Need your words of wisdom pals.
During yesterday’s session the characters managed to kill the evil necromancer and retrieve his notebook (not his laptop computer - his tattered scrapbook). Now they’re excited at the thought of deciphering it, grabbing the necromancer’s dark secrets, and eventually stopping the zombie apocalypse he released over the land.
Now I have some preliminary ideas on the book and what it is written on.
First of all I will not let the characters go away with the information too easily. The text is encrypted and a Symbology test will be required.
Given the characters will be able to decipher the text, now I’m a bit puzzled on how to reveal them bits of information from the book. The text is not a coherent assay, but more a collection of notes and impressions from a crazy mind. So the informations are very useful but scattered in the whole text. An organic review of the book will not be so useful.
I’m thinking about offering the characters a mini-game.
I will write up informations and statements as self-contained bits of information.
Then the characters will test their Research (or whatever skill will be appropriate) to find informations in the book. I will require them to state clearly in the Intent of each test the scope of the topic they’re researching between a series of possible areas, each one encompassed by a different Wise or Lore skill. I will prepare beforehand 3-4 topics (in increasing difficulty order) for each “discipline” (or Skill). Then I’d have the characters test against a basic Ob1; each success above the first will give them access to one bit of knowledge about each topic.
The various topics should be related to the following skills:
Black Oil-wise
Apocalypse-wise
Death Cult-wise
Ancient Gods-wise
Secret Hideouts-wise
Death-wise
God of Death-wise
Graveyard-wise
Folklore
Some of the topics will be overlapping between various skills or disciplines.
Failing the tests will lead to complications such as misunderstood information or retrieving information about a topic different from the intended one.
Then I’d like to add some spice.
For each bit of info gained from each topic, I was thinking of letting the character(s) mark a check for a test on the corresponding skill. They do not have, AFAIK, any of the skills involved in any of the topics, so they will eventually gain checks for opening them.
Practical example.
The characters wants to know more about “How the necromancer the Black Oil it’s referenced in the Stavanoi folklore and their Death Cult”.
They’d test their Research against Ob1. The topic is afferent to the skills: Black Oil-wise, Folklore, Death Cult-wise.
1 success gains them access to one bit of info on the topic requested and they can mark a check for any of the two skills above in addition to the test gained for Research. 2 successes gains them two bits and two checks (possibly on different skills). 3 will gain 3 bits and three checks and so on. The maximum limit for checks gained is up to opening the skills to their root.
Failed Research tests will lead them to gain bits of info from other topics, totally random. They do not earn any advancement checks for the skills involved in the unintended topic.
What do you guys think of it?
Maybe I’m being a little too generous, but I feel the characters perhaps deserve it after a long gamespan.