Written January 08, 2025 in 8 minutes as part of the Gentle Games Habit
A collaborative GM-less roleplaying using d6 dice of two colors (light and dark).
The world is in turmoil. The mythic Egg of Gungyria, which has been lost to the ages, provides the possibility of a better future.
The players are adventurers who have been on an epic quest to find the egg and bring it to their homeland to incubate it so it might give birth to a better age. However, if the egg cracks before incubation, even more terrible things will be born of it.
The story starts after the epic quest, when the adventurers are returning the egg home. The players may discuss and describe the quest if they’d like.
Character Creation
Players make up characters with names, looks, etc. They also have three stats:
- Strong
- Smart
- Social
Players rank these stats in an order, the characters strongest trait at top, weakest at the bottom.
Threat Creation
Each player also makes a threat. It can be a person, group of people, cosmic force, or force of nature (or anything else). The threat also has the same three skills listed in order of strength. Keep the skill stack secret from other players.
Playing scenes
Each player gets a scene featuring their character encountering a threat while in the caravan bringing the egg home. Another player plays their threat.
When the scene culminates in the character using a skill to neutralize the threat, they roll to see how it goes.
The roll
Build a dice pool based on the skill the player used and the threats skills.
The player’s dice (based on position in the stack) are:
- 2 light dice
- 1 light die
- 1 dark die
The threat also adds dice based on the chosen skill and where that skill is in their stack:
- 2 dark die
- 1 dark die
- No dice
If the highest die is a:
- 6: the threat is neutralized
- 4 or 5: the threat is neutralized, but the egg takes a hit
- 1, 2 or 3: the threat overpowers the character; the whole party comes together to fend it off. The egg takes 2 hits.
If the highest die is dark, the egg takes 1 extra hit. (Ties for highest count as dark)
If there are multiple dark 6s in the roll, the egg takes an additional hit.
Describe how the egg is damaged if it is.
The egg cracks when it has taken 2 hits per player.
Note: I didn’t have enough time to think through these dice pool odds and the egg hits count, so they likely need to be completely reworked.
End of the Game
If the egg has cracked, each player describes one terrible thing that is born of the egg the causes more suffering in the world.
If the egg has not cracked, the egg gets to the characters home safely and is incubated until safely hatched. Each player describes how something that emerges from the egg improves the world.
2025-01-10: Further Reflection
The success/mixed success/party comes together states don’t so much change the narrative. Should be something more like:
- 1, 2, 3: the character fails to neutralize the threat. The egg takes 2 hits. The character must choose another approach using a different skill and try again.