Reckless: Fairy Tale

Reckless: Fairy Tale

In her tower, out the window she stared across the plain of thorns to the mist shrouded forest on the other side. Amongst the thorns a glint of bone. Her father frowned. The horns blared and almost as if at the command of the trumpets the morning mist lifted. She sighed.

She was bored. Ennui had, like the morning mist, descended, but could not be blown clear with trumpets. The leaden dullness of 18 years locked in her room, on this, her 18th birthday, smothered her like a dusty blanket. She could feel the throbbing of a headache starting. She turned and went back to her bed. She sought sleep. The king shrugged sadly and quietly left, aching from his years and her sorrow.

He threaded his way down the tower stairs, his kingly robes flowing behind. A corpulent purple slug is how he imagined himself. His subjects thought well of him, and would have been shocked at his own mental image.

He dragged his robes up the steps and turned around so he could back up slowly to collapse into the throne. His crown fell off with the sudden movement, pricking his left leg with a prong. He swore. His jester waddled over and picked it up to place it upside down on his own head. The king's lips twitched, and he playfully swatted at his old friend with his sceptre. And then he sighed.

She is bored, to the point of death he said.

Fairy Tale is a role-playing game where players travel a strange and dangerous world to collect stories for a Princess locked in a cursed tower.

There is a win condition, but only because it is expected of board games, and this is also a board game. Be the first to travel around the board to the tower in space 14. It isn’t much of a win condition though (this is isn’t much of a board game), more of a letting-you-know-the-game-is-finished condition.

It borrows some ideas from Barons of Braunstein, a role-playing game put out by Olde House Rules, mainly the roll 2 d6 over a difficulty level, and using Luck points to increase the chance of success. Check them out here: http://www.oldehouserules.com/

Create your Character

Imagine a character, one you want to play. Picture them in your head. Or not. Give them a name, write it down on a scrap of paper. That is your character, and their sheet.

But not quite.

Roll 2 d6 (two six sided dice), keep the highest result and write it down on your character sheet next to the word Luck. That is your luck. If you roll two ones fate has not been kind, your luck is one. Deal with it.

You also have 3 points to spend on skills. You get to come up with the skills, or you can choose them from the list. If you make up the skills, remember, skills are to be specific and not broad. For example, the skill of Lockpick is specific, the skill of Thief is broad. You can spend more than 1 point on a skill. Each point allocated to a skill gives you that as a bonus when rolling for actions associated with that skill. So if you have 2 points on Lockpick, you get to add 2 to any rolls where you use the skill of Lockpicking. For each skill you have you can have an appropriate item of equipment. So for Fencing your character would probably start with a rapier. Equipment doesn’t give much mechanical advantage, just the ability to perform actions. It is hard to use your skill of knot tying without a rope.

Skill Suggestions

• Acrobatics
• Archery
• Athletics
• Blacksmith
• Bludgeon/Smashing Weapons
• Brawling/Boxing
• Climbing
• Cook
• Dodge
• Fencing/Sword fighting
• Hunting
• Juggle
• Magic*
• Pick Lock
• Pick Pocket
• Play instrument
• Polearms
• Ride Horse
• Rope/Whip skill
• Sing
• Sneaking
• Strength
• Throwing

*Magic as a skill requires the player has access to a physical dictionary, thesaurus, or some online random word generator. When casting a spell the player randomly selects an amount of words equal to the amount of points allocated to the skill. The player must use those words to describe what spell they are casting, and then roll to see if they succeed at casting the spell. If they fail it can either be a straight forward fizzle, or the DM may describe the backlash of the spell, the group will need to decide which option, and stick to that for the rest of the game.

  

How to Play

You have your character and you are itching to play, so let’s make this quick.

Place your token, or mark it with a pencil, on the board on the space numbered 1. That space has an Inn depicted. A large one, the size of a village.

Turn Order

1) Everyone rolls a d6 to decide the starting player, highest wins. Each player’s turn follows in clockwise direction and continues in this way till the game ends.

From now on…

2) Each player but the player whose turn it is (from now on referred to as the player) rolls a d6. The player with the highest result is the DM or referee (from now on referred to as the DM) for that turn.

3) The player rolls 1 d6 and adds that result to their current luck score.

4) The player may move along the track, at the cost of 1 luck per space. They may travel as far as their luck score allows. The space they end in is where the encounter happens. It is wise to remember, a point spent in luck for traveling will be a point the player can’t spend on rolls during during encounter.

5) The DM, noticing where they have landed, will roll in the die drop tray. Where the dice have landed will give the DM the ingredients with which they can build the encounter and describe it to the player. It is best practice to describe an encounter where the player only needs to roll once.

6) The player responds to the encounter, the results of which are decided by dice rolls and the DM. Rewards or consequences are given.

7) Play now moves to the next player, and steps 2 to 6 are repeated.

Some quick edits
-the difficulty score they have to roll over is 9
-roll two dice in the encounter tray, this gives you more options to create an encounter
-the one skill role per encounter is not a hard and fast rule. Don't be a jerk and make players roll a multiple of times, knowing that they will eventually fail.