OSE Encounter Activities - Giant

Giants make for fearsome foes and even more useful allies if canny Players can find a way to into their good graces.

This is the first of the entries to necessitate a full spread (instead of just a single sheet), because there are half-a-dozen Giant types, and seeing as how they all differ somewhat, I decided to treat them all to a separate d30 table.

There’s always a bit of a “scale” problem when it comes to fisticuffs with these massive Monsters. I have a hard time believing a Human-sized dagger would do more harm than a hatpin in some situations, so another option is to borrow from video games like “Shadow of the Colossus” for truly tremendous Giants, and treat them more like an “Adventure Location” with “Puzzles to defeat.” Flashing “weak points” are optional of course, but there is something deliciously tense about clinging to/climbing on them as enormous obstacles.

All of my favorite folklore stories about Giants always seem to revolve around them being bilked or bamboozled by the Heroes in some way (like bleeding themselves out into a crevasse that connects to the sea, or being “Fin McCool fooled” in a pram), so I like to encourage creative problem solving outside of combat for these encounters. Same could be said for Cyclopes, honestly. Not to mention the utility some Giants might have for Human-sized hands: Their massive fortresses likely have a dire need for Giant Rat pest-control, and who better to squeeze into those massive mouse-holes than the Adventurers (an excellent opportunity to explore scale with some Lilliputian or “The Borrowers” type adventures)? It also must be awfully tricky to count their hoard of coins when they’re the size of the tiny paper circles left over from a hole-punch. 😊