Sandbox Reflections

Robert Conley shared “Blackmarsh” with the online community–a great sandbox setting that I’ve looked over and thought about adapting. Good stuff!

Anyway, I was reading in the “Adventuring Advice” section, and ran across this:

After each session of the campaign, review what the players did. Look at your original timeline of events, see what impact their actions had, and make the needed changes. Sometimes the players’ actions will lead to a new and unexpected chain of events.

The creativity of the referee comes by not forcing his players to follow a predetermined story, but to develop new and interesting consequences based on the players’ actions. Use the NPC’s motivations and personalities to decide which consequences are the most likely and pick the most interesting.

The result is a campaign where the players feel they are forging their character’s destiny within a living, breathing world. It will not only be fun and adventurous, but also filed with surprises. Consequences will accumulate and spin the campaign into unexpected directions.

I agree with all this, absolutely. My caveat: this is only fun if your players can handle it. The unexpected consequences can trigger pouting and resentment.

Sometimes players use a sandbox like a catbox then complain of the smell.

Death of the Widow Dragon

The quest to slay the Widow Dragon began in September 2011, and last night it drew to a most satisfying conclusion. Here is a summary of all eleven adventures, on average one a month.

• First. Tulip meets up with someone who knows a wizard who is looking for a dragon’s lair, and gets involved.
• Second. He joins an expedition to get into a long-dead hero’s trophy room to learn the location of the dragon’s lair.
• Third. Traveling towards a port where he can get passage closer to the dragon’s lair, he is sidetracked into a dungeon crawl to earn some cash.
• Fourth. He travels the dangerous last leg of the road to the port city.
• Fifth. He rescues a scholar who is familiar with the dragon’s lair, breaking him out of a prison, and acquires a pirate ship to work out transporting treasure.
• Sixth. He gets to the island with the lair on it, and begins searching for a way in through the magically sealed back door of the lair. He meets a frog god that assures him if he collects 4 pieces of magic amber, a big iron rose, and a big stone basket, the frog god will give him the key to the back door.
• Seventh. Tulip and his crew make it to Mire Port, then back out into the Black Mire, finding the amber.
• Eighth. Tulip and Vayu go out into the Black Mire again, and this time defeat a necromancer and get the rose, turning it in with the frog god (as well as exploring.)
• Ninth. Tulip puts together a bigger crew, gets banished from Mire Port, and collects the basket, waking a dark cosmic power in the process.
• Tenth. Tulip and company get the key to the ghim-locked back door of the mountain, and finally enter the Elvenforge.
• Eleventh. The grand conclusion, the slaying of the Widow Dragon herself.

So! Tulip will retire, his player and I agreed on that early on. He’s 15th level, a nice number to go out and become an NPC. Shaun’s Awesome Isles are in the Breathing World too, so some people may choose to move their PCs over there–including Shaun, with Vayu. After all, good PCs never die; they just become NPCs.

The characters got a pile of incredible magic loot, as well as a bit of coin, even though they didn’t get to own the whole Elvenforge. Also, they should cut Ashook and Geshinara in on the treasure, not to mention all the poor suckers who lost their health in the Black Mire assisting this quest. We’ll see what they do.

What else is there for those who may continue adventuring at some point?

• Skritt has a curse, poor goblin. It rains wherever he goes. They might want to break that.
• Some Dragonites may have survived. If they learned fire elemental magic from an ancient dragon, they could be formidable. After all, Grizelle (their teacher, the Widow Dragon) was there to avenge her mate, Gris. Might they avenge her?
• The Pembriss Scholars still have a bounty out for Vayu and Tulip.
• Some of the magic loot they scored might have some complications. Like the platinum signet ring, for example. Or anything they looted from the room of the dead.
• How would the ghim react? They were furious the seals were broken, but on the other hand the gods in the Black Mire are exhausted, the dragon dead, the Prince of Flame released and gone…

The end is the beginning is the end. Never tie up all your loose ends. We had a great romp for an epic quest to slay a dragon, it turned out epic enough (I think), and we enjoyed ourselves immensely. I think that’ll do.

Adventure Generator by OFTHEHILLPEOPLE

Here is a great adventure generator by OFTHEHILLPEOPLE, who hangs out on the OSH forum and swings by my blog from time to time. He needed a place to hang it up, and I put it with the resources on the Old School Hack page because it is a great resource. Grab your d12 and generate as much plot as you need!

Random Adventure Generator

Here’s an example generated by 10d12.

A princess approaches the party to transport the deed to a very important property from her fortress to the mansion of a local hero who works for a duke whose support is crucial for the king. She knows a band of mercenaries bars the way, trying to keep the transfer of title from occurring. She believes they were hired by a local cult that has designs on that property.

She sends a representative with them. What she doesn’t know is that her representative works for a crime lord, and his instructions are to kill the party (if necessary) and steal the document (he has an ambush set up with confederates to help, and a supply of poison; he’ll cook!). The crime lord has similar agents planted among the mercenaries. Turns out the crime lord has deeper pockets than the temple, and better intel. The mercenaries and the party may be well served fighting their way out of the trap together.

The property deed is for territory currently held by squatting bandits. It has a secret diamond mine on it that’s part of the political maneuvering of the kingdom. Whoever holds the deed will be able to be fabulously rich; the crime lord, the temple, or the duke that supports the king. The characters may choose to support one of these factions, and that could make a huge difference; whoever they support, they must be very careful about it, or their patrons may arrange for their disappearance. No way they walk out without any enemies. And if they try to keep it? Well, all 3 factions are furious with them and will act.

They probably won’t find out about the diamond mine; the princess knows, and the duke, and the crime lord, but not the cult. Nobody tells their agents such a juicy fact…

You combine this with a random name generator and the random battlefield generator for when it hits the fan, maybe build the local cult using the church builder in the Portable Pantheon, (or a church from here),  and you’re set.

If you have time and interest, you can make the characters involved (crime lord, an agent or two, leader of the cultists) all 1d5 levels each (maybe +2 for the local hero, if you bother to stat him up–he could be cavalry, maybe.)  Randomize their classes and talents from Fictive’s Talents and Templates.  The rest is minions and guards.

For extra pizazz, you could generate the town with the princesses fortress, and the town they’re headed to, using this. You can also generate a legendary monster that could show up to help or harm their efforts, a random encounter in the dangerous terrain they’ll be crossing.

What kind of terrain? Well, you could always go here. You can even get hex descriptions.

Weaving random results together into a cohesive adventure is pure fun for me. I imagine the process appeals to Old School Hack fans too. Using these tools means you can make up an adventure you wouldn’t have come up with on your own, but it’s still super-fast and delightful. This kind of adventure planning nails the “sweet spot” I’m aiming for: 10 minutes of prep per hour of game. Want a 3 hour game? Spend 30 minutes with these tools and you’re ready.

Thanks to OFTHEHILLPEOPLE for adding another tool to the toolbox.

Converting Modules to Old School Hack

Today we will talk about converting all your old modules to Old School Hack! It’s easy once you get started. Here is my suggested guidance.

Step One. The “Wow” Button.

West End Games’ version of the Star Wars RPG talks about the “wow” button. Remember when the star destroyer was flying overhead? When the Millennium Falcon flew at the closing jaws of the space slug? When Vader appeared in the carbon freezing chamber on Bespin? Those punch the “wow” button.

So comb through the scenario and find a handful of “wow” moments to build the game around. Revelations, gorgeous scenery, epic clashes, and so on. These are things you want your players to talk about years later–images that will stay with them.

Don’t hit it so often it becomes the new baseline. But if you have no “wow” button moments in the scenario, you don’t have something worth adapting.

Step Two. Cinematic Backdrops.

As you work on the “movie trailer” for your adventure, what parts would make the cut? Cool battles over a dizzying drop on a slick bridge in front of a waterfall! Flanked by displacer beasts on rough stone at dusk! Combat at the foot of a giant standing stone, or better yet, giant statue! A horde of minions rushing through shattered ruins at a determined last stand!

These aren’t as big as the “wow” button moments, but they are far more plentiful. You should have at least one per scene; a moment where the director of cinematography gets nominated for an award.

Most of your adventure should have cinematic backdrops. Either go back and add them, or drop the boring parts.

If your adventure takes place in a dungeon of worked stone and 10′ by 10′ stone hallways, that’s dull. Make the mortar luminescent, stamp each stone with a sigil noting one of the carver’s ancestors, make the stones translucent, or the teeth of giants–something.

If it’s a 10′ x 10′ x 10′ room with an orc guarding a chest, then the orc might have horns and a tail and a double-bitted axe, and the chest could be a nut bound shut with iron, and the room could be luminescent with the orc-monster’s condensed breath–yeah, the orc thing breathes luminescent smoke.

Go big or go home.

Step Three: Cool (but focused) Foes.

Look at your monsters. Pick 1-3 things about each that make them cool. Attach a talent, or make up a game effect to cover it. If it is magical or unusual, give it an Awesome Point cost–the DM must feed the bowl that many Awesome Points to activate the monster’s ability.

You do not have to attach numbers to cosmetic changes. The orc in the previous example might have the normal properties of an orc, but look different and be played differently. The numbers don’t define your foes, they just try to keep up.

Don’t try to convert everything about your monsters. Just pick out what makes them cool and focus on that; you can add other stuff during the fight if you want to, after all.

Here are some sample monsters. OSH Monsters

Step Four: The Plot is a Safety Net.

Plan two things in the adventure: what the bad guys want and how they’re going after it, and some points where that plan could be in serious trouble if the characters mess with it.

Your plot is not something that you put together that the group must follow. Instead, prepare the bad guy effort (or the site and its defenses, or the journey and its hazards, etc.) and let those things react normally when the characters challenge them.

When the players do something unexpected, pull at your prep to wrap adventure around their course of action. Do not try to pull their course of action over to wrap around your plot. In that tug of war, you shouldn’t win. Not in this game.

If they don’t want to get involved in what you planned, see what elements they could tangle with independently. Improvise an adventure around that. Maybe in the next adventure, the bad guys from last time got what they were after, and now are tougher challenges for the characters to face. Or maybe they just go away.

Step Five: Give Your Players Entertainment.

If it is a mystery, liberally sprinkle clues. If it is a battle, make sure they’ve got meaningful tactical choices and weapons and support (if needed.) Still, in spite of all that preparation, sometimes your plot blows up.

As part of your safety net, consider; if things go desperately wrong, some characters die, or get hopelessly lost, what are you going to do to make sure the players still have every chance to have fun? If your plot blows up, that shouldn’t spoil their evening! (Even if they blew it up.)

Maybe that means preparing contingencies around your main plot. Or maybe that means having other plots bits on hand you can drop in and elaborate on that have little or nothing to do with the main plot.

This is enlightened self interest. If they are not having a good time, you will not be enjoying yourself nearly as much as if you are the gateway to a game that has lots of awesome moments and delighted players. That’s at the heart of Old School Hack; if you don’t like that philosophy, play a different game.

Closing Thought.

Each game has its strengths and weaknesses. Imagine the OSR games are like journal entries, 3E is like a novel, 4E is like a video game–Old School Hack is like a gonzo summer blockbuster movie.

Your special effects budget is limited by your imagination and description. What happens at the table is your Director’s Cut. Like any director, you want to coax the best performance from your ensemble of actors. They will give their best if they feel like they are part of what’s going on, they care about the outcome, and they think they have awesome characters.

Campaign and Seeds: Dwarves of Death 1

The “Dwarves of Death” systems are pretty gruesome. Why go into detailing the horrific obscenities of the necrodwarves? If players are not encouraged to play these monsters, and if player characters cannot use their magic gear or pets, why outline them at all?

The two main answers—help DMs make cinematic backgrounds, and provide dozens of hooks for adventures.

Consider the motives the system creates for necrodwarves—actions that can trigger player character reactions. There are conventions and formulas for fighting necromancers, and the DM should have solid reasons to set up scenarios that echo those formulas and conventions!

• Lore. The rune object system encourages the necrodwarves to know the history of things, so they have a vested interest in getting at obscure lore regarding their items. Stealing books, infiltrating libraries, capturing loremasters, etc.
• Sacrifices. The whole rune system is built to take advantage of sacrifices great and small. To fuel some of these operations, the necrodwarves need a lot of sacrifices. Whole villages, caravans, all kinds of prisoner populations. As they seek slaves, they are made vulnerable: they risk infiltration, they grab people the characters care about, they disrupt the landscape enough to attract military response. More cinematically, the characters are heroic as they race to stop a sacrifice—of individuals that matter to them, or large scale slaughter. You’ve got necrodwarves chanting, wielding knives, overacting and generally announcing they are the bad guy that needs to get stomped right now.
• Desecration. Necrodwarves are motivated to get into the best guarded dwarven holy places. This leads to both very cinematic dungeon dressing and comfortably formulaic scenes of conflict, and also to very understandable conflicts with the dwarves charged with protecting their culture, religion, history, and boundaries.
• The Nature of Evil. Evil destroys itself in the end, so if the situation looks bleak, introduce two necrodwarves of similar stature competing to get the site for their dark master. As they weaken each other, they create opportunities for the characters.
• Quest Inversion. Normally the heroes embark on a mighty quest, and the villains try to stop them. In this version, the villain may have a quest from his or her dark god, and the characters may be the ones trying to stop the quest from reaching its completion.

Following is one possible story arc that is clearly motivated in terms outlined by the material on necrodwarves so far. The arc could be a campaign (scalable for the power level of the party) and/or each point within the arc could provide a single scenario.

Even if the player characters are not directly involved, knowing the mountain kingdom next door is struggling with this threat adds flavor to the world and motivates others who are directly confronting the necrodwarves, possibly giving them reasons to interact with the player characters in different ways (such as hiring them, chasing them away from sensitive areas, asking for their help disposing of corpses, etc.)

Fall of the Mountain King

A dwarven city in the mountains has been severely weakened. (Civil war, invasion, plague, natural disaster, etc.) As their strength wanes, the necrodwarves make their move.

Phase I. Prepare the Way. Led by a Master Meatsmith.

• Necrodwarves go recruiting, capturing dwarves and torturing them until they lose all hope and join the cult, now open to the possibility of being tattooed in the future.
• Necrodwarves go recruiting, sneaking mobs of workers to potter’s fields, mass graves, and other ready sources of bodies. Their raiding is distasteful and unsettling to settlements so violated, but the graverobbers avoid confrontation as they are conserving their strength.
• Necrodwarves clear a beachhead in striking distance of the beleaguered dwarf nation, rousting other threats or rearguards to fortify unpleasantly close.
• Necrodwarves hire, intimidate, or pact with other local chaotic forces to form alliances of mutual defense and to gain shock troops.

Phase II. Confound Foes. Led by a Lord Meatsmith.

• Hire, bribe, subvert, or blackmail agents to begin setting local forces of law on edge and against each other.
• Arrange for plentiful slaves/sacrifices/corpses. Work it out with slavers, prisons, chaotic raiders, or whatever local power is appropriate; begin showing force on their behalf in exchange, keeping them in line and offering them a real service while further intimidating local forces of law.
• Choose a local threat and bolster it, so it draws attention of the forces of law and pulls focus away from the activities of the now-quieter necrodwarves.
• Isolate the dwarves by imitating them and perpetrating atrocities on their allies and neighbors. If possible, trigger conflict to weaken the dwarves and other forces of law and to create hard feelings.
• Set up multiple safe houses in appropriate locations. Install undead defenders.
• Scout out the defenses, layout, and locations in the suffering dwarven city. Locate a suitable holy tomb of a past Thane, the more impressive the better.

Phase III. Strike! Led by a Thane.

• Choose a moment (or create one) where local militaries have their hands full. Ideally this includes the dwarven nation defending their surface gates, or gates to another underground territory. Apply overwhelming force against a select few positions to destroy the dwarven rearguard while they’re distracted.
• Conduct counter-intelligence operations to baffle the dwarves as to the true strength, location, and purpose of the necrodwarves as they close in on the Thane’s sanctified tomb.
• Once the tomb is secure, assign underlings to creating rune armor there, and strike at the harried flanks of the dwarven undercity.
• Upon trapping the hapless dwarves between their former allies and the implacable undead threat, arrange for a mass sacrifice in the Thane’s throne room, celebrating victory and creating a rune weapon to commemorate the victory.
• If possible, capture the Thane, and sacrifice the Thane to create yet another runic weapon!

Phase IV. Endgame. Led by a Lord Meatsmith.

• If the forces of law are powerful, or the dwarves prepared to continue fighting, consider pulling out altogether; leave traps, pockets of undead, desecration, and dwarf-haters in the wake of an orderly retreat from an untenable position.
• If the forces of law are distracted, pull back and use a sub-set of the dwarven city as a hidden base to continue operations, harrying the forces of law and continuing to gather sacrifices.
• If the forces of law are weak, fortify the position, summon kin, raise armies, and prepare to expand from a position of strength.

Best case scenario for the necrodwarves: they have a desecrated forge and a piece of rune armor, they have shattered the strength of a dwarven nation and created one rune weapon for the conquest and another for sacrificing their Thane, and they have new fortified areas from which to continue making mischief.

After a victory on that scale, it is likely another Thane would emerge.

Still, some of the plans are quite tenuous; intentionally or otherwise, a group of player characters could ruin everything. Disrupting grave robberies, rescuing slaves, turning allies against the necrodwarves, bolstering dwarven defenses, striking at leaders of the invasion… they could be quite troublesome.

Which is what adventures are made of.

 More story seeds and campaign formula to come.