A Simple Life: Chapter 14 (Patreon)

Okay, that poll was fun!  You'll have to excuse this chapter as I kind of go full nerd here.  Also, I might have just created the seeds of a new RPG system on the fly.  As I said, full nerd.  😄

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As Winona fries the meat I sit silently sipping my tea and flipping through the pages as ideas began to swirl.  A fantasy me.  But what kind of person was that?  I startle as suddenly two hands are on my shoulders and I could feel the brush of my host’s breasts against the back of my head.

“So what are you thinking Sprout?”

“I…think I’d like to try a mage again.”  I say, trying to maintain my concentration with her so close.  “I never even got to cast a spell last time.”

“Awesome.”  She says.  “Got a race in mind?”

“Elf.”  I say without hesitation.  “They’re…they’re cool looking.”

‘Cool looking’ glossed over the many things I liked about that race.  They were long-lived, wise, noble, nature loving, a bit mysterious, and they cared about things like beauty and tranquility.  And best of all, they were all sooooo pretty!

“Nice.”  She says.  Leaning down over me, her chest now right alongside my head, she reaches out and flips back a few pages to the elf section.  “There’s some sweet options for elf casters.  Right here.”  She points and taps the page.  “Magic boon is a must have.  A free power and drain resistance across the board on casting.  One of the most broken combos in the game.”

“Broken?”  I read the entry, but it was the one above it that catches my eye.  “Oh!”  I say.  “This one gets you a pet!  Ha ha ha!”

“Nature?  Eh.  The bonuses are meh and familiars kinda suck.”  She says.  “In combat they’re more a liability than anything.  Besides, that’s more for Rangers and Druids.”

“Oh.  Okay.  I-I’ll take Magic then.”

“Hold on Sprout.”  She looks at me from the side.  “Do you really want a familiar?”

“Um…kinda.”

“Then take it.”  She pats my shoulder and returns to check on the pork chops.  “This is your character Avery.  Whatever you think will be fun to play, that’s what’s important.”

As the music plays, the meat sizzles, and the escalating storm rattles the big bay doors out in the garage I pull my pad of paper closer and start jotting things down.  My fantasy me was an elf, a mage, and had the Nature boon.  To complement the boon I choose Nature as my ‘Guiding Principle’ as well.  I really liked the idea of being a nurturer of all things green and natural.  Without even rolling a single dice a foggy image begins to form in my mind of this person who was me but not me.  It was only now dawning on me how deep this game went.  The first time I’d played it I was trying to understand it as a board game but as I read the sumptuous descriptions and ogle the exquisite art and imagine my fantasy self’s place in this magical world it fires up an appreciation of what this game could be and why it evoked such excitement from people like Olivia, Charlotte, Liam, and Winona.

“How’s it going?”  Winona sets down two plates, each one loaded with one thick pork chop and a heap of glossy dressed salad.

“Oh, um, good I think.”

She drags the other chair around the table to sit at my side instead of across from me.  I go to pull the book and paper away but Winona says to leave it.  After she gets us some cutlery and drinks she sits at my side and starts munching away at her salad as she peruses what I’d written down with a surprisingly intense interest.  I take my knife and fork and begin nibbling myself.

“Mmm.”  She swallows.  “A nature wizard?  Never seen anybody play one before.”

“I-Is that okay?”

“It’s unique.  It’s awesome.”  She slices off a bit of pork and chomps it down.  “So tell me about him.”  She asks through her chewing.  “Or her.”

“Or her?”  I whisper.

“Yeah.”  She says as she sits back, pushing her glasses up her nose in that charming way she had.  “Don’t worry about the rules or the numbers right now.  Just tell me who they are.”

“Sh-She…”  I smile, emboldened by Winona’s interest.  “She lives in a forest.  She looks after it.”

“Oh nice.  We can work with that.”

“She lives there with her whole family.”

“Okay.  Is it like an estate or kingdom or what are you thinking?”

I think a bit as chew on some tasty pork.  “No.  They’re just simple country elves.”  I say.  “Simple and happy.  They tend the forest.”

Winona nods.  “Alright.  Married?  Kids?”

“No.”  I say.  “I think she had to stay pure so that she can talk to the unicorns.”

“Uh…okay.  Where’d you get that from?”

“Don’t unicorns only approach virgins or something?”

She shrugs.  “Sure Sprout, they do now.  Anything else?”

“Um.  My Grandma is a wizard too.”  I say.  “She is very wise and she taught me everything.  I love her very much.”  She looks at me with a funny smile.  “What?”

“You slipped into first person.”  She nudges my arm.  “I think you’re gonna be a natural at FoF.”

I grin and mutter bashfully.  “I hope so.  This all sounds so fun.”

“It’s only the best game ever.”  She says with an infectious enthusiasm.   She suddenly gets up and hurries to the shelves where she fishes out three ten-sided dice from the rest then returns.  She places them on the paper.  “Green for nature okay?”

“Oh!  They’re so pretty.”  I say, admiring the creamy jade hued polyhedrals.

“You like them?”  She says.  “They’re yours.”

“What?  Really!?”

“I’ve got tons of ’em and you’ll need a set anyway.”  She says.  “I’ll find the others in this set later.  This is all you need for now though.  Come on, let’s roll some dice!”

“Okay!”  Hurriedly I chew down the food I had in my mouth and wipe my hands on my apron.

Winona briefly explains the five key stats, each of which were split between an ‘active’ aspect and a ‘passive’ aspect.  “So, like, in Physical for example.  Active would be feats of strength or effect how hard you hit while passive determines how tough you are and how well you can resist poison or disease or what have you.  In general Active aspects are more offensive and Passive more defensive.  Get it?”

“Um…no.”

She grins.  “Don’t worry about it.  Just roll and we’ll figure it out.  It’ll all become clear as we go.”  As I take the two dice she indicates that I start with and begin to rattle them in my hand she then tells me about the dizzyingly complex system of deciding the numbers that at character creation ranged from 30 to 80 out of 100.  “It’s easy.  Each stat starts at 30.  You then roll a percentile, divide it by 2, round down, and add it to that.  The third d10 is the Fable dice which we’ll roll at the end.  Got it?”

I laugh and shake my head.  “Nope.”

“Just roll the damn dice.”  She chuckles.  “And don’t worry too much if it’s low.  There are things you can do to boost bad stats.”

“Okay.”  I let the dice go.  Both of us lean in as they tumble across the table to land on…oh no.  “Zero?”  I say as I stare at the twin zeroes looking back up at me.  “I got zero.  That’s really bad, isn’t it?”

Winona, her eyes wide and her jaw hanging open, gawks at the dice.  “Avery!  That’s not zero, that’s 100!  Your very first roll was the best roll you can get!”

“Oh.”  I smile.  “Cool.”

“I’ve NEVER gotten a hundred at creation!”  She says, a hint of jealousy coming through.  “Beginner’s luck or what.  Wow.  Okay, well, write that number down and roll four more times.”

I write down the 100 and roll again.  “69.  Heh!”

“Ha!”  She guffaws before doing a double take.  “No, that’s a 96.  96!  Get OUT of here!”  She shoves me nearly off of my chair!

With a humongous smile I rub my shoulder then write the number down.  While she is still marveling over that one I roll the next.  “87.”

“Stop it!”  She cries as I laugh and quickly write it down.  “The other players will think I’m playing favorites!”

“I can’t help it.”  I say ebulliently.  “I guess I’m just lucky.”  As I tempt fate with those words I let go the next roll.  “2.”

“2!?  Ha ha ha!”  Winona shakes me by the shoulders, to which I giggle wildly.  “Talk about hot and cold.  You are a walking, talking min-max machine.”

Pretending to be perturbed by the roll for affect I grumble as I jot down the low number.  “Last one.”  I say as I rattle the die in my hand…and let them tumble from my fingers.  “93!”

“NO!!!”  Winona leaps from her chair and begins pacing about the room.  “You did NOT just roll that!  That did NOT just happen!”

With a big bratty grin I proudly write down my last stat.  “Not too bad, eh?”

“Not bad!  Not bad!”  She comes back to the table to look over the numbers.  “I have never seen a legit character with such good stats.  They’re even better than Ara’s!”

I sit there happy as could be as Winona, partly in awe and partly vexed, goes on about the number’s I’d rolled.  She even takes a picture of the array to text them to her gaming friends.  Our half eaten pork chops were getting cold and our salad was getting soggy, but neither of us cared.  When she finally settles down she takes her seat again and pushes her plate to the side.  “I just love making characters.”

“Me too.”  I say, more excited because she was excited than anything to do with dice if I was honest.

“Alright.  The 2 you can dump in Physical, Agility, or Charm.”  She says as she turns the pages to the stat section.  “The 100 hundred you definitely want to put into Mental, the 96 probably in Spirit.”

“Um.”  I skim the different entries.  “I think…I think I’d like to put the 100 in Charm.”

“No way dude.  Mage’s never use that stat in combat.  Trust me on this one.”

I read the entries again and shake my head.  “It’s my character.  I want it in charm.”  I say.  “I don’t want be in combat that much anyway.”

“Not in combat that much?”

Then with an impish smirk I quip.  “Besides, I’ve got lots of good stats to choose from.”

“You little shit.”  She chuckles.  “Rub it in why don’t ya.  Alright.  She’s your baby.”

Taking Winona’s advice I dump the 2 into Physical, on my own inspiration I put the 100 into Charm, then the 96 in Mental, the 93 in Spirit, and the 87 in Agility.  The numbers are calculated for final scores of 31 Physical, 73 Agility, 78 Mental, 76 Spirit, and a ‘perfect’ 80 for Charm.  For the Active-Passive numbers she explains that I use the main stats as a base then add one roll of the ‘Fable’ dice to the one I wanted my character to be better at.

“As an Elf you get to double the Fable roll for one of Agility-Active, Agility-Passive, Mental-Active, or Charm-Active.”  Winona says.  “You’ll definitely want Mental-Active so that your spells hit harder.”

“Charm-Active it is.”  I say, to which she smiles and rolls her eyes.

“Fine.  Go ahead then.”

Going down the line I roll a 1 for Physical-Passive, an 8 for Agility-Passive, a 6 for Mental-Active, a 5 for Spirit-Passive, and finally for Charm-Active…  “10!”  I bounce in my chair.  “I got a 10!”

“No…fucking…way!”  She slumps back, her hands on her head as she looks at the dice in disbelief.  “No way!”

“A-And I get to double it b-because of the Elf thing!  He he he!”  I titter uncontrollably as I scrawl down the result.  “Charm-Active…100.”

“In all my years I have never, EVER, seen a 100 at creation.”  Winona was flabbergasted.  “Avery!  You are going to literally be the most beautiful mortal woman in the world!”

Chapter 15