This is a role-playing game inspired by the "Lookouts" setting created by Jerry Holkins and Mike Krahulik. This game is based on the FATE rpg system version 2.
Original text Copyright 2009 by Jon Rosebaugh.
This is version 1. Future versions may be found at http://mwditf.inklesspen.com/.
You may have played make-believe with your friends. This is like those make-believe games. You will invent a scout, and decide what he or she does in the forest. Together with your friends, you will find out how your scouts grow up to become Rangers of the Wood.
One way that this game differs from ordinary make-believe games is that you will use dice to help decide if you succeed or fail at tasks. Your scout will have skills in various things, like Plant Lore, Agility, or Hunting. Some scouts are better at some things than others. But sometimes circumstances make it easier or harder to do something. So your skill level will tell you how good you are most of the time, and the dice will tell you how good you are in these circumstances.
We use a system called "the ladder" to tell how good something is. There are descriptive words and numbers for each level:
So, your scout might be Great at Hunting, but only Fair at Agility, and that's okay! You can't be perfect at everything. We'll call Average the "default"; that means that if you didn't think to give a level for something, its level is Average.
The world is a dangerous place. Most of the world you know is covered by the Eyrewood, a magical forest that can grow so thick as to block out the sun. There are towns, scattered throughout the wood, wherever the forest does not grow too fiercely. You know the names of many of these towns, but have probably only been to a few of them. This is because the roads through the forest are perilous to travel. Children your age spend whatever spare time they have, after their chores, learning about the wood and how to live at peace with it.
You are a scout. All your friends are scouts, too; the Lookouts for the boys or the Daughters of the Eyrewood for the girls. Your task is to learn everything you need to know about the wood to be able to protect your families when you grow up. Learning about the wood is everyone's responsibility; "What men must know, a boy must learn."
You may prefer to say that both boys and girls are in the Lookouts. That's up to you; this is your story. This is the first example of what might be the most important rule in this game: If it makes the game more fun for everyone to ignore a rule, go ahead and ignore it. Just remember that 'fun' is not always the same thing as 'easy'.
The Lookouts and Daughters of the Eyrewood are led by Rangers. These Rangers help keep them safe as they explore the wood, but more importantly, the Ranger selects the lessons for the scouts to learn. The Ranger is guided by the weather and the conditions in the wood; it is unsafe to teach scouts how to make a fire when the forest is dry and hot in summer, and too difficult after heavy rains. If a herd of snowdeer wanders close to a snow-laden village, the Ranger might spot them and take the scouts out for a tracking lesson. In this way, the Ranger is the leader of the scouts, but he must remember to respect the desires of his troop; it does no good for the Ranger to make his scouts afraid or angry at the forest.
The Ranger will be one of you; his job is to come up with the adventures you will go on. He doesn't decide everything, though; you decide what your scout thinks and does, and you will help decide what your surroundings look like. It's a position that carries a bit of authority, but the Ranger should always remember that she can only lead as long as her scouts are willing to be led. You may like to trade off who gets to be the Ranger, or you may have one person who does it well. It's up to you.
Whenever possible, you should create your scouts as a group. You will need some paper and pencils to keep track of things, and vivid imaginations to think of things. We'll refer to the process of creating scouts as "character generation".
Character generation is divided into a series of "phases". If you are making rather young scouts, you might have three phases. Older scouts would have four or five phases. All your scouts should be roughly the same age and go through the same number of phases. A phase represents a period of your life, a year or more, in which you learned some interesting things.
There's nothing stopping you from using more phases. Remember that each phase means that time is going by and your scout is getting smarter and stronger. You might decide you want to have a game where everyone is a Ranger, adventuring together. In that case, each character might go through eight phases.
The first phase is a special phase. In this phase, you will decide as a group what kind of town you grew up in. Follow the directions for phases below, but everyone gets to start with the aspects and skills your group picks in this phase.
The first thing to do in a phase is to decide what you did during this period of time. (In the first phase, your group is deciding how you would describe your town.) You should pick things that would challenge you and give you experiences to learn from. Here's a few examples:
Feel free to work with the others to come up with something you did together.
An aspect is something really important about your character. It should be something that helps make your scout different from other scouts. It's okay if it's something that's not "good", like "I can't see very well without my glasses". You should take at least one aspect per phase, but you probably shouldn't take more than two. You can either take a new aspect or (if this is not the first phase) add a level to an aspect you've already taken. It's better to have more lower-level aspects instead of fewer higher-level ones, though.
You'll use, or "invoke", aspects during play to say "this is something that's important to my scout, so he's going to try extra hard to do well" or "this is something my scout doesn't have as much of a problem with as her friends might have".
At least one of the aspects you take should be related to what happened to you during the phase. Here's some examples, based on the sample stories from earlier.
Once you write an aspect down, draw a little box next to it. You'll put a checkmark or X in that box when you use that aspect. If you add a level to an aspect, just draw another box next to it. Another way to think of it is that an aspect with one level is Fair, an aspect with two levels is Good, and so on.
Remember above where we talked about invoking aspects? The Ranger can also invoke one of your aspects for you. For example, he might invoke Andy's "Friends with Old Man Hobart" aspect if another boy taunts Andy about spending time with an old man when he could be out playing. Andy would then need to decide if his friendship is really that important to him. He could stick with it, or he could go against it; we'll talk more about what kind of results you'd get from that decision in a bit.
All skills start out at Average. This means that, if you're fine with a certain skill being Average, you don't have to do anything else. You might want to be a little better than average at important things, though. During each Phase, you can raise the level of four skills. There is an important rule about raising a skill above Fair, though. We'll get to that in a bit.
The Ranger may restrict the number of levels you can take in any skill, if he or she thinks it's necessary to match your scout's actual experience level. The Ranger can also allow you to make up a new skill, if it's really important to your character.
When you raise a skill, it should somehow relate to the events of the phase, or to one of the aspects you took. If the Ranger doesn't think it's related, you should take another look. If the rest of your group says it's not related, well, maybe you really ought to think again.
When you raise a skill from Average to Fair, write it down on your sheet and put a checkmark or X after it. (Remember, skills you don't write down are Average, though you could write them all down at Average, and then put checkmarks on the ones you raise.) One checkmark means that a skill has been raised to Fair. Two checkmarks means it is Good, three means it is Great, and so on. (See the ladder description if you are unsure.)
In order to make sure your character is balanced, a special rule applies when you want to raise a skill above Fair. If you have a certain number of skills at a certain level, there must be the same number, plus one, at the next-lowest level, and so on down the ladder. Here is an example:
Tom is in the third phase, and over the past three phases, he has chosen the following skills:
In this example, Tom has two level 1 skills, two level 2 skills, and two level 3 skills. This won't work; if he wants to have two level 2 skills, he needs to have three level 1 skills. Likewise, he has too many level 3 skills, compared to the number of level 2 skills he has.
Here is a corrected example:
Note how following this rule has also given Tom the chance to pick two more skills.
This rule is called the "Pyramid Rule", because if you rearrange the skills so that the highest-level ones are in the middle, the checkmarks or X's look a little like a pyramid turned on its side:
There are a few different kinds of skills. Don't feel you have to take a skill level for everything your scout can do! Remember, any skill will default to Average if you don't take it. Here is a list of skills with descriptions of the sort of activities they cover. Some kinds of activities fall under more than one skill. Use whatever skill you want to when determining how good you are at that.
When everyone in your group has finished a phase, it's time to move on to the next one. This shouldn't take too long; if you're uncertain what to pick for an aspect or skill, pick the one that seems more likely to be interesting in an adventure.
Once everyone's completed all the phases, you're almost done with creating your scout. There's two things left to do. The Ranger will assign you a certain number of Fate Points. These are rare and important, so you should write them down on your sheet. (In general, the Ranger should give out a number of Fate Points equal to half the number of character generation phases, rounded up. So if you had three or four phases, you get two Fate Points. If you had five phases, you get three Fate Points.)
The last thing to do is come up with your scout's goal. This is a goal for the next several months of your scout's life, like "I want to climb to the top of Eagle Mountain" or "I want to impress my troop with my spooky campfire storytelling". Whatever you pick, this is one of the ways you tell the Ranger what's important to your scout.
In this game, whenever you're not sure if you can do something, we use the dice to help find out. You don't need to roll dice for something that you obviously can do, like tying your shoes or spotting a brightly-colored flag waving in the wind. If there's any doubt, though, you should roll.
We use dice with six sides. These are very common, so you probably already have some. You'll need four of them. Whenever you roll a die, there are three possible results. If it comes up 1 or 2, this is a minus result, or '-'. If it comes up 5 or 6, this is a plus result, or '+'. Dice that come up 3 or 4 are a blank result and can be ignored. Count up the number of plus results and subtract the number of minus results to get a number between -4 and 4.
You can buy special dice called "Fudge dice" that are labeled with minus and plus signs instead of numbers. This may be useful for younger players, but is not required.
For example, if you rolled four dice and got 1, 3, 4, and 5, that would be one minus result, two blank results, and one plus result, for a total of 0. (The minus and plus results canceled each other out.) Or, if you rolled 3, 3, 5, 6, that would be two blank results and two plus results, for a total of 2.
There are two kinds of 'tests' or 'checks' you can make. Static tests happen when your scout is acting in response to part of the environment. Static tests could also be used when interacting with background characters that aren't too important; the Ranger will make that distinction. Dynamic tests are used when you're comparing your skill to that of another scout or a dangerous creature. The Ranger will decide whether a given situation is static or dynamic.
When you make a static test, the Ranger will pick a relevant skill and set a difficulty. The difficulty will be a level on the ladder. You roll the dice, and then add your result to your skill level. If you get equal to or higher than the difficulty level, you succeed at the task. (Tie goes to the scout.) If you get lower than the difficulty level, you didn't succeed.
The Ranger should find a way to let scouts proceed with the adventure even if they fail some of the tests, because they will fail some of the tests. It's bound to happen; nobody succeeds all the time. A failure might mean the scouts end up in more danger, or they have to find another path, or something like that. But it should never mean the adventure is over.
Sometimes it's important to know how well you did. If you got a higher result than you needed to beat the difficulty level, we call that the Measure of Success. For instance, if you were testing against your Craft (Good) skill, and got a 2, you got a Superb result. The difficulty to make a raft sturdy enough for the rapids is Great, so you beat the difficulty level by 1. That means you have a Measure of Success of 1, or "MoS 1" for short. Getting a high Measure of Success means that you achieved a great or lasting outcome. When building a raft, perhaps the raft is sturdy enough to last for a long time, and the scouts can make use of it in the future. When attempting to persuade someone, a high Measure of Success could mean you spoke eloquently and fervently, and the person is convinced and will in turn convince others. The Ranger has the final say over what results from a high Measure of Success.
The Ranger could also choose to let the Measure of Success affect future tests related to this one. For example, a well-crafted raft might be easier to pilot, so you could record the MoS and apply it as a bonus to the pilot's Agility or Perception tests.
A dynamic test does not have a set difficulty. Instead, your opponent will make his own roll using his own skill. The Ranger will usually pick the same skill for both you and your opponent to roll with, but sometimes he might pick different ones. (If you're trying to stay hidden, your Agility might be pitted against your opponent's Perception, for instance.)
Whoever gets the higher result after adding his roll to his skill level is the winner. (If you want to calculate Measure of Success, treat the lower roll and skill result as the difficulty to be met.) If both of you get the same result, the test results in a tie and nobody wins. The Ranger may simply have you roll again, or she may tell you to make a new plan and try that, perhaps using a different skill.
Some kinds of tasks are more complex than a single test. A game of kickball might involve many tests of Movement, Agility, and Perception, while setting up camp in a dangerous part of the forest could require Plant Lore (will this kind of wood be good for the campfire?), Creature Lore (will wolves come upon the camp?), Academics (which way will the rain come from?), Survival, and others. These are called challenges.
Challenges usually apply when most or all of the scouts are working together on a project. It's important that these sorts of tasks have multiple tests, so all the scouts can contribute. But the Ranger should be careful not to assign too many tests; it's no fun to spend fifteen minutes rolling dice just to set up a camp.
The Ranger should find a way to let the Measure of Success speed up a challenge. The simplest way is to use the Measure of Success as a bonus on the next roll, but you can experiment with other ways. This lets scouts who are really good at something do it in a quick, disciplined, and orderly manner.
Earlier, you created aspects for your scout. These aspects are things that are really important to your scout. Sometimes your scout will face tests that are related to these aspects in some way. When that happens, if you're not happy with your roll, you can use, or "invoke", the aspect. When you do this, you put a checkmark in one of the boxes next to the aspect; when all the boxes are full, you can't invoke that aspect again for a while.
Invoking an aspect lets you do one of two things. You can pick the effect you want:
Either way, you can then go on to invoke other aspects, but you can't invoke the same aspect multiple times for a single test or challenge. (Generally, you should only invoke an aspect once for a given task.)
After some time has passed, at an appropriate break in the story, the Ranger will allow you to un-check your aspect boxes so they can be used again. Generally, you do this at the start of each session of play, but the Ranger might adjust that if needed.
The Ranger can also invoke one of your aspects in a situation. This doesn't use up one of the checkboxes, but it doesn't give you any bonus either. Instead, the Ranger is saying, "Hey, you say this is really important to your scout? Well, he should act like it's important!". When the Ranger invokes an aspect on you, you have to make a choice. If you decide to go along with the aspect, the Ranger will award you one Fate Point. But if you want to fight the aspect and overcome it, you have to pay one Fate Point back to the Ranger.
We've already discussed how Fate Points are used when the Ranger invokes one of your aspects. You can also use Fate Points for other purposes.
The Ranger can also choose to give out Fate Points at the end of each session. A typical award might be one point per scout. It's important for these points to be distributed fairly; everyone worked hard to earn them.
Some role-playing games focus heavily on combat and have a complicated system of "hit points". This is not one of those games. Danger in the Eyrewood is something you must escape using your skills, not weapons. You may have heard of someone who can wrestle a bear or outrun a wolf, but you certainly could never do those epic deeds. Instead, you take advantage of what you're good at: thinking, observing, making plans, and adapting quickly. These will be Tests and Challenges, like we talked about earlier.
Sometimes even a scout might get into a fistfight, but even then, he's not trying to kill the other person. He just wants to prove his bravery or achieve some other social goal. If you decide your scout is going to start fighting, the first thing to do is figure out what that social goal is. That will determine the aspects and skills involved in the fight.
It's usually best if two players' scouts don't fight directly. The game works better when everyone can win, instead of one person winning and another losing. If an argument gets physical, though, the Ranger can choose to allow it.
Remember before how we said a phase represents a period of time in your scout's life? Well, phases don't stop after the game gets going. Every so often, when the Ranger decides you've had a good amount of adventure, she'll declare that you just finished another phase. This means that you look back over what you did, and then add more aspects and skill ranks to your character record. The aspects and skills you pick should relate to the adventures you had, or to the goal you set for your scout. Remember to follow the Pyramid Rule when you add skill levels! If you decide you want to change your goal, either because you accomplished it, or because it's not important anymore, that's okay! Work with the Ranger to pick a new goal for your scout.
As you get used to the system for playing, the Ranger might allow you to add the skill levels over the course of the phase, one at a time. It's not important to follow the Pyramid Rule when you add skill levels one by one like this, as long as your skills meet the Rule at the end of the phase. This is a privilege, though, and the Ranger can take it away if you don't make an effort to follow the Pyramid Rule.
If your group decides to let some time go by in the world of the Eyrewood without actually playing out all the adventures, just treat it as a normal phase, including the step where you make up a little story about what you did during that phase.
You might decide that one of your aspects is no longer important to your scout. Maybe your scout's attitude changed, or maybe Old Man Hobart died. Whatever the reason, you should talk with the Ranger to agree on a new aspect to replace it.
This is the part of the game book where we talk about the Ranger's job. Leading the game is a bit different from playing in it, and the Ranger will have to make some decisions that regular players don't need to think about, so if you're only playing a scout, you don't need to read this part. There's no secrets in here, just tips to make the Ranger's life a little easier, so don't think we're hiding anything from you.
Remember, the purpose of this game is for all of you to have fun together. It's usually best when the scouts succeed at a difficult task and return triumphant to the town. It's okay if the scouts need to backtrack a bit, regroup, or come up with another plan, but outright failure almost always means the game isn't being fun anymore.
But it's also important that the stakes seem real when the scouts are facing tests and challenges. If a scout fails a test, it's perfectly fine for that to mean the scout can't do that thing, in that way, at that time. Instead, the scouts and the Ranger should work together to find a new way to accomplish their overall goal. A failed test or challenge could even mean the scouts and Ranger fall into even more peril, but that's the sort of thing adventures are made of! So whether you backtrack a little, or just take a different path to the same goal, you want to keep moving on the adventure. As long as things don't come to a standstill, you're probably okay.
Whenever one of the players wants to do something, he should probably get a chance to do it. Many things are simple enough that you can just say "Yes, you can do that". Other times you might want to use the game rules; have the scout make a test, or use aspects or fate points.
The exception to this rule is if the player wants to do something disruptive to the game, like hurt another scout or destroy important supplies. This is probably a sign that the player isn't very happy with the game, though, and it's something you'll need to address outside of the rules. Maybe you can change the sort of adventures you go on, or make some other small change, and the player will be happy again. But maybe the player will continue to be disruptive. In this case, letting the player have his way will make the game less fun for everyone else. If there will be no hard feelings, it's often easiest for the player to simply leave the game. This can be a very trying problem to deal with and there are no easy answers.
May We Die in the Forest: A Role-Playing Game of
Discovery and Adventure by Jon Rosebaugh is licensed under a Creative
Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States
License.
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mailto:jon@inklesspen.com.