Strangers

Strangers are non-playable characters that are, for whatever reason, not part of the community, and exist on the fringes. Players can define, understand, and welcome Strangers - which is the process of making a place for them in the community.

Define a Stranger on a notecard:

• Where are they from?
• How did they become a Stranger? Or why are they not part of the community?
• What is it they want/need, but don’t have?
• Are they angry or weary? Why? What happened? How angry or weary (between 1-10 tokens)?

Understand a Stranger

When a Stranger is angry or weary, or unknown, players can spend one or more tokens and describe interacting with them to welcome them and earn their trust. After the required number of tokens is spent, the stranger now trusts the players, and players can work to get them what they want/need to make them whole, befriend and welcome them to the community.

Welcome a Stranger

After a Stranger trusts the players, players work together to create an adventure that helps the stranger get what they want or need. If the adventure succeeds, the Stranger joins the community. Update their Stranger Card to an NPC card. The Stranger rewards the players with a new Idea.

_Design Note: _Be thoughtful in how you represent Strangers in your game. There are many reasons a character may feel outcast, unwelcome, forgotten, or excluded from a community, and the Grove System looks to identify those reasons for your specific theme and setting and allow players to work at improving the community and world by finding ways to include them.

Design Note’s Note: Do not create games where players welcome fascists, bigots, and racists into the community by providing them what they want. Acceptance of intolerance has no place in a Grove game.