"I will lend you horses."

[Manbearcat]

Another Stonetop "lend you my horse" popped up in Stonetop 2 game a few sessions ago after the PCs Returned Triumphantly (from Expedition 1).

OPPORTUNITY (Proper Noun. An Opportunity is a framed situation that can be turned into an asset/positive fiction or turned into a Threat if engaged with and it goes south...or it can be ignored/discarded by the player).

On the return journey Stonetop after rescuing the children from grave peril deep in The Great Wood, one of the kids overhears Tober's (Stonetop's Ranger) discouraged comments about two of his hounds perishing on their expedition. Deryn's (Stonetop blacksmith and dear companion to Tober) little brother Jordan comes up and says, "I knew if we were to be found, that it would be you leading Stonetoppers to our rescue. See my brother when you get back; he was shodding horses and he found a lame colt that needed help. I heard you lost your pups, but Deryn was shodding a young colt who was lamed and it needs a good helper. It was left from some Marshedge folks who didn't know what to do with it after the laming. They were probably just gonna let it die. Deryn decided to take it on, but he's not skilled with animals so it seems too much for him to handle. Maybe you could heal it?" Hat tip @niklinna for repurposing your post-game written notes above!

So, in the fiction : gamestate relationship, you've got a young colt with sad, brown eyes, probably an injured tendon, which just lies down all the time and avoids eye contact. It just wanders outside of the inner ringwall, eats fermenting crabapples in the meadow, and Deryn doesn't know what the hell to do with it. You've got an Injured (lame) tag and a bad Instinct of Withdraw in dejection.

So, this is handled like Working Gigs in AW or Paladin Quest/Wizard Ritual in DW where the GM/players resolve some fiction/win cons required to do the thing.

MAKE A PLAN

x Befriend Him

x Heal Him

x Instill Self-belief

So effectively, multiple scenes that arrive at the gamestate of (a) resolve a social conflict which would entail soft social moves (where the horsey rebuffs advances etc) and nets a successful Wild Speech Persuasion (or related move), (b) removal of the Injured (lame) tag for the colt, and (c) his Instinct rewritten to something functional. The ultimate Win Con would = Follower status for Tober (with a Cost and related Loyalty) or Asset (for Stonetop). This will be Homefront phase primarily for Tober, but possibly he'll take him on a future Expedition after Befriend Him and Heal Him are done. I have no clue. TBD how the game evolves and what the player does.

 

[Fenris-77]

This is an interesting topic. Rather a lot of the writing and design I've done recently on the fantasy side has been in service of hacking OSR play (Black Hack 2E specifically) to expand and round out the wilderness exploration side of things. I used a bunch of ideas from Into the Wyrd and Wild (which is marvelous) and have mined a whole bunch of other games to work out playloops that try to make wilderness exploration not just more dangerous (true) but more importantly more rewarding, by which I specifically mean involving tight playloops that balance risk and reward and put lots of important decisions in the players hands. This isn't something that a lot of OSR properties do well naturally, or at least well in terms of what I would like them to look like. To come back in a roundabout way to the topic at hand I see that, on reflection, I've been adding a ot of more of this sort of 'positive' encounter into my stuff. Not that there are a lot of them, but they do tend to be more specifically positive in a here, have some horses kind of way. Perhaps that's because the rest of it tends to be here, die alone and frozen because you didn't bring decent boots.

 

[pemerton]

I've been adding a ot of more of this sort of 'positive' encounter into my stuff. Not that there are a lot of them, but they do tend to be more specifically positive in a here, have some horses kind of way.

Given this is OSR(ish), is it random table based? Or do players get to set "stakes" in some fashion? I'm assuming, again given the OSR leaning, that it is not GM fiat.

 

[Fenris-77]

Given this is OSR(ish), is it random table based? Or do players get to set "stakes" in some fashion? I'm assuming, again given the OSR leaning, that it is not GM fiat.

Sort of, but also not. The main ingredient is an exhaustion mechanic - six levels and you die. If you don't sleep, or eat, you gain levels, and they aren't trivial to remove. That gives a solid mechanical backbone to hang a lot of playloops off of. I have a camp and journey mechanic in the works that is something like the one from Forbidden Lands and a small-ish skill system to layer over the BX core of my game that drives those loops. The players get to decide how risky they want to be in terms of distance travelled and also to what extent they leave the beaten paths, both of which have predictable consequences and rewards.

 

[payn]

In my Traveller Pirates of Drinax sandbox, making alliances is key. I track the attitude score from enemy to neutral to friendly; roughly. In the beginning of the game, the Travellers are pretty much unknown, but their reputations can grow. Mostly, it depends on who they want to help, and thusly, who they want to hinder. Friendly alliances will offer safe harbor and more. Getting a neutral party to friendly takes a lot of work making contacts and turning them into allies.

Anyways, some savvy Travellers might be able to get a neutral party to offer assistance if they are able to sell them on the idea. Such as putting a stick in the eye of their enemy with little chance of blowback to them. Context matters of course, so how the Travellers go about it is up to them.

 

[pemerton]

Anyways, some savvy Travellers might be able to get a neutral party to offer assistance if they are able to sell them on the idea. Such as putting a stick in the eye of their enemy with little chance of blowback to them. Context matters of course, so how the Travellers go about it is up to them.

I'm not sure which version of Traveller you're playing. Do you use reaction rolls for this?

 

[payn]

I'm not sure which version of Traveller you're playing. Do you use reaction rolls for this?

Mongoose 2E. There is a custom faction system included in the POD material that guides you on attitudes and likeliness of assistance. I start there as my base of how an NPC/faction will react initially to the Travellers. Then, the Travellers get to come up with how they want to take the interaction forward. I'll allow them to use their skills with degrees of success based on effect. In Mongoose Traveller that means how much they missed or surpassed the target of 8 on the skill check.

For example, some of the Travellers enemies might come across them in a neutral starport. The travellers may not want a brawl to break out and so convince the enemy its not a good idea to do this here. Conversely, a friendly allied NPC will do a good amount to help a Traveller, but they might not be willing to put themselves in front of a laser pistol. Travellers might convince them that the situation is worth it. Context plus role play and go from there on how it all plays out.

 

[Hand of Evil]

I use a house rule that allows a player to pull a contact/npc out of the air. They have a limited number of them, they have to have a backstory, and they must have a relationship to the character. Once they are used, they become GM NPCs.

Example of this would be party enters a tavern on the trail of some villains, they are lost and dang, who do they see but the merchant Robert, who is the brother to the Ranger, who they talk to and find out he saw a group of shady characters heading down the river road. He provides a couple of additional information he noticed, a brand on the horses and a scar on the face of one of them.

 

[Darth Solo]

I use a house rule that allows a player to pull a contact/npc out of the air. They have a limited number of them, they have to have a backstory, and they must have a relationship to the character. Once they are used, they become GM NPCs.

Example of this would be party enters a tavern on the trail of some villains, they are lost and dang, who do they see but the merchant Robert, who is the brother to the Ranger, who they talk to and find out he saw a group of shady characters heading down the river road. He provides a couple of additional information he noticed, a brand on the horses and a scar on the face of one of them.

Most if not all TTRPGs should have your house-rule as a written rule.

 

[Fenris-77]

Most if not all TTRPGs should have your house-rule as a written rule.

There's a bit in Burning Wheel that does something like this and I've always thought it was pretty genius.