#fortunes path

[changeling-crafts]

Tarot World building

Tarot was originally a game back in the 14th century when it showed up in Europe. In the 1750s people began using it for divination, which is what it's better known for today. In Fortunes Path, both uses are combined and the cards are used to answer many questions such as:

What quests are there to do? 

What is the reward? 

What are the local factions? 

Who leads them? 

What settlements are there and who lives there? 

Each spread has a tarot card associated with it; if you get stuck, you can draw a random card and do the corresponding spread to develop new ideas and get your game going again. With every new post I will include at least one new tarot spread that will flesh out your world in a new way. Each spread will have a suggestion of what tarot card might prompt that spread, however I encourage the player to customize this aspect to their game, changing which cards prompt which spreads and coming up with new spreads of your own to better suit your world. 

That all being said, tarot decks can certainly fetch a high price when bought new. Fret not, humble adventurer, as a great many alternatives exist! For the example game, I have chosen to make my own deck using index cards. Right now, all my cards have is the name of each card written at the bottom; as I read with them, I will add some artistic element to the cards that show up in each reading, letting my deck become more beautiful and fleshed out as my world does. I chose to write the card names in pencil so I might go back and rename them later if I want to. 

If that all seems like a bit too much right out the gate, consider the humble playing card deck, which come in all manner of art styles and generally cost less than tarot decks. Playing cards might also fit better with your game depending on the genre and tone. 

(this card chart is heavily inspired by this post from springhole.net. it's a great read, especially if you're new to reading tarot or oracle cards)

Use cards to create random ideas for your characters, plots, and settings!

Even beyond the traditional cards, you could try a collection of business cards, postcards, your favorite battle deck, or a stack of aesthetic photos; as long as you can interpret meaning in the cards, they will work perfectly. The bonus of using a predesigned deck over one like mine is that the cards are already chock full of art to inspire your reading.

Once you have a deck picked out, it's time to actually start reading and fill out your world. If you're having trouble interpreting a spread you can: ask clarifying questions using more cards, a coin flip, or a pendulum to answer or even just re shuffle and start over.

To start off, here are all the spreads for the minor arcana 

A place can be…

Where somebody is from

Where something you need could be

The next place you encounter along the road

Where an important historical event took place

A person can be…

Somebody you met

Someone you need to find

A person who went missing recently

The person hiring you

An item can be…

A reward for a job well done

A tool you can borrow

A weapon used against you

Something you can buy

Flora could be…

An ingredient you need to find

A common plant everybody cultivates

Your best friend’s favorite flower

The worst tea you can find this side of the river

Creatures could be…

Companion animals 

Beasts of burden

Livestock for eating

Wild creatures to hunt

Beasts might…

Be the reason the livestock went missing 

Eat travelers right off the road

Be a wise and reclusive source of knowledge

Exist only in stories

While  reading, look for opportunities to connect the spread you're currently reading to spreads you've done in the past, perhaps that creature always lines it's den with a particular plant, and that creature appears on the the kings crest, maybe that fancy item was forged by the same king, and so on and so forth.

Next post will be about your player character!

[changeling-crafts]

So I've made a solo role-playing game

But what even is a solo role-playing game, you might ask

well, solo role-playing is a hobby where you make use of randomizers and your imagination to go on an adventure!

Why you might want to try it out:

Basically free!

There are tons of solo games out there for free or cheap (and more are coming out every day ;))

Many games only need something to write with, something to write on, and some method of randomization (dice, playing cards, a coin to flip)

Focus on your enjoyment!

Tailor the game to your exact tastes: setting, genre, tone, characters, mechanics, pacing, all of it can be exactly how you want, whether it’s an endless dungeon crawl with barely any story, or a slice of life focused on a woodland hermit

Play whenever/wherever you want; no need to schedule or worry about commuting, or technical difficulties

A great creative outlet!

From drawing and painting to songwriting and poetry, stories have always been a fountain of inspiration for other artworks

As we will soon explore, there is plenty of room for creativity within the game as well

If this all sounds like fun to you, well have I got some great news, over the next week or so this blog will guide you along the making and playing of your own adventure suited to your tastes using my new system, Fortunes Path!

Fortunes Path is a tabletop role playing game (ttrpg) that makes use of different divination tools to guide the player through an adventure. It can be played all alone or in a group, with or without a game master. Fortunes path has a focus on character and story telling with an emphasis on incorporating art into your game. These instructions will focus on playing solo, with a dedicated post for playing in a group.

The major elements of Fortunes Path include:

A focus on art and self expression, with plenty of ideas for any skill level and budget

Tarot spreads to build the world and populate it with locations, people, quests and more!

Runes to determine whether a character succeeds or fails at a given task, encouraging more nuanced and character focused results than one would get from a number alone.

All of these elements are easy to incorporate into other ttrpgs to help make the perfect gaming experience for you!

Tomorrow's post will cover setting the stage and deciding the goals for your game.

[changeling-crafts]

Raising the stakes

Maybe you've fallen into a pit of goo, or you're super dizzy, or somebody is trying really hard to stop you; whatever the reason for your troubles, you can simulate this difficulty by casting your runes over a surface with different sections, counting any runes that fall outside a certain section as face down.

We will refer to this surface as a rune board and it can be anything that's flat enough for the runes to stay where they land. Once you have a surface picked out, all you have to do is decide what parts of it are where runes will be counted. The size of that area will correlate to how difficult that roll is, with smaller areas being more difficult than larger ones. You can even make your rune board with different tiers of difficulty, maybe with special sections for special situations. Decide before playing how to count runes that fall halfway between sections then you are all good to go.

Elizabeth hasn't had any blood in a whole week, and being a vampire, this is very bad for her. Her blood tracker is completely empty now, so any rolls she makes are on the rune board at its lowest difficulty, and any rolls that have to do with another person will be made on the second tier of difficulty. Getting more blood in a state like this will certainly be a task.

For the first level of difficulty I would count the three dots, two lines, and the jagged line. For the second level of difficulty I would only count the three dots and the two lines

The rune board is a great place for showing off your game's aesthetic! The shapes for your difficulty tiers can be any shape imaginable so long as your runes can fit inside them. 

Embroidered into a bandana 

Collaged from bits of junk mail

Piece of string formed tied into a loop

Painted onto the cover of a book

Drawn into dirt with a stick

The rune board concludes all the basic mechanics of Fortunes Path, but that doesn't mean we’re done. Tomorrow we will talk about playing as a group, and after that I will periodically post more craft ideas and tarot spreads that you can incorporate into your game.

On that note here are today's spreads!

Tomorrow we will talk about playing Fortunes Path in a group

[changeling-crafts]

Points

Points are used to give more narrative control to the player. After you roll, you can spend 1 point to make one of your upright runes worth 2, so long as you can make an argument as to why that trait would push the tide from failure to success. You can also spend 2 points to re-roll all upside down runes. You can earn points by choosing outcomes that make things more difficult for your character, such as having your character make a bad decision, taking more strain from a failure, or choosing to fail a roll.

I like to start my games with 3 points that I track throughout that character's journey on their sheet, so each character has a roughly proportional number of points to the direness of their situation. Other options include starting with the same number of points every time you play, or having points refresh when your character rests or every time you switch to a new scene. Changing points is the easiest way to futz with your game's difficulty, though it might take a bit of experimenting to find a balance that feels good for you. 

Changing the cost for spending points

Starting with more or less points

Have relevant runes equal +2 without spending any points

Earn points in batches of two

Ignoring points altogether

Adding a point every time you move to a new scene

You can also use points for special abilities, like transforming into a magical girl, teleporting out of a dungeon, or shifting your spaceship into turbo mode.

Today's spread is a new opportunity! In spreads with an “unexpected element” spot, you can keep that card flipped face down until you're in too deep, making that part of the quest truly surprising!

Is there a time limit? What happens if you don't take this opportunity? Will somebody else do it?  

Melody is invited to eat supper at the church with the other protestors. There they learn of an upcoming festival, and it looks like the organizer is a bit overworked and could use some help.

Tomorrow we will talk about inventory and some ways to put the whole character sheet together.

[changeling-crafts]

Group Play

There are as many ways to play Fortunes Path as a group as there are ways to play it solo. Many of the steps are exactly the same just with more people, though there are a couple of things to keep in mind when moving from solo to group play. 

Much of setting the stage remains the same, though this is also a point for players to express any topics or elements they don't want to appear in the game. Setting the stage together means that everybody is on the same page about the game.

Aside from the gist of the game itself, the other big thing to be decided is who interprets what. You could have one player act as a game master interpreting the runes and tarot spreads, acting out the non player characters, and putting the world together for the players to explore. You could also decide to have everybody interpret the readings together, bouncing ideas off of each other and figuring out the story and world as a group. Another option is having a rotating Gamemaster, where everybody gets the chance to run the game for everyone else.

Points and strain should for the most part work the same for everyone. If there are differences, there should be a story reason as to why.

Timmy’s character is a wizard, so they get a magic strain tracker, but Chip is playing a rogue so they don't get that tracker; they get one that indicates how sneaky they are at that moment instead. 

Another thing to keep the same between players is inventory, and whether there's a shared group inventory or if each player tracks their belongings separately.

With all that taken care of, your group game is all good to go!

Today's spreads are Guilds and Leaders

Tomorrow's post is a collection of all the tarot spreads set up as a pdf

[changeling-crafts]

Putting it all together

Most of the hard work has already been done, now you just have to put it all on a sheet together - OR NOT! While I will admit the single sheet of paper is traditional, there's a whole ocean of options to explore. The information I have found the most useful character “sheet” wise, is as follows: what each rune means for your character, the strain trackers, current number of points, and inventory, which we will stick a pin in for now.

In previous sections, I brought up some options for documenting and tracking these parts individually. Here are some ideas for putting all these parts together:

Bookmark

Explosion box

Key chain

Small tin 

Pop up card

Beaded necklace with locket

Spice jar full of scrolls 

There are as many ways to track an inventory as there are ways to jazz up a cuppa coffee, and much like coffee, many people will have strong preferences for how they want it done. For our purpose today we will condense all of that into two ideas: granular and abstract.

For a more granular inventory, knowing the cost of a particular item is pretty useful; however, coming up with a plausible cost for any item you might want to buy can get pretty tedious. Come up with a short list of different kinds of things you might spend money on in this game with some prices that feel plausible. You can also list some different ways you might earn money with a typical cost. When you go to buy something you can use the list to feel out how much other items might cost. 

Room at the inn 15

Potion bottles 3 each

Sword 20-100

Beginning book of potion brewing  10

Musical instrument 30-300

A hearty meal 3 

Gardening supplies 15

Magic wand 50-1000

Length of rope 5

If a lower quality sword is about 20, then I bet a medium quality dagger might be around that same price. I feel like a lantern with oil would cost around the same amount as gardening supplies. If magic wands range from 50-1000 I think staves would cost 300-5000. 

You can always add to or change this list as it serves your game.

As for tracking a more granular inventory, item cards kept in an envelope is fun, but a bit more work. Writing down a list is much simpler, but if you go that route I recommend writing on something disposable like a sticky note. I've found that writing and erasing in the same area will wear paper out over time and it sucks to ruin your main sheet.

Or you could consider a more abstract inventory!

Use a strain tracker to roughly represent your cash!

Do you have lockpicks? Of course you do, you're a thief!

But do you have a warhammer? Maybe not, try casting your runes to see if you have something that could work as one.

Want to prepare for a big heist? Gather or buy some RESOURCES,  you can decide what exactly they are later when you use them, so long as you can come up with a reason why you have something like that. 

Well of course I have a warhammer, I bought it after seeing that cool gladiator fight last week!  

For Melody, I've chosen a more granular sort of inventory, and have tentatively decided to make their debt worth 3000 gold, though this might change as I play.

Today we have a quartet of spreads with a focus on culture and history

Historical event

How long ago did this happen? 

Do people still care about it?

How is it documented?

Deity 

Based on a real person?

Part of a pantheon?

How widely worshiped are they?

Holiday 

Are outsiders welcome to participate?

When is it?

How long do people celebrate?

Legend

How is it told?

Based on a true story?

Do people believe it's true?

Tomorrow we will talk about raising the stakes 

[changeling-crafts]

Strain

It might be mana, your physical form, the power of friendship, sanity, cyberpunk battery juice, the power of a totally not cursed weapon or anything else you might think of. Whatever it is, we will call it strain, and strain is fantastic for making a game more engaging. I like having a couple different strains that are affected by different things. 

When coming up with your strains, consider what makes sense for both your world and for your character. 

What increases this strain? What lessens it? Can it be lessened at all? What actions if failed result in this strain? Which actions always result in this strain? How much of this strain can you withstand? What happens when it's full? All the way empty? Does everybody in the world have this kind of strain? Is it represented by adding or subtracting? 

I like using a four-tiered pyramid for my trackers, with the places at the bottom being trivial and the place at the top being serious. When I fail at a task that results in taking a strain, the degree to which I failed (how many runes are upside down vs upright) corresponds to the level of strain. For example if 2 were upright, I would mark down a level 3 strain. If lower tier spots are full I can mark it off as a higher tier strain. Negative consequences happen when there aren't any spots to mark off a strain that I've taken.

Some other options for strain strackers include a dish with a set number of baubles you can remove or add, a string of beads where you slide beads from one end to the other, a coloring page you slowly fill in, or whatever else you want, keeping in mind the total number of strain will affect the urgency and balance of your game. Feel like things are too meandering and slow? Try lessening the total strain a character can take. 

In Melody’s case, they have a physical strain tracker for any bodily injuries and a tracker for how much attention they're drawing to themselves. When the physical strain tracker is full they will collapse and might go unconscious depending on the scene. Physical strains will move down a tier with a night’s rest. The attention tracker goes up when they perform and they earn more money if that tracker is more full. When the tip of the attention tracker is filled in the debt collectors' henchmen will be actively searching for Melody in whatever area they're in. A full day without performing will remove a single tier 1 strain. Two days in a row can either remove two tier 1 strains or one tier 2 strain and so on. Moving to a different town or city will reset the attention tracker to one tier 1 strain.

They also have three coloring sheets to track progress on the projects they promised to complete for others, while those only go up there's definitely a chance that something might restart that progress from square one. When one of those trackers fills up, it means that project of Melody’s is complete! To make these coloring sheets I looked at a lot of the more decorative bullet journals for inspiration. 

Today's spread is a current issue! 

Melody and Eyret make it to the city of Finas, to find the whole city in a tizzy. The largest church in the city has organized a protest against the city's decision to refuse aid to nearby towns currently suffering a drought. Melody decides to join the protest (coin, mouth, shield), which adds a tier 1 strain to the attention tracker, but they make good impressions with a few of the other protesters. 

Tomorrow we talk about points!

[changeling-crafts]

Character and Runes

Maybe you're negotiating with a dragon, fighting off a horde of zombies or piloting a spaceship. Instead of rolling dice to determine the outcome, you will toss runes out on a flat surface and if the number of upright ones surpass the upside down ones then you succeeded! The difference between upright and upside down is the degree to your success or failure, 4 upright is just succeeding and 7 upright is a total success.  

Each character gets 7 runes and each rune will connect to a character trait. Good traits to put on runes are the sort that can make your character's life easier OR harder depending on the context. If you are familiar with the game Fate, this is similar to their concept of aspects.

For my first character in this world I used a handy dandy tarot spread to get me started. 

In addition to player characters, this spread is great for any NPCs you might interact with a whole bunch, like rivals, team mates, the big bad evil guy, or even your best friend!

"Melody" used to be one of the performers from a small theater troupe, who is now on the run after debt collectors demanded that they pay all their debt immediately or be strong-armed into working for them. They hope to make enough money to pay off their debts so they can rejoin their troupe, while staying under the debt collectors radar. They also want to fulfill the promises they made before coming back. Some of these promises include making an elaborate costume for one of their friends, writing a short play, and learning how to play a new instrument. Currently they are on the road to the nearby city of Finas, to hopefully make some new friends and earn some money. 

The runes I've chosen for this character and what they represent are as follows

Sun – ambitious, unfulfilled promises, very optimistic view of their future (despite the circumstance)

Mouth – friendly, making new friends, keeping in touch with the old ones through letters, hates to be disliked

Butterfly – impulsive, good at improv, often improvises their music, irresponsible with money

Shield – stubborn, ashamed of needing to run away, won't resort to theft no matter what, stand up for their friends

Star – restless, always starting something new, can't stand boredom

Mask – performer, just a tad melodramatic, music, acting, costume creation, prop creation

Coin – in debt, trying to save up, on the run 

Since I wanted to have a whole bunch of characters I could switch between, I chose to make around 20 different generic runes that I could pick from to represent each character's traits.  As for the actual physical runes themselves,the options are endless. So long as it has two sides and has roughly equal chances of falling on both sides you will be golden. Here are some ideas to get you started.

Formed from salt dough or air dry clay

Coins 

Buttons 

Cardboard box segments 

Flat stones

Bits of wood

Folded and glued book pages

Cut and sanded popsicle sticks 

Shells 

The symbols on each rune can be whatever you want so long as you can tell them apart. J.R.R. Tolkien's fancy schmancy elf letters? Go for it! Different road signs? Why not! Original symbols lovingly designed by you? Absolutely! If you want some inspiration for simple generic symbols I highly recommend looking at Rotate Bird, a ttrpg by David J Prokopetz, @prokopetz which has a big ole list of lil symbols for its own game mechanics. By whatever method you come up with the symbols the next thing you gotta do is write down what they mean to your character.

Here are a few ways to document rune meanings

Draw each rune in the center of it's own page, journal and draw about what it means

A strip of paper folded into zig zags, a rune described on each section

A portrait of your character, with the runes appearing in their design, arrows pointing them out and describing what they mean 

A pop up, like a waterfall card

Written in an origami fortune teller

Just write the meanings on the backs of the runes themselves

The road to Finas is not empty, though. Ahead on the trail is another traveler dressed in clothes that more resemble pajamas than they do daywear, walking alongside an incredibly scruffy looking creature. Being the sort of person Melody is, they will do their best to introduce themselves in a friendly manner. (I toss the runes, the sun, mask and shield are upright. Based on which runes are face up I decide that Melody came off too strong.) Eyret offers her name but not much else, she seems intimidated by Melody’s over the top introduction. Oh dear, not the best start to making new friends.  

Tomorrow we will talk about strain