Let's Talk About Starter Sets in Sword World 2.5

[Iosue]

This was originally going to be part of my Let's Read of Sword World 2.5, but I thought this might be of interest even to people who haven't read that thread all the way through. Because Sword World 2.5 has some incredible starter sets that I think RPG publishers could learn from.

SW 2.5 has two official "Start Sets." The Star-Catching Labyrinth and Darkness Sinking into the City of Water.

There is actually an unboxing video of Star-Catching Labyrinth, which you can view here. But it's about 30 minutes long, so here's a summary.

In the upper right are four booklets. These are a Start Book, which contains an explanation of what an RPG is and a little solo tutorial for playing SW 2.5 and using the contents of this box. A Rule Book, which is just a condensed basic reference of the rules from Part 2 of Core Rulebook I. And three Scenario Books, each containing one session's worth of an adventure. On the back of each book is a battle map using the Basic Combat Zones. While they are functionally the same, the background image representing the terrain are all different.

There are 20 monster cards, providing two of each of 10 different monsters that show up in the scenarios. There are also 8 magic cards, which provide an explanation of Priest and Sorcerer magic, as well as spells up to Level 3 for those kinds of magic. Finally there are some cards with messages used in the scenarios. These cards are all 9 x 9 cm (3.5 x 3.5 in.)

There are four pregenerated characters included in the set. Each gets an A4-size "Guild Registry Sheet", which essentially describes their background and personalities, as well as tips for how to play them effectively. Each character then gets three 12 x 12 cm (4.7 x 4.7 in.) PC cards, such as can be seen in the lower middle of the picture. There is an initial card, which has their stats on the front and their equipment and other notes on the back. Then there are two double-faced cards that represent two paths of improvement. You use the initial card for Scenario 1, either 2A or 2B for Scenario 2, and then the respective 3A or 3B for Scenario 3. The four PCs are Dwarf Fighter 1/Priest 2, Human Fighter 2/Scout 1, Elf Sorcerer 2/Sage 1, and Lycant Shooter 2/Scout 2.

Along with these are about 40 item cards, the long, narrow cards that can placed at the bottom or the side of the PC card for quick reference and calculation. There are 9 weapons, 4 shields, 4 armors, 6 scenario specific items, and then multiple consumables such as healing potions, awaken potions, and mana crystals.

There are also two 12 x 12 cm cards that are completely blank and white on both sides. These are for the five dry-erase markers, with erasers in their caps that are also included. These markers can be used to write on the the blank, PC, and monster cards, to keep track of hit points, note any buffs/debuffs, and draw little diagrams.

There are also punch-out sheets containing tokens for each of the PCs, as well as generic "monster" tokens, and 68 dungeon tiles. Now, these dungeon tiles are not to scale with the stand-up tokens. They are just for creating maps where the players can see where their characters are. Any combat, of course, goes on the battle mats mentioned above. There is also a large fold-out that shows the GM how to arrange the tiles for the various dungeons in the scenarios.

Finally, the box set comes with 5 multicolored sets of 2d6, so each player can get a different color.

That's the Star-Catching Labyrinth. It's focused on dungeon exploration. The second Start Set, Darkness Sinking into the City of Water, focuses on city adventures. It contains essentially the same contents, except with new PCs, and instead of dungeon tiles, it comes with a huge map of the city of Harvess.

Now, here's what blew my mind. All the PC cards, the items cards, the tiles, the chits, the tokens, the maps, and the monster art, all of that is available in PNG form for free from the GroupSNE website. Basically, anything that is player-facing. And this is so people can play online. There are no licensed VTT versions of these adventures (or really any adventures). As far as GroupSNE is concerned, the GM will buy the physical set. They are then happy to provide, at absolutely no charge, all the image assets that that GM will need to put in front of the players so that they can play online.

 

[overgeeked]

I started checking out the Sword World 2.5 fan translations because of your other thread. Thank you for posting that one and this one. It's really fascinating to see the similarities and differences between the common assumptions games like D&D and Sword World have.

 

[Iosue]

I started checking out the Sword World 2.5 fan translations because of your other thread. Thank you for posting that one and this one. It's really fascinating to see the similarities and differences between the common assumptions games like D&D and Sword World have.

Thanks. Glad to know that these threads and the fan translations are getting SW2.5 a little more well-known outside of Japan.

One thing I forgot in the above post is the price point. The Start Sets retail for 3,300 yen, including tax. With the current weak yen, that's about $22, but even with the stronger yen in 2019 when it was released, it's about $30. SW2.5 is just super affordable.

 

[Iosue]

GroupSNE released the Adventurers Guild Box Set in 2020. It is essentially another Start Kit and contains many of the same kinds of content: PC cards, Magic cards, and Monster Cards. But more of each! There’s an unboxing video here if you want to see what it looks like.

For PC cards, it introduces 4 more PCs: a Human Fencer/Scout, a Meria Fairy Tamer/Sage, a Lildraken Fighter/Conjurer, and a Runefolk Grappler/Ranger/Enhancer. Each PC comes with a Initial card, a commentary card, and 3 double-sided cards for two paths of advancement. But, not only that, it includes commentary cards and 3 double-sided cards for all the PCs included in the previous two Start Sets, so you can take those characters through the scenarios in the box, as well. Accordingly, it also comes with 99 item cards, covering various weapons, armors, shields, consumables and other items, with duplicates.

For monsters, there are 68 cards representing 34 monsters are included in the set, with two cards for each. Most monsters get the typical 9 x 9 cm card, but boss-level monsters get 12 x 12 cm cards.

The previous sets contained magic cards only for the magic used by the pre-gens, but this one contains 33 cards covering magic for Sorcerers, Conjurers, Priests, Fairy-Tamers, and Enhancers.

As usual, it comes with battlemats, five dry-erase markers, and five sets of colored 2d6s. In contrast to the pog tokens of the previous sets, it now provides stand-up tokens, and comes with 10 stands.

So far, more (a lot more) of the same. But what is new?

Well, there’s a 24-page Rulebook covering how to read the cards, how to do Action Checks, how to run Combat, how to run Fellows, and so on. Then there are four Scenario Books. These combine for 11 different scenarios, which can be combined to run 3 distinct campaigns. Scenario Book 1 covers a tutorial adventure, the first scenario of the campaign, and the final scenario of the campaign. After completing the first scenario, the GM can send the party through a series of three scenarios from one of the other Scenario Books. Then they can do the climatic final scenario. You can also take the other Start Set parties through the remaining scenarios, or replay the whole campaign going a different route.

As mentioned in previous post, the scenarios follow a pattern of having at least 9 locations: the starting location, two traps, two NPC interactions, two exploration/investigation areas, and two combats: the climatic battle at the end, and another sometime before that. Scenarios with more than 9 locations usually add another combat somewhere. Some are dungeon-based, others are city-based, and others take place in the wilderness or in Shallow Abysses.

The players get a “Memory Book.” For each adventure, there is a page with a partial map, and spaces for further information. The GM has a sheet of stickers to give to the players to fill out the map, note clues, NPCs met, and items found.

Finally, the set includes punch-out sheets with 23 guild interior tiles (explained below), 24 PC & NPC tokens, 9 generic monster tokens of different size and shape, 24 bonus chits, and 12 1-zoro chits. You get a 1-zoro chit when you roll double 1's (an auto-fail), and it has an encouraging message on it. You can turn in two of these chits to get a one-time bonus.

What makes the Adventurers Guild Box particularly unique is the “Build Your Own Guild” aspect. The top cover of the 20 x 27 x 6 cm (7.9 x 10.6 x 2.3 in.) box has the image of an empty guild house on the inside. At the beginning of the first scenario, you start out with the party, Oscar the Guildmaster, 1 desk, and Hilda the receptionist. When you complete a scenario, you 2 or 3 stars. You then trade in these stars for items in the Interior Catalog.

The catalog is split into 4 colors: Red, Blue, Yellow, and Green. All items cost 2, 3, or 4 stars to purchase. For each Red interior item you purchase, all guild members get a +2 to their max HP. For each Blue interior item, they get a +2 to max MP. For each Yellow item, a +1 to weapon damage. For each Green item, a +1 Armor Point. When you complete a set (that is get a 2-star, 3-star, and 4-star item) of Red or Yellow items, you get a +1 to Life Resistance, complete a set of Blue or Gree, and you get a +1 to Spiritual Resistance. If you get a 4-star item in each color, you get a +1 to both your To-hit Bonus and your Magic Bonus.

Here are the items:
Red: 2 stars – Oil lamp, Arm-wrestling barrel; 3 stars – Dining set, Sofa & Fireplace; 4 stars – Training room, Kitchen

Blue: 2 stars – Regional map, Goddess shaped water faucet; 3 stars – Painting of the party, Aquarium; 4 stars – Private meeting room & Jail, 2nd Floor research room

Yellow: 2 stars – Job board, Dart board; 3 stars – Bar counter, Performance stage; 4 stars – Changing room & Shower room, Horse stables

Green: 2 stars – Guild cat, Monster skull; 3 stars – Home garden set, Monster pelt rug; 4 stars – Exterior garden, Bedroom

Some items include mini-games. You can play one of these mini-games at the start of the session for money, items, or a 1-session bonus.

While the Adventurers Guild Box Set says it is for Ages 12 and up, like the previous Start Sets, some things do indicate it’s somewhat meant for younger kids, or at least, something a parent my use to get their kids into the game. The character designs on the new PC cards and on the stand-up tokens are in a chibi style, unlike in the previous Start Sets. And as mentioned, the tutorial adventure is all about retrieving a teddy bear. That said, the scenarios themselves are not exactly kiddy-fied, but seem broadly within the shonen manga genre expectations. As with the previous Start Sets, all art assests, maps, tiles, PC cards, and Item cards were made available for free by GroupSNE for use in online play.

Price point for all this is 5,940 yen, tax included. About $55 at the time of release, and $40 today. This post is already getting so long, I didn’t want to embed photos, but for a closer look see, here, here, and here.

 

[Iosue]

I'm resurrecting this thread because I want to talk about Group SNE's Sword World 2.5 RPG Building Box, yet another box set released in 2021.

The first two "Start Sets," detailed in the first post, are essentially of the same kind as D&D's Starter Sets/Essentials Kit products. They provide more visual and tactile accessories, but the core concept is the same: you have a slimmed down rulebook, players are given pre-generated characters, and the GM is provided with a mini-campaign to last several sessions.

The Adventurer's Guild Box Set, detailed in my second post, is in the same vein, but on a larger scale. More scenarios, more monsters, more locations. There's the added mini-game of furnishing the Guild House, so that a group can put their own personal stamp on the campaign, but other than that there is not much in the way of innovation. The goal here is to get a group up and playing the game as soon as possible, with the hope that by playing this pre-generated adventure with pre-generated characters, the gameplay will draw them in, leading them to buy the core rulebooks where they can learn how to make their own characters, and GMs can start designing their own scenarios.

Now, there's another "beginner box" model, the exemplar of which was Basic D&D. You provide a streamlined version of the rules, including character generation, provide GM advice on making new adventures, provide a sample adventure, and go. The best modern example of this is probably the Pathfinder 2e Beginner Box.

The issue with the modern D&D/SW2.5 model is that in order to get the group up and playing as soon as possible, you sacrifice character generation and the resources/advice for further gaming. You hope that the experience gets people onboard with purchasing the core rulebooks for this. The old D&D/PF2E model mitigates this a bit, but still requires someone to take on the onerous job of the GM, who will learn the rules and run the sample adventure and design new ones.

Sword World 2.5's RPG Building Box is an attempt to provide a new model. One that allows for new players to create original characters that they can advance in level as they progress through the adventure. But also to provide a broad variety of pre-created content that allows for highly varied and repeated play, without putting the onus on one player to take on the job of being the GM. Indeed, the RPG Building Box doesn't require a GM at all...

We'll explore that provocative idea in a later post. First, let's look at what comes in the box.

Three rulebooks: 1. Characters (covering creating and advancing characters), 2. Scenarios (covering how to run scenarios), and 3. Reference (a general rulebook covering combat, magic, and anything else not in books 1 and 2).

For characters:
48 skill template cards
28 race/species cards
20 ability score array cards
(As will be explained later, the above are combined to build characters)
5 sample character cards
46 special combat ability cards
106 item cards, split into 35 weapon cards, 28 armor cards, and 43 accoutrements/consumables cards
28 magic cards (4 enhancer cards with 6 techniques), and then two sets each of priest, sorcerer, conjurer, and druid spells cards)
42 role-playing (character personality) cards

For gameplay:
68 monster cards (2 each of 34 monsters)
6 NPC cards
134 scenario cards (combined to form distinct scenarios)
Two sheets of punch out cards that include dungeon maps, PC and monster tokens, XP chits, and other various chits used in gameplay
1 battle map sheet for SW2.5 basic combat (three zones)
1 A3 size color poster map of the Burlight region
5 A4 sheets to guide character creation
6 A5 clear files
5 dry-erase markers
10 six-sided dice (five sets of two in different colors)
12 token stands

These contents are all very comparable to the previous Adventurers Guild box set. Retail price is 6,000 yen, currently about $38 in these days of a super weak yen, but was more like $57 on February 10, 2021, the day it was released. (And now I wish I hadn't done the calculations and been faced with just how much my money has lost value!)

In the next installment, we’ll look at the Character rulebook, and see how all those character cards get combined to easily create varied characters.

 

[Iosue]

Rulebook 1: Characters is a 36 page booklet, A4 size, with glossy pages just like the rulebooks included in the D&D Starter Sets. The book opens with the expected introductory material: Sword World 2.5 is a game that takes place in the sword and sorcery world of Raxia, you play adventurers belonging to an adventurers guild, and a role-playing game is one of conversation and imagination. Of particular note is that the reader is told that they only need to read this book, and then Rulebook 2: Scenarios to play the game. Rulebook 3: Reference, which contains all the actual rules for making checks, using magic, and running combat, is explicitly described as a reference book, to be referred to if there is confusion, but not something necessary to read all the way through before starting to play.

After this four pages of this introductory material, the next 5 full pages of the book are a Replay, a transcription of an actual session. In this case, a GM takes Player A and Player B through the character generation process. Note that it is not actually necessary to a GM to do this, but was done here in lieu of the players silently reading the book. Player A has never played RPGs before, while Player B has experience role-playing, but not with Sword World.

Once the Replay has concluded, the remainder of the book lays out the step by step procedures for using the character generation cards to create a character. Now, if your RPG has a fairly simple and straightforward character generation method, then this slots very easily into the beginners box model. Character generation takes up a smidge over 8 pages in Moldvay, and actually involves very few distinct choices.

Sword World 2.5 is not that kind of game. Character generation is not complicated, but there are many decision points, and a method for determing ability scores that is just slightly rococo. To the point that even Core Rulebook I comes with pregenerated characters of each race that you can flesh out with personality and history (so-called, "simple character generation"). The official character sheets can look awfully intimidating for someone new to TRPGs.

And yet, for this box set, the designers wanted their players to be able to quickly and easily create unique characters. So instead of the bottom-up approach of standard chargen (i.e., choose your race, and then figure out what you do), they took a top-down approach (i.e., choose what your character does, then figure out who they are). Here's the process:

Each player is given a chart handout that guides them through character generation. The far left column of the chart are character types: Warrior, Spy, Archer, Magic-user, Magic Warrior (basically, heavy warriors that use magic), and Magic Swordsman (light warriors that use magic). Each corresponds to a common combination of skill sets. The magic-using types provide a choice of Sorcerer, Conjurer, Priest or Druid. Each type is given its own page of detailed description, and radar chart of strengths to give the player a good idea of the kind of character it would make. The handout also includes recommended party composition based on number of players. Once you've made your choice, you receive an L-shaped card with boxes for certain vital statistics, which contain the formula for calculating that stat. For example, the Attack box for a starting Warrior with 2 levels of Fighter has the formula "2+Dexterity" written in unobtrusive very light blue ink.

The next column shows the races available to that character type. While there are 7 races included in the game (Human, Elf, Dwarf, Runefolk, Tabbit, Lildraken, and Mellia), only a limited number are available to each character type. Each race has four cards, half the width of the character type card, with pictures and descriptions of that race and their special abilities. The descriptions are the same, but the pictures differ: two male, two female, one young and one older for each, providing variety.

To this, the player adds an array card for that race that lists their ability scores. There are four kinds of arrays: Power (best bonuses for damage and HP), Speed (accuracy, evasion), Intellect (magic power and MP), and All-Around (uniform bonus of +2 for all ability scores). The available kinds of arrays depend on the race. The provided chart handout notes which arrays are very good, good, playable, or not recommended based on the character type. For example, for the Warrior, the Power array is very good for that character type, the Speed array is good, the All-Around array is playable, and the Intellect array is not recommended.

These cards are layered on top of each other to create the kind of character cards used in these box sets.

The next column on the chart indicates the Special Combat Abilities recommended for that character type. There are around 20 Special Combat Abilities in total, but you'll need only choose from among 6 at most. The handout also provides quick single line descriptions of the special abilities to give the player an idea of what they do. Once chosen, you get a narrow-width card that explains how the ability works in detail (shown at the very bottom of the character on the far right of the above picture).

Next comes equipment. It's certainly possible to purchase items a la carte, but the book provides a separate chart with different equipment packages depending on the type of character, their Strength score (weapons and armor have minimum Strength limits), and whether they are going for damage or accuracy. You get a narrow-width card for each item; weapons go below the card, and armor goes to the right of the card, as shown above. Once all of these cards are received, they are placed into a A5-size clear file folder, on which you use a dry-erase marker to write the remaining statistics and HP/MP.

For magic-using characters, cards are provided with four spells per level, per side. Due to the conciseness of SW2.5 spells, all the information you need to cast the spell and determine what it does are on the cards.

Technically, character creation could end here, as everything mechanically important to the character has been determined. But because this is a TRPG, the game makes efforts to create full bodied characters. The core rules have always had tables for you to select or roll for life events prior to becoming an adventurer, as well as your reason for becoming an adventurer. A modified set of tables is provided for this. New to the game with this box set are Principles, Pride/Attachment, and Relationship to the Character to Your Right.

Principles are broad principles such as "Justice (Peace, Love)" or "Violence (Death, Destruction)". They represent the character's philosophy, morals, and values. There are 18 Principles, from which the player chooses two, as well as choosing whether they Affirm or Disavow those Principles. So, for example, one might have the Principle for Violence. Affirm would mean that you are always ready to fight, while Disavow means you prefer to seek non-violent solutions if possible. These can be rolled off a chart, drawn randomly, or deliberately selected by the player. Narrow-width cards for these are provided, double-sided with Affirm on one side and Disavow on the other.

Then comes the character's Pride/Attachment. You select one of these (again, by deliberately choosing or randomly determining it) and receive a narrow-width card. They are 18 of these, such as "I won't turn my back to an enemy," or "I won't abandon the weak." If Principles are more intellectual positions the character holds, Pride/Attachments represent their impulsive or emotional attitudes. They are not there to restrict the character's behavior, but rather to provide role-playing hooks.

The Relationship with the Character to Your Right is a way to relate your character to the greater group. These are things such as "Friendship," "Rivalry," "Admiration," and "Childhood Friend." These are not considered as heavy as Principles and Prides/Attachments, and may even change as the game as played, so no cards are provided for this. This Relationship is determined by rolling on a chart, but again, it's not meant to restrict behavior, but to provide a fun element to role-play. Accordingly, they are all uniformly positive.

Finally, you choose a name and age. The final page of the book is a table of sample 40 male, female, and family names for each race. In lieu of choosing your age, you can roll 2d6+10 to determine it, and there's a chart with multipliers for non-human races. There's a subtle influence from shonen manga/anime here, in that your character will skew young. The most statistically likely result is 17, and even rolling the maximum will result in an age of 22.

The book wraps up with the rules for advancement. Standard SW2.5 uses XP and XP tables for skill set levels, and after every session, the player randomly determines which of their ability scores will improve by one point. In lieu of randomly rolling for ability score increases, you simply turn your square array card 90 degrees, which increases a pre-determined ability score. The array cards are double sided, with 4 phases per side, for a total of 8.

Previous box sets simply used milestone advancement to determine when the player would switch to a pre-advanced character card. In this box set, experience is tracked by Experience Chits. Successfully complete a mission, and you get two XP chits. Fail, and you just get one. (This tracks with standard SW2.5, where you get 1000 XP for a successful mission, and 500 XP for a failed one.) XP chits come in three colors -- yellow, green, and red. Although all colors are worth the same for advancement, the ratio of one color to another becomes important as the scenarios play out.

On the character type cards it notes how many XP chits are needed to move to the next one. There are 6 cards in total, which takes your character to Level 5 in their primary skill set. That is as high as Core Rulebook 1 goes, so you get a full experience. When you get to the third card, you choose which of two tracks you will take to add or advance your secondary skill sets.

And that's the Character rulebook. I find the system and character card design quite elegant and effective. With the handout guiding the process and the important information all included on the cards, there's virtually no need to refer even to this rulebook during character creation. (The only exception is referring to the equipment packages.) The combinations of cards and clear files also is very plug-and-play. You can create a character, play the game, and when the session is over, you just erase the markings on the file, put all your character and item cards in it, and store it until the next session. Next session you just lay out the cards again, fill in the boxes with the dry erase marker again, and you're good to go.

In the next installment, we'll look at Rulebook 2: Scenarios, and examine the good and bad of the build-an-adventure system therein. It's wonderfully innovative, but absolutely not for everyone.

 

[Iosue]

Rulebook 2: Scenarios is a 51-page booklet. As it's a little bigger, I'm going to split it up over multiple posts.

Before I begin, I think I should review the basic RPG culture in Japan, to provide context for some of the design elements of this box set. The important thing to keep in mind is that the group that meets weekly for an ongoing campaign is relatively rare. Particularly in the 80s and 90s, when TRPGs first blossomed, if you lived in a house, it probably held three generations, and generally wasn't used to host big get-togethers, The vagaries of work overtime also hindered meeting regularly on a weeknight, nor was it conducive to game masters to prepare weekly games. So eventually, the TRPG culture revolved around the one-shot adventure, typically played over 4-6 hours at a session once, maybe twice, a month. Such sessions are typically played at an outside venue, such as a community center, or in more recent years, a game cafe.

Accordingly, when you're used to one-shots, you're not generally engaging in sandbox play. You want a relatively linear adventure, with a beginning, middle, and end. That doesn't mean a strict railroad--you might have different paths to the climax. But buy-in of the GM's planned adventure is assumed, and you're more concerned with how you are going to proceed through the scenario, rather than what you are going to do. This basic set, then, is concerned with providing events that happen during a scenario, rather than providing the whole gamut of freedom that a TRPG potentially has.

That said, let's look at the book. It opens with a table of contents under which is a short glossary explaining some of the common terms used in the book. The next page is a prologue, describing the setting: a small city of 7,000, called Azel where the PCs have recently registered with a small branch of the local guild. The next couple pages concisely explain the world of Raxia, where the game takes place, and the role of adventurers and adventurers guilds. There are also some guidelines for playing this game: Play fast-and-loose; prioritize fun over rules technicalities; when in doubt, discuss things together; don't complain or belittle another player's description or role-play; and more than anything, have fun.

Next comes an 8-page "replay", that is, a transcription of an actual session. It's an example of play on steroids, because it covers an entire session (or at least, one scenario as played with this set). This effectively describes how the box set is used, so I'm going to summarize it here.

Our two players from Rulebook 1 are back, now referred to by their character names: Player A becomes Felix, a Human Magic Swordsman (Fencer/Priest/Sage), while Player B becomes Alfred (Al, for short), a Runefolk Warrior (Fighter and Scout). To their surprise, the GM indicates that rather than run the game as a GM, he's going to join them as a player, and they will run the game GM-less. He introduces his character Clyde, a Tabbit Magic-User (Conjurer/Sage). With character introductions complete, Clyde sets out three Job Cards to choose from: Drive Off Wolves, Find a Lost Item, or Drive Off Goblins. On the face of each Job Card is summary of the mission and reward for completion.

Al's Reason for Adventuring is to defeat Barboros, which his player had determined during character creation were responsible for the death of his previous master, so Al wants to take the Drive Off Goblins job. The others agree to this, so Clyde becomes the first Reader, and reads out the more detailed introduction to the scenario. Because they playing GM-less, the role of the Reader will rotate among all three players. After reading the introduction, Clyde also shows them the Goblin illustration on the monster card, the PCs make Monster Knowledge Checks to see what they know of Goblins. This introduces Action Checks in general, and the Monster Knowledge Checks in specific. They easily clear the bar to see the stats for a Goblin, and Felix further clears the bar to take advantage of their weakness, meaning the PCs will get a bonus to physical damage.

At the bottom of the Job Card is the Progress of the Scenario, which says, "On The Road Event > Intermediate Battle > Pre-Boss Event > Climax." This means that next, they draw an On The Road Event card. Felix is now the Reader, so he shuffles the deck and draws a card from the middle. It's titled, "You Meet Someone In Trouble," and has the following description: Along the way, you have encountered an injured person. Roll 1d to decide the characteristics of that person." The following table consists of Boy, Girl, Young Man, Young Woman, Old Man, Old Woman. Felix rolls 1d and finds that the person is a young woman. Al, the more experienced player, immediately places her in context: "It's dangerous for a young woman to be out here alone. She might get attacked by Goblins." The PCs are given a choice: Option A: To do their utmost to help her, and heal her at least 10 HP, or Option B: Conserve their resources for the fight ahead and heal her for less than 10 HP, or not heal her at all.

The players discuss what they want to do, eventually deciding to cast Cure Wounds on the woman, and see how that goes. This allows the game to demonstrate spell casting. Unfortunately, Felix's Cure Wounds spell succeeds in healing her only 5 HP. Felix is reluctant to spend another 3 MP on another Cure Wounds, but one of Al's Pride/Attachments is that he cannot abandon the weak. He uses one of his healing poutices to heal her another 5 HP. Felix, the Reader, then turns the Event card over to see what happens. The result for Option A is that the person is moved by their kindness, and rewards them with 2 mana crystals, each worth 3 MP.

Next, Al becomes the Reader for the Intermediate Battle. He draws "Attacked by Monsters". This card lists three different kinds of monsters that attack depending on the average level of the party. This party has an average level of 2, so the monsters are Goblins, one per PC. Here the replay covers the basics of combat: Initiative, positioning on the battle map, how to make an attack, roll damage, and use Special Combat Abilities. Al, as Reader, rolls for the Goblins and keeps track of their HP. Once the PCs are shown having a turn, the replay jumps to the end of combat, where the Goblins have been defeated, but Felix is down. Here the game introduces the basics of the falling unconscious and recovery rules.

With the battle over and Felix patched up, Felix becomes the Reader again for the Pre-Boss Event. (Technically, it should be Clyde, but since he is the more experienced player, it seems they delay his turn so that he can handle the Climax.) The card drawn is "Gotten Lost?!" The PCs have gotten lost on their way to their destination. Clyde role-plays that this is due to them following Felix's suggestion of a short-cut (since he's the Reader). Again, they have two choices: Option A is calmly determine their route. Option B is to go ahead, trusting to their intuition. Having role-played that Felix's intuition got them into this mess, Al and Clyde suggest calmly determining their route. Turning the card over, they find that they find their way back on the trail, but have gained a Time Spent chit. This means that the circumstances of the Climax will slightly change.

Now they've reached the Climax, so Clyde turns over the Job Card to reveal it. They have arrived at the Goblin settlement, where two goblins (one for each PC minus 1) are training for battle along with their boss, a Bolg (the Sword World analogue for Orcs/Bugbears). Because the PCs have gotten a Time Spent chit, the Bolg has spent time sharpening his blade, giving him a +1 bonus to damage.

Here, the replay uses the roll for Initiative to explain two meta-resource rules unique to this box set. PCs start a scenario with a "Divine Favor of the Sword" card. This can be turned in before a roll for either a +4 to one's own Check, or a +2 to someone else's check. Also, there are "1-zoro chits." 1-zoro is the game's term for snake eyes, an Automatic Fail. In the standard game, you get 50 XP when this happens, but because this box set doesn't use XP, per se, instead players receive one of these chits. If they get two, they can turn it at any time, even after a roll, to get a +1 to a Check.

The battle is again omitted, and we move straight to the aftermath. The players are shown receiving their reward, and their 2 XP chits, which is enough to advance to the next level of character type card (i.e., their primary Skill goes up a level). The players are having fun, and they still have time, so they decide to move to the next Step, which features new Job Cards...and the adventure continues...

In the next installment, we'll take a closer look at these various Event cards.