The Doug Alone

Prep is Play and Play is Prep

A man wanders through a liminal space with dice and dominos.

Month: July 2024

The Big Barston Bakersfield Chronicles Recap, Part 1 (Advanced Fighting Fantasy+)

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On 2024-07-07

In Actual Play, Advanced Fighting Fantasy, Campaign Design, Harper's Quest 2, Solo Campaigns, The Bakersfield Chronicles, Troika

 

I think now is as good of a time as any to discuss the kind of odd origins of the campaign that took me from a long time dabbler in solo roleplay and made me into a solo-first roleplayer, from a person with a couple of solo/oracle type books to someone with a massive shelf of books and tools dedicated to the hobby. 

This is the story of a book printer turned warlock hunter Barston Bakersfield, whose story started out as an absolutely bog standard adventure romp: avenge his uncle’s death and kill an evil wizard. But first, we go back a whole generation. 

— Harper’s Quest 2 Era & Shellyton Bakersfield — 

In August, 2023, I launched a Harper’s Quest 2 game after watching The Lone Adventurer play through it on his channel. It sounded fun, the price was right (just $2.50 for the pdf although I did get a physical copy later on), and I wanted to expand out a bit after being on a bit of a Fighting Fantasy kick (about once every two or three years I tend to deep dive through several of the old FF books). 

We had my hero above. Shellyton Bakersfield. He had been driven from his home, the town/city/place called Humb, years ago by the Mayor/Elder – Malakar Brite – after Brite pulled an Obed Marsh and trafficked in powers beyond the human sphere. 30+ years later, Shellyton was ready to get revenge and set out through the Forest Ick to battle Red Warlocks, Zombies, Demons, and more to get to Humb where he could battle Blue Warlocks, Skeletons, Mutant Minotaurs, and…eventually, Malakar Brite himself: The Gray Warlock. 

Shellyton. Malakar. Ick. Humb. Where did any of these names come from? No clue. I think I just syllable-spewed the first bits that came to mind. I know “Brite” was an odd reference to Reginald Bright from Endeavour. The idea was a somewhat unassuming, unthreatening older man who was actually a major threat. 

He set off through Ick. I took my time. I would roll on HQ2’s oracles to generate a scene and then would either generate or search for artwork that matched and use that as some additional inspiration. There were some fights but it was partially just about getting used to solo playing NPCs and solo playing the aesthetic experience of hex/dungeon/wilderness-crawling.

And then outside a red warlock outpost, Shellyton went kaput. Terrible dice rolls stacked up back to back. No problem, HQ2 has a “generation” system that is probably meant to be taken a little less literally than I did but still: enter our new hero, Shelltyon’s more practical and less fanatical nephew – Barston. He wants to know what happened to his uncle. He was raised hearing about “Crazy Uncle Shell’s” revenge stories. Once Shellyton disappeared, Barston took on the quest to finish off Brite and to bring Shellyton’s stuff back to the “town in the valley”. 

Still, there’s another twist in Doug’s machinations…

— How Two Things Were Coming together to Become Something Else — 

While playing through HQ2, the itch had started. I wanted more and more solo play experience. I had started cooking up an idea for far-too-expansive Troika solo campaign fueled by some fantasy books I had been reading (e.g., The Books of the New Sun). A massive world with seven huge islands surrounding a continent that was also a city that was also two cities. One island was the gothic horror world. One was a Victorian magic school kind of world. One was more Mad Max post-apocalyptic. Another more mythical fantasy. Another more Lovecraftian horror. One more science-fiction-y. You get the idea. Each island was the personal domain of some ancient long-dead wizard who had structured reality to their own personal taste. No matter what sort of story I wanted to tell I could pick an “island” and drop characters into it. There were more minor islands I could make if I wanted to do something more one-shot-y. Over time, I could swap back and forth, have characters criss-cross in funny ways. 

I was already planning on using a few Advanced Fighting Fantasy modules and books and had an idea for a more traditional fantasy world being one of the islands. You can maybe figure out where this is going. 

What if the fantasy island/sphere/world was the same one that Shellyton had lived and died on? What if the “Harper’s Quest” land was just a gateway to this more expansive forever-and-a-day Troika campaign, slightly channeled through an Advanced Fighting Fantasy lens? What if Barston (or, some two or three generations of Bakersfields later) might complete the quest and then get transported into this broad campaign? It tickled my creative juices.

It just was not quite meant to be…sort of… 

— Barston Finds Humb and It All Changes —

One thing I wanted to do to prep for the above campaign was to introduce Mythic Game Master Emulator 2nd Edition into my HQ2 game. For practice. I made a rule that every rough scene needed to have at least two oracle questions: one to determine what had changed in the 10-year-gap between Shellyton and Barston. Another about whatever felt most appropriate. This will be important in just a minute. 

I had even more fun as Barston. He fought better, more smartly. I had gotten better and journaling and building in details. Battles were more tactical. Barston back-tracked, planned ahead. I pushed my comfort zone and had more detailed NPC interactions. I built in intrigues – two heroes of the land, a fighter of reknown and one of the great wizards – were entangled in this whole Evil Warlock business, a mystery Barston was trying to solve.

One of the descriptions I got was that there was giant footprints found in the forest. I took that a step further and made them GIANT footsteps. In fact, this whole HQ2 realm was not only an island in that upcoming-but-never-happened campaign but its founding wizard was a wargamer: he had made a world full of fantasy miniatures that he played out scenarios with, living miniatures that had been long abandoned and founded entire histories in his absence. Sometimes full sized people from one of the islands comes across the island and they appear as mountain sized giants. Fun, right?

The important change came right at the end of these sessions of track and backtracking through Ick. Barston finally finds Humb and before I roll on some dice to start generating that, I do a Meaning Table: City Descriptors and I get “Bustling” and “Commerce” and I wonder… “Wait, is Humb currently a bustling city full of people going about various merchant shops and such?” and get an Exceptional Yes result.

Suddenly, I decide to drop HQ2 and to effectively drop Troika because I realized what I wanted to do…

Barston Bakersfield got translated into an Advanced Fighting Fantasy character and Humb became a city under siege by at least two warring clans of Warlocks: each thinking they were the true followers of the legendary Malakar Brite. 

— From One Random Oracle Result Came an Entire Year —

Could I have handled that one question differently? Sure. Humb could have once been a market town and now be just a random collection of ruins. No problem. However, that one question and my needing to stop and retool my whole scope was such a good thing. I “dropped” the immense, slightly pre-plotted conception of the mega-meta-campaign, technically. I worked on honing all the skills I could dealing with oracles, on-the-fly rulings, dungeon and landscape design, adventure tweaks, villain crafting, and detailed NPC interactions. I got a lot better at just playing to the table, ignoring tables when it was time to take the helm, and having lots of fun just doing my thing.

To put it into perspective, a world that essentially started out with three points – a still not really fleshed out “town from the valley,” a forest, and a city from generations ago – has turned into, well, this…

In Part 2 of this Big Recap we’ll look at how early adventures in the City of Humb led to a host of characters and working out how to actual play a sizeable solo campaign and then in Part 3 I will look at how it developed into its current state of a multi-POV campaign founded on a deep, deep mystery. Will that eventual answer be “TROIKA”? I don’t know. I don’t need to know. 
Just note that there are now dozens of characters, several towns and cities, some deep mysteries, some loose threads, and recently the start of a whole new religion. 
After these updates, I will return to the Bakersfield Chronicle (I took a month-long break after a campaign shift last session) and start playing again so later this month we should have posts and recaps about it showing up on this blog.
By the way, the above map was generated by HexKit using the Strange Tiles pack. This is not exactly an endorsement. I like it but I feel like the program probably needs an update (the files were last updated in 2019 it seems though the page gets updates more regularly). Still, it works for me.

Expanding my Tricubes Tales Solo Card-Based Oracles and Adding Several Framework Rules (July 14, 2024 Edition)

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On 2024-07-04

In Design Philosophy, Oracles and Tools, Tricube Tales

When I started playing The Bloody Hands using Tricubes Tales Solo I used the system as is except for tweaking the basic oracle to something a bit more complicated. That worked just fine through the first four “episodes” and I still like my little “Dice of Changes” style resolution.

However, I played a TriSolo style game with my partner and have been trying to introduce some more friends to the concept of how solo playing works (yes, I understand the irony) and sometimes it takes a bit more of a framework to kick off some ideas. That got me thinking about how to expand on some of the inherent design choices in TriSolo to make something that could meet folks more half-way and could be adjusted/tweaked on the fly based on the comfort level of the player. 

Here is my current working model. Like all things on this blog, I’m considering it CC-0 so take it and run with it. The OG Tricube Tales Solo materials are CC-BY 3.0 and this post in no-way-shape-or-form is meant to interfere with the original system. As we sometimes say in the adaptation business: with apologies to Richard Woolcock. 

— How to Use This —

This is primarily intended for solo and GM-less play when a more structured framework is required. If a GM wants to use this to give players more control or to provide a more precise framework and gameplay loop, sure, but is mostly designed to stand in for a GM in a fair, consistent way . As always, everything is optional. Always has been, always will be. Such are RPGs. 

— Changes & Additions to the Aces/Jokers, Face Cards, Discard Piles, and Reshuffling —

In default Tricube Tales: Solo, Ace and Jokers are marked as “Scene Changes” and then have a 1d6 element that represents something inherent in the scene. In this framework, to keep language more consistent, Ace/Joker trigger “scene shifts”. 

A shift had at least a minor to moderate impact on the current scene and story line, and may or may not be a major shift. Draw a second card once you get an Ace or Joker. This is the “Shift Test”. To sum up these variations:

  • Ace or Joker is pulled
    • Roll 1d6 as instructed in TriSolo. 
    • Pull a second card, this is the Shift Card. 
    • If the Shift Card is another Ace/Joker:
      • Elevate the shift to a major shift
      • The second 1d6 should highlight the focus, combine the results together
      • In cases such as “Positive (for you)” and “Negative (for you)” treat the combination as somehow involving both 
      • Do not pull a second Shift Card
    • If the Shift Card is a face card:
      • Progress the associated plot as expected
    • If the Shift Card is a number (2-10) card:
      • Play the shift as is, discarding this card
      • Alternatively, use the Suit and/or Value to give hints about the direction and value of the shift (see the various oracles, below)
    • If you still need a card to answer the oracle or establish the scene, draw again and discard additional Ace/Joker cards. See the note, below. 

For face cards, they only trigger plot advancements when pulled as a Shift Card or as a Main Scene Card. In all other card draws, they are read as values 11, 12, and 13. 

EXAMPLE

Jerry is trying to sneak into the chemical factory to search for a missing teenager in a crime drama style campaign. The player draws a card to figure out what kind of task Jerry will need to face and gets a Joker. Rolls a 1d6 and gets “Negative (for you).” Drawing a Shift Card, Jerry’s player gets an Ace and rolls 1d6 again and gets “New Character (roll)”. These two results are combined together that there is a major shift in the scene with this new person making the issue much harder on Jerry.

OPTIONAL: For plot shifts (Jack, Queen, Face) and scene shifts (Ace, Joker) you will only get one per card draw. Besides the Shift Card, extras can be discarded. For instance, if you draw a King of Spades and the main plot is progressed negatively. You have to draw another card as per TriSolo rules and get a King of Hearts. Rather than interpret this as a shift back into the positive (somewhat neutralizing the first) you discard it instead. The scene has a single plot shift for this one card draw. Later oracle draws in the scene might generate another shift, though. This does not include the Shift Card itself for obvious reasons. 

There is now a more obvious discard pile. All cards except  the main scene task cards are placed in it after being used. There are a lot of cards across the oracles, side tasks, and such. This also means you might have to reshuffle. The only cards NOT reshuffled should be the completed main scene task cards and current main scene task cards. Those are held until the end of the session. 

This means you have a discard pile, a successful scene pile, and a failed scene pile. You can arrange them with the successes going to the right of the draw pile, the failures going to the left, and the discards going either above or below.

— Karma to Draw a New Card —

Besides some of the new options for spending Karma below, Karma might be used after a card draw for any purpose (scene, oracle, relationship) to cancel that card and draw another. 

This framework favors using Karma more continuously to control the flow and therefore players are encouraged to play off Quirks more often to build up additional Karma. 

– Optional: Increase Starting Karma – 

If groups wish to have more control, Karma’s default value can be increased from three (3) to four (4) or five (5). However, it should be balanced and not made much higher than the default value. 

–Additional Materials Needed —

While all of this is optional, some additional tools for using this framework are 

  • A number (3-4 maybe) tokens per character to represent tasks, locations, NPCs, and events/plots/elements to which that character is currently committed. Note, I did NOT say “meeple” even if we all thought the m-word.
  • A small stack (maybe 10-20) index cards of a logical size (3×5, 4×6, whatever your local equivalent is) and slightly less small stack (maybe 20-30) “note cards” of a logical size (2×3, 1.5×2, your favorite sizes).  
  • One deck of cards is probably plenty but if you have a larger group (more than 4) you might want to shuffle a second deck in to start just to reduce the amount of reshuffles. 
If you are playing digitally, you can obvious ignore all this and just use tokens as appropriate.
NOW! On with the changes and the Framework! 

— Card Based Yes/No Oracle —

When asking a yes/no question, pull a card:
  • 2 to 7 = No. 
  • 8 to K = Yes.
  • A or Joker = There is a shift to the question. Follow the procedure above. If resolving this shift does not answer the question satisfactorily, then an additional card might be drawn.
In this system, the suit of the card might indicate an and or but:
  • Hearts = “And…” 
  • Spades = “But…” 
In this way, you can have “yes, but…” “yes, and…” and so forth. 
This can be expanded for Likely and Unlikely results as follows:
  • Likely means 2-5 = “No” but 6+ = “Yes”. 
  • Unlikely means 10+ = “Yes” but 2-9 = “No”. 
When it doubt or debate, treat it as the default setting of (2-7 & 8-K). 

— Other Basic Card Based Oracles —

There are other basic card-type oracles. 
In all cases, these three general notions are true
  • For card value:
    • High numbers tend to represent more (usually more “yes”)
    • With vibe style checks, numbers on the end (2, 3 and Q, K tend to represents the extremes of the vibe)
  • For card suit:
    • Hearts = relationships and working with someone/something
    • Diamonds = objects/transactions
    • Clubs = skills/actions
    • Spades = conflict, interactions, or working against someone/something

– Simple Value/Vibe Check –

In this oracle, if you are trying to figure out how much of something there is (how many people, how strong is the storm, how cluttered is this house, etc) then simply pull a card and treat higher as more. Again, Aces and Jokers represent shifts as above. 
If you are trying to find how the vibe is going for or against the characters, consider, as a baseline: 
  • 2 to 4: Negative
  • 5 to 10: Neutral
  • Jack to King: Positive
This can be adjusted or read as more of a spectrum as needed. 
For value/vibe checks, Hearts and Spades can be taken as 
  • Hearts –> The value/vibe is increasing in its direction: growing more negative, more positive, etc. For neutral vibe results, this might be interpreted as being apathetic to the characters’ actions or the general flow of the campaign. 
  • Spades –> The value/vibe is about to change. Perhaps do another check later in the scene or in a follow-up scene. 
One particular variation of this check that is frequent in hexcrawls and outside games is a weather/conditions check. In this case, lower values point to worse conditions and higher values point to more favorable conditions. Shifts and Major Shifts point to the weather/condition being particularly out of the normal (dust storm in the desert for a shift, thunderstorm in the desert for a major shift) but use the Twist oracle for ideas. Hearts/Spades can show if the conditions are holding steady, growing worse, or improving, etc. 

– Determining Relationships –

If you are trying to find out how a person, location, character, or event is related to another person, location, character, or event then draw a card and consult the suit. There is a lot of overlap here so a coworker might be someone transactional or task-related or personal depending on the vibe:
  • Hearts = personal relationships (family, friends, personal enemies, places of personal interest)
  • Diamonds = transactional or object based relationships (store owner, coworkers, banks, something paid for)
  • Clubs = related by a task, action, hobby, etc (people who share a hobby, a place where the task takes place, an event involving the action)
  • Spades = related to a specific event or conflict (somewhere who was there when something happened, the place it happened, an event caused by the first). 
The value of the card can be used to hint towards intensity. A 3 of Spades means the connection between the event is fairly faint while a Queen of Hearts might hint the personal relationship is very strong. For obvious reasons, ignore Heart/Spade for “And”/”But” type responses.
Aces/Jokers mean there is unusual characteristic and/or a recent change in the relationship. The Shift Card can give more details about this. Draw again if it is still unclear.

– Determining Types of Scenes –

If you need some inspiration for what type of scene or type of specific task this is, suits can also be used to generate a type of event/scene/task (again there is some overlap):
  • Hearts = interpersonal or personal scene/task (probably involves talking or settling an issue with someone, could involve dealing with a personal issue)
  • Diamonds = transactional or item-based scene/task (the classic “market/shopping” scene, but can also be about finding a specific item, a specific clue, etc). 
  • Club = action scene/task (this involves using a specific skill, performing a specific practical action, or generally applying to some external, non-personal consideration)
  • Spades = conflict scene/task (scenes and tasks of opposition: this scene involves a fight or a struggle, it could also be something like sneaking past guards or climbing a wall definitely meant to keep you out). 
If you draw a numbered card (2 through 10) then you can use the value to decide the general intensity of the problem or the vibe, however you wish to interpret it. 
If you draw a face card then it means effort is needed. Jack = 1 effort per committed character, Queen = 2 effort, and King = 3 effort. 
Obviously, in this case, as above, Hearts/Spades do not generate “And”/”But” answers. 
Aces/Jokers represent scenes that are interrupting are altering the main story. Roll the dice as instructed in the base rules to try and figure out what is happening. For Aces/Jokers, the shift card can help give a focus or draw again if it is unclear.
For more inspiration, draw two two scene-type cards and treat duplicates as an increased intensity (two Spades might mean 3 effort instead of 2, two Diamonds might involve a more complicated transaction or search). Non-duplicates show how the types overlap, a Heart + Diamond might involve finding an item related to a personal quest while a Spades + Club might be a conflict where you are trying to complete a task to win the fight rather than directly confronting someone. If you use the two-card method, only count the first Ace/Joker pulled. 

– OPTIONAL: Weirdness Checks – 

For certain types of campaigns (horror, paranoia, mystery, surreal) it can sometimes be interesting to know if something is going strangely. A Weirdness Check is a variation of the value/vibe check. 
  • Number cards (2-10): the event, person, object, or task (aka, subject) is as expected given the context of the scene, session, or campaign [note: this can still be fairly weird by default]
  • Jack: the subject has a minor but distinct weirdness from its base type. 
  • Queen: the subject has a notable weirdness from its base type.
  • King: the subject has a major weirdness from its base type.
  • Shift (single Ace/Joker): the subject is massively weird.
  • Major Shift (double Ace/Joker): the subject is extremely weird to a degree that the base type is mostly just a suggestion that people might use to give it some explanation. 
In this system, the standard suit distribution might give some idea of how it is weird
  • Hearts –> something is off about the people/creatures involved
  • Diamonds –> something is off about the objects/aesthetics involved
  • Clubs –> something is off about the actions/procedures involved
  • Spades –> something is off about how the subject interacts with the characters or world around it. 
One variation could be to draw an additional card for Queen, two additional cards for King, and three/four for Shifts/Major Shifts and read only the suit if you need inspiration for how to upgrade the values.
This can be used to find out if a creature fits the general type (zombie) or is something different (a raging, screeching zombie) to add some creature inspiration more on the fly. 

Example

In a horror campaign, there is a festival going on and a parade is going down the street. A Jack of Diamonds might indicate the people are wearing strange masks. A Queen of Hearts might be the people in the parade having unusual appearances (too tall, too thin, etc). A King of Spades could have the parade floats having folks in cages while the crowd cowers and looks afraid. An Ace might combine all these elements into one. An Ace followed by a Joker might involve all that and also the day shifts into the night, strange voices are heard shouting from somewhere down the side streets, and the the ground quakes and shakes as the city takes on a different vibe as the parade passes.

— Main Scene Task vs Side Tasks —

Most scenes still has a Main Scene Task determined by cards (aka, the Main Scene Card). As in the base game, draw a card to determine the main task for that scene. This highlights the general focus of the scene, a task that must be completed to face. Face cards equal a shift while Ace/Jokers add an alteration to the scene, as above. One or more characters might work to solve this (or be required to individually solve it). If the flow of the story has reached a point where this main task is more disruptive (example: players need a scene where they discuss strategy, take a break from the main plot, or elsewise) this can be considered more indicative of the flavor of the scene but a card should be drawn since there might be shifts and/or progressions in the plot. 
This main task can be solved either before, during, or after the Side Tasks. Construct the fiction at the table to reflect this: is this something blocked by the side tasks, something that enables the side tasks, or something happening at the same time, et cetera. 
Characters not tackling the main task of the scene can have a side task. State the intentions for these characters and then decide to either pull a card for a completely random tasks (which can help to add a few twists and unexpected interactions) or decide the Trait used in the tasks and pull a card to determine the difficulty:
  • 2, 5, 8, Jack = Easy (4+ to succeed)
  • 3, 6, 9, Q = Standard (5+ to succeed)
  • 4, 7, 10, K = Hard (6 to succeed)
These two methods (purely decided by cards or using cards to determine difficulty) should be considered the default way to determine side tasks outside of letting fiction decide. If not every player agrees on the fiction, then a card draw can be used.
If an Ace/Joker is drawn, this side task is somewhat related to a shift in the scene. Proceed with the Scene Shift rules as above.

In some cases, the relatively difficulty of the tasks might be obvious (example: an early scene trying to get into a nightclub when there is no real obvious conflict, yet) but the Trait might be in doubt. Or, figuring out the trait might be a good clue as to how difficult the task is. In that case, you can use this chart:
  • 2, 3, 4 = Agile
  • 5, 6, 7 = Brawny
  • 8, 9, 10 = Craft
  • Jack = Agile/Brawny
  • Queen = Agile/Crafty
  • King = Brawny/Crafty
Treat the face cards as if either is applicable but flavor the task in a way that makes sense. Multiple characters approaching these tasks might use either of them or in cases of effort being spent, a single character might switch. 
In either of these, Aces and Jokers still result in an alteration that adjusts the task. 
When using side tasks, only the main scene card is added to the success/fail pile and only the main scene card is counted for the suits to determine the flow of the adventure. 
OPTIONAL: If this last detail means the session goes on too long because of the number of characters, you may treat all task cards for the determination of story flow. However, with 3+ characters, this might conversely make the session go by too quickly to actually resolve the story. 
In that case, you can set up a limit of scenes (6-8), instead. For a great six-scene structure, see the Tricube Tales Micro Edition. 

— An Optional Way to Determine Effort/Conflict Scenes — 

Besides drawing scene-type cards and getting face cards, an optional way to determine if a given Main Scene Task is the sort of conflict that requires effort you can use the discard pile. Keep the top three cards visible. If the suit of the main scene card matches two of the top three cards in discard pile, it requires two effort per character (or per character present, whichever makes sense). If it matches all three, then it requires three effort. 
As in all cases, fiction is the cornerstone. Some scenes are just naturally lead to a task that will require effort. Likewise, sometimes effort does not make sense. Play to your table. 

— Locations, NPCs, Details, and Elements —

This is a framework that establishes the fiction at the table in a more controlled manner. It is partially inspired by some games such as Microscope but is not in any way bound by that structure. It is recommended you use both index cards and smaller note cards (or the digital equivalent) to handle some of this. 
First, decide the mission being faced by using the micro-setting of your choice or through other methods. The main details are things such as main tasks (the main *required* detail), side tasks, general location, and complications. Outside of rolling, you might let players take turns deciding on these details. Add these to an index card or multiple note cards with enough basic details to start but leave room for more. 
Next, create locations. 

– Locations – 

Start with a Positive Location unless the set-up makes it unlikely the characters have a place to treat as a home base. In that case, make a starting location which is either Neutral or Negative. 
Then, for each character (not player) add a location based on the details of the mission (a place where the main quest might happen, a place related to the complication). If there is only one or two characters, then have two or three per character. You want, besides the “home base,” there to be four or five places to start. Decide if each location is Positive (a place with no initial threats to the characters), Neutral (a place that might have threats, but no immediate or inherent ones), or Negative (a place where threats are active). 
Write a name and a couple of basic details for each location on an index card per location and place it on the table in whatever order makes sense (rough geographic order, a relative scale of Positive to Negative, etc). 
Then set aside roughly the same number of index cards to represent possible future places. 

– NPCs, Non-Player Characters – 

Start out with at least a couple of possible NPCs (at least two to three are good, but four or five might make sense). These can be people related to the known details (such as main quests, side quests, complications), people that make sense for certain locations, or people that might be interesting to the story. They are not guaranteed to show up in any scene but they at least provide a background fiction. 
These go on the smaller cards. Like locations, these non-player characters have some basic details (name, occupation, demeanor) and are graded Positive, Neutral, or Negative. Apply these character cards to a location to start or set them at no specific location if it is unknown (such as tracking down the main villain). 
Again, set aside a small stack of character cards for additional characters. The general table flow might determine this but a rough start would be no more than double or triple the number of player characters (again, around 4 to 5 extra). 
MINOR NPCs might not get a character card and instead be a detail showing up on another character card (a sidekick or goon type) or a location (a bartender or barfly at a tavern, for instance). 

– Events and Elements – 

For this last type, think if there are any overarching events (festivals, disease, things related to the main/side-quest or the complication) and add in event cards on an index card somewhere to one side of the location cards. If this event is at a specific location, attach the card. Like above, write a couple of basic details about it. 
Element cards are a kind of catch all for anything that does not fit into one of the other categories. It might be a ticking clock condition, an aspect to the adventure, a personal consideration, an overarching force, or some similar element that needs to be called out. These should NOT attach directly to a specific location, character, or event: these are more generalized than that. 
For both Events and Elements, determine if they are Positive, Negative, or Neutral again and mark them as such. 
There may be no starting Events or Elements or there might be several. 

– Adding Content to these Cards – 

As a Scene starts, first draw the main scene card from the card deck and then determine which location, NPC, event, or detail it might impact. Attach it there. Then as player characters determine their intent, assign their token (or note it somehow) to whichever of these locations/npcs/events/details they must engage with to perform their task or scene actions. Those not attached to the main scene task will then figure out their side tasks related (in some way) to the location/character/event/etc they are attached. 
At the end of the scene, a character attached to one of the above (and likely multiple of above) will have a chance for their player to add in a detail or two based generally on the following principle:
  • Fiction always takes precedent. The story ultimately decides details. Start with this principle to decide a detail or two to add as exposed/explored in the scene.
  • When the fiction does not necessarily dictate the detail, the player may add one detail either chosen by personal choice or through an oracle role (should likely be a mix of both). 
  • No more than one or two details should be added at a time by a player. Leave room to keep developing. 
  • New details should only conflict with the given fiction IF some shift developed or the tone of the session changes or some time has passed to allow it. In all other cases, new details should consider all prior notes on the table as in-canon. 
  • When a player is adding a new detail, other players should give them space and avoid actively collaborating except in cases where assistance is asked or if questions need to be answered.
  • When in doubt/debate, a player may spend one Karma from a character to force a detail. Even then, it should not conflict great with the prior details or general vibe of the session unless it makes overall sense with the current fiction (spending a single Karma will not create a comic-relief unicorn character at odds with the hardboiled detective story, for instance). 

– Shifting Positivity – 

At the end of each scene, an attached character’s player may also decide to shift the positivity by one step (negative place made neutral, neutral NPC made positive or negative). The above considerations should be taken in mind. 
The success or failure of the task might be a good indication (a failure might shift a relationship more negative, a success might shift it more positive). 

– Adding Locations/NPCs/Events/Elements – 

There are three main ways to add more:
  • The fiction requires something new to make sense.
  • Ace/Jokers generate new locations, characters, or events.
  • A player spends one (1) Karma from their character. 
Once all the possible cards are used up, this final cost should increase to two (2) Karma at least or be avoided. Permanent cards should not count against this limit. 

– OPTIONAL: Splitting Locations/Events/Characters/Elements – 

Once any of these Locations/Events/Characters/Element cards have accrued more than 4 or 5 details, consider possibly splitting it into two cards. A hotel might get a lobby and a rooftop nightclub. A person might get, well, themselves but also a relative or sidekick. This is one way to generally reflect the weight applied to these foci in actual play. A location with multiple sub-locations shows other players are interested in using/exploring it. 

– OPTIONAL: Making Locations/Events/Characters/Elements PERMANENT – 

At the end of a session, the table should have a good number of these cards in play. It will be tempting for certain campaigns to try and retain many or all of these. Instead, it is suggested that the table decides a few (one of each per player at the most) to be turned into a Permanent version (events will likely be the odd duck in this case, they tend to stick around or go away based on what they are). If players wish to choose more than one, two (2) Karma should be spent unless other players agree this is obvious. Players may also choose to add none to the pool. 
As always, fiction takes charge. If a particular place is baked into the campaigns fiction or a particular person needs to show up over multiple session: that can be a freebie. 
If the fiction decides a place or person should be removed from the campaign, mark off its permanent status. Likewise, a player may choose to remove one of each from the permanent pool. This should never be used to get rid of a place newly chosen by another player. If this choice is in contention, a player can spend two (2) Karma to force it unless the fiction absolutely disagrees. 
It is recommended to only have 1-2 permanent places and NPCs per player on the table to keep the framework loose. For excess of this, consider placing several into a sideboard and only add to them to the main table when needed.
Not all permanent locations need to be considered to in play at all times. The sideboard can also be used to store those chosen to be permanent if it makes no sense for them to be in place (home town locations when characters on a road trip, etc). 

— The Final Scene —

As recommended in the Tricubes Tales Micro Edition, the final scene will be a task that requires effort. The default is two successes per character with resolve lost due to failure. 
An optional rule to make this more variable is to look at the failures and success for the Main Scene Task cards. If the table has zero (0) failures: one (1) effort per character is required. If the table has failures equal to or less than the successes: go with the default two (2) effort per character. If the failures outnumber the success, then it takes three (3) effort per character. If there are no successes, then it requires three (3) effort per character and the scene difficulty is locked in on Hard. 

– Optional: Gauntlet Scenes – 

“Gauntlet” scenes can be thought of as mini-bosses or montage scenes where the team gets get together to prep a house for a zombie invasion or to build a ship to attack the dread pirate or such. With the above structure, they are used to “burn off” failures by having a collective scene task related to all  characters which is called before the scene starts and takes the place of a normal scene. It might be used as the penultimate scene. 
Count up all the failure cards. Using the same rough ratio as above determine that much effort per failed main scene task, not per character (if there are no failures but the table would like to play out one, go with the default of two per player). Then, go around per character and rapid fire draw a task card. It is recommended that the cards are used as is (3 of Hearts = Standard Agile). Resolve may or may not be lost depending on the fiction (a mini-boss fight will lose resolve, a gathering supplies will not). Success earned for these gauntlet tasks are applied to gauntlet effort, not to the individual tasks. 
At the end, remove a number of failed cards based on how many successes were generated, rounding down (two-per would mean five (5) successes = 2 failure cards removed). 
Gauntlet scenes are fun rapid fire kind of scenes but should only be used maybe once per session and should not be a default. They apply an in-framework-way to representing wrapping up loose ends if the session is coming to a close but things feel unresolved.

The Bleak and The Pearl (SoloDark): Part 4, The Lost Citadel of the Scarlet Minotaur Delve 2

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On 2024-07-03

In Actual Play, ShadowDark, Solo Campaigns, SoloDark, The Bleak and the Pearl

 

This week’s dive into The Bleak & The Pearl starts out with our four Blue Grove Boys facing a room with four sets of pillars, each in a vibrant hue, and a burned-to-a-crisp ettercap! As last time, I’ll focus more on a highlight recap rather going into super specific, step-by-step decisions. I will also talk about how I changed up some things (especially towards the end) to make the vibe more B&P specific. If you ran this yourself, some details will clash with what you see. 

– The Four Pillars and the Six Bowls – 

The upper right (most north-east on the map) room is our starting spot this time. In it are four pairs of pillars: red, blue, green, and purple. Unbeknownst to our boys, each one has a negative effect [fire, drowning, etc]. They do have the burned corpse of an ettercap in front of them (which they may not even really recognize as a specific ancestry as opposed to just “burned out humanoid body”). And then a long, relatively empty room in a place where long empty rooms have things like The Scarlet Minotaurs and bull statues ready to pounce. 
DC15 check passes and Rance is sure there is *some* magic here but cannot really place it. Tom gets a success in to check for traps roll (there is no traditional trap, which he notes). So…the team gets into a bit of a debate about checking this room out further. After a couple of quick debates, Grusk decides he is going to risk it and starts walking past the first set of pillars, which the game says will set flammable stuff you are carrying on fire…

A quick note about my “Vote Dice” mechanic

Part of the way I run this game is to use a kind of vote-dice style oracle. The basic way is to choose a die (from the traditional pool) to represent each character’s general willingness: d4 means they do not want to do it while d10 means they want to do it a lot. 1-3 is a no. 4+ is a yes. A 1 means a hard no (that dice is frozen if it goes into follow up decisions about this topic) while a 6+ tends to be a hard yes (ditto). The default die is a d6. d10s are basically only used when someone is absolutely sure (and that someone, in this campaign, is almost always Grusk). The intended swing is d4, d6, and d8. 
A lot of the crawling and how they approach certain rooms is based on a series of these with a bit of a back and forth. The general “triggers” for each character are:
  • Grusk (Half-Orc Fighter) likes physical challenges, tests of might, and generally like be aggressive and pushing his limits. He does not like letting people go and will chase down people who start fights and then flee. He is not necessarily prone to starting fights but is absolutely ok with keeping them going. All that being said, he is very practically minded about the team and tries to shield the other people as best he can through brute force.
  • Inar (Halfling Priest of Gede) likes playfulness, pranks, and general silliness. Prone to talk and ramble first and deal with the considerations going forward. Does not like risks. Takes the shortest possible path to get things done but concedes the shortest path is sometimes taking a long way around an obvious threat. Will always try to charm people (his CHA of 14 is the highest in the team by several points). Kind of a terrible priest in a lot of ways but a decent friend.
  • Tom (Goblin Thief) feels compelled to help others. Likes challenging his own prowess. Sometimes goes for the longer way around if he thinks it will be more fun. Has no qualms about taking risks if it seems interesting. Likes taking charge when it comes to certain puzzles and traps. Will absolutely risk his neck to try and save people, especially people in captivity, but will not always stick around if the people refuse to help themselves. He thinks things should be fair. 
  • Rance (Human Wizard) is the most cowardly of the group, but also the most dedicated to the cause. The others are generally following his lead. He tends to go slowly, think things through. Is really good at sensing the bad-stuff about to happen (in his defense, the bad stuff usually happens to him). Once the goal is in sight, will nearly never diverge from the course. Almost always at the back of the group but also shouting lots of information and ideas. 
When first started the campaign, I used dice to see if they would chase down an escaping cultist, if they would try and stop and save prisoners, if they would try and explore a side area. The above descriptions are basically making sense of those first couple of sessions worth of dice rolls. As it keeps going, it helps me to decide the set up for future dice rolls. After a few more sessions, it will likely be obvious for a lot of actions which character would do what. I’ll still use the dice to decide which path down tunnels they take.
Oh, if there is no consensus after 2-3 rolls, then I just default to the above. Grusk might push his luck with Tom backing him up while Inar hangs back, laughing, and prepping the healing magic and Rance is lecturing everyone about being foolish. 
Back to…

– The Four Pillars and the Six Bowls (part 2) – 

[Doug’s Note: At this point, I make an oracle roll: “Do rations burn?” I know his torches will catch fire. Most of his other stuff is made of metal, though. The only one I was not sure about was…rations. They are a kind of fuzzy concept in Shadowdark. And I got a 10: a twist. Now what in the hell would this twist be? I thought about maybe salt somehow negating the pillars. I though about maybe something in there catches fire earlier and acts as a warning. I went to the SoloDark oracle and got 69,62: “Flee Pain”. Here’s how I run with it: Grusk can see the body of the ettercap. He can feel the hairs on his arms start to heat up as starts to cross the pillars. He can even hear some of the food in his pack start to sizzle and suddenly he thinks, “Why burn good food?” and turns around. Because like the others, Grusk has this sort of non-specific connection to destiny that is driving the campaign forward but in his case, Grusk mostly hears it as a kind of hunger. He might be willing risk the quest to prove he is not scared but he is not willing to waste food in the meantime.] 
He takes a torch (starting to be a fairly precious resource after this much continuous delving) and tosses it past the pillars and watches it burn it. Then they leave with Rance chiding the entire crew about not listening. 
After this, the team makes their way into a room with a six bowls on six black plinths and basically just go: “Nah”. Tom pokes one. Everyone braces. Nothing happens. They are ready to keep going.

– The Beastmen and the Bugs in the Bathhouse – 

[Doug’s Note: Here comes a fun coincidence. Right as I enter into the bath house (rough center of the east portion of the map) I get a wandering monster roll for 2d4 Beastmen arguing over centipedes to eat. Now, in the room, there’s a mechanic that if you unplug the basins that scarabs might come out. I rule that the beastmen aren’t arguing over centipedes, they are actually “farming” the scarabs. This is a task they are not great at: there are half devoured and desiccated beastmen corpses in the room. As the team enters, though, they witness the argument where a leader type is lecturing the others for not holding the sack correctly while taunting scarabs to come out and then I played out a combat sequence with the beastmen, five in total, bashing the scarabs.]
The team is in a bath house with six basins and a large statue of a snakewoman up on a raised dais. As they enter though, they see a group of arguing beastmen coordinating…something. They hold back as the beastmen thump on one of the basins and then yank back a drain plug and admit a stream of angry scarab bugs into the room. The beastmen start walloping the scarabs and clearly have an upper hand…this time. 
After the beastmen down the scarabs and start scooping them up into the sack the leader turns and sees the team standing there in the door way and screams that these folks are here to steal the food. A fight breaks out that goes…ok. Grusk takes a few hard hits. Doug learns that Magic Missile is always cast at advantage (neat!). Healing spells get used. Eventually the beastmen are downed and the team search the room. Tom can clearly hear the scarabs in the pipes and absolutely ignores pulling at any more plugs. But the snakewoman statue intrigues him. He does not find any traps related to it so he pulls on it and barely dodges get scorched by scalding hot spa water. He lets it run for a few minutes and notes the water is clear. It smells of sulphur and old iron pipes but it it is safe to consume. It might be worth noting if the team is stuck here for another day. 

– The First of the Marius Dead and the Key – 

[Doug’s Note: Here is my little retcon at this point. Since this is not merely a random dungeon but one related to the meta-quest of this campaign, I decide that the red armor of the skeleton of this room is actually a known “signature” of House Marius. I go back to that door with the sun symbol and decide that the door’s symbol is a sun either setting or rising over a body of water: the sigil of Mad Del Marius. However, while asking if this corpse might be the actual Del Marius I do an oracle roll at disadvantage and get a second twist. This time the oracle comes back 100, 45: release ambush. Rather than a fight with some random enemies I rule there is a psychic backlash as you approach the corpse and the robes. This is why none of the various factions in the citadel have ever just snatched the spear or the clothing.]
The team comes to a room largely empty except for a skeleton pinned to the wall by a spear with four ceremonial robes on the wall nearby. This skeleton of a soldier or person clearly marked as of House Marius. However, as they approach the body (and the robes beside it), a wave of psychic energy washes over them. Grusk and Rance manage to make their DC15 saving throughs but Tom and Inar go down. All four are assaulted by images of the spreading Darkness and the symbol of the sun trying to burn through. 
After a couple of rounds, the unconscious pair wake back up and the team tries, again, to search the area and find the the key marked with the same sun-over-water symbol as before. At this point they debate (see “Vote Dice” above) and clearly decide to fast track back towards the door. 

– The Return to the Sun Door and Face to Face with Del Marius – 

This part was mostly bookkeeping with the exception of the darkmantles the team had put to sleep before. This time around the ‘mantles are more amiable but Rance’s attempt at a second sleep spell fails. Instead, the team tries to just gently walk past the beasts. However, the ‘mantles eventually become agitated by Rance’s twitchiness and attack. 
Darkness takes out Rance’s lantern and the first round goes a bit south with lots of whiffs while Rance struggles to get the lantern relit. Once they have light, the team manages to kill a couple of ‘mantles and the others flee off down the hall. 
After this, the team finishes the somewhat long loop back to the door and try the key. Seeing another of these ceremonial skeletons, this time sitting in a throne, they go very slowly. Grusk and Tom offer to approach and once more Grusk overcomes the psychic blast while Tom once more crashes to the floor (this time for 5 rounds). 
This is no mere corpse. This is Mad Del Marius himself. Sitting on the house throne, wearing the Marius Diadem, and holding one of the family’s legacy weapons (+1, prevents surprise). This is the answer to the decline of House Marius: Del and at least one other member [head canon, I’m going to say his youngest son] sacrificed themselves to become a barrier to power and protect the diadem. Over time, the citadel became overran with beastmen and ettercaps and the careful balance gave way. 
Grusk takes the spear in the skeleton’s hands and brings it with him. He wants to use it to try and show the remaining House Marius members what went down. The Lighthouse needs allies and this might be a rallying cry. 
While this is going on, Rance investigates the pillars in the room and realizes that they depict the lighthouse and the five fuelstones. They knew there was an “eye” related to House Grunkheart, a mask from House Bittermold, a mantle from House Harucam, and this diadem. Now they know that House Mistamere’s focus object was a lens. Rance makes note of the missing portions and the team decides it is time to go home. [Doug’s Note: people might have spotted a couple of clues in the names, above]. 

– Wrapping Up and in Praise of Kelsey – 

That basically wraps up this adventure. There were a few wandering monster checks (nothing happened) and some rolls to sell of gear and such. All four hit level 3 at the end so there was a bit of bookkeeping to pick new spells (Inar got Bless, Rance got Acid Arrow) and some new talents (Grusk is better at wearing Plate Mail, Tom is better at landing attacks). 
The next delve will be the tunnels under Grunce and the returning of the diadem. Before that will be a short “civilization vignette” to figure out how Marius reacts, to see how the power struggles in town are going, and so forth. 
It is funny to look at the map and realize the team missed around half the dungeon. Maybe more. The only ettercap they met was the one dead one. They had no run ins with the undead. All that being said, hats off to Kelsey Dionne for this adventure. There is a lot to digest here but a lot of the rooms have something worth doing. Stuff like figuring out the pillars or finding out about what to do with the the bowls is the right amount of game-y, I think. I cannot imagine running this anything less than 8-10 hours, but it should be a good time (maybe not the labyrinth, but most of the rest has *something* to do).  

Steal This Rule: “Death is primarily a narrative conceit”

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On 2024-07-01

In Design Philosophy, Reconsidering Fairness in Solo RPGs, Solo Musings, Steal This Rule

Imagine this: you have spent some time kicking off your solo campaign. A few sessions in, you have backstory and lore. You have an entire chart of threads and characters. You have a hexcrawl with a dozen notes. And then, your second level wizard springs a trap and you roll on a table and get poison. The effects say, “Make a saving throw or die.” And you roll a critical fail. What happens next?

It is a fascinating aspect of the tabletop sphere that out of all the many genre hobbies – comic books, movies, novels, videogames, etc – that really only tabletop games, including role-playing games, consider the death of characters (or, in the case of many board/card games: depletion of a life point type pool of the player) to be a primary driver of narrative tempo. 

In books and movies, death is side story reserved for plot twists and big reveals and mostly impacting side characters and NPC types. In videogames, while you have a dedicated fanbase of hardcore runs,  you still have restarts and save points and resurrection deals and campfires so that the vast majority of lost run are generally, cognitively, the start of a new one that is very similar to the old one, immediately with little pause. 

In RPGs, including solo play ones, death is an outsized driver for the way we conceive of story beats. A side effect of RPGs being rooted as modular expansions to war-gaming means folks sometimes ask how a relatively deadly game like Shadowdark can be more deadly[Reddit]. and you find cases of people trying to nerf things like fudge/fate/hero/luck tokens or resurrection because, for a certain mindset, death justifies all the AC and the HP and the XP and the STR and the GP. Characters overcome death to face higher level death down the road. Time is a flat circle. 

Searching Google/etc can bring back a host of articles about how to handle character death ranging from “get over it” to “maybe don’t kill off characters possibly”. It is so baked into the baseline assumption that people who come up with reasonable responses to how to handle it (see Dealing with Character Death [Youtube Video] and How to Handle Character Death in Dungeons and Dragons [DnDBeyond]) still have to dance around whether or not there should be some mitigation for the inevitability of 0HP (usually now some -XHP) in a way not unlike how we would talk about grieving and dying in the real world.

Yet, outside of RPGs, these discussions are almost nonsensical. Batman and all the various Robins have clocked up multiple deaths, each. Many fantasy novels have characters fail battles but the outcome is retreat, imprisonment, or some other safety rope tossed in by the author. These stories are not necessarily about trivializing loss but more finding a way to make 0HP a narrative increase rather than a cease. 

In a recent response to a r/solo_roleplaying thread about lowering lethality to avoid character death, I wrote: 

In a lot of novels, movies, and so forth the main character “dying” is usually just a phase: they wash up face down on a beach, they get rescued by a new ally, they get imprisoned/have to escape, or they wake up in a hospital with no good explanation how they got there.

For this look at Steal This Rule! I want players, especially but not just solo roleplayers, to consider this:

Death is primarily a narrative concept…

That is taken verbatim from many of the micro-setting/scenarios for Tricube Tales ([DriveThruRPG], link goes to the one I’ve been posting on this blog: “Guardians of the Shadow Frontier”). When I first read this, I merely nodded. As I’ve played more and more, I realized how it allows the players (including the GM) to regain a piece of power that roleplaying games have traditionally removed from them: to decide what 0HP means. A few bad dice rolls (especially at early levels), a particularly unfair trap, an oracle going a bit awry, or just a side-effect of players not really actualizing the world in the way that characters might: all can lead to a death that was completely unseen or unexpected a scene prior. 

That’s partially why I am suggesting to players to go with…

0HP can mean the character is unable to act, not necessarily dead. 

Rather than threating 0HP as perma-death, treat it as a temporary inability to drive the story forward. A 0HP character is knocked out, captured, lost, injured, retreating (painfully), or just generally unable to engage in elements like combat or controlled mobility for a time. 0HP means the character is “at the mercy” of the game world at large (and the enemies that caused the HP loss).

What this means can be a number of things. In a truly-Solo game (one character only) this might involve a time-out of sorts as they regain some HP. During that time, the world goes on without them. In a party style game, the 0HP character might be out until healing spells or items can revive them. At least until the Total Party Wipe occurs. 

Whether captured by enemies, rescued by an ally (or a new character), or generally forced to wake up weak and alone on a dungeon floor, the total loss of HP does not end the story but offers up new avenues to add to their story. 

0HP can be a narrative increase rather than a cease

Who rescues them? What does being captured mean? Are they tied up? Tossed in a cage? Left in a pile of rubble? How do they overcome washing up on shore? How do they survive on a hostile planet after being marooned from a crash? If 0HP is a loss of ability to engage in the narrative then what story beats can you use to return that ability to the character?

Death is still an option if it suits the current story.

And all that is not to get rid of death entirely. The character is not newly immortal. This is not about cheating death but about making the story rich and meaningful. There are times when it it is all said and done that that 0HP = narrative shift means that 0HP = death (at least for a time). This is not about making death impossible but about taking one of the three de facto assumptions of RPGs (random rolls, character abilities, HP/death) and saying we can do something different with it. 

Note that besides Tricube Tales, Fate has had this aspect (PUN!) in their SRD for some time [Fate-SRD]. And I think it is time that we apply it to other games to try and tell the kinds of stories we like without feeling like we are cheating.

Unless you really like 0HD = permadeath and then, as always, you do you, Boo. 

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