The Match Moves
Moving, searching, resting, fighting, and completing objectives give the rest of the match time to develop. The players can take their time when a decision matters, but time always has a cost.
5E & 5.5E BATTLE ROYALE SOURCEBOOK
CROWN OF
THE SURVIVOR
OUTLAST. OUTTHINK. OUTLIVE THEM ALL.
Bring the battle royale experience to your tabletop.
Crown of the Survivor is a toolkit for running battle royale adventures and campaigns with 5E and 5.5E.
The characters enter a large arena alongside dozens of other contestants. They explore, search for equipment, complete objectives, form temporary alliances, and decide which battles are worth fighting. Meanwhile, the safe area grows smaller and the surviving contestants are pushed closer together.
Eventually, someone claims the crown. Getting there is the adventure.
MORE THAN A LARGE COMBAT ENCOUNTER
The interesting part happens before the final confrontation.
A battle royale cannot work as one enormous initiative order. Players need time to explore the arena, learn what is happening around them, improve their position, and make decisions without knowing exactly where every danger waits.
The party may rush towards a dangerous location because it contains valuable equipment. They may avoid an enemy group, only to encounter them again after both sides have grown stronger. They may spend time helping someone, completing a personal objective, or investigating the arena while the match continues without them.
Combat matters, but survival depends on much more than combat.
The Arena Changes
Safe ground disappears, routes close, and quiet locations become the centre of the match. Every shift changes which risks are worth taking.
Contestants Have Plans
Other contestants gather resources, form groups, pursue objectives, and become rivals or allies when their stories meet the party’s.
Every Match Has a Scenario
Different objectives, starting conditions, dangers, and victory conditions give each match its own story.
AN ARENA BUILT FOR CHOICES
The map is part of the adventure.
Different locations offer different risks and rewards. A ruined fortress may contain powerful equipment but attract several groups at once. A remote village may be safer, but provide little worth carrying into the final stages. An underground route may help the party cross the arena unseen, if they can survive what lives there.
Players choose where to go based on what they need, what they know, and how much danger they are willing to accept.
As the safe area changes, those choices change with it. A valuable stronghold may become impossible to defend. A route the characters ignored earlier may become their only way forward.
The arena creates the pressure.
The players decide what to do with it.
A LIVING FIELD OF CONTESTANTS
The match continues beyond the party’s view.
Other contestants move through the arena, gather resources, fight one another, form groups, and pursue their own goals. The match system keeps the wider competition moving while the party remains at the centre of play.
The party may meet a rival before entering the arena, promise to protect another contestant, search for someone carrying important information, or discover that an apparent enemy has the same objective. These relationships give the players reasons to fight, negotiate, cooperate, betray, rescue, or walk away.
ONE
MATCH
MATCH
MANY POSSIBLE STORIES
Winning does not always mean being the last person alive.
Crown of the Survivor includes a scenario system for building different kinds of matches. A scenario establishes why the characters enter, what they need to accomplish, how the arena behaves, and what can end the match.
The party may need to rescue a contestant, retrieve an object, eliminate a particular rival, expose the people running the event, or survive long enough to reach something hidden in the final safe area.
Winning may mean claiming the crown. It may also mean escaping with the right person, completing a secret objective, or making sure someone else does not win.
ONE MATCH OR A COMPLETE CAMPAIGN
The arena can be an adventure, or the centre of a much larger story.
The characters may prepare for the event, meet contestants and sponsors, investigate the arena, and enter with personal objectives. What happens during the match creates rivals, allies, losses, and consequences that continue after it ends.
The party does not need to begin as the strongest group in the arena. They need to understand the situation, use what they find, and keep moving when the arena turns against them.
Strength can win a fight. Winning the match takes more.
ONLY ONE CROWN. MANY WAYS TO CLAIM IT.
Enter the arena with a plan.
Leave with the crown, if the arena lets you.
Crown of the Survivor is currently in development.