It’s time for another tale of grand, epic adventure from the Angryverse.

But first…

If I’m going to keep sharing these Angry Table Tales, there’s something we’ve got to iron out. Especially if you’re one of my players. Current or former.

Thing is, I reuse a lot of s$&%.

I mean, obviously, I reuse the whole Angryverse setting. That’s the world in which all — or most — of my fantasy adventure campaigns take place. Regardless of the system. Which means I reuse a lot of world lore details. But I also reuse s$&% like names and locations and characters. Mostly without even noticing. Because I don’t do it on purpose. There’s just certain names and characters and ideas and things I really like. So, they keep creeping into my games.

It’s important to get that out today because this story’s not from my D&D 3.5 AOWG. It’s from another campaign. A Savage Worlds campaign. Which is basically just a D&D AOWG campaign with the Savage Worlds rules replacing the D&D rules. I s$&% you not.

Anyway, in the adventure I’m about to describe, there’s this cook named Slab. And I know my D&D 3.5 AOWG players are gonna recognize that name. Because, in their game, there’s a cook named Slab. Meanwhile, a few players from a previous game are going to recognize the Winter’s Edge setting. Which has gone through a few different iterations over the years. And there’s a good two dozen people who are going to remember the League of the Blue Cloak from other games.

Give I run everything I run in different versions of the same universe, this’ll lead a bunch of you to wonder if this is all part of some grand metaplot. Is this League of the Blue Cloak the same as the League of the Blue Cloak from Santiem? Or whatever.

And the answer is, “shut up; I just like the name.” This ain’t some Marvel multiverse bulls$&%. I ain’t trying to force people to shell out for my crappy streaming service by making all my crappy shows required viewing to understand my crappy movies.

Every campaign’s its own, unique, isolated thing. Different takes on the same template.

Anyway, on with the story…

The Lumberjack Social Boss Fight:
An Angry Table Tale

Time for another Angry Table Tale. That’s where I recap one of my recent game sessions or adventures and then explain how and why I ran it the way I did.

While this story takes place in the same universe — sorta; see the Long, Rambling Introduction™ — as the last Table Tale, it comes from a different campaign. Same basic setting, but different ruleset. This story’s from my Savage Worlds campaign.

If you don’t know anything about Savage Worlds, don’t worry. The mechanics don’t matter even a tiny little bit. But then, they never do. Because running a good game’s got nothing to do with the rules. And the more you obsess over the rules, the farther you get from a good game. Which this story will help illustrate. I hope.

If you do know something about Savage Worlds, then you’re probably sad to hear the mechanics have got nothing to do with the story. Especially because the Savage Worlds fans among my readership — all three of them — keep asking me about my mechanics. Especially about how I handle f$&%ing Bennies. Because, to them, Bennies are the most important thing in Savage Worlds ever. They ain’t. Forget the f$&%ing Bennies. They’re barely a step above Dungeons & Dragons 5E’s inspiration mechanics in terms of useful importance.

But enough setup. On with the story…

Part I. We’re All Lumberjacks and You’re Not Okay

In which a trio of guild adventurers has to question some lumberjacks about a buried treasure. And the lumberjacks hate them.

Dramatis Personae

The adventurers…

• Heward, a rugged hunter and survivalist
• Graywind, a wolf and Heward’s only friend
• Iella, an elementalist from a secretive and paranoid magical order
• Rona, a mercenary, a gambler, and a drunkard

The foresters…

• Eirik, the leader of the foresters’ camp
• Petra, Eirik’s daughter and camp foreman
• Dagmer, the camp’s supply master
• Slab, the one-legged camp cook
• Birch, the elderly shaman and camp hanger-on
• Einar, a camp guard
• Beoric, a camp guard
• Olev, a forester
• Kastar, a forester
• Sluggard, a forester
• Bendrik, a forester
• Theor, a forester
• Sandar, a forester
• Oswig, a forester

Sirs not appearing in this film…

• Tolven Stonehand, the founder of the Frostwind chapter of the League of the Blue Cloak
• Rodalf, a runaway forester

The Setup

Heward, Iella, and Rona are members of the Frostwind chapter of the League of Blue Cloak.

Recently, a forester named Rodalf passed through Frostwind. After an unlucky night dicing, he was forced to pawn off an ancient bronze-and-crystal medallion. Which ended up in Tolven’s stony hand. He’s convinced there’s more treasure where the medallion came from. Unable to track down Rodalf, but knowing he came up from Pinedale, Tolven sends Heward, Iella, and Rona to find out more.

In Pinedale, the party learns Rodalf works at a nearby camp. Fortunately, a merchant’s got supplies to send that way. But he warns the party that the foresters don’t trust outsiders and the Pinedalers don’t like Frostwinders. Not to mention the foresters won’t be happy if they think the party’s there to steal a valuable treasure out from under them.

Posing as delivery folk, the party is to deliver the supplies to the camp and then hang around for a couple of days waiting for a return shipment of goods. While there, they’ve got to gain the foresters’ trust so they can ask questions about Rodalf and where he might have gotten the medallion.

Tolven lets the party know that if the foresters don’t cooperate, the party can lean on them a little. Use threats and strongarm tactics. But that’s the last resort. And the party’s to limit themselves to bullying. They’re not to actually hurt or kill anyone.

You Never Get a Second Chance to Make a First Impression

All that s$&% above? That’s setup. Apart from a few minor encounters in the forest, the game starts when the party — posing as delivery folk — arrives at the camp with the drag-litter of supplies. Their goal’s to butter up the foresters. To make some friends before they start asking questions about Rodalf and his treasure. If they come on too strong or suggest they’re there hunting for treasure the foresters could claim for themselves, they’ll get kicked out of camp.

The goal’s been made completely, abundantly, and transparently clear. Make friends. Then ask questions.

Let me set the scene. It’s dusk when the party arrives at the camp after a long day dragging the supply litter along the winding, wooded trail. A path winds up a slight embankment to the riverside clearing where the foresters have built their camp. A dozen or so laborers are gathered beneath a large pavilion for supper while smoke rises from a nearby cook tent. A half-dozen, large, round, heavy tents surround the pavilion. And standing in the path, glowering at the approaching party is a suspicious camp guard named Einar.

All the party’s got to do is say they’re delivering supplies, hand over the merchant’s letter, drag the supplies to the supply master, and then join the camp. And I want to say the players handled it superbly. But I can’t. Because they’re players. So, the minute I stopped setting things up and said, “what do you do,” they decided to try for a land speed record at failing a campaign.

Rona makes a big show of how pissed off she is about dragging the supply litter most of the day. Her player’s really playing up just how much she hated being the party’s mule. She snaps at Einar and then snaps at the supply master, Dagmer, and refuses to drag the supplies another inch.

As you can imagine, that went over with the foresters like a fart in an elevator. Heward tried to smooth things over. He hefted a keg from the litter and said, “let’s not make these folk wait any longer for a drink.” Smooth and clever. It would have worked perfectly but for the fact that Heward was an antisocial loner with heavy social penalties. And he had a pet wolf.

This first impression was meant to be an easy win for the party. I can’t stress that enough. The foresters were going to be happy to get the supplies and greet the party warmly. But, you know, players. Rona — and her player — wouldn’t let up. The antisocial loner couldn’t smooth things over. And, ultimately, the camp’s foreman, Petra, had to intercede. She ushered the party away to the five-person tent she had to herself.

Iella and Rona were invited to share her tent. And Heward camped under the stars nearby.

And the adventure roared off to a start.

Rude Awakenings

Next morning starts with Heward returning to camp and seeing Petra outside her tent in conspiratorial conversation with Bendrik. A forester. Heward doesn’t interrupt and he can’t quite overhear the conversation, but he can tell they’re disagreeing about something. When Petra goes back into her tent, she begins loudly rooting through her possessions and cursing to herself. Which awakens Iella and Rona and draws their curiosity.

Turns out, Petra had been away from camp for a few days with her father and she’d just come back. And while she was gone, someone had stolen a locket from her things. Bendrik said he’d seen another forester, Olev, skulking around Petra’s tent and then sneaking away two nights past. That’s what prompted Petra to search her things. But she doesn’t believe Olev would have robbed her. She insists Olev is too nice and too dumb to be a thief. She doesn’t want to accuse him without knowing more.

Naturally, Iella and Rona take the bait and offer to investigate.

Soon thereafter, Petra’s approached by another forester claiming someone’s too sick to get up. Naturally, Heward — who knows a thing or two about treating injuries and illnesses — takes the bait and offers to check on the sick man. He diagnoses the man as having a lung infection — Rattlelung — and discovers he can help treat the illness. He just needs some forageables from the forest.

Well, Excuuuse Me Princess

At this point, the camp’s gathering for breakfast. The party joins them in the mess pavilion. And things go bad fast. See, the foresters are still sour on Rona. They’re calling her princess and sarcastically treating her like royalty. They think she’s lazy and full of herself, see? That she holds herself as better than them. Too good for an honest day’s work.

While Rona tries to smooth things over and even question Bendrik a bit about the locket story, it doesn’t go well. An argument breaks out. And Rona storms off.

This ain’t going great.

Iella fares better. First, she talks to Olev. Casually. Subtly. And discovers he is really very kind and also very simple. Not comically stupid. Just naïve and oblivious. Not a thief at all. But based on a few clues, Iella starts to put together a theory. She surmises Bendrik is attracted to Petra but sees Olev as competition for Petra’s affection. And she suspects Bendrik stole the locket and is trying to pin the crime on Olev. Of course, Bendrik doesn’t realize that Olev’s not romantically interested in Petra and Petra isn’t romantically interested in anyone. The two just get along really well.

Spoiler alert: Iella’s theory is a hundred percent correct.

Iella then wanders off on her own to think things through and meets an elderly coot named Birch. While he seems absent-minded and hard-of-hearing, he’s a retired forester and devoted to the Old Gods of the Forest. He knows he doesn’t have much time left and wishes he could make one last pilgrimage to a sacred site in the nearby forest before time claims him. Iella takes a liking to him and promises to help him.

Achilles in the Supply Tent

Meanwhile, Rona goes off to sulk. Seriously. She heads to the supply tent and tries to buy some mead off Dagmer to drown her woes and meanwhile pisses and moans about how everyone is mean to her and she doesn’t like it.

Dagmer’s not impressed. He won’t sell her camp supplies. But he suggests that Rona could earn a drink — and earn some respect too — by helping the foresters work. Maybe she can’t fell trees, but she could stoop and fetch as well as anyone. Dagmer’s sure Petra can find work for her for a day.

And when Rona warms — a little — to the idea, Dagmer suggests that if Rona’s going to work with the foresters, she could remind Kastar of a debt he owes Dagmer. Maybe get him to pay up.

Do You Have a Warrant?

The party reconvenes as the forestersz head off to their current worksite. They discuss the locket thing. Iella shares her theory and suggests the party find a way to search Bendrik’s possessions. At this point, they know who belongs to which tents. And with the foresters getting to work, the camp’s quiet. There’s few prying eyes. Thus the party hatches a plan. Rona and Iella will distract the prying eyes with chitchat while Heward and Graywind sneak into the tent Bendrik shares to look around.

It’s a good plan. But the dice aren’t kind. Beoric, the camp guard, spots Heward and Graywind. But with some quick thinking and lucky dicing, Heward wins Beoric over. He admits they’re investigating a theft for Petra — which Petra wanted kept quiet — and even suggests Beoric come along to ensure the party’s not up to any funny business.

In Bendrik’s cot, Heward finds Petra’s missing locket. Huzzah!

Let’s Split Up

It’s barely after breakfast and the party’s already got a victory. So now it’s down to how to spend the rest of the day. Heward wants to scrounge in the woods for medicinal herbs. And to forage in general. He wants to donate whatever he can to the camp. Iella wants to escort the old man to his sacred spot. Heward sends Graywind along with Iella and Birch. Meanwhile, Rona…

Rona just wants to tag along. She doesn’t want to work. She doesn’t want to shake people down for money. She doesn’t want to deal with the foresters. She’s just done. But Iella and Heward aren’t having it. They send her off to work.

And so it goes…

Heward forages. He finds the medicinal herbs he needs. And some fresh meat besides. And he has an encounter with a friendly-ish dryad too.

Iella escorts Birch to a place called Bone Hill. And she learns about Birch’s backstory and the terrible spirit of the forest known as the Lord of Bones. And then Birch reveals that he’s not planning to come back. That he intends to sacrifice himself to the forest spirits. And he does.

Oh, and Iella and Graywind fight off a bear.

Meanwhile, Rona…

Rona joins the foresters. She actually buddies up to a few of the laborers. She’s invited to try her hand — her feet anyway — at log rolling. She talks with Olev a bit and confirms what Iella had surmised. It’s all good. And she even tries to collect the debt. But Kastar can’t pay Dagmer back until Theor pays him back. Turns out, Theor lost some money to Kastar in a dice game and welshed on the bet. And suddenly Rona stops giving a s$&% about collecting the debt. She just wants to know how to get in on the regular, friendly dice games.

Still… by evening, things are looking up.

And Then There’s the Crit

The sick forester’s got his medicine, there’s some extra fresh meat in the cook tent, and the foresters had an extra back helping them out. So, everyone’s pretty jovial when the camp gathers for dinner. Except for Iella. She’s sad about Birch’s passing, which so far seems to have gone unnoticed by the rest of the camp.

Then, out come the dice. And Rona worms her way into the game. Because she wants to win some money.

Fun fact, in Savage Worlds, it is possible for a player character to critically fail literally any kind of die roll. And that’s what Rona decided to do. She decided to roll snake eyes on her Gambling test.

The game goes against her. And because she’s playing to win, she starts betting more aggressively, only to keep losing. She comes out way behind. But that’s just what happens with a normal failure on a Gambling test. You lose.

What about the crit? Well, while she’s betting aggressively and trying to win, she’s ruining a friendly game of dice between buddies. The foresters think she’s trying to clean them out. Take all their money. Fortunately, she sucks at it. But still, hackles rise, threats are made, a punch is thrown…

Cue the Boss Fight

…and then a booming voice cuts through the chaos and shuts everything down. Eirik, the camp’s leader, is back from… wherever he was. And he wants to know what the f$&% is going on. Who are the outsiders, why’s there a fistfight in his mess tent, and so on. He sends everyone to bed, takes a report from Petra, and then summons the party for a chat.

Eirik tallies up the party’s doings. He thanks Heward for treating the sick man and providing extra food. He reveals a letter Birch had left for him and thanks Iella for seeing to his final wishes. And he thanks Rona for a hard day’s work. He also chastises Rona for antagonizing his men and trying to cheat them out of their hard-earned coin.

Realizing the game’s up, the party comes clean. They explain why they’re there. And there’s a die roll.

After the die roll, Eirik explains that Rodalf deserted the camp. But he agrees to ask around and see if anyone knows where Rodalf came by his treasure. Eirik promises to share whatever he learns with the party. The party’s just got to give him a few days.

And then there’s a die roll.

And then I tell Iella’s player that Eirik’s being too accommodating for her tastes. And I suggest he might have an ulterior motive.

Iella quickly guesses that Eirik does indeed intend to interrogate his men. To find out where Rodalf found his treasure. And he probably really does mean to tell the party what he learns. After he sends some of his own men to check it out. And to claim anything they can.

Spoiler alert: Iella’s supposition is one hundred percent correct.

Then, Iella puts together a few things she got from Petra and Birch about Eirik’s relationship with the old man. That Birch used to own the camp. That he practically raised Eirik. And that Birch was concerned Eirik had lost his connection to the spirits and was too focused on chasing coin. And Iella pulls out all the stops. She uses that to call Eirik’s bluff and appeal to his better nature.

It’s all really well done.

And then there’s a die roll. A re-roll, really. And Eirik agrees to question his men and tell the party at once where the treasure came from. And the party offers a share of what they find for the good of the camp.

The end…

Part II: Angry’s Annotations

Recaps like this illustrate an important point. One GMs really struggle to remember. It’s that adventures always look a lot different from the inside.

Case in point: if you’d looked at my prep notes for this adventure — this half-an-adventure, really — if you’d looked at my notes, you’d have assumed it would have filled half a session of really boring-a$& play. Because my notes consisted of simple tasks and dice tests. S$&% like diagnose illness and forage for medicine and collect a debt.

Hell, I didn’t even spell out the mechanics. Because none of those tasks took more than a die roll. So, all I did was spell out the barebones facts. S$&% like this:

Kastar owes Dagmer $50 for mead and food. But he can’t pay until Theor makes good on a gambling debt for $60. Theor has the money but sneers at any attempt to collect the debt.

That’s it. I didn’t design any stealth encounters or interaction skill challenges. I just wrote down the problem and then left it up to the PCs to propose a solution. Which I adjudicated.

Mechanics don’t f$&%ing matter. GMs get too damned focused on how this scene or that encounter works mechanically. They forget their job is to describe situations as they are and then react to the players’ cunning plans and crazy capers. Only rarely should you ever have to work beyond the game’s core mechanics.

That said, there’s obviously an extra mechanic underlying all this s$&%. There’s a Reputation Challenge here, right? Which is something lots of people have asked me about. And f$&% me, but they’re going to be disappointed with how simple this s$&% actually is.

So, let me explain how I actually built this adventure…

Introducing: Savage Worlds

First, let me blow your f$&%ing mind. This adventure? It was a tutorial adventure. I was introducing new players to the Savage Worlds ruleset in advance of starting a new campaign. And that’s my standard operating SOP for introducing new systems. Run a tutorial one-shot adventure — two or three sessions long — with pre-generated characters so my players can take the system for a test drive. If it goes well, the adventure becomes a sort of prequel to the campaign.

My tutorial adventures almost always have two parts. First, there’s a bunch of simple tasks and challenges that show off the various game mechanics and get players used to playing by the rules. Second, there’s a semi-freeform dungeon crawl or exploration-based challenge. Something like that.

Does that s$&% sound familiar? If you played my introductory module Fall of Silverpine Watch, it should. That was a Standard Angry Tutorial Adventure.

The Anatomy of an Adventure

All that crap I recapped above? That was half the adventure. The tutorial half. Technically, it was a third. But don’t worry about that. Just know the adventure comprises two acts. Act I and Act II.

The adventure itself has a pretty simple setup. There’s an adventure site to explore. But it’s hidden. It’s got to be found. Act I is “find out where the adventure site is” and Act II is “plunder the f$&% out of it.” And Act I, in this case, is the tutorial part. A bunch of minor challenges that show off the basic mechanics.

Now, I didn’t want to do a Tutorial Gauntlet as I did in FoSW. And I wanted to include a bit more interaction. Because I was also trying to establish a setting and set up a campaign. And my players weren’t rank RPG newbies. This is why I went with Do a Bunch of Favors for the Townies.

An Act You Can Win

I’ve pissed and moaned a lot that D&D lacks the tools necessary to build what I call Macro-Challenges. Hell, there aren’t many RPGs — current or old — that have them. What are Macro-Challenges? Well, this adventure’s a good example. And it also demonstrates just how simple the necessary tools actually are.

The idea’s simple. Part of the adventure — say, an Act — has a goal. Something the players can accomplish or f$&% up. And all the individual encounter bits somehow add up to the players succeeding at the big goal. Or failing at it.

Take FosW. In Part C of that adventure, the heroes have to get a gate open. But there’s an angry — and powerful — ghost running around the titular fortress. If the heroes attack it outright, they’ll probably lose. Maybe they’ll get lucky, but probably they’ll get dead. If they explore the fortress thoroughly, though, they find a bunch of magic items they can use to fight the ghost. And they find a bunch of information they can use to talk the ghost out of existence.

That’s a Macro-Challenge. See?

That’s actually a really easy kind of Macro-Challenge to set up. It’s basically a Boss Fight Macro-Challenge. There’s a goal. There’s a major conflict in the way. The major conflict’s impossibly hard to resolve outright. But, by doing other s$&%, the players empower themselves to overcome the major conflict.

See how this s$&% comes together?

The foresters have information. That’s the goal. The foresters don’t want to share the information; they want to use it to enrich themselves. That’s the major conflict. At first, the foresters don’t like the PCs. Interacting with them is impossibly difficult. But if the PCs get the foresters to like them, the foresters will be more open to giving up the information.

Modeling this s$&% mechanically is actually super easy. It’s barely an inconvenience. Which is precisely what you want as a GM. Something easy to adjudicate and something that plays nice with the core rules. In fact, there’s two ways to handle this s$&% mechanically in both D&D and SW. I used the second way.

Basically, the heroes start with a huge penalty on social interactions with the foresters. So if they start digging for information — any information — they’re likely to fail. And once they start digging for information and everyone knows what they’re up to, they’ve got to succeed or get out because they won’t be welcome anymore. In other words, it’s a social boss fight.

So, the party started with a blanket -4 penalty on social interactions with the foresters. Which, in Savage Worlds is a pretty hefty penalty. Every good deed they did — every action they took to improve their reputation — earned them a +2. Every crappy thing they did — every action that hurt their reputation — earned them a -2.

Simply failing an assigned task, by the way, didn’t hurt their reputation. At least not in general.

Obviously, I had a preplanned list of little tasks and jobs the PCs could do to affect their Reputation. Each success gained them a +2. But the simplicity of it all meant I could adjudicate anything else the PCs did. For example, when Rona decided to act like a lazy, stuck-up a$&, that was worth a -2 Reputation. And when Heward decided to scrounge up extra forage while hunting for medicine and donate it to the cook, that extra bit of forage added +2 Reputation on top of the +2 Reputation for treating the sick dude. And when Rona bombed her gambling roll with a critical failure — and pissed everyone off — that was a -4 Reputation. Because critical failure.

Simple as that…

Sort of…

In Defense of the Bottleneck

Before I explain the rest of this s$&%, I want to address the idea of bottlenecking.

Act I had two outcomes, right? Either the players found out where the dungeon was and got to explore it or they didn’t and they didn’t. So the adventure’s continuation and ultimate success came down to one, single challenge. That is, when the players decided they were ready to pump the foresters for information, they’d have one shot before the camp turned against them. If they failed, they’d fail the adventure.

And I am totally cool with that. Well, mostly cool with that. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Technically, every adventure’s success hinges on a single encounter or die roll at some point. It’s all about where you draw the lines. I mean, the PCs can die in any fight. Which means the entire campaign is always hinging on the next encounter.

Look, if the party had stormed into the camp and Rona had made her little scene and then the players ignored the warnings and advice and started pumping people for info, they’d have failed. And that would have been entirely their own stupid faults. Success would have hinged on a single die roll, but that die roll was the culmination of the player’s choices. They decided to bank their success on a coin toss.

Likewise, if they’d been polite from the get-go and did absolutely everything they could to make friends, even if they failed a few tasks, they’d have had so many modifiers that success would have been practically a sure thing. They’d still have succeeded. And that would have been their fault too.

Most players end up somewhere between those extremes. And success and failure hinge on a mix of the luck of the dice and the players’ plans and choices.

That said… I didn’t want to design an adventure wherein the players could miss half the content unless they really, really f$&%ed up. Not in this particular case. But as part of an ongoing campaign where the players would have to live with the f$&% up? I totally would.

An Act You Can Lose

A Macro-Challenge isn’t just something the players can win. It’s also something they can lose. And you’ve got to design losing into it. As it stood, my Macro-Challenge had two outcomes. Either the party gets to explore the dungeon or they don’t. And if they don’t, the adventure’s over. They lose.

I wanted more outcomes though. It’s good design. So, I added a Partial Success outcome and a Recovery outcome. But then, I changed my mind. So, ultimately, I ended up with a Best Success, a Success, a Recovery, and a Failure.

What’s that s$%& mean?

First, let’s talk Partial Success. What would that look like? Well, maybe, the PCs would get the foresters to turn over the information, but there’d be some kind of delay. And the foresters would use that delay to investigate the site themselves. Plunder it. Maybe there’d be a race to the site. Or there’d be a confrontation at the site. Or there’d be a bunch of dead foresters at the site. Because it’s a stupid-dangerous dungeon and really, it’s no place for non-adventurers.

Now, let’s talk Recovery. A Recovery’s a chance to turn a Complete Failure into some kind of Lesser Failure. Or Marginal Success. And that’s the option Tolven gave the party at the start of the adventure. If the PCs couldn’t get the foresters to share the details, Tolven gave the PCs permission to lean on the foresters. As long as they didn’t hurt or kill anyone. Basically, intimidate the foresters. So, if the heroes failed to get information the nice way, they could be dicks. They’d get the information, but they’d hurt the League’s reputation and make some enemies. Maybe the foresters would follow them to the site for revenge.

And if they failed at being dicks, the foresters would kick their a$&es out. By force, if necessary.

Now, let’s talk about the Default Outcome. The Default Outcome’s the one you expect. The one that happens if the PCs handle s$&% right. You probably think the outcome where the PCs get the info with no complications or delay should be the Default Outcome, right? You and every other candy-a$&, pussy GM. But not Angry. Angry likes to make the players work for the Best Ending.

Ultimately, Act I had four outcomes.

• (Best Success) The party learns where the dungeon is and can go explore it without further trouble.
• (Default Success) The party learns where the dungeon is, but the foresters send some scouts ahead of the party to beat them to the treasure
• (Recovered Success) The foresters refuse to cooperate and the party bullies the information from them
• (Failure) The foresters refuse to help and kick the PCs out of their camp forever

How’d I determine the actual outcome? Mechanically? Well, I don’t want to tell you. Because SW has a mechanic that D&D doesn’t. And I used it. And then you’ll all piss and moan about how D&D doesn’t let you do cool s$&%. Except I totally could have done it in D&D too.

Here’s the deal. I didn’t need any special mechanics for the Recovery. That’s just the party dealing with a failure by taking a different action. Which I then just adjudicate. But the difference between success and extra success? Well, in Savage Worlds, you’ve got a degrees of success mechanic. And in D&D, you’ve got DCs. If the party succeeds against a DC 10, they get the Default Success. If they succeed with a 15 or better, they get the Best Success.

Odds and Ends

Now that you know how the trick was done, go back and reread the recap. Do you see the Background Sim chugging away? I’ll bet you do. But the players didn’t. Because I didn’t let them. I didn’t tell them how I was tracking things. I didn’t have them accrue Influence Tokens or some bulls$&% like that. Which, seriously, is something Savage Worlds recommends for complex social interactions. F$&% that hot garbage. It’s a little too in love with its f$&%ing cards and tokens.

All I did was present the situations as they were — using the Reputation modifier to guide the NPCs’ behaviors toward the PCs — and resolved the actions as they came.

But let me end with three minor points.

Point one: I had a problem player. Rona’s player was so wrapped up in portraying her greedy, drunken mercenary a$&hole that she was literally f$&%ing up the adventure. Not purposely. But it was happening. See, Rona’s player is still new to this RPG s$&%. And she’s still finding the balance between roleplaying and winning the game. So I was patient. I let her — and her fellow players — see how her actions were f$&%ing things up. And I let them react accordingly. And they adjusted. If they hadn’t, Rona’s player and I would have had a little sidebar conversation to clear s$&% up.

Point two: I did build a timer into the adventure. Mainly to make life easy for the players. They knew from early on they had two days at the forester’s camp. That’s how long it would take Dagmer to pack up the goods-in-trade for the return trip. Thus, the party didn’t have to rush into the interrogation phase. They could spend two days making friends and influencing others. And then drop the charade and start pumping the information well just before they said their goodbyes.

Actually, I secretly had another timer going. Because I wanted to make s$&% really easy. That’s why Eirik, the camp leader, returned at the end of dinner the night before the party left. He was always going to come back. He was always going to sit down, grade the party, and instigate the social boss fight.

Point three: the players did blindside me a few times and make me tweak the Background Sim. And the biggest blindside came at the very end. Eirik had graded them, the PCs had made their case, I’d rolled the appropriate check, and the players got the Default Success. So Eirik agreed to question his men about Rodalf’s treasure and pass along what he learned. But, secretly, he intended to send some men along to check out the information before he shared it with the PCs.

But I do s$&% by the rules. Eirik was bluffing. Bluffs involve opposed die rolls. And I flubbed the bluff. So Iella knew something was up. Hence my passing her the info I did. But instead of just walking away and telling her allies, “Eirik’s up to something; we need to watch our backs and be ready for a trick,” she figured out the whole f$&%ing plot. And then, she used all the crap she’d learned about his and Birch’s backstory — mostly s$%& I pulled out of my a$& to make the NPCs interesting and dynamic and human — to appeal her case.

So, I rerolled the initial success check with a modifier. And that pushed the party into the Best Success.

And that’s not something I ever could have planned. And definitely not something I could have pulled off if I’d weighed down my game with hefty rules and systems instead of just giving myself some lightweight adjudication tools and running the game as it came.

Do you hear what I’m saying?