Eyes of Idola, Part 2

This is Part 2.  Here is Part 1.

Concept 1: Entering the Dungeon

Descending the stairs into B1, the party reach rooms that are dark, crowded, flooded, and don't have any apparent ways out.  Then after solving some simple training puzzle (for more complicated puzzles later), they open a door and enter B1.

It's a crumbling stone bridge across a huge gap.  The real floor is 20' below you.  No visible walls, the sound of water lapping below, stale seaweed stink.

Approaching the bridge and the undead archer across the bridge will audibly (and slowly) draw his bowstring, giving the party time to react.

Charging across the crumbling bridge will break it and send the whole crumbling thing into the dark water below.

There's also a safe way down like stairs, but players will probably look at the bridge before they take the stairs down a second time.

If they want to kill the skeleton archer on the far side, they'll have to find to approach from the other side, or do some tricky climbing.

Sketch 1

Sketch 2

I'm not sure what shape the big room takes, but it can be a hub room for the Area 1.  (I've decided that this is the public-facing side of the temple grounds.

Area 1 Hub Room

Other ways to enter the dungeon are the elevator and the sealed door, back in the Mouth of Mormo dungeon.  The elevator goes to the crypts.  The sealed door goes to the cloister/monastery portion on the far side of the juggernaut.

Concept 2: The Juggernaut

Crushed bones on the floor, scrape marks on the wall, and ceilings higher than your torchlight illuminates.  The wall is covered with a repetitive motif: warped men and women, all uniquely deformed, carry offerings towards Area 6 (Inner Sanctum).

Of in the darkness, a pair of eyes flares to life 12' above the ground.  Something huge begins grinding its way towards you.  Slow and first, but rapidly gaining speed.  Sparks flash where metal wheels scrape against the walls, illuminating a huge, rigid shape.

Up close, the thing is a stone-and-iron juggernaut, topped with an elephant skull, bound to the machine by silver wires.  A pair of red flames dance in its skull, focused on you with homicidal intensity.

Originally, the area 2 hub was going to be a flooded crossroads that the players would cross on a rowboat or something, and the monster (that is trapped in this zone) was going to be a blob or water weird, but after mulling it over, the juggernaut sounds more fun, and more accessible.

I know that this was supposed to be a water dungeon, but I'm rethinking the flooded rooms bit.  It's something new (yay) and it offers a new challenge (yay) but flooded rooms actually seem to reduce player options (boo) compared to dry rooms.  (This dungeon was also supposed to have the gimmick of water levels that changed with the tide, but I might take that out, too.)

Mechanically, the juggernaut behaves kinda like those big crushy-stabby spike chariots in Elden Ring dungeons.  Although the juggernaut is rudely sentient, not mindless.  (My toxic trait is that I don't think that anything in a dungeon should be truly mindless.)

Cross-shaped areas won't work anymore, we need a new shape for Area 2.  I have a few ideas but I'm thinking about making it triangular, with an opening on each corner and in the middle of each side, for a total of 6.

W goes to Area 6 (Inner Sanctum).

E goes to Area 4 (Crypts)

The two N exits go to the remainder of Area 2 (Cloister/Monastery)

The two S exits go to Area 1 (flooded statue hub)

The reason that some of them are doubled up is because the juggernaut likes to park itself in corners, so it can watch two directions at once.

Area 2 - Built around a square cloister.  Rotating statue puzzle is in the center (rotate the statue to unlock whatever blue door it is currently pointing at).  Scriptoriums, weird cultic induction rooms, and evidence that the abbot was up to some weird shit.

Area 6 - Inner Cloister.  Put all the high weirdness stuff here.  This is the conceptual climax.  Contains Eolalia the Forgotten (the lady of sand).

Area 3 - The Reef Beneath.  I'm moving away from cursed reef and more towards weird goddess of prophecy and mutation.  This area is going to be changed to a little town in the sea cave.  A few buildings on a rocky shore, with a bridge to area 5.

The Sea Cave contains a family of dolphins--some of the most evil creatures known to man.  (Sharks are beloved because they are simple beasts, but dolphins are all allied to the merfolk, and they delight in the murder of men.  They are intelligent enough to know their own magic.  They taught themselves to laugh like humans do in order to taunt us.  The only thing they prefer above murder is rape.)

The dolphins will family tackle people off the bridge, knock them in the water, and then a pair of dolphins will grab your arms and drag you down to the bottom of the save.  They can also squirt water to put out your torch.  (They can echolocate just fine in the dark.)

Area 5 - Ralupon the Red is here.  He believes that you are here because he summoned you.

Factions and NPCs

Ralupon the Red (Manamanian enchanter).  

Metal rings sewn into his hair.  A thin black veil covers his eyes while a huge pair of eyes looks out from a painted wooden “hat” that stands tall upon his forehead.  He is either a wizard, or very superstitious.  He carries a staff.  A small eyebat hangs upside down from one of his ears.  (Eyebats intercept the first spell cast at their wizard.  If they are lucky, they can reflect it.)

Currently a nest of giant starfish + an evil wizard.  They are human hypnotists, enchanters, and illusionists.  They are closely aligned with the Empire of Dathroya, the largest nation of the merfolk.  Most claim that they are their secret vassals.  (This is true.)

He believes that he summoned the party here by burning weird stuff in a fire for a couple of days, at the advice of his master.  (“That curiosity in your heart?  The greed in your belly?  I put that there.”)

If befriended, he can pay you, or teach you enchantment.  You’ll need to travel to Manamar to study under a master and get your spellbook, though.  (Seek out Shaymish.)  Shaymish isn’t a person, it’s a river.  The spirit of that river can teach you enchanting.

He is the son of Razubek the Bey, the guy who originally assaulted this place and killed the cult.  

Ralupon is back to finish what his father started.  He wants to claim the Chalice of Immortality from the Inner Cloister.  He will tell you that strong enchantments prevent him from entering the dungeon.  (False, but contains elements of truth.)  Offers to geas you to help with your resolve.  Will attempt a suggestion if he thinks he can get away with it.  (This isn't evil.  It's not even rude.  It's practical.  Still intends to pay you when you're done.)

When the party meets him, he'll be sitting on a crown of thorns (Giant starfish, stats as ogre) but there is no puppeteer tentacle up his butt.  The giant starfish actually serves him.  If combat breaks out, two more giant starfish burst from where they were burrowed, nearby.  The stars serve him--or maybe he serves the mind stars.

Friendly guy, but the enchanters of Manamar grow up in an environment where love potions are considered completely normal facts of life.  Everyone enchants everyone all the time, for all sorts of reasons.  Because of this, most of his normal behavior (enchanting people) would be considered evil by most civilized people.

He smiles and wishes you well, and he genuinely means it, but he'll never shake your hand.  (Too risky.)  Nor will he ever let you within 10' of him.

Makes a good stew though.

Eolalia the Forgotten

Lives in the Inner Sanctum, wants you to kill Ralupon, destroy the merfolk ghouls that still linger her, and restore the wards.  Will reward you with the chalice of immortality (very reluctantly) and teach you how to be a cleric of Idola.  Long term, she also wants you to find the surviving members of the Idolan cult and convince them to make her human again.

Lives in the inner sanctum, which is completely covered with words.  Eolalia is immortal but her mind is not, and she forgets things constantly.  Because of this, she needs to write her entire history--literally everything she knows--along the walls and floors of the inner sanctum.

At first she wrote on the walls with blood (back when she still had blood) and then scratches.  But now her body is too crumbly to scratch the walls any more, and so she now writes on the floor with sand.  Every square inch of the floor in here is covered in minute sand writing.  A stray footstep would erase parts of her childhood that she would never recover.

Keeper of the Chalice of Immortality.  She is made of sand and can have a very normal conversation with you if you allow her enough time to read things off the walls and floor.

She is made of sand.  As long as she is touching sand, she will instantly regenerate.  (All of the rooms in the inner sanctum are covered in sand.)

The Mannikin

A paperclip maximizer demon thing.

Completely and utterly evil, but also completely focused on maximizing the number of clean and beautiful sets of clothing available for the Abbot to wear.  Cannot leave the a certain area (the cloister?)

Mother Narshay

One of the fully sentient undead, and one of the two leaders of the crypt.  

Wants you to kill all of the remaining merfolk ghouls (she'll know when you're done) and leave the crypts the fuck alone.  

Seriously, why do people keep coming into the crypts?  Its for the dead, not the living.

Salakhan Latsu

Huge, mad, evil ghast.  Distended, elongated, and twisted into a new shape that is better for grasping and swallowing than his living body ever was.  

Leader of the mer-ghouls.  Currently trapped between two portcullises in the BAD HALLWAY.  (This will be the first- or second-most difficult combat in the dungeon.  It'll be telegraphed well--the players can open this useful shortcut at their own discretion.)

(Digression: why the fuck are lacedons just regular dudes?  They should be undead merfolk ffs.)

Cloakers

I forgot they were here.  Led by Mwoheth.

Goblin Merchants

Hatchi Matchi and his "sons".  The goblin king commanded them to open up shop here for 7 years.  He had a good business tip.  (False.  Hatchi Matchi was sent here because he's annoying as fuck and everyone hated him.)

Grandmaster Grunky

Living frog statue that sells maps.

Some Secret Doors

Obvious Door, Hidden Switch

1. 

A round stone in the wall with a pair of holes in it, about 8 inches deep.  About the right size and height for two dudes to stick their peepees in.

One room over is a metal thing shaped like TT.  

This is a handle meant to be inserted into the two holes and rotated.  (You can achieve the same thing with three spears, if needed.)

2. 

Evolved version of the previous switch.  Now the pair of holes is in the bottom of a pool of water.  You'll have to try a little harder to get leverage.

3. 

Next to the sealed door is a doorknob inside a blood-soaked hand mutilation machine.  Reach inside, turn the blood-slick knob, and your hand is painfully removed.

Door is opened by pulling the chandelier.

4.

All of the bricks on the wall are covered with random words.  Print this out and give it to your players.

Except some of them aren’t nonsense words, and can be pressed to spell out “PRAISE IDOLA MOTHER OF WISDOM”, a phrase that is seen elsewhere in the dungeon.  Wrong piles = poison gas or something.

All of the correct tiles are directly above one another.  Once all of them are depressed, you hear a mechanism click inside the wall, something shifts at the top of the wall.  Not clearly visible, but the depressed tiles form a perfect ladder up to the trap door in the ceiling.

5. 

An inscription reads “The key to this door cannot be seen, though all can feel it.  It cannot be held, although all have it except for the dead. From your mouth produce the answer.”

The answer is “breath” or “wind”.  Blow into the hole (a little narrower than your finger) to open the door.

(Eh, this is a fiddly puzzle–put something non-essential behind it.)

6.

This is one of the rooms hidden behind the rotating statue puzzle.  To open the secret door, you need to actually close the entrance door to this room by splitting the party, having half of the party rotate the statue out of alignment.  This reveals the switch on the backside of the door that you opened to enter this room.

Once the secret door is opened, it stays opened, and the party can rejoin and go through the secret passage.

The secret passage holds some monsters to fight, of course.

7.

Maybe combine this with #2?  

Flooded room with switch underwater.  When flipped, all of the water flushes everyone into the next room and into a pit trap.

8.

A bunch of tiles covered with random objects.

A door has a symbol of an egg.  Press all symbols that hatch from an egg.  (Rooster, Snake, Fish, Frog).  

Another door depicts a knight.  Press all the symbols that are weapons (Shield, sword, bow).  The incorrect answers: Crown, Whale, Shepherd’s Crook, Jug of Water, Cottage.

(Rating 2/5 stars.  Kinda fiddly.  Too escape roomy, not OSR puzzly enough.)

Secret Door, Secret Switch

Secret/secret doors should only be used in non-essential cases.  They make good shortcuts to areas that can be reached in other ways.  This lets skilled players access other areas earlier (like the Inner Sanctum), allows them to go around monsters they don't want to fight, and lets them sneak up behind monsters that they do want to fight.

1. 

One of the giant statues is holding a treasure chest.  Find a giant key, unlock the chest, and you can crawl through it into a new area (or maybe it just contains treasure).

(Might make for a fun, simple AHA! moment when the party finds a giant stone key.)

2.

Fountain pipe comes out of the wall, and water spurts from a fish head.  Examining it reveals that the pipe connected to the fish head is pretty big.  Knock the fish head off and start crawling.

(For exploration completionists.)

3. 

Behind a mirror.  No clues for this one--you just gotta smash it.

(For exploration completionists, and vandals.)

4. 

The bottom of a pit trap.  The floor and 3 walls are covered in spikes.  The fourth wall is hollow.  One of the wall spikes can be rotated to open the door.

(Maybe too easy?  It's tough to tell.  Players walk past this kind of stuff all the time.)

Monster Checklist

Okay, so you’re writing up a monster entry.  Run through this checklist to make sure that you haven’t missed anything.

#1. The concept should be unique, compelling, and communicable.

You probably have a lot of concepts in your head, but which ones make for good monsters?

You want something that is different from what your players have already encountered (unique), you want it to be cool enough to hold their attention (compelling), and you want it to be something that you can describe (communicable).

Like, a lot of Lovecraftian monster concepts will fulfill the first two requirements, but if you can’t describe how it looks and fights, it’ll just be a blob of hit points to your players.  (Minis assist with, but don’t negate, this requirement.)

It may also be worthwhile to think about the monster will be described by you at the table (and by other DMs).  The best monsters are the ones that can be conceptualized in a single sentence, even though you can spend additional sentences embroidering it.

Lub Glubs from Adventure Time
(They look like drifting pool floaties until they get close.)

#2. The monster must be fun to fight.

We’re talking about monsters, so combat is likely to be involved.  Your monster must be fun to fight.  This comes from (2a) abilities, but also (2b) tactics, (2c) environment, and (2d) weaknesses.  Each of these is worth a fuller discussion, so I’ll talk about them in their own sections below.

So let’s return to talking about the things that make combat fun.  Abilities, tactics, environment, and weaknesses.

#2a: Abilities should be appropriate, novel, and dynamic.

By ‘appropriate’, I just mean that the mechanical representation should match the fiction.  At a basic level, fire breath should do fire damage, but does a ghost hammer deal bludgeoning or force damage?  What’s the best way to handle a lich that drains your life?  Level drain, Con damage, reducing max HP, exhaustion, or reducing hit dice?

You have a lot of leeway here, so get creative.  Players appreciate when a mechanic is especially cutely appropriate, but it’s not a requirement.

By ‘novel’ I mean that you should try to give them something that they haven’t seen before.  If you’re writing an adventure, you need to make sure that there is good differentiation between your concepts.  (If you’re writing a monster manual, you can have some similar monsters, because it’s not like the DM is going to make the players fight all 7 dragon varieties in a row.)

And by ‘dynamic’, I just mean that the abilities should push players into interesting decisions.  Fire breath is cool and threatening, but it’s not dynamic.  The players just take the damage and keep on trucking–there’s no choices to make.  Wall of Fire is more dynamic, because now the party is split and they have to make interesting choices about whether or not to jump through the wall of fire, or wait for it to dissipate.

#2b: Tactics should also be appropriate, novel, and dynamic.

You don’t need cool abilities to have a cool encounter.  I wrote a post about how tactics can make for fun differentiation between mechanically identical monsters.  I won’t rehash it here, except to say that different monsters in your dungeon should have different motivations for opposing you (food?  defense?), different roles within combat (hit and run? blind aggression?), different combat goals (eat you?  rob you?  escape?), and different levels of commitment to combat (morale).

Simple things like modes of movement and attack can also suggest interesting tactics.  For example, a flying skeleton archer doesn’t need any special abilities, because you already know that the players will have to come up with new tactics to defeat them (compared to fighting regular skeletons).

#2c: Environment should also be appropriate, dynamic, and/or interactive.

You could argue that this belongs in the adventure design section instead of the monster design section, but the two are interrelated.  Combat should never take place in a featureless white room, and certain monsters are more likely to be found in certain locations.

The environment for flying skeleton archers might be a lonely clifftop where sky burials were practiced.  Or it might be an ancient bridge where the bird cult threw sacrifices off.  Or it might be deep in the catacombs, with bone “nests” built high up on the walls.

Interactivity comes from hazards and difficult terrain, but it also comes from advantages.  Cover, chokepoints, hiding places.  Also explore verticality: stairs, levels, half-levels, ladders, pits, steep slopes (“scrambles”) and pools.

Also consider how the environment affects an encounter.  A low roof makes a flying skeleton archer much easier to defeat.  Conversely, if the room has a high ceiling and is bisected by a pit, flying skeleton archers are much more threatening.

#2d: Every monster needs weaknesses (either implied or explicit).

If none of the monsters have any weaknesses, the players will use the same offensive tactics to kill them every time.  This can be implicit, like how a flying enemy is “weak” to ranged attacks and nets, or how a stupid enemy can be baited into a trap.

Or a weakness can be explicit, like scarecrows being weak to fire.  I’m not a big fan of hard lock weaknesses that require a specific material or spell.  “Immune to damage from non-silver weapons” or “Possession can only be ended by casting protection from evil”.  If the party has a silver dagger there’s no interesting decision to make–you just use the dagger.  And if the party doesn’t have a silver dagger, they just run away and there is again no interesting choice to make.  (Hard locks like this can sometimes be useful as metroidvania-style keys, where a certain monster is impassible until the party can come back with silver weapons, but that’s still a weaker use case, in my book.)

I prefer soft lock weaknesses.  “This enemy takes double damage from silver weapons” or “possession can be ended by protection from evil, holy water, or unconsciousness”.

Best are versatile weaknesses, that allow players the most flexibility in how they are approached.  “This monster’s brain is exposed, and it takes triple damage when attacked from above” or “100% food motivated” or “scared of loud noises” or “killed by falls”.  However, you’re a little more limited in these, since you have to use options that all parties have access to, so you shouldn’t only use versatile weaknesses–you should have some soft lock weaknesses in there, too.

Also remember that weaknesses can take the form of buffs to the party.  A flying monster with a ranged attack is pretty threatening but if it gives everyone within 50’ the ability to fly, it provokes a new set of tactics and risks.  Similarly a monster that is blind and has a terrible sense of smell allows for players to effectively “turn invisible” when they’re fighting it, which also allows for new and interesting tactics.

#2e: Consider threats besides "it kills you". Consider solutions besides "you kill it".

Murder is a common language in tabletop. A fight to the death is instantly interesting, and it is a common focus of game mechanics. But please, step outside of that box.

I talked about alternative types of threats up in #5, but also consider that the players might "win" the combat through other victory conditions:

• Prevent the monsters from fleeing and raising the alarm.
• Avoid breaking the priceless vases in this room while the monsters try to kill you.
• The monster is a sage.  Every round, you can ask a question that the left head will answer truthfully.  Meanwhile the right head (and the rest of the monster) is trying to kill you.  Stay alive and think of good questions.
• The monster is treasure, but only if you kill it in a specific way.

This is also why we have monsters with specific weaknesses--to force players away from their regular tactics.

• This monster can only be killed by silver (or salt, or fire, or song, or whatever).
• The monster cannot be killed while it is in contact with the earth.
• This monster can only be drowned.
• This monster will only die if it is physical removed from its tomb.
• This monster cannot be harmed by anything crafted by the hands of men.

Usually, you want to tell the players the weakness early on, and then let them figure out the best way to solve the problem.  If you want to throw your players at a monster without letting them know how to kill it, at least let them escape easily.

#3.  The monster should support interesting dungeoncrawling.

If you haven’t played an OSR game, you might be used to having combat start once the players walk into the room.  But there’s a huge potential for interesting (hostile or non-hostile) interactions to occur before initiative is rolled.

This includes things like roleplaying and faction play.  But it also includes things like:

• Bone needle men prevent all rest in a dungeon.  The party could hunt them down and silence their rattling skulls.

• Goblins have tiny crawl tunnels they use to move between rooms.  The party could block them off, or strip off their armor and crawl through themselves.

• Through the keyhole, you can see an owlbear sleeping.  Ferocious, but known to be easily distracted by a large enough piece of meat.

This is where you can get really creative, and where the most interesting OSR-style problems can be inserted.  However, these sorts of things are usually buried in the monster write up.  The rattling of the bone needle men is probably obvious to a reader since it’s listed under monster abilities.  But the crawl tunnels of goblins might only get a brief mention under the Ecology section, where it’s easily missed.  And while the monster entry might mention the rapacious hungers of owlbears, that type of interesting situation is often missed by the monster manual, and left for the people who write adventures.  (Which is a pity.)

This one is probably the hardest to address, since it doesn’t map well to any of the normal sections of a monster entry.  Still, you should give it some thought.  A monster has the potential to be a lot more than a stack of hit points and abilities.

Some places where a monster could interfere with dungeoncrawling:

• It's a member of a larger faction.
• It blocks off part of the dungeon.  Optional: it's probably big enough to TPK the party.  Optional: it has a weakness, discovered elsewhere in the dungeon.  (Basically just a lock and key.)
• Literal lock and key: once it is killed (or appeased) a new path unlocks.  The water level falls.  The necropolis opens.  
• It interferes with a resource:
• Light
• Rest (e.g. no resting or eating lunch)
• Healing (e.g. all healing is halved)
• Magic
• Loot (e.g. the treasure is cursed until you kill the mummy)
• Senses (e.g. no noise is possible in the Halls of Silence)
• It burrows between the rooms, creating new tunnels.
• It has an easy line of communication and/or observation, and can speak to the party as they navigate the dungeon.  It may want to scare them away, want the party to release it, etc.
• It can generate illusions.
• Curse of the Dao: all fall damage is doubled.  (And the monsters know this.)

#4. The monster should fit into the world.

The monster needs to fit into the world in a way that makes sense.  This usually gets glossed over–if you are designing another undead then everyone already knows that it was created by a necromancer, or arose spontaneously from some sort of restless spirit. If it's alive, you should spend a second to think about where it eats, sleeps, and hunts.

But maybe your design is something more novel.  Your monster is the angry anti-ghost of the unborn.  Or maybe something that is too specific for the DM to just drop it in the dungeon without an explanation, like a squad of humans who fight with grenades.  In those cases, you need to spend some time explaining the context for this monster.  

It’s tricky because you may be torn between providing a specific explanation (“These are Malthusian grenadiers, servants of Witch Mountain.”) or a general one (“Grenadiers are commonly employed by mercenary forces.”)  Because we want our written words to sound authoritative, we often just pick one–but of course there’s nothing stopping you from giving 2 or 3 contexts that your monster might exist within the game world.

Also, consider giving your monster actionable connections to the world. A mated pair of owlbears should imply valuable babies nearby. The presence of the dandelion knight is proof of an alliance with the fairy princes (so the party should be extra wary of them). This vampire has the sword of St. Vipera--is this the Saint herself?

Even something small like a group of orcs, where one incongruent orc is wearing a brand new set of armor, raises interesting questions (and connections) with a single detail.

#5 - The monster should be threatening.

Sure, your monster has attack rolls and it deals damage.  It certainly poses a threat to HP totals.

Attacking HP is the oldest and most comfortable way to threaten the players.  It’s also the one that is always approved by the implied social contract of the table.  (Players don’t object if they take 17 points of damage.  But depending on the game, they might object if their sword gets rusted away since it feels unfair.)

The mnemonic for this is “attack all parts of the character sheet”.  Abilities scores are usually fair game.  Inventory is usually a possible target, too, except in very protective 5e games.  XP/Level Drain is an option, but can be deployed with care.  Character abilities and skills are usually off-limits, but you can still tamper with them in ways that are fun.  In 5e you can have monster abilities that attack inspiration, hit dice healing, proficiency, ideals, etc.

But also remember that you can attack the out-of-combat resources, too.  Time is a big one.  Noise can attract wandering monsters.  A monster like a carbuncle might have a valuable gem on its back that goes down in value after each round of combat.  Killing these (murderous, frenzied) dwarves might ruin your reputation with the (friendly, chill) dwarves in the next cave.

Threat is one of the biggest ways that a monster can engage your players, so think about it carefully.

#6. The monster should surprise.

I’ve touched on this before, but you want your encounter to be dynamic.  It should force the players to change their plans a little bit.  

Ideally, you want to push the players into at least three interesting decisions.

A simple example of this might be:

1. There’s a giant golem in the next room.  How do we kill it and/or get past it?

2. The giant golem is being controlled by little dudes inside of it.  How do we kill the little dudes inside this big dude?  Can we make a smoke bomb?  Can someone fit inside?

3. One of the little dudes is running for help.  Should we chase him down?  Who will go?

Without any surprises, the party will use the same stale tactics.

#7. The monster should reward.

XP is a boring reward.  Literally the worst.

Getting past the monster is often a sufficient reward on its own, if there is more cool dungeon to explore.

But also think about the other possible rewards that the players could get out of this encounter, and perhaps include some.

• A new ally.

• Information.

• Delicious monster parts to eat.

• Useful weapons and tools.

• Valuable gold or monster eggs.

• Weird consumables like potions and acid sacs.

• A new shortcut in the dungeon.

Goblin Guts v2 + A Bit About Emergent Gameplay

It's been at least a year since I tore down my old ruleset and built a new one, so it makes sense that I'm feeling the itch again.  (TL;DR: here's a 22-page PDF.)

Going into this, I have the following design goals.

Diagetic Progression

In past incarnations of the GLOG, certain classes had diagetic abilities.  Fighters got bonuses based on how many things they had killed.  Thieves got bonuses based on the most expensive thing they had ever stolen.  

These weren't perfect, but at least they were (a) tied to in-game actions, such as heists, (b) a method of progression besides XP/Treasures, and (c) motivated class appropriate actions, such as heists.

These also fit pretty well alongside my idea for a character's Legendarium and should probably be integrated there.

Magic Dice For Everyone

Everyone seems to like the magic dice that wizards get.  I can probably extend it to other classes, too.

Will it be any good?  Fuck, maybe.

Centerra doesn't have a fine line of distinction between magical and non-magical things (citation).  So it follows that regular old vanilla fighters are able to do some things that are magical according to our Earthly eyes.  After all, magical shoes are made by regular cobblers, not wizards.

Mono-Class Parties

This is another idea that I've circled around for a while.  An all-thief party sounds as interesting as an all-wizard party.

First, because it invites a certain style of play.  Perhaps I should write more about to support those types of games?  For example, a mono-thief game might revolve around heists.  It makes sense to hammer out a few rules for the heist game.

Second, having a mono-class party fundamentally changes the assumptions of the game.  Lots of adventure writers will assume that the party will have access to certain magic spells by a certain level.  If everyone is a thief, that assumption will be incorrect.

That means that some parts of the adventure will be easier than intended, and some parts of the game will be more difficult (or impossible).  While a DM can flex the adventure a bit to accommodate a mono-class party, part of what makes this playstyle so interesting to me is the idea that, to a certain extent, mono-class players know and accept this. 

If we're going to write new rules for mono-class parties, we should realize that they are opportunities to fundamentally change the rules of the game, and we should embrace that.

This idea is so exciting to me that I'll create a new heading.

Emergent Gameplay and New Modes

Emergent gameplay is simply finding new ways to play the game outside of what the creators intended.

Have you heard of the Nuzlocke Challenge in pokemon?  It's a set of self-imposed restrictions that are designed to make the game more challenging, effectively twisting it into a new game.

Speedrunning is another form of emergent gameplay.  So is trying to get to maximum level on World of Warcraft without killing anything.  Same with any other videogame where players ignore the typical objectives and make their own.

Tabletop roleplaying already has a lot of emergent gameplay.  Players are already free to set their own goals and victory conditions (to an extent), but rarely do players have the option to bend the rules of the game.  The published Player's Guide and Adventure Paths present a singular interpretation of Correct Play (where both rules and goals are identical to the original publisher's). 

But it doesn't have to be that way.  

One example: I ran a one-player/one-DM Caverns of Thracia one-shot where the player was a level 20 wizard.  It was great!  Lots of exploring, lots of talking, and when a monster got uppity, they got disintegrated.  There was still some tension, though, because the dungeon had to be explored all in a single day, and each spell could only be cast once.  We weren't playing Caverns of Thracia the way that Gary and Jennell intended, but we found a new mode that worked great for us.

Another example: perhaps the group that is all dungeon hackers is able to automatically open every door they come across, potentially allowing for some major sequence breaking.

Another example: are there any groups out there that have completed pacifist runs of published modules?  That might work best if everyone is a divine concubine.

Anyway, mono-class parties seem like a crack in the Correct Playstyle Monolith that a lot of our peers worship at.  With a chisel, a hammer, and a pen, we can widen that crack.

from here

The PDF

Anyway, I ended up writing it.  I was gonna write four more classes (Ranger, Knight, Scholar, and Wizard) but I think I'll save that for another day. 

>>CLICK HERE<<

Have a look, and please let me know what you think. 

Monster Type: Army

 Have you ever read through some old adventure module and come across a room that has 40 orcs in it?  You don't see that much anymore.  Let's talk about that.

Skeleton Army by Adrian Smith

The Appeal of an Army

I don't think I need to defend the idea that it is cool as fuck to fight a horde of enemies.  Orcs, hellhounds, traitor knights, vampire wolves. . . they're all cool.

They're also intimidating in a way that a dragon is not.  Normally, in the boss fight encounters against a singular foe, the players have two advantages:

• They get more actions than the dragon.
• The dragon might unluckily fail an important save.

When the PCs are badly outnumbered, these advantages turn into disadvantages, the danger of which isn't lost on the PCs.

(Things like legendary actions and legendary saves were created to smooth over the advantages in order to create more homogenous combat experience, but it's still a hack.)

The Disbanding of the Army

Why don't we see armies like this anymore?  The big reason is combat complexity.  As editions of DnD got more complex, combat turns started taking longer and longer.  How much did blur slow down combat in 3e?

There's also the push for more complexity in monster abilities.  Each monster has been loaded down with more and more bells and whistles.  This creates more of a burden on the DM, to use and track these abilities effectively.  I'm not saying the trade-off isn't worth it--sometimes it is.  But we should be aware of what we're giving up when we start giving bonus actions to lowly orcs and goblins.

(I've made the argument before that there is a lot of worthwhile differentiation that can come from behavior, rather than the stat block, but that's a different conversation.)

OSR combat moves fast.  A fight against thirty orcs shouldn't be out of the question

Rules for Facing Armies

How many people can you catch in a single fireball?  Maybe 3 if they're wisely spread out.  A dozen if they're densely clustered.  On any other round, tell the wizard that their best fireball opportunity is 2d4+1 (rerolling it every round--let the wizard decide when the best opportunity is).  Armies that are trying to spread out (and have the space to do so) will limit themselves to 1d4+3 within the range of a single fireball.

Can you split up an army?  Easily, if your foes are unintelligent.  Intelligent enemies will avoid splitting up into overly small groups.  If they search for you, it will be with scouting groups that will retreat and seek help, rather than allow themselves to get drawn into a pitched battle.

The most important rules will probably be facing rules: how many orcs can attack your fighters simultaneously?

In a hallway 10' wide (or other chokepoint, I'd say that 3 people fighting abreast is the maximum, while 2 people fighting abreast would be the minimum to hold the line.

While totally surrounded, a cluster of at least 5 PCs has 2 enemies facing each of them.  Smaller groups will have 3 enemies facing them simultaneously.

Armies will, of course, fight as intelligently as they can.  This includes, but is not limited to:

• Having one group fight the PCs head-on, while another group circles around to flank them.
• Sending a runner for reinforcements.
• Trying to lure the PCs into a place where they can be surrounded.
• Using ranged attacks to get more attacks in per turn.
• Using ranged attacks to lure PCs into position.
• Use long-shot attacks (the equivalent of save-or-dies).

Some examples of long-shot attacks and interesting tactics:

• GRAPPLE.  Nets, whatever.  Just pile it on.
• Smoke bombs.
• Setting the place on fire.
• Releasing snakes.
• Start chanting.    After 3 turns of chanting, a person goes blind and feeble every turn.  Lasts as long as the chanting does.
• Start chanting.  It's a very slow polymorph spell, which turns someone into a snail over the course of 3 turns.
• Start breaking all the valuable items in the dungeon while shouting blasphemies.
• Lassoing a PC and pulling them away from the party.
• Refusing to allow the PCs to lure them into a disadvantage.  Instead, they fortify a large room (or critical dungeon junction) and continually insult the PCs for not attacking them.  Although, at this point, you risk treating them like a faction.

*Differences Between Armies and Factions

Armies you fight all at once.  Factions you deal with their interests and kill them off in small groups.

I'll admit, it's a blurry line.  40 barbarians could easily be a roleplaying challenge more than a combat encounter.  Seducing them, bartering with them, getting them to fight your enemies for you, getting them to fight among themselves.

Dynamics

An interesting fight evolves--it's not just 3 orcs marching through the same chokepoint every turn until the whole army is dead.

Unless the army is mindless (and I don't even run skeletons as mindless foes), they'll know when they're fighting a losing battle, retreat, and try a new tactic.

Here are some other ways that armies will mix things up:

Orcs -- Settle it with a contest of champions.  The orcish champion is level 2+1d4, and will fight dirty (suggestion: as soon as the PCs nominate their champion, the orc will launch into combat without any preamble, throwing an axe and then charging).  Losing side clears out of the dungeon.

Bandits -- Will just offer you money to leave.  1d6 x 100s.

Goblins -- Start making a shit-ton of noise, summoning 1d4-1 (min 0) random encounters.

Skeletons -- 9 Skeletons start dancing.  After 3 rounds, they summon a demon of X HD, where X is the number of skeletons that are still dancing.  (Remember that undead are created by inviting incorporeal demons into a corpse.)  Other skeleton spells: mass extinguish, shatterhand (metal shatters upon coming in contact with the skeleton), fear.

Berserkers -- If they don't decide to retreat and try a new tactic, they'll fight to the death.  They bite off the tip of their own tongue.  Each round after that, they'll get +1 to hit, -1 to AC, and +1 to the damage that they both deal and receive.  This is cumulative up to +4.  If it would increase beyond +4, the berserkers instead start killing each other until they are all dead.

The Legendarium: Diagetic Advancement

Last time I wrote about Big Fucking Treasure, which is the idea that treasure (and levelling up) comes from big, significant milestone treasures, rather than from the gradual accumulation of XP.  Mixed in with that post is the idea that these treasures were part of your character's story--you could append them to your name, as in:

Morbo the Ineffable, who stole back the Nosering of the Elephant King

Famous Loot = Level Ups = Character Legendarium

Many DMs roll their eyes when level 1 characters show up with an extensive backstory, yet players want their characters to have something unique about them.  A lot of OSR games don't give two shits about backstories, so hopefully this will help scratch that itch for players.

The Legendarium

Your legendarium is the part of your character sheet where you record all of your character's exploits, treasures, and failures.  It's all meant to highlight your character's progress, and its all tied to diagetic advancement (improving your character within the fiction, rather than based on abstracted mechanics).  It's your personal legend.

The Legendarium is also the back of your character sheet where you write all of this down.  It doesn't have any in-game impact, except perhaps as a source of titles.

Each section is associated with a particular type of memorable deed, and each section is associated with a specific type of character improvement.  There are three sections.

Tales of Treasure = Notable Treasures = Level Ups

Stories of Skill = Skill Usage = Skill Ups

Reports of Peril = Times You Almost Died = Bonuses to Certain Saves

The idea is that one day you'll be level 5, and you'll be able to flip to your Legendarium and see the adventures that brought you there.

by Ariel Perez

Tales of Treasure

This is essentially the same as what was described in my last post.

You level up by finding a big Treasure.  After you level up, you get to add something to your Legendarium.  If you ended up wielding the magic sword, you get to be

Morbo, Wielder of Blackrazor

Here's how leveling up works in my current GLoG:

Every level beyond the fourth awards +1 Helpful and nothing else.  (Novices struggle to protect themselves.  Veterans learn how to protect others.)

Stories of Skill

At the end of every session, every player describes a skill check that their character made, and then makes an Int check.  If you succeed on the Int check, that skill increases by 1 point.

If you didn't make any skill checks that session, you obviously can't improve any skills.  Trivial skill checks (trying to train Sailing by playing with toy boats) cannot be used to improve any skills.

Alternatively, you can study under someone.  For example, if you announce that you'll be spending the entire 2-week boat ride practicing your orcish with the orcish bosun, you can make a check to improve your orcish language skill at the end of the session.  You didn't make any checks, but you still had a good chance to learn the language.  Libraries work in a similar way.

Each time you improve a skill, you should add a sentence to your Legendarium describing how you used that skill.  Examples:

Morbo danced with Lucky Lady, the dancing horse, and learned several impressive new dance moves.

Morbo sailed poorly through the tornado maze of the Arcade, and was shipwrecked.

(A skill check doesn't have to be successful for you to learn from it.)

Here's how skills work in my current GLoG:

Skills start at +1 and go all the way up to +8, when you become a master of that skill.  You can then undertake a quest (described by your DM) to become a Grandmaster, which increases your skill to +10.  The DC for skills is always 16.

Every character has 4 skill slots.

by Yoshitaka Amano

Reports of Peril (and Scars)

Each time you almost die, you get +4 to save against that particular peril.

"Almost Dying" is defined as anything that deals lethal damage (brings you into negative HP), but can be extended to any save that could potentially kill your character.

Every time a character drops to negative HP and survives, try to find a way to give them an increase to a Save.  The save doesn't have to be proximal for them to get a bonus to it.  For example, if a fireball does 7 damage, but the next turn a sword wound causes them to start Dying, give them +4 bonus vs Fire.

If you well and truly cannot find a way to give them +4 to a type of save, give them +1 HP instead.

Each of these gives you a new line in your legendarium, and a new commemorative scar.

Every character has 4 scar slots.

The filthomancer of Froog stabbed Morbo directly in his bellybutton.  +1 HP.

Morbo survived the bite of the white widow, but the flesh of his left hand is forever bleached, and the nails a wrinkled grey.  +4 Save vs poison.

Here's how saves work in my current GLoG:

Saves are made with Dex, Con, or (most commonly) Cha.  The DC is always 20.

Since the average stat is a +5, the average save has only a 30% chance of being successful.  A +4 bonus to a type of Save is a welcome addition.

This replaces any other type of Save progression based on level.

Why Not Extend This to Attack Bonuses or Other Stuff?

I don't want to bog the GLoG down with too many systems.

"You survived the meltworms so you get Save +4 vs acid." is quick and can be done on-the-fly during a session.

Awarding skill-ups and level-ups at the end of a session takes more time.  Maybe just a few minutes, but I'm hesitant to add more items onto that list.

I'm already thinking about ways that thieves can add heists to their legendariums, or how rangers can add impressive kills to theirs.  (Maybe.)  But for everyone else, I don't want to put any more focus onto combat than there already is, and I don't want to incentive combat as much as I want to incentivize loot.

See also: Chris has a similar diagetic advancement scheme here.

a bone golem breaking out of a statue
from Rahasia, by DARLENE