2023 Day 24: Wise Women
I kickstarted this purely on the basis that it sounded like some real thought was being put into gamifying herbs and witchery, in a way I had personally been struggling. I am so glad I did, because it’s a fabulous game.
Wise Women is a very small scale game, almost (but not quite) cozy. You are a coven of witches in a remote (Polish) village. There are external threats to the village you have to fend off (but not fight), but the biggest threat is that the villagers run you out of town if your reputation gets too bad - and once it drops it’s hard to pick it back up. What I love is that it captures the small-mindedness of village gossip and puts it within the system.
Mock-up of Wise Women
The Wise Women basic system works very much like PbtA: roll 2d6, add your stat and you may get success, success with complications or failure. As I read, it leads to a pattern of Instigating incident => complications => try to cover up with the villagers => drama. This is certainly familiar to me from the many one-page games I’ve played and written. But it’s less funny/cozy because of the final consequence of failure.
There are only twenty plants used, but I do like how they were gamified to produce three standard types of magic each, and the restocking of plants is one type of instigating incident.
I will also note that there is no experience, no way to get stronger. It’s just not that kind of game, and I love it for it.
Radomila was attacked when she was a child and still bears the scars. She doesn’t like the looks she gets, but in truth she still likes people. She will help anyone who asks, especially if they bring her gifts or do her chores. This gentle relationship is what has kept her so positive all this time. It’s also what keeps her abreast of all the rumours in the village.
Stats:
- Hearth +2
- Influence 0
- Vigour 0
- Wits +1
- Light Magic +1
- Dark Magic -1
Initial social standing: Liked.
Relationships:
- Lasota is a hunter who I like and who does regular favours. I promised to keep him and his family safe.
- Yagna is the granddaughter of the village elder and tries to gossip about who she sees at my hut. I want to undermine her.
Initial plant stock (I chose to pick them randomly):
- 2x Fern (Bring luck, Dispel Magic, Love magic)
- Wild angelica (Dispel magic, Read memory, Soothe)
Radomila lives away from the village, about twenty minutes down a simple track. It’s not hard to get there, but enough that it’s an effort. If they are avoiding Yagna, then it takes about twice as long. She doesn’t have a family as such, largely because most families don’t want someone that scarred to marry their sons. But she still hopes that one day an older man with fewer expectations on them might come into her life - she wonders privately sometimes if Lasota’s wife might die, but she would never do anything to harm her.
She grows small crops around her hut, forages in the nearby forests and eats gifts people bring her. She is rarely hungry.
She gets visitors most days, although some of them just come to chat.
What kind of person is she?
Radomila is basically just curious. When she was attacked as a child, was it because she reached out for the “wolf”? Anyway, that’s what keeps her positive, that there are always new things out there. As such, she really does find it difficult to be mean to people. At their worst, they are just ignorant. She thinks she can normally get away with just asking for favours, but she’s not as influential as she thinks she is.
There are a few more questions I’m meant to answer but I’ve largely covered them already. I think it’s certainly enough to paint a picture here.
Partia character sheet for Radomilla
https://ksandra.itch.io/wise-women