Telling Tales: Building Your Legend Through Lies

[Reynard]

The newest episode of the wonderful Our Fake History podcast is diving into hoe Buffalo Bill Cody "invented" the Old West by way of the stories he told about himself and his involvement in major events of the era.

This got me to thinking about a potential from for an RPG: instead of the PCs actually DOING STUFF, what if the adventures are just the stories (lies) they tell about themselves to whatever village rubes will listen. XP (or its system equivalent) is then a representation of their Legend, and as it grows, they can and must tell bigger, wilder stories.

I am not entirely sure how you would pull it off, but it feels like a potentially fun player centric sort of campaign. Obviously, death would never be on the table but the PCs would still have to face tough odds, lest they bore their audience.

Obviously you could do this in a purely narrative game, but with the right framing rules I think you could pull it off in a trad RPG like D&D too.

Thoughts?

 

[overgeeked]

That’s the Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen with a fantasy coat of paint. It’s a game of competitive lying.

 

[Reynard]

That’s the Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen with a fantasy coat of paint. It’s a game of competitive lying.

I am only generally aware of that games existence. I have never seen a copy.

 

[Reynard]

Oh, look, it's on sale.

 

[Blue]

Back in AD&D / AD&D 2nd days when Drizzt Do'Urden was the fresh new obsession, my friend Dave ran a rather cool half-drow ranger on the surface named Rizzen Starchaser. Starchaser because he had wanted to come to the surface, you see. And he was part of the esteemed Company of the Unicorn (our decade+ weekly game) out of Waterdeep. But his legend didn't catch on as much as the other luminaries of the CotU.

Until my bard D'Gatham of Cormyr, (dual classed into cleric of Milil, Lord of Music) started to write and recite tales of him as Rizzen Beholderslayer. The story was actually true, but likely martyr-level brave (for the level we were at) if not for luck being upon him, taking out a beholder all by himself.

I made sure that song got spread far and wide, and later in that campaign people knew his face and cheered for him, the drow on the surface. Their hero, who took out a beholder by himself.