Playing Burden

Players and shared storytelling

Like other conventional tabletop roleplaying games, a group of four to six people play together.

One of them, the Guide, is tasked with running the game.

• Choosing and describing the events, challenges, and places the Travellers will encounter.
• Acting out the lives and dialogues of people the Travellers will meet along the way.
• And acting as the referee and final word on what happens in the story.

The others, the Players, each embody a Traveller. A character who has set out to carry their Burden to the Monument.

• Deciding and describing how their Traveller behaves in the events, challenges and places they go.
• Acting out the life and dialogue of their Traveller.
• Working with the other Players to understand the relationships between the Travellers.

The Guide and the Players all work together to weave a compelling story. While the Travellers may have their differences, and the Guide may put treacherous obstacles in their path, the Guide and the Players are not competitors or adversaries, rather co-authors of a shared story where arguments and setbacks are the spice that will hopefully make their fellowship and accomplishments all the more flavourful.

Campaign length

The goal is in sight from the beginning, and when reached, the campaign ends. Burden is intended to be a fairly short experience, around four sessions, no more than six.

Each session will be a small self-contained story, resolving most or all of the stakes and tension by the end, but leaving the party changed.

If your player group would prefer to play a shorter or longer campaign, be forewarned that the mechanical balance might be off. When running a shorter campaign or a one-shot, the Guide will probably want to throw more difficult challenges at the group, and choose harsher outcomes for failure. On the other hand, when running a longer campaign, it might be wise for the Guide to weave in some "lucky breaks" for the Travellers and maybe even give them a chance to reset their Hurt.

The first session of the campaign uses special rules.

The rules of Burden

Creating a character

Your Traveller has six Core stats, Brawn, Grind, Poise, Oracle, Tremor, and Weave
Start with 2 in each of these, and distribute 12 points between them, with a maximum of 8 in any stat.
Pick a Modifier to apply to one of your Core stats. The modifiers are: Guarded, Cursed, Skilled, Forced, Reliable, or Fickle.

Your Traveller starts the game with 12 Vitality and 0 Hurt.

Core stats

Core stats represent the skills and abilities that your Traveller will rely on to make their way to the monument.

Brawn represents the core strength and athleticism of your Traveller, their ability to run fast, climb high, move weights and break things. A Traveller with high Brawn can pull off incredible feats of physical prowess, win fights against wild beasts, and literally carry their allies out of danger.

Grind represents the temerity, relentlessness, endurance, and sheer force of will of your Traveller, ability to resist pain & hunger, to push their mind and body through to the bitter end. A Traveller with high Grind can keep trekking despite broken bones, stand defiant in the face of threats, and help their allies resist the sweet temptation of abandon.

Poise represents the mindfulness, wisdom, and wit of your Traveller. A Traveller with high Poise can outsmart opponents, recognise danger before anyone else, understand the subtle mechanisms of the world around them, and use their knowledge to navigate desperate situations.

Oracle represents a strange connection your Traveller has to the spirits, higher powers, gods, or however else they explain their twists of fate. A Traveller with high Oracle can peek beyond the veil of the future, turn the odds in their favour, and benefit from supernatural protection.

Tremor represents your Traveller's attunement to the distortions of reality caused by the ending of the world. A Traveller with high Tremor can create minor rifts in the fabric of spacetime, disappear or move objects, phase through solid matter, and create pockets of frozen time.

Weave represents your Traveller's sensitivity to the energy fields that flow through themself and others. A Traveller with high Weave can sense and cure internal wounds, change the physical properties of their body, and manipulate the inner functions of life itself.

Modifiers

Modifiers are a way for you to personalise your Traveller. Pick one that will apply to one of your Core stats, changing the way your Traveller will rely on and manage that ability.

A Guarded stat lessens the cost of failure, while making success more difficult. Travellers with a Guarded stat have an aversion to loss, and accept a certain level of hardship as a compromise.

A Cursed stat is remarkably powerful, but is fickle and dangerous. Travellers with a Cursed stat can perform outstanding feats, but tend to hurt themselves doing so, or lose all confidence at the slightest provocation.

A Skilled stat is precise and calculated, but overconfidence leads to grave mistakes. Travellers with a Skilled stat are efficient, using no more energy than necessary to succeed, but when they miscalculate, they suffer grave consequences.

A Forced stat can be pushed far beyond expectations, for a price. Travellers with a Forced stat stop at nothing to achieve their goals, even if it means carrying permanent scars and letting a part of their soul die.

A Reliable stat can be counted on when everything else fails. Travellers with a Reliable stat can turn the tide, regaining momentum when everything seems lost.

A Fickle stat can avoid the worst of fates, but rarely yields heroic outcomes. Travellers with a Fickle stat escape the twists and turns of the shifting lands, by the skin of their teeth.

Vitality and Hurt

Vitality represents a Traveller's current ability to continue on their journey. Wounds, hunger, poison, dehydration, and despair all cut into a Traveller's Vitality. If their Vitality runs out, their journey is over. Perhaps they have succumbed to their wounds, or no longer have the health and energy they need to make another step.
A Traveller can rest in a safe place with abundent food and drink to regain Vitality.

Hurt represents the indelible trauma, both physical and mental, that a Traveller has accumulated. When resting, a Traveller's Hurt prevents them from being able to fully recuperate. Perhaps their Hurt will dissipate in the years following our story, but for now, they have a journey to complete.

Rolls

During the game, some actions and moves a Traveller will make will be risky or challenging. In order to determine whether or not they are successful, the Guide will ask for a dice roll.
The roll will have a specified Difficulty and a related Core stat.
The Guide may also declare the roll to be Critical, which adds a layer of risk in the case of extreme results.

Rolling

To perform the roll, the player chooses how many points to spend from the related Core stat.

Roll two six-faced dice, subtract Difficulty, and add the spent points.

Spent points are removed from the stat pool.

Finally, the player can spend any number of Adversity Tokens to increase or reduce their result.

Important: Core stats are spent before rolling the dice, and Adversity Tokens are spent after the dice are rolled (except if the stat has a Modifier that says otherwise.

Interpreting the roll

• 6 or less: Failure - A setback befalls you.
• 7 - 9: Partial success - You succeed, but there is a cost or a setback.
• 10 or more: Success
• 13 or more, if the roll is Critical: Blunder You have acted over-zealously, you fail and will suffer unintended consequences.

In the cases of Failure and Blunder, your Traveller learns from their mistakes: gain an Adversity Token.

Using modifiers

• Guarded: On a Failure roll, regain the spent points. A 12 is required for a full Success. Blunders count as Partial Success.
• Cursed: Spent points are worth double. On a Failure, lose all remaining points. On a Blunder, gain one Hurt.
• Skilled: Spend points after rolling. All rolls are Critical, and no Adversity Tokens are awarded for Failure.
• Forced: Spend up to 3 Vitality points, worth double, on the roll.
• Reliable: When Adversity Tokens are awarded for any roll, instead gain 2 points in this stat, up to twice the maximum.
• Fickle: Points cannot be spent to increase the result. Instead, spend points to roll again. You must keep the the newest roll.

Resting

When a Traveller finds themself in a safe place, with food, drink, and shelter, they will rest. Resting is a passive activity, a Traveller can continue to go on about their business, as long as they're out of harm's way and not overly exerting themself. Resting for a day or so allows the Traveller to regain lost Core stat points and some Vitality.

1. Regain any spent Core stat points.
2. Divide your missing Vitality by 2, rounded up.
3. If that number is greater than your Hurt, update Hurt to this new number.
4. Regain Vitality up to 12 minus Hurt.

Short Rest

When stranded in the shifting lands, it is sometimes possible to set up a temporary camp to recuperate. If a Traveller is able to find a pocket of safety for a few hours, they may take a Short Rest.

1. Regain up to 6 spent Core stat points.
2. Spend Adversity Tokens
   • Regain one Vitality and gain one Hurt for each token spent.
   • Vitality can not be increased beyond 12 minus Hurt.