Village Secret, The

The Village Secret is a fantasy roleplaying game for 3 to 5 players, including the GM, where you play a group of indomitable villagers protecting a closely-guarded secret from outsiders. The twist is that each player has two characters, a villager and an outsider. So sooner or later, your two characters will be working at cross purposes! A complete story typically takes 1 to 10 sessions, 2 to 4 hours per session.

Featuring:

• A collaborative method for making your own village, characters and secret.
  
• A versatile system for creating heroes, villains, companions, monsters, spirits or whatever suits your setting.
  
• The Sea Monster's Egg, a ready-to-play setting where an expedition from Temple City threatens to expose the secret of the island of T'Pali.
  
• Extensive handouts that let you spend more time telling stories, less time looking things up.
  
• Over 50 secret techniques and fantastic capabilities to bring your character concepts to life.
  
• Guidance for how to enjoy playing characters on both sides.

Will you expose the secret, protect it, or find another way?

Setting – Although a ready-to-play setting and pre-generated characters are included with the game, the best way to play is to make your own setting, characters and secrets. The rules include a stepwise process for doing this. Frame the plot you want to play out with the antagonists you want to engage - or portray. Play in any time period from neolithic to early modern.

Many other fantasy games are based on a version of the “hero’s journey” myth. The protagonists start in their comfortable home, answer a call to adventure, journey to a strange place, prevail against the antagonists and then return to the comfort of home. This game invites you to twist the hero’s journey myth into something different. The antagonists make the journey. The protagonists’ comfortable home is a strange place. If they want to preserve their home, they must prevail against the antagonists. Anything can happen once the story gets going, but moving away from the classic hero’s journey opens the door to new stories and creative twists.

Characters – Easily create your primary characters with a back story, characteristics, skills, abilities and other details. Companions and other supporting characters may be quickly defined by their magnitude and occupation. Although the Villagers are typically people, fantasy settings often call for the Interlopers to be more exotic. A versatile system easily allows you to create avian people, shapeshifting animals, ancestor spirits, volcano goddesses or whatever you can imagine.

Story - The story begins with the Interlopers disturbing the community, develops as the Interlopers get closer to uncovering the secret, and ends when the Interlopers are no longer a threat. Players may switch back and forth between their characters as desired, as long as no one plays an Interloper and a Villager simultaneously. There are many ways the story can end, ranging from defeating the Interlopers in a decisive conflict to joining them.

Game Mechanics – Roll 1d6, 1d8, 1d12 or 1d20, depending on how your characteristic compares to the challenge level. Add 1 if you know an appropriate skill. If you get a 5, you succeed. Various features and abilities build on this foundation. There are rules for conventional “action scenes” as well as “competitions,” such as chases, contests and magical duels.