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There are multiple published adventures which start during or have a festival of some kind in them. Usually, festivals have games, and I'm wondering how to run them if the players want to try. I figure some you could just run in real life (e.g card games, shell games.) Others are harder to figure out. I actually don't know much about medieval festival games, can anyone give me ideas?
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Previous:
Pointless carnival games
carnival games & DCs
Running a festival
Festival of Lights
Introductory Challenges and Games
flesh out a festival
& Guardianlord mentioned once that he'd done something like this without giving details, but I know he's still around and posting.
Pathfinder Lost Omens Subscriber
Beyond the general single short skill challenge that makes up most games I have also once used a sort of mini game layout
Basically there is a job/task proposed, such as 'Find specific person and grab item x off them without being noticed' or like a mini ironman challenge like 'Run to the river, swim across it and then climb to the top of the tower and capture the flag'.
If you have it in a more rural setting you could also have the task be something the town or festival needs like Hunt a stag for the feast or race to the top of the hill/mountain to light the beacon to signal the start time of when the tavern can serve the special mead.
One of my favorites, that I used as a "harvest festival challenge" is the Tar Barrel Festival. This is a real-life event every year in England that is I think supposed to be about 400 years old. On the appointed night folks take barrels soaked in tar, light them on fire, then carry them through the town until the heat is unbearable or the barrel breaks.
Now IRL they just do this for bragging rights and to light a bonfire at one end of the town. In my game I made it an endurance challenge built around a specific, plot-driven event.
In my game, the town had been plagued by evil fey who were inhabiting their hinterlands. The tricksy fey however would hide their lair and move throughout the season. Even when one of the willful sprites was encountered by the townsfolk their mortal knives could not pierce fey skin. So it was decided by the townsfolk that they would lure the fey to the most bountiful field after harvest time, baiting the trap with the finest beer they could muster (in my game, the town was known for dwarf beer brewing even though it was a human-centric town).
Once the fey were drawn in and were thoroughly drunk, the townsfolk would hurl flaming barrels onto the pile of empty kegs, setting the entire field ablaze. This destroyed the fey in one fell swoop, and inadvertently began a tradition of firing the field that would be laid fallow the next season.
I ran the challenge as a series of Fort saves, alongside a handful of obstacles to be navigated by skills in the same way you use the Chase mechanic. I made index cards and, depending which route they took through the town (a longer circuitous way with more Fort saves but less challenges or a direct path dealing with crowds, animals, loose stones on the path, etc) they would make a certain amount of saves and skill checks in order to finally arrive at the field. Once there they could roll a tough Ranged Touch attack, suffering any effects from failed Fort saves, to try and be the one who officially hits the target and starts the field on fire.
If they made it without hitting the Exhausted condition or getting a 1 on a skill challenge which meant their barrel broke or they took fire damage, then they made it to the field and got one gold coin for their efforts. If they got all the way to the end and hit the target, the PC won free drinks for a month, 20 gold coins and a kiss from the queen of the harvest.
I my experience, a skill check, attack roll or saving throw is usually enough to sate a player's desire to interact with the world without getting bogged down in meaningless trivialities.
Is there a chance for success? Is there a chance for failure? Is there meaningful consequence for either? --any of those answers are "no", then you shouldn't really be rolling dice.
But then, "meaningful" can be pretty open-ended.
How would a standard "throw a dart at a dartboard to win a prize" work? Just make a normal ranged attack? What about horseshoes? I'm thinking the same but probably with a -4 penalty since they probably aren't proficient in horseshoe.
Throwing a dart, shooting an arrow, tossing a horseshoe, pitching a sack of beans; all of these would be a Dex based to hit roll, governed by Ranged attack rules. The PC(s) would suffer penalties if not proficient, but remember that while some projectiles could be considered improvised weapons others, such as darts, knives, or even rings, could easily be ruled Simple or Martial weapons.
Once the weapon type is established, the goal is to hit a target which you could assign an AC. To try and hit a specific square for example, the RAW says you're shooting for an AC of 5. Depending on the game you could rule things a couple different ways, but here's what I would do:
The target is fixed and unmoving, such as a dartboard or a plank with a hole in it for a sack of beans to fall through. The actual desired area ON that fixed object however is generally a much more challenging goal. There can also be varying degrees of success, such as in the case of darts or some versions of lawn bowling.
So, you take the standard AC 5 and hand that over as the initial target. If a PC fires an arrow and hits that AC, they hit the target and earn, say, 1 point. To get to 2 points it's a -2 penalty; to get 3 points its a -4 penalty, and so on until I get to the "bullseye" of the game.
Also you have to account for distance. A thrown weapon has a range increment of 10' so if the PC is pitching horseshoes, I might set the pit at 20' from them. In this instance, I'd simply adjust the starting AC to a 9, and then tack on penalties from there. Finally, you can also add unique features for PCs to prove their greatness: say for example that the archery field is competitive, all challengers shooting at the same target on their initiative. With a high enough roll, a PC could split a challengers arrow or something.
On a related note: there are a few cases in official modules/APs that call for the PCs to perform somehow. While you could just make a perform check, that sounds kind of boring. How about have the player sing a real-life song (possibly changing words to fit the setting) or imitate some famous monologue or the like?
I ran a festival game as a mini oneshot for halloween. There were side quests to mess with locals from a minor dietey who promised mysterious rewards for "pranks".
For the "games" I had KNOW checks on various in game topics as a type of quiz. Pick a blank tile, answer the question, need 3 correct in a row to get a prize ticket. I asked real questions based on each KNOW. (simple DC's generally). Carni can cheat and place a "tough" question in the row (like planar, or engineering).
Undersized (Tiny) bow for a shooting gallery game with concealment on some targets (Carni could cheat and increase the DC to knock the target or increase blocking to 50%).
A wooden weapon king of the hill event (Against real skeletons/zombies directed to only attack targets not players).
A plinko game, simply roll d100, prizes correspond to the percent, carni can cheat and move pegs reducing roll by 10-20%, player can dex to increase by 10-20%.
The great cheese race, literally race a wheel of cheese down a hill. Everyone (NPC's) cheat and sabotage eachother. Goal is to CMB the cheese and stop it before it reaches the bottom. You win the cheese and a trophy.
Simple ball toss, need certain damage to knock over the pins. Carni can cheat by raising a bar that increases the single hit damage needed by +5-10.
There was a costume contest, magic banned, but many find loopholes or ways to cheat for the purse.
Performances are hard. I have a guy in one of my gaming groups who is an amateur choir singer - asking him to perform a song in RL to simulate a game would be a no-brainer. Only problem is he's playing an Investigator/Wizard, real Brainiac-type with some fidgety tics, sort of a "Herbert West" sort of guy.
Ironically the Barbarian took a couple levels in Bard.
The gal that plays said Bardbarian is an extremely verbose IT professional in RL. She is very smart, talks a mile a minute, and is very animated when she talks, but she is very knowledgeable, not very flamboyant or much of a performer. I don't think she has any singing skills and only knows how to play a ukulele. Badly.
I guess my point is: there's a reason why shy bookworms or awkward talkers play a game where their CHARACTER is an expert thespian, diplomat and musician. It gives the RL player a chance to imagine themselves in that role, but it also codifies dice rolls and mechanics in place to govern their abilities within the role.
For that reason, I'd think you'd want to stick to a dice roll for Perform checks. If the player WANTS to get into it, belt out their favorite Taylor Swift song or just happens to have their theremin handy and feels the need to riff, let 'em and give 'em a +2 Circumstance bonus or something. Otherwise, let the character use the skills they were built to use, regardless of the carnival game.
After all - if the carnival game involved climbing a rope ladder, would you have your buddies scale the basement walls? If the game involved a joust, do you have them riding bikes with foam lances? If the game involved water polo... you get the idea.
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