Table 46

Fear the Dark - Friction and Breathers

The work on Fear the Dark has continued and I think that these sections from the exploration procedures regarding both the friction pool and breathers are ready to have other folks take a look at them.

The friction pool is my version of the encounter check, drawing ideas from a number of different things I've seen over the years including Necropraxis' overloaded encounter die, Goblin Punch's Underclock, and the One Roll Engine system of rolling a pool and looking for matches.

Breathers are my answer for classic D&D's requirement of resting every six dungeon turns. Rather than making that a strictly enforced limit, I chose to give benefits to resting, making the low HP totals and lack of to-hit rolls (thanks to Into the Odd and its descendants for both of those) a bit more survivable.

friction

No plan is perfect. Regardless of intention, eventually something will go wrong. In Fear the Dark, this is represented with the Friction pool. So long as the party is in peril, a single d6 is added to the pool each turn, whether that turn is a combat round, a dungeon turn, or an exploration watch. Whenever a round, turn, or watch passes, the Friction pool is rolled and checked for matches. A match means that an event has occurred.

  1. Respite - remove two dice from the Friction pool
  2. The Grind - add another condition to each character in the party, going in the order listed for this region's Grind.
  3. Inventory mishap - something goes wrong with what the characters are carrying (damaged containers, food going bad, lights going out, etc)
  4. Environment event - gusts of wind, earthquake, other things like that
  5. Spoor - the party finds evidence of a likely future encounter. That encounter occurs again if this result is rolled while in the same environment.
  6. Encounter - roll an encounter on the region's table

Multiple results can happen simultaneously when the Friction pool has a lot of dice! Characters might have to face down an encounter at the same time that their satchel's strap breaks.

As soon as a random encounter or spoor encounter occurs, the Friction pool resets.

breathers

As an expedition builds up conditions and takes damage to their guard, they'll want to take time to rest and recuperate. They can do this by taking a breather, using a dungeon turn or exploration watch to drink, eat, maintain their equipment, and adjust their packs.

During a breather, all characters may consume a ration to reroll their guard total, keeping the higher of the roll or their current total.

Characters may also take another action, including: