 initial Courage for accepting the risk!

1 - Lowly: a scullion, scullery maid, or apprentice.
Staring equipment is shoddy or makeshift. Weapons such as a knife, club, hammer, or pick (1 damage only on.a roll of 1-2). Kitchen staff have access to plenty of provisions.

2 - Servant: footman, maid, valet, gatekeeper, guard.

Have access to workaday but sturdy equipment, Weapons such as dagger, staff, spear, halberd, if their duties permit. Guards may have common armor (1-2 chance of -1 damage).

3 - Staff: Senior or trained household retainers, such as butler, tutor, officer of the watch, falconer, artisan, cook, bailiff, apothecary. Equipment, suitable to the profession, and specialist weapons (swords, muskets).

4 - Household Companion: professionals, usually close to the family and part of the gentry, such as tutor, archivist, chaplain, sorcerer, astronomer, knight errant, duelist, surgeon. 

Well-made professional equipment and specialized weapons that require special skill (rapiers, great-swords, pistols, well-crafted armor).

5 - Scion; part of the ruling family or clan—noble, heir, gentry, magistrate.
Has access to the best equipment, weapons, and armor (improved damage or protection), and considerable personal wealth.

6 - Outsider: an explorer, wanderer, or even a monster; any individual from the outer world (if there is an outer world).
Equipment at the GMs approval, possibly rare, exotic, magical, or dangerous (or all of these).

Missions in the ramshackle halls

Through vast labyrinths, halls, cloisters, galleries, adventurers will find themselves on many missions, often driven by the needs and rituals of the place itself as much as the inhabitants, who are, after all, merely temporary.

Roll a die:

1 - Fetch

Go and recover for her ladyship a bunch of the lost copper roses from the ruined conservatory among the Ash Towers. Beware the argumentative and senile sphinxes that guard the approach.

2 - Hunt

Two wild hippogriffs are hunting in the western galleries. Track and eradicate or drive off the beasts. Ensure his lordship comes to no harm during the hunt.

3 - Deliver

Take this impossibly fragile crown constructed from the bones of extinct birdlife to the Catechist of Ethrain, in the Ninth Ward. Of course we can't tell you what she looks like: she wears a mask at all times, and it's impertinent to ask.

4 - Discover

Find for us a certain volume of impious prophecies concealed in the lower shelving of the Gaunt Archive. Never mind the literate rats or the mummified librarians; it's the crow-headed researchers you need to avoid.

5 - Guard

Secure the crumbling Oblique Tower from the intelligent were-ferrets and their demented pine-martin shock-troopers.

6 - Capture

Retrieve the phoenix tapestry the House of Kellin recklessly purloined from our drowned treasury. They have no idea what will happen if the wrong threads are tugged.

Lurking creatures

1 - Vermin

1–6 Giant Rats ABILITY 5 ENDURANCE 3

2 - Pests

1–3 Crow-folk ABILITY 6 ENDURANCE 4

3 - Prowler

1–2 Were-ferrets ABILITY 6 ENDURANCE 5

4 - Hazard

Ghouls ABILITY 7 ENDURANCE 6 (infected claws)

5 - Marauder

1–3 Gargoyles ABILITY 7 ENDURANCE 8

6 - Hunter

Hippogriff ABILITY 8 ENDURANCE 10 (flies, pounces for 4 damage on first attack)

Bertuhng's Tomb - a bullet scenario

Before the good part, a scenario using bullet-style annotation, a quick note about the planned demise of Google+.

The Tinkerage has shared posts to G+ in the past. Some of the broader community posts on G+ have been infested, particularly of late, with spam and and toxic political activity, but the Community groups have been ideal for integration with Blogger and supported a substantial amount of interesting content for RPGs. The Tinkerage will continue to publish to Blogger, right here, but has made no commitment to any of the alternative online communities currently being promoted.

Bertuhng's Tomb

:: Village of Devensford, on the edge of the Miring Marsh.

: Once, many ages ago, the marsh was a pleasant lowland, part of a prosperous kingdom. Then, the plains fell or the river changed course, and the pastures and groves became a sticky, disorienting collection of marshlands and bogs. Old tombs and ruins are still to be found in the trackless wastes.

> Wherever the characters stop for the night in the village, all the talk is of wandering ghosts, and in particular, the spirit of King Bertuhng, ancient steward and hero of the land. That very night, Bertuhng passes through the village in an aura of *Terror, and flourishes a massive, flickering sword before dawn breaks and banishes all restless spirits.
> The tavern talk is that the lost tomb of the old king has been disturbed, a possibility the travelling scholar Nearfis scoffs at (Scholar [2] +Learned, +Well-travelled, *Sharp). But it's certain that none shall sleep easily in the village until the matter is settled, and there's no doubt treasure or somesuch, including the long gone king's enchanted sword, to be found in the marshes. The only person who knows anything for sure about the marsh and the old kingdom is Parson Treeth.

:: The parsonage, Devensford
: A rambling house, somewhat distant from the main part of the village.
: Treeth ([2] !Local Lore, -Infirm) has, in truth, heard rumours of the old tomb, and believes it lies north in the swamp, on the east side of a lake there, but he warns that no one can find their way within the marshes.
>A scouting party of gor-rats are skulking about the parsonage, and eavesdropping if they can.
>Gor-rats will attack the parsonage with fire if they feel the occupants aren't alert.

Gor-rats, Slinking Rat-men [1]
*Sneaks
*Filthy blades
-Cowards

:: The Miring Marsh
: Vast, sodden marshlands
> Characters will meander and make little progress in the marshes. There can be suitable opportunities to become trapped, lost, exhausted, or drown. The marshes are supernaturally ! disorienting: watercourses change, the sun and stars are often shrouded, every horizon looks the same.
>Eventually, the characters will encounter the will-o-the-wisp lights of Trilits, who attempt to lure travellers into their boggy :: Trilit Hole with delicate floating lights that the Trilits fashion from a particular species of decaying reed.

Trilits, Gnarled, diminutive, bush-whacking marsh-dwellers [1]
+Silent
-Small
+Ambusher
* Bite, scratch, throttle

:: Trilit Hole. A muddy trap where Trilits mass on and hope to kill their exhausted victims. In this particular hole there is the submerged skeleton of a previous adventurer with a fabled |norther-ring on its finger.

| Norther-ring: a tin ring, that has no great value, except that it imparts on the wearer a clear sense of the direction north.

:: Berthung's Tomb
: An ancient tomb mound, partly submerged in the Miring Marsh.
: Nearfis, a scholar of somewhat darker arts than are apparent at first (+Sorcerer), is camped here with a party of gor-rats and three hobolds.
: The hobolds, capable if crude miners, have opened a simple tunnel into the side of the mound, bypassing the corridor and cursed burial chambers, and the blocked door to the east of the mound.

Hobolds [2]
! Mineworks
+ Strong
* Pick-axe

: A careful search around the side of the mound will reveal a narrow crack that provides access to one of the lesser tombs. The whole tomb is now knee deep in fetid water.

:: Outer tombs
: Four lesser tombs, arranged along the central corridor. Vengeful +Curses, and cold, incorporeal Wraiths guard this area.

Wraiths [1]
+Icy touch
- Hatred of light and flame

:: Inner tomb
: The waterlogged inner tomb is the king's last resting place, now haunted by his troubled ghost. If Bertuhng senses the characters oppose Nearfis and his vermin, he may side with them, deploying his stronger aura of +Terror.
: The king's fabled sword lies at the foot of his bier, under water. If raised to drive off the profane, it will blaze with a purging +Blue Flame, but once the battle is concluded, the badly rusted sword will crumble into fragments.
: Driving Nearfis and his minions away from the tomb, even at the cost of the destruction of the sword, will calm the spirit of Bertuhng.
: Apart from the sword, there are minor treasures recoverable from the barrow: some gold, silver, precious stones, and the like.
: If the characters defeat or capture Nearfis, he will have some (stolen) trinkets of minor value at hand.

Tomb of Swords - mini-scenario

The tomb is ancient, the grave, according to local legend, of a prince of the Ellfolk who was a master of the iron sword. Some folk tales say the sword was the prince's wife, one of the shape-shifting fey. If he was wounded, the sword danced above him to protect him, but she could not parry the death that found him, when he drowned crossing a river in a raid.

The place is called Tomb of Swords, and untold adventurers have gone down into the dark, seeking that enchanted blade, and few have returned. Now, the lord's youngest son has gone missing in the same place.

A pair of quarrelsome gargs are camped in the passageway under the standing stones, but they are mere vagrants, newly arrived, and have no interest in the deeps of the tomb.

Beyond them are the outer chambers. Patient adventurers, searching carefully, will find exquisite mosaics, scenes from the prince's life: the hero fighting the enemies of his clan; the hero drinking from the cup of peace when the battle is over; the hero and his sword-wife; the grieving fey laying him in the tomb with sword, helm, and shield, and a golden cup.

The horror lurks in the inner tomb. Every sword, every hero that ever perished in the tomb, takes the form of a roiling, black mass of dust and bone, grasping a hundred corroded swords. Mad, red eyes sometimes wink in the cloud. The sword-ghost cannot be harmed and will never relent. It is possible to parry the rain of blows with sword and shield, and the ghost will not pursue those who flee beyond sight to the standing stone.

The sword-ghost will not attack any mortal with empty hands.

Only one of the Druit gods could defeat this thing in battle or dismiss it by magic. But if a mortal could find the cup of peace and offer a draught from it, then perhaps the many tortured spirits trapped here could be freed.

The Soul-bell and the Silent Village - mini-scenario

You reach the village after a long day of adventuring or travel, in high spirits. But the street is dark and cold. You think at first you see a dog rummaging through a pile of kitchen scraps; then you realise that it's a wolf, the first of many.

When you break into a house, you find everyone asleep, in a slumber that cannot be broken. Anyone with witch-sight can see the larvae, the spirit-wyrms, coiled about the bodies of the sleepers. But no common sorcery can dismiss a wyrm without destroying the mind of the sleeper.

Eventually, you might find the broken crypt in the kirk-yard and the body of the poor, damned fool (an adventurer like you) who opened it. Soul-burn is a hideous death.

There are clues scattered about the tomb and notes in the priest-house that might lead you to the legend of the soul-bell. But an interfering priest of the Narrow Faith cast that relic into the ravine a hundred years or more ago, and the ravine is haunted by grimelocks, naggs, and worse.

But it might be worth finding the bell, and letting it ring from the spire before dawn. Before the spirit-worms pupate and hatch...

Tomb of the Bear God [mini-scenario]

Everyone knows that Beyreg the Sneak is a coward, a footpad, a lurker, a petty thief. So when two of the sheriff's men went out to find him in the woods and were found dead, with their skulls broken and their chests ripped up, what could have gotten the better of them?

There's an old tomb that once belonged to the Bear God deep down among the oldest, most tangled trees. Hunters saw Beyreg prowling out there. The reaching roots and storms have finally broken into the side of the barrow. And what could Beyreg the Sneak have found inside the tomb of a lost god?

Winding forest paths, tracks of a monstrous bear; the old, dim tomb and chambers full of bone; strange etchings on the walls, and a violated altar, the great bearskin of shape-shifting priests.

Crilmede [Mini-scenario]

There are three old tombs at the back of the little cove at the upper end of the steep-sided mountain lake of Crilmede. The only way in is by boat, or the narrow, crumbling track that starts a mile back along the shore.

Two of the tombs belong to princes of the Ellfolk, but the last one, the deepest and darkest, belongs to one of the old druit arch-priests, a powerful and cruel magician. They say fifty warriors with spear and shield were sacrificed and their bodies tipped into the dark depths of the cove – but sacrifices or not, they still answer the call of the arch-priest.

Problem is, no one remember which tomb is which. What are the chances that foolhardy grave-robbers would pass the wrong door at the end of the lake?

Vensford [Mini-scenario]

The old man drinking at the inn in Addistown tries to pay with a gold imperial, a three-hundred year old coin worth more than the ramshackle inn and everything in it.

Where did this remnant of the Tharkish Dominions come from? If pressed, the old man claims he found it in the riverbank, near the shallows at Vensford, with a broken lance-point and a rusted helmet.

Perhaps the ford is the lost site of one of the desperate battles of the Tenth Tharkish War, where a legion at least was trapped and drowned in the crossing.

Would a few adventurers brave the wrath of ghosts and the river to loot the forgotten battlefield?

No one remembers that the slinking water-garg Nardog lurks in the ford. A powerful swimmer, Nardog prefers to pull his victims into the water and drown them in the deep pools. He is less sure on land, but still deadly when cornered.

Nardog: water-garg (slimy trollish hunter)
Skills, Abilities: Grasping strength, Powerful swimmer, Silent lurker, Watchful cunning
4 strikes