THE MOUNTAIN WITCH“Of Wolves and Tengu”A 15-30 minute demo for 2-4 players #1

Requirements: 8 six-sided dice.Five Pregen Character SheetsFate Cards(8 Tokens) x four different colors

PurposeThe purpose of this demo is to highlight the dual-nature of Trustby showing the players the importance of Aiding through oneshort combat scene, and then sow the seeds of mistrust in asecond scene.

Outline1. Intro

1. Pass out characters2. Introduce Scene 1: Wolf Attack

1. Roll for Surprise1. Explain Rolling

2. Introduce Wolves1. Roll for first conflict

1. Explain Degree of Success2. Explain Damage, if necessary.

3. Explain Trust1. Pass out and explain Tokens2. Explain Trust Options

4. Finish battle with Wolves1. Ask if anyone wants to use Trust to Aid.

3. Interlude1. Introduce & Explain Fates

1. Pass out Fates2. Have everyone foreshadow their Fate3. Explain & Change Trust

4. Introduce Scene 2: Auntie & Uncle Tengu1. Have players declare Watch order2. Have Uncle Tengu call out watching Samurai.

1. Have Uncle Tengu give watching samurai the message.3. Have Auntie Tengu wake a sleeping ronin.

1. Have Auntie Tengu give sleeping ronin the message4. Provoke various samurai to a fight5. Give players a moment to reflect on events.

Script: Intro<Begin the demo by placing a copy of the book in the hands ofthe players, giving each player a copy if you have enough.>

GM: “This here is THE MOUNTAIN WITCH, which could bedescribed as 'AKIRA KUROSAWA meets RESERVOIRDOGS' the RPG <or some other equivalent samurai meetsgangster film reference>. You each play a dirty, grubby, low-life ronin who---when hard-up for cash---is hired to kill themythical Mountain Witch of Mt Fuji.

<Randomly hand out the pregen charsheets, announcing thename, zodiac sign, and abilities of each character as you do.>

Script: Scene 1: Wolf AttackGM: “The adventure usually begins at the bottom of Mt Fuji asyou slowly start your climb up to the Witch's castle. Let's say

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you have just started out and you're still in the forest at the baseof the mountain. But you're not alone. There are othercreatures---servants of the Witch maybe---that roam thesewoods.”

<Pause a moment to see if the players react.>

GM: “I'll also tell you that these creatures are looking for you.Let's roll to see if they find you, or if you find them first.<Hand each player a die.> We all roll together, you all againstme.

<Have everyone roll. For this conflict, the GM should just rolla single die. Make sure to leave the dice alone, as they standon the table. While you explain the conflict & resolution.>

GM: “We now take the highest die that you guys rolled, whichis a {whatever} <point to the die>, and compare it to my roll,which is a {whatever} <point to your die>. Since {my/your}roll was higher, {I/you guys} win.”

GM: “The creatures stalking you are a pack of wolves, {anumber equal to the number of players} of them. Wolvesrepresent the spirits of the mountains themselves, and they can'tbe happy that you are trespassing on their land. <Depending onhow the roll went, explain either that the wolves sneak up oncharacters, that the characters sneak up on the wolves, or thatboth the characters and wolves see each other that the sametime. Don't worry about Degree of Success, outside of simplywinning, losing, or tying.>”

<If the players won, ask them if they want to attack or dosomething else. Follow their lead, but still push for the wolvesto attack. Otherwise, just have the wolves attack immediately.>

<Whenever the next conflict occurs.> GM: “Now we rollagain, you all against me, except this time I get to roll one diefor each wolf.”

<Roll for the conflict and then let the appropriate personnarrate. Point to the Degree of Success section on thecharsheet as you explain what can be done with the roll. Ifsomeone took damage, explain that damage acts as atemporary penalty to one's roll. Again---and this time itsimportant---let the dice just sit there while you explain howtrust works.>

<Assuming the players lost, continue with the following. Ifthey won, say something along the lines of, “I know you guyswon that conflict, but let's say you lost...” and change theplayers' dice as if they had lost.>

GM: “Normally, we take the highest die from your group andthe highest die from my group of enemies and compare. This isactually a rather brutal resolution system... But here is whereTrust comes in...”

GM: “At different times throughout the game, each of you willrate how much your characters trusts one another. And based onthat rating, characters gain Trust points that you can use toeither help or betray each other.”

GM: “These tokens represent each character's trust. <Handeach of the players a different colored pile of tokens,announcing each character's color as you go.> Thisrepresents the trust each character gives to others. For example,if {whoever} trusts {so and so} only a little, he might only givethem one token <take one chip from {whoever's} pile and give

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it to {so and so}>. But if he trusted him a lot, he might give himfour or five. <Hand {so and so} some more tokens. After ashort pause, take the tokens back and give them to {whoever}.>”

GM: “Now, just to start the game, we use the characters' zodiacsigns to determine how many trust points everyone starts thegame with. Ally zodiacs begin the game with three Trust points,Enemy zodiacs zero, and everyone else two. <Go character bycharacter, announcing their zodiac once again and who theyare allies or enemies with. Pass the each player theappropriate number of tokens from each of the respectivecharacters as you do. Again, point to the charsheet as youexplain.> Real quick, a character's “allies” and “enemies” justexplains who they get along with, it doesn't mean to imply thatcharacters are literal “allies” or “enemies”. This is just based offthe Asian zodiac, and its the same thing you'll read if you go toa Chinese or Japanese restaurant.”

GM: “You spend these tokens to do a few things. First, you canspend a token to Aid another character in a conflict. Second, youcan spend a token to buy the right to narration a conflict. Andlastly, you can use these tokens to betray another character in aconflict. <Point to the trust reference section on the charsheetas you explain.>”

GM: “For right now, Aiding is the really important optione.Instead of just taking the highest die to determine who wins aconflict, when a character Aids another, their dice are addedtogether. So as in the last conflict, without Aiding you guys lost.But if one of you guys had Aided, your dice would have addedtogether to equal {whatever}, and you would have won. So youshould see that I, as GM, am only limited to rolling a six, nomatter how many dice I roll. But two PCs, standing back-to-

back so to speak Aiding, can roll a 12.”

GM: “When you want to spend a point of Trust to help orbetray someone else, you can only spend those tokens given toyou by that person. In other words, if {whoever} what's to Aid{so and so}, {whoever} can only use the {whatever color}tokens given to him by {so and so}, he cannot use the {randomcolor} tokens given to him by {another player}.”

GM: “So now, does anyone want to spend a token to Aidsomeone in the conflict against the wolves?” <Wait for aresponse, and then finish the conflict.>

Script: Interlude: Fate and TrustGM: “Now you see how basic conflict resolution works. If thatwas all the game involved, the adventure would be a prettystraight forward march up the mountain. But the game is a littlemore... interesting than that. The adventure quickly becomes...complicated by dark Fate. <At this point, pull out the FateCards and show them to the players.> Each of the ronin carrywith them one of six secret, dark Fates. <Show the players eachof the six fate cards, reading the titles as you go.>

GM: “Take a card, and make sure no one else sees which oneyou hold. <Shuffle the cards and pass one out to each player.>It is up you, the players, to make the exact details of yourcharacters' Fates. At any time, you may make up any fact aboutyour character's past, the environment, the Witch, or even yourfellow player's characters, *IF* it relates to your character'sFate. In fact, it is your responsibility to bring these Fates intoplay, I as the GM will nothing to do with it.”

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GM: “Let's assume now after your encounter with the wolves,night is approaching, so you decide to set up camp. What I wanteach of you to do now is narrate one little thing that each ofyour characters do that foreshadows their Fate. Just somethingsmall that each of them does secretly while setting up camp. Itdoesn't have to reveal the fate, just hint at it.” <Allow eachplayer to narrate this foreshadowing.>

GM: “Now, with that in mind, we re-evaluate Trust. In a normalgame we would go a couple scenes before doing this, but this isjust a short demo. Everyone give back the the tokens to theirrespective owner, trust doesn't carry over, it gets re-distributed.<Make sure everyone gives back their tokens.> You can do oneof three things: You can increase the trust you're giving acharacter by one point, you can keep it the same, or you canlower it by any amount. You re-evaluate trust on a character bycharacter basis---so you can increase one person's trust whiledecreases another, if you want. You don't have to changeeveryone's Trust the same.”

<Go player by player and ask them if and how they want tochange the trust they are giving to different characters. Makesure they re-distribute tokens according.>

Script: Scene 2: Auntie and Uncle TenguGM: “So night falls on the camp, and you all decide you needto set up a watch, which order do yo want to go in? <Allow theplayers to declare their watch order.>

<Whenever you want, usually during the first watch, start thefollowing encounter, addressing which ever player is standingwatch...> GM: “As you sit around the fire, you suddenly hear a

soft voice from the woods, just beyond the light of the fire:'Psst... Pssssst... Hey samuai...over here!'”

<The goal here is to get the character alone in the woods. Ifthey try waking the other characters, tell them they findnothing, and when the other characters go back to bed, repeatthe scene. If necessary, try to calm the character by sayingsomething along the lines of, “Hey, be quiet, it's just me!Com'on over here.”>

<When the character leaves the fire to find the voice...> GM: “Again you hear the voice, 'Pssst, up here!' You look upand see a glowing set of eyes staring at you from the branchesof a tree. Upon closer examination, you see that they seem tobelong to a large bird. A *VERY* large black raven. The birdspeaks to you, 'I bring a message from the master, he says thatthe plan is good, all you need to do is say the word at thegate...'”

<Allow the player a moment to respond, but beforecontinuing...> GM: “Meanwhile, back at the camp, {whoever}is waken by a voice... 'Psst... Pssssst... Hey samurai... overhere!'” <At this point, basically copy the above scene with thenew player, except this time, it's a little old lady with a blackshaw, rather than a bird, that's speaking to the character.>

<What's happening is that both these creatures are tengu, thebird is “Uncle Tengu” and the little old lady is “AuntieTengu”. Both of them *think* they are talking to the rightcharacter, but the fact is neither one can tell the differencebetween ronin. The tengu should be played with a sense ofboth cruelty and humor.>

<During the exchange with these two tengu, make sure to

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jump back and forth between players frequently.>

<The goal with these exchanges is both to sow the seeds ofmistrust between characters, and provoke a fight with thetengu. It is important you follow the players' lead. If theydon't play along, simply have the tengu run back to the otherand say something along the lines, “Wha?... but you... Wait!...{Auntie/ Uncle}! I spoke with the wrong ronin! Who can tellthem apart! Now we must kill them all!” If they do play along,say something like, “Now I see why the Master trusts you, youare such a strong and skilled warrior!... I don't know how youput up with those dirty and good-for-nothing ronin... I wouldkill them if I were you... *I* could kill them now, if you want...”If that doesn't provoke the player, you can have the othertengu show up and say something like, “What are you doing?That's the wrong ronin!... Or was I talking to the wrongronin?...Who can tell them apart, now we must kill them all!”>

<An effective technique in sowing mistrust is to have thetengu complement the character in question while insultingthe others. Another technique is to have the tengu proclaimthe virtues of the Witch, while pointing out the flaws of theother characters. This is particularly effective if the othercharacters acted against the character in question in theearlier scene.>

<Another possible course of action is to have one (or all) ofthe other ronin simply overhear the other two ronins'conversation with the tengu. If so, just let the player(s) decidehow they wants to react.>

<After the fight with the tengu, or however the scene ends,give the players a moment to reflect on what happened, andthen end the demo.>

General TipsDon't explain anything until it comes up in play. And whenyou do explain, just explain enough to get by. I try to show thisin the script

Point to the character sheet. Always point to the charactersheet or the quick reference section when explaining rules. Thisway, players know where to look if they forget.

Tell them what to do. Don't worry if the players understand ormemorize the rules. Just tell them what to do and push themalong.

Try to follow the players' lead, if possible. Running the demois a balancing act of trying to push the players along and makingthe players feel free to do whatever they want. Most of the timeplayers act fairly predictably, but if they surprise you, try to playalong.

Cut the scene short if it's taking too long. Don't worry about“completing” the demo. The demo is just meant to give playersa taste. In fact, the trick is to give just enough of a taste to makethe player want more (and buy the book). So if a scene isdragging, end it and continue with the demo.

Use Tokens to represent Trust. This demo sheet has beenwritten assuming that the GM will use tokens (poker chips orsome other object) represent Trust points. Though this is notrequired, I have found that for demos, players have a better timekeeping track of physical chips than numbers on the charactersheet. (This also means that the demo sheets don't get marked upby pencil marks, so they can be re-used.)

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