[CYOA] A Peaceful Time

Endless_Serpents

This sorry looking figure arrived by train tracks, though no train comes this way any more. After a short hike up a dusty hill they reach for a weapon they ain’t carrying.

Mayor Truly: You must be the new farmer! Did you see the shooting star last night? You must have, bright as a button and right over our town!

Mayor Jacobin Truly is a little man who holds his belt when he’s feeling proud; he’s usually feeling proud. The town behind him isn’t much of a town at all, if it ever was.

Mayor Truly: How fortuitous I saw you coming in! I’ve got the key to your cottage right here!

Our intrepid wanderer blinks.

———

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5KRykTGrDc&list=PLiweTiMV-1EFI7fiYnOrZHzpZdVuCCecO

———

Welcome to A Peaceful Time!

This is a Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA) game about running a little farm. Rather than a roster of players that are expected to turn up on time, you are all participants, be it once only or often—that’s up to you. Every day or so I’ll post an update that ends with a few options. Together by voting and dropping fun ideas you decide what happens next. Think of it like being a voice or impulse inside the characters head.

It’s not my intention to go especially deep with this one, so any game mechanic I cook up will be explained in advance, but for now there is no rolling dice or moving parts. It’s just a story without a break peddle and a lot of hands on the wheel!

Let’s get to it!

———


The wanderer has been mistaken for a much needed new farmer... How will they handle that?
A. Sure, I love... farm.
B. I’ll take that key.
C. Why do you need a farmer?
D. No.

The highest vote count wins.

———

Beyond that, what do they look like? What are they wearing?

Your answers for this will be arbitrated arbitrarily to create the best result.

Jedoc

A.

I don't know much about this new farmer, but they're definitely wearing a plaid button-down. Hence being mistaken for a farmer in the first place.

Xaquin

A.

totally agree with Jedoc on attire

discrider

Use mind powers to explode farm.

Or if the music is not canon then A.

see317

C
I'm not the expected farmer, but I might be convinced to pick up a plow share and pull my weight.

Mojo_Jojo

B

We've lucked out here. A blind mayor is handing us a key to somewhere we can lay low for a while. Anybody else would have recognised the black and white striped jump suit for what it was.

Tiphareth

DThere is no way this burgoise does not know who we are, he is working us and we will not allow it.

Endless_Serpents

The Farmer: Sure... Sure. That’s me, your new farmer. Looks like I arrived right on time. I had some trouble on the road, lost my horse and some papers. You wouldn’t mind getting me a ride over to my place?

Mayor Truly: Get yourself freshened up at the Buffalo’s Head and I’ll send Ralph right over! He’s got our cart right now, you see?

The Farmer nods.

———

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5b5_uwBczlM&list=PL7EtDe_64T9rGQZfe2lw0C0VtsSCQMkMj&index=27

———

Option A won with the highest votes, but all your opinions have been added to the Farmer’s psyche!

Likewise your thoughts on their design, from clothes to their potential past have been clumped together to make their portrait. He’ll be gendered male in the text from now on.

———

The Farmer pushes open the saloon doors.

He eyes the gloomy place. Seems friendly enough, which is to say no one has turned to look at him much. He’s got options:

A. Stand by the bar to drink, and end up talking to the barkeep.
B. Sit alone in the corner with a bottle for company.
C. Join in with a card game just starting up.
D. Sit with some girl, and no doubt offend some body.

see317

C.
Joining in with a friendly game of cards seems like a good way to get to know the neighbors. Hopefully, this gold coin I wear around my neck is sufficient to buy my way in.

Mojo_Jojo

C

Let's win ourselves some livestock

Bursar

C

Get some of the locals to recognize our face as this "new farmer," maybe learn some names... So when the real new farmer comes callin' they'll be more likely to take our side however it goes down.

Polaritie

C, make sure to just break even. Wouldn't do to have people looking too closely.

discrider

C
Time to take the rubes to school.
We know all the card games.
Old Maid, Snap, Uno


That's it, that's all there is

Xaquin

A. You're all going to have us broke before we even get to our house!

Endless_Serpents

Lucky: Well, look at you. They call me Lucky, on account of being so, and this here is Chance and River. Who might you be?

The Farmer sits at the table, and River deals him in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oFzJPQeDVIY&list=PL5Drwg5VYvOjjOXrAll91NFFo9dBo9AJJ

———

For lack of cards, I’ll use dice—highest wins.

Geth roll 5d6 for Farmer
Geth roll 5d6 for Lucky
Geth roll 5d6 for Chance
Geth roll 5d6 for River

Farmer:

5d6 19 [5d6=5, 5, 5, 2, 2]

Lucky:

5d6 14 [5d6=3, 3, 1, 2, 5]

Chance:

5d6 15 [5d6=2, 1, 6, 5, 1]

River:

5d6 20 [5d6=4, 6, 6, 1, 3]

Endless_Serpents

Lucky: God damn it! You’re always cheating! And in front of our guest!

Lucky stands up with a start and kicks his stool across the saloon. Chance gets up with not much mind, and tries to calm him down.

River: So you’ll be running the farm now? There’s a lot to it, needs the work.

The Farmer agrees; especially now they’re down what they had on them.

River: You can have this old coin back if it means something to you. Suppose it must if you had it around your neck.

The Farmer finishes his drink.

The Farmer: No.

———

Later on the Farmer will finally reach his bit of earth, so for now it’s time for free play!

Tell me a fact about the town, and I’ll work it in reasonably, with tweaks as needed. Plus anything else you want to comment on.

Mojo_Jojo

The town is full of weird old chunks of stone. Some look like they might have been pieces of some larger structure. Some are engraved with strange markings that don't look like any alphabet the farmer had ever seen. They probably are just some ancient fertility blessings to ensure good harvests in the town. Even those ones that look like flocks of bats with the faces of lions and burning stars looping around one another. All perfectly innocent.

see317

The town is built around an old clock tower, not as ancient as the stone chunks, but older than any of the construction in the town.
The clock itself doesn't work, and hasn't worked in the memory of the townsfolk. The hands are stuck at 1:13.

Edit: Walking towards the farm, our Farmer ponders what the Mayor of this town was doing awake so late at night as to have seen the shooting star. It doesn't seem like a town this size would have enough to do for a Mayor to fill a day with, let alone work into the early hours of the morning...

Endless_Serpents

Ralph turns out to be a quiet man, beard like a fir tree, built like a barrel. He takes the Farmer to his farm by an old cart pulled by a donkey.

As the lopsided wheels creak their way back to town, the deep orange sun begins its descent beyond the horizon once more. The farm was abandoned some time ago; the gate is cracked and whatever sign was hung now destroyed.

The Farmer takes one look at the place and spits. He pulls an old shovel from the dirt and walks on towards a dried out husk of a cabin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjTTB6yII4o

———

Over time we’ll get this farm running as you best think it should be. There’s no animals yet, as far as we know, and there’s probably some crops gone wild out there, but what exactly is as yet unknown.




Cottage (L1)
Cabin, shack, wooden box with a door. Call it what you will, right now it’s the barest bones of a home (let’s call that level 1). The better the cottage, the more energy the Farmer will have to work the farm, yielding better results.

Garden (L1)
Spices, flowers and other such things go here. The Farmer has no idea why you’d want a garden—do you?

Unmarked spaces
This can all be converted into proper farmland; rows of wheat, pens and barns, all that the Farmer will need to succeed.

Blue symbols
Weird, engraved, old chunks of stone. The Farmer does not know what these mean, but they’re not completely alien to him.

The rest the Farmer will investigate in due course.

———

The Farmer only as enough energy left to do 1 thing before getting their head down, so...

A. Clean up the cottage some, and patch up those three bullet holes in the eastern wall.
B. Check out _______ (named location).
C. Go hunt some game, so there’s breakfast ready for morning.

zekebeau

C

I've played Oregon trail, I know you always go hunting.

Mojo_Jojo

B Wild Herbs

It's quite clear we need a nice cup of herbal tea before we go to bed. It's been a busy day of escaping the law, stealing a farm and some cards.

mrpaku

A. A Clean Home is a Happy Home!

see317

I'm really conflicted.
On the one hand, some tea does sound like a good way to end an eventful and confusing day, on the other hand, there's an ominous hole marked on the map that I would love to see explored some.

So, I'll go with neither and pick A. Let's clean up what may be a grim reminder of the previous farmer's resignation from the post and patch those bullet holes up.
More energy today means a more productive tomorrow.

Hobnail

We don't know the terrain of this place we don't know what grows there we don't know what lives there we don't even know what might just be passin through! This place needs a thorough reconnoitre, barring that sort out the immediate surroundings and aquire sleep, OPERATION OPTION A

Bursar

Option A

Gotta clean up that cottage, specifically to make sure no unruly critters have already claimed the place before we try to lay our head down for the night.

Xaquin

A all the way

Mojo_Jojo

I can't believe we're sending the farmer to bed without a lovely cup of small batch artisanal locally sourced herbal tea

Jedoc

I don't have confidence in the farmer's ability to properly identify the herbs on the property at this point. He's only like 1/10th Xaquin.

Endless_Serpents

The Farmer gets to work, racing the sunset to get his place serviceable. He flings a moth eaten old rug out the door, and note the hatch it was hiding. Shovel in hand, he hooks his boot against one side and flicks it open. Just a little cubby hole, a few feet deep and no wider than the hatch.

A clay urn rests on its side within it, staring back with squinting, beady eyes. The Farmer slowly closes the hatch.

———

The Farmer’s cottage is now level 2! That’s all he can do to improve it for now without new materials. From now on he’ll have 2 energy per day—basically the second highest vote for what to do will still get done on the farm.

———

Until the dawn comes, the Farmer will dream. So...

What does he dream about?

———

Once he wakes, he’s got work to do!

A. Hunt and/or gather food.
B. Grab a bunch of wild herbs and transfer some to the garden.
C. Head into town to make new connections.
D. Build some kind of cattle pen and a shed with the scraps.
E. Gaze into the hole.
F. Search across the farm for crops like wheat that still remain, then set up a square of crops.

Feel free to offer up alternatives, but you’ll have to convince others to vote that way too.

see317

The farmer dreams of pursuit, and imminent violence. The dream is muddled, and he can't tell if he's chasing or being chased. He runs as if both are true. Somehow, in the logic of a dream, he knows the path to take to pursue or evade the other as if he'd been here before, many times..
It may mean something, but it may be just a dream.

A. Can't be expected to build a farm on an empty stomach, can you?

mrpaku

B or F

If I know my Harvest Moons, solid investments in our produce *immediately* will provide the backbone of our farms economy, and make it much easier later to rule this town through our ruthless monopoly on Pale Ale and Strawberries

Mojo_Jojo

The dream is one that comes from time to time. This time he's looking out over his new land while his arms squirm awat from him, threatening to break free. His legs join in after a moment. But he fights back forcing his own body to hold its shape and not split open to reveal the dozens of semi intelligent cephalopods that make up his true self. The sheriff is here, walking towards the farmhouse. He has questions about a crashed prison train and the convicts that escaped. And the ones that didn't. The farmer clamps his mouth shut as tentacles writhe within his mouth. He drags an unwilling hand to seal it closed. Force it all down. Keep it all hidden. Don't fall to pieces and slither into the darkness.

B TEEEEEEEA

zekebeau

A

A table, piled high with meat, and bread, and ale. There is a feeling of warmth and satisfaction. No one else seems to be there, but the Farmer feels the presence of many others, looking up to him, HIM. He has plenty, and is looked upon well. It is happiness that the Farmer hopes will never end.

Bursar

F

In the dream, the coin is speaking to him.
"Idiot," the face says, winking its one eye derisively. "After all we've been through. The price you paid for me. You give me up, for what? For a trio of dustsuckers to not be afraid of you?"

The coin spins, and the Farmer can see a brief reflection of a better time in the glint. "We'll see if you miss me."
It begins to roll away, down a table that stretches infinitely out into the distance before being lost in darkness. The sound of the metal bouncing along the rough wood continues for a while after it is out of view.

Cheeseliker

A

Xaquin

A and B

gotta eat and gotta make money

fortunately our farmer knows a few of the more desirable herbs and wild edibles and harvests some ramps and fiddle heads to sell

Endless_Serpents

The Farmer woke feeling like they’d slept for a whole day, and it took them awhile to decide if they felt refreshed or not. He had a dozen dreams he couldn’t explain, but no sooner did he try to piece them together he forgot them. The wash of feeling stuck with him as he opened the door to the dawn light.

He scratched his chin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wNOLXBNNSQ

———

He got to work fetching himself some arrows and made a small bow in the style he’d always known. Even after... everything, the Farmer cracked a smile.

Soon enough an arrow was loosed, and then a second. With the pair of grouse tied to his belt, plus a couple of eggs, he walked back the way he came picking edible roots and vegetables, before winding up a track to a meadow of wild herbs. Lavender he recognised, a bunch of others could be used for tea most likely, and something... very unfamiliar. Red leaves. Copper scent.

Replanted outside his home, he’d think of a use for them later. For now, he’d throw together a rock oven, and eat.

———

The Farmer is sustained!

The rest of the day is spent acquiring enough food and herbs to make that a nonissue going forward (for a while, at least).

More importantly, the Farmer has found a rare, unknown red herb. Time to vote:
A. Make tea with the red herb.
B. Smoke the red herb.
C. Eat the red herb.
D. Leave it to grow in the garden for now,

Endless_Serpents

As yet the Farmer hasn’t set up anything sufficiently to sell, but in due course the herb market will be one avenue of success! @Xaquin

The coin is... a unique object, no doubt it’ll come into play. @Bursar

The Farmer has a cup of tea once a day going forward. I’ll draw this at some point, but If I don’t expressly say so just imagine I mentioned it. @Mojo_Jojo

For the rest of you, thank you for participating so far!

Jedoc

B 4:20 burn one

Xaquin

D. Should definitely figure out what it is before consuming

Fishman

D. Leave it be, at least until we can ascertain it's likely effects by the number of dead and/or high fauna found in the vicinity of the garden.

Added bonus: non-zero chance of getting to watch intoxicated animals falling into things.