Quiet Night “Gather round and let us tell the stories of the heroes of the previous world. Your parents, your uncles and in some cases, your older siblings. They fought and died so that we might live.” “Let us set the stage: Monsters poured from the darkness, literally killing sound as they went. We tried to sound the alarm, the bell moved but no sound came. Our shouts made us hoarse, but little else. The monsters came and destroyed the world that was. But we were not defeated yet. People banded together and learned to fight the monsters. And they may yet succeed in destroying all the monsters.” In “Quiet Night” you play as the children of heroes. Listening and pitching in to the tale woven by the village bard. The Bard leads the tales, the audience plays the parts of their forbearers. Each audience member has a total of 4 character, but you only play one at a time. How dice work Here is how you roll the dice: Use regular 6 sided dice, pips or numbers. A 4,5 or 6 is a success. A 1,2 or 3 is a fail. If you have any successes, your challenge was successful. Any successes rolled beyond the first is placed in the “endgame” dice cup at the center of the table. All dice rolls work this way, except the endgame roll. The endgame has a number of successes you must meet to survive, but otherwise works identically to other challenge rolls. The target number is “Number of players + number of tales told”. Structure of play The game is intended to be played as a campaign. That is a series of connected adventures, called stories, and has a beginning, middle and end. Start, the bard introduces the world and the setting. The audience sets up their first sets of characters. The Bard will also do a “check in” at the beginning of every session. The check in is to prepare players that touching and emotional subjects will come up during play. At any time any player can end a scene, that is too emotionally striking, by saying “fade to black”. Stories in the early part of the campaign should concentrate on escaping from the monsters or surviving in the new world of monsters. The midgame occurs when two players have expired 2 characters each. After the midgame the stories should be about defeating or understanding the monsters. The endgame happens when one player has 4 expired characters. The dice in the endgame cup are rolled. If the number of successes is equal to or greater than “players + stories told”. The bard tells the tale of how the last monsters were defeated and the gate closed. If the roll is unsuccessful monsters sweep over the camp of the story tellers, destroying the last group of surviving humans. Role of the Bard The role of the bard is to keep the story rolling and set up the challenges. Challenges should be important, but not every challenge should be potentially lethal. The number of challenges in a story will be equal to the (number of players x2) +(story number/2). Take that number and divide by 3. One third of the challenges should be minor, one third should be important and one third should be lethal. If the challenges do not divide into three evenly the first remainder should go to important and the second remainder to lethal. The gist of the story only succeeds if most of the important challenges are successes. If the majority of the minor challenges are successes each audience member gets a bonus die to use in the next story. And obviously lethal challenges will potentially kill character. If the characters succeed at the goal of the story add a 2 dice to the end game cup. The Bard should also try to make sure everyone is involved with the story Encourage creativity Encourage the use of fading to black Character Creation Characters are very simple to create. Each of an audience members 4 characters has a name, description, relation, 3 skills and up to 3 potential problems. Name: just like it sounds, the character’s name Relation: how is this character related to the audience member. Parent, sibling, aunt etc Description: a short description that explains the character “he’s the bald tattooed guy who always rides his bike” “she’s the very tall woman who always wears fatigues” 3 skills: pick three skills that help the character survive. These are mostly used as seeds to the narrative. They help you figure out how the character will try to save the day. Problems: During play you will describe potential problems to get bonus dice. These problems will be triggered to turn failed rolls into successes. If you have three problems you may recind one to select another. When you do this you return a die and then get to take another. This means you can shift 1 die from one attribute to another. If you have no more “clever” dice, you can change up your list of potential problems to shift one die from another attribute. (this isn’t the time he broke his leg, this is the time he developed a fear of heights.) MAIN phase Each story will have a number of conflicts equal to twice the number of players(tracked by the bard). The last conflict is always whether the spotlight character will survive. Each story has a spotlight character, the person or persons the story is mostly about. When play starts each audience member collects 6 dice to distribute for their character. The three stats are “power”, “clever” and “help”. 3 dice go on any one of the three, 2 dice on a second and 1 die on the remaining. Each audience member can highlight up to three problems at a time. When a problem is highlighted, you get a die to add where you see fit. When you fail a conflict one of the problems is triggered. If you have no problems, you character dies (you do not get the bonus dice for sacrifice) Helping You may use a help die to help a character in any conflict. You can help power or clever challenges. Only one character can help and they can only give one die. During play if a conflict is going to fail a charcter may step forward and sacrifice themselves. They roll 3 dice + applicable stat and you may help them. Every success rolled goes into the endgame cup. Since the monsters kill sound one of the common problems is communication. When near monsters, every time a player wants another character to do something or work together they must roll a clever challenge to succeed in communicating. If you fail at a challenge you may roll the other challenge to “get out of trouble” (that is to say, if you fail clever you or another player may save the day with a power roll.) And/or you may trigger your problem. If you trigger a problem, you succeed but suffer the effects of the problem. Problems have a narrative effect but also each challenge you roll you must remove one success roll before you determine success. Just One die, even if you have two problems triggered. One problem will be removed between each story from your slate of 4 characters. So if you have a character with two problems they can sit out for two stories and come back intact. Every time a problem is triggered add a die to the endgame cup. This remove one success does not apply to self sacrifice rolls. Yes, and… IN the couse of play people will suggest things that happened. Typically players will respond “yes, that happened, heres what else happened…” At your discretion you may say “no” to a detail supplied by another player or the bard. However, when you say “no” you character drops from the scene until the bard resets. You cannot participate in challenges, sacrifice yourself or help. The nature of the monsters - The monsters came through one portal into our world - That portal may be closed somehow. - They look like the stuff of nightmares - They can be killed, but they are either very tough or have specific weaknesses. - Sound is eliminated near them, increasing in silence with proximity - Find out everything else in play Examples of skills -making technology work -tracking monsters -finding food -purifying water -hiding people from monsters -building things from wood Examples of problems -broke her arm -got poison Ivy -sprained her ankle -was bitten by a monster -grew an extra arm. An evil arm. Example of play: Bard: This is the story of how our village was menaced by the monster of the red eyes(saying what the story was about, but keeping success or failure unknown). Does anyone remember who was involved in this tale? Audience 1: My mother Kaela Audience 2: My oldest sister Emily Audience 3: My grandfather Tim Bard: Correct, remember it was Kaela who this tale was about (selecting the spotlight character). (the audience member can now chime in with some details) A1: This was the time my mother was shot with that arrow (getting a die and writing down the potential problem) A2: Didn’t Tim ride around on that donkey all the time A3: He sure did (yes, and…) the donkey was named Bucephalus and my grandpa used to call him ‘His valiant steed’ (alternatively A3 could have said “no that’s stupid” and been out of play till the next scene) Bard: Do you remember where Kaela was? A1: She was out at the old quarry… A3: …looking for mushrooms… A1:…right, she was always looking for mushrooms. Bard: when did she realize she was not alone? A1: It was getting towards dark when she felt a presense. A2: woah, wouldnet it bee coolif the monster can only be seen as a reflection? A3: stay in character. A2: shoot, sorry. I mean I remember that the many eyed… Bard: …red eyed… A2:…red eyed monster could not be directly seen. It could only be seen as a reflection.” A1: that’s cool Bard: Ok, so how did Kaela first see the red eyed monster? A1: she was looking at a pool of water and saw it standing next to her. Bard: (does not want to have a lethal conflict because that could ruin the story) so the challenge was to eveade the monster, and get back to the forest where Tim and Emily were. How did she do that? A1: she was carrying a basket of mushrooms so she used the water to line up the basket and hit the monster. That’s a power challenge. A2: can I help? Bard: you can always help with a challenge. But how do you do so in the fiction?