![[Game Master Guide Header.png]] # 1 Game Master Guide # 2 The Role of the Game Master Your role as GM is to run an adventure and act as a referee for the players. The latter means that you should have a good grasp of the rules. Since there are many different types of adventures, running one is not always the same. You may want to create your own adventure before the game session or read a premade adventure. Depending on the style of the adventures and your preferred style of GMing, the death of a PC (and introduction of backup characters) may be a common occurrence or almost never happen. Running an adventure usually includes some amount of preparation, an introduction, a presentation of options and challenges and improvisation. Everything else is up to the players, their imagination, decisions and dice rolls. When an ability check is made, you are there to narrate the consequences. As a GM, you should also let your players tell you what their characters are all about. You may choose to include their backstories into the adventures to foster their interest. # 3 Crafting Adventures and Campaigns An adventure is a series of challenges as part of a story that takes between one to three game sessions. A campaign on the other hand takes much longer to finish (if ever). It is a series of adventures that may be part of a larger narrative. With the longer timeframe, a campaign has more room for character development and plot devices like recurring villains. To fit the limited timeframe of an adventure, the PCs should already be familiar with each other. If getting acquainted (and maybe keeping secrets) is an integral part of the story, it is important to give the PCs a motivation to go on a quest together. In any case, an adventure should start with a bang - an event that the characters can partake in and discuss. This could be a fight or a message being delivered to the PCs. ## 3.1 Goal The goal of an adventure is always the same - that all participants have fun playing it. When you design an adventure and already know your players, you should talk to them and take their preferences into account. For some, roleplaying challenges are more important than combat, others may look for puzzles to solve or to defeat the most dangerous creatures or are invested into political intrigue. If it turns out that the group wants to take a different approach or follow another emerging story thread during the game, you may consider deviating from the adventure path. However, if the players just ignore a looming threat, it may happen anyway and catch them off guard. ## 3.2 Narrative Hook The narrative hook or plot hook serves as bait for the players' interest. This is the description the players are given before the game and it includes vital information about the type of adventure. A plot hook should feature some mystery that sparks curiosity by raising questions and a subtle or explicit hint of reward. Another part of the hook may be a plea for help, an appeal to the characters' honor or a threat towards them. There might also be a moral dilemma involved. Will the heroes prevent great harm to their homeland or seek untold riches instead? ### 3.2.1 Examples * The party has found a treasure map, but the hints on it are written in a strange language none of the characters has ever seen. * An unnaturally large bird carries a caravan camel off to the peak of a nearby mountain. The caravan leader looks unsettlingly nervous as he asks the party to retrieve the camel's saddle bags. * An estranged friend or mentor of a party member sends a message seeking a meeting with the party. However, when they arrive, they find the sender has been murdered in their apartment. * The party has sparked the wrath of a deity and has been turned into different animals. Now they must find a way to change back. * The party wakes up in a dark cave not knowing how they got there after getting drunk the night before. There is a massive boulder that had sealed the entrance but was recently moved. It seems like this was a prison for someone or something before the party arrived. ## 3.3 Backstory For an adventure to be logically consistent, it must include a short backstory of events that lead to the current situation in adequate detail. This backstory is only fully known to the GM and may be reconstructed by the party through clues found during the game. ## 3.4 Plot Twist An adventure may have a plot twist, an unexpected change of perspective or motivation behind the events so far. The plot twist is most effective when the party thinks it has already solved the mystery or fulfilled the mission. This may also be used to introduce a dilemma or as a cliffhanger for the next session. ## 3.5 The Adventuring Party Most adventures are designed with a rough group size in mind. A fairly standard size is four to five players. The fewer players there are, the faster the group usually progresses through the story. The more players there are, the more mentally taxing it is for the GM and the longer it takes until all players have taken their turns. Each adventure includes the starting levels of the PCs, their wealth as well as the amount of favors they start out with. When designing an adventure, the following table may be used for orientation. ![[Adventure Type and PC Resources]] The characters' connections, background stories and roles within the group may be part of the adventure. To involve the players in such a way, the characters must be premade for the adventure or the GM has to discuss the characters' roles with the players beforehand. This may involve getting extra information about the setting or guarding some kind of secret to add tension. Such a situation makes more sense in the frame of a full campaign, providing more possibilities for character development and roleplay interaction. Another way to encourage roleplay is to have some character's be related or in a professional dependency (e.g. one is the bodyguard of another). ## 3.6 Structure When designing an adventure, try to avoid designing a linear sequence of events. The freedom of choice is a strong suit of tabletop RPGs. Preparing places, NPCs and items of relevance is important, but the order in which the party interacts with them and puts together pieces of the puzzle may change from one group of players to another. Naturally, a linear structure of events is unavoidable at times. However, sometimes the party will find a novel or unanticipated solution to a challenge. In this case, just roll with it and integrate it into the adventure. ## 3.7 Relevant Places The layout of places relevant to the adventure is a useful tool for structuring it. You do not need to prepare a detailed map of every place, but you should describe it in appropriate detail to not hinder gameplay (a few sentences or bullet points are enough). To elaborate, there is no need to have the exact location of the buildings of town, but a list of the most important places or information about their existance should be available. When it comes to dungeons, maps of the rooms and their dimensions as well as the locations of traps may be necessary. Places may be depicted as a graph of nodes and the connections between them. Each node may contain another more detailed graph. This allows the GM to have an overview of the adventure as well as its parts. Each node of a such a location graph may contain footnotes that lead to the descriptions of NPCs and items found at a certain place. ### 3.7.1 Example The following adventure graph contains the relevant places of an example adventure where the temple has a subgraph depicting its components. Characters are able to travel from one place to another if they are connected with a line. A dotted line denotes a hidden access that has a challenge to be discovered. A crossed out line means that the connection is blocked by something such as a caved in ceiling or a barred door. You can also attach notes to each place about the NPCs, items etc. that can be found there. ![[Example Adventure Graph.png]] ## 3.8 Important NPCs The NPCs that are directly involved in the adventure should be worked out and described in at least a few words. It is especially important what these NPCs are willing to share with the group and how to get them to do it. The NPCs may also have an aspect (a motivation or a weakness) that may be used by the party to defeat or gain the help of the NPC. ## 3.9 Special Items Some adventures revolve around a special item (MacGuffin). It may involve retrieving, crafting, destroying, using or preventing the usage of the item in question or something similar. If the players are expected to use it or be the target of it, the item as well as its mechanics should be described in detail when preparing the adventure. This includes the item's location, who is currently carrying it and how it is currently used. If it is an item with mystical properties, the GM should know what kind of power resides in it. ## 3.10 Sequence of Events Before starting the game, the GM should read through the adventure to make sure there are no plot holes or inconsistencies. Additionally, the designer of an adventure should reflect on the choices and possibilities in solving the challenges. Some clues may never be found by the party. Is there another way to solve a challenge in this case and what sacrifices are necessary in order to do so? # 4 Challenges and Rewards Every adventure must have challenges for the players to overcome. This way their characters become more powerful by gaining experience, additional equipment and favor. The most common challenge are enemies standing in the way of the adventuring party's goals. Others include traversing dangerous terrain features or environments with hazardous traps. ## 4.1 Enemy Challenge The enemy challenge may be overcome by different means. The most obvious is defeating them in combat, but the threat they pose may also be eliminated through persuasion, deceit, intimidation, stealth or more inventive means. Each option is equally valid and each enemy is more susceptible to one or another. If the players assess the situation right and seize the best opportunity, they should gain the full reward even if they took less time to solve the situation. Each NPC or monster has its own threat level and grants rewards accordingly. However, if the players only talk to the leader of a group to overcome the challenge, they should only get the rewards of that NPC, not the whole group. If the party decides to fight, they reap the reward for each defeated NPC. ## 4.2 Environment Challenge Environmental features may not actively attack the players, but traversing them can be difficult with high stakes. Climbing, swimming, balancing and other athletic endeavors may end badly when attempted by untrained characters or when the dice betray their wielder. This kind of challenge is best used to drain the party of some of its resources before the real challenge. There is usually a trailblazer in a group that takes up the challenge first and then tries to secure the path somehow. This creative and cooperative process usually requires some equipment (such as rope) that may be lost on the way. Solving such a challenge deserves a reward, too. Assessing the threat level of environmental features is up to the adventure creator. Traps are a special kind of environmental feature because they must be either spotted in time or evaded when triggered. The difficulties of the required checks decide the threat level of single traps. Analogous to the enemy challenge, the players only gain the rewards of traps they interacted with (successfully spotted, evaded or disabled). ## 4.3 Combined Challenge The combination of environmental features, traps and enemies make for the most interesting encounters. Imagine a camp of bandits atop a cliff with a small river at its base. A wet dead tree has fallen across the water and can be used to balance to the other side. There is also a small bridge that leads to stairs carved into the rock. A few watchmen are overlooking the easy access points and a trap of falling rocks is placed over the stairs that may be triggered by one of the guards. ## 4.4 Threat Levels and Rewards After a challenge has been overcome, calculate the rewards (XP and loot) of its parts according to their respective threat levels. Sometimes it is more plausible to let the party find items or treasure nearby instead of on the bodies of the enemies. If there was no fight to the challenge, the loot can be added to another (later) location. The loot may also be accumulated and placed at the very end of the adventure. XP can be rewarded either at the end of a challenge if the players are supposed to level their characters during the session. Otherwise, you may also distribute the XP at the end of the session. The XP gained are distributed evenly across all present PCs. It is up to the players to share the loot. Although the value is denoted in coins, in most cases the lion's share of the loot will be equipment that could be bought for the specified amount. This includes the still functional equipment that is taken from the enemy. ![[Threat Level and Reward]] ## 4.5 Exploration When the party discovers a special place and spends time there interacting with it, you may reward them a small amount between 30 and 50 XP (divided by the player count) depending on the amount of time they spent there and how meaningful their interactions were depending on the nature of the place. An example of a meaningful interaction is praying or leaving offerings at a mystical hidden pond where spirits dwell. Another example is the exploration of ancient ruins and the deciphering of scriptures that have been carved into the stone a long time ago. ## 4.6 Story Milestones You might reward the party with a certain amount of XP for reaching certain milestones in the story instead of or in addition to mastered challenges. In this case it is up to the adventure creator to figure out the appropriate amount. ## 4.7 Favor Rewarding the players with favor is very important. Since this powerful resource does not replenish by itself, the PCs are incentivized to seek out mystical places and creatures. However, a GM may control how much favor the group can accumulate and use this to regulate the party's power level. Keep in mind that some characters may be skilled to interact with favor and need it in order to contribute and remain fun to play. Favor should be rewarded for travelling to and meaningfully interacting with sacred or mystical places where the veil to the spirit is almost pulled back. Usually such places are used by the locals to practice their religion and can range from an uncommonly large tree to a grand cathedral of marvelous architecture. It can be a simple wooden shrine, an monumental stone circle or a fortified monastery. Mystical creatures that were created by some divine or supernatural force disperse their favor into their surroundings when they die. If their power was great enough, some of that favor is absorbed by the souls of other living beings in the vicinity. This means that killing such a beast will increase the favor of a PC. Powerful spirits or divine beings may also impart some favor to the PCs as a reward for fulfilling a request or as a gift for the coming challenges. Ideally an adventure is designed in a way that there is at least one opportunity to earn one favor. In contrast to XP, favor is not divided by the party's head count. If the PCs defeat a great mystical creature, each member gains one (or more) favor. # 5 NPCs and Foes ## 5.1 Types of Foes When preparing an adventure, a GM needs to think about how detailed the included NPCs should be described and fleshed out. There are basically 4 different roles an NPC can fill: the extra, the minion, the harmless or unassailable and the big bad. ### 5.1.1 Extras Simple peasants, workers, merchants and other ordinary folk usually do not need to have prepared game values since they are not actively involved in the story. It always pays off to have a list of names that you can assigned on demand though. If a PC does interact with an extra and rolls for an ability against them (for example to pick their pockets), make up a difficulty to beat on the spot according to the profession of the NPC. A merchant is probably more difficult to charm than a construction worker who in turn is more likely to be physically stronger. ### 5.1.2 Minions Minions are extras that are meant as an obstacle that is easily overcome by the players. They may be the grunts of the big bad, simple guards or thugs. The GM should prepare some values for this kind of NPC such as the health, attack, defend and resilience difficulties. When choosing talents for them, the GM should only use simple enhancements of abilities or extra vigor or focus, i. e. talents that are easily trackable. Try to reduce the bookkeeping of these NPCs to an absolute minimum. It should suffice to prepare one of these NPCs if they appear in groups. If such a group has different roles, preparing one of each role (for example melee and ranged weapons) is enough. During battle, use a table of the enemies divided by types to track their health. To further simplify combat with such groups, the GM may also use the minion rule. This means that each minion is defeated as soon as they take damage or stress. Keep in mind that this makes them extremely easy to overcome. ### 5.1.3 The Harmless or Unassailable An NPC that is actively involved in the story, but is unable to cause the group any harm or is so powerful that the group under no circumstances is able to do any damage to them (this is mostly the case for deities) does not need any combat values. This kind of NPC should already have a name and all information they are likely to convey to the group before the game starts. They might also need additional background information and maybe connections to other NPCs. ### 5.1.4 Big Bad If a group of foes has a more powerful leader with them, the NPC should be worked out almost as much as a PC. They should have some talents and/or favor and maybe divine aspects or chromatic slivers to make for an interesting challenge. The GM must make sure he understands how the mechanics of that NPC work as to not hold up the game by reading up on the rules during combat too much. ### 5.1.5 NPC Challenge Level The challenge level of an NPC is determined by multiple factors: character level, wealth and favors. The challenge of an encounter is determined by how much resources the PC party will have to spend to overcome it. Health and stress are the most precious resources since they take the longest to recover. Recovery times have to be taken into account when designing a challenge. In this regard, the challenge level of a PC is not the same as that of an NPC because the latter will only appear once during the adventure in most cases. Another factor that needs to be considered is the amount of enemies in comparison to the size of the player party. Superior numbers have a huge influence in FoG. There is no universal guideline when it comes to designing challenges. It differs from group to group and the GM has to experiment with different challenge levels working their way up from easy to difficult. You can use the following table as a rough estimate of the values of differently powerful enemies. ![[NPC Combat Attributes]] # 6 Character and Player Knowledge When roleplaying, there is significant difference between the knowledge of a player and the character they are playing. The player presumably knows how to read, how to do math, has an understanding of planets and stars, that lightning is just a natural occurance and that the game world is a made up place that follows certain rules, whereas their character may have no idea about any of this. A player also remembers events, places and NPCs from previous adventures with different characters. On the other hand, a character may know more about the history and workings of the game world than their player does. After all, the character has spent all their life in this world. If any knowledge is part of a character's background or just common knowledge within the game setting, the GM may just tell the group about it when it comes up. However, if some piece of information is relatively obscure or only known by few people, succeeding on a roll for a knowledge ability or nature is required for the character to know about it. Remembering some arcane knowledge the character has heard about may even take some time. # 7 Dealing with Items as Resources The items on the adventuring gear list are not just flavor and gimmicks for a PC, but vital to survival and success. Light sources, ropes, backpacks, bedrolls etc. are important resources and it may be impossible to overcome some challenges without them. Of course, this is also true for weapons, shields, armor and ammunition. As a GM, you should not shower your players with large amounts of coins or mystic items that make parts of the adventuring gear entirely obsolete. It would eliminate the purpose of coins as a reward and resource to manage. The players are supposed to track their usage of light sources, rations, ammunition and everything else. If a player miserably fails a check, you might roll a die to determine what item from their inventory is now lost. For example, if a player cannot swim and falls into water, they may be able to save their lives by holding on to a floating tree, but lose a weapon or some rations in the process. If the party does not have access to a proper market, they will have to have the necessary expertise to make their own disinfectants and healing salves. Equipment may be damaged or destroyed during combat (see the item counter _damage_). This will force a character to pick up a shield from a defeated enemy or a fallback weapon they carry. # 8 Deities and Divine Intervention Seldomly will the divine entities in this world directly intervene in worldly affairs. They are caught in a delicate balance of power between each other and rather let the mortals carry out their will. The main goal of a deity is to gain more followers, inspire blind faith in them and cement its own power among the various forces of the realm beyond the veil. The favorites of a god are rewarded with powerful answers to their prayers. Even for the divines, piercing through the veil is difficult and strenuous and manifesting an avatar or incarnation even more so. This only happens when the stakes are exceedingly high. It becomes much easier at places or times where the worlds intersect and the veil gets thinner. These places are often home to churches, temples, shrines and other sacred places where pilgrims gather. Pious religious leaders and devoted missionaries often unknowingly gather a considerable amount of divine favor which shields them from harm. When they pray to their god, an answer is almost sure to follow. A deity might occasionally communicate with its followers through dreams and visions or in extremely rare cases through an incarnation. # 9 Fall Damage When a character falls to the ground from a certain height, they take damage on impact. The player rolls the falling damage from the table below according to the fallen height. Landing on a (comparatively) soft surface such as loose sand, deep snow or elastic vegetation reduces the damage by 2d6. Landing in water reduces the damage by 6d6. The character makes either a **toughness** or **dexterity** check and subtracts the result from the damage roll result. ![[Fall Damage]] # 10 Travel and Exploration When travelling, you may roll to determine what kind of events transpire and what kind of places the party finds. This may vary in different environments. It is recommended to roll once for each half day of travel. ![[Exploration]]