DANGER MOUNTAIN! 1 FRONT MATTER Danger Mountain! is designed to take no more than two hours from first scene to last, and can be played by two to six light-hearted, Danger Mountain! was written by Jason Morningstar in September melodramatic friends. Four is probably best. The game is divided 2010 for Game Chef 2010. The contest theme was journey and the into two parts - before the disaster and during the disaster. Each ingredients were edge, desert, and city. part is slightly different. Pre-disaster play is all about showcasing Thanks to Autumn Winters, Witt Davis, Nick Wedig and the Story the town and its denizens, their relationships and concerns. Post- Games Praxis crew. disaster play is all about raw survival, and all those people you've formed relationships with are going to need the help of a few INTRODUCTION Heroes! In both parts of the game, individual players have scenes, A rag-tag group of would-be heroes are thrown together on a during which they enjoy wide creative latitude. There is no GM. harrowing journey of survival - and self-discovery! PREPARING FOR THE WORST Danger Mountain! is a game that emulates disaster films from the You can prepare to play Danger Mountain! in about five minutes. 1970s. These films, like Earthquake (1974), Flood! (1976), Fire! (1977), The Swarm (1978) and When Time Ran Out (1980), capitalized on • Organize your supplies a growing environmental malaise and blended it with age-old • Choose a Villain B-movie melodrama. The results were roundly terrible in retrospect, but terrible in a really fun way. • Choose Disasters The general plot of these films is very simple. In some peaceful • Choose an initial Local village on the edge of the wilderness (usually, for the convenience In More Detail of the film-makers, a desert community in southern California), an outsider arrives with nefarious plans that will despoil the pristine Organize your supplies environment. As efforts among the good-hearted local populace Cut out the twelve character cards and have them handy, along to stop them ramp up, we see troubling signs of an impending with the Villain card. Grab a dozen dice and put them aside for disaster. It may be man-made or natural, but the signs are all there, now. The number of faces doesn't matter - you can even use coins and the  few unhappy Cassandras who have the data, experience, if you want. All you care about are odd and even results, with even or wisdom to see it coming are roundly ignored. Before the evil always being success and odd always being failure. outsiders can follow through on their rapacious plan, disaster strikes! The best and luckiest then lead a seat-of-the-pants effort Make a spot for the disaster pool, perhaps a bowl, which starts out to save lives and cope with the destruction, racing against time to empty and gradually fills with dice until the disaster arrives.Then prevent some greater calamity along the way. it starts over... In Danger Mountain! you will be playing the iconoclastic residents Lay out the character cards, which include everybody except the of a little town nestled high in the mountains, on the edge of Villain. Before the disaster strikes, you'll look through these and civilization. Urban sprawl from Los Angeles beckons from one choose one to play when it is your scene. Eventually most of them direction and the vast southern California desert from the other. will get used, but probably not all. In between, a bulwark between the City of Angels and untouched Put the Villain card in the middle of the table. He's the bottom of wilderness, is the majestic and dangerous peak of Danger a soon-to-be-growing Rescue stack. It will fill up with Locals you Mountain. 2 meet before the disaster, who all - along with the Villain- become Choose Disasters victims once the disaster strikes. Each player should choose a disaster secretly and foreshadow Choose a Villain it ominously in play. At the appropriate time, one of the chosen disasters will occur, and everyone is in its path of destruction! Do this as a group - choose one that you will all love to hate, or Duplication is totally cool and somewhat unavoidable (everybody make up your own. The villain leads an enterprise that somehow loves a volcanic eruption), but there are a dozen possible disasters. threatens the mountain and its people. Environmental destruction and the end of a way of life should be pitted against economic, • The Spill social and political imperatives. The best villains want to do good but are blinded by ambition, greed, or a sense of duty. It can also • The Quake be fun just to make them mustache-twirlingly evil, but that's almost • The Inferno too easy. Either way, their actions should be evil. Some examples: • The Madness • The Timber Ridge Lodge and Resort architect, Stacy Gambrell • The Rupture • Mason Krantz, surveyor for Starfield Acres retirement community • The Swarm • Bargain Hills Shopping Complex magnate Takayuki Kimura • The Eruption • Greenbriar Forestry's head logger, Big Dave Weems • The Slide • The Rocky Canyon dam chief engineer Pat Granicus • The Cloud • Eidelweiss GmbH chief prospector Roland Berger • The Firestorm • Horton Ven Der Meer, the proposed municipal wastewater plant • The Whirlwind and landfill's chief engineer. • The Blizzard • Major Alice Crowley, the public affairs officer in charge of pushing Your disaster may be the Big One - but it may be a red herring. the Red Dunes Weapons Test Range project through. Either way, keep it mysteriously and ominously on the edge of • General Clifton Braddock, commander of the top secret facility everyone's consciousness. intending to set up in the desert. • Glenn, the leader of the endtimes cult moving into the desert wilderness. • Keene, the bruiser from the Satan's Slaves motorcyle gang that haunts the logging roads. • Don «Fifth Horseman» Ohmeyer, the unhinged survivalist up in the abandoned fire tower. Make the Villain personal to the various Locals. 3 Choose an Initial Local • Choose what your scene is about There are a dozen possible characters and each has a card. These • Roll the dice in the disaster pool are known as Locals - each is an inhabitant of the town, at least • Play out your scene on the day of the disaster. Locals consist of a type and a pair of • End your scene and add one die to the disaster pool questions. You will play a couple before one emerges as a Hero, who you will stick with through thick and thin. In More Detail • The Teen Start with the player who has survived the biggest natural or man-made disaster then just rotate • The Prodigal around clockwise. • The Earth Child Once you've established a steady rotation, just stick to it. • The Pensioner Choose a character to portray and put the Local you • The Reporter played in your previous scene in the Rescue stack • The Bureaucrat At the start of your scene, choose a Local card. This will be your • The Scientist character for the scene. Put the card of the Local you played in your • The Paramedic previous scene on top of the Villain in the rescue stack - they are now sure to be a victim of the disaster! Do this at the beginning of • The Chopper Pilot your scene so you've always got a Local in front of you to become • The Cop a Hero when disaster hits. • The Driver Choose what your scene is about • The Plutocrat Pre-disaster scenes can be about the following things: There's also a card for the Villain, who cannot be played as a Local or Hero, obviously, but can still cause trouble and appear in your • Addressing your Local's questions. scenes. The Villain's a bastard that way. • Establishing a relationship with other Locals. • Showing the Villain in action and confronting the Villain. WARNING SIGNS • Exploring the beauty of the natural world. Before disaster comes calling, you have an opportunity to see your small California mountain town, its inhabitants, and their The choice is up to you, and a scene can and should include more troubles up close and personal. than one of these things. The Local you are playing has a pair of questions, and before the disaster you have a good opportunity • Start with the player who has survived the biggest natural or to illustrate these to your friends at the table.You may even answer man-made disaster then just rotate around clockwise. some. • Choose a character to portray and put the Local you played in your previous scene in the Rescue stack 4 Roll the dice in the disaster pool At the end of your scene, add one die to the disaster pool, then hand off the reins to the player to your left. When it is your turn for a scene, first roll all the dice in the disaster pool. For the very first scene in the game it will be empty. GETTING YOUR AFFAIRS IN ORDER If you roll fewer than four even results on the disaster pool dice, briefly foreshadow the disaster you've chosen either immediately Once somebody has turned up four evens and the disaster has - perhaps as a smash cut to some part of the mountain - or during begun, the game changes a little. The player who initiated the your scene somehow. For the first four scenes of the game it is disaster should describe it, and from that moment until the game impossible to trigger the disaster. After that, all bets are off. ends, survival, rescue and escape become the focus of play. The Local you last played before the disaster struck is now a Hero, and If you roll four or more evens, your disaster occurs! Whatever scene your primary character for the rest of the game. you had planned is cut short by the sudden calamity. The player triggering the disaster immediately describes its origin and initial When you trigger the disaster: effects, and the game moves into the disaster portion of play. • Pick another disaster Play out your scene • Give away dice in the disaster pool and reset it When it is your scene, act as director. Define the location, assign • Shuffle the Rescue stack and put it face down other players to particular roles, and edit judiciously. It's good form • Ask another player to announce the race against time to ask others to play Locals, either folks we've already seen or folks we haven't sen yet. The Villain can also make an appearance, either In More Detail as the focal point or just as a walk-on - it's a small town, everybody stops into the diner for a bagel. The point of pre-disaster scenes Pick another disaster is to establish relationships and a sense of the threatened natural You may trigger another one in the future! Secretly choose world. Direct conflicts aren't necessary. If one occurs, it's your something related to your first. scene - you decide how it turns out. If you have critically important  relationships with another Local (if the Chopper Pilot is also your Give away dice in the disaster pool and reset it wife, for example), introduce them as soon as you can. In any case, The dice in the disaster pool are assigned to the players as decided establish deep, solid connections with the Locals and the Villain. by the player triggering the disaster. These represent grit, tenacity, End your scene and add one die to the disaster pool and the quiet courage of the life-saver. Everyone must get at least one, and if there are more players than dice, just give everybody Stop your scene when you've accomplished some of the four things one. Place any dice you receive on your Hero's card. The empty listed above. Pre-disaster scenes should be brief. it is perfectly fine disaster pool will fill up again as Heroes defy the mountain during if they are only a minute - just a description of a view, or a short the disaster, but the dice giveaway only happens once. conversation, or a detached observation of someone's daily life that sheds light on a relationship. Don't make a big drawn-out deal of them unless the story demands it or everybody is engaged and having a great time. 5 Shuffle the Rescue stack and put it face down THE BIG ONE There will be one Local for every scene played in the pre-disaster • Choose what your scene is about pahse, plus the Villain. It's possible you may have characters who • Play out your scene never made it into the game before the disaster - put these aside for possible use later. • If the Rescue stack is empty or every Hero is dead, end the disaster and the game Ask another player to announce the race against time In More Detail Each disaster has a race against time component - this is the reason Choose what your scene is about the Locals are rushing to the base of Danger Mountain instead of hiding in a safe place. Someone other than the disaster's originator Disaster scenes can be about the following things: should announce what the race against time is all about. • Addressing your Hero's questions. The race against time should be personal and dire, and its nature will depend on the sort of disaster you've been struck with. If you've • Demonstrating the power of the disaster. already established that you have a daughter, definitely put her in • Attempting to rescue a victim. the path of the disaster. The race against time has no mechanical As before, you have free reign, and a scene can include any or all weight but injects a sense of purpose and urgency that can be fun of these. to mess with. Some suggestions: • Medical necessity. A pregnant woman (preferably a named Play out your scene Local) needs a doctor, fast! The first person rescued is badly hurt Once the disaster hits, the pressure is on to answer your Hero's and needs urgent medical help! questions. Let everyone at the table know where your guy is coming • A threat to unsuspecting innocents. A Boy Scout canoe jamboree from! Relationships established in the early game may prompt is down river in the spill's path! The swarm is making a bee-line for some tough choices in the late game. The game can't end until the set of a film shooting at the base of the mountain!  the questions have been answered, and following those answers to their logical conclusions durig the disaster is a big part of the fun. • A threat to life and property: Avalanches are poised to decimate Make sure you describe the terrible damage the disaster a posh resort! The liquefied natural gas pipeline needs to be sealed is causing, and linger on its awesome power.The very best or the whole city will explode! way to foreground this is to appoint another player to be • Self preservation: Get to deep shelter at the base of the mountain the disaster during your scene, just as you would any other before the radioactive rain starts! All the explosives are set to character. Then watch them (literally) chew the scenery! detonate at midnight! Of course, rescuing others is the centerpiece of the game's second Once these three steps are completed, the full force of the disaster half. You can learn how to do that in the following section, «We can descend like a vision of unfettered hell! Can't Just Let Him Die!» 6 If the Rescue stack is empty or every Hero is dead, In More Detail end the disaster and the game Setting It Up When every Hero is dead or every Local in the game and the Villain have either been rescued or lost to the disaster, the game ends. If When you want to initiate a rescue, your friends will set it up there are survivors, the race against time has been won! If there are and participate. Appoint another player to reveal the victim by questions unanswered, now is the time to answer them! Go around turning over the top-most card on the rescue stack and create the once and have everyone describe a fitting denouement for their circumstances of their urgent peril. character as the rescue crews and Red Cross ambulances swarm, If you are tapped to create a rescue situation, you have complete the music swells, and the camera backs away to frame Disaster creative freedom. Make it dramatic and dangerous, for the victim Mountain one last time. and the rescuer. Dissasters can hurt someone, propel them against their will, trap them, confuse them, or some combination of these. «WE CAN'T JUST LET HIM DIE!» Here are some suggestions. Hurt: If someone is hurt, cook up a suitably melodramatic and Victims can be Locals, the Villain, or Heroes who have tried and terrible injury. Give them a concussion and a bloody scalp failed in their own rescue attempts. During your scene, you can set laceration. Blunt force injuries are always good. A broken back! up the plight of a victim and, perhaps, save their life. Temporary blindness! Obstruct an airway and save their life with a ballpoint pen tracheotomy! Inflict a sucking chest wound or • Have another player set up the disaster and turn over a card in flail chest on your poor Locals. Give 'em a disgusting gut wound. the Rescue stack Impalement is likely! What about a broken arm? What about a • In order, choose to either roll a die or pass. traumatically amputated arm? Don't neglect heat, electrical and chemical burns, frostbite and cold injuries, and shock! Everybody • Keep successful dice, discard failures. should be in shock all the time. Make it lurid and complicating. • First rescue requires three successes. Second rescue requires People can also start out frail - sickly, elderly, paralyzed, pregnant, two successes. All the rest require one. or otherwise on the edge of danger to begin with, so remember • If everyone passes, the victim is lost. that any Local you introduce into the game will eventually need • Extraordinary Courage rescuing. By making them already weakened in some way you are giving your friends a gift later on. • Roll two dice at once. If both are successes, add a new free die to another Hero's card. Propel:If someone has been propelled by the disaster, they are carried along by the disaster's force or compelled to flee ahead • Defying the Mountain of it.The mechanism for this is very disaster specific, but someone • Roll the dice accumulated in the disaster pool in motion is very likely to also be hurt, confused, or even trapped. • Take a free die and roll it, arriving at a normal success or failure. Make the situation dynamic and ever-changing! Regardless of the outcome, however, add the die to the disaster Trap: A trapped victim is incapable of escape on theri own - possibly pool. because they are also hurt or confused. A victim might be pinned • Death of a Hero by falling trees or rubble, or trapped inside a crushed vehicle. The 7 trap may be encroaching hazards, like fires or insects. They may be that saved the day, and give a new, free die to any other player, in a «safe» place that is no longer safe, like the top of a tree above whose Hero was clearly inspired by your brave deed. Failures count a raging flood. The rescue of a trapped victim should either be normally, so if you only have two dice and roll failures with both, dangerous for the rescuers, or be under time pressure due to rising the person you are rescuing dies and your Hero is now in deep water, racing fire, and so forth. trouble. Confuse: If someone is confused by the disaster, it could have many Defying the Mountain causes. Choking smoke, disorienting drugs, hypovolemic shock, or a drastic change in the landscape caused by a disturbance are all At any time you can choose to defy the mountain. What this likely candidates. Rescue of a confused victim probably involves means is an open question - it'll depend a  lot on the tone of your first finding some sign of them, and then beginning a complex and game and the nature of the Hero you are playing, but it should be hazardous search over difficult terrain. They may be in denial, they something bombastic and desperate. It may call for a small speech. may be hiding, they may be on drugs. It's a good time to answer a question. The game is engineered around the scarcity of dice, so you'll want to take advantage of your Attempting a Rescue Hero's ability to defy the mountain. When you defy the mountain: To rescue a victim, the players need to collectively roll one or more Roll the dice accumulated in the disaster pool even numbers, which count as successes, on the dice they have Take a free die and roll it, arriving at a normal success or failure. available. Dice are normally rolled one at a time. Anyone may Regardless of the outcome, however, add the die to the disaster contribute a die to a rescue attempt. Starting with the player whose pool. scene it is, go around the table either rolling a die or passing. You can collectively choose to abandon a victim at any time by simply Roll the dice accumulated in the disaster pool passing all the way around the table. That victim is then dead, swept away, burned up, lost forever. The disaster pool is emptied when the disaster strikes, and you refill The first two Locals are hard to rescue and may well be lost - this it gradually by defying the mountain, seeking new dice to roll to reflects the terrible effects of the disaster when it strikes, of course. rescue Locals. Every time you choose to defy the mountain (and get that sweet free die), first roll the dice in the disaster pool, just • The first rescue requires three successes. as you did before the disaster. When you roll: • The second rescue requires two successes. If you roll less that four evens, continue to ominously foreshadow • All subsequent rescues require a single success. and enjoy your free die. If you rescue a Hero with a free die, the Remember to describe the circumstances and consequences of normal rules are in effect - the die used to defy the mountain goes both success and failure! away and the rescued Hero must get a die from another player. On any failed roll (odd), immediately discard the used die. On a If you roll four or more evens, the real disaster strikes! Describe successful roll (even), return it to your Hero's card. the new mega-disaster, of which the initial disaster was merely a harbinger. Each player keeps their own dice. Gather all the Heroes Extraordinary Courage and Locals they have rescued. Shuffle these and draw one for each player. Now you have new Heroes. If your new Hero used to belong You may elect to roll two dice at one time if you have two available. to somebody else, that is fantastic! They've undergone a drastic If both turn up even, describe the incredible act of selfless bravery 8 personality change after a traumatic experience, right? • The Infected : A military experiment goes  awry and flesh-hungry soldiers stalk the mountain. Mix the cards that weren't drawn (riff-raff consisting of former Heroes and once-rescued Locals) with any Locals not introduced • The Parallel : The mountain becomes unmoored from our reality into your game. Shuffle this pile, choose two face down, and add and becomes a gateway to a fantastic land of knights and dragons. them to the bottom of the Rescue stack. Good luck! • The Devils: Satanists rise up to perform a black ritual to summon the El Diablo himself. Take a free die and roll it, arriving at a normal success or failure. Regardless of the outcome, however, add the die to the disaster • The Warriors : A band of Native Americans and a troop of cavalry pool. are displaced in time • The Beast : An unkillable cave bear goes berserk The die you roll goes in the disaster pool, increasing the threat. • The Forest Children: A tribe of Bigfoot lash out as their home Death of a Hero is threatened When a Hero loses their last die, they become a victim and need • The Monster: A long-dormant dinosaur is re-awakened by to be rescued. The current Local being rescued is immediately lost careless drilling and the Hero takes their place. It's then up to the other Heroes to • The Green Hell: All plant life turns against its human persecutors rescue the new Hero/victim - or not. Upon the successful rescue once and for all of a Hero, the rescued character takes the successful die from the • The Crash: A government satellite has been lost, and murderous rescuer. If it was the rescuer's last die, they are immediately lost agents from various powers comb the mountain for it - sacrificing their own life for another. Rescued characters don't «belong» to their rescuers (although it's fun to keep score) - if the • The Intruders: Extraterrestrials harvest test subjects for horrific Cop rescues the Reporter and later dies, the Cop does not take the experiments Reporter with him. • The Wendigo: The offended spirit of the mountain is bent on OPTIONAL STUFF revenge • The Usurpers: Scientific research goes awry and causes all Weird Disasters animals to get really big and attack humans Here's a list of fantasy and science-fiction themed disasters. Unless you are playing in complete gonzo mode, these don't mix well with one another in «second disaster countdown» mode. But they mix very well with disasters from the regular list, especially as second mega-disasters. A nuclear blast awakens a dinosaur? The Wendigo calls down a terrible blizzard? Pure gold. These will take the game in a very different direction, so use with caution - they are probably better for a second session. You can probably think up your own dangerous events, and the race against time may just be a race for civilization itself. D I S A S T E R S ! The Spill The Madness The Eruption An accident dumps something deadly into the river. A rabies outbreak - crazed people and animals run The long-dormant volcano blows its top. riot. Hurt: Soaked in deadly chemicals. Deadly waste in a Hurt: Attacked by fleeing animals, burned, scorched drinking well. Hurt: Vicious bats! Menacing squirrels, raccoons, dogs, by lava, struck by debris. and people! Propelled: Racing ahead of flesh-dissolving chemicals Propelled: Falling down a cliff. Lava-induced wildfires! in the water. Boats overturning. Hydraulics. Propelled: A forest alive with diseased madness, A river of molten lava! animals in pursuit. Trapped: Acidic industrial sludge riverbank mud hems Trapped: Caught in a rusty bear trap. Trapped amid someone in. trapped and pinned by sweepers. Trapped: Savaged by a rabid bear and trapped! the pyroclastic flow! Confused: Aerosoled toxic chemicals cause a panic. Confused: A hydrophobic person (preferably a Local) Confused: Deadly gas clouds! gone homicidal Race against time: A Boy Scout canoe jamboree is A race against time: The charity clinic and homeless down river in the spill’s path! Race against time: The first person rescued needs shelter are in the path of the eruption! treatment or they will die! The Quake The Slide The Rupture The ground shakes violently and terror follows. A racing mountain of deadly mud or snow. A burst dam and a wall of water heading for the city. Hurt: Broken gas lines lead to fires and explosions. Hurt: Smashed limbs. Broken back. Cuts and scrapes. Downed power lines. Cuts and crushing injuries. Hurt: Crushing tree roots. Drowning. Electrical lines Propelled: Thrown down the mountain side. down in the water. A raging wall of water crushing Propelled: Rockslides, fires. everything in its path. Trapped: Smashed utilities, live electrical current Trapped: Under toppled structures. surrounds someone. Trapped in a pocket of mud or Propelled: Flipped canoes. Mudslides. Oil storage snow. Buried alive. Confused: Aftershocks cause panic. tanks burst and flame-slicks follow! Confused: Impassable roads and choked, flooding Race against time: A pregnant woman (preferably a Trapped: Stuck in a log jam. Caught in whirlpool. rivers, changed topography. Lost. named Local) needs a doctor, fast! Pinned by concrete as the water slowly rise! A race against time: The first person rescued is badly The Inferno Confused: People downstream in denial. Panic. hurt and needs urgent medical help. An out of control forest fire. Race against time: Riverside elementary school needs The Cloud to be evacuated! Hurt: Burns, flaming debris, attacked by crazed wild Choking toxic dust or volcanic ash covers everything. animals. A raging tornado of fire and smoke The Swarm Hurt: Poisonous snakes. Heat stroke. Lung damage. Propelled: A fall into a concealed mine shaft. A racing Insects, arachnids, amphibians or rodents, pressured wall of flame by civilization, breed out of control Propelled: Racing to outrun the cloud. Trapped: Pinned by a fallen tree. Ringed in by flames. Hurt: Hundreds of bites and stings. Anaphylactic Trapped: Respiratory distress, burning suffocation. Trapped in a spot that was safe five minutes ago shock. Fine grit causes vehicle engines to seize up in motion Confused: Lost in the wilderness. Choking, Propelled: Chased by the swarm! Confused: Dehydration and hallucinations. Visual disorienting smoke disorientation leads to trouble. Trapped: Sealed inside an unstable structure. Hiding Race against time: An exhibit of priceless Impressionist in a ditch. Race against time: A senior citizen’s home in the path paintings at a gallery inthe path of the fire! of the cloud! Confused: Someone scoffs at the swarm’s danger. Race against time: The swarm is heading for the set of a film shooting at the base of the mountain!