What is Scurry?

This is a game about beasts embarking on a scurry. They will race to complete their adventure before succumbing to exhaustion. They will face conflicts, which need to be resolved with imaginative solutions.

Each scurry should take between 1 and 2 hours to play through, with the pace ramping up towards an exciting finish.

Who does what?

One player acts as the Scurry Master (SM). The SM describes the world, telegraphs its dangers and presents conflicts to the beasts to solve.

The other players act as Beasts, who need to work together to complete their scurry.

Overview of Play

First, all players set up the scurry by establishing a Goal. Next, they create their beasts, before finally establishing the relationships between them.

During the scurry, beasts use their Skills, Tags and Guts to resolve Conflict. The SM keeps track of the scurry’s progress, and how exhausted the beasts are—if they become too tired, they succumb to Exhaustion and the scurry immediately ends.

At the end of the scurry, whether the beasts achieve their goal or not, the SM concludes the outcome of their adventure with an Epilogue.

Every scurry should aim to be contained to a single session. However, a narrative can build amongst all of the players through successive scurries, and old mates can return alongside new friends for the next adventure.

Introducing Beasts

After setting the goal for the scurry, players introduce their beasts. They could be new friends, old mates from previous scurries, or a mixed pack of the two!

Beasts have a Guild, a Skill and 9 Tags. This section will guide you through creating a brand new beast. Old beasts can also learn replace tags from one scurry to the next!

Guilds and Skills

Guilds are working unions devoted to specific crafts. Towns and villages are self-sufficient through the appreciation of different forms of labour. Guilds harbour secret skills, passed from member to member

Join 1 Guild, then Learn 1 of its Skills
or
Find your own Guild and/or Skill

Examples
Tanners. Follow the Lines. You know the anatomy of many other beasts, and can skin them for bountry-trophies.
Hivewardens. Pheromones. You can use specially harvested chemicals to control insects for a short time.
Silversnout. Engrave metal. You can manipulate, mark or craft soft metals, such as silver.

Tools

These are pieces of equipment your beast has prepared for this scurry. They are appropriately sized for use with their paws or claws.

Choose 3 Tools
or
Construct your own Tools

Examples
Acorns on a string, Birch-bark book, Crowbar, Comb, Glow worm, Mirror, Protective clothing, Rod of Prodding, Seed cakes, Warm scarf.

Talents

Talents are oddly specific areas of expertise your beast has. They don’t have to represent a beasts total knowledge; just the most relevent things to this scurry they have a knack for.

Practice 3 Talents
or
Discover your own Talents

Examples
Brewing tea, Following clouds, Harvesting wheat, Mean right-hook, Stewing jam, Teaching students, Waiting in ambush.

Traits

These are distinct physical characteristics of your beast’s species. Each kind of beast has it’s own eccentric way of experiencing the world.

Exhibit 3 Traits
or
Define your own Traits

Examples
Blubbery hide, Dognose, Echolocation, Hollow bones, Prone to pouncing, Reflective eyes, Skittish nervesm Swooping flight, Vicious talons.

Inventing New Tags

The joy of resolving conflicts comes from creating unexpected, out-of-the-box, and daring solutions. Oddly specific tags help players to approach problems with imaginative ways of thinking, especially when mixed adjacent to seemingly unrelated tags.

Inversely, vague tags fix problems head on, making them boring and unchallenging. Vague tags also come loaded with preconceptions, which inhibit players from finding creative uses for them. Every problem looks like a nail when your tags are Hammer, Strong, and Carpenter.

Embarking on a Scurry

Your goal is set, your paws are itchy, your befeathered backstorys are described. What next?

  1. The SM sets the scene. This normally focuses on a situation that block the beasts from achieving their goal.

  2. The beasts discuss, ask questions, and tell the SM what they doing.

  3. The SM reacts, answers questions with what the beasts should know, and describes the consequences of their actions.

  4. Conflicts are resolved, the scurry advances, the SM sets the scene again.

Marking Progress

The beasts’ level of energy is represented by the Scurry Die, which starts as a twelve sided die (d12).

To represent the beasts getting more tired or stressed, the SM will Mark Progress on the Progress Clock. Each time the clock fills the scurry die is reduced in size (e.g. d12 to d10, etc).

Progress is marked when:

  • A conflict is resolved with a Hijinx or Complication

  • A major milestone is reached

  • The beasts are slowed by indecision

  • Something bad happens (such as a beast getting hurt, or a trap is sprung)

Resolving Conflict

As the beasts scurry, the SM will describe the world to them, and highlight conflicts preventing them from advancing. Beasts attempt to create solutions, and the narrator describes their results.

If a solution’s success is likely, it automatically resolves with a success. Beasts can collaborate on solutions.

When success is unlikely, roll the scurry die. According to its result, the SM describes how successful the beast’s solution is:

NumberOutcomeResolution
Maximum, i.e. 6 on a d6Criticalthey do better than expected. The situation deescalates a little. Remove a 1 progress from the clock.
4+Successthey do as well as they can.
2-3Complicationthey barely manage to pull it off, but not without consequence.
1Hijinxsomething goes wrong, and hijinks are sure to follow.

Using Tags

If a beast can convince the SM that a tool, talent or trait would be relevant to their solution, they can tag it. They roll the scurry die twice and use the highest result when resolving conflict.

Using Tools. All tools have a narratively sensible supply. There’s no specified amount (such as ‘one piece of chalk’). However, the SM can ask a beast to cross out a Tool tag (temporarily or permanently) as a result of a solution or as an emergent consequence in play.

Using Skills. Skills can be tagged, just like talents, tools or traits. The first time a beast successfully tags their skill during a scurry the conflict is resolved with an automatic success..

Using Guts. Beasts can improvise a skill, cobble together a tool or describe a flashback to a previous event that gives them just what they need to solve the problem at hand. Using their guts always resolves conflict with success, but also marks two counts of progress.

Scurrying to Exhaustion

If the scurry dice is a d4, it can’t be reduced further. Instead. when the clock next fills, roll the scurry die.

If the result is a 1, Something Awful happens and the scurry immediately stops.

The narrator describes how the catastrophic outcome of the beasts’ scurry has lead to a tragic (but entertaining) end.

If a 2, 3 or 4 is rolled, instead remove 1 progress from the clock.

There are 4 ticks on the progress clock. It takes a minimum of 24 ticks to shrink a d12 down to a d4 and potentially roll a 1 for a ‘game over’.

Scurrying to an Epilogue

If the beasts achieve their goal and escape any imminent danger, the narrator concludes the outcome of the scurry in an epilogue. The size of the scurry die determines the ending!

Die SizeOutcomeResolution
d12MotivatedThe beasts have gone above and beyond all expectations
d10DrivenSmart use of their talents, tools and traits have made this scurry a great success
d8ExertedThe beasts broke a sweat, but the pulled through in the end
d6TiredIt was a marathon, but the beasts survived their scurry
d4Worn OutThey made it by the skin of their teeth, but at what cost?