Day Seven: Do: Pilgrims of the Flying Temple

Of all the games I've done so far, Do: Pilgrim of the Flying Temple is probably the one I've played the most! I love this game!

Do is a very unique and rules-light game. Players are Pilgrims from the Flying Temple. Everyone from around the world who needs help and has nowhere else to turn sends letters to the Pilgrims, who try to help, and inevitably make things worse in the process. At the start of a game, the players choose a letter, which has certain keywords they need to include. Gameplay is resolved by drawing black and white stones from a bag and choosing which stones to keep. Based on how many they get, they will generally narrate two sentences: one about how they help (and probably cross off a keyword), and one about how they get into trouble or make things worse. If all the keywords are crossed off before a player accumulates too many stones, they successfully resolve the problem; otherwise, they are chased off for being nuisances.

Character Creation: Absolutely the easiest character creation so far. Your character consists of three words! The first word is PILGRIM, because that's what you are. The second word is your Banner, and it describes how you get into trouble. The third word is your Avatar, and it's how you help people. And that's it! I've found that having a colour as your banner and an animal as your avatar give you a nice sounding name and some good broad opportunities to help or hinder, so I've gone for Pilgrim Green Monkey. I hinder people by being inexperienced (green) and I help them by being clever (Monkey). Easy!

One more thing that's worth mentioning - after every adventure, your character changes one part of their name, based on what they've learnt. So Pilgrim Green Monkey might become Pilgrim Blue Monkey, might become Pilgrim Blue Sloth, and so on. Eventually when you're done with your character, they finally decide whether they will stay with the Temple as a Monk, or if they'll leave the Temple behind. So there's nice but quite gentle character development going on as well. 

 

Final Comments: Everyone should play Do. It's a wonderful, simple, gentle, funny little game. It's one of my absolute all-time favourite RPGs. 

What's the actual favourite? That's coming up later this month...