[TTRPG] My Welcomed Guest (PDF)

[elf]

My Welcomed Guest is a single-player tabletop RPG "about being trapped in Faerie and trying to bargain your way home." It's short and charming, and despite the instructions, does not actually require any writing.

It needs a d6 and some kind of counting method - scratchmarks on paper, beads in a bowl, books in a stack, whatever. (There won't be many. I think 9 is absolute max.) Writing is suggested but technically optional.

Price: Normally $3, but the author has an offer: "send me an email (dawnbeargames at gmail) and I'll send you a copy. It will come with the caveat, that if you play it, just let me know you played it."

I don't think I would've paid $3 for this on its own, and the PDF is basic with no fancy structure - no pretty fonts, no images other than the cover pic, no booklet layout, etc. Whether or not you think $3 for a few pages of text is "worth it" to buy, it's definitely worth playing. (So I guess that means it's worth the price of a cheap coffee to pick it up.)

I skipped the writing part but intend to play it again while taking the time to write things down. Technically, it only requires a die roll at three different points (some of which may involve multiple rolls), but you have the option of rolling at several other points in the story. I rolled for all of them; it was fun to build the tale without choosing the "most advantageous" details. (There are no "most advantageous" details.)

What story have you heard that made you curious to visit Faerie. What was so enticing?

1. Food and Drink
2. Unimaginable Beauty
3. Seductive Fae
4. Promise of Power
5. Eternal Life
6. An Escape

It took me about an hour to play through the game without writing anything down, although I did mark off things on the printout as I went through it. If I wrote out my responses, it'd take longer. And of course, how much detail you add will change the length of the game: if you look at the first question, above, and say "I wanted to visit Faerie to escape my miserable life--what's next?" the game will be very short (and boring).

Next time, I'm going for full ambiance: paper notebook/journal to write down all my reactions, a mystical or medieval-ish soundtrack in the background, a candle, nice cup of tea, and some exotic dice instead of a normal d6. I'll probably use more dice as the "taboo" tokens; I have a lot of dice.

And then I want someone to make a sequel, because the first time I played, I "lost," and now I need to figure out what happens next.