I’m having a little trouble determining where and how a Hunt Roll actually fits/works in something like Tomb of the Serpent Kings. Any examples/advice would be welcomed, please!
Trophy Gold Discussion
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When the treasure-hunters first enter the dungeon, I lightly describe the first Set and I ask them what they do. When they describe exploration-type activities, I have them make a Hunt Roll. Based on the result of that, they might trigger a Trap, or get a token (to save or spend on Treasure).
The Hunt Roll is your pacing mechanism, much like how exploration rounds work in D&D. All the treasure-hunters can make multiple Hunt Roll attempts in a single Set, as long as they’re exploring new things and pushing further into the Set.
Once they reach the last Prop in the Set, if they have at least 3 tokens, they can spend them to automatically find their way through to the next Set, or they can try to find another way through, either through asking questions, or by making a Risk Roll.
Let me know if that helps!
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That does, Jesse! The explicit wording you’ve used here works spot on for me, I didn’t realise props were serial, or subsequent sets locked. Thanks! Taking the tomb to the office cocktail party tomorrow…
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To be clear, the Props don’t have to be serial. That’s just how they work best in Tomb of the Serpent Kings, since it’s more of an explicit dungeon. The important bit is to connect the trading in of the 3 tokens with achieving the Goal of the Set.
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Ah. I just needed to grok the extent to which Hunt overlaps with the traditional question-and-answer navigation, and that’s getting clearer for me. Deciding precisely when to use each will still take a bit of trial and error, I guess.
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“if they have at least 3 tokens, they can spend them to automatically find their way through to the next Set, or they can try to find another way through, either through asking questions, or by making a Risk Roll.”
This helps to elucidate the question I was asking before (about what happens if they investigate the means to getting the Set Goal before hitting 3 Tokens), thanks!
Does the Token pool carry over to the next Set, or is it for the current Set only?
Can they spend 3 Tokens to get something that they want other than the Set Goal?
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They can spend a token to find treasure worth one Gold. They can spend 3 tokens to “find what they are looking for” eg finish the Set.
I’d recommend taking a look at @Jay’s Rhapsody of Blood which has a similar system of using something like the “Labrynth Move” and spending hold to make progress through locations.
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Tokens carry over. And they can spend them on anything that moves the story forward, which will usually be achieving the Goal of a Set, but could be something/someone else they have indicated they are searching for.
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I’ve played Rhapsody quite a bit; the difference here is that, as far as I can tell, Trophy Gold uses a more prescribed location that is explored, whereas the Castle in Rhapsody is explored through vignettes and setpieces of each Ward. In Rhapsody you can’t narrate your characters making their way to the Acolyte, it can only be done through accumulating the Hold.
I mean obviously @jesseross would be the best person to say, but in Trophy Gold I can’t see a way you are allowed to “narrarate your characters making their way to” the goal of a Set other than through spending accumulated Tokens. But maybe I am missing something…
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An example I can think of is what I said in my first comment here - in the False Tomb of Tomb of the Serpent Kings, if they enter the room with the Idol in it without having accumulated 3 Tokens, then one of the players asks to investigate the Idol with the water-damaged base, what do you say to the players?
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I’ve come to apologise for echoing @JRSyson’s initial line of questioning earlier, but also to report that I had my first session of Trophy Gold yesterday (didn’t manage to play at work, had a Father’s Day game with some of my kids) and we got as far as the idol, with lots of impulsive behaviour and party splits.
My first finding is that combat is tense, exciting and satisfying.
My second is that I reckon I would use the hunt/risk rolls just fine in an improvised or broad-strokes incursion, but had heaps of trouble getting it right with a module in terms of which roll and which consequence.
I think it’s because Hunt rolls, for exploration, very clearly tell you something terrible happens, but no mechanical outcome (besides token loss) eventuates until a risk roll comes into play. Effectively, that meant that I would make interacting with statues a Hunt roll, and a bad outcome would be a Risk roll, with only narrative consequences (or item loss) unless they opted in with a dark die. Once they knew the statues were trapped, I assumed the dark die was compulsory, so Ruination was on the table, and it became easier for them to feel like things mattered.
I think that narrative consequences with no tagged condition or aspect on the character sheet can work just fine with the right group, we just need to get used to playing something that way (“don’t forget you’re weakened by the gas, so you can’t lift that by yourself”, etc).
Oh, and my kids fought each other for all treasure and didn’t save tokens for an exit, but they’re not like that every day. It was a day of impulsive sellswords with warhammers, and just a hint of threatened PVP rituals. I hadn’t even told them the original game was about betrayal…
PS: No-one wanted a devil’s bargain, ever - that’s indicative of my kids thinking they’re playing it safe, even if their chosen course of action is reckless.
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It’s only fair that I chime in and say actually that move structure was created by @jasoncordova !
But also I’ve refined it a little further in Voidheart Symphony, with it broken into two moves:
Travel the Labyrinth
When you navigate the labyrinthine corridors of the castle, roll +nothing. Before rolling, you can mark static up to 3 times to add +1 for each point. On a hit, say what you understand better about this ward, and the group gains 1 Trace. On a 7-9 pick 1, on a 10+ pick 2:
- There’s something valuable in the next area.
- You’ll see what’s in the area before entering it.
- You’ll be able to easily leave the area once you enter.
- There’s a potential ally in the next area.
Spend these Traces to pick where you go when you Find Shelter.
Find Shelter
When you search for a safe space to recover, roll +Wands. [Then stuff about the shelter irrelevant here]
When you leave the shelter, pick one:
- Return to Reality.
- Travel the Labyrinth.
- Spend 1 Trace to return somewhere you’ve been before.
- Spend 2 Traces to arrive at something precious to the Vassal.
- Spend 3 Traces to arrive at the heart of this shard.
Once in the heart of the shard, use a key to the Vassal’s heart to summon them for a final battle.
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It’s really helpful to read your experiences running TG, thanks for posting!
What would be amazing though, is a Trophy Gold actual play of something like TotSK. Does this exist anywhere? I think it’s hard for many people, especially those newer to the hobby, to read a ruleset and accurately imagine how it’d play. It’s usually not until I see a game in action that I have that lightbulb moment. I’d LOVE to see examples of how TG mechanics interact with the fiction during play.
BTW, how old are your kids? My oldest is 6 and we mostly run TBH and other rules-light silly OSR stuff together… But I actually think TG, with it’s tactile tokens and devils bargains, might be a good fit for something more narrative.
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I played it with my 16yo, my 12yo and my 8yo. It was a strange session because since last we played any RPG all of us together (a year or more), they’ve all grown into new phases.
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We attempted our first game of gold after 2 fairly successful sessions of trophy vanilla last week. Unfortunately I had some issues getting my lines crossed. It reminded me of messing up controls when trying to switch between two similar video games in a short amount of time.
I think the hunt roll is what we struggled with the most. Coming from a hard setup and vignettes emerging in the ring structure of vanilla, I think we struggled trying to make narrative sense of the hunt roll and the rewarded or lost tokens.
I’ll continue to work through more sessions but I agree an actual play on hangouts or the trophy podcast would be extremely helpful.
We’ve played a campaign of blades but are also OSR goons that run a lot of those settings and modules. So we also are likely bringing too much of a traditional rules mindset to the session.
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I bet you could drop the Hunt Roll and the game would work perfectly fine (as noted in the text, it’s meant to be somewhat modular). I think this is particularly the case where the Set is fairly well-defined. Where I expect the Hunt Roll is going to be more useful is when the Set expands out to a bigger space like, say, a whole level of a dungeon.
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I have an ongoing game for TG right now. The Hunt roll has replaced a hex crawl blended from a few modules/Homebrew. My party set our to the woods to find a hermit’s home. I had a list of events/traps/encounters ready for when the rolling went astray.
When they found the home and fought the monster, it was free form investigation with minimal hunt rolls until narrative pressure came into play and they needed to explore and loot fast. If I had a better set up I would love to record my group, but it’s all live and I don’t have a laptop/mic set up.
The game is a blast and they prepped for their second incursion with hints of future ones.
TLDR; I agree with @jasoncordova and the use of hunt in larger spaces for modules.
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Would love some specific examples of when the Hunt Roll was used and tokens were spent if/when you have the time and energy.
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@shane so how I approached it, my players were specifically looking for the hermit’s cabin. They all had a list of skills and would rotate on who is making the Hunt role. I describe each area after a hunt roll based on the role. My hex map was blank with only limited features. “Heavy forestation , open wheat fields, ect.” And then I had my list is traps/observations they may find with spattered treasured along the way if they decided to spend a token on a treasure find.
One example I can think of I had a old abandoned graveyard where headless creatures were digging into graves looking to replace their own lost heads with those of the dead. This happened on a Hunt roll of 1-3 The token(clue) to finding the hermit was a riddle or scripture on one of the creatures. The bad thing that happened was they have to deal with this group to get the token. They didn’t know about the clue until after the engagement. They chose to fight. They could’ve used rituals or risk roles to deal with the obstacles.
On rolls 4-5,they came across ruins or I believe wooden statues in an odd clearly with marshy fields. The player who hunted had to choose who would make a risk roll to avoid a trap. This became another part of party management mixed with tension as my players said out loud, they are worried their characters next roll could always be the last. Even if I had no intention of offing them left and right.
I hope that helps. This may not be the original intention but it is how I’ve been using the rules for success.
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