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Hirelings • 2019 rpg

Doug Ruff • no link

You're all hirelings of an adventuring party. Write down 3 abilities for your character - nothing heroic! Introduce yourselves. Explain your situation, where you are, and why you're the only survivors. 

Take turns round the table. On your turn set the scene, describing an obstacle between you and safety. Other players may add details. Say how the heroes would have resolved it and set a numerical difficulty (at least 1).

Then everyone holds a fist out, then opens it simultaneously. Players who reveal a die are helping, the others hide.

If everyone hides, everyone is wounded.

(If you are wounded - cross out an ability. If you can't, you're dead. You may still take turns narrating.)

Otherwise, all helping players roll one (six-sided) die, plus one for each ability they can justify using.

If you collectively roll as many sixes as the difficulty, success! All helping players gain Glory equal to the difficulty. The player with the highest total roll gets twice as much.

Whether you succeed or fail, the helping player with the highest (or tied highest) total roll is wounded.

After everyone has taken two turns, the surviving player with the highest Glory wins. If you all die, no-one wins.

Author Comments

This year I wanted to do something more substantial - a complete game with a proper resolution mechanic. Along the way it turned into a competitive push-your-luck survival game with a “betrayal” mechanic (hiding means that at least one other player is going to get hurt). Getting it done within the 200 word limit was tough! Thanks to Ben and John for playtesting an earlier draft which really helped iron out some issues, and to Craig for valuable feedback on the draft.


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