Judging FKR Adventures
If you ask people for an “FKR game” they’ll tell you they don’t exist. They should however tell you about certain cool adventures you could use. But what makes a good aventure for FKR play? In this post I am going to present 4 principles (and a bonus one) that might help an adventure work well. These are principles of how adventures are written. It is not about the design in terms of monsters, locations etc. The post is also kind of tongue-in-cheek, I don’t really think there’s much value in systematising principles like this except for personal reflective reasons.
I’m taking two adventures I found on my hard drive: ADnD’s A Rod of Seven Parts and Theresa by Suzanna from the In Play second edition. For each I’ll preset the principle and then consider a bit of the adventure in light of it.
Principle 1: Assumption of creativity and imagination
An FKR adventure assumes that the table will be creative in their use of the adventure’s contents. This may look like: providing details of events and spaces but not defining their exact outcomes; potentially providing more detail than is needed; allowing for the world/reality to guide the adjudication of the events.
The Rod of 7 Parts
The sentry is one of several goat herders who have brought their flocks to one of the valler’s few springs. The man is on the lookout for predators and is not too worried about the party. If the PCs are invisible, they see the sentry before he sees them, and the party can bypass this encounter. Flying characters see the goats at the waterhole [over a hill] and the other goat herders when they see the sentry.
Here the writers feel that I need to have invisibility explained to me and also that obstacles block line of sight (I have included an illustration that I imagine was in the first draft). However, they haven’t explained what the sentry will do if the PCs arive singing disco music, or if they set themselves on fire and ride around in circles.
Sarcasm aside, the writing here is assuming that the GM and players (the table) won’t be able to imaginatively handle the nature of the world. This might seem a trivial thing that one could just ignore but actually there is an effort involved in that. Writing constrains. When as a writer, I tell the table that “these are the inputs and outcomes”, the table is either going to be inclined to follow these things or is going to have to make the mental effort to ignore them.
Theresa
In general, she still prefers to avoid combat, and teleports aways as soons she suspects any sort of danger, preferring to spy on the area and elminate assailants when the odds are firmly in her favor.
The comparison to our first example is not exact as these are very different styles of adventures. But the assumption of this one is so much that we, the table, will be able to figure out what to do in this situation. We will decide what “danger” and “the odds” look like to Theresa. There is no instruction of “if the players attack/cast a thrid level spell/when Theresa is sleeping”. We are being left to play imaginatively with the world.
Principle 2: Openness of outcomes
FKR adventures allow the play to determine the outcome of events. That is, they don’t try to limit or set deterministic outcomes. This may look like: specific outcomes not given; mechanics and other rules text not referred to.
Rod of 7 Parts
If the PCs attack the sentry and goatherds, the goats stampede them and then: Mounted characters who are not proficient riders automatically fall off their mounts and are trampled.
In this world as well as goats acting with suicidal violence at the merest hint of violence to their owners, horses are equipped with ejector buttons. When they sense the presence of danger and they can see on a rider’s character sheet that they don’t have proficiency they press the button and the rider flies off.
This is an example that builds on the lack of an assumption of creativity but adds to it that the writing is pre-determing the things that can happen in play. The writing is now telling me exactly how things will happen in our game. The horses cannot bolt, they won’t buck and kick, they won’t freeze in panic. Instead, 100% of the time the riders just fly off the saddle. We are essentially being asked to play the writer’s imaginination of the adventure.
Theresa
Theresa is going to liberate a village from an evil baron. She doesn’t know however that he has: set up ambushes and alarmed the locak knights. The characters must carefully navigate between wounding their ally’s pride and letting her walk in a deadly ambush.
Again this is an event happening at a different scale but again we see how the table is given the opportunity to play the game. We are given an event (a whole series of events) and left to see what the outcomes will be in-play. We aren’t playing the writer’s version of the story.
Image generated by Bing.
Principle 3: Simplicity of odds/adaptability of mechanics
AN FKR adventure should have odds that are easy to understand, or none at all. This relates to mechanics and their absence or simplicity. This may look like: no or limited maths and mechanics; simple, natural language description of outcomes and odds.
The Rod of 7 Parts
When the goats stampede The PCs have one round to stop the goats… characters must successfully save vs. breath or be knocked off their feet and trampled for 2d4 points of damage.
Here I think we have a more FKR element with the simplistic “save vs. breath”. Obviously in the original rules this is something that is tied to an individual character sheet which we can interpret now in any way we want. The damage is a bit harder to understand though if we don’t know the stats of a character in the system (which I don’t). We can probably guess that it isn’t a lot of damage but we would still have to figure this out in play.
Theresa
Theresa is a grandmotherly figure… She tries to project an aura of warm friendliness, even when she is in a situation that would require a decided unfriendly approach.
We have here a clear description of potential odds. If we are figuring out her reaction we can say that in maybe 9/10 situations she remains friendly and the players would have to push much further to see her lose her temper. That leaves us with the option to have more “natural” odds that depend on the situation as it emerges in play.
Image generated by Bing. How many d4 of damage is this?
Principle 4: An emphasis on the evocative
An FKR adventure works to provide more to the imagination than it gives in words. This is very subjective but it may look like: giving details that have potential impact, without that impact being delineated.
Theresa
She is surrounded by a small retinue of undead servants.
Theresa is described in some detail as a character but this little detail alone gives us a lot to work with. It again allows us to imagine something more, the characters and personalities of the undead, the form they take. This is so much more evocative than “d6 zombies work as her servants”. We are free to develop the game in-play as we choose.
The Rod of 7 Parts
This is a slightly unfair example, as this adventure does have a lot of evocative writing in it. But it has some elements that are purely (in my opinion at least) anti-evocative. Let us describe what a genie is in this world of stampeding goats and ejector-horses:
Jann (Genie): AC5 (1 when invisible); MV 2, Fl 30(A); HD 6+2; hp 32; THATC0 15 (14 with Strength bonus); #AT 1 or 2; Dmg 2d8+4… or 1d6+4/id6+4… SA spell-like abilities; SZ M (6’ tall); ML champion (16); Int very (11)’ AL N (LE); XP 3,000; MM/126.
I’m sure you’ll agree that one can just picture this statbox floating through the desert air, casting its magic.
Image generated by Bing. Good job Bing
Bonus principle: An objective or very subjective narrator
An FKR adventure either takes a strongly objective or subjective narrator. It tries not to define the thoughts, feelings, and perceptions of characters, either because it presents the world objectively or from a single, defined, narrative perspectice. This avoids language like “when the players enter the room they see… the players may feel…”.
This is my most personal and perhaps “literary” point. I think though it gets at something FKR that I have talked about here. FKR play is about play that emerges from the table itself. It isn’t about matching anyone’s pre-existing ideas and narratives. When, as writers, even in this subtle way, we try to determine what other people must experience when they play our adventures we are, in my opinion, taking a step beyond good writing, story-telling and “design.”.
I might return to this point in the future.
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