Example of Play
Joe, the GM, is playing a game with his friends: Jake, Maddy, Lisa, and George. Their game’s setting is a fictional pirate adventure set during the age of sail, where they are searching the seas for long lost treasure.
Jake’s character is a swashbuckler swordsman named Jaronne. Maddy is playing a young and eager pirate named Manz. Lisa is playing an old fortune teller, named Liradda. George is playing a brutish dockworker who goes by Grunt.
The GM opens the session describing the current situation. Joe narrates the following description:
Joe (GM): “Your small rowboat has just arrived on the island. A long sandy beach extends around to the east and west with a wall of dense jungle ahead of you to the south. The jungle seems to encircle the island in a ring that rises towards the center, and in the center of the island is a towering mountain with smoke fuming out the top. A volcano!”
Jake: “Wow! We finally arrived!” (to the GM): Jaronne leaps out of the rowboat and readies his sword for any danger.”
Lisa: (speaking in the voice of her character, Liradda) “Careful, Jaronne! The fates have warned us about the great lizards that stalk this island. The crystal ball never lies!”
Jake: “I’m not afraid! Let them come!”
George (to the GM): “Are there any sign of tracks or footprints near where we landed?”
Joe (GM): “Are you searching on the beach or near the edge of the jungle?”
George: “The beach. I want to scour the nearby sands for any signs that someone else has been here.”
Joe (GM): “Okay, that sounds like a Search action. Roll a basic Investigate test with a -2 penalty.”
Joe added the penalty because he decided that there has been a recent rain on the island, and that could have washed any footprints away.
George looks at Grunt’s Investigate Skill Rank of 9. He subtracts the -2 penalty to get a Target Number of 7. He then rolls his d20 and rolls a 6 on the die. This is under his target number of 7, a success. “I succeeded with a six!”
Joe (GM): “Excellent. After a few minutes of searching, Grunt finds faded boot-prints in the sand, they seem to head into the nearby jungle.”
George (to the GM): Do I know how many people made these tracks?
Joe (GM): You are unsure, it could be as few as two or as many as eight people.
Joe knows there were five people that came through the sands recently, but he decided that George needed to roll a 10 or higher on Grunt’s Investigate test, a Strong Success, in order to receive that extra information.
Maddy: “Manz begins humming an old pirate song as he pulls the rowboat high upon the shore.”
Jake: I want to see where those footprints go. Jaronne will follow the tracks into the jungle.
George: Grunt will follow Jaronne, readying his club for any trouble.
Joe (GM): What about Manz and Liradda? Do they follow the other two into the jungle?
Lisa: “Yes. Liradda straightens the shawl on her shoulders and follows at a safe distance. She is continuously looking behind the group, to make sure a creature isn’t stalking them from behind.”
Maddy: “Manz draws his sabre and he eagerly strides to the front with Jaronne to help lead the way.”
Joe (GM): “You all follow the prints into the jungle where the wet mud makes the tracks much easier to see. The humid air clings to you as you step away from the cooling breeze of the sandy shores. After many minutes, you are now much deeper in the jungle. Suddenly, you hear the sound of a low snarl of a large lizard-like beast. A creature leaps in front of your path with its jaws snapping in hungry excitement. It has a long snout with razor sharp teeth and two long arms with deadly claws on the ends. It stands hunched over on two legs with a long tail at its rear. Roll for initiative!”
The players then enter Combat mode, using the rules of combat to adjudicate the dangerous encounter with the hungry dinosaur. An example of combat play can be found in Chapter 6 (page XXX).