Saturday, January 25, 2020

Narrative adventures at the Green Dragon pub

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

What if other great world-builders took this path?

A game and story at the Professor's table

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

8 comments:

  1. HI! This is the writer of DUNGEONPUNK!
    Love these articles about nearly freeforming it. Please post more about this kind of freeform style! I am trying to get people to have more fun with the story instead of the rules.
    I took your critiques to heart and have made a few more booklets. trying to get enough together for a proper full sized rulebook.
    Take a look at my ADB+VANCED DUNGEONPUNK and DUNGEONPUNK ARCANA.

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  2. Glad you like the post. The thing about the freeform or near freeform approach is that it's not just rules lite, it really forces you to think about the story to make those critical decisions. Good to hear you're still developing Dungeonpunk.

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  3. I keep going back to this post. It would be wonderful to play that game. I hope you are running such a game.

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    1. At the moment, the Green Dragon is a "thought experiment" in gaming only. It would work well, I think, with a committed group. And it would be great to see what others find if they try it. I've had some thoughts about running aspects of a Green Dragon game such as combat, so perhaps some updates coming soon.

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  4. Did you come up with the eyes and the crowns? That adds a magic to the whole thing! If you didn't then where did you get that from?

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  5. The evil eye is a common superstition, and of course it resembles a single pip on the die, but the idea for that comes from The One Ring RPG, which uses an “eye of Sauron” printed on one side of a custom d12.
    The crown is my idea. The two rows of pips could resemble the points on a crown. There is, in fact, a old pub game using dice called “Crown and Anchor’, so it fits with the aesthetic of gaming at the local tavern.
    I’m looking at Green Dragon play again and will be posting a slightly revised guide to the complete system down the line.

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