Chapter 7: Running the Game

Running a game of White Box is a lot easier than running most other role-playing games, simply because there are not as many rules and your own discretion overrides them anyway. Most situations are handled by making common sense decisions concerning what happens next.

For example: the players are in combat with a group of orcs and the fighter wants to trip one of them. It’s up to the Referee to decide what the fighter needs to do or roll to be successful. If a Player decides that his character is going to jump through a wall of fire, with several bottles of flammable oil in his backpack, it’s up to the Referee to determine whether or not they explode.

This means making up a lot of stuff on the spot. If you’re not a good storyteller or if you’re not up to doing a lot of creative thinking on the fly, it might be better that you try a different game—one that provides more rules and guidance for every situation that might arise. But if you’re a good storyteller, creative and fair, White Box’s small, Spartan rule-set frees up your creativity to create a fantasy role-playing experience completely different from the type of game that depends on a multitude of rules.

White Box also frees up your creativity in terms of customizing the game. Unlike a more complex game, you can add house rules wherever you want to without accidentally messing up something else buried in the rules. If you want to use critical hits and fumbles, add ‘em in. You won’t break anything—there’s not that much to break!

Designing an Adventure

The “adventure” is just the setting for the game—usually a map and then notes about certain locations on that map. As the Players tell you where their characters go and what they do, you’re referring to the map and your notes to describe what happens as a result. Don’t try to plan for all contingencies—it’s guaranteed that the players will do something unexpected during the adventure and you’ll just have to roll with it, thinking on your feet and making up new things as you go. Just as you challenge the Players with adventure, they challenge you to keep up with their collective creativity.

Creating a Campaign

A campaign is the world beyond the adventure—the cities, forests, coastlines, and kingdoms of the fantasy world. The players will almost certainly want their characters to explore the wilderness, visit cities, and do all sorts of things in the fantasy world. At the beginning of the game, you might want to sketch out a map of a single village (as the starting point) and some of the surrounding area. (The location of the first adventure—a dark forest, perhaps) As the players move their characters around from adventure to adventure, you can expand the little map into an entire fantasy world with the continents, kingdoms, and great empires at your disposal.

If you want to take a shortcut, you can set your entire campaign in a fictional world created by the author of one of your favorite fantasy stories. Most of these have maps and the author has already created the details and feel of the world for you. For example: the worlds of Conan’s Hyboria (Robert E. Howard), of Elric and the Eternal Champions (Michael Moorcock), and of the Dying Earth (Jack Vance) are popular fictional settings ready for gaming. Indeed, publishers have already created pre-packaged campaigns for all three of these examples.

Experience Points

Experience Points are awarded to Players for gaining treasure and killing monsters, as described under “Gaining Experience” in Chapter 5. It may seem counter-intuitive that treasure somehow makes characters more experienced, but that’s not what awarding experience for gold pieces is all about. Gold pieces are an after-the-fact measurement of how ingenious the character (Player) was in getting them. The gold pieces are not the source of the experience—they are the measurable product of it.

That being said, there are many alternative ways for Referees to award XP. For example, active participation in the campaign might warrant experience for each hour of real-time play, as could solving puzzles and aiding allies. A particularly clever solution or epic victory might warrant double the normal XP amount awarded, while an abysmal failure might merit half.

Some Referees make all earned Experience Points a part of a community total to be divided evenly, since not all the characters have the same opportunities in a given adventure. Others prefer a more competitive game, whereby each player earns XP according to individual accomplishments.

If you find that whatever system you’re using leads the players toward bad decisions—seeking out unnecessary combat or looking for traps to spring—you might consider adjusting your system. This is true for the “official” system of awarding experience as well. Remember, the Referee is the ultimate judge of what works best for a game and any rule can be changed to fit the group.

Scale of Advancement

Referees all have their own style of campaign, and it would be silly for one author to impose needless restrictions on anyone playing the game. However, it is worth noting that this rule set was designed with the notion that 4th level characters are “heroic” and thus the tables were capped at level 10. A Referee who wishes to extend the tables to higher levels is encouraged to do so if it fits the style of the campaign.

Underworld and Wilderness Adventures

Many Referees will create a map of the Underworld or Wilderness in advance of play. The player characters will then explore the map but are unaware of its contents.

In the Underworld a map is filled with monsters, traps, treasure, and any mysterious creatures or locations the Referee can dream into existence.

The Wilderness map is created using hexagon paper, with each hex representing 6 miles, and having a primary terrain and possibly an interesting feature. A feature could be a Wizards tower, a Fighter’s stronghold, and an Evil High Priest’s dark temple or maybe it could be a small elf like creature, sitting on a tree stump, playing a magical flute. Let your imagination run wild when creating features.

Wandering Monsters

In the Underworld, check every hour (six turns), for wandering monsters and in the Wilderness check every hex. Normally there is a 1 in 6 chance of encountering something in the Underworld. Check the Getting Lost and Encounters table for chances of encounters in the Wilderness.

The specific encounter is rolled on a table. Initial encounter distance is dependent on the circumstance.

Reaction Check

The reaction of monsters to the player character should be determined by the Referee based on the monster’s intelligence or wisdom and the situation in which the encounter occurs. Unintelligent monsters will simply attack. If there is any uncertainty about the monsters reaction, a roll can be made on the following table.

Getting Lost and Encounters

In the Wilderness, if the characters are following a road or trail, there isn’t a chance of getting lost. If however, they are exploring unknown lands, there is a chance of losing their way depending on the hex terrain.

Whether on well-marked roads or out in the unknown, there is always a chance for an encounter. Roll d6 twice per hex to check for becoming lost and/or an encounter.

Wilderness Movement Rates by Transport

Underworld Encounter Tables by Dungeon Level

For character class encounters, roll a d6 for their alignment: 1-3 = Chaotic, 4-5 = Neutral, 6 = Lawful. The character class can be any of the character races or for an additional option; The Referee can choose a humanoid. For example, instead of a level 5 human Fighter, it could be a level 5, Orc Fighter.

Wilderness Encounter Tables by Terrain Type