Like many other tabletop RPGs, Q! is an asymmetrical game, and playing as the Weaver sets you apart as the “Game Master” for the upcoming campaign. It is a role that has more responsibility and takes more time and effort to play. But it also comes with a great deal of reward. You will get to explore all sorts of characters to play as, and will be hero, antagonist, and friend to the other players characters. You will get to explore your ideas and you’ll get to surprise and delight your friends with exciting twists and turns. In this companion section you will find all the tips and tricks I can provide to help you play as the Weaver.
In Q!, the Quandary is an individual specific threat that you’ll create to challenge the other players. It might be an antagonist or group of antagonists with an insidious goal that needs to be thwarted. It might be an environmental phenomena or a strange occurrence that messes with the rules of reality. It might be a specific dangerous location they must escape, like a dungeon or far away realm. As the Weaver, one of your roles is creating and fleshing out these challenges. Each Quandary might be a single session, or may take a few sessions to complete.
Linking together each Quandary to the next is the framework of the group dynamic you've picked. Eventually your Quandaries should lead you to the final climax of the campaign.
In order to play the game, you’ll need the game world. As a Weaver, It’s your responsibility to add detail, maintain continuity, and create interesting spaces and characters for the other players to interact with. The places you create are like the sets of a movie, they are important tools in your storytelling. You want them to be believable and be prepared for players to ask questions about their surroundings. You'll need to be mindful to keep things setting and theme appropriate and to integrate player backstories and ideas into the world.
One of the most important skills you’ll be developing is learning to keep the story moving. You’ll be adapting player ideas into story elements on the fly. You’ll have to be ready to do a lot of improvisational thinking because the other players are going to decide to do things you never accounted for. You’ll need to try and keep everyone focused on the goal of the session, while being prepared to change the goal if they decide to go off pattern.
As the Weaver, one of the hardest tasks you’ll have to get used to is being the de facto leader. Whenever something that is not covered directly by the rules comes up, and it will often in a rules light system like Q!, you will be tasked with hearing the opinions of everyone involved, weighing that against what makes the most sense according to the agreed upon rules of the world, and then making a decision as to what happens so the gameplay may continue. The other players are going to look to you for tips and ideas for their quirks and character concepts. And you will inevitably have to arbitrate disputes between players. Remember the goal is to be fair, firm, and forward thinking.
The first thing every Weaver needs to get started is a Pattern Book. This is going to be your master notebook. You can have a digital one using the app of your choice, or you can opt for a physical binder, it’s a personal decision and they both have their pros and cons. The important thing is that it lets you keep all the important details you come up with in one place.
Once you have your Pattern Book, the second thing you are going to want to get is a small pocket sized notepad and writing implement, or a note taking program for your cell phone. This is gonna be your Forget-Me-Not, and you should keep it on you so that you can record the creative ideas you have throughout the day. These ideas will make up the majority of the inspiration for your hooks when you are making patterns.
If you are playing in person, you may need some sort of screen to hide your notes and dice rolls.
The last thing you’ll need is your favorite pair of six-sided dice. Of course, each player can bring their own dice, collecting new ones can be a lot of fun.
Playing as the Weaver is a huge amount of fun. It is a very rewarding experience. But it is also really easy to burn out, always being the one in charge of telling the story. I personally recommend that player groups try to take turns being the Weaver. When a campaign comes to an end, it’s good practice to take a break and be a Thread in the next campaign. Spreading out the responsibility for being the Weaver also helps build the roleplaying skills of the whole group.
A group of werewolf tavern owners have been kidnapping and killing people. They are using blood magic to experiment with making their curse contagious in food and drink. They have almost perfected the formula and plan to poison the town water supply to create a whole community of werewolves.
Lycanthropy is a “blessing” from a long forgotten celtic era goddess of the hunt. People who contract it have a psychedelic experience under the next full moon where they will transform into a werewolf, hunt prey, and eventually have a conversation with this goddess. During which their hearts desires will be laid bare and they will be bestowed a blessing that fits them. After that first transformation, they can change forms at will. They do still transform regardless of their will under the full moon, but they remain in control of themselves and retain their human faculties.
Lycanthropy is a curse from the gods, turning people into psychotic uncontrollable killing machines out for blood. This stems from the fact that many first moon werewolves have gone on killing sprees, especially in places where a forest isn’t accessible to hunt in. Many unfortunate werewolves have woken up covered in blood only to find themselves the target of a hunt by the city guard.
Superhuman Strength - Even in human form, they are much stronger than any average human. Grapple Moves against them fail unless your roll modifier is at least +4. They can break down doors and other barricades very quickly.
Superhuman Senses - They have a heightened sense of smell and dark vision.
Regeneration - Unless a wound was caused by a silver weapon, they heal from it at the end of the round. Decapitating or completely destroying the body will still kill the werewolf.
Natural Weapons - In wolf form they have a [3 Wound] bite they can use on a grappled target and a [2 Wound] claw swipe attack they can use as a retaliation in melee. These attacks have a 1 in 6 chance of infecting the victim with lycanthropy if they survive the encounter. If a character takes wounds from them, roll a die behind the screen. On a 1, the character contracts lycanthropy.
Dark Mothers Blessing - Each werewolf gains an innate magical gift on their first transformation.
Pack Fighters - In the event any one of them are caught in a fight alone, they will do everything they can to fall back to the rest of their group.
Rational - They will act in their best interest and try to escape if they become too injured or think the odds are too stacked against them
Melee Fighters - They will try to grapple and bite their opponents, and use their claws to swipe at anyone that gets close or tries to attack them
Health Pool: 7 or 8 Wounds
Threat Level: Villain
Threat Type: Chimera
Arlene will use blood bending to make one of the characters move against their will. And if forced to, will use the vial of acid she keeps in her pocket.
Elenore will cast darkness on the target and use guerilla tactics to stab them from the dark with her knives.
Micky will dodge or catch projectiles and can take an extra action in a round. He will try to close the distance and point blank double barrel antagonists with his gun.
Found in the woods by the Stubbs family. This ~10 year old girl is completely feral, has no communication skills, and can’t control her werewolf transformation. She is kept sedated and locked in a cage in a hidden room in the tavern's basement. Her arms are covered in marks from the needles used to draw her blood.
If she regains consciousness, she will transform and try to escape, attacking anyone in her way. Anyone attacked by her has a 100% chance of catching lycanthropy.
She is weakened by her imprisonment and blood loss, as such, she only has a health pool of 4.
The Stubbs family have been living in town for their whole lives. Eleanor's father built the tavern over 70 years ago. Elenore met Mickey at a harvest festival, they fell in love and married 25 years ago. Shortly after they were married, Eleanor turned Mickey into a werewolf after he asked her to. Eleanor inherited the tavern when her father died 20 years ago. Arlene was born later that year.
The Stubbs have lived comfortably hidden among the townspeople. Once per month they “go hunting” and the tavern is closed up early. They hunt game as werewolves under the full moon, and then use that meat for the tavern's meals. No one in town has ever questioned this behavior, as it seems perfectly normal.
Elenore and Mickey are simple people who don’t have much ambition beyond living comfortable lives as well respected, wealthy business people. They have cultivated a lot of respect from the local community by offering affordable drinks and meals for decades. Arlene is more headstrong and curious about the world around her, she embraced advanced learning early in life. She is particularly interested in the study of magic because of her blessing.
Elenore and Mickey are happy living in hiding, but Arlene doesn’t like the fact she has to hide that she is a werewolf, she secretly wishes everyone in town were werewolves. But because lycanthropy has a low chance of being spread and a victim is more likely to die from the attack than turn, it is nothing more than a fantasy.
Everything changed when they found another werewolf, a young girl, in the woods one night a few months ago. Realizing that the child had clearly been abandoned by someone when her nature was revealed, they brought her home. However it soon became clear she was completely feral, and a danger to herself and others. They locked her up in a cage in their hidden room in the tavern’s basement.
Arlene’s blessing allowed her to sense that there was something different about the girl's blood. After doing some testing, she learned that the girl's blessing makes her lycanthropy much more transmissible. Learning this, Arlene hatched a plan. She could use this girl's blood, and her blood magic to make a potion to turn people into werewolves without having to attack them.
She convinced the rest of the family that if they turned the whole town into werewolves they would finally be able to live free. The elder Stubbs are a little reluctant but they agree to go along with the plan. Arelen started doing experiments and realized she would need a lot more blood.
They have abducted people every few nights for the last couple weeks. They focused on people who would likely not be missed, and drained their blood for Arlene’s experiments, then dumped the bodies outside town. They made it look like the work of vampires just in case the bodies are found.
Arlene has almost finished her formula, she just needs to make a few tweaks to it so that it stops turning people into monsters. A few more tests and it will be ready to deploy.
This is the plot point we are going to use to introduce the rest of the players to our story idea. We want to bait the hook, and give them some sort of incentive to bite. Ideally you want to give them just enough to make them curious, without being obvious about what the danger is, remember, figuring that out is part of the fun of the game.
It could be all sorts of things, a discovered body, a frantic and potentially unreliable witness, a vague request for aid from an eccentric scientist. It should be tailored to the group dynamic, and whenever possible tied to one or more of the player character’s MEAT and BONES elements.
The group of private monster hunters received a plea for help from Heather Ward, who says that her partner, Max, was found dead yesterday morning in the woods outside the town. Max was exsanguinated by puncture wounds on his neck and still in possession of his valuables. He was found just off the road, obfuscated in a patch of bushes and trees.
The town guard determined that it was likely a monster attack and because Max and Heather are Bliss-Leaf users, they say he probably wandered out of town in a drug induced stupor and got himself killed. They don’t want to devote any resources to the case.
Heather doesn’t believe that, she thinks her partner's body was dumped after being killed, because there is no reason he would have been out there, bliss-leaf or not. She offers to pay the group to find out what happened to Max, and if it was a monster, to exterminate it.
This is where you plan out the behind the scenes actions of your antagonists and establish their plans. You’ll be using this to set the timeline to the midnight moment. It is a blueprint for the worst possible circumstances the player’s could face and how things will go if the antagonist is not stopped. Consider how long it will take for your antagonists to accomplish tasks and what things they will need in order to accomplish them.
Arlene has captured a drunk the night before. She drains him and mixes his blood with a little of the feral childs. Then does some alchemical and magical processes to it, turning it into a potion. She doses one of the tavern patrons' drinks later that night with the potion. A few hours later, back at home, he transforms into a deformed wolf-like monster and goes on a rampage, killing his family and breaking out into the street. He is put down by the town guard if the players don’t do it themselves. Meanwhile Elenore uses her blessing to watch this unfold from the rooftops and take notes for Arlene. Mickey uses his blessing and the cover of darkness to dispose of the wino’s body in the river fast enough to not be spotted. The body washes away.
Arlene has captured a prostitute and drains her blood. She makes a new potion. This time she laces a sailor from the visiting merchant ship. Back on his ship shortly thereafter, he transforms into a more werewolf-like monster than the man from last night, and kills most of the crew in their bunks before eventually falling into the water and drowning due to not being able to swim in this mutated form. Again Elenore takes notes and Mickey disposes of the prostitute's body, this time throwing it into the waste pit outside town.
Arlene has captured a junkie and drains his blood. She makes a new potion. She laces a traveling merchant's drink. This time the man transforms within a few minutes. He is a fully formed werewolf, but he has a seizure and dies. Unbeknown to Arlene, he had a rare allergy to one of the compounds in the potion. Everyone in the tavern freaks out at this event and word soon spreads. Within a few minutes the town guard arrives on the scene. The investigation occupies the Stubbs for the majority of the evening and the tavern is closed early. It is eventually assumed that he must have been a werewolf all along and died of some naturally occuring medical emergency, since no other cause seems apparent. His body is taken away for autopsy.
Early in the morning, before sunrise, Mickey disposes of the junkie's body in the river.
Arlene works to figure out what happened with the potion, but can’t find anything wrong with it, and eventually decides to test it again, but since there is too much heat on the tavern now she decides to test it somewhere else. She mixes the potion into a whiskey flask and goes to the park where she “accidentally” drops it beside a man begging for money. Once the man sees she has walked away he takes a sniff and realizing it's full of whiskey, drinks it. Moments later he transforms into a werewolf, setting off a mass panic in the park as he goes on a killing rampage. The town guard eventually corners and kills the werewolf. A full investigation is started. His body is also taken away for autopsy. The junkie's body is found tangled in the anchor line of a river barge and reported.
Arlene captures a drunk man who was peeing in the alley. She drains him and makes another potion. She is fairly certain she has it right this time and just needs to test it. She laces a box of pastries and gives them to a group of young people playing ball in the public court. They all turn into werewolves minutes later. This time they are all confused and terrified by the experience, not sent into a mindless rage. They try to run home to their parents, but are intercepted by the town guard, who think they are the werewolves they have been put on high alert for. They start a hunt and chase the teenage werewolves down. Who, unable to talk properly with their wolf mouths, are killed. Arlene uses the chaos as a distraction to get into the town's water supply unopposed.
So the players got lost following a red herring, or didn’t take the threat seriously, or were defeated and had to retreat. Just like in the real world, sometimes evil wins. And the Midnight Moment is what happens if the antagonist succeeds in the story.
Decide where the point of no return is, and what the consequences for the world will be now that the antagonist has won. Remember that just because the antagonist got what they wanted doesn’t mean they will be happy.
Arlene pours her potion into the town's water supply. It contaminates all the drinking water. People all over town soon start turning into werewolves, chaos and rioting occur. About a quarter of the population are killed over the next couple days. But eventually everyone left in the town are werewolves and things calm down.
They become known as the werewolf town, and life returns to a new normal. Eventually Arlene comes out as the one who caused the whole thing, thinking she would be revered. Instead she is put on trial for the deaths of the great riot.
She takes all the blame, saying her parents had no idea what she was doing. She is burned at the stake and her parents leave town, never to be seen again.
We should make a list of the important places we have come up with and make up a description of who and what is there. You may want to find some pictures to help portray these places to the other players.
Now that you have your antagonist's plan fleshed out, and we know where the important places are, we are onto the last step of the pattern. Make a list of the possible clues that could lead the player characters towards the antagonist, and help them figure out what is happening.
The last thing you want to do is take a final pass over your pattern. Make sure it makes sense and that there are no holes in your plot. Double check that it is possible for the other players to figure out the antagonist’s plan with the clues you have given them. Try to make sure there is still a chance for them to solve the mystery even if they completely fail the investigation, albeit at a terrible cost.
So you may have noticed that the example danger sheet from the pattern guide earlier doesn’t list any attributes for the werewolves. That’s because in Q!, NPCs don’t make rolls. They always get a mixed success on moves they make, and can not get major successes.
If they receive penalties, like a -1 forward, that amount of damage is removed from any attack they do instead. If they receive buffs, like a +1 forward, that amount of damage is added to any attack they do instead.
Just like the player characters are defined by their quirks, your antagonists are defined by their unique abilities and equipment. Make sure to give them interesting ones.
Whenever you can, try to have a picture of your antagonist. Being able to visualize the creature can make the threat feel much more real.
An important thing to consider when building encounters, is how intelligent and self aware are your foes? You want to avoid giving your intelligent antagonists “Game AI” behavior.
They shouldn’t charge directly at melee characters, stand in the open and shoot, or engage in fights that pose overwhelming odds against them. They should act with self preservation and try to flee if they are likely to die. You should keep tactics like flanking, reinforcement, and guerilla attacks in mind.
Try to avoid making encounters that rely simply on winning mathematical battles with dice, instead, try to make them more about improvising creative solutions to fights.
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