Do You Throw Rocks in Your PC's Puddle?
I was having lunch with a DM friend of mine. He was telling me how he was trying to steer his group in is Homebrewed campaign so that they would “spontaneously” decide to go see an Oracle and thus start the Forgotten Realms’ Sceptertower of Spellguard” Adventure.
He told me how one of his players kept refusing to follow the group toward the planned objective and how his other players seemed confused about what needed to be done. He concluded his story by telling me that he had to stage an investigation-like scene so that all clues would be tied up together to push the group to decide to go see said oracle.
He told me that most of his players weren’t paying attention to that scene and that he ended up doing NPC on NPC dialogues to conclude the scene before everyone fell asleep.
Ugh, NPC on NPC action…That’s worse than bad porn.
And to top it all, my DM friend was feeling bad because he believed that he had railroaded his players in finally deciding to go see the oracle.
While discussing with him, I asked him this question:
Chatty DM: “Are you the type of DM that throws rocks in the puddles at your PCs’ feet, hoping they’ll investigate the ‘plops’?”
Friend (Sheepishly) “Actually I throw little strands of reed, in puddles way ahead of the PCs, and hope they’ll notice.”
I understand where he comes from. My friend wants to create a storyline where players will end up making key choices to move the adventure forward. However, since he wants at least a minimum of control on where the game will go, he multiplies subtle hints and works his various plotlines to some pre-planned solutions that he hopes the players will eventually notice.
Yet, he doesn’t want to force his players toward campaign goals and hopes that they’ll organically converge toward them.
I’m more of the school of having things happen to PCs in an adventure. When stuff happens to characters, players will react and follow leads to understand why they were targeted or involved in a situation.
I’ve seen many adventures start with the PCs walking in a City and a poor NPC gets mugged by mooks. In such cases, the adventure’s author assumes that the players will intervene and follow the story from there.
I find this to be a potential weakness in adventure design. What if one or many characters don’t care about what’s happening? The GM will be stuck and may have to resort to trickery, or downright pleading for players to grab that essential plot hook to move the story forward.
That’s actually an argument that Pro-sandbox GMs use to sell their games. By not making plot hooks, players are forced to explore to find adventure. But many players aren’t actually all that comfortable seeking adventure by themselves and expect the GM to make something happen.
Chatty DM “Instead of throwing rocks in the water, why don’t you drop a meteor on the party? Make the trouble hit them directly!”
Friend: “It does seem evident when you say it like that”.
For instance, have the mook mistake the PCs for someone else and have them try to mug the party. Then, when the party frisk the bodies, they’ll find a piece of paper that hints at some sort of conspiracy and leading to some obscure meeting place…
I’m very, very much of the ‘Drop a meteor’ type of DM. In my games, I try to focus the action on the PCs. Maybe NPCs have great adventures off screen, but when trouble hits, the PCs are very near it and are usually the only ones who can deal with it.
In tomorrow’s game, where I’m staging an election in a hotly contested burg of my campaign’s “City Within the Dungeon”, I’m giving all PCs free houses/abodes in that burg and I’m hiring all of them to be in charge of Security for the election. Now things are going to happen that put the security of the candidates and the voters at risk, and the PCs are going to be on the front line, trying to do the job they were hired to do.
Of course. I have a backup plan. If they refuse, they get to be selected as obligatory voters. Yes, I’m railroading the adventure’s setup, but that’s because our game is not a sandbox and we’re cool with that.
So if you recognize yourself as a rock throwing DM and find that your players are having a hard time moving the the adventure forward, why not consider throwing a little meteor on the party instead:
- Have a piece of a strange artifact fall in their hands and have all of your world’s baddies go after it
- Have the PCs fall in a sinkhole that leads them to that lost dungeon everyone is looking for
- Make that one PC the rightful heir of the Lost Kingdom, the only one who can contain that sphere of Annihilation that’s eating her sweetheart’s city
What about you? Do you throw rocks in your PC’s puddles?
The One Page Dungeon Contest is Closed
Just a short note to tell you all that the One page Dungeon is closed. We’re sorry for those who were caught in the confusion of deadlines. The contest ended on the stroke of Midnight last night.
I’ll come back with a post soon to give you a heads up of the next phases (judging, prize categories and so forth).
I wish to thank all participants who sent us approx. 70 entries to this contest. It has far exceeded our expectations!I also want to extend my thanks to Chgowiz who graciously accepted to co-host this crazy-assed contest!
Also, do note that given the number of entries we received, we’ll likely spend a few weeks reviewing and judging them. So please don’t expect results before the first half of June. We’re still a bunch of guys who do this in their free time. 
Best of luck to all participants and we’ll keep you all posted.
LAST DAY TO ENTER ONE-PAGE DUNGEON CONTES
I don’t need to be Chatty on this one.
This is it, you have until midnight tonight to send in your entry. We’ve passed 60 entries today and maybe yours will push it passed 70?
Thanks to everyone for participating and helping us spread the word on the Blogsphere and forums!
A Dungeon Master's Toy: How to Host a Dungeon
Caspule Review
How to Host a Dungeon is a very clever, dungeon building solo game where you follow the progression of a dungeon and its denizen through a series of ages. Its more of a Sim than a game, but it is a very entertaining concept that leaves you with a side-view dungeon map and a full history ready for your next fantasy RPG campaign.
Well worth the 5$ it costs.
Full Review
Shortly after posting my last article and reading through the comments (thank you all!), I remembered reading about a Dungeon creation game somewhere on the net. I remembered it had the strange name of ‘How to Host a Dungeon’ so I looked it up, and found that it’s was indeed named ‘thus‘ and was authored by Tony Dowler. [Read the rest of this article]
Old School, New School and Gygaxian Naturalism (or not)
Here’s the post that I promised wouldn’t write since it could be construed as a comment bait. However, since I spent 2 hours reading arguments and trying to define some fairly controversial terms, I’m not going to waste that! No siree!
Now, just so we’re clear on this, I’m interested to read your thoughts and opinions on this but PLEASE, lets leave out any bad-wrong fun arguments and personal attacks at the door.
While I prefer to play newer editions of D&D, I like to know about the other manners of playing D&D out there.
Since we’re in the final stages of the One page dungeon contest, I’ve been hard at work trying to clarify/define the various categories under which we’ll judge the entries. While the contest is not about editions of D&D and such, the two co-sponsors: Chgowiz and I are respectively old and new school DMs. Thus we made categories for “best old School” and best “new edition” type entries.
I knew from the get go that this old/new divide would be subjective, hard to pin down and open for arguments. This is the kind of things that means vastly different things for many.
The perception of old/new school is highly influenced by the period at which a person was introduced to the hobby. It is muddled up further by the fact that new players get introduced to the hobby through modern retro-clones of D&D, making them neo-old school players.
Arghhh, my freakin head hurts already!
Anyway, I sat at my desk, fired up my IM client of choice (I use Digsby by the way) and got a hold of Chgowiz and Graham to help me define what new/old school would mean in terms of dungeon designs so I could offer the judges common example to work from.
Here’s what we came up with. It’s not complete, it’s not precise but it’s what we agreed on.
Oh and for the sakes of argument, I put A D&D 2nd edition as the transition between the old school and new school of dungeon designs, mostly because it’s the edition that saw a major shift in how adventures were written and was heavily influenced by the storytelling wave of the 90′s.
It also marks the period I left D&D, I came back with the third edition, but that’s a story for another day.
Also take note that I wrote those to help judge the one page dungeons, so some of the characteristics I defined make sense in that context only.
Old School D&D Dungeons(Pre AD&D 2nd ED and Retro-Clones)
- Classic maps (Blue, Crowded, etc)
- Overblown titles like Lost tombs of the Omniscient Arch-Lich Prophet (Goodman Games went for that 100% in their Dungeon Crawl Classic line)
- Limited story outside of the dungeon key (you discover the story as you read the keys).
- Numerous rooms (More than 10 per “level”)
- Presence of empty rooms for random encounters and DM creations
- Tricks and Traps separate from Combat (Major defining point)
- Extensive and varied random encounters with limited regards for PC levels and dungeon restocking
- Encounters that challenge Players over PCs
- Expectations that the party will retreat and regroup in some of the encounters.
The following 2 articles helped me come to these definitions:
- Grognardia’s Old School guidelines.
- T. Foster’s reply in this Knights and Knaves thread.
I’m open to suggestions on things I might have missed that really should be in there.
And yes, left out Gygaxian Naturalism intentionally from that list, I’ll come back to it later.
New School D&D (3rd Edition and Fantasy derivatives, 4th edition)
- Less numerous rooms or grouped rooms
- Large areas to allow space for miniature play
- Extensive background and story around the dungeon instead of in the key.
- NPC motivations and goals spelled out
- Focus on set-piece encounters taking into account PC resources
- Encounters with defined interactive elements above and beyond monsters (Hindering terrain, Obstacles, traps, etc)
- Tricks and traps embedded in combat
- Encounters designed to progressively use party resources (without implied retreating) until natural resting point or final confrontation with ‘”Boss”
- Level-appropriate encounters.
Now for that list I plunged into my (and Graham’s) personal experiences having read Dungeon magazine voraciously and having played so many D&D 3e/4e adventures.
Of course, some elements of old school designs appear in newer adventures and by the same token, some classic adventures feature some items that I put up as new school. What I was aiming at was tendencies seen in adventures of one school vs the other.
Once again, do chime in if I missed an element that should be crucial.
About Gygaxian Naturalism
That term was coined and later defined by James Maliszewski at Grognardia. Whenever I discussed the contest with our old school judges, they all mentioned that Gygaxian Naturalism was part of what old School gaming was all about. To a certain extent I agreed with them.
Then my good friend Graham crashed the apple cart and argued, quite energetically that Gygaxian Naturalism as defined by James, was mostly applying the entries of the 1st Edition of the Monster Manual to build dungeons and lairs that had a certain verisimilitude in regards to the game world.
What complicates the debate further is that James’ definitions of Gygaxian Naturalism have since been broadened by various people to encompass many different things, including how dungeons are to be believable by featuring non-combatants and a certain food chain pattern throughout the dungeon’s fauna.
With such a broader definition, saying that Gygaxian Naturalism is old school is misleading at best and quite possibly downright false. Any adventure, old or new, can feature elements of naturalism that do not directly challenge the players. While D&D 4e clearly assumes that noncombatants get no combat stats, I’m sure that many DMs have used naturalistic elements in their 4e adventures to push a story or present setting elements to the players.
That’s why I came up with a different dungeon-focused definition that isin’t bound by a ‘school’.
Dungeon Naturalism
A group of elements that define a dungeon as being an area where creatures live and function above and beyond their role as challenging Player Characters. Non-combatants, lairs, sources of food and water is a staple of adventures with naturalistic elements.
To me then, Gygaxian Naturalism is Gary’s own touch in making his D&D world feel alive beyond the existence of monsters trying to kill PCs. In fact, when James M. says that newer editions of D&D abandoned GN, he’s entirely right.
Older adventures and later ones that emulated them had more naturalistic elements probably because the core books of the time (the MM and the DMG) had plenty of material on this. But this does not prevent DMs from other games (later versions of D&D and everything else) to create their own naturalism.
In fact, I think that naturalism has been taken out of rules book to give this responsibility solely to individual DMs to do as they see fit, modeling their own worlds and deciding how much, if any, naturalistic elements are to be included in it (because for many, this was never important).
In later editions of D&D, I think that’s unavoidable because of the existence of several campaign settings with conflicting rules of naturalism. Its especially true in 4e’s case where the design decisions were to provide a default non-setting (Points of Light) to allow DMs to build whatever they want once they had tamed world building basics.
So like Graham said, while Gygaxian Naturalism has its place in discussing the history of the game, and while James M’s strict definition is old school (roll 1d4X10 for adult Orcs in a Warband), the concept of naturalism, as defined by other writers, is a design philosophy that transcends editions and game engines.
What do you think?
One Page Contest Final Update: Less than one week left
We’re into week 3 of the One Page Dungeon contest and things are shaping up for some fierce competition! With about 45 entries so far, we’ve received a very wide variety of ‘dungeons’, from the old-school classic to the really really out there.
But it’s not too late for those that thrive on tight deadlines and last-minute rushes. You have until Midnight (Eastern time) of May 14th to submit your entry. Its your chance to get your hands on some very cool prizes and possibly see your work published in a freely distributed PDF!
Regardless of your genre, edition preference, or even ruleset, you can send us your entry. We’re really open and we’ve been willing to stretch what ‘dungeon’ means to allow all kinds of one-page adventures.
Be it ruined castle, cave, spaceship or dimensional fortress, we want to see that concept leave the confines of your deviously creative brain and unto that awesome one-page template.
We’re slowly gearing up to judge these entries and as my friend Chgowiz says, we’re going to chain our judges to their monitors to review the entries and name our winners in a myriad of categories.
So don’t wait anymore, send us your entry now!
Contest Rules:
1. Participants create a one page dungeon using the template found here. For a contest entry example see here.
2. The dungeon must have the following features:
- Name of Dungeon
- Map
- Dungeon Key (in an edition-neutral form: Description of monsters, Treasure, Traps, etc… No game stats)
OPTIONAL (If you can fit them on one page…)
- Wandering Monster or Random Event tables or a list of scripted “events” that can occur over the adventure
- Background
- Additional descriptions that add to the dungeon, such as detailed description of trap or trick or unique feature.
3. Only one entry per participant. Participants may revise/replace their entries up till the end of contest, with the last revision counting as their official entry. Entry may win grand prize or one of the runner up prizes, plus any number of alternative prize categories.
4. Participants are allowed to modify the template, provided it remains a one-page entry.
5. Submission must be emailed in PDF, Word or Open Office format at the following address: onepage@chattydm.net
6. Submitting a dungeon to the contest releases it under the Creative Common Share-alike license (US 2008) with credit to the contest participant.
7. Contest closes on May 14th 2009 at Midnight.
The prizes (oh yes, the prizes!)
Grand Prize
- Patron membership of Wolfgang Baur’s Open Design
- Quarterly membership to Monte Cook’s Dungeon a Day
- A full Licence for Smitework’s Fantasy Grounds II
- 1 year membership to Obsidian Portal
- 50$ Gift Certificate from One-Bookshelf
- 4 Badges to Neoncon 2009
Grand Prize Runner-Up: Old School Dungeon Design
- Bundle of Goblinoid Games product
- Bundle of Brave Halfling Production products
- Otherworld Miniatures Demon Idol Miniature
- Bundles of Fight On and Knockspell issues
- Bits of Darkness Bundle from Tabletop Adventures
- 6 month membership Obsidian Portal
- 2 Badges to Neoncon 2009
Grand Prize Runner-Up: New Edition Dungeon Design
- D&D 4e Dungeon Delve & Adventurer’s Vault
- Fantasy Grounds II License
- 6 month membership Obsidian Portal
- 2 Badges to Neoncon 2009
To divide among other Categories
- Open Design’s Kobold’s Guide to Game Design
- Quarterly membership to Monte Cook’s Dungeon-a-Day
- Bundle of Necromancer Games products
- Bundle of Brave Halfling Production PDF products
- Bundle of Knockspell and City Encounter PDFs
- Bundle of Fight On Magazine (issues 1-4 PDFs)
- Tabletop Adventure’s Bits of Darkness Bundle
- Tabletop Adventures’ Deck O’Names Set
- A few D&D 4e Adventures and Hardcovers
- Otherworld Miniatures – Pig Faced Orcs (Or Box of Minis)
- Goodman Games – Random Esoteric Creature Generator
- Badges to Neoncon 2009
Our sponsors!
These prizes have been generously donated by our sponsors – they really are excited about this contest and we hope you are just as excited about their support. Please be sure to show them your support as well.
- Avatar Art
- Brave Halfling Publishings
- DungeonADay
- Fight On Magazine
- Goblinoid Games
- Goodman Games
- Mythmere Games
- Necromancer Games
- NeonCon
- Obsidian Portal
- Open Design
- Otherworld Miniatures
- Smiteworks
- Tabletop Adventure
If you have any questions about the contest, please feel free to contact either of us: Phil (Chattydm@chattydm.net) and/or Michael (chgowiz@gmail.com)
Adventure Prep: The City Adventure
For my next D&D session (which is on Friday next week), I’ve decided to go for a city-based adventure.
We’ve played 3 sessions into our new Primal/Within campaign and all those were focused on the Dungeon part of the setting and very little on the city (except to interact with Quest giving NPCs). I think that giving my players a break from dungeon crawling will likely be well received.
So the following post is my stream of counsciousness musings on City adventures as I wrap my mind around the ideas I got for my next game.
Now, as many GMs know, city-based adventures can be completely different beasts than dungeon adventures. Unless you happen to design a site-based adventure that happens to occur in a city-building from start to finish, a city adventure usually features scenes set in varied locales.
Without making this post about tropes, fantasy adventures set in cities often feature the following:
Investigations
The PCs are called in to solve a mystery, a murder, or to gather intelligence of a NPC or and organization. This is a very, very large subset of adventures. It’s also a type of adventure that is hard to properly balance to hit the motivation of a varied playiong group.
Investigation adventures are focused on scenes where players look for and obtain information. In well-crafted investigation adventure, the hook gets the players really interested in the situation and usually involves stakes that are important for the PCs.
The most classic examples I’ve seen of investigation adventures is when PCs are framed for the murder of a NPC. Of course such adventures can only fly if the PCs are law-abiding citizens and/or are no match for the local law enforcement forces (I always say that Iron Golem make great policemen).
Here’s a few adventure hooks based on subverting the investigation style
A NPC close to the PCs is framed for their murder. Except the PCs aren’t dead! They were cursed into becoming like ‘erased’. While they are physically present, they can’t be seen or heard by anyone except, possibly, the truly insane. In fact the city is filled with many such ‘erased’ people, so much so that the PCs discover a fully functionning parallel city! Breaking the curse before the NPC is put to death becomes the adventure’s goal.
The PCs are forced to commit a crime, something that needs to be done for the greater good of the city/world but puts them as pariah to the local authorities. Although there’s not yet enough evidence to incriminate them, the PCs must now dodge the authorities , or better yet, mislead the NPC investigators and try get away with it.
The PCs are members of a semi-criminal youth gang that’s causing trouble against the tyranical factions that rule the city with an iron fist (think Robin Hood meets Red Dawn). They get their hands on a Macguffin that everyone wants for various reason. The MacGuffin is radioactive in terms of Plot element (i.e. you can’t keep it, you must give it away). The PCs must then find out what each faction wants to do with it and decide how to dispose of it.
Event-Based Adventure
City-adventures are great settings for event-based adventures. In such adventures, scenes revolved around specific events rather than exploring specific areas.
This doesn’t mean that an event-based adventure can’t have investigations or a bit of site-based exploration. Look at past Dungeon magazine adventures (or the current Pathfinder adventure paths from Paizo) and you’ll see adventures with a healthy mix of both.
The trick of such adventures is to get the PCs caught in the flow of events and let them influence the events with their choices and their actions. Giving a way for PCs to have an impact on how the events play out is crucial in such adventures. Unless you have a group of avid stoprytellers that love the sound of your voice, event-based adventures should not be scenes where PCs are mere witnesses of what unfolds around them.
A much maligned adventure path I used to own, the Witchfire Triology, was a great example of a linear event- based adventure with limited PC influence. The PCs had little impact on the adventure other than showing up at the proper place and the proper time to either witness what the bad guys did (while fighting mooks) or fight the bad guys in fixed set-pieces.
Okay here’s two examples (I’m being helped by my buddy Yan)
Citypocalypse! The City is invaded, a plague hits the city, a meteor smashed into the Baron’s Manor! All order collapses, nihilistic cultists are rampant and the citizens are scared and prone to form dangerous mobs. PCs are caught in scenes where large threats come from everywhere and they must find a way to regroup and start planning to act against such threats.
The peace summit/grand tournament. People of power and influence (possibly the PCs if they’ve reached that point in the campaign) converge to the city. Intrigue abound and PCs are caught in the web of alliances, deceptions and assassination attempts as they attend various parties and events as active participants, counselors or bodyguards.
If you want to turn that classic around, you make the PCs into assassins trying to get to that paranoid duchess surrounded by Hell Hounds disguised as Irish Wolfhounds.
What will you do Chatty?
Based on the suggestion of reader BradG in my last post, I’ve decided that I’ll mix it up a bit.
I’m going to have elections in the City Within for the representative of the City’s newest Burg. PCs are going to be hired as bodyguards. They’ll get to choose which of 4 candidates (the top ones needing ‘protection’) they want to be assigned to (allowing the party to ‘split’ along different candidates is expected). Said candidates will have wildly diverging plans for the new burg and I intend to have the PCs actions shape who will get elected and what will happen to this part of the city.
I’ll sprinkle this with intrigues and threats from external forces and I may just have a great adventure in the makling. So the adventure will a mix of event-based action and investigation. I’ll also try to leave myself open for some improvisation to create new NPCs and places on the spot that players meay revisit later.
I hope my players will like it.
Okay so I’ll need:
- Candidate NPCs
- Some secondary NPCs to be the candidates entourage
- Divergent, conflicting electoral programs for each candidates
- Threats and scenes where all candidates are present to allow PCs to be together
- A mechanic to play out the elections result
- Treasures (payment) for the PC’s work… I’ll probably put in a ‘danger pay’ element to thier bodyguarding contract.
Your turn now, what about your best and worst city based adventures. What made them work, what made them fail? Let me know, I’m taking notes!
Primal/Within Chronicles: The Font of Sorrows, Session 2 Part 2
See part 1, here.
City Interlude
After having beaten the undead prisoner-guardians of the Font of Sorrows and subduing ‘Spurt’ the enchanted Bulette, our heroes returned to town to complete their rest and return Spurt to its owner.
The mad Wizard was relieved to recover his prized pet, although bitterly disappointed to see all the years he spent enchanting it gone down the drain. In a little burst of inspiration, I had the wizard plead to the PCs for them to avoid selling him out to the local authorities, offering a good quantity of magical components (used to create Magic Items) in return for their silence.
The PCs accepted, after seriously lambasting the wizard for being so grossly negligent and endangering the City like he did. I marked the wizard as holding a grudge against the PCs for humiliating him and disenchanting Spurt. We now have a potentially returning villain in our campaign. While I don’t envision the wizard as being a direct threat to the PCs, his crazy inventions sure could be.
We’ll see what I do with that in the near future.
At that time, Jaiel decided to quietly inform fellow members of the Foundation to keep an eye on the wizard. She also noted that The Builders (the faction building the City) could be really interested in acquiring the means to tame a bulette and used them in construction work.
So we now have a possible hook for a future adventure.
Not bad for a 10 minutes mini-scene.
The PCs then focused on the book of rituals they had obtained from the Temple. In it they found that the undead prisoner-guardians they vanquished used to be enemies of the Temple cursed into near-eternal servitude. The rituals explained in gruesome details how such guardians were created.
The book also explained how to access something called the Crypt of the High Priest. According to the layout the PCs had worked out while exploring the temple, it seemed that the tainted water poisoning Riceburg was coming from that crypt.
Late Boss fight
Armed with that knowledge, the PCs returned to the Font and activated the proper mechanisms while intoning the ritualistic phrases found in the book. The Font emptied itself and the drain opened to reveal a hidden passage.
The PCs entered the passage and made their way into a great chamber featuring a large pool, some 10′ wide criss-crossing walkways, 2 great waterfalls apparently pouring from 2 glowing holes in the ceiling and a large tree-like creature who seemed to have grown from the remnants of a stone sarcophagus. I described that the remains of a skeleton were entrapped in the creature’s extensive root-like appendages.
Now, as I described the room, I noted that it was already a quarter to 10 PM, a bit late to start a fight, especially one featuring a Solo, several minions and 2 surprises in the pool. I asked what the players wanted and everyone wanted to forge ahead.
The big tree-priest was a Horrid Timber, taken from a Dungeon magazine adventure. It is a level 10 Solo Soldier creature I had adapted to level 7 with some minor tweaks of my own.
Wary of the big Treant-like monster, the PCs slowly advanced, Jaiel on the frontline. As she moved forward, she got attacked by 2 shark shaped elemental monsters, seemingly made of acid, that jumped out of the pool, bit her on the way and dove back in on the opposite side of the walkway.
Yay!, I finally got to use Acid Sharks! Thank you Rich Burlew (he wrote about them in Dungeonscape).
And no, my campaign hasn’t jumped the shark it only just started!
After the Shark attack, the Tree-priest sent a glob of spores flying, hitting Jaiel and making little vines grow through her skin. Then a bunch of twig blight (acid dripping plant humanoid minions) sprang out of the roots surrounding the Big Boss and attacked.
The visuals got particularly gross when I described that one such twig blight was growing out of Jaiel as the spores continued growing out of her.
Once again the issue of the fight never was in much doubt. The PCs got rid of the minions and bloodied both sharks before the tree-priest got close enough to do significant damage. It had 4 strong lashing attacks that pushed a character 3 squares if 2 of them hit. The idea was to send the PCs into the acidic water to have fun with the sharks.
However, that was not to be as the PCs used one of their recent magical acquisition, a bag of crystals that could freeze up to 20 squares worth of water. Thus,the PCs had enough “leg space” to avoid being thrown into the water. They even managed to use it when one of the sharks was near the surface. I ruled that the item (a level 7 item) would make a +10 attack vs Reflex to immobilize the shark until it saved.
I like doing things like that.
After 30 minutes of fighting, the tree-creature still had 3/4 of its HP so I made possibly the best DM call of the night and I cut its HP in half, making it bloodied. As its HP slowly dropped, I went for broke and used up the creatures 2 action points to dish out 12 branch lashes. Most, if not all of them connected on the PCs, sending them flying all over the place and dropping Dworkin the Shaman into the acid water while having only one HP left.
Thankfully, the Tree-priest was slain in the same round and the Shaman was saved from the water before dissolving into some sort of Dwarven Primal broth.
It was nearly passed 10h30 PM, we managed three fights and a short story session. The fights might all have been a tad too easy, a result of my overcompensating from the last session, but I’m cool with that. I was quite happy with how things went and we didn’t finish at an ungodly hour.
Lessons Learned
- Monitoring fights to keep them at one hour or less is good practice.
- I need to make my encounters more ‘airy’ like making walkways at least 3 squares wide to allow more dynamic fights.
- When a player surprises you, try to roll with it and make it into something cool, regardless of what your notes tell you.
Up Next
I’ll end this game report with a bit of pre-prep discussions. After having hosted many, many back to back sessions of dungeon crawling, Yan and I agreed that it was time to create a little city-based adventure. Having the PCs stay in the city and interact with some NPCs will likely help players forge ties between their characters and the city.
The setting of the City Within is already rich enough to allow many, many different types of adventures. So what I need to do until Friday of next week is find a plot idea (maybe a few), create NPCs and obstacles, and work on various outcomes based on PC choices.
You have any ideas for a city based adventure that would last one evening or two? Feel free to share!
Have a great week.
Primal/Within Chronicles: The Font of Sorrows, Session 2 Part 1
Previously in Chatty’s game…
Our new band of heroes are hired by the Burgomeister of one of the City Within’s agricultural burgs to investigate the tainting of its water supply. The search lead them into an old Elemental Water temple guarded by spectral water wraiths.
After defeating the guardians, our heroes explored further and discovered a ghastly crypt where undead prisoners had been kept in glass coffins for centuries. As Usul the Invoker launched a bolt of Radiance energy toward one such coffin, it triggered a magical chain-reaction that shattered all coffins, freeing the undead captives.
Dramatis Personae
Jaiel: Deva Avenger of Erathis, played by Yan
Corwin: Halfling Sorcerer (Chaos), played by Math
Usul: Elven Invoker of Kord, played by Mike
Fangs: Shifter Warden, played by Eric
Rocco: Halfling Rogue, played by Stef
Dworkin: Dwarven Shaman, played by Franky, renamed from Korg (See below)
Prepping Notes
After the bonegrind of the last game, and after several of my players told me that it had been a painful night that left them wanting, I reviewed all the remaining encounters of the Font of Sorrows.
Its a good thing I did because the night’s first encounter would have been even more painful.
I originally had planned to have 6 Sodden Ghoul Wailers attack the PCs. These marine ghouls are level 9 soldiers from the Open Grave source book. Instead of immobilizing PCs when they hit, they can do 2 claws attack to grab and rend PCs. Once grabbed, the Sodden Ghouls can bite to daze its prey.
What made these guys problematic is that they each had a Close burst 2 attack that stunned (until save) any target hit. Had I played this encounter as planned, I’d likely would have some fairly unhappy players spending the whole fight being stunned.
So, taking a lesson directly from the DMG, I modified the encounter as such:
I kept 2 Sodden Ghouls Wailers but I lowered them to level 7 (The PC’s level) and removed the stunning attacks. I switched 3 other ghouls to Level 7 wights (Skirmishers) and I made the last ghoul into an Acidskull (just like the flameskull but only with glass/acid ranged attacks).
As we got ready to start playing, Franky told me that he decided to change the name of his Dwarven Shaman from Korg to Dworkin in order to avoid confusion with Usul’s god.
So with a Corwin (Halfling sorcerer) and a Dworkin in the party, we had a little Chronicles of Amber thing going on.
The Glass Crypt
The encounter took place in the area you see in the map to the right. I added a 10′ wide walkway in the middle of the room so PCs could stay start on dry ground. I made all water square into a hazard: any creatures falling in the water would suffer an attack vs Fortitude that pushed them toward the grate on the western wall. When I described the room to the players, I pointed out that the water current was very strong and decided, on the spot, to say that the grate was spiked! I mean the rule on page 42 of the DMG needs to be used as often as possible, no?
The scene started with playing out the Invoker’s blast that shattered all coffins. I allowed Mike to roll the attack to see if he would hit the ghoul sitting inside glass the coffin he was targeting and rolled a crit, almost dropping the creature to its bloodied point! Damn! Invokers are cool against undead creatures!
Then all the undead rose from their shattered coffins. The Acid skull said something about thanking the party for freeing them and saying that they had one last task to perform before being released from their servitude.
No one was surprised to learn that this task was attacking the PCs.
Initiative was rolled, the sorcerer sent a blazing burst against the skull and missed (still scoring respectable damage with 1/2 ). The floating Skull retaliated by sending a burst of acid in the middle of the tightly packed party. That made the skull threat #1 and was dispatched soon enough.
The remaining undead had to clear a 10′ gap to jump from their coffin to the dry platform, several of them failed and found themselves in the water. The Wight managed to get a foothold on the platform and were able to drain the Warden and the Rogue of a few Healing Surges (bringing them at or close to zero).
The Ghouls managed to grab onto the Shaman and the Invoker but all players made good use of forced movement effects to break any grab.
The fight lasted 70 minutes and no player were ever in any real danger. No PC feel in the water and no undead got impaled on my improvised spikes… Pity.
Were I to do the fight again, I’d leave the ghouls’ stunning attack and I’d make the central walkway at least 3 squares wide to allow better movement. As things stood, the fight felt a bit crowded.
Oh and as Yan told me: Wights hit like little girls. He’s right, makes me kinda sad to see my favorite undead be so threatening. But they did the job of draining healing surges to make the next encounter more worrying for the PCs
Wandering Bulette looking for a good master.
Once completed, the PCs knew they had broken the curse that created the spectral guardians at the temple’s entrance. The most pressing threat had been dealt with and the party returned to the temple’s main room featuring the Font and the Basin-Altar. Climbing on the raised platform (area #6) where the altar stood, they elected to rest for a few hours.
Some PCs used up their very last healing surges while I rolled on my random encounter chart, resulting in a little visit by Spurt sometime during the rest period.
I was a bit worried that this might be too hard but some PCs still had suffcient ressources to feel confident in this encounter.
The runed Buletter came slowly into the room from the busted door, guided by the Dungeon’s psyche trying to get rid of the PCs. Jaiel, who was on guard duty, had plenty of time to wake up the rest of the party.
Then Eric served me my first surprise of the game. Instead of charging on the bulette, Fangs the Warden used his knowledge of Bulettes (Dungeoneering skill) to try to calm it. I guess that having no more healing surges makes even the most Gung Ho of butt kickers think twice.
He rolled high enough that I explained to him that while he gave it pause for a few seconds, giving the rest of the party a surprise round, something malevolent was controlling it.When my players said ‘it’s the dungeon doing it’, I was real proud to see them adopting the setting’s main flavour!
While the bulette stood confused for a few seconds, the group decided to try to subdue it. I told Corwin that the runes on the bulette’s body were somewhat shoddy and that maybe if the party could identify some linked runes, he could try to unravel them and unweave some of the enchantments that made it such a strong monster.
What ensued was a good, well paced combat with an embedded skill challenege where players alternatively fought the monster and unraveled some enchantments on it (Thanks to reader BradG for the idea). The runed Bulette had a thunderous breath weapon that dazed its targets and could also burrow under the floor to evade attacks and cause PCs to fall prone by passing underneath them.
Slowly, the PCs chipped at its HP while the sorcerer unweaved its defenses and special attacks.
Toward the end of the fight, I informed the party that the monster was getting very weak. That’s when Eric surprised me again.
Fangs: “Spurt, Heel!” (Rolls a high number)
Chatty DM (after a short pause): “The evil glow vanishes from Spurt’s eyes and it adopts a submissive pose toward the Warden”.
The PCs returned to the City Within, with the Warder triumphantly mounting the subdued Bulette.
You should have seen the grin on Eric’s face!
I was really happy with the way that the combat went. I really like embedding skill challenges in combat and will likely write an article on it soon, either for this blog or for another publication. I’ll let you all know.
Up next: Short Roleplay session and late Boss Fight.
One-Page Dungeon Contest Update 2: Four on the Template
After 2 weeks, the one-page dungeon contest is revving up nicely. Entries have been coming in at a steady pace from all over the world. Seriously, this week we got entries from Australia, Italy and Germany just to name a few. The dungeons are also very very diverse showing off various genres and themes.
I can’t wait to start judging this as I already expect some heated discussions between the judges. Hopefully it won’t come to dueling.
This week Chgowiz and I thought it would be nice to discuss how the template can be used to help DMs/GMs create adventure faster. We’re taking a He said/He said approach to it, so after you’ve gone through my answers, have a look at his.
How can I use the template to Brainstorm adventure ideas?
What’s great about a one page template is that you can print out a bunch of them and have at them with nothing but a pencil. Depending on your personal adventure design style, you may start with drawing a map and then as you draw/cross-out/erase/redraw you might see an adventure seed unfold. As ideas come to you, you can jot them down directly in the large white spaces (The Title bar, the right box or the bottom half ‘dungeon key’) sitting around the map.
Don’t feel constrained by the page, you don’t have to finish one, you can scrap it and start again, or you can return to an unfinished one to steal an idea, a structure or complete it.
Once you’ve got your dungeon’s idea firmly in mind, you can re-do it with your favorite document creation tools (Word, Gimp, Photoshop, etc).
Alternatively, you can start by jotting down plot ideas and room contents on the template and draw a dungeon to fit your ideas. This backwards approach is also a great brainstorming strategy as the constraints you give yourself by pre-designing the adventure’s content can help you draw a map more easily.
At least, that’s how my creative process works for me.
How do I approach dungeon building that includes a sense of setting when being brief?
A common thing among GameMasters is that they get lost in the details of their adventure. They start to design an adventure and get caught up in writing pages and pages of maybes/options/background material. All this, while possibly useful in the coming game, can end up eating a lot of your most productive time where your mind is set to prepping your game.
Using a one-page document to fit your adventure forces you to focus on what the PCs are going to have to do in the adventure, and spend less time on “getting it perfect”. If you see it to the end, you’ll at least have a good idea of what’s going to happen and how.
Once you are done doing that, you will likely have a To-DO list of things to finish your prep, keeping you organized and focused. For example, when I designed the Font of Sorrows, I drew the map and filled the template in less than 2 hours (counting me inking over my pencil-drawn map and cutting and pasting the document). After that, I knew that I had to get monster stats, place treasures and work out the terrain features and of each encounter.
This was as clear a roadmap to finish the adventure as I was likely to get.
How do I make the one-page template fit my own system of choice?
I think that the one-page template is perfect for D&D 4e if you use it at two different levels of your prepping.
First off, the template is perfect to act as a summary of your site-base adventure. Exactly like the maps and short keys you find in current D&D published adventure, a completed template can represent each locale or dungeon level in your adventure. In that, the template is used exactly like for other role playing game.
But here’s where the template really shines. You can modify it a bit to use one sheet (possibly two) for each encounter! The map is there to draw a larger scale depiction of the encounter’s battlemap and you can use all the remaining white space to include monster stat cards, tactics and terrain features.
Even if you keep monster stats in a different place, you can detail individual NPC reactions and describe traps and other hazards in detail.
In fact, when I have a bit more time to focus on that, I think I’ll mod the template and release a 4e pack.
How do I think the one page can be used by other DMs?
The template is simple enough to cater to the styles of all types of DM.
Freeform DMs that prefer Sandbox campaigns can create many one-pagers to drop on players at a moment’s notice and improv anything that isin’t already written. In fact that’s probably what many old-school users of the template do.
DMs who prefer more structured game notes can use the template like I’ve been describing above. First they can use it as a brainstorming tool. Then, they can use it again as a more refined adventure summary to place at the start of thier gaming notes.
Also, note that the one-page limit only applies to the contest we’re having now. DMs are free to explode the template to take as many pages as they need too.
There you have it. Now I’m curious to see what Chgowiz said on his side… I guess I’ll know later when both posts go up.
So don’t wait, send in your entry if you haven’t done so already. The number of prizes is large and the pool of entries is not that big, you have a good chance of coming out with a prize!
Best of luck!
Contest Rules:
1. Participants create a one page dungeon using the template found here. For a contest entry example see here.
2. The dungeon must have the following features:
- Name of Dungeon
- Map
- Dungeon Key (in an edition-neutral form: Description of monsters, Treasure, Traps, etc… No game stats)
OPTIONAL (If you can fit them on one page…)
- Wandering Monster or Random Event tables or a list of scripted “events” that can occur over the adventure
- Background
- Additional descriptions that add to the dungeon, such as detailed description of trap or trick or unique feature.
3. Only one entry per participant. Participants may revise/replace their entries up till the end of contest, with the last revision counting as their official entry. Entry may win grand prize or one of the runner up prizes, plus any number of alternative prize categories.
4. Participants are allowed to modify the template, provided it remains a one-page entry.
5. Submission must be emailed in PDF, Word or Open Office format at the following address: onepage@chattydm.net
6. Submitting a dungeon to the contest releases it under the Creative Common Share-alike license (US 2008) with credit to the contest participant.
7. Contest closes on May 14th 2009 at Midnight.
The prizes (oh yes, the prizes!)
Grand Prize
- Patron membership of Wolfgang Baur’s Open Design
- Quarterly membership to Monte Cook’s Dungeon a Day
- A full Licence for Smitework’s Fantasy Grounds II
- 1 year membership to Obsidian Portal
- 50$ Gift Certificate from One-Bookshelf
- 4 Badges to Neoncon 2009
Grand Prize Runner-Up: Old School Dungeon Design
- Bundle of Goblinoid Games product
- Bundle of Brave Halfling Production products
- Otherworld Miniatures Demon Idol Miniature
- Bundles of Fight On and Knockspell issues
- Bits of Darkness Bundle from Tabletop Adventures
- 6 month membership Obsidian Portal
- 2 Badges to Neoncon 2009
Grand Prize Runner-Up: New Edition Dungeon Design
- D&D 4e Dungeon Delve & Adventurer’s Vault
- Fantasy Grounds II License
- 6 month membership Obsidian Portal
- 2 Badges to Neoncon 2009
To divide among other Categories
- Open Design’s Kobold’s Guide to Game Design
- Quarterly membership to Monte Cook’s Dungeon-a-Day
- Bundle of Necromancer Games products
- Bundle of Brave Halfling Production PDF products
- Bundle of Knockspell and City Encounter PDFs
- Bundle of Fight On Magazine (issues 1-4 PDFs)
- Tabletop Adventure’s Bits of Darkness Bundle
- Tabletop Adventures’ Deck O’Names Set
- A few D&D 4e Adventures and Hardcovers
- Otherworld Miniatures – Pig Faced Orcs (Or Box of Minis)
- Goodman Games – Random Esoteric Creature Generator
- Badges to Neoncon 2009
Our sponsors!
These prizes have been generously donated by our sponsors – they really are excited about this contest and we hope you are just as excited about their support. Please be sure to show them your support as well.
- Avatar Art
- Brave Halfling Publishings
- DungeonADay
- Fight On Magazine
- Goblinoid Games
- Goodman Games
- Mythmere Games
- Necromancer Games
- NeonCon
- Obsidian Portal
- Open Design
- Otherworld Miniatures
- Smiteworks
- Tabletop Adventure
If you have any questions about the contest, please feel free to contact either of us: Phil (Chattydm@chattydm.net) and/or Michael (chgowiz@gmail.com)
