Non-Authoritative FKR (incidentally, 2400/24XX) Core Gameplay Loop Tutorial

Establishing a Situation.

The year is 1023 of the Imperial Calendar (when). You are a band of mercenaries (who) walking on the  illustrious (description) Road of Kings (where), towards the Capital to find work and connections (why), when your journey is interrupted by a road block (the situation, which presents a problem & context for it).

Ahead of you is a wooden camp built around the Tyrant’s Bridge, the only safe way across river you know of. Soldiers armed with pikes and crossbows guard the camp (leaving out their colors for the players to ask, which will let them know they are not from the capital but from Middenland, which is odd and hopefully interesting.)

[1] What do you do?

First, players ask questions, such as: do the guards look hostile? (not particularly, do you hail them?), could we sneak past the camp? (yes, though it'd be very difficult as it is, since the camp is on both sides of the bridge, it's like a toll outpost or something), do we know of other ways to cross the river? (you could try and ford it if you follow downriver until you find a good spot, but it'll take time and may be dangerous; maybe locals know of other ways too but you know the nearest hamlet is two days upriver). And the Referee answers them, giving enough detail to promote further action or questions, without leading the players one way or another.

Most likely the players spend some time discussing the matter between one another, as well as making Monty Python jokes and so on. Maybe they talk to a guard to glean more information, which leads to some fun in-character chat, where they also learn the guards won't let anyone get through without official paperwork as the Middenland elector-prince has closed the roads.

[The players decide to come back at night, to try and sneak past the watch]



In a Strawman's, Non-D&D 5e but also Mainstream Modern Trad Game, this most likely goes like this:

1. Player says they want to sneak past the watch across the bridge.

2. GM asks for a Stealth roll (or maybe a series of such, or a sub-routine that fits the same design niche).

3. Players roll their Stealth skill/attributes etc. & Announce results.

4. GM-oracle interprets the result with the system's help, describing the process by which the player-characters attempt to sneak, as well as whether they succeed or not. Depending on how good the GM and system are, this may or may not lead to null results (ie: "you can't get across but you don't get caught" / "you can't find an opening through the guards' patrols"), or possbily the roll results dictates the tone of the scene, with a positive result leading to heroism: "you manage to get across, swiftly avoiding all guards like shadows", grit: "you have to kill a guard before he shouts for alarm, but you get across", or slapstick: "you catastrophically fail and stumble on your own feet in the middle of camp, falling onto the hen's cages which scream in panic. You look like an idiot."



What I posit can be very good practice, and also fits 2400 really well (I wouldn't go so far as to say that's how it's intended to be run because Jason often actively refuses to take an authoritative stance on how to use his toolkit, which is one of his game's strengths).

1. Player says they want to sneak past the watch across the bridge (Fiction)

2. GM says ok, how? (Fiction)

3. Player explains that they want A to create a distraction involving XYZ elements (that came from Q&A back and forth), while B & C capitalize on it to get to the other side, hoping to get A in via a rope above the water further upriver once two of them are safely on the right side of the bridge. (Fiction)

4. GM processes this information and acknowledges that this MAKES SENSE, but wouldn't be a given as it presents obvious risks and consequences. So the GM communicates that to the players: "you could do it, but you might get caught!" (Fiction!)

5. Players agree to the risk and strategy, and point out that they have relevant skills/traits that should allow them to roll say, a d8 instead of the default d6. GM agrees this makes sense. (System!)

6. Relevant player rolls the relevant dice, excitement abounds as this is now deepening the relationship between the table and the fictional world!!! Die says "disaster" (a 1). (System leads back into Fiction)

7. GM describes, possibly with player input, possibly asking the player to describe how the scene goes, ending with the explicit consequences, in this case, getting caught, which can have different meanings depending on the chosen zoom level: maybe they're caught as they're about to cross the bridge (chase or tense social interaction or fight ensues?) ; maybe they get "caught" red-handed and are captured as fighting or escaping the guards is suicide, which transitions to another situation (captured!). (FICTION!)

Once the fallout is established, we move back to "establish situation".

Repeat until end of the session.



So when I say "FKR", that's what I mean, by the way. We're playing the world, system shows up very much as a timid and unobtrusive guest who brings up that one cool anectode but doesn't hog all the space cause it's not about them.

You'll note the system bits are easily interchangeable with any other trad or trad adjacent game where the rules don't control when and how the GM transitions from the regular conversation to the mechanics
And can also be interchangeable with mechanics that do regulate this aspect of play, though IME it gets tougher the more authoritative about it the designer gets.

There are many dials beyond just the zoom level: when player input is expected (for me, the prerogative of the referee is in establishing any fiction stuff relevant to the Situation that's underlying that core gameplay loop. So, what do halflings like to smoke can be a player output, but who the guards on the bridge work for cannot). I think that is one of the key difference between FKR and Principled Freeform, since the latter relies more on group improvisation whereas the former still is generally understood to have a Referee who handles the game world and PCs who interact with it.

When player input is expected, the sort of risks that can come from different sorts of actions are also a big improtant dial that Jason talks about in Combat in 24XX; essentially the bit where I mention "maybe in this game it'd be suicide to fight/try to run and so the disaster is getting captured, whereas in another game getting caught means moving on to an even more charged situation" etc.

Anyways all that to say I think 2400/24xx is awesome, and a lot of the bread & butter methodology of what I described above is explained with great clarity and brevity in his game and in Emergency Rules (which is free, by the way). I kinda wanted to break it down in contrast to another methodology to highlight the way I use it, because I think that provides very fun gameplay.



For Joesky's Tax, here is a dungeon called the Overgrown Factory.

Rooms & Areas
1. Antechamber, haunted factory workers' uniforms, voyager hat (wants to travel on your head!)
2. Underwood, radioactive luminescent stones and plants, open sky and alien stars. Lady of Spiders resides here (wants delicious foods, carnivorous).
3. Fake Chambers, drawer mimic w/gold necklace tongue sticking out of it, will eat your hand.
4. Lady's Chamber, harmless daughters on many cobwebs, lantern-wife of the Living Dark is hidden here, a light that never dims but barely better than a candle on its own.
5. Feeding Grounds, cybernetized chimps feed on bio-luminescent spiders (dog-sized).
6. Triage, conveyor belts, raw spider silk packaging area, apron-wearing machine dog-headed men work here.
7. Airlock (fire trap seeks organic matter), buttons for: cycling, waste disposal, maintenance, and each door.
8. Warm and wet, vents, patches of mushrooms cover all, psychic killer myconid is here and hates you.
9. Spiderweave Mail Suit, attaches to skin, silences steps, protects as mail, hive of silkworms (cleanse first or die a gruesome, slow death from silkworm infestation).
10. Junkyard, nest of cyber-chimps, shiny baubles & treasures.
11. Surveillance room, cronenberg camera control pool, Amalgamate starts here, blinding dead TV snow gaze, will stalk intruders and try to hinder progress. Wants to collect eyeballs to create more Peeping Toms.
12. Engine room, powers lift in 10, exhaust vents, glasswool covered walls.

Intersections & Corridors
a. Concrete, lines of exhaust pipes.
b. Mushroom infested passage.
c. Gas filled corridor, refills in 1h. Fuel for the airlock disposal "trap".
d. Strong wind pulls into engine room, maw-shaped giant vent.

Doors
I. Vines curtain, cobwebbed, hidden door.
II. Lovers' Trees, entertwined, archway, beckoning.
III & IV. Airlocks, smell of sulfur
V. Side covered in mushrooms.
VI. Metallic, rusty thorns.

Encounters
1. Pierrot the Rat (wants friends, very obnoxious)
2. Lumberjack (drunk) (chainsaw) "Girot" (wants to show how good he is with that chainsaw)
3. Cleansing Priest "Agnès" (wants to cleanse the undergrowth rot from this level)
4. Peeping Tom (small pseudopods, organic/machine hybrids, with a big eyeball, travel through vents)
5. Living Darkness, devours what it engulfs, overcome by melancholy from missing stolen lantern-wife
(If reunited with the lantern, enters it to create an ultraviolet light lantern that does not faze light-sensitive creatures but helps sun-walkers to see underground, as if with infravision albeit at about 15').
6. The Weeping Woman. Wants to be left alone, will kill whatever startles her with maiming claws, won't be stopped by conventional weapons short of explosives (like being combusted in the airlock trap).