Blue Moon Fragments

I had started writing the below with high hopes, before I got kind of stuck thinking how awkward it would be for everyone to be a farmer and how difficult it would be to find a fun role for everyone. I’d still like to play with this sometime, and I do play solo a little bit, but for now I’m just putting this out there since others were curious and I don’t know if I have it in me right now to figure out where it’s going.

The ‘Draft’

This is an outline of how I think my epistolary experiment inspired by the likes of Harvest Moon / Stardew Valley / Animal Crossing, which I’ll tentatively call Blue Moon, will play out. I think the frequency of play would be monthly, since if you played this with physical mail you’d want enough time for the letters to arrive from the mayor and back from each other participant. Seasons shift every three months.

Characters will interface with the game through bonuses which sum up to +6 points total, and up to an individual maximum of +4 to start with. This is both because I think I’d like my home game Cinco’s characters to be able to play, and because I think +6 is an intuitive maximum which splits nicely:

• +4/+2
• +3/+3
• +3/+2/+1
• +2/+2/+2

The mayor will provide lucky numbers to each participant each month. I think these will be rolled as 6D6, since that feels right. Maybe it represents weather, but I don’t think that would be intuitive since lucky numbers vary between players. Anyway, let’s assume I get a very even distribution:

6 / 5 / 4 / 3 / 2 / 1

Each player will sum their lucky numbers to score up to six activities for the month plus a bonus if one is relevant to the task (each can be used once, or it can be divided between multiple activities, in the same month). I’d probably use the bog standard PbtA convention where 7 to 9 is mid, less than 6 is bad, and 10 or more is excellent. If my character has +4 at farming and +2 at mining, and if she received the above lucky numbers this month, her activities might look like:

Activity	Luckies	Bonus	Score
Farming Potatoes	6 + 2	+2/4	10
Farming Wheat	5 + 3	+2/4	10
Mining	4 + 2	+2	8

That’s the basic order of operations, but an empty box has no toys.

Farming

Farming is the basic bitch cozy game activity par excellance. Don’t lie to me—or yourself! You love a little guilt-free, cottage-core lebensraum. This is the final evolution of a system with which I’ve been tinkering for a while. The great-grandma of this undertaking was the solo role-playing framework Ironsworn which was based on a system of time-ticks, but we don’t need that anymore since lucky numbers regulate play-flow. Rather than time-ticks, the resource for farming and other activities will be tool durability.

• 2–6: Mark 1 progress and 1 hoe durability.
• 7–9: Mark 2 progress and 1 hoe durability, or 1 progress without losing durability.
• 10+: Mark 2 progress without losing hoe durability.

Each crop can only be worked once per month, and it withers and dies at its season’s end. If you neglect a crop, it might not become fully mature before it withers.

Stars	Cost	Progress	Price
★	1	2	2
★★	2	4	5
★★★	4	6	10

Tools probably have 3 durability.

Mining

Mining refers to resource extraction in general, but you need an appropriate tool for what you intend to collect (a pickaxe for mining proper, an axe for wood).

• 2–6: Roll 1D6 on materials and mark 1 durability.
• 7–9: Roll 2D6 on materials and mark 1 durability, or 1D6 without losing durability.
• 10+: Roll 2D6 on materials without losing durability.

When you roll dice, refer to the table below (at least for literal mining): if you roll two dice, you can decide whether to sum them up for one rarer material or treat the rolls separately for two units of materials.

Roll	Material	Stars
1–2	Clay	★
3–5	Stone	★★
6–8	Iron	★★★
9–11	Gold	★★★★
12	Diamond	★★★★★

For wood, I guess you just get 1 or 2 wood? Who knows.

Crafting

Crafting augments a raw material into a product with more value, and which can also be used as a tool in other activities (where durability = stars).

• 2–6: Augment +1 star and mark 1 durability.
• 7–9: Augment +2 stars and mark 1 durability, or +1 star without losing durability.
• 10+: Augment +2 stars without losing durability.

Some products require multiple crafting phases: though tools and food need just 1 phase, workstations require 3 and buildings require 5. The product gains value at each stage.

Exploration

Exploring is a way to impose obstacles on other goals and tasks. But why make things harder for yourself? Why do anything? We do this—and other things—not because they are easy, but because they are hard.

• 2–6: Make 1 progress and roll 2 events.
• 7–9: Make 2 progress and roll 2 events, or make 1 progress and roll 1 event.
• 10+: Make 2 progress and roll 1 event.

Events include:

D6	Event
1	Combat! Mark 1 weapon durability.
2	Combat! Mark 2 weapon durability or 1 weapon + 1 armor durability.
3	Hungry! Mark 1 food durability.
4	Hungry! Mark 2 food durability.
5	Forage! Find 1 item from the area.
6	Forage! Find 2 items from the area.

Whoever runs the game can decide whether you can explore and go back home, or if you need to explore it all in one go like one of those Viking drinking horns that you can’t put down once you pick it up. Probably depends.