Bag Pulling Game (BPG)

Introduction

Think of the fight scene in Balin's Tomb, in the movie The Fellowship of the Ring. "They've got a cave troll." Samwise defends himself with his frying pan. Frodo dodges around columns, just trying to keep himself (and the Ring) out of the cave troll's reach. The great wizard Gandalf is reduced to fending off orcs with his sword. Only the fighters rack up any sort of body count. Later, Merry and Pippin leap onto the cave troll's back, doing little damage with their daggers, but enabling Legolas to shoot an arrow down its throat, killing it.

Each hero contributes according to their own abilities. Some fight, some distract, some protect the McGuffin... Different sorts of conflicts (physical, social, skill challenges) spotlight different heroes, while the others find ways (effective or comedic) to support the spotlighted characters.
The purpose of this system is to encourage a wide variety of actions during a conflict. Characters really shine when they work together while playing to their own strengths. It assumes the "standard" GM-player setup. The examples assume heroic fantasy, but the system is designed for any genre.
 
Characters
Each character has from one to three (1-3) Gifts, from three to five (3-5) Skills, a Goal and Baggage. A player may have as many or as few Gifts and Skills as they like, within the minimums and maximums above. 

All of these are free form in nature. A Gift is a word or phrase representing one of the most important and iconic abilities or strengths of the character. These can include things like acrobat, full plate and packing steel, blind fighter, silent but deadly, magical training, in touch with nature, sorcerous pact, beast form, berserker, half elf or famed explorer.

A Skill is also a word or phrase, representing an important talent or learned ability that it is reasonable for the character to have and often relates to their class or profession. These can include things like dancing, linguistics, or swordplay, lock picking, pyromancy, necromancy, treasure seeking or lore.

If a particular ability is reflected in a Gift, it does not have to be represented as a Skill as well. For example, if someone has a Gift called Troubadour, one shouldn't feel the need to have a Skill called singing, though it is also OK to double up in that fashion if  one wants. 

Baggage is a flaw, code of honour, fear, obsession, stubborn misapprehension, or other personal disadvantage, such as afraid of undead, blind, doesn’t speak common, or peg leg.

A Goal is something that could be achieved in the current scenario. It's OK to use a Goal to drive play in interesting or new direction, including introducing new facts or people. Example Goals are things like "Prove I'm the firstborn bastard child of the King" or "Win the Autumn Festival Dance Competition."

During character generation, the players should working together to create interesting overlaps with their Baggage and Goals, and perhaps even small conflicts of interest. The GM should design or modify the scenario to reflect these.

Below are several sample characters. Again, these examples are for heroic fantasy, but one could choose different Gifts, Skills, Baggage and Goals appropriate to a different genre, as befits the setting.

Thelma (Burglar)
Gifts: Street Thief, Sneaky, Second Story Woman
Skills: Eavesdrop, Acrobatics, Ambush, Conceal
Baggage: Doesn't trust elves.
Goal: Steal the jade idol.

Frank (Warrior)
Gifts: Love of Battle, Flashing blades
Skills: Intimidation, Running, Feat of Strength, Battlefield Tactics
Baggage: Diplomacy is for the weak
Goal: Take over this caravan.

Wanda (Wizard, Half-Elf)
Strength: Wizard of the Red Order, scholar
Skills: Research, Decipher, Arcane Lore, Heraldry
Baggage: Fear of spiders.
Goal: Revenge upon Dr. Korzu!

Carillion (Con Artist)
Gifts: Excellent Liar, Charismatic, Negotiator
Skills: Scam, Flirt, Disguise, Read a Situation, Distract
Baggage: Ultra-competitive.
Goal: Prove that I didn't kill Aurelius.

Hadrian (Holy Man)
Gifts: Cleric of the Golden God, Blessed
Skills: Preach, Courtly Speech, Divine Lore
Baggage: Sheltered upbringing
Goal: See the elves' hidden domain.

Conflict Resolution

Each player has a bag which contains 5 failure tokens, 10 success tokens and 5 wound tokens.  
These tokens should be indistinguishable from each other by touch so that the players can’t know which they are drawing from the bag.  Different colored beads or stones work well.  

When a player tries to overcome a conflict they draw a number of tokens from their bag while narrating what their character is attempting to do..  This number is five minus the number of skills or gifts that would help them overcome that situation.  The player may never reduce this number below one.  Drawn tokens are placed in a discard pile in front of the player.  This action must be something the player can conceivably do, but might fail at.  If the action would be trivially easy then the conflict may be assumed to be successful.  what is difficult or trivial may be diferent for diferent characters.  A rope bridge is nothing to an elven ranger, but might be treacherous to a fully armored half-ogre

If they draw any failure tokens then the GM may narrate the result.  The action may succeed or fail but the players are worse off somehow.  

Additionally the GM may take one of the following failure actions:
1.	Force a player to return all of the failure tokens from their discard pile to their bag.
2.	Force a player to remove all of the wound tokens from their discard pile to a separate damage pile.  These will not be returned to the bag unless the character is healed somehow.
3.	Invoke a player’s baggage in the fiction.  effectively gaining narrative control over them for a brief scene as they show the worse part of themselves.
4.	Add between 1 and 3 curse tokens to a player’s bag or split between multiple players.
Note: this action does not have to be targeted at the player that failed the roll.  It might be that their failure has put an alley in danger.

If no failure tokens are drawn then the action succeeds and the player narrates what happens.

A curse token is treated like a failure token when drawn but is not placed in the discard pile.  It is returned to the DM instead. Similarly a Power token is treated like a success token when drawn but is not placed in the discard pile.  The GM or a magical artifact or effect may give the player one or more curse or power tokens throughout the game.  

Wound tokens are treated like success tokens but can be removed from the character’s discard pile to represent damage.  If the character ever loses all of their wound tokens then they die.  A character may attempt a healing action or use an item to return a player’s wound tokens to their bag.  They must generally chose if this return is from the discard pile or the damage pile. 

If the player ever needs to draw from an empty bag they must refill it with their entire discard pile.  This does not include wound tokens that have been separated out into the damage pile.  Players may also return their discard pile to the bag by having their characters rest for several hours.

If a player wishes to attack or interfere with another player they may attempt the action as normal.  on a success they may chose one of the GM’s failure moves and apply it to their target.  

Players may also assist another player in an action if they have a skill or gift that would help.  The required number of tokens is calculated as normal by the first player's skills and gifts, the assisting player’s skills and gifts are not counted.  the players may split the tokens drawn however they see fit as long as both draw at least one.  the action fails if either draws a failure.  otherwise it succeeds as normal. The DM only gets one failure option if the test fails.

When the characters attack an NPC the GM decides if it is the sort of creature that dies in one good hit and thus only needs one successful player action to defeat.  Otherwise the successful attack hurts but doesn't quite kill the enemy.  Remember that some creatures may not be vulnerable to normal attacks so a player may need to find a different approach.  if the 3 pound halfling wizard strikes a stone giant with a piece of fluffy string, the GM doesn't even need a token draw to see what happens.

Items, effects and monsters:
Many mundane items like armor and lock picks are better represented as skills in this system.  Gold and treasure may be recorded on the character sheet or a separate index card.  magic items or noteworthy equipment should be written down on their own index cards and can give a player more narrative options, additional skills or a mechanical advantage.  For example, boots of flight may not mechanically benefit any specific conflict but their owner can simply narrate flying to the top of a tower while someone else must draw from their bag to see if they successfully make the climb.  A flaming sword might have the “Fire” tag that the player may use as a skill to reduce the number of tokens required to damage a rampaging troll.  Finally an item might add or remove tokens from the bag, discard pile or damage pile.  These tokens might be a one time deal or they might be added whenever a specific situation occurs.  If the item has a specified number of uses then it is destroyed when they are all used up.  some items might add a free success to a specific type of conflict.  this may never reduce the required number of drawn tokens below one.  Spells, effects and monster abilities can be represented in a similar way.

Example Items and Effects:

Sword of the sacred Flame 
●	Holy fire
●	add 3 power to your bag when beginning an encounter with an undead enemy.

Health potion 
●	(1 use) return up to 3 wound tokens from the discard or damage pile to the bag.

Bandage
●	(3 uses) return one wound token from the discard pile to the bag.

Shield of the Mountain (dwarf size)
●	counts as one success when defending a fortified position
	
Arrow of Dragon Seeking
●	once per day can be used to point in the direction of the nearest dragon
●	(5 uses) add 1 power token when fighting a dragon

Snake fang Dagger
	*poison
	*counts as one success when used against an unsuspecting or defenseless target
	*fanged hilt: immediately move wound tokens from the discard pile to the damage pile when you first grip the dagger 

Belt of Binding
●	when the belt is first worn, a command suddenly fills your mind.  The GM will describe it
●	add 5 curse tokens to your bag whenever you disobey the command
●	add 1 power token to your bag when directly pursuing the command
●	the belt cannot be removed by mundane means but falls off if the command is accomplished.

Spike trap
●	if triggered move wound tokens from the affected player’s discard pile to the damage pile. 
●	if the player has no wound tokens then add a curse token to their bag

Acidic fog
●	move wound tokens from the affected player’s discard pile to the damage pile or destroy one of their items.

Rust monster
●	if a character fails an action against the rust monster or allows it to attack them the DM may choose to destroy one of their metal items instead of the normal failure penalty.

Madusa
●	The medusa's gaze can petrify its victims.  If they do not succeed at avoiding or resisting it then they are stuck in place and cannot move a muscle until the medusa is defeated or someone snaps them out of it.

Troll
●	The Troll is a large and fearsome opponent.  only the strongest fighters can hope to compete with it by themselves.
●	A troll is never permanently killed unless it is finished off by a fire or acid based attack.

Character advancement
At the end of the session each character may add a wound token to their bag if they completed their goal or spent a large part of the session dealing with their baggage.

Initiative / order of play:
who acts when is entirely up to the DM but should reflect the situation and abilities of the characters.  The fighter with the flashing scimitars should probably be the first to act in most combat.  A sneaky monster or trap may get the jump on the party unless they have a highly skilled burglar.  similarly, when confronted with a scroll or a magical apparatus, the wizard should probably take the first crack at deciphering it.

DM versus players:
The DM’s job is not to kill or defeat the players.  all though he has many mechanical means of punishing the players it's also his job to reward them for being awesome adventures.  While the DM should be “rooting” for the players it's also his job to make the world dangerous and keep them on their toes.  if the situation calls for it then a character might die.  This can and should happen in an adventure setting but it is by no means the DM’s win condition.   

Example of play

DM: as you enter the cave your eyes take a moment to adjust to the darkness.  with a yell you are suddenly confronted with a troupe of three slimy shark toothed creatures.  Frank, you recognise these as goblins which commonly attack caravans.  All three toss their spears at you, how do your react?

Frank:  With a toothy grin and lightning speed I draw my blades and hack the shoddy spears from the air.
Frank uses his love of battle and flashing blades gifts to reduce his draw to 3 tokens.  he pulls out 2 success and a wound.  The test passes
Frank:  Alright, Who wants some.

DM:  Very nice, the goblins look a little shaken but they draw crude stone knives.  Are you attacking them?

Frank:  Yes  I will try to take two out at once before they can gain any momentum.
Frank adds battlefield tactics to his gifts to reduce his draw to 2.  he draws another wound and a failure.

DM:  Looks like they were not as shaken up as you thought.  as you attack they split off in all directions and you are flanked.  you kill one but the other slips through your guard and buries his dagger in your leg.  move the two wounds in your discard pile to the damage pile.

Frank: OW!, nasty buggers!

DM: Thelma, you have walked into a goblin ambush and your fighter friend is being swarmed,  what do you do?

Thelma: Frank can handle three goblins but there might be more,  this smells like an ambush.  I melt into the shadows and try to determine what is going on.

DM: The cave is dark and full of rock formations.  with attention focused on the fighter you don't need to test to go into hiding.  We will get back to you in a moment after you have scoped out the cave.  Wanda what is your wizard doing?

Wanda:  while mumbling in an otherworldly language I cast a scorching beam of flame from my finger to strike down the third goblin.
Wanda uses Wizard of the red order to reduce her draw to 4  she draws two failure and two success.

DM:  Your beam misses the goblin as it leaps behind a pile of rocks.  as it zips down the tunnel it illuminates a passage filled with spiderwebs and you see the glow reflected from several groups of giant spider eyes.  I’m invoking your fear of spiders.  you cannot help your friends or focus on anything but the spiders coming to get you. Thelma, you see this and spot a fourth goblin hiding in the back.  he is dressed strangely in what looks like bug parts and cobwebs.  He puts a flute made from a large hollowed out spider leg to his lips and is about to start playing.  What do you do?

Thelma:  I am guessing that he is about to summon the spiders.  I toss one of my trusty throwing daggers from the shadows at his throat before he can start.
Thelma uses sneaky, ambush and conceal to reduce her draw to two.  she draws two success.

DM: Thats one dead goblin flutist.  Frank, How are you handling those two goblins.

Frank:  I put my back up to the wall and try to hack one of them in half.
Franks draw is still two.  this time he draws two success
Frank: only one left!

DM: Wanda, those spiders are still looking at you from the darkness.  you can hear them rustling and any moment they are going to come out to get you.  How do you stop this?

Wanda:  I’m bringing down that part of the cave.  I lift my glowing hands and beams of pure energy slice up the roof of that passageway.  Die! Die! Die Forever you nasty crawly monsters!

DM: Very cool and very dangerous.  Go ahead and add your baggage to this draw as a skill.
Wanda’s draw is now 3.  she draws 2 success and 1 failure.  
DM:  The roof comes down and that passage is sealed but the whole cave shakes and fills with dust.  you all take 1 curse token as you hear the last goblin run deeper into the cave yelling.  he probably has more friends down there and probably more spiders.  Speaking of, Wanda, you snap out of it and can act normal again.  Do you all want to proceed down the cave? wait for the dust to clear? or run away?
Thelma:  I want to search their corpse.  did that flute survive?

DM: sure did!
The DM passes Thelma a notecard with the name “Web Dancer Flute” and the abilities: “Spider friend” and “attract spiders”.

Wanda: Never play that!

Frank:  I would  like to take a moment to bind up my leg.

DM sure, use one of your bandages and recover a wound token from the damage pile.  Also on the goblin leader’s body you find a parchment covered in what looks like sort of like elvish script.  Wanda immediately recognises the symbol of her red order on it.

Wanda: I will decipher it.
Using wizard of the red order, scholar, Research, Decipher and arcane Lore, wanda can reduce this draw to zero but must draw at least one token.  she draws a success.

DM:  Its a note in the Drow language which is very similar to your own tongue.  Aparently the spiders and the equipment to control them were given to these goblins so that they could attack your order to recover an artifact.  You can't figure out what the artifact is from this note but maybe there are more clues deeper down.