Cheshire Hall

Dogs Will Still Play

by Evan Edwards (200 Word version)


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You are a dog in a mech suit. You know dog stuff: having fun, eating food, and fighting.

You're a good dog and were trained to fight.

Since the nights of scary thunder, food is scarce and petting peoples are gone. This burnt-smell world has bad dogs in mech suits and confusing creatures.

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Dogs have:

Three Favorites:

  • Food
  • Fun
  • Fight

    • Spread seven points across, minimum one.

Five Things:

  • Treats
  • Toys
  • Threats

    • Describe one of each plus two more.

Three breed Natures:

Two positive adjectives, one negative.

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Play with, eat, or fight others. Think like a trained dog.

Roll as many dice as points in appropriate Favorite (Food is determination, Fight is aggression, Fun is socialization). Add or remove one for Nature. Add one if using Things.

Using highest die: One to Three is failure with setback (using negative Nature blocks this setback). Four is success. Five or Six is success with advantage and/or inflicts setback.

Three setbacks removes a Favorite point. Lost all? You go to the petting peoples.

Creatures getting enough setbacks become food, friends, or fallen.

Play like a dog once between other events. Roll Fun, recovering a lost Favorite point and removing setbacks on Success.

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Written in the penultimate day and submitted 38 minutes before deadline. I didn't know about the Challenge until a few days before the contest.

The core game is wrapped around the idea that dogs must play to be healthy, no matter the circumstances around them. I tried to pair an evocative setting with enough general mechanics to play an open ended, ongoing game. Tough with 200 words!

Thanks to playtesters Jordan, Matthew, and Sarah, who fought dangernoodles, made friends with skitterbears, and under a different GM had intense combat with bad dogs around automated trucks. Also thanks to the pups Ciri and Phoenix, who inspired the setting when they prompted the question, "what kind of mech would they be?"

This version is CC-BY 4.0. Full version is coming.

Cheshire Hall