For our first session I want to have a series of contests among all the nearby villages.
For our first session I want to have a series of contests among all the nearby villages. The contests would be things like wrestling, running, swimming in the ocean while wearing armor, telling riddles, making boasts or speeches, etc. The overall goal is to introduce players to the different stats and their uses. The village with the most victories overall would be declared the winner.
A scene challenge feels like the right way to handle this, but I'm having trouble envisioning what the mechanics might look like. When a PC rolls a strong success on Face Danger, that probably means they win their current contest. What would a weak success mean, maybe coming in second or third? I'm also not sure what Secure Advantage might mean in these contexts. If I set the scene challenge at Formidable, maybe that means there are 10 contests overall and the PCs are competing in a group in them? Then Secure Advantage might mean setting up someone else to win, or possibly just doing their part of the contest well (e.g. running part of a relay, or doing well in one of the starting wrestling rounds, etc.)
And what would the progress move at the end simulate? Would a strong success mean winning the overall challenge, or would a weak success do that too? If the PCs get lucky and win all the contests (10 progress), it would feel odd to have them lose if they get unlucky and roll a 10. Likewise, if a weak success would let them win overall, it'd be a bit odd to have them be able to win if they only rolled weak successes (say 4 weak successes on Face Danger to end the contest at 4 progress, then a 2 and a 3 on the challenge dice) if weak successes mean coming in 2nd or 3rd or so in a contest.
Maybe the answer is to make the scene challenge one rank easier and require a strong success on the progress move to win overall? Or make the scene challenge one rank more difficult and say that a strong or weak success will mean victory? How would you handle this?
A scene challenge feels like the right way to handle this, but I'm having trouble envisioning what the mechanics might look like. When a PC rolls a strong success on Face Danger, that probably means they win their current contest. What would a weak success mean, maybe coming in second or third? I'm also not sure what Secure Advantage might mean in these contexts. If I set the scene challenge at Formidable, maybe that means there are 10 contests overall and the PCs are competing in a group in them? Then Secure Advantage might mean setting up someone else to win, or possibly just doing their part of the contest well (e.g. running part of a relay, or doing well in one of the starting wrestling rounds, etc.)
And what would the progress move at the end simulate? Would a strong success mean winning the overall challenge, or would a weak success do that too? If the PCs get lucky and win all the contests (10 progress), it would feel odd to have them lose if they get unlucky and roll a 10. Likewise, if a weak success would let them win overall, it'd be a bit odd to have them be able to win if they only rolled weak successes (say 4 weak successes on Face Danger to end the contest at 4 progress, then a 2 and a 3 on the challenge dice) if weak successes mean coming in 2nd or 3rd or so in a contest.
Maybe the answer is to make the scene challenge one rank easier and require a strong success on the progress move to win overall? Or make the scene challenge one rank more difficult and say that a strong or weak success will mean victory? How would you handle this?
Like any challenge in a rpg, there is a line between making it interesting or booring. Npc with agendas, faction, politics, what ever to add some spice to the rolls.
ReplyDeleteThe champion from last year, the cheater. Etc
Sorry not the help you were looking for, but my point would be to tone down the challenge in favour of story.
Look for challenges that use different attributes to mix it up.
What is the point of the contest. Is it part of the road to chieftain -hood?
Or the winner then has to do some quest/mission for the combined good of all the attending villages.
Is it risky?
Hey, Joel Britton. One issue I might see with using scene challenges as an intro to the game is that it might create an expectation that those mechanics are the primary way of interacting with challenges. Scene challenges are a bit of a variation of the rules and how progress tracks are handled, which might lead to some confusion later.
ReplyDeleteInstead, I might suggest leveraging the standard move mechanics to resolve some contests. You can Draw the Circle and play out a fight to deminstrate combat. You can even leverage the Battle move to show the single-roll option for fights. Other contests (such as an athletics competition) can be resolved with a single Face Danger roll, perhaps guiding your players and showing how they can Secure an Advantage or Aid Your Ally.
If you want, you can also integrate a scene challenge in there somewhere, but really I might suggest using scene challenges a bit further down the road when players are comfortable with the rules and not likely to conflate things.
For resolving the ultimate outcome of the festival, you can handwave it based on how they did, or set up your own "behind the GM screen" progress track. Let's say you have 5 contests. Give them 2 progress for a victory, and 1 progress for a decent showing.
Outside of the contests themselves, this sort of gathering of creates some good potential for drama. You can have some political strife, an assassin at large, an open feud between two clans, etc. Get the players engaged in some behind the scenes shenanigans, and you may find a natural lead-in to a vow. I seem to recall that the Dunk and Egg stories (George RR Martin) had some cool stuff happening with a tournament as the backdrop.
Oh, that's really good. That flows more naturally than using a scene challenge for the contests. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteAnd I've definitely got some ideas for intrigue and drama at the gathering. It should be fun.
ReplyDelete