Pre-Gens for the Labyrinth Adventure Game

 The Labyrinth RPG gamebook from River Horse (more properly "Jim Henson's LABYRINTH: The Adventure Game") is great. It's an amazing achievement, really - a micro-RPG plus replayable, low-prep campaign, all in a single book. It works like this: after the brief rules and character creation sections, each double-page spread of the book represents a part of the Labyrinth - some puzzle, encounter, or other significant area. These include a little map, some randomizers for the GM, and a challenge for the players. Generally speaking, when you solve an encounter you mark progress with a ribbon bookmark. Whenever you head deeper into the Labyrinth, you roll 1d6 and advance that many pages. Failed encounters carry various consequences, ranging from "no progress, try again," to being taken to a specific page, to losing an Hour (when the clock strikes 13, the game is over and you lose). The challenges vary quite a bit, and many have a kind of party game flavor, making it well suited to GMs and players with little or no RPG experience, and the self-contained package means that you can take the book with you, plonk it down, and start playing pretty much right away. The bookmark tracking method also means that it's easy to do multiple sessions - you just open the book to the relevant bookmark and start playing. The pages even have a little cutout section so you can store your dice inside the book. Like I said, it's great.

However, there are two things I don't love about it: the dice resolution and the characters. Resolution uses a single d6 with target numbers ranging from 2-6, plus Advantage (roll twice, take the highest) and Disadvantage (roll twice, take the lowest) if you have a trait or item that impacts the roll. It's not a *bad* system, necessarily, but if you end up rolling a lot of dice in a row, such as during a fight or "action" scene, it can end up feeling a little too random. From having run it a few times I think I would prefer using a PbtA-style 2d6 roll (6- = failure or consequence, 7-9 = mixed success, 10+ = success) with Advantage and Disadvantage from traits and equipment. Labyrinth feels like a setting where you want a large number of mixed successes and failing forward.

Character creation also isn't bad - characters consist of a goal, Traits, Flaws, and any equipment you pick up (most characters don't start with any). Traits and Flaws give you advantage or disadvantage or relevant rolls, but the book points out that in the right circumstances a trait can be a negative or a flaw a positive, so mechanically they're basically interchangeable. This is all nice, simple stuff, easy to grasp and fun to improv with. The thing I don't like is that with the character types you can choose from are all very narrowly based on Sarah or one of her companions from the movie. The game uses d6 tables to mix up their qualities (instead of playing Ludo, the big shaggy monster who can control rocks, your Horned Beast could be a big shaggy monster able to control plants instead), but I think it's a little flat.

Here are some character pre-gens you can try instead:

Characters

1. The Princess
2. The Thief
3. The Dwarf
4. The Wizard's Apprentice
5. The Mysterious Old Man
6. The Black Cat
7. The Great Grey Wolf
8. The Mouse Knight
9. The Haunted Suit of Armor
10. The Friendly Giant
11. The Awful Troll
12. The Sinister Skull

1) The Princess

Name:

Goal: your little brother was stolen by the Goblin King

Traits

1. Determined
2. Ladylike
3. Trusting

Equipment

1. Golden Ball
2. Dancing Shoes

2) The Thief

Name:

Goal: long ago you sold your shadow to the Goblin King. It's time to steal it back

Traits

1. Quick & Quiet
2. Show-Off
3. Reluctant Hero

Equipment

1. Grappling Hook
2. Sack
3. Secret Key (opens one lock)

3) The Dwarf

Name:

Goal: the Goblin King stole a necklace from the Queen of the Dwarves and she sent you to find it

Traits

1. Tool-Crafty
2. Turn Invisible (for as long as you can hold your breath)
3. Surly
4. Short

Equipment

1. Candle
2. Pickaxe
3. Bag of Gems

Holding Your Breath: X-in-6 chance of running out of air, where X is the number of rounds you've been holding your breath. If you do something extra vigorous that round, roll with disadvantage.

4) The Wizard's Apprentice

Name:

Goal: to recover your master's soul from the Goblin King's mirror

Traits

1. Clumsy
2. Insecure
3. Loyal
4. Half-Remembered Spells

Equipment

1. Master's Magic Wand
2. Frog

Magic Spells: declare your intended effect, roll 2d6 and consult the following table. 

If you lose or break your wand you can only cast spells from memory.

Result	Magic Wand	Memory
2-6	Mishap + drop you wand	Nothing
7-9	Mixed Success	Mishap
10-12	It Worked!	Mixed Success

5) The Mysterious Old Man

Name:

Goal: you tutored another character when they were very young and you don't want their quest to fail

Traits

1. Old
2. Wise
3. Very Mysterious

Equipment

1. Staff
2. Voluminous Cloak
3. Cloth-Wrapped Bundle (contents to be revealed when the time is right)

6) The Black Cat

Name:

Goal: it amuses you to help these people for now

Traits

1. Cat
2. Tough
3. Dignified

Equipment

1. Jeweled Collar

7) The Great Grey Wolf

Name:

Goal: the Goblin King cut out your eye. You will cut out his heart!

Traits

1. Wolf
2. Fearsome
3. Mean
4. One-Eyed

8) The Mouse Knight

Name:

Goal: to become the best knight in the world

Traits

1. Mouse
2. Very Brave
3. Too Chivalrous?

Equipment

1. Needle Sword
2. Button Shield

9) The Haunted Suit of Armor

Name:

Goal: you swore to free your True Love from the clutches of the Goblin King. Unfortunately you died somewhere along the way.

Traits

1. Suit of Armor
2. Detachable Limbs
3. Very Polite
4. Cries Easily
5. Prone to Rust

Losing Limbs: if you lose a body part in the Labyrinth, make sure to write it down as a new trait!

10) The Friendly Giant

Name:

Goal: the goblins stole your magic beans and now you can't get home

Traits

1. Very Big
2. Very Strong
3. Clumsy
4. Gardener

11) The Awful Troll

Name:

Goal: you owe another character your life and have promised to help them through the Labyrinth

Traits

1. Strong
2. Slippery
3. Stinky
4. Fingers Itch to Strangle

12) The Sinister Skull

Name:

Goal: that spell was supposed to make you immortal!

Traits

1. Just a Skull
2. Expert Ventriloquist
3. Can't Lie

Sage Advice - for each zone of the Labyrinth you can ask the GM up to three questions to receive true, useful answers about a scene.

Cosmic Power - you can resolve one problem with a display of magical power. This takes a lot of energy and can only be done once per zone of the Labyrinth (once in the Stonewalls, once in the Hedge Maze, etc.).