Here are some revised settlement encounter tables to take around the block. The Perilous Wilds tables are meant to supplement this stuff in some places, and will be folded in to the final version of FotF2e.
They don’t feel as unified as I would like, but I’ve been rolling test encounters and I’m pretty happy with the scope and depth of results made possible by these 4 page spreads.
Roll some yourself and interpret them here, if you feel inclined!
https://www.dropbox.com/s/100b2wu92twbm70/FotF2e_Settlement%20%26%20NPC%20tables.pdf?dl=0
Passing through the temple district, you notice you’re being followed by an imposing, square-jawed man in red robes. [The man is a zealous follower of the Chaotic God of Indulgence who finds the PC attractive].
I’ll try with an npc
4/12- commoner, apprentice/adventurer
1/3 – Good, love
2/9/42 – ambitious, charitable, fair
49/87/2/11 – braids, scarred, accomplished, cultist
1/5 – Sick or dying, with a discovery to find in the wild.
Ok, i can see him with a terrible wound – he’s just gone into a forest (or somethign similar) and now is terribly poisoned, with just few hours to live if the pcs do not intervene.
He is an experienced adventurer, and the leader of something like a (really small) adventurer syndicate – once his lover died in a mission with him, and his lover childs had a lot of problem because of the untimely death. He is wildly appreciated in the city – the adventurers are increasing in number day by day, and so those who belong to its syndicate – but he does not know if he would be less appreciated if it would be known that the Adventuter syndicate has a fiery angel as patron spirit.
COOL
Not so sure about the virtue/vices. I would give at least 1 virtue and 1 vice to each character, even to the good and evil ones.
In the public square outside the town gaol, a crowd has gathered to watch a criminal marched to the gallows. The atmosphere is festive, and off to one side the town watch is conducting a recruitment drive. If you sign up, you’ll be entered in a lottery to be the person who pulls the lever that will hang the accused. [The criminal is a tailor found guilty of murdering a more successful rival].
In a poor quarter food stall set up in a cellar, the farmer hummed a lament to himself. After asking about his troubles, he wondered if I’d slay a MONSTER, to maintain the natural balance of the world.
the NPC activity are gold Jason! I’ll be adding these tables for multiple games. Torchbearers look out during the town phase 😉
3/2/1 >> clue/evidence (THING)
5/4/2 >> victim/corpse/remains
Where? 10/6/6/6 >> graveyard/bells/MERCHANT
Merchant 6/4 >> weaver/basketmaker (good, selflessness, loyal, helpful, compassionate; secretly a TRAITOR, recruiting)
Huh.
Bells toll as the PCs pass a graveyard. A crowd has gathered for the funeral of someone, surely an august personage. But, no, no, this is a crowd of the poor and lowly, the unwashed, clustered around a grieving family and a casket adorned with wildflowers.
A dirty, frail man speaks in a shaky voice, of how the deceased mended his only robe before his daughter’s wedding, and gifted her a bright blue sarong though she’d only met the girl once. Heads nod. Another pauper stands to speak, telling similar tails. Then another. A procession of neighbors share tales of unearned kindness, of the deceased showing respect and dignity to the lowliest among them.
The grief is palpable, but turns to anger as the deceased’s daughter speaks of how her mother died, strangled in her own shop. Who could have struck down such an kind soul? And why? The crowd grumbles and starts to get ugly.
[In truth, she had been trying to convince some of her more well-to-do neighbors that they should throw in with a simmering rebellion against the oppressive royals, and she was murdered as a message to others. But the royals underestimated her standing among the community…]
Thant’s magic Jeremy! All these simple reads of a few dice rolls and there is an undeniable adventure hook there for the taking. I so wanna play in all of those situations 🙂
The key really is to find the hook, too. The idea with these is that they will usually happen during downtime between sorties into the wild, so when one happens to a PC it shouldn’t just be for color — it should present them with an opportunity or put them in a spot. I need to write some good advice about how to do that into the book.
Sub for later.
This is the kind of stuff I wish DW always had, and reminds me of the tables in Torchbearer.
Settlement Event>Commercial>Mercantile>Collector (Specialist)
Settlement Location>Religious Quarter>Colonnade
NPC Type>Specialist>Undertaker
NPC Alignment>Neutral>Knowledge
NPC Trait>Loyal & Addict
NPC Details>Missing Nose & Tall, Brash, Cultist
NPC Activity>Recruiting
Task>Venture>Find Discovery in the wild
Item>Information/Proof
An undertaker with a missing nose who is a secret cultist. What is he addicted to, the flesh of the dead? And he is recruiting! It writes itself. How long until the group realizes the dark truth behind the enigmatic task he asks of them.
Love the way you have the natural world affecting settlements. Very cool.
Not sure about “quarter” language for settlements, since these could be really small outposts of civilization within the wild or villages or what-have-you in addition to larger communities, right? The admin quarter of an outpost might be the commander’s tent.
Are you planning to keep the duplicates you have on the NPC Type table? Seems like you could make all those results unique if you wanted by adding variations on some of the things you have. You could add some cultists to the Clery list, for example, or smugglers to the Merchant list. Maybe just add nefarious/informal/itinerant versions of the duplicates?
Overall, love it. Looks great.
J. Walton, yeah, I agree about the “quarter” language and tried to offset that with a bit of Judge advice about interpreting things in context at the beginning. I will think about other ways to make the terminology more accommodating to smaller settlements.
The duplicates in the NPC tables are a vague effort to satisfy my simulationist urge for at least a suggestion of proportional representation. My thinking was that the other NPC tables would add the necessary variation, but I will play around with adding adjectives to the duplicates to make each a bit more specific.
Jason Lutes Do you have all of your FotF2E play test stuff in a single doc? I ask because I have some new to gaming folks coming over tomorrow night and they want to try out RPGs, so I thought I could introduce them and try out the 2e stuff at the same time.
John Marron, here’s the usable stuff so far:
dropbox.com – FotF2e Playtest
No Thief playbook yet, and for character generation you’ll need to look back to the original playbooks since character gen instructions are now going to be in the rules instead of on the playbooks themselves.
Jason Lutes Thanks! We were all iced in here today, so no game, but I’m inspired to get the new moves into play so FotF2e will definitely be the next thing I run.
Revised the Cleric and dropped the Thief in there too. The next things on the docket are monster generation questions (based on the DW approach) and treasure tables.
These are Gold Jason Lutes! Thank you so much! Will come in handy at Ettin Con this weekend 🙂
Nathan Roberts Thinking about potential games before 7pm? There is a table free at 10:30am…
Possibly, maybe a WoD / Perilous wilds adventure…. in any case, if you murderhobos get back to town, they will definitely come in handy 😉
I just love this game! I sent you an email with some notes.