Some Basic Dangers

DANGER CARDS
Action using this mini-system proceeds as usual in a roleplaying game;
players describe their actions, the guide responds with results, and so on.
The rules are engaged when the Guide thinks that the actions are dangerous
and would like to add a somewhat random element to play.
The Guide will put down two to four danger cards (most often three), face-
up where the players can see them, and will state which of the player
bonuses is applicable.
The acting player will then roll 2d6 (two six-sided dice, added together) and
add the applicable bonus.
On a 6 or less, the player flips one card face-down.
On a 7-9, the player flips two cards
On a 10+, the player can flip up to three cards.
Flipped cards are ignored; the others take effect.
More Dangers
Dangers That Create Ongoing Conditions
 EXAMPLES
Here are some example sets of dangers for a variety of situations:
CHANDELIER SWING
You're swinging on a chandelier, over the heads of a barroom brawl. The
dangers:
● Relocation: You land somewhere other than intended.

● Forfeit: You miss out on the chance to damage an enemy along the way.

● Weariness: The effort strains and tires you out.

TRUCE NEGOTIATIONS
You, as village elder, are involved in a session negotiating details for a truce
between your village and another. The dangers:
● Enmity: You make enemies of some participants.

● Burdens: You accept some troubling obligations on behalf of your village.

● Delay: The negotiations take several days, during which people will die.

CLOCKWORK RUN
You're sprinting through the massive workings of a huge clockwork tower
which regulates giant water pumps. The dangers:
● Injury: You are smashed into by one of the huge gears.

● Helplessness: You are trapped by the movement of the machinery.

● Breakage: Some part of your equipment is caught in the gears and breaks.

THE NIGHTMARE HEDGE

You traverse a vast hedge maze around a fairy demense. The dangers:
● Expense: You use up a lot of provisions as you get lost travelling.

● Snares: Brambles grow into and through your pack and clothes.

● Ensorcelment: Pricked by a fairy thorn, you begin to... Change.

● Fear: You exit the maze in a state of trembling anxiety.

DEATH DIVE
You're diving from a cliff down onto a rotting monster standing in the
ocean that's smashing your town, spear held out, to stab it through the
head. The dangers:
● Failure: You don't stab the monster.

● Defeat: You smash into the rocks or the monster, and die instantly.

● Affliction: The horrible rot of the monster is passed on to you.

LOOSE THE ESSENTIAL FLAME

You're about to use the staff of elemental flame you have to throw fire at
your enemies. The dangers:
● Inaccuracy: You blow up parts of town around your enemies.

● Peril: You start fires that will threaten you as well.

● Mishap: Strange magical side effects will occur.

 FIGHTING THE TITAN
(An Extended Example)
When you're manoeuvring to start climbing the Titan, you recover from
weariness, but might face some of these dangers:
♦ Failure: You don't catch a hold on the Titan this round.
♦ Relocation: You are driven from the arena of the confrontation.
♦ Delays: You are forced to dive into a hidey-hole.
♦ Injury: You get smacked or stomped by the Titan.
When you're climbing the Titan, the dangers might include:
♦ Failure: You make no progress, failing to cross to the next area.
♦ Weariness: You grow tired.
♦ Relocation: You are thrown from the Titan to the ground.
When you pause at a rest point on the Titan, the dangers might include:
♦ Failure: You don't catch your breath; you stay weary if you are.
When you try to smash one of the animating sigils on the Titan, the
dangers might include:
♦ Failure: You don't penetrate deeply enough to shatter the sigil.
♦ Breakage: Your weapon shatters.
♦ Injury: You are hurt by its flailing.
♦ Relocation: You are thrown from your position.
DIFFERENT TITANS
If there are such things as Titans in a setting, they ought to have
different features. Here are some possibilities:
This Titan is infested with mites, vicious batlike creatures that attack
any other living thing that disturbs their habitat. The following
dangers also apply to various segments of the Titan:
♦ Peril: You awaken a flock of mites that will attack as they can.
♦ Injury: Circling mites bite and ravage you.
♦ Forfeit: You miss your chance to kill some mites as you go (flip
this to kill a bunch of mites).
This Titan is covered in crawling vines which you must climb in
order to reach the sigils that animate it. The following dangers also
apply to various segments of the Titan:
♦ Snares: You are caught in vines, and must destroy them to
progress.
♦ Burdens: Thorns and remnants of vines remain tied to you,
making weariness a danger on almost all actions.
This Titan is wrapped in lines of arcane power, which trace out
from the sigils that animate it. The following dangers also apply to
various segments of the Titan:
♦ Ensorcelment: You are caught up in the arcane power, and it
transforms some part of your body into living stone – complete with
an animating sigil of its own.
♦ Mishap: You disturb the flow of arcane power, with unpredictable
results. Bursts of blinding light, your own equipment springing to
life, the sudden arrival of small elementals, and waves of crushing
force are all possibilities.
This Titan has a smooth, rounded surface across many of its parts;
you will have a stockpile of up to ten pitons for climbing it (or up to
fifteen if you are willing to accept burdens), and use one each time
you move to a new area. In addition:
♦ Expense: You use up an additional piton beyond the number
expected; mark it off your tally.
 THE UNDYING MENACE
When characters do battle with the rotting dead, the Guide may want to
construct their hand as follows:

♦ Failure: When fighting or fleeing the rotting dead, you might fail to kill
one or get away. Flipping this means you kill one or flee, as you like.
♦ Injury: The rotting dead have sharpened finger bones and will attempt
to tear at their victims. If character can take multiple injuries, this danger
can be presented twice to
♦ Affliction: The rotting dead often spray pestilent and infectious slime
when struck; where it gets in the mouth, nose, eyes, or wounds of a
combatant, it can cause that subject to slowly rot from within unless
powerful cures are applied.
♦ Peril: The same slime sprayed as under affliction is sometimes spilled in
quantity around the battlefield, creating a hazard that must be avoided.
♦ Snares: Where multiple rotting dead gather around a subject, many
dead grab at their foe, adding this danger to rolls to fight any of them.
♦ Burdens: If a character has been snared and corrects this by killing the
offending dead, the grasping arm and some amount of torso often
remain attached, and must be pried away separately.
 HOW MANY DANGERS?
The number of cards used for a roll doesn't quite map clearly onto
“difficulty” in the traditional RPG sense. Here's what the number of cards
played results in:
Two Dangers: The character will often get everything available in the roll.
Three Dangers: The character will often get most things available in the
roll, but there's also often a cost to their actions. Much of the time, the
player will simply be choosing whether they need to pay a cost (or fail, if
failure is on the table).
Four Dangers: The character will need to deal with some repercussions for
their actions; this roll will cost, fail, or both. The degree to which this wears
at the character depends entirely on the dangers used; if Forfeits and mild
Expenses are in heavy use, then these costs lead to resource and
opportunity management. If Inaccuracy, Perils, and Afflictions are
commonly on the line, then four-danger actions are catastrophes waiting to
happen.
 TOKENS AND DICE ON DANGERS
In some systems, it's useful to put counters on danger cards, to indicate
“How much of this”. For a system with health points, for example, a six-
side die could be put on the injury card. This might indicate “if the
monster hits you, it'll do this die in damage”, or might be rolled in advance
and then narrated in as “the monster takes a strong swing at you in this
turn; 5 damage if it hits”. DANGERS AS CONDITION MARKERS
Eight of the dangers can easily be read as ongoing conditions – injury,
weariness, hunger, helplessness, burdens, ensorcelment, and fear. With
extra copies of those cards available, it may be easy to simply have the
player take those cards when those conditions affect them, keeping them
face-up in front of them.
This can be combined with placing tokens on cards, so that a player might
mark their damage as tokens on an injury card in front of them.
As an extreme form of this, give each player a copy of those eight cards to
keep in a stack face-down in front of them. Then, when a condition affects
them, they can simply pull out that card and turn it face-up.

DOUBLING UP DANGERS
Another use of duplicate danger cards, especially if tokens or dice are being
used on them, is to split up large dangers to create better choices. Given
the choice between two dice of damage and a broken sword, things may be
simple if characters tend to have about twelve health points. However, if
there are two separate injury dangers, each with a die on it, from two
different attacks, the choice may be more complex.
Since one of the goals when laying out dangers is to provide real choices
rather than obvious and absolute hierarchies of danger, this can bring things
down to a better level... And if the only real dangers at all are injury and
breakage, splitting up the injury can also raise the total number of dangers,
which may be valuable in creating any degree of real suspense on the roll.