Page 1
My first draft where I try to gather ideas.
Page 2
The second draft turned out to be a road block. I could not get past it.
I’m working on a dungeon level for Fight On that is more akin to a small underworld. At first, I wanted to map it all. Then I realized that I really wanted to keep everything short. I was thinking of the One Page Dungeon model. My first thought was that I’d have a map of important locations because I love maps, and then I’d write on the map itself instead of writing a separate map key. In a way, that’s what my Water Temple (SVG) does, even if it isn’t such a great dungeon to adventure in.
With all the talk about Vornheim, though, I’ve started thinking about using tables to generate an entire region. Instead of having a spatial map with a room key and a small table of random encounters, have a vague and inspiring map, practically no room key, a small number of very important random encounters, and perhaps an interesting NPC or two per region.
I really should get a copy of Vornheim to see whether this is how Zak does it. Also, check out his Hack This Book Contest.
So now my goal is this:
1. a read-aloud sentence for the arrival—as short as possible but enough to buy the referee some time
2. a very short description—preferably in bullet list form for a referee to skim
3. an interesting NPC—usually a leader with information relevant to the various things players might want to do
4. a point or two of what can be gained here
5. an inspirational little sketch
6. a random table for interesting encounters—these can be small such as a group of enemies leading to a fight
7. events—these can be large such as invasions from other factions or changes the party might effect
I had some sketches already, but nothing solid. Today I started writing stuff up using this concept. What do you think—does this look like a format you would use at your table? I think it would work for me, but I haven’t tested it.
“The river opens out into a kind of lake and soon you see gas bubbles bursting and you smell sweet rot.”
To do: a decent scan and some post-processing.
/pics/5787157242_a6a5d529ed.jpg
Theme: frogs, floating eyes, stench
Encounters:
1. a raft with 2d6 *boglings* (HD 1; AC 7; Atk 1 weapon (1d6); MV 4/15; submerged they surprise 5/6, jumping charge), they fear and hate foreigners, too afraid to attack, may act as guides
2. a green glow at the shore outlines the toad fane occupied by 5d6 *boglings* and run by *Onbog*, the undead servant of Tsathoga (HD 7: AC 4; Atk 1 weapon (1d8); MV 12; *horn of frog birth* will summon thousands of frogs and green fog from the surrounding ground, *amputating meat cleaver* will cut a limb on a 20 (roll 1d4 to determine arm or leg) which Onbog will eat the next round and then flee)
3. a camp with 1d6×10 *boglings* built around the decaying carcass of a Styx whale cut open, grubs everywhere and an invitation to a poisonous feast (save or contract a debilitating gut rot giving you a -2 on all your rolls)
4. a *giant ancient eel* attacks (HD 8; AC 8; Atk 1 bite (3d6); MV 15; will grab a victim off the boat on a 20 and dive next round; victims save vs. death every round or die)
5. underneath the lake an *eye tyrant sorcerer* named Valkhazar dreams and as he does, eyes pop out from the lake floor, bubble up and weave what they see into its dreams—but sometimes these visions demand investigation—such as now (HD 15; AC 4; Atk 1 bite (2d6); MV 9; disintegrating gaze (save vs. rays or take 3d6), paralyzing gaze (save vs. paralysis or be held and helpless while the gaze does not waver), canceling gaze (save vs. spells or be unable to cast spells and all magic items loose their power while the gaze does not waver), charming gaze (save vs. spells or be charmed for a day))
6. *orcs on air sharks* throwing bottles containing green slime at any of the above (see *shark den* for more info about the orcs)
Bogling Names: Slap, Niwash, Blair, Darp, Oort, Karg, Ashzwash, Mort
Events:
1. if the *river runs dry* (see *fortress dam of iX*) this will awaken and antagonize the eye tyrant sorcerer and aggravate Onbog—and if thus cornered he will reveal the passage to the *eternal swamp* where the elder frog demon *Bilapudee* can be found
2. if a *ghoul company* marches along the shores of the lake, they will avoid the muddier sections because of the weight of the cart; they will also fall upon any boglings and turn them into ghouls in order to replenish their ranks
See also: 2011-03-31 How To Organize Adventure Notes.
2011-03-31 How To Organize Adventure Notes
#RPG
(Please contact me if you want to remove your comment.)
⁂
I really really like the Bubbling Stench. Onbog, the dreaming eye tyrant and the frog demon are great ideas that make me want to go there!
Using distinct areas with random encounter tables is very much to my liking. Some thoughts I had reading your post:
Really cool stuff!
– lior 2011-06-02 18:02 UTC
---
I have Vornheim and will bring it next time we play together. It’s cheap enough to just buy though.
– Harald 2011-06-02 20:07 UTC
---
And re: Tables themselves, they’re a very efficient way to present setting; to say it’s generated by them is somewhat misleading IMHO.
– Harald 2011-06-02 20:10 UTC
---
I like the idea of improvisation help for the referee –- what would you like to see? A small list of hypothetical questions of the kind you provided? (”What happens when the eye tyrant dreams?”) (Excellent question.)
I definitely like the idea of events in one area affecting other areas. I’ll have to remember to add such entries to the list of events for each area.
Thank you for the feedback and the kind words.
– Alex Schroeder 2011-06-03 01:29 UTC
---
Having things happen for reasons the players/characters *can figure out* is pretty awesome!
– Harald 2011-06-03 13:31 UTC
---
As I see it, impro-help for the GM can come on three levels:
A) Fluff-level: color/fluff like the intro texts, maps, illustrations etc. This helps put everybody into mood, but I think as the hours go by the effect wears out and the GM is on his own. B) As directives: “You should...”, “Think about...”, “Try to...”. This tells the GM more precisely what to do, but it still remains abstract and often vague about *how* to do it. Having the GM answer questions as prep goes would be this level. C) As procedures: “If X happens, add N tokens to ...”, “Whenever Y is used up, roll Z...”. This really helps/forces the GM to react in certain ways and can give a flavor and depth to the scenario that the GM would otherwise have to imrpovise on his own under time pressure.
As I have said before, I really like to see/develop GM help on procedure-level (C). How in this case? That’s hard! The best I came up with so far:
For the eye tyrant: each time his dream-eyes see the party, the GM decides what they see: choose one of Blood(violence,anger..), Joy(merriment, singing...) or Magic.
For Onbog: if the party has left the Bubbling Stench, evaluate the contact they had with Onbog (directly or indirectly via his minions) and choose one of Destruction, Friendship or Neglect (whatever best describes nature of the contact). Follow the instructions:
Phooo... That was my brain dump. Pick out what you like if you want to.
– lior 2011-06-03 15:42 UTC
---
I love it. The only drawback I see right now is that it would take up a lot of space in comparison to the other stuff. I’d have to try it. Perhaps it is fitting to spend that much time and space on NPC interactions, after all.
– Alex Schroeder 2011-06-03 16:35 UTC
---
Looks awesome!
– Jonas 2011-06-03 16:38 UTC
---
About the presentation, a wild idea: Even though you have areas with random encounters instead of location with fixes events, you can still draw all N possible encounters into the map - each indexed with a number. They just do not represent precise locations. The Bubbling Stench would have the Boggling patrol’s raft, Toad’s Fane, etc. drawn into it. Old maps often include details showing the monsters to be expected in the area, local peasant occupations etc.. Those could be interpreted as visual representations of encounter tables:
http://espliego.files.wordpress.com/2008/01/1500px-carta_marina.jpeg
The secondary random tables can be drawn the same way too. Historic maps often include cartouches with details and scrolls with text:
http://alteagallery.com/jpegs/largeimages/10352.jpg
Of course, the whole text will not fit on the map and will have to be provided separately. But once the GM read through the text the map should be enough to remind him of the table items.
To see that would be so cool! Let me know if I can be of any help (or if you’d rather want me to shut up 😉
– lior 2011-06-03 17:47 UTC
---
I find your feedback very inspiring and definitely want to see more! I will make an effort to push myself and write up more stuff because I now need to figure out what works and what does not.
For the moment I have a sketch of the intro map that shows how the regions all link up. Adding more small info pictures and little keywords.
/pics/5793022199_2622f9b031.jpg
I think what would be work is if I posted each area as it reaches the 60% mark (no editing, no nice pictures, no play testing) and I will try to incorporate feedback such as the one above with the curses, reactions, etc. And if it gets published, I’ll add you name as a co-author. 😉
Another map example I did for somebody else in Fight On #9:
/pics/4599297648_5e50bf3f2c.jpg
That at least looks much cleaner than a previous sketch of mine where I tried mixing inspirational map and lots of labels:
/pics/4195476858_d76961a1f5.jpg
A cleaned up version of the above did make an appearance in Fight On... 2010-03-18 Session Preparation has more info but strangely enough the cleaned up version is still missing. I should upload it one of these days.
2010-03-18 Session Preparation
– Alex Schroeder 2011-06-03 21:39 UTC
---
Suggestions:
Continue this dialog in wiki?
– lior 2011-06-04 09:56 UTC
---
Note that you can always click *Edit this page* at the very bottom and just edit this wiki page like any other – including old comments. Do you think continuing this conversation via email is more productive? I’m not sure who else is following it. Either way is fine with me. 🙂
– Alex Schroeder 2011-06-04 14:29 UTC
---
Orcs on air sharks?!?!?
– Adrian 2011-06-06 14:25 UTC
---
This adventure is made of win! 😀
– Alex Schroeder 2011-06-06 14:44 UTC
