A Quick Game: Chicken: the Crossing.

It would be fair to say that this is a bit of a joke, and in response to this:

Major office reorg in progress. No clue what unpublished game design this was for. But it must have been awesome. pic.twitter.com/1dTpvMsY0v

— Robin D. Laws (@RobinDLaws) November 19, 2016

chicken_-the-crossing-google-docs

Chicken: the Crossing

A Game For Answering Life’s Greatest Mystery

Intro: you and your party all play Chickens attempting to get from one side of the Road to the other.  This is a three step process:

• Decide to Cross the Road.
• Find the Road.
• Cross the Road Safely.

Unfortunately, each individual Chicken can only keep two of those Thoughts in their heads at all time.  Fortunately, three or more Chickens can Pool their thoughts, thus allowing them to cross the Road.  Again, unfortunately, as every Chicken crosses the Road they drop out of the Pool.  Again, fortunately, a Chicken can attempt to Transcend its nature and have three Thoughts in its head, though at terrible cost…

Skills: Every Chicken has three Skills, ranked from 0 to 5.  The Chicken has 5 points to distribute.

 

• Cluck.  Use this skill for all social situations. Can be Sacrificed to allow a Chicken to permanently have the Thought ‘Decide to Cross the Road.’

• Run.  Use this skill for all physical situations. Can be Sacrificed to allow a Chicken to permanently have the Thought ‘Find the Road.’

• Peck.  Use this skill for all combat situations. Can be Sacrificed to allow a Chicken to permanently have the Thought ‘Cross the Road Safely.’

 

Skill resolution: roll one d6: add the Chicken’s Skill. If the roll is 6 or above, the Skill succeeds.  If a Skill has been Sacrificed, no roll is possible and the Chicken automatically fails. Only one Skill per Chicken can be Sacrificed.

A Chicken starts with two Thoughts: once per turn, it may change one of those Thoughts with a Cluck roll. To perform the Crossing, the Chicken must have all three Thoughts, then make a series of successful Cluck, Run, and Peck rolls (only one roll per turn). An unsuccessful Skill roll requires the Chicken to roll against that Skill each turn until successful.  Once a successful Skill roll with regard to the Crossing has been made, it can be safely Sacrificed (but the Chicken will still fail all of that Skill’s other checks).

A group of Chickens can Pool their Thoughts: the total number and types of Thoughts are added together.  Each Chicken makes a Peck Skill roll: the most successful Chicken gets first call on the Thoughts (maximum three), then the next most successful Chicken, and so on until there are less than three Thoughts available.

A Chicken may choose to Run For It.  It chooses one other Chicken’s Skill and attempts to steal it. Do a contested Run vs. Run check; highest result gets the Skill for that round.  If there is a tie, keep rolling until resolved.

Once a Chicken has performed the Crossing, it is permanently removed from the Pool.  It may, if it so chooses, either give a one-time bonus of +3 to any one Skill roll made by any other Chicken, or allow a Chicken to make a regular Skill check once on a Sacrificed skill.  Or it may not.  After all, it has performed the Crossing.  The game ends when everyone has either performed the Crossing, or gives up.

A Gamemaster is not, strictly speaking, necessary for all of this.  Neither is roleplaying out being Chickens.  If there is a GM, though, then he may reward the Chickens with +1 to relevant Skill rolls for amusing chicken roleplay.

Order of rounds:

• Pool generated.
• Peck roll to determine order.
• Pool allocated.
• Run rolls (if any).
• Individual Chicken’s Skill checks.
• Sacrifices (if any).