Quick notes on System/Generation in total:
- Stats are generated using Knave as a base.
- Advancement based on DIE TRYING - Things get an "X" on them when conditions are met, 3 X's on anything (stats/items/abilities/spells/mutations/disease) advances it or makes it better somehow.
- 3d6kl1 In Order. (So 5+6+2 for Strength would have a bonus of 2, for example)
- Swap 2 stats or re-roll one (but you have to keep the re-roll, even if it's lower)
- Roll an additional two 3d6, representing your Background and Starting Equipment OR Roll on a Race Table
- If you chose the Background Path, choose starting kit: Legate (bardish) , Condottiere (fighter), Knack (illegal wizard), Scholar, Oracle (clericish), Archivist (ranger/survivalist)
- Roll d8 for HP (don't add Con)
Our Intrepid Adventurers
- Hosea, Knack, member of a wealthy family with a bad reputation
- Jafa the Gourmand, Anthropological Scholar and Cook
- Orri, Human Philosopher from the Bountiful Lands of Shell and Stone
As with all Runeforest Session starts, players were given three hooks with varying rewards to act upon (but are of course not limited to these if they have other plans). These are all available before session start for the players consideration
(Quick note- A Supply=1ish Gold=100 Prestige, but it costs 2 prestige to turn into 100 supply):
(Quick note- A Supply=1ish Gold=100 Prestige, but it costs 2 prestige to turn into 100 supply):
Hunt:
The City Guard lost a foot patrol recently, and the Lieutenant blames a beast of the Runeforest. One soldier is missing, and the remaining soldiers were found bereft of valuable gear and coin. The armor of the deceased had strange circular dents, rather than the scratches and bite marks one would expect from a beast of the forest. The Captain of the Guard believes the culprit to be some mace-wielding bandits or Ravagers and will not sponsor a large reward.
Due to this disagreement, the Lieutenant can only offer 50 Supply for the Hunt, but bumps the offer to 75 Supply if you can find the remaining body (or whats left of it). Should there actually be a strange magic beast responsible, slaying it would provide additional Unknown Prestige and the chance for making magic items from its corpse.
Map:
Whichever Adventuring Company maps the route to and from the Trading Post first would certainly have more than bragging rights, as the Trading Companies are eager to begin making money.
The first map of the first Runeforest Cycle will award you 5 Prestige and 100 Supply. The journey is likely to be highly dangerous and competitive though, and random encounters will have an unusually high amount of hostile, opposed Adventurers.
Guard:
As there are no maps to the Trading Post, no records of the current dangers present, and you would have the difficulty of navigating in addition to regular guard duties, there are no wealthy merchants willing to risk the trip and looking for guards just yet.
The Quartermaster tells you of a single job request that came through though: A strange, cloaked tea merchant offering a mere 1 Prestige for safe passage to the Trading Post. This is a shockingly low amount for a guard mission, but the mysterious figure promises "Gratitude more valuable than Wealth" in addition to the meager payment.
I mean, there are lots of fairy tales about the benefits of helping mysterious strangers, right?
~~~
I originally had a longer explanation of how the session went but lost the draft.
They took the Tea Merchant who was weird and slept through a big fight with some not-wolf-things but rewarded em with a weird invitation to a Fae Court.
I'll summarize my experience running it though:
- Tweaking the Supply Scale: As already said, supply as a currency that's also torches and food and water was functional enough but I certainly see room for improvement.
- A full list of prices: Right now most basic gear just costs 10 supply with additional markups depending on in game availability. The irony of running a mercantile focused game is my
- Coffee/Alcohol Flasks as Potions: Some inspiration taken from Wyrd and Wild for this part.
- Finishing out the Trading Post services: Right now the only special offer players are aware of is that if you buy something with the insane 150% markup, it has a chance to be special in this way (wilderness link)
There's more but that's a start. TL:DR Fun, but very much a work in progress
They took the Tea Merchant who was weird and slept through a big fight with some not-wolf-things but rewarded em with a weird invitation to a Fae Court.
I'll summarize my experience running it though:
- Character Generation method feels solid, new characters definitely met the "quick and easy" standard since everything is determined by 7-8 rolls and maybe a single kit choice
- Timed point crawl seemed fine as a navigation method, but I drastically underestimated the amount of time each point of interest would take in game time.
- I enjoyed the content generation method I had and each location felt evocative to me (can't speak for the players but perhaps they'll give feedback)
- I personally liked the beforehand knowledge of three jobs, knowing and preparing for each while the players still had freedom of choice in what they wanted to pursue. The randomization of the content took much of the prep work off my plate as well.
- As well as the overall system combination worked, there were shortcomings. I don't love the Supply = Gold method I have and will likely continue tweaking how it's used. The butchery roll from Wyrd and Wild was interesting, but while it references weight as the method for determining the number of rolls a monster gives (every 100 lbs), none of the monster entries include weight, so I had to guess. This wasn't really ideal, particularly when I had to make a ruling in the middle of the game.
Other Random Rulings:
- A supply = A good torch = A campfire. See other laments about the resource management of supply in Skerples review. For Runeforest it...kinda makes sense actually? The setting is much less "otherwise capable peasants who at least know how to catch dinner in the woods" and more "bumbling city-slickers who bought several cliff bars just in case they can't rough it after all" in regards to eating supply. I'll probably make my own take on the camping rules though but I like the food/water/shelter/campfire parts I have right now.
- I modified some original cooking stuff off of this from Throne of Salt, essentially giving double rations + a recipe for 3 successful cooking checks on the same creature type.
Ongoing Tweaks/Improvements
- Escape the Forest Table: I need to redo a quick session-end roll just in case a mission isn't completed. Something like the Alexandrian rules here. Current draft is: Hunts can retire back to base an retain half the marks they had, Guard or Map can just speed up encounter rolls and can end as a "success" but may suffer from exhaustion.
Ongoing Tweaks/Improvements
- Escape the Forest Table: I need to redo a quick session-end roll just in case a mission isn't completed. Something like the Alexandrian rules here. Current draft is: Hunts can retire back to base an retain half the marks they had, Guard or Map can just speed up encounter rolls and can end as a "success" but may suffer from exhaustion.
- Tweaking the Supply Scale: As already said, supply as a currency that's also torches and food and water was functional enough but I certainly see room for improvement.
- A full list of prices: Right now most basic gear just costs 10 supply with additional markups depending on in game availability. The irony of running a mercantile focused game is my
- Coffee/Alcohol Flasks as Potions: Some inspiration taken from Wyrd and Wild for this part.
- Finishing out the Trading Post services: Right now the only special offer players are aware of is that if you buy something with the insane 150% markup, it has a chance to be special in this way (wilderness link)
There's more but that's a start. TL:DR Fun, but very much a work in progress
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