I’m running torchbearer soon, and looking for some advice on failed non-recovery tests in camp.
My understand is that failed recovery tests don’t have an additional downside (you just don’t recover). Whereas other failed tests in camp still impose either a condition or a twist. Is this correct?
Any advice on what to impose for very basic failed tests? I’m talking repair helmet, not do something that should be done in the adventure phase.
Yes, for most ordinary tests in camp or town, you can use the standard twist or condition results. Whether to use one or the other is a balancing act.
Sometimes it is better to give them a condition and let them get what they want. However, piling on conditions when the party is trying to heal up and re-equip can create weird loops or be frustratingly cruel.
Camp restricts twists. You should not introduce a new problem unless the failed roll was for an activity better undertaken during the adventure phase. Such a twist could break camp prematurely (SG, p. 96).
With your example of repairing a helmet in camp, the failure would most cleanly map to Exhausted. You complete the repair, but it takes longer and requires more effort than expected. Done.
You could use a twist, though. This is where the example in the book walks the line of ending camp. Say, for example, all the banging and racket attracts guards. Camp ends before you finish repairing the helmet. You can try again during another camp or in town. Such is the risk of making lots of noise in the dungeon.
Great stuff from Koch.
To give extra examples, you could have the armorer’s tools break, have the repaired helmet obscure the wearer’s vision (factor for Scout tests), have all the banging disrupt people’s sleep (factor for recovering from exhausted), etc. Hungry and Thirsty is also your friend in camp. “All that ____ is hungry work.”
Broadly, just try not to give the characters any pressing concerns that demands they spend their hard-earned checks resolving – unless their trying to address and obstacle in the adventure rather then preparing, resting, re-equiping, etc.
Ah okay, that makes sense. No twists that lead to new immediate problems, because that would end camp, unless they’re doing soemthing that they ‘shouldn’t’ be.
I see, you can be generous and give fairly light twists (or hungry and thirsty), to not punish them too hard. Or give something like exhausted if they’re flush with checks
Yes, that sounds about right.
For me, as a GM, the key is to remember that the camp and town phases should be driven by player agency and that players should be rewarded for due diligence and careful planning. The phases should be as brief as possible to get back to the action of the adventure phase. That doesn’t mean they should be boring though. All too often, GMs leave out the ‘good stuff,’ and players dread these phases for the wrong reasons. If the players have interesting ideas they want to pursue, you should react and respond to that and meet them where they are.
Now, on the other hand, if they are reckless and careless, they should pay the consequences for their failures without mercy. 