Just a very small update. I collected my terrain related mini-games into a pdf before, but came up with additional challenges for the desert and planar travel since then. Also, though it isn't a challenge itself, I added the trackless wastes bit to help running ocean exploration and such. Pdf is here.
The graphics all need to be higher resolution, but I don't have the time or energy to address that right now. I'll try to work on that incrementally. I hope one of these will lead to some fun interesting wilderness expeditions for you and your players.
Showing posts with label Player Mini-Games. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Player Mini-Games. Show all posts
Friday, February 21, 2014
Monday, December 2, 2013
No-Touch Triggers
I was thinking of weird engines that were powered by things just happening in the vicinity, but it might be more useful to you as a general purpose trigger.
The idea is to set up a fun, mysterious occurrence that players have to figure out what they're doing to cause it. That means the effect, be it boon or bane, shouldn't be too extreme, because you expect it to happen multiple times. Also, the trigger should be something easily discoverable, or frustration will be the only thing triggered.
So, for example, every time someone asks a question in a room a gong sounds and players gain 5 pounds.
This means we need to generate both possible triggers and possible amusing affects. I think the latter is easier and I'll leave it to you. The former is trickier because it balances on the border of in-game and out-of-game actions. I guess the fancy way to put it is that these actions are at least potentially diegetic. They have to be things it is plausible for characters to do even if it is players doing it without thinking about their characters. Here are some possible ones I thought of:
The majority of these are just talking, but most actions would involve touching and are pretty standard dungeon fare, like opening a chest or door triggering something. They would have the mystery of what is causing this. Eating, drinking, praying or reading in the room might work, but then you have to hope players might actually do those things. I suppose it's a fairly niche application. But it could be fun. Let me know if you can think of any potential triggers.
The idea is to set up a fun, mysterious occurrence that players have to figure out what they're doing to cause it. That means the effect, be it boon or bane, shouldn't be too extreme, because you expect it to happen multiple times. Also, the trigger should be something easily discoverable, or frustration will be the only thing triggered.
So, for example, every time someone asks a question in a room a gong sounds and players gain 5 pounds.
This means we need to generate both possible triggers and possible amusing affects. I think the latter is easier and I'll leave it to you. The former is trickier because it balances on the border of in-game and out-of-game actions. I guess the fancy way to put it is that these actions are at least potentially diegetic. They have to be things it is plausible for characters to do even if it is players doing it without thinking about their characters. Here are some possible ones I thought of:
- ask a question
- say a name
- say a direction (n,s,e,w or right, left)
- use a conditional (if we . . . ?, will you . . .?)
- character rests, sits or lies down.
- player eats something (this is clearly out-of-game, but might be funny.. a gong goes off every time someone grabs a pretzel)
The majority of these are just talking, but most actions would involve touching and are pretty standard dungeon fare, like opening a chest or door triggering something. They would have the mystery of what is causing this. Eating, drinking, praying or reading in the room might work, but then you have to hope players might actually do those things. I suppose it's a fairly niche application. But it could be fun. Let me know if you can think of any potential triggers.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
Port Specific Trade Good Bartering
I'm excited because I got an idea that could add some fun player options to the game with very little added complexity. I combine my barter mini-game idea with my attempt to boil down trade goods to a manageable lot. So how's this for an idea, if players ever get interested in trading or piracy and want to know what is needed or in abundance in a particular port you have them throw two dice on a dice drop chart specific to that port. You can limit the chart to the goods most likely to be found in that port and even vary the size of for each depending on how common they are.
I don't know enough about how dice drops work to make the perfect template. I know I want it larger than many I've seen, because I want it visible by all the players sitting around the table. I tried to make it look aesthetically pleasing too.
I threw together some public domain icons to get a sense of what it might look like. Gathering images for all the goods will be a challenge, as always, with our century long copyright. But you can see how it might work:
Probably should have a space for the name of the port somewhere, now that I think of it. Also, I made twenty spots, but this might benefit from a big simplification to six, especially if the ports are supposed to feel unique with different selections from the 20 basic trade goods.
So the idea is the same as from my gear bartering post: throw a d2 and d4 for each merchant. d2 is what they're offering, d4 what they want. Players with exceptional charisma can shift one of these numbers up or down for each merchant. I'm, guessing that we would need some sense of units. That might be something good to have on the trade goods chart, so oil might be kegs, salt could be coffers, hides bundles of certain weight, etc.
Here is the blank template if you want to fool around with it.
I don't know enough about how dice drops work to make the perfect template. I know I want it larger than many I've seen, because I want it visible by all the players sitting around the table. I tried to make it look aesthetically pleasing too.
I threw together some public domain icons to get a sense of what it might look like. Gathering images for all the goods will be a challenge, as always, with our century long copyright. But you can see how it might work:
 |
| Livestock, hides, pottery, oil, and glassware. |
Probably should have a space for the name of the port somewhere, now that I think of it. Also, I made twenty spots, but this might benefit from a big simplification to six, especially if the ports are supposed to feel unique with different selections from the 20 basic trade goods.
So the idea is the same as from my gear bartering post: throw a d2 and d4 for each merchant. d2 is what they're offering, d4 what they want. Players with exceptional charisma can shift one of these numbers up or down for each merchant. I'm, guessing that we would need some sense of units. That might be something good to have on the trade goods chart, so oil might be kegs, salt could be coffers, hides bundles of certain weight, etc.
Here is the blank template if you want to fool around with it.
Monday, September 17, 2012
Bartering Gear
This is for R, thanks for the request. My first real edition was 1e AD&D, and in it Gygax compares adventuring equipment prices to those of the Gold Rush days. It always made sense to me that there would be merchants offering as many torches and bundles of rope as you needed but at a steep price inflation.
But bartering could be an interesting proposition. I think most barter systems are one step away from using a currency; if you're trading chickens for swords it will eventually be easier to standardize on the value of things in chickens or swords. But standardizing implies authority and enforcement and some places might be far from civilization.
So bartering could give a nice flavor of either being in a post apocalyptic world where there is no government and what is dredged from the wreckage of the former world is always unexpected and hard to put values on, or the savage frontier where merchant houses and authorities are far from the trading post.
Bartering could just be handled by roleplaying out each encounter with a merchant. I usually do just this, rolling reaction rolls to determine if they have requested items or not, and how much they will ask for them.
But that doesn't help the busy DM much and it doesn't give the players a sense of a teeming market place. So, can we come up with a mini-game to help?
After thinking about it, I think a dice drop chart of the most common gear would work. Take a sheet of paper and split it up into sections for each piece of gear. Cheaper, more common items can have bigger sections.
Drop a d4 and a d6. Read the d6 as a d2, 1-3=1, 4-6=2. The d2 is what the merchant is willing to give, the d4 what they want. If you pair up d4s and d2s of the same color and have three or four sets of different colors, you can let each color represent a particular merchant. Throw all the dice at once.
Let the players look at the market. It should sometimes be possible to identify strings of possible trades: this guy has an excess of rope, this guy over here needs it, etc. Players with exceptional Charisma can shift the numbers on one of the dice for each merchant up or down one. You can roleplay out the rest.
Waddaythink?
But bartering could be an interesting proposition. I think most barter systems are one step away from using a currency; if you're trading chickens for swords it will eventually be easier to standardize on the value of things in chickens or swords. But standardizing implies authority and enforcement and some places might be far from civilization.
So bartering could give a nice flavor of either being in a post apocalyptic world where there is no government and what is dredged from the wreckage of the former world is always unexpected and hard to put values on, or the savage frontier where merchant houses and authorities are far from the trading post.
Bartering could just be handled by roleplaying out each encounter with a merchant. I usually do just this, rolling reaction rolls to determine if they have requested items or not, and how much they will ask for them.
But that doesn't help the busy DM much and it doesn't give the players a sense of a teeming market place. So, can we come up with a mini-game to help?
After thinking about it, I think a dice drop chart of the most common gear would work. Take a sheet of paper and split it up into sections for each piece of gear. Cheaper, more common items can have bigger sections.
 | |
| Orange will give sacks for torches or spikes, sounds like a crappy deal. How do you like my ghetto office dice? |
Let the players look at the market. It should sometimes be possible to identify strings of possible trades: this guy has an excess of rope, this guy over here needs it, etc. Players with exceptional Charisma can shift the numbers on one of the dice for each merchant up or down one. You can roleplay out the rest.
Waddaythink?
Saturday, September 15, 2012
Travel Challenge Compilation
It's rough, but here are all the travel mini-games I've posted about in one document. I want to add desert later and the trackless waste thingamajigger. If anyone tries these in play I'd love to hear the results. My group is on hiatus because of my work right now, so I've never had a chance to try them.
Monday, December 19, 2011
Spell Research for Players
Here's an idea to get players more involved with investigating new spells: reveal the actual spell info to the player as they successfully learn more and more.
It's not as exciting as a player coming up with their own spells, but not everyone wants to get as creatively invested. It could also be good if you want more control over the spells that will be possible in your campaign, or even if only a single caster can know any one spell at a time (wasn't that Mr. Rient's idea?).
(Why make players go through the process of research if you already have a list of spells? Well it can still be engaging as a mini-game, especially if you have some kooky random failures possible during research.)
Anyway, let the player see a list of possible spells they can choose to research. They'll have to make a decision based on just the name. Maybe you'll allow them to research incrementally into different spells, finding out a little more about each one before sinking all their time and money into learning one. Maybe you'll allow them to try casting a spell before it's fully researched, but if you, the DM, carefully craft the spell ahead of time you can make this very risky.
Let's take the Fortunate Punishment as an example. And I should pause to say the last time I wrote about this spell, I made it seem like I invented the spell in the comments (hell, I didn't remember if I had, or one of my players, or . . .). But it was actually invented by the brilliant Stuart. So thanks to him, and sorry about that, sir. Now the example:
If each line of text corresponds to 100gp, or maybe a week of research, then giving players just a list of titles would prevent them from knowing even how much work they have to do to unravel that spells mysteries. If you want to be easier on them you could start with the whole spell text blurred out. In the case of our example it would mean about 5 successful steps to know everything about the spell. Each week, or research roll, or however you want to do it, you show the player the next image with another line clear.
Now, this would take a lot of work on the DM's part to make each reveal dramatic or a tease. But then, you could probably even take the standard spells and hide range, material components, and casting time, to be dramatic too, depending on the spell.
It's not as exciting as a player coming up with their own spells, but not everyone wants to get as creatively invested. It could also be good if you want more control over the spells that will be possible in your campaign, or even if only a single caster can know any one spell at a time (wasn't that Mr. Rient's idea?).
(Why make players go through the process of research if you already have a list of spells? Well it can still be engaging as a mini-game, especially if you have some kooky random failures possible during research.)
Anyway, let the player see a list of possible spells they can choose to research. They'll have to make a decision based on just the name. Maybe you'll allow them to research incrementally into different spells, finding out a little more about each one before sinking all their time and money into learning one. Maybe you'll allow them to try casting a spell before it's fully researched, but if you, the DM, carefully craft the spell ahead of time you can make this very risky.
Let's take the Fortunate Punishment as an example. And I should pause to say the last time I wrote about this spell, I made it seem like I invented the spell in the comments (hell, I didn't remember if I had, or one of my players, or . . .). But it was actually invented by the brilliant Stuart. So thanks to him, and sorry about that, sir. Now the example:
Now, this would take a lot of work on the DM's part to make each reveal dramatic or a tease. But then, you could probably even take the standard spells and hide range, material components, and casting time, to be dramatic too, depending on the spell.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
Vows & Oaths
I'm really interested in vows and taboos in relation to the granting of power. One of my favorite stories of all time is that of Samson, chosen of God to be a freaking superhero, as long as he observes a few prohibitions. The Nazirite vow of not touching unclean things would include, you know, stuff like jawbones and lion carcasses. So even as he's fulfilling God's mission Samson breaks these prohibitions and loses his power.
Vows, Oaths, Taboos, & Geasa
These seem ripe to be incorporated into an old school adventure game. Whether they be a fate-like prediction given to the character at creation, "He will never _______ until ________," or a kind of self imposed spiritual restriction, "I shall never _____," these could add the flavor of folklore and religion to play. But more interestingly to me, they could function as an ongoing and individualized player mini-game. Yeah it would be fun for a player to have a power, but it would be more fun if they have to be on their toes to keep it.
What Benefit?
Now, the powers a character might gain from observance of these strictures would be a tricky thing; we don't want every pc running around super strong or immortal. Before we try to come up with possibilities let's narrow it down a little.
I'm thinking these benefits might be better as a continuous power (i.e. strength, great size) and not daily powers or spells. It also might be better if they were just one clear benefit and not many. Both of these would make it more obvious and dramatic if the strictures are broken and the power is lost.
I'm thinking it might be better if it is limited to affecting them and their body. Not something like pyrokinesis. But I'm less sure about that.
I feel like these could also be more interesting and flavorful if they were slightly ambiguous or had room for interpretation. You know, like "can never be killed by man born of woman." And then MacDuff of the Cesarean shows up.
Here are some ideas:
- great strength
- great endurance
- great speed
- a silver tongue (great persuasive ability)
- immune to poisons & sickness
- immune to charms and glamors
- great ability with a certain weapon
- always first to strike (win initiative)
- always last to fall (keep fighting even below 0 hp, until all foes fall or flee)
- never be felled by steel (can be rendered unconscious, but not killed by steel weapon)
I think the magnitude of the power granted should be balanced with the difficulty of keeping the vows. And this is related to picking vows that would work mechanically in-game. For example, an ascetic vow of vegetarianism, or a vow to avoid alcohol would rarely be an issue to an old school character unless the DM or player consciously made it one. I'd like something a little harder to avoid.
To help us generate we can think of them as obligations, things the character must do, and prohibitions, things they must never do. My general feeling is that the latter would be easier to use for our purposes but let's go with it for now and see what we can come up with.
You will have X as long as you never:
- kill a living thing
- draw first blood
- raise a hand against a man/woman/elf/etc
- strip the arms off a foe (in the sense of weapons and armor)
- be first to _________ (to stop fighting?)
- be last to _________ (in marching order?)
- keep bad company (whatever that my be defined as)
- reveal secrets (whatever they are established as)
- draw first blood
- blood a bared weapon
- strip the arms off a vanquished foe
- be first to _________ (enter buildings?)
- be last to _________ (yield?)
I'm thinking this might need some more thought and a second post. But I'm curious to know what you think.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Player Mini-Games III
Continuing an investigation into simples ways to get players creating at the table. I looked at letter constraints, word constraints and today look at:
Concept Constraints
Alien Concepts
Interact with something that completely lacks a common concept. I feel I couldn't put this better than noisms of Monsters and Manuals does in two of his posts. Here, looking at human universals and the play possibilities if creatures didn't share them. And here, exploring the idea of what it might be like for demi-humans to have different conceptions of law.
Now, I'm not sure how this might work as a mini-game. Maybe your alien Xxrrph have no sense of "Past," and the players want to know what happened a month ago when the last caravan disappeared. . . . Umm, I'm having a hard time myself imagining how the creature would interact with past events without a concept of past. Would the past be like a different place, or would it be like people who lack long term memory, trapped in the present moment?
"Do you know what a caravan is?"
"Yes. It isn't here"
"I know, but a month ago one should have come through, what happened to it?"
"Sometimes one comes through, must not be today though."
" . . . Have you seen a caravan?"
"I must have, they come through here some times."
Taboo
Interact with a creature while avoiding a forbidden topic. Taboos aren't just words, but whole topics. The key here would be to find a topic that the avoidance of would cause enough problems for players as to make it game-like and require creativity to get around. Perhaps violence/aggression is a no-no and players have to explain why they need money from the tribal chief to outfit themselves. Or maybe the local dwarf fortress is astounded at how your pale, weakly mage took out a whole swarm of stirge because magic is taboo.
"Ahh, yes, stirge are a difficult adversary, yes"
"How did you defeat them?"
"I took my staff, I started swinging like this . . ."
Taboo and Alien concepts seem more like roleplaying situations than mini-games. I there something more like the goblin opposite talk that got me started on this topic? You might reverse it and come up with:
Truth Telling
Everyone tells the exact truth. Even with experienced, honest roleplayers I don't think this would work quite as well as opposite talk. You might just tend to avoid plans of action that would cause problems if you confessed them. In the worst case scenario this mini-game would make play more boring! But if the players were in a situation where they didn't feel really threatened you might construct an amusing situation. Perhaps a disgruntled local mage spiked the punch at the Baron's party. Everyone has to say what they are really thinking. Put some interesting and annoying npcs into the mix and you have an old-school cocktail party.
"I know you are a mage, but I find I'm not intimidated by you because you are so short"
"Hmm, I'm not sure what you just said because I was looking at your friend's bulging purse"
Yes, I'm feeling that at this level of granularity the mini-games blend into roleplaying situations, basically the game of make believe itself. It looks like Zak picked the most useful one, opposite talk is easy to understand and perform, doesn't require players to reveal anything they don't want to, and works in a setting that can be equally bizarro, i.e. walking on ceilings.
The only thing coming to mind outside of my letter/word/concept schema is pantomime or crafty stuff like drawing. While the first might work if you asked players to just use their hands to try and communicate with a creature that doesn't speak the same language, I would be worried that it and any kind of drawing/singing/sculpting would be getting too far into the performance category. I'm trying to think of things that might engage shy, new players, not scare them off.
Help me out here, is there anything you've done or seen done in a session that got players sitting up and eager to take part of what was happening at the table?
Concept Constraints
Alien Concepts
Interact with something that completely lacks a common concept. I feel I couldn't put this better than noisms of Monsters and Manuals does in two of his posts. Here, looking at human universals and the play possibilities if creatures didn't share them. And here, exploring the idea of what it might be like for demi-humans to have different conceptions of law.
Now, I'm not sure how this might work as a mini-game. Maybe your alien Xxrrph have no sense of "Past," and the players want to know what happened a month ago when the last caravan disappeared. . . . Umm, I'm having a hard time myself imagining how the creature would interact with past events without a concept of past. Would the past be like a different place, or would it be like people who lack long term memory, trapped in the present moment?
"Do you know what a caravan is?"
"Yes. It isn't here"
"I know, but a month ago one should have come through, what happened to it?"
"Sometimes one comes through, must not be today though."
" . . . Have you seen a caravan?"
"I must have, they come through here some times."
Taboo
Interact with a creature while avoiding a forbidden topic. Taboos aren't just words, but whole topics. The key here would be to find a topic that the avoidance of would cause enough problems for players as to make it game-like and require creativity to get around. Perhaps violence/aggression is a no-no and players have to explain why they need money from the tribal chief to outfit themselves. Or maybe the local dwarf fortress is astounded at how your pale, weakly mage took out a whole swarm of stirge because magic is taboo.
"Ahh, yes, stirge are a difficult adversary, yes"
"How did you defeat them?"
"I took my staff, I started swinging like this . . ."
Taboo and Alien concepts seem more like roleplaying situations than mini-games. I there something more like the goblin opposite talk that got me started on this topic? You might reverse it and come up with:
Truth Telling
Everyone tells the exact truth. Even with experienced, honest roleplayers I don't think this would work quite as well as opposite talk. You might just tend to avoid plans of action that would cause problems if you confessed them. In the worst case scenario this mini-game would make play more boring! But if the players were in a situation where they didn't feel really threatened you might construct an amusing situation. Perhaps a disgruntled local mage spiked the punch at the Baron's party. Everyone has to say what they are really thinking. Put some interesting and annoying npcs into the mix and you have an old-school cocktail party.
"I know you are a mage, but I find I'm not intimidated by you because you are so short"
"Hmm, I'm not sure what you just said because I was looking at your friend's bulging purse"
Yes, I'm feeling that at this level of granularity the mini-games blend into roleplaying situations, basically the game of make believe itself. It looks like Zak picked the most useful one, opposite talk is easy to understand and perform, doesn't require players to reveal anything they don't want to, and works in a setting that can be equally bizarro, i.e. walking on ceilings.
The only thing coming to mind outside of my letter/word/concept schema is pantomime or crafty stuff like drawing. While the first might work if you asked players to just use their hands to try and communicate with a creature that doesn't speak the same language, I would be worried that it and any kind of drawing/singing/sculpting would be getting too far into the performance category. I'm trying to think of things that might engage shy, new players, not scare them off.
Help me out here, is there anything you've done or seen done in a session that got players sitting up and eager to take part of what was happening at the table?
Friday, July 16, 2010
Player Mini-Games II
Okay, we're continuing our examination of possible player mini-games. These are simple ways to get players interacting at the table. Last post was letter constraints, let's kick it up a notch to:
Word Constraints
Small Words
Use only one-syllable words. I think it's too much to ask newbie players to make haiku count syllables, but they should be able to do this. Because most of the words we use in every day speech are single syllable this would need to be an extended use for the challenge aspect of it to show up. Small words could be used to simulate speaking in a different language. Maybe the Dwarf in the party does know Kobold, just not very much.
"Hear me small one. If you let us in the door I will give you food. If you do not let us through, this great mage will show you his power and burn you nests with fire!"
Werral's simple language rules fit here, and extend the idea. Basically language fluency is simulated by what words you can use-- less fluent=just nouns, more fluent=verbs also, but just 1 per sentence, etc. I really like this as a way to simulate languages in a world. (the only reason I haven't used it in play yet is because I haven't decided on the main languages of my world)
Personal Pronouns
Speak with wrong but consistent personal pronouns. This seems less about a challenge than amusing confusion. It could be something as simple as Abbott and Costello's Who's on First (the female high priest Hee, the temple spirit "U" etc.), or the royal "we." Or it might be a little more complicated, using third person or first person plural to refer to self (we are hungry, it doesn't really want to hurt you, etc.). This mini-game is perfect to simulate a monster's alien consciousness.
"It's going to eat you"
"What is?"
"The guardian of the pool"
"How do you know?"
"Because it's about to take you unawares"
Code Words
Use some words to mean different words. Not ciphers, where letters are replaced, but whole words like in a Cold War codebook. Maybe the Great Fair has a black market that functions right under the nose of the king's men. To buy a tun of royal wine you ask for a "bolt," (as in cloth) to ask for poached boar meat "wine," to ask for forbidden scarlet cloth you ask for "tusks." Simple enough except the merchants are leery of anyone catching on so they rotate the meanings every day.
"I'd like tusks"
"How many?"
"Whaa . . . um a bolt"
"A bolt, I thought you wanted some meat, you want wine?"
Again, more sitcomesque confusion than a creative challenge but it could be fun.
Riddles
Riddles, like rhyming, are too hard for this. You might get away with it if you keep it really simple, something like Scandinavian kennings. And I'd want the players to hear some examples first. A kenning is just a metaphorical way to use, usually, two words to represent one other word, so ship becomes "wave's steed," etc. Maybe this comes into play as a way to pass as warriors of the north, or maybe a viking lich only understands this kind of speech.
"Where is the arm's thorn of Bjorn?"
"It lies under the whale's road."
Feel free to jump in with any other ideas you might have. Notice, none of the letter or word constraints replicate Zak's goblin "opposite talk." I think that is more of a concept, so the next post will be on conceptual constraints.
Word Constraints
Small Words
Use only one-syllable words. I think it's too much to ask newbie players to make haiku count syllables, but they should be able to do this. Because most of the words we use in every day speech are single syllable this would need to be an extended use for the challenge aspect of it to show up. Small words could be used to simulate speaking in a different language. Maybe the Dwarf in the party does know Kobold, just not very much.
"Hear me small one. If you let us in the door I will give you food. If you do not let us through, this great mage will show you his power and burn you nests with fire!"
Werral's simple language rules fit here, and extend the idea. Basically language fluency is simulated by what words you can use-- less fluent=just nouns, more fluent=verbs also, but just 1 per sentence, etc. I really like this as a way to simulate languages in a world. (the only reason I haven't used it in play yet is because I haven't decided on the main languages of my world)
Personal Pronouns
Speak with wrong but consistent personal pronouns. This seems less about a challenge than amusing confusion. It could be something as simple as Abbott and Costello's Who's on First (the female high priest Hee, the temple spirit "U" etc.), or the royal "we." Or it might be a little more complicated, using third person or first person plural to refer to self (we are hungry, it doesn't really want to hurt you, etc.). This mini-game is perfect to simulate a monster's alien consciousness.
"It's going to eat you"
"What is?"
"The guardian of the pool"
"How do you know?"
"Because it's about to take you unawares"
Code Words
Use some words to mean different words. Not ciphers, where letters are replaced, but whole words like in a Cold War codebook. Maybe the Great Fair has a black market that functions right under the nose of the king's men. To buy a tun of royal wine you ask for a "bolt," (as in cloth) to ask for poached boar meat "wine," to ask for forbidden scarlet cloth you ask for "tusks." Simple enough except the merchants are leery of anyone catching on so they rotate the meanings every day.
"I'd like tusks"
"How many?"
"Whaa . . . um a bolt"
"A bolt, I thought you wanted some meat, you want wine?"
Again, more sitcomesque confusion than a creative challenge but it could be fun.
Riddles
Riddles, like rhyming, are too hard for this. You might get away with it if you keep it really simple, something like Scandinavian kennings. And I'd want the players to hear some examples first. A kenning is just a metaphorical way to use, usually, two words to represent one other word, so ship becomes "wave's steed," etc. Maybe this comes into play as a way to pass as warriors of the north, or maybe a viking lich only understands this kind of speech.
"Where is the arm's thorn of Bjorn?"
"It lies under the whale's road."
Feel free to jump in with any other ideas you might have. Notice, none of the letter or word constraints replicate Zak's goblin "opposite talk." I think that is more of a concept, so the next post will be on conceptual constraints.
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