# Playing Burden ## Players and shared storytelling Like other conventional tabletop roleplaying games, a group of four to six people play together. One of them, the **Guide**, is tasked with running the game. - Choosing and describing the events, challenges, and places the **Travellers** will encounter. - Acting out the lives and dialogues of people the **Travellers** will meet along the way. - And acting as the referee and final word on what happens in the story. The others, the **Players**, each embody a **Traveller**. A character who has set out to carry their **Burden** to the **Monument**. - Deciding and describing how their **Traveller** behaves in the events, challenges and places they go. - Acting out the life and dialogue of their **Traveller**. - Working with the other **Players** to understand the relationships between the **Travellers**. The **Guide** and the **Players** all work together to weave a compelling story. While the **Travellers** may have their differences, and the **Guide** may put treacherous obstacles in their path, the **Guide** and the **Players** are not competitors or adversaries, rather co-authors of a shared story where arguments and setbacks are the spice that will hopefully make their fellowship and accomplishments all the more flavourful. ## Campaign length The goal is in sight from the beginning, and when reached, the campaign ends. Burden is intended to be a fairly short experience, around four sessions, no more than six. Each session will be a small self-contained story, resolving most or all of the stakes and tension by the end, but leaving the party changed. If your player group would prefer to play a shorter or longer campaign, be forewarned that the mechanical balance might be off. When running a shorter campaign or a one-shot, the **Guide** will probably want to throw more difficult challenges at the group, and choose harsher outcomes for failure. On the other hand, when running a longer campaign, it might be wise for the **Guide** to weave in some "lucky breaks" for the **Travellers** and maybe even give them a chance to reset their **Hurt**. The first session of the campaign uses [special rules](/burden/session-zero). # The rules of Burden ## Creating a character Your **Traveller** has six **Core** stats, **Brawn**, **Grind**, **Poise**, **Oracle**, **Tremor**, and **Weave** Start with 2 in each of these, and distribute 12 points between them, with a maximum of 8 in any stat. Pick a **Modifier** to apply to one of your **Core** stats. The modifiers are: **Guarded**, **Cursed**, **Skilled**, **Forced**, **Reliable**, or **Fickle**. Your **Traveller** starts the game with 12 **Vitality** and 0 **Hurt**. ### Core stats **Core** stats represent the skills and abilities that your **Traveller** will rely on to make their way to the monument. **Brawn** represents the core strength and athleticism of your **Traveller**, their ability to run fast, climb high, move weights and break things. A **Traveller** with high **Brawn** can pull off incredible feats of physical prowess, win fights against wild beasts, and literally carry their allies out of danger. **Grind** represents the temerity, relentlessness, endurance, and sheer force of will of your **Traveller**, ability to resist pain & hunger, to push their mind and body through to the bitter end. A **Traveller** with high **Grind** can keep trekking despite broken bones, stand defiant in the face of threats, and help their allies resist the sweet temptation of abandon. **Poise** represents the mindfulness, wisdom, and wit of your **Traveller**. A **Traveller** with high **Poise** can outsmart opponents, recognise danger before anyone else, understand the subtle mechanisms of the world around them, and use their knowledge to navigate desperate situations. **Oracle** represents a strange connection your **Traveller** has to the spirits, higher powers, gods, or however else they explain their twists of fate. A **Traveller** with high **Oracle** can peek beyond the veil of the future, turn the odds in their favour, and benefit from supernatural protection. **Tremor** represents your **Traveller**'s attunement to the distortions of reality caused by the ending of the world. A **Traveller** with high **Tremor** can create minor rifts in the fabric of spacetime, disappear or move objects, phase through solid matter, and create pockets of frozen time. **Weave** represents your **Traveller**'s sensitivity to the energy fields that flow through themself and others. A **Traveller** with high **Weave** can sense and cure internal wounds, change the physical properties of their body, and manipulate the inner functions of life itself. ### Modifiers **Modifier**s are a way for you to personalise your **Traveller**. Pick one that will apply to one of your **Core** stats, changing the way your **Traveller** will rely on and manage that ability. A **Guarded** stat lessens the cost of failure, while making success more difficult. **Traveller**s with a **Guarded** stat have an aversion to loss, and accept a certain level of hardship as a compromise. A **Cursed** stat is remarkably powerful, but is fickle and dangerous. **Traveller**s with a **Cursed** stat can perform outstanding feats, but tend to hurt themselves doing so, or lose all confidence at the slightest provocation. A **Skilled** stat is precise and calculated, but overconfidence leads to grave mistakes. **Traveller**s with a **Skilled** stat are efficient, using no more energy than necessary to succeed, but when they miscalculate, they suffer grave consequences. A **Forced** stat can be pushed far beyond expectations, for a price. **Traveller**s with a **Forced** stat stop at nothing to achieve their goals, even if it means carrying permanent scars and letting a part of their soul die. A **Reliable** stat can be counted on when everything else fails. **Traveller**s with a **Reliable** stat can turn the tide, regaining momentum when everything seems lost. A **Fickle** stat can avoid the worst of fates, but rarely yields heroic outcomes. **Traveller**s with a **Fickle** stat escape the twists and turns of the shifting lands, by the skin of their teeth. ### Vitality and Hurt **Vitality** represents a **Traveller**'s current ability to continue on their journey. Wounds, hunger, poison, dehydration, and despair all cut into a **Traveller**'s **Vitality**. If their **Vitality** runs out, their journey is over. Perhaps they have succumbed to their wounds, or no longer have the health and energy they need to make another step. A **Traveller** can rest in a safe place with abundent food and drink to regain **Vitality**. **Hurt** represents the indelible trauma, both physical and mental, that a **Traveller** has accumulated. When resting, a **Traveller**'s **Hurt** prevents them from being able to fully recuperate. Perhaps their **Hurt** will dissipate in the years following our story, but for now, they have a journey to complete. ## Rolls During the game, some actions and moves a **Traveller** will make will be risky or challenging. In order to determine whether or not they are successful, the **Guide** will ask for a dice roll. The roll will have a specified **Difficulty** and a related **Core** stat. The **Guide** may also declare the roll to be **Critical**, which adds a layer of risk in the case of extreme results. #### Rolling To perform the roll, the player chooses how many points to spend from the related **Core** stat. Roll two six-faced dice, subtract **Difficulty**, and add the spent points. Spent points are removed from the stat pool. Finally, the player can spend any number of **Adversity Tokens** to increase or reduce their result. _**Important:**_ **Core** stats are spent *before* rolling the dice, and **Adversity Tokens** are spent *after* the dice are rolled (except if the stat has a **Modifier** that says otherwise. #### Interpreting the roll - 6 or less: **Failure** - A setback befalls you. - 7 - 9: **Partial success** - You succeed, but there is a cost or a setback. - 10 or more: **Success** - 13 or more, if the roll is **Critical**: **Blunder** You have acted over-zealously, you fail and will suffer unintended consequences. In the cases of **Failure** and **Blunder**, your **Traveller** learns from their mistakes: gain an **Adversity Token**. #### Using modifiers - **Guarded**: On a **Failure** roll, regain the spent points. A 12 is required for a full **Success**. **Blunder**s count as **Partial Success**. - **Cursed**: Spent points are worth double. On a **Failure**, lose all remaining points. On a **Blunder**, gain one **Hurt**. - **Skilled**: Spend points *after* rolling. All rolls are **Critical**, and no **Adversity Tokens** are awarded for **Failure**. - **Forced**: Spend up to 3 **Vitality** points, worth double, on the roll. - **Reliable**: When **Adversity Tokens** are awarded for any roll, instead gain 2 points in this stat, up to twice the maximum. - **Fickle**: Points cannot be spent to increase the result. Instead, spend points to roll again. You must keep the the newest roll. ## Resting When a **Traveller** finds themself in a safe place, with food, drink, and shelter, they will rest. Resting is a passive activity, a **Traveller** can continue to go on about their business, as long as they're out of harm's way and not overly exerting themself. Resting for a day or so allows the **Traveller** to regain lost **Core** stat points and some **Vitality**. 1. Regain any spent **Core** stat points. 2. Divide your missing **Vitality** by 2, rounded up. 3. If that number is greater than your **Hurt**, update **Hurt** to this new number. 4. Regain **Vitality** up to 12 minus **Hurt**. ### Short Rest When stranded in the shifting lands, it is sometimes possible to set up a temporary camp to recuperate. If a **Traveller** is able to find a pocket of safety for a few hours, they may take a **Short Rest**. 1. Regain up to **6** spent **Core** stat points. 2. Spend **Adversity Tokens** - Regain one **Vitality** and gain one **Hurt** for each token spent. - **Vitality** can not be increased beyond 12 minus **Hurt**. %YAML 1.2 --- title: Playing Burden status: unpublished tags: - burden sort-order: 1