[The Tomb] Questions in the place of Keys

[Jason Petrasko]

I've been on a quest for a system that fits a particular setting for many a moon. This is one incident on that journey I thought people might be interested in.

The Idea
I was browsing the internet and found Clinton's The Shadow of Yesterday. I've never looked at any of his work, so I took an hour and read most of the mainbook since it was available online. I was most impressed with the idea of Keys as something that establishes not only color for a character, but the way they are rewarded in play. This is something I've done similar things too in games before, like with my now defunct XING ruleset.

So I thought why not make the Keys into Questions.  Questions center around a specific topic, but meanwhile they delve into the nature of the character they describe. In this way I could grab the feel of movies that ask questions about the nature of their characters. I then set off with a minimal simple system (not discussed here) and made a setup for that nights game.

The Setup

I chose a typical fantasy setting. I also wanted a range of character molds in the session for diversity. This is what I ended up with:

Game centers on a tomb.
One player is a Mage of White, Black, or Gray variety.
One player is a Thief, rogue, or scoundrel.
One player is a non-human Champion: dwarf, elf, or troll.
[/list:u]

Now I needed a topic for the initial question of each character. Here is what I chose:

"You've been having dreams calling you to this tomb in a southern land."

The players each then had to create a question connecting that to their characters in some fashion. The more dramatic and personal the connection, the more dots value I gave it. Dots mean the question takes more effort to reach revelation, but worth more when that happens. Taking definitive actions towards answering it gives the character dots towards it's total. Here is what the player's came up with:

John: Chose the thief. Created Angel who's question was: "Does this tomb contain my big score?" I gave this 2 dots.
Jeff: Chose the non-human champion after flipping a coin. Created Tolar (troll champion) who's question was: "Will I find a worthy adversary at this tomb?" I gave this 3 dots.
Jason: Got the Black Mage after he defaulted (he was latest). I created his character: Nicholas who's question was: "Will I find a way to become a lich at this tomb?" I gave this 3 dots. He was there in time to help mold the question. Most of the session he was in and out of the room, he's not one of my usual players.

All players had a specific set of powers. In the game mechanics these were quite powerful when used compared to more mundane concepts. The powers that came up in play are described in the next section.

The Game

I'm not going to describe the whole session. Instead I'll run with an overview and some of the memorable moments. It ended with the troll champion answering his question in a blaze of glory.

I began the game with all intention of playing in a serious and possibly dark mold. The players had other ideas and I ended up with a black comedy, but it was fun all in all.  These days I'm more interested in getting the players into the game than the specific style of play. In that, the game was a success.

The questions drew all the PCs to the tomb. First was John's Angel who came prepared with a wagon and numerous tools. It didn't take long for him to find his way into the Tomb's secret entrance and encounter a band of Orcs guarding it. Angel spots a painting of the famous Black Mage "Evans" on the wall during his painful first encounter with the Orc leader. Much to my chagrin he convinces the rather int-limited leader that he was sent by Evans. Within moments this leaves his character nearly alone in the guard room with only "Slumpy" left at the makeshift table. Slumpy was a colorful Orc with a less than stellar combat record, he has only one leg and was mute. It wasn't long until the troll champion arrived at the tomb and finds his way into the entrance. However, he still finds time to eat one of Angel's horses tied up in the graveyard.  It was at this point I realized the game was headed for a more fun-spin than a black-spin.

Shortly all the characters found themselves in the tomb facing the Orcs. Except Angel who had worked his way onto their side. After a battle fiasco where Nicholas the black mage used his power to drain the blood from Angel, things broke up. Angel fled the scene and headed to the local village on his lonely remaining horse. Meanwhile Nicholas had heard of Evans the black mage and knew that spells where contained on the back of his portraits. Once the Orcs ran away from the troll (who ate their leader that was an elf in disguise) Nick had time to check it out. On the back he finds part of a lich transformation spell.

Here is the first time a question came into play. The player went nowhere with the idea I threw at them so he earned no dots towards the question. Nick just pockets the spell and continues into the tomb.

Meanwhile Angel heads into the local inn at the village where he finds the Sheriff and warriors all drinking heavily. He tells them about what happened (except the implicating parts on his behalf) and they give him a healing draught. Angel and the group with their troll-slaying swords head off back to the site of the trouble.

In the tomb Nick explores downward while the Troll follows him, still munching on elf parts all the way.  At this time John mentions how much he enjoys the non-welded party dynamics and I agree.  The questions have drawn them all to the tomb, but not made them into a party per-say.

Later the PCs face down a massive stone golem with a punch attack that would put fear into the gods. At the same time the Orcs try and stop Nick from getting any deeper with little success. Instead they cause him to become enveloped in a red energy that keeps them at bay while he floats above them draining their blood! (Nifty) The Troll watchs this until the troll-slayering party arrives and approach him. He quickly realizes they have troll-slaying weapons and retreats into the next room.

As everyone ends up in the next room a trditional hack and slash blood-bath ensues. The multitude of Orcs are easily handled by Nick who had fed his red energy blood for food. Once they are handled the energy turns on him, dropping him and flying around looking for more blood to eat. The troll-slayers are dispatched by Nick in this magic fury. This all ends with Nick barely moving on his back from injury and a showdown with Angel and with troll-slayer sword against Tolar. Angel quickly realizes the troll-slaying weapon is not all it's cracked up to be and the troll grapples him. He takes a bite out of his chest and uses Angel as a shield against an super-punch from the golem. This leaves angel on the ground who disguises himself as a dead orc in the commotion (there is still a blood thirsty energy flying about).

Now Tolar has earned a dot towards his question for facing the troll-slayer in deadly combat. The golem's first attack is brutal, even as Angel takes some of it from him. The injury draws the troll into a new combat with Golem and he admits this may be a worth adversary. This gives him another dot towards his question. In the fight he is critically injured and plans a retreat. He tries to open the large doors to the next room while the golem lumbers towards him once more. In my eyes this action more than any other signifies he's found a worth adversary, only in this case would you need to retreat. This earns him his third dot towards his question and sparks a revelation. So I get to test the idea of the revelation!

The Revelation

The troll has not the might to open the doors to the next room. The golem is coming to kill him. In this moment he finds new strength and power. This is his revelation. He places dots based on his question into Might and Deft immediately.

The otherside of the revelation is that it should be leading towards another question. This should be in a dramatic fashion. I envisioned this as a free conversation point between GM and players, but in this case I ended up suggesting an idea that Jeff ran with.

I felt the troll god would be rather apalled a the troll-killing golem and the troll-slayers all coming down on a champion of his. So I proposed the troll god appears before Tolar and restores his health, allowing him to best the golem in combat. Jeff accepted and this led to Tolar's next question: "Why did the Troll god restore me?" which I gave another 3 dots. Now to wrap things up Tolar destroys the Golem in the next round with a massive attack. At this point it was late and I thought well to stop there.

The Aftermath
All in all an interesting idea and game session. I rather enjoyed the player inspired story changes to the plot. The idea was to make the tomb a crucible that would answer the questions of the players, so in a way they formed the basis of the story themselves. I only provided a backdrop. While I was disappointed that didn't see more use of the questions, it was also my fault. I could have driven them home with more opportunities to explore them, but ended up have a blast with the typical hack-and-slash mode. In this way I guess it's no surprise that the champion's combat oriented question was answered first. In all I'm resolved to try this idea again with the same setup and new characters.