You Come To A Village...





You have crossed the plains. 


You Come To A Village...



Between ages 13 and 16 this was the Go-To of our groups rapid-fire One-Shot sessions. 

Nobody had a deep emotional attachment to the nameless Hero/Anti-Hero 

because he kept getting himself killed more often than not. 

Or our stories were often interrupted and we had to start again. 

We rotated GMs. 


The scenario is always the same; 

you play as the Stranger who has come to town. 

A dustbowl village with not much going for it, 

not from the outside at least. 



There are no rules. 

You can do what you want. 


"What am I holding?"

 

The answer depends on who the GM is for that session. 

Always the same answers.


It varies between Nothing, an Axe, a Sword and Shield, 

or if miraculously you survived a previous session 

and are travelling from the previous village to this new one, 

you are carrying whatever it is you acquired along the way. 

If anyone can remember and agree on that; 

even more rare than the characters survival rate. 


What we did usually depended on 

how much of a fight the dustbowl villagers were able to muster.


"What does the village look like?"


Something like a poverty-stricken Wild West frontier town 

in a medieval fantasy setting, in a dustbowl 

dotted with countless more of the same.

I truly don't believe we got around them all.


Often something tragic has recently befallen the villagers. 

Outdoing and varying the groups previous innovations became par for the course.

That was the true poetry of this very simple scenario.


There are mountains in the distance, too many days journey from here. 

(One time my character actually made it to those mountains, 

but thats a whole other story). 


"Is there a wall?"


This became the primary question.

A walled village indicates the villagers are organised, protected, functional, 

will put up a fight and probably have something worth stealing. 


In any case, 


"Burn it."

"Intimidate the villagers."

"Kill it/them."

"Loot it."


Fights were resolved with death of either combatant,

or submission of the NPC and the start of a warband.


After some time we began to get more creative.


"The village is guarded by a fully armoured Chaos Warrior hefting a huge battle-axe."

That was memorable. Putting on Chaos Warrior armour turns you into a Chaos Warrior. 

Voices in the head, superpowers of Tzeench, all sorts. 


We borrowed a lot

from John Blanche, HeroQuest, early Warhammer Fantasy illustrations, Westerns.


We did use dice but the GM always rolled in secret and ignored the rolls.



Anyway:


It's your turn to GM

I did it last time.




  

Old School Fantasy Village Generator