I realized I haven’t talked about the mechanics for the Quest calendar. There are days where you make choices and others, like the main combat situations, where you’re just rolling dice. The back of the previous day’s page has instructions on how to resolve any dice rolls or choices you make.
Attack rolls in combat use a 20-sided die (d20), the character’s attack score (mine is currently +4), any weapon bonuses, and any special skills you choose to use (my companion weasel will add a +2 to an attack once a day). A successful hit results in a damage roll, which I currently have at 2 6-sided dice (2d6). A successful hit and enough damage will usually prevent the opponent from hitting back. (They offered a set of mini-dice as an add-on to the Kickstarter, in case the buyer didn’t have the appropriate dice. Or just needed to compulsively add to a dice collection.)
There are days when you pick from a selection of choices, which allows the various character classes to pick something best suited to their skillset, such as dealing with the grate in part 1. That day offered three choices: pick the lock (using dexterity), force open the lock (using strength), or smash the lock (just a damage roll). My character has a higher dexterity than strength, so I tried that first. If that had failed (like when I dealt with a lock in part 4), I could have tried one of the other options.
The dice roll resolutions are typically two or three ranges… either a basic pass/fail situation (failing tends to incur damage); or pass (great job, no damage type situation), pass (with some damage) or fail (without damage or with less damage than the next level of failing), and fail with damage.
For example, while descending the ladder in part 1, I wrote: “As I climbed down, I was hit by an overwhelming stench. Sad to say, I lost my lunch on that ladder, and lost my grip as well.“
This was a roll against my Constitution, which was a -2. I rolled badly enough on a d20 that my total fell into the “5 or less” result, which resulted in vomiting and falling off the ladder, reducing my health by 2. At the time, my starting health was 10.
There are also exploration pages, either during an adventure (the caves where Fellmont was being held) or between adventures (shopping and such in the city), where a map is presented and you decide which route to take or locations to visit. During the adventure, the extra risk of exploring further brings the possibility of additional treasure.
Of course, the character has to level up at some point, and this is handled by either updating the original character page, or printing out the appropriate level from the Sundial Games character sheet page. The level sheets account for every bit of leveling up except which attributes you want to increase this time. And they have mechanics for resurrection in case of character death.
All in all, they did a nice job of setting up a little daily entertainment while giving the players some choice in how they reach the grand finale.