Player Wilderness Map and Doodle

 Here's another awesome player map from my campaign - an overland journey from Kaserolle (in the south) to Goran's Anvil (unmarked, in the north). Along the way, the players met with owls of doom, a goblin head on a stick, an archaeopteryx flying out of a misty chasm, and much more.

Click to enlarge ...

The same player sketched this scene of a shepherdess' reaction to a group of six armed strangers emerging from the woods, led by a dwarf, near the start of the "Faerie" episode they are currently in. This is the moment before she screamed and ran for the village.

We all agree that she should remember to bring her sketch book to the game more often ...

Flattering Waters and Wriggling Worms: An Annotated Player Report

My wife is one of the players in my ongoing campaign and wanted to write this play report, to which I have added my GM-ly notes. This example also leads in to something I want to discuss next couple of posts, about how improvisation often leans toward the mediocre and what to do about it. I'll get there, strangely enough, by way of the advantages of flying and burrowing creatures in combat.

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The second session in the new overland campaign found the Band of Iron trundling east from Wonderbridge.  The dwarven road continued along the rim of a deep river canyon stuffed with exotic flora and fauna. 

Courtesy of Jim Pacek's Wilderness Alphabet. I stocked the 5 mile hexes two deep on either side of the road with a 1/12 chance of each one having an unusual feature. This misty canyon will be very interesting to descend into, if adventurers will it ... already a strange lizard-bird has been spotted and mighty bellowing heard from within.

No exploring, though - the Band had already signed on as guards for Orm's trade caravan out of Kaserolle, duty called, the wagons rolled on.

The caravan has been camping overnight, usually at handy farm villages. Next stop after Wonderbridge was Castle Gneissburg, home to a certain Lord Hugo and the ex-bandit men at arms gathered about him.  Former Kaserolle city guard and part-time dungeon chaperone Urbach decided to try his ever-unpredictable luck there, signing on as a member of Hugo's company.. but why did Urbach pay them money?...

A fairly logical ending place for this NPC's character arc. And who knows, there is always the crazy coincidence die to bring him back ...

Heavy rains swelled the River of Flattery along the caravan route, notorious for its magical reflective properties.  After unloading the caravan to cross a rickety bridge, the party investigated a basin at nearby Bonny Facholie village that collected the magical water.

At this point the party had already received fair warning via a legend of a maiden already beautiful who looked at the waters of flattery and pined away Narcissus-fashion. The River of Flattery was a random Wilderness Alphabet feature - a  reflective river - but everything else was my own improvisation, If the river gave a flattering reflection, which was dangerous if the gazer was already good-looking, then ugly people would settle by choice near it, and handsome ones far away. The road went through the handsome people's village, and so they've set up a basin with water from the river as a tourist trap, charging admission to look within.

Shakira looked at his reflection  - and saw a handsome dwarf who could have been his brother.  However the reflection's expressions and movements did not match his own.

In fact, they were disgusted and contemptuous ... the reflection gazes also ...

The often self-effacing Sivir looked - miraculously, she didn't taste the water - and gained new and lasting confidence in her appearance.  (Permanent +1 Charisma, from 7 to 8)  Shea, quite handsome for a fellow who used to live on a mountainside with goats, looked as well - and had quite a different experience.  The compelling face he saw in the basin's water was bewitching, mesmerizing.. he was loath to admit it was not himself!  Slim drew forth a small mirror from her pack, showing it to the prophet in an attempt to strengthen his grasp on reality.  Alas, this aid backfired - Shea was horrified at the mirror's truth and could not shake the disturbed feeling.  (mirror granted 2nd saving throw which was a critical failure, permanent -1 Wisdom, fortunately no effects on his bonuses)

I don't feel too bad about this because there was fair warning about the effects of the gazing. All in all this was a new experience for the party, an outdoor implementation of a "dungeon trick" style encounter.

After passing a second castle flying the colors of Goran's Anvil, the party encountered panicked refugees from the nearby sheepfarming hamlet of Rosemary.   Horrified rambling about hypnosis, unnatural bleeding, sheep savaged by unseen forces from beneath the earth, a mad piper's eerie music luring the villagers on to their doom ensued - the Band had heard enough and charged to the rescue, promising to meet Orm's caravan at a village passed earlier. 

A Wilderness Alphabet ruin, a village, and yes the table rolled "worms" as a form of corruption. This led me to prepare a whole mini-adventure, reinforcing the theme of artifacts made from purple worm teeth - the party is on the trail of a treasure map found in a scroll case made from one, the piper's flute is similarly made, and more clues may be forthcoming ...

The Band encountered a dazed, hypnotized villager, then crested the nearby hill to find the Piper and his music charming not only the villagers but a collection of unnaturally large worms, several burrowing through the fields, one massive specimen sloshing through a nearby bog.  The madman and his worms battled the party, who took him down in relatively short order, loosening his sorcerous grip on the beasts and rendering them nonhostile.

A combination of good tactics, circling around to get bowshots at the piper; the piper's own madness, sitting in the doorway of his hut when he should have taken cover; and a few other issues which I will discuss in the next post.

Then Sivir decided to "experiment" with the piper's exotic flute... Her far from melodious playing drew the immediate attention of all four worms, who renewed their attack.  The party felled the three smaller worms and tried unsuccessfully to lure the huge mottled swamp worm onto dry land.  The worm instead grasped the fallen body of the Piper (and its prized leather armor) and dragged it back into the bog.


Actually, a bloodworm, from the Fiend Folio. I used giant leech stats for the lesser worms.

From Zak Smith's FF series.

Slim then tried to skulk into the bog in pursuit of the armor, provoking the mottled worm AGAIN.  The party was lucky (or blessed by Invictus?) as the worm was out of commission for two rounds in the resulting fight, one from a shrewd stunning blow dealt by the dwarf, another from its own confusion.  Courting disaster the Band was victorious once again, acquiring some worthy loot and leaving unanswered questions.  How could they shake the sorcerous hypnosis gripping the village of Rosemary?  What was the import of the Piper's strange items?  Could they make off with key bits of the mottled worm's remains?  What were those bits worth?  When would they meet up with Orm's caravan?  And most importantly, did Shea's dog Grigio still love him after the magic basin incident?

Of course he does, dogs are not that shallow. As an aside, we found email a good venue to do mopping-up and investigation interactions in between sessions.

Iron God: Should All Dungeons Have a Climax?

To close out my play report/review of Matt Finch's Tomb of the Iron God, here are some of the changes I made in actual play, in line with my last post about dungeon story. Spoilers follow.

The goblins had smart leadership, and I played it that way. After their group took about 50% casualties  in one epic battle, I had them leave the dungeon. In a later session they snuck back while the party was in the dungeon and blocked their exit with a large rock. Although the party eventually moved the rock by chipping away at the doorway (soft limestone), the tactical situation they walked into, fighting up on a stair surrounded by enemies, was almost suicidal for the party. They only prevailed by  luring the overly enthusiastic goblin troops back downstairs into a much less favorable position while their leaders were still under a sleep spell.

I also thought it wasn't realistic to have the animated iron statue of Ardarus just stomping around the same area as the goblins. I decided that the goblins had confined him to his room by stopping the door with an iron brace, but that when they left the dungeon they threw the bar into the storage room. The clues were the notches still carved into the wood of the door and the stone of the ground. The party picked up on the clues and found the abandoned brace. So they approached the room with extreme caution and were able to block the door again when the statue came to life.

The second level raises the question: should all dungeons have a climax? Tomb of the Iron God is interesting that way.  Its "goal" area - the caverns of the Iron God -  comes on the first level. The second level is a series of strongly themed rooms, where undead stalk, and treasures and other things are hidden in the burial niches carved in almost every wall. In hindsight this arrangement was fine, because it helped preserve naturalism by defying the conventional expectations.

Also, in play it turned out there were a couple of strong concentrations of dangers and treasure on the second level which created climaxes of their own.

The climax I helped to juice up was the three-sarcophagi room. Here, I added a lone ghast living in the secret chamber under the middle tomb. The ghast, it turned out, while still human, had been a mastermind behind the priests' turn to necromancy, and left a diary behind for the players to puzzle out. The poison gas trap in that room, I moved to the left tomb (realism again - if the middle tomb had been disturbed, why was the gas trap still working?), and signaled it with the effigy on the tomb: an alchemist surrounded by toads, snakes and spiders.

The other was the room with an army of skeletons. This proved a tactical challenge on par with the goblins, and this time everything came from the module, which explicitly details their maneuvers. To their credit, the party saw groups of skeletons peeling off into the side corridors, and decided to fight a retreating battle rather than be outflanked. Eventually they found a strong position behind an opened pit and emerged victorious.

All the same, more could have been done with the story behind the undead. Having skeletons and zombies detailed into guard duty and menial tasks ... finding the necromancy lab where they were raised ... having some clue of why the decision was made to raise them (from town and some documents in the dungeon, I let the party conclude that it was part of the extortion of funeral customers ... pay up more or your loved ones are consigned to a walking hell) ... and how the much more evil switch was decided on from mindless undead to creating actual ghouls (this, I revealed through the ghast's diary, was his doing,  connected to the cult of Orcus.)

Another realistic consideration I added: what the families who buried their dead in the catacombs would have done once they found out that corpses were walking around in there. This created a number of missions for the party, where long-dead loved ones identified by particular personal items were sitting in one niche or other, and a bounty would be paid for the return of their bones. This kind of issue marked a larger opportunity for dungeon-story development that I mostly missed this time around. Are there haves and have-nots in the burial places? Did one group of people get singled out to be turned into skeletons and zombies? Is there a special section where the monks themselves are buried?

If you're running the module, I found that the second level tends to drag on a bit. I would recommend you trim anywhere from 4 to 8 of the rooms, or replace them with a different styled area ... perhaps a necromancy lab and makeshift shrine to darker gods.

And again, just because I'm pointing out how the module could have been better, doesn't mean I'm slamming it. It is a great setup, and it's probably more fun to work out these details yourself than to get them store-bought. If I run the Tomb of the Iron God again I will certainly take some of these ideas into account and make it a dungeon with a much stronger story behind it. Not a story with an artificial climax like the level boss of a computer game, but one that's woven all through the dungeon. I want to leave players with the impression that their exploration has been about more than filling in a sheet of graph paper.

The Great Dwarf Roll

So the party goes carousing, and Shakira the male dwarf (don't ask) rolls 16 on my carousing table:

I take a few minutes to visit the excusado and tell the players to come up with some suitable dare.

It should be noted that we are in the town Kaserolle, renowned for its annual cheese-rolling competition. It should also be noted that Australians are fond of spectacles involving the rapid transit of dwarfs. I'm not going to say it was our Australian who suggested it, but when I came back, the gauntlet was thrown. The dwarf was dared to roll down Cheese Roll Hill inside a great hollowed-out wheel of cheese.

The cheese was made ready, the dwarf lodged within. The rolling through the streets, out the gate, and to the summit of the hill began. Numerous saves vs. nausea had to be made and the dwarf ended up losing a few hit points along the way.

Cheese Roll Hill, as it turns out, is no bunny slope. Perils include the precipitous Great Gorgonzola Leap, the sharp rocks known as the Grater, and a lethal old pine tree in the middle. The aim was to roll the dwarf-enhanced cheese through the town gates. If you hit an obstacle, you take the damage on the die, and the concussion from the Leap was worth d6.

Thanks to Mike for taking pictures

Using analog simulation principles, the cheese-plus-dwarf was represented by a one pound coin.

Mike, the dwarf's player, angled the cheese-coin just right and wound up rolling off the Leap, taking damage but missing all the obstacles ... and the gate ... in fact, missing the walls altogether ...

What was on the south side of Kaserolle just beyond the walls? Why, a river and some washerwomen's huts. I set up the ramp again, laying down huts using regular d6 (representing damage) and emotion dice (representing attitudes of inhabitants if hit... both angry ...) The cheese missed all the huts and went into the river. I said, what the hell, roll d6, on a 6 there is a fresh water encounter. 6 comes up, and after some more rolling on my under-construction encounter table ...

What better beast to bedevil a Canadian? The beaver, of course, starts gnawing at the cheese that is keeping the dwarf afloat. Clutching to the last chunk, Shakira gives the critter a sharp elbow. "Intelligent but docile" - the beaver, annoyed, tail-slaps the dwarf out of the river and onto the bank, doing more damage and taking him down to 1 hp. The beaver climbs up, but the approach of the rest of the spectators and Rex the dog quickly chases it away.

Thanks to Lui for this stirring portrayal in Photoshop

The spectators, cheering and fist-pumping, take the dazed Shakira and toss him in a blanket. Coins get thrown into the blanket until he has recouped all the money he had spent on ale and the cost of the cheese. The tale of the dwarf is told and retold all the next day and will no doubt become a legend of Kaserolle.

I was actually thinking of making my carousing table more matter-of-fact, giving results that can take effect instantly, so that players can carouse at the end of a long session without more fun and games. I'm not so sure about that any more ...

Social Set Pieces in Campaigns

Although mapping and exploring and figuring and fighting are all lots of fun, the best campaigns also mix in a different kind of action in a less dangerous social setting. I've been doing this in all my campaigns, and noticing a spectrum of the kind of interludes I run. Most of them are heavily improvised with the help of various tables, player input, and off-the-cuff inventions. Many of them stem from the carousing and gourmandising rules, or from attempts to buy services or sell loot. Some are just generated as random encounters.

1. The expository set piece. Sometime's there's just sheer fun in kicking back and entertaining the players. You might play this out as the characters watching a religious ritual that explains a mythic story, a procession in which the major social forces in a city each represent themselves, an overheard gossip conversation between two washerwomen. In my Trossley campaign this role was played by the gourmandising feast of the henchman Cordoon. In the current Kaserolle epic I spent a good half hour relating the rhyming play performed by a troupe of traveling players that was commenting on the current action and giving intimations of connections to larger events ... somewhat inspired by Gene Wolfe's similar use of a theater troupe in the Book of the New Sun.
2. The interactive set piece. Here, there is more of a conversation, although the interaction is not exactly free; it follows set rules or is bound by an interrupting event. Your players might be wagering with the patrons on either side as they watch a horse race, conversing with the other passengers as a ferry barge glides past the main sights of a river city, discussing all the reasons why the long-winded merchant should buy their carpet for fifty silvers as he lists all the reasons why only forty will do. In Trossley the players had their individual questions for the lammasu Saheedra; in Kaserolle last week a gourmandising session turned into a feast at a cheese restaurant that alternated conversational opportunities with several NPCs and lavish descriptions of the courses of the meal.

In short, I find it good to have a structure of some kind for audiences and parties so that the players make every word count and the event doesn't drag or fade.

3. The fully gamified set piece. I hadn't really done anything like this before today in the Kaserolle campaign. It's a set piece where the players not only interact but take part with their own mini-game. Imagine a conversation over a card game, for example, gamed out with actual cards, where the NPC grow more generous or cranky as they win or lose. In Trossley a carousing attempt led to a short knife fight and an enemy made. This time I spiced up a carouse table with  ... well, I'll really have to wait for the photos to get to me to really do it justice. This was unbelievable, one of the best times I've ever had at the table and with the full input and cooperation of the players.

Does anyone else find room for set pieces in their campaigns? What kind of techniques do you use to keep them moving along?