An adventure must have some premise, or reason why the characters are going on this particular adventure. A common adventure takes the form of a quest. Some reasons to initiate a quest might include; monsters living nearby preying on townspeople, a group of bandits attacking travelers, someone has been kidnapped, or even a treasure map was found by one of the party. With a little imagination many other reasons for adventures can be created. Once a good premise has been determined the players assemble their characters together and undertake the adventure. In a well written adventure a method or reason for the characters to assemble is given. If it is necessary the gamemaster has the option of including a character of his own in the party at this time, or he may choose to add a character later in the adventure. He may even have a character that mysteriously appears and helps the party if their situation becomes desperate, only to have him disappear again later, as did the Lone Ranger in the old television show. This character will be run by the gamemaster.  This character should not dominate the adventure, but only help out when necessary. The player's characters should be the main focus of the adventure.

The adventure must begin somewhere, be it a wilderness, a large city, or a small village. A common starting point is a small village or town. There the characters may undertake some adventure on their own, or be hired to undertake an adventure by someone. It is in good form to haggle for the pay if hired to do a task. While there information is gathered, equipment and supplies bought, and then the characters set forth on their adventure.

Each character is played as an individual. Various party members may not get along with each other, they may fight or harm each other, they may show a grudging cooperation, or even become friends. They do not act as one person. Each character will look out for his own interests and values. This rule is especially important if one player is operating more than one character.

Once on the road the party must watch for both set and random encounters. Set encounters are designed by the game master. In set encounters after a given period of time or at a predetermined point the party of characters will encounter something. This may be a monster, an armed party, an ambush, a friendly creature, or anything else the gamemaster might have placed there. A random encounter is something different, they occur randomly. Every so often in game time the gamemaster will roll a die. If a certain number appears on the die an encounter will take place. This might include events such as wandering monsters, armed bands, traps, or some peculiar event or object. After the gamemaster has determined that a random encounter will take place, he generally rolls again on a second table to determine what encounter will take place, or selects an appropriate encounter from the list. It is important, especially for beginning gamemasters to have the possible encounters worked out beforehand, and not try to make them up as play continues.

How the characters may react to an encounter depends on the type of encounter and the characters themselves. For example if an armed party was encountered the characters could try to talk, attack, retreat, or if the characters see the other party first they might hide. Good characters will not attack first unless they know that the people they are attacking are evil or outlaws. If the party is ambushed obviously they will fight back or retreat. Any monster that attacks or is of evil alignment is fair game for the party. Other monsters may or may not be attacked depending on the circumstances and the alignment of the party. Good characters will not generally attack good monsters or creatures. Combat is described in a separate section.

 Whatever is owned by a defeated band may be claimed by the winners as spoils of combat. Many large monsters, particularly intelligent monsters, have collected a trove of treasure. If a monster is killed, driven away, or otherwise defeated any of its treasure found also belongs to the victors. In most cases if everyone contributed to fighting the monster the treasure will be divided up fairly evenly, although dishonest individuals may try to secrete an unfair portion for themselves. Occasionally magic items will be found. This likewise should be divided among the party with the goal of making the party stronger in the face of an attack or better suited to achieve their goal. Alchemists and magician may collect components of potions and magic items from slain opponents.  Treasure collected from defeated human or demi-human opponents are also usually fair game, although they may have relatives or heirs that want their inheritance or revenge from the characters.

Rest is important in the course of the adventure. The characters cannot travel forever without sleep. A nights sleep of 4-8 hours after a full day of adventuring will heal damage or wounds, will restore a magicians ability to cast spells, and a psionic will regain lost psi points. Similarly the characters must have food and drink to survive and time must be devoted to these activities.

Eventually the party will reach their destination. The destination may occasionally be in the wilderness or a town, but more often it is a set of old ruins, a cave or mine, a castle, or even some magical structure. Any of these structures might be inhabited by tribes or armies of humanoids or be abandoned and inhabited by wandering monsters which have taken up residence.

The party is advised to scout the area and to look for signs of inhabitation. Then they must find some way to enter the area. If for example it is an old ruin, entry might be made through an open window or breach in the wall. Once inside the party should carefully watch for monsters, patrols, and traps. As rooms are explored they should be searched for treasure and secret doorways and panels. Somewhere inside may be the object of your quest. Or somewhere inside might be a clue as to your next destination on your quest. Combat situations and encounters are handled as described elsewhere, The gamemaster plays the role of the inhabitants of the destination. He should play the inhabitants as they would react in real life using realist strategies. He should not let the inhabitants be patsies for the adventurers.

When designing a setting for an encounter the gamemaster must try to make the place as realistic as possible. Most inhabited buildings will have sleeping quarters, a kitchen, storage rooms, and common rooms. Some might have toilets. Hallways should lead somewhere and the rooms should be organized in a usable pattern. Hidden passages and doorways are quite common in old buildings and should not be left out. Objects in the rooms should be appropriate. Kitchen items should be in the kitchen, beds should be in the sleeping chambers, and so forth. Magicians should have laboratories. If abandoned these items may be missing or ruined, but the rooms should be designed as if they have a purpose.

Monsters should be picked that are appropriate for the setting. Swamp monsters generally should not be found in an abandoned keep in the middle of the desert without some very good reason. Caves are one of the easiest settings to design. They have rooms, walkways, crawlways, streams, pools, domepits, and a myriad of interesting features. Do not mix volcanic lava caves and limestone solution caves together. Limestone caves do not have pools of molten lava inside. Such errors detract from the realism of the setting.

Adventures for weaker character parties should have fewer and less powerful monsters in them. As the strength of the character party gets higher they should encounter more and tougher monsters. The problems posed by the adventure should be tougher as well. The adventure should be designed so that the encounters are difficult for the characters, but at the same time does not kill everyone off. Either extreme is bad for the game. If the party is getting beat up badly in the adventure, the gamemaster can always have them find a few potions of healing or potions of resurrection to help the party survive.

The key is to make the settings for the adventure as realistic and interesting as possible. Run the adventure fairly.  Let the players make their mistakes and suffer the consequences.  Don’t be a killer gamemaster   The players deserve a chance to escape from a near hopeless situation by using their wits and skills. Don’t’ wimp out and make it easy for them either.  Most players find it is as interesting designing adventures and playing the gamemaster as it is playing the game as a character.

After each gamming session the character would get a few general skill points, typically 4-8, to improve his existing skills or to buy new ones. In addition he will gain half that number of mundane skill points which are dedicated to raising ranks or purchasing new mundane skills.   Any skill may be purchased by any character, at any time, providing he has the skill points available.

Adding A Character in an Ongoing Game

One of the persistent problems gamemasters need to deal with is players who can only participate sporadically.  In level based system when they play, their characters must either be advanced multiple levels and brought up to the level of the other players or else they and the others in the party are forced to deal with a character greatly underpowered for the adventure.  In this non-level based system occasional players are not that much of a problem.  Typically a character as he becomes more experienced will choose higher levels of expertise in his core concept skills and gain a broader based set of skills at a very low level.  An occasional player or a beginning player will have skills at a comparable level to more experienced players in all but those experienced player’s core skills.  The beginning character will have a similar number of body points as the experienced player, so this is another problem present  in level based games that  is not applicable to Knarf2.  In fact given the variety of skills and concepts available to the players, a beginning character may have the highest skill level in a particular skill of everyone in the party.  There is always an option to give a new or sporadic player large chunks of skill points to keep him on par with the rest of the party, but in this system I do not believe this  is necessary.  A new character who joins the game shortly after the campaign begins should start with the base number of points - 20.  One that joins the game after a significant period of play can make an acceptable character with 30 skill points.