Coming Back Around to RotSM

Been quiet around here. Almost two and a half years since my last post on the topic, and I’m missing my ex-mercenary solo character Mitra, who was in the midst of some very harrowing adventures with a lot at stake. I’m planning to come back to her using a similar format.

These posts were mostly prose, making heavy use of Rory’s Story Cubes. I used cubes to prompt action and detail when I came up blank. I also used a whole set of them for creating cut scenes — building whole scenes of NPC action to build characters and lay out plot. I also used a Die of Fate mechanic to determine the overall negativity or positivity of a situation or prompt.

I paired these techniques with FU, one of my favorite all-time RPGs with its six outcomes that work great for generating more forward momentum, the interpretation of which serves nicely as its own form of game oracle. FU is also fast and gets out of the way, allowing the player to zoom in and out of the action as needed and resolve any sort of dramatic situation.

I will be changing this system in this actual play continuation. For this, I’m going to test drive the Cornerstone universal RPG — particularly the Cornerstone Fantasy plugin both created by Ben Dutter of Sigil Stone Publishing.

But why ruin a good thing? Dutter cites in his rules that they are heavily influenced and inspired by Freeform Universal, Fate, PbtA games, all of which are games I love and that do good things. Cornerstone keeps a similar FU-style “and/but” outcome, along with Fate-style traits/aspects, and a simple single die (sometimes two dice/pick the best). Characters feel unique, and there are a few other aspects about the game that appeal to a soloist — the PC only rolls, just like in FU, but NPCs are expressed only through their Vitality (hit points), the flat damage they can do, perhaps an overall difficulty modifier they might confer, and that’s about it. Even minimalist FU has more bookkeeping than this.

To show what’s in the tin, I’ll stat out Mitra, converting her into Cornerstone.

The first thing the author advises is creating a game concept. Here, the genre, tone, setting, and purpose for adventuring is codified. This is important for a group to get on the same page. Here, I know what I’m after, but I’m listing it anyway to be complete, making this a more complete walk-through of the system. Fate Core has a similar game creation step, but here it’s minimalist, comprised of nothing more than a short list:

Game Concept

Genre. High Fantasy

Purpose. Lone Hero

Place. Sword Coast, Faerun

Color. Epic/Gonzo

The next step is to codify the character concept. I have a very strong one in mind for Mitra, because she’s a favorite character of mine that I’be used frequently. We get the following:

Who? Loner, Compassionate, Riddled with Regret


What? Seasoned Warrioress, Tactician, and Rider


Background. Former captain of the Black Dragons Mercenary Co., she committed regrettable wrongs, working for the evil network that employed them until she left to join the fight to liberate her native Damara.


Foreground. Working to release her friends, having been blackmailed by her old employer to do an evil deed.

Traits are next; those aspect like descriptors that can be “triggered” to provide some mechanical boost or hindrance. Characters start with three core traits — ideals, method, and history, that already say a lot about a character. For this we get:

Ideals. Loyalty


Method. Direct


History. Cavalier

All cool and simple so far. Cornerstone Fantasy adds races and classes to the basic rules. Mitra is a human, which grants her some special abilities related to her expertise, being tough, and most of all, creative problem-solving (something I can see myself using frequently). She’s a warrior, and has a few special things attached to it, like more than average Vitality, other toughness related to damage reduction, bonus to damage, and faster initiative. Suggested expertise is applied to that skill, which in Mitra’s case will be “battle tactics”, making that part of her important.

Next, the base skills are filled out with additional ones to facilitate the genre. This is already handled in Cornerstone Fantasy. We have the eight standard: Awareness, Coordination, Influence, Knowledge, Logic, Might, Resistance, and Stealth. Add to this Magic and Expertise (which is a catchall skill tailored to what your thing is). Next we rank these, each rank providing a range for success on a D6. Mitra has:

Awareness. Average (success on 4-6)


Coordination. Average (success on 4-6)


Expertise. Great (success on 2-6)


Influence. Capable (success on 3-6)


Knowledge. Bad (success on 5-6)


Logic. Average (success on 4-6)


Magic. she has no permission to use magic


Might. Capable (success on 3-6)


Resistance. Great (success on 2-6)


Stealth. Bad (success on 5-6)

Basic Cornerstone has Abilities, which include one unique thing a character can do. Cornerstone Fantasy takes care of that with races and classes. Already, our heroine is quite nuanced with information about her behavior, capabilities, and faults. We’re not quite done, however.

Mitra has some equipment. In her last adventure, she sadly lost her trusty horse. But she still has a sword (does 2 damage on a “Yes, But…”, or 4 damage on a “Yes, and…”, plus has a trait: good against flesh, implying it does better against unarmored targets), and mail (which reduces a point of damage on a “Yes, But…”, or 3 damage on a “Yes, and…”, plus is loud but concealable). Other than a dagger (which does 1 / 4 and has nimble), she doesn’t really have anything else of note.

Advancement can take place after completing quests. Characters can benefit in several areas, including ranking up a skill, gaining another point of Vitality, a potential change to one of the core traits, a descriptive trait (a new trait describing reputation or some interesting character thing they’ve picked up along the way), or a technique, which is a new addition to Cornerstone Fantasy. A technique is like one of the basic rulebook’s abilities, which allows a special thing that characters can do without fail, do when it would otherwise be impossible, or do with advantage (roll two dice and take the best). Techniques, however, only allow players to choose one of the three benefits.

Considering that Mitra completed a quest already (to recover the death mask of the naive king), I’m going to select some advancement options to reflect what happened. She gets the benefit of:

* +1 Vitality

* Becomes average in Knowledge

* Gains the fear of the dead descriptive trait (yes, I’m actually choosing a negative trait!)

* Keeps her core traits as-is

* and gains a new technique: Dirty Fighter — roll with advantage during the first exchange if you use a cheap of unorthodox fighting method

Okay, that about wraps it up. In the end, Mitra looks like this:

Mitra of Damara

TRAITS

* Ideals. Loyalty

* Method. Direct

* History. Cavalier

* Class Traits. Mercenary

* Descriptive. Fear of the Dead

SKILLS

Awareness 4+; Coordination 4+; Expertise (battle tactics) 2+; Influence 3+; Knowledge 4+; Logic 4+; Might 3+; Resistance 2+; Stealth 5+

HUMAN

* Never fail At noncombat Tasks related to your Expertise Skill.

* Advantage when Tasks are attempted in a creative or unorthodox method.

* Permission To roll for Impossible Tasks related to endurance, willpower, or pressing on through pain.

* +2 Vitality

WARRIOR

* Base Vitality = 9 + Resistance Rank (15 with advancement and all bonuses)

* Survivor. +1 DR

* Slayer. +1 Damage

* Swift. Advantage when rolling for order

* Expertise. battle tactics

TECHNIQUES

* Advantage when using cheap of unorthodox fighting methods during the first exchange of combat

EQUIPMENT

* Sword. 2 / 4; good against flesh

* Dagger. 1 / 4; nimble

* Mail. 1 DR; loud, concealable

Again, there’s lots of detail on her sheet. Everything being player-facing and low impact on the GM, this game is a natural choice for the solitary player. In my next post, we’ll examine how it actually works in play. The other appealing thing is that most modifiers cancel out and do not stack for the most part, so the most one can expect is a +1/-1, best/worst of two dice and add an and/but to the result. Sounds simple, but I’ll find out if it lends speed to play or not.

Looking forward to post #8 of Return of the Shattered Mail, a game I haven’t revisited in more than two years.

Four Against Darkness, part 1

Thanks to Aleksandar Battreps of the BattReps blog (all around awesome person and solo gamer extraordinaire), I became aware of Ganesha Games’ Four Against Darkness, a casual dungeon delve pen ’n paper game inspired by old school RPGs. I picked up the 66-page game today, gave it a read through and played a short game (actually not so short as I was busy navigating the tables in the book).

It’s a fun little invention, and I love little mapping exercises. Furthermore, 4AD’s creator, Andrea Sfiligoi is running a little contest:

4AD Competition! Win LIFETIME products. 

To enter, you must purchase a copy of 4AD through Ganeshagames.net and write up one or more playthrough reports of the game, and publish them on social media (Facebook, Twitter, G+, etc) or on your gaming-related blog. The more reports you write, the more chances you get to win. Unleash your purple prose and tell us about the glorious victories or the rotten luck of your heroes. Post photos of your completed dungeons on Instagram! Use the #4AgainstDarkness hashtag and always add a link to the product page. 

Make sure that each report includes a link to the product on Ganeshagames.net and send an email to andreasfiligoi@gmail.com to let us know of it. The competition ends on May 24th, Andrea's birthday. On the 25th, Andrea will put all names in a hat and draw a winner who will get a LIFETIME SUBSCRIPTION to all 4AD products (or a minimum value of $50 in other products should 4AD be discontinued). That's it: the winner will receive for free every new adventure or supplement we publish for 4AD.

Not too bad! So here is my first game...

1. Voldor the Bold, Amblin the Righteous, Jed the Wiley, and Mira the lighthearted elf enter the dungeon! they see a wide to room with three north-facing doors. They choose the right passage.
2. Upon entering, they see a square room. It is filled with eight fungi men! The group waits to see what the strange mushroom men will do. They attack! A furious battle ensues, with both Voldor and Jed getting hurt. However, the party prevails! Two of the monsters flee. On the bodies of the fallen, Mira finds a scroll. The group searches, finding nothing more, and then Amblin heals the injured ones. With no other ways to go, the group returns to the original entrance room.
3. Next, the group tries the middle door. they encounter in empty twisting corridor.
4. The corridor extends further north, appearing to dead-end. However, a door to the west and further on to the east appears to reveal more rooms ahead. The group tries the western doorway first.
5. Another twisting passage appears. However, this one is not empty. Two lumbering trolls approach! Amblin slays one, while Mira shoots another. Voldor chops up the bits with his axe to prevent them from returning. the monsters carry 5 pieces of gold. The group moves on…
6. The passage continues to switch back-and-forth. Around another bend, the group encounters eight goblins! the group finds their groove, soundly defeating the goblins and finding a pretty gem.
7. The group takes a door that does into a short corridor containing two nasty trolls! Voldor takes a bit of a beating, but they hack up the trolls into diced bits of troll ready for canning. They also find a ring of teleportation!
8. The group moves through at south door. This opens into a larger chamber. Suddenly, a bear trap snaps, nearly snagging Voldor’s foot. Fortunately, the warrior is quick. They find a hidden scroll under some rubble. the group continues south.
9. More snaking of passageways here in an “H” pattern. However, an eerie glowing altar sits in its length Voldor is cursed! (But Amblin blesses him). The group decides to head north.
10. The group comes to a small blessed temple and Amblin is imbued with greater divine power. Ahhhhh!
11. The group heads south through a door to a room connecting with the entrance chamber. Two orcs threaten them. Voldor and Mira quickly dispatch them, finding a pretty gem.
12. Moving on to the west, this passage circles back around to connect with the “H”. A door reveals a possible room.
13. Instead of a room, they find another short corridor with doors on either side. More urgently, however, the group sees a hideous Medusa! Amblin and Mira are immediately petrified. Voldor and Jed fight valiantly, finally defeated the creature. Voldor gains a level. They also find a gorgeous necklace.
14. Voldor and Jed attempt to carry Amblin and Mira’s stony forms and vacate the dungeon…which they do, luckily without further incident…

Returning to town, they hope to sell the new things and get blessings cast…do they have enough cash?

Mask of Khatri, a Perilous Intersections and FU walk-through, part 4

Continued from here is the fourth and final part of my Perilous Intersections walk through, examining the last two scenes of my actual play.

For the sixth scene, since I could think of no Fightback Scenes to try and counter the advances made so far, and since most of the questions were already answered, I jumped right into the final Big Boss Fight phase and final confrontation. I rolled to see if there was a last-minute alteration twist to any of the Big Questions, but rolled a no. It was already twisted enough anyway. No seed is required for this scene.

Relajii had the means to magically whisk Aleena back from her confinement in Turmish. She struggles to keep the mask from him, but is unsuccessful.

Relajii's ultimate plot comes to fruition! Aleena fails to contain the situation, and now is liable for whatever consequences come next.

Next is the optional Aftermath phase. I usually like a good denouement to figure out where the world stands. I think I'll be seeing more of Aleena Salenskar in the future, which makes it all the more integral.

I am next going to examine Solo RPG Voyages' One Cube Challenge, and examine if Aleena can clean up her mess.

Perilous Intersections adventure, a failure for our protagonist. But for us? Lots of fun!

Mask of Khatri, a Perilous Intersections and FU walk-through, part 3

Continued from here is the continuation of my Perilous Intersections walk-through examining scenes four and five.

Leaving off with a rather unwelcome curse that threatens to derail her quest, our heroine goes in search of the death cult leader. Here, I gave him a name, and used my chosen seed for scene four to give a bit of detail about his nature. I decided to give him a serpent-like aspect.

She tosses a point to use a special power and tracks him magically. Aleena is easily surrounded, but demands the mask anyway.

She handily conquers most of the challenges here, all of which were set up to provide a challenge as suggested by the increasing Danger Level. Except being able to capture the fleeing Valdemar, she defeats her opponents. This leaves her in the fictional position to deny a story probe for this scene.

Also, no change in the DL happens here, because there's no movement to either the positive or negative.

In the fifth scene, Aleena's magical compulsion gets her into plenty of hot water in Arrabar due to slaying some officials. This is a long chase scene ending in a confrontation in another land. I posed the challenge of travel inspired by the seed of the undead boatman, which could have derailed her had she not been able to determine his destination.

Confronting her target, I went ahead and posed a story probe just for fun that might turn the whole plot on its head. The answer was affirmative, which meant that the rakshasa who enchanted Aleena is behind the real plot. Even though I had confirmed answers for some of the Big Questions, it is still acceptable to amend them along the way before the Big Boss Fight phase.

Lastly, she causes trouble for herself in Turmish before getting captured there, earning her some points. The Danger Level is already at its highest point, so cannot escalate further. In the next scene, all missing BQ's must get answered, because there is only one seed remaining.

What will happen next? Will she be forced to play the unwitting part in Relajii's nefarious plot? Can she find a means to thwart whatever dark plan he has and free herself from her curse?

The conclusion of this short adventure in my next post...

Mask of Khatri, a Perilous Intersections and FU walk-through, part 2

Continued from here is part two of my Mask of Khatri walk-through for Perilous Intersections.

To set up, it's necessary to generate seeds. I wanted a shorter game, so I chose six. I use Rory's Story Cubes for my idea generator.

Given the character generation, which produced a conflict with Wianar, I went ahead and put his name in the Who position of the plot. This also facilitated my shorter game. And with only six starting seeds, it won't feel like such a panic to obtain three more answers. It was also fine to begin already with some danger (one step up on the DL), and close to the next phase of action.

Here's the first play sheet:

Starting with one of the Big Questions still left the phase in the Something Amiss phase, which targets the PC’s goals rather than the PC herself. I choose the hamster wheel for my scene’s obstacle. I knew Aleena would start by seeking out the last priest of Mystra there to protect and question him. I interpreted this event as a distraction (having Aleena “running in circles”). By the time she dealt with that, her target was already captured by someone. Taking the bait is very much in line with the idea of an intersection — an interpretation that has the potential to push the narrative in a new trajectory.

The action pushed on from naturally from there. But since the heroine was clocked on the head, it denied her being able to pose a Story Probe. I interpreted this as a setback for her, which raised the Danger Level. Although I didn’t have a second BQ yet, I felt justified to moving into the Rears Its Ugly Head phase. There was a good chance that whoever took Iankul would also be interested in Aleena as well.

Onward with scene two:

In this scene, Aleena finds herself a captive. I chose the scary skull (that Fright set of Rory’s Story Cubes is the bee’s knees!). I decided to interpret this as the cult’s scary leader and his countenance granted by his freaky mask. I also mixed up the order of things, so asked the Story Probe first, before jumping to the intersection event.

I came up with a bog-standard goal for the baddies, and got a “Yes” due to adding when to the die throw. Then, having my answer, I knew they were going to sacrifice the two Mystran priests for their nefarious death god.

A daring escape ensued, and I had some fun.

As an aside, FU is wonderful for those times when one really wants to delve more into story, because it really gets out of the way by the virtue of being able to resolve any big action in a single throw of the dice. Perilous Intersections is a bit demanding on the brain, and focusing more on its twists and turns it’s pushing than the system I’m using is helpful. Having said that, any rpg system that allows for twists and turns, like FU or Fate, adds to the experience.

Now I had a new BQ answered, but by implication, it also changed the Who. The subject of the plot was not confirmed by my probe, so is marked “u” for unconfirmed, and is subject to amendment during the Big Boss Fight. With one BQ answered (What) and one amended through guessing and clarification (Who), this balanced the DL, meaning no change for the next scene.

On to scene three:

This scene proved t be all too brief. I chose the tiger for my seed. Interpreting it gave a head scratcher, so I went with my immediate reaction. I knew Aleena wanted to take Iankul out of town for safekeeping and some questioning. However, I felt as though the intersection event had to come first here.

Yep, a rakshasa!

What did he want? First I had to see if Aleena could resist his powers. Nope. She was magically compelled to perform a task for him. The probe is as seen on the sheet. What could it be? I searched the events from before and decided it was that scary mask the leader of the death cult wore (that would eventually be my adventure’s namesake). What did it do and what was its significance? I had to play to find out...

For now, that was enough to deduce that the cult was going to use the mask in some sort of rite to achieve their ends. But why? That remained to be seen. However, it was enough to raise the DL to its highest level. Things were getting difficult for poor Aleena! Also, not being able to act autonomously from her role as stooge for Relajii the rakshasa made life much more difficult.

In my next post, we examine scenes four and five, and things get turned completely upside down...

Mask of Khatri, a Perilous Intersections and FU walk-through, part 1

It occurs to me that I have very few walk-through AP's for my Perilous Intersections solo plot driver. I whipped up an example using my favorite ultra-lite, FU by Nathan Russell, which I later dubbed Mask of Khatri. In this first part, I simply go through a character generation process.

I love Forgotten Realms. I don't really know why. It's mostly nostalgic familiarity. Anyway, I'll go with this to generate some anchors and hooks. I decided to use the John Fiore's 9Qs NPC generator to fill in some missing gaps.

I recently came across this picture (credit: Jason Chan art):

An awesome piece of art. Off we go...

Aleena Seranskar

Background

Trained by not one, but two of the Seven Sisters in magic, Aleena is a native of Aglarond. Having served there as the Simbul’s personal handmaiden and a caretaker for the Queen’s house, her talents were recognized, and she served under another purpose.

A devout of Mystra, Aleena is also ordained as a member of the Lady of Magic’s clergy. Under that, she learned not only the secrets of the Art, but of the hearts of men, and the corruption that leads them to their folly. During her studies, she vowed to defy and destroy corruption where she found it.

She traveled to the deep south where corruption was great. In the steaming lands south of the Sea of Fallen Stars, she was captured by wemics. There she stayed with the tribe for months and developed a friendship with a massive male lion. Since then, they have been inseparable.

While working in the south, she met others of her cloth. In tandem, they focused on routing out the evil and corruption in places like Chondath. This was no easy task. The power and corruption was deep and old. She was poisoned by her own kind. Tholamin was a traitor and double-agent in the church and the employ of Lord Wianar of Arrabar. She survived the attempt, but she is now an uncompromising loner.

Aleena Today

Her search has now illuminated some sort of death cult in Arrabar that may or may not be connected to the elite’s corruption in the region. However, several others of her order have perished as sacrifices to the deity in question, their remains dumped in the streets at night after their dark rites. Aleena is trying to route out the group and see if it somehow relates to Wianar’s corruption.

Appearance

Aleena is slender woman of modest height garbed in common clothing. She has dark brown hair and dark eyes, with a pretty-but-plain face. She wears a cobalt blue cloak about her, and has seemingly few possessions. She carries a dagger with her concealed in one boot. She keeps her magical accoutrements in pouches about her belt.

Drives

Aleena is bent on the impossible — routing out ages-old corruption that seeks to destroy the world with unwieldy magical power. Currently, she concentrates on the areas of the south, specifically Chondath. She is tireless and unrealistic about her pursuit.

Relationships

Aleena is seen traveling abroad with her lion, Rovahan. He is the only companion she trusts. However, in cities, she enters usually alone if there is any alarm from the locals. Rovahan is free to roam the outskirts of town biding his time until Aleena emerges. Sometimes, he tracks her by scent at night by stealth.

Her nemesis is Tholamin, a trusted of Wianar who also serves as a cleric of Mystra. Currently, he believes Aleena to be dead. She wishes to keep this notion intact for the time being. Wianar is currently the subject of her investigation.

She has few friends, though the Simbul and Alustriel Silverhand are beloved mentors and friends. They are far away with problems of their own. Aleena has thought to reach out to the Emerald Enclave, whose aims parallel her own (via a different paradigm). She, however, correctly assumes that the Enclave would have trouble taking her as a trusted ally due to their aversion to sorcery and wizardry.

Stat Block

Concept. Lone Adventuring Sorceress-Priestess of Mystra
Descriptors. Willful, Inconspicuous, High Sorcery, Uncompromising
Gear. Concealed Dagger, Rovahan (Massive Male Lion)
Starting FU Points. 3
Conditions. [ ] Angry, [ ] Scared, [ ] Tired, [ ] Trapped, [ ] Blinded, [ ] Hungry, [ ] Dazed, [ ] Injured, [ ] Dying

Options

Options for spending/earning:

gain 1 for notable inconvenient twist
gain 1 for taking a hit
gain 1 for putting leverage on relationships
spend 1 to use a prop for a scene
spend 1 to use a rule-breaking power granted by a concept or a special thing

I'll cover the first three of ten scenes in the next post with images of notes plus my own commentary.

In and Out of Threshold, part 3

continued from here, Adventure two:

Adventure 2: Return To the Cave of the Vengeful Fish-Men

The next day, our heroes return. First, they stop at the logging camp to inquire if any further signs of aggressive fish folk have been observed. However, it has been relatively quiet.

So, they push on back to the cave. Two more fiendish fish people confront them as they enter, but both Dmetrius and Piotr deal with the two in quick order.

Returning to the last passage that they had not yet investigated, they listen carefully. They would assume the mysterious chopping noise would stop. However, the sounds of chipping still is heard with renewed vigor.

Vlad carefully and quietly slips forward to spy on what is seen ahead. He traverses a very long passage. Along its length, several timbers are laid within. The chipping sound increases in volume. There is also a bright illumination up ahead.

When the ranger peers ahead into the next larger chamber, he sees a network of scaffolds along the walls of the cavern. A multitude of fish folk are at work, laboring with many wheels and cogs.

Two very big and ugly hobgoblin taskmasters are barking at the fish people, snapping a whip to work them harder. A handful of other smaller goblins also assist in bullying the fish people. It is some fiendish labor camp.

Reporting to the others, Sara the Strong wastes no time in charging ahead, screaming a war-cry at the top of her lungs. Her surprise is complete when her battle ax connects with several goblins, flinging them left and right into bloody heaps.

Vlad enters the room next, his wolf charging forward while he releases arrow after arrow. He strikes one of the taskmasters in the neck, but the fiend continues on. When a hobgoblin orders the fish folk to start flinging rocks down at the ranger, he is forced to take cover.

Dmetrius enters next, standing his ground, but taking several nicks and minor wounds. From behind, Piotr watches the action, but a lone goblin sneaks up behind him and grabs him around the neck.

Piotr fights with the goblin, who stabs the wizard in the back. Down on the ground, Piotr is not finished. He quickly draws his own blade, seeing that his quicksilver vials have all skittered from his grasp. In a quick motion, he stabs at the creature, killing it, but not before the goblin's blade simultaneously comes down and slays the wizard.

Only Vlad escapes injury. But finally, the goblins and the hobgoblin taskmasters have all been dispatched. Communicating with the fish people is not easy, but Dmetrius manages to communicate that they are free. With a tense silence, they all file out.

The group is saddened to see the wizard fallen. They rummage through the goblins' bodies, and manage to scrounge up several more coins as well as a fine silver fleece. Dmetrius investigates further, discovering that the machinery is all installed for the purpose of boring a hole into the ground down below. They all wonder, for what purpose?

They bring Piotr’s body back to the church to be buried. Dmetrius feels it’s their next task to contact the church and tell them their findings. Then, perhaps the town officials may investigate further.

Sara, however, goes to the local tavern to sing a song of lament as she goes into her cups. “Oh, how the merry four are now sad three… But now, the crotchety wizard at last is free.”

Afterthoughts

This was a fun experiment. I never had a chance to rely use the wizard's powers. All of this was randomly determined and interpreted through logic. It all represents about three hours of playing time total, along with note taking, which is pretty fast for me. The downside, as with any PbtA game, all those partial results takes a lot of creative energy...especially for one person.

Will I play more? Probably. It was a nice departure to do everything scribbling on a map and imagining rather than the tedium of prose-esque writing.