In the Fields...

Written by Brian “Fitz” Fitzpatrick

Cover Art from Dollar Photo Club
Other art from OpenClipart.org
©2014 Brian Fitzpatrick & Moebius Adventures

Joao Vitor Nava Storck (order #19827930)


“In any field, find the
strangest thing and then
explore it.”
John Archibald Wheeler
Sometimes there isn’t a road where you are going
and you have to take the path less traveled. Perhaps
you’re breaking a trail through uncharted territory
or following hints and suggestions animals or nature
have left you across hill, dale, prairie, and valley. But
what happens when you make your own path? What
do you stumble upon along the way?
Open Spaces products aim to answer that question
or at least offer some guidance as you enter those
wild, uncharted areas with your PCs. The next time
the party chooses to go gallavanting across the world,
you can use these supplements to suggest new
encounters both for good and ill.
Open Spaces: Fields specifically can be used when
your party traipses across some farmer’s fields or
some Lord’s demesne.
Why fields? Because they’re everywhere, even today.
Travel the streets of many small towns or big cities
and you’ll find those urban landscapes to be dotted
with little islands in the shape of playgrounds,
sports fields, open spaces, and small environmental
preserves. You may even find some areas where
people have horses and other animals or even small
crops.
Broad, open land exists once you leave those urban
centers. Drive through Kansas, eastern Colorado, or
any of a dozen or more states in the middle of the US
and you will find broad landscapes covered by wild
grasses, weeds, flowers, and more.
And that’s not even counting farms and ranches,
national parks, and more.
But let’s focus on smaller areas. Imagine your
characters are walking through the wilderness and
find a small clearing in the woods, a small garden, or
even an entire farm. What happens then?
Though the place itself is important, it rarely is in the
mood to do more than set up for a landscape shot.
So we will use the location to inform the context for
an encounter with one or more individuals. Could be
humanoids. Could be monsters or animals. But there’s
always something to be found!
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Joao Vitor Nava Storck (order #19827930)
Open Spaces
Broad Strokes
How do you use this Open Spaces product? The
process is pretty straightforward:
1. Determine the general disposition of the
encounter. Sometimes the world *IS* out to get
the PCs.
2. Now determine the disposition of the subjects the
PCs are about to encounter. Though the situation
may be stacked against both parties, there’s
always a possibillity that the monsters really don’t
want a fight either.
3. Next, determine what exactly the PCs are
encountering.
4. How many are being encountered? One? Five? A
hundred?
5. What are their motives?
6. What’s the location like? Is it verdant and green
or rotten and diseased? Can you smell it? Taste it?
Once you have all of that, it’s time to write about it!
Let’s go over each one in a little more detail.
Encounter Disposition
Though it’s true enough that sometimes a situation
may treat the party with neutrality, it’s rarely an
exciting moment in the PC’s lives. Each encounter
should have the potential
to aid or harm the PCs Table (d2): Disposition
in some way and usually
Heads or even Good
does both in one way or
another. But it helps when Tails or odd Bad
designing such situations
to have an outcome in mind from the start.
To determine the initial potential of the situation, flip
a coin or roll a die to get a general feel for things.
Encounter Subject Disposition
Next, we determine if the people, monsters, or
environment has a bone to pick with the adventurers
right off the bat. Even if the encounter has the
potential to be beneficial to the PCs, whatever they
are encountering may actually mean them harm.
So again, to determine the disposition of whatever
the PCs are encountering...
Use the same table as the last section.
 In the Fields...
Types Encountered • Exploration - like the PCs, these beings are
exploring. Perhaps they’re on their way to
Here we determine
Table (d10): Type someplace better or just out hunting.
what the PCs are
encountering. People? 1 Farmer
Monsters? Weather? 2 Worker Sense and Descriptor
Animals? Whatever you Finally we will utilize
3 Guard
choose here becomes the our senses and some Table (d8): Sense to Use
“what” or “who” for the 4 Domestic animal descriptive words to 1 Sight
encounter. 5 Wild animal describe the area where 2 Hearing
Ultimately, who the PCs 6 Monster the PCs are meeting these
folks for good or ill. 3 Smell
is encountering is what
7 Supernatural 4 Touch
we’re after. Pull out your Roll a d8, consult the
favorite d10 and see what 8 Bandit or thief 5 Taste
Sense table, then roll a
you come up with. As 9 Adventurer d100, consult the Sense 6 Roll again
always, add/change the 10 Rancher Descriptor table.
table as you see fit. 7 Roll twice
This helps in a couple 8 Roll three times
of ways. If we know the
Group Size who of the encounter,
Next, there’s the size of the group encountered. this helps us define the where of the encounter a bit
Here, a quick d8 indicates the number in the group better.
with 1-7 being exactly the number and 8 indicating
an exploding die. Any time you roll a 8, roll another
d8. If you roll another 8, keep rolling until you get Table (d100): Sense Descriptor
something else. You could end up with anything from 1-2 Burned 51-52 Tracked
a solitary traveler to an army! 3-4 Lush 53-54 Verdant
5-6 Empty 55-56 Corrupt
Motives 7-8 Fallow 57-58 Pale

Now we’ll determine what the motives are for the 9-10 Rotting 59-60 Bloody
group. Why are these people, critters, or monsters in 11-12 Infested 61-62 Damp
the area? 13-14 Brown 63-64 Plowed

A quick d6 table helps 15-16 Green 65-66 Patterned

Table (d6): Motive
us out. Re-roll if it is a 17-18 Tall 67-68 Aligned
nonsensical result or be 1 Political 19-20 Short 69-70 Wild
really creative! 2 Natural 21-22 Withered 71-72 Unkempt
• Political - perhaps the 3 Unnatural 23-24 Strong 73-74 Untouched
beings are on their 4 Fiscal 25-26 Broken 75-76 Occupied
way to negotiate with 27-28 Bent 77-78 Fenced
5 Missionary
their neighbors or are 29-30 Marked 79-80 Narrow
just pressing the flesh 6 Exploration
31-32 Diseased 81-82 Wide
to get to know folks in
33-34 Wet 83-84 Clod-filled
the area.
35-36 Dry 85-86 Turned
• Natural - these humanoids/things just naturally 37-38 Dusty 87-88 Framed
belong here. It’s their home!
39-40 Plowed 89-90 Fragrant
• Unnatural - something has wrong and pushed 41-42 Bare 91-92 Raucous
these critters out of their usual digs. 43-44 Overgrown 93-94 Tame
• Fiscal - perhaps the critters or people are 45-46 Swampy 95-96 Light
harvesting fruits or flowers to sell in town. 47-48 Dug up 97-98 Grassy
• Missionary - these folks are out to spread the 49-50 Muddy 99-100 Moorish
word of their gods!
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Joao Vitor Nava Storck (order #19827930)

Walkthrough Example
Let’s walk through an entire example from beginning
to end.
First I’ll roll two dice to determine the dispositions of
the encounter and whomever the PCs are going to
meet. I get “Bad” and “Bad”. So far this doesn’t look
all that great for the PCs.
Next I’ll roll a d10 on the Type table. I get an 8 -
“Bandit or Thief”. And I’ll roll a d8 to see how many
bandits the PCs are encountering. I get 3. We have
a group of 3 bandits in a field somewhere up to no
good.
What are their motives? A quick d6 roll and I have
“Natural.” That makes me wonder why would bandits
just naturally be in a field?
Lastly we have the sense and descriptor. With a d8
and a d100 I get “Smell” and “Burned”
Definitely not looking good for our PCs.
But I might arrange things like this:
“The smell of burned grass wafts from
somewhere up ahead. If you track it down, you
come across a wide-open field at the edge of a
small stand of trees and a demolished house. The
house and surrounding area was burned recently
and three men are wandering towards you from
the house, weapons drawn.
Situation: The fire occurred naturally during a
lightning storm earlier in the day. Though the
fire burned itself out in the rain that followed, it
wasn’t soon enough for the family trapped inside
the house. Three roaming bandits happened to
see the home on fire and sifted through the still-
hot ruins to see what they could salvage.
One of the three bandits has a large sack
containing a few burned books, some basic
bladed weapons (a short sword, three daggers,
and a small axe), and a smaller bag of melted
coins. All three are covered in soot and would
rather not be reported to the authorities by
witnesses. Though they did nothing more than
take advantage of the situation, their anger and
shame at being discovered will fuel their way to
attacking the PCs.
Resolution: None of the three thieves is a
particularly adept fighter, but all three will use
their short swords and daggers to their best
ability. If one falls, there is a 50% chance that the
other two will flee. If one of the PCs falls, there
is a 50% chance they will be emboldened and
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Joao Vitor Nava Storck (order #19827930)
Open Spaces
attack more wildly than before.
If they survive and keep any of the thieves alive,
they can track down the local marshal who is
responsible for law in the area and report the
crime and return the valuables. Any surviving
family in the area will appreciate knowing what
happened if the PCs can figure out the situation.”
This approach lends itself towards a bit of preparation
if the GM is looking at the map and sees an area that
could use a bit of flavor.
What about a few more examples?
Tales of Woe
(Good/Bad/Domestic animal/11/Fiscal/Taste/Bent)
A farmer is in his field negotiating with a neighbor
to give up a herd of 11 skinny, swaybacked cows.
You overhear a tale of woe involving a sick wife, a
failed crop, and the inability to pay a the local lord for
continued planting rights...
Join Our Cause... Or Else...
(Bad/Bad/Farmer/5/Missionary/Hearing/Aligned)
As you pass a local field, you see a group of five
robed individuals accosting someone in the middle.
The victim is in obvious distress as you can hear him
trying to talk his way out of the situation without
paying a “donation” to help their cause.
Even as one holds down the poor man, the others
seem to align around him in a star formation...
Want to help?
(Good/Good/Adventurer/6/Fiscal/Sight/Corrupt)
The gentle rise and fall of the hills in this area almost
lulls you to sleep until you see a small group of
people stopped on the edge of a fenced property. As
you approach, you can see that the plants on this side
of the fence are in much better shape than what’s
on the other where each stem and branch appears
brittle, broken, and blackened by something.
You introduce yourselves and find yourself chatting
with another group of adventurers who has been sent
to look into a strange blight that has affected a few
farms in the area. Would you care to help in their
investigation?
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 Moebius Adventures: Open Spaces

Fields Worksheet
Encounter disposition? Table (d2): Disposition Table (d10): Type Table (d8):
Heads or even Good 1 Farmer Sense to Use
Tails or odd Bad 2 Worker 1 Sight
3 Guard 2 Hearing
Table (d6): Motive 4 Domestic animal
Subject dispositon? 3 Smell
1 Political
5 Wild animal 4 Touch
2 Natural
6 Monster 5 Taste
3 Unnatural
7 Supernatural 6 Roll again
4 Fiscal
8 Bandit or thief 7 Roll 2x
Types? 5 Missionary 9 Adventurer 8 Roll 3x
6 Exploration 10 Rancher

Numbers?

Motive
Table (d100): Sense Descriptor
1-2 Burned 35-36 Dry 69-70 Wild
3-4 Lush 37-38 Dusty 71-72 Unkempt
5-6 Empty 39-40 Plowed 73-74 Untouched
7-8 Fallow 41-42 Bare 75-76 Occupied
9-10 Rotting 43-44 Overgrown 77-78 Fenced
Sense?
11-12 Infested 45-46 Swampy 79-80 Narrow
13-14 Brown 47-48 Dug up 81-82 Wide
15-16 Green 49-50 Muddy 83-84 Clod-filled
17-18 Tall 51-52 Tracked 85-86 Turned
19-20 Short 53-54 Verdant 87-88 Framed
Descriptor?
21-22 Withered 55-56 Corrupt 89-90 Fragrant
23-24 Strong 57-58 Pale 91-92 Raucous
25-26 Broken 59-60 Bloody 93-94 Tame
27-28 Bent 61-62 Damp 95-96 Light
29-30 Marked 63-64 Plowed 97-98 Grassy
31-32 Diseased 65-66 Patterned 99-100 Moorish
33-34 Wet 67-68 Aligned

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