Places & Predators Basick Rules: A Roller Playing Game Based on Cribbage

By Jeff Good

Welcome to the world of Places & Predators and Cribbage! Places & Predators is a roller playing game that has nothing to do with Satan like that other similarly named roller playing game. And Cribbage is a game that’s in the public domain so I can’t get in trouble for using its rules. I hope. Like Cribbage, Places & Predators is meant to be played with two or three friends or, if you don’t have any friends, people you just met through a nerdy dating app. If you like card games that force you to do a bunch of math and pretending to be a hobbit, you’ll probably love this game!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jun 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781716856594

Book preview

Places & Predators

Basick Rules

2ndDraftInnerCover.JPG

A Roller Playing System

based on Cribbage.

By Grunion Guy

Published by Green Gryphon Games. Copyright 2020.

All rights reserved.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

978-1-71685-659-4

Imprint: Lulu.com

Contents

INTRODUCTION!

The Nuts and Basics

THE PLAYER CHARACTER (AKA THE FANTASYER)

THE FANTASYER CLASSES

HOW TO PLAY

COMBAT

NON-COMBAT ENCOUNTERS

EXPERIENCE AND LEVELING UP

SOME OTHER STUFF!

THE INTRODUCTORY MODULE

PEGHOLE #1*

PEGHOLE #2*

PEGHOLE #3

PEGHOLE #4

PEGHOLE #5*

PEGHOLE #6

PEGHOLE #7*

PEGHOLE #8

PEGHOLE #9*

PEGHOLE #10

PEGHOLE #11

PEGHOLE #12*

PEGHOLE #13

PEGHOLE #14

PEGHOLE #15*

PEGHOLE #16*

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PEGHOLE #18

PEGHOLE #19*

PEGHOLE #20

PEGHOLE #21

PEGHOLE #22

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PEGHOLE #25*

PEGHOLE #26*

PEGHOLE #27

PEGHOLE #28

PEGHOLE #29*

PEGHOLE #30

PEGHOLE #31*

PEGHOLE #32*

PEGHOLE #33*

PEGHOLE #34

PEGHOLE #35

PEGHOLE #36*

PEGHOLE #37

PEGHOLE #38

PEGHOLE #39*

PEGHOLE #40*

PEGHOLE #41

PEGHOLE #42

PEGHOLE #43

PEGHOLE #44

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PEGHOLE #46

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PEGHOLE #50*

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PEGHOLE #53*

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PEGHOLE #55*

PEGHOLE #56*

PEGHOLE #57*

PEGHOLE #58

PEGHOLE #59

PEGHOLE #60*

PEGHOLE #61

PEGHOLE #62

PEGHOLE #63*

PEGHOLE #64*

PEGHOLE #65

PEGHOLE #66

PEGHOLE #67*

PEGHOLE #68

PEGHOLE #69

PEGHOLE #70

PEGHOLE #71

PEGHOLE#72

PEGHOLE #73

PEGHOLE #74*

PEGHOLE #75*

PEGHOLE #76

PEGHOLE #77*

PEGHOLE #78

PEGHOLE #79

PEGHOLE #80

PEGHOLE #81*

PEGHOLE #82

PEGHOLE #83*

PEGHOLE #84*

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PEGHOLE #87*

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PEGHOLE #97*

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PEGHOLE #104*

PEGHOLE #105

PEGHOLE #106

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PEGHOLE #108*

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PEGHOLE #110

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PEGHOLE #115

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PEGHOLE #118

PEGHOLE #119

PEGHOLE #120

PEGHOLE #121: THE BOSS BATTLE!

Encounters Encountered!

Cribbage Tutorial

Glossary!

Fantasyer Sheets

INTRODUCTION!

Welcome to the world of Places & Predators and Cribbage! You may have never heard of the role-playing game Places & Predators (or Cribbage!) but that’s okay because I’m just now releasing it (Places and Predators hasn’t been! Cribbage has been around for practically forever!). Originally based on The Game of Life (which is probably trademarked so don’t go ratting me out or my lawyer will probably defend me on parody rights!), Places & Predators (not Cribbage which is based on Cribbage. Try to keep up!) was a pretty complicated game because unlike the real Game of Life which only allows your peg family to travel in pretty much one direction with only the flimsiest of illusory choices so that it seems like you’re in some kind of control of your life, Places & Predators really gave you the freedom to act in any way you’d like and to go wherever you want to go (depending on the Master Fantasyer’s discretion, of course!). But the rules were way too complicated and I kept revising them until I thought, Maybe I should base my game on something in the public domain. Like Cribbage! And that’s what I did! My new version of Places and Predators was made to play relatively quickly while probably drinking beers in a public place! And it’s less embarrassing than being seen in public playing Magic the Gathering! But it’s almost exactly equal to being seen playing in public playing one of those Monopoly games themed on something other than capitalist greed, like The Beatles or Star Wars (I couldn’t actually think of a Monopoly game themed on something non-capitalist so those will have to do).

The World of Grunionia!

Places and Predators takes place on the world of Grunionia. Or should I say one of the worlds of Grunionia because there are infinite universes in the Places and Predators cosmos and each one is based on a different game (even if a lot of other things are identical, like the Gods and the world map and the kinds of predators that hoard all of the loot). So while some Grunionias might be based on The Game of Life or Connect Four or Dungeons and Dragons or Twister, this particular Grunionia is based on a non-trademarked game: Cribbage! That means that combat and skill tests and all of the general physical characteristics of the universe are somehow based on Cribbage. This is because the God of Board Games created the Multiverse by opening up a game store where all of the Gods (still young and full of passion and interested in things like creating legacies and having ambition and using their imaginations) rushed in to buy a game. Every game purchased by one of the Gods created a universe when they took off the cellophane and set it up back at home.

Cribbage was purchased by Al the Huge, God of Champeens. He believed that everything should be a constant struggle between everybody with as much random luck involved as mental acumen. He celebrated the ability to drink and despised actual physical abilities. Al was a little bit lazy and also a little bit drunk when he set up his Cribbage board so instead of putting the starting space in Simplagul like most of the other Gods (because it’s basically the first level of Grunionia), he put the starting space in Deadeden. Normally this would have been a dangerous thing to do because Deadeden’s population are all undead and they love to eat humans. But Al the Huge sobered up long enough to think, Maybe the undead and the living can get along on my version of Grunionia! Then he vomited all over Finland which is why Finland is the way it is.

Deadeden is home to undead creatures of all kinds (or at least all of the kinds I’ve seen in movies or read in comic books). The undead enjoy humans living in Deadeden because humans have to exist so they can die to become more undead creatures! Also some undead love to eat (and maybe do other things to. Wink, wink!) humans. In Deadeden, humans are seen as second class citizens and often labeled as thieves, bandits, and monsters by most of Deadeden’s undead population. They tolerate them at best and enforce strict anti-human laws at worst. Laws like No heartbeats allowed within city limits or If your hair can grow, you can go! Okay, that last one is less of a law and more of a jerky sign that Tesla sang about in the 1980s.

One of the reasons that so many undead hate humans that I probably should have begun with is that humans love to raid crypts and crypts are the homes of the undead. So, you know, that isn’t cool. But humans have to adventure because it is in their blood and the undead don’t have much blood so they would rather stay home and work a routine job to get a steady income to support their ghoulish families.

The first city you’ll encounter in your travels in Deadeden is Poorchaghoul (mostly because that’s the only Adventure Module I’ve completed). It’s the native home of Ghouls and they’re mostly pretty poor. You might have gotten that from the name of their city if you weren’t too drunk while reading it. Since the city is so poor, it’s the easiest place for beginning adventurers to adventure in since no high level predator or CEO in their right mind would bother trying to score loot in this city.

If you look at a globe of the real world, you’ll find Deadeden right where Sweden is because the maps look exactly the same. You might think this is lazy but remember how Warhammer did it? Did you complain about it then? No? Then shut up! If you did complain about it then then you should be used to it already and should just be sighing instead of complaining. Don’t think all the names are the same as on the globe though! Although I don’t think I can think of any more place puns based on poverty levels and monsters. I mean, what is the next city going to be? Skeletonmiddleclassville? That’s the best pun I could come up with for Scandinavia.

Someday I might describe Places & Predators’ Grunionia in greater detail (like how Toughasnailsvokia is run by a Monster Friendly government or how Middlehardgium has an Adventure Module based in a deadly chocolate factory) but since it doesn’t matter at this time, I’m not going to bother with it. Except maybe for naming the sea that lies south of Deadeden which is the North Sea for some reason. Maybe because its root is Norse and it was discovered by a zombie Viking with a lisp.

The Nuts and Basics

Places & Predators is a way to play Cribbage that adds an element of persistence — and also dragons and loot — to the game. Each game of Cribbage is a competitive romp through a dungeon with each Fantasyer racing dramatically to the end goal. It is Roller Playing without the need of a Master Fantasyer because who needs that jerk, right? All he does is try to kill you and keep all of the good treasures out of your grubby little hands. In Places and Predators, your opponent plays the role of the Master Fantasyer. Whenever you enter a new room in the dungeon, your opponent reads the description, sets up each mini-scenario, and plays the role of any predators encountered. And when your opponent takes her turn, you become the jerk! I mean the Master Fantasyer!

Setup

To play, you’ll need two people because you can’t play Cribbage alone. You probably shouldn’t have three people until I think up a three-player variant although you could probably play with three people in the exact same way you’ll be playing with two people which is why I’ll describe three different possible Fantasyer Classes whenever I get to the Fantasyer Class section of the rules. Oh! I just thought up a three person variant! You can read about it later in the section Three Person Variant. You’ll also need a deck of cards and at least one Cribbage board for the main game. You’ll need two more Cribbage boards to keep track of the Fantasyers’ statistics. Most people probably don’t own that many Cribbage boards (or any at all, really) so you’ll probably want to keep track of statistic changes on the Fantasyer sheets provided at the end of the Basick Rules, especially when I mention how you’ll need yet another Cribbage board to keep track of the statistics of predators encountered. I suppose you could use scratch paper for that! In that case, maybe invest in scratch paper and some pencils and maybe a calculator instead of five or more Cribbage boards! But the most important thing you’ll need is an officially licensed Places & Predators module! Otherwise you’re just playing Cribbage!

What the heck is Cribbage?!

I know, right? What a good question! It’s a card game that forces you to do a lot of math. Have you ever seen old people playing a card game while shouting Champeen of the Universe! and  moving little pegs around a board? That was probably Cribbage! That makes it sound more fun than a card game with math! Although it would sound even more fun if instead of old people I’d said it was played by young people drinking loads of energy drinks and wearing caps backwards and saying I summon Blue Eyes White Dragon’s Exodia’s Left Leg! a lot. If you already know what Cribbage is then you’re practically ready to play Places & Predators! But if you’re not familiar with the rules, you should read the Cribbage Rules Addendum at the back of this booklet. When you’re done, return to this spot and go to the next paragraph!

Getting Started!

Each player chooses a Fantasyer Class which best represents the type of person they’d want to be if the roller coaster they were on suddenly transported them to a mythical world where some jerk and his pet dragon were constantly trying to kill them. Since this is only the Places & Predators Basick Rules, I’ve only devised three different Fantasyer Classes to choose from. In future Places & Predators Adventure Modules and Supplements (reasonably priced at whatever select locations I can trick into carrying them), I will introduce more Fantasyer Classes until there are more Fantasyer Classes in the Places & Predators Universe than you have time to play. And just because this is rule book is called the Basick Rules, don’t think I’ll be releasing Advanced Rules later! The Basick Rules designation is just meant to point out how simple the game is to learn. It’s not like that other dungeon crawling game which is just a hugely cynical marketing attempt to sell as many rules books as possible! That game is all, Here’s a version of our game that everybody can play! But when you’re good enough, you can advance to the advanced game which is much harder and more advanced! So much so that you’ll probably get called Garbage and Noob a lot. And that will mostly be by the Dungeon Master!

Everybody should also know how to play Cribbage before starting. Or at least one person should know how to play so that person can teach the other player. But that person should be trustworthy or else the second player isn’t going to learn how to play Cribbage at all! They’ll just learn that their friend is a jerk who wants to win at any cost. So maybe both players should learn the rules. Just in case. I don’t want too many friendships to end because of this game.

THE PLAYER CHARACTER

(AKA THE FANTASYER)

Each adventure pits the players against each other as they try to achieve