Dungeon23 1/365: The Entrance

Near the village of Ner-lek stands a massive stone structure, somewhere in size between a butte and a mesa. The top of this structure is perfectly smooth and bare of any plant life.

A stairway is carved down into the center of this surface, leading to a stone door. This door opens inward, does not lock, and slowly closes itself if opened.

To the left of the doorway is a slot for coin. Above it, carved into the rock, is the word "Toll." Each time the dungeon is visited, roll to see the toll indicated: 1d12 gp.

Each character who does not pay the toll has a 1/100 chance to be crushed, instantly killed, and drawn into the stone as that character enters the doorway.

For each character who pays the toll there is a cumulative 1% chance that something will be on the pedestal in Room 1.

Room 1

Rather than re-starting the numbering of rooms at each level, all rooms will be numbered sequentially, à la Caverns of Thracia.

This is a bare 30x30 room. There are six doorways.

There is one doorway in the center of the West, North, and East walls, without doors.

The entrance to the dungeon opens into the center of the South wall and is between two doorless doors similar to those in the other walls.

In the center of the room is a tall, thin pedestal. Near the top of the pedestal is engraved: "Partake freely. Nothing is free."

If the toll dice so indicate, there is an item on top of the pedestal:

1. A single slice of cake. If a single character eats the cake, increase the stat of the player's choice by 1d6. If more than one character partakes, increase a random stat of each character by 1. The character(s) who eat are now affected by a geas; if they do not complete this geas by the deadline, their affected stat falls to 3.
2. A meat pie. If a single character eats the pie, that character does not take any damage for the entirety of this dungeon trip. If multiple characters partake, the first 1d6 hit points of damage they take on this dungeon trip instead become added temporary hit points. Do not inform players of either of these mechanics. The character(s) who eat are now affected by a geas; if they do not complete this geas by the deadline, they are unable to heal any damage until Remove Curse or similar magic is cast on them.
3. A single key. This is the key to a particular lock in the dungeon. All locks will be numbered.
4. A random magic potion.
5. A random magic item.
6. A magic dagger. Randomly generate it as a magic sword, just make it a dagger. Max out the Ego score or whatever makes it most likely to be jealous, cause trouble, or take over.

Geas (these will be added to as the dungeon develops):

1. Find Delores, Farmer Oord's magic sow before leaving the dungeon and return her to him. The pig is in room 1d30+1 if she is not found in a random encounter first.

Random Encounters

Wandering monsters and other random encounters are an important component of Old School dungeons, so I figure I can create one random encounter a day as well as one room a day:

Delores, Farmer Oord's magic sow. Stats as a normal pig. She routinely escapes the farm to root out the mushrooms that grow in the dungeon. She will tranquilly follow any PCs back to Farmer Oord's. If treated kindly, she may (1/30) grant a Wish to a random PC when she is returned.

And… that's day one. I don't expect all days to be as elaborate as this, but I had the time, energy, and inspiration today. One down, 364 to go.

Rebooting with Dungeon23

 Hello everyone. I'm back.

A lot has happened over the last… 10 years? Most of which isn't relevant to this blog.

What IS relevant to this blog is that I'm typing this as I'm waiting to see if anyone shows up early for a game I'm about to run for my brother-in-law, my best friend, his wife, and their daughter.

I haven't run a campaign since I let this blog die ten years ago, and I've only run a handful of games in the last decade. I'm probably rusty, I'm nervous, and I'm also excited. I remember that just because one game session doesn't go awesome doesn't mean that the next one won't be awesome.

But I don't plan on talking too much about the games I'll be running. Instead, I plan to publish my participation in Dungeon23 here. Just one room a day. That sounds really good. Let's see what happens.

Consolidating

Readers of this blog will know that I'm into heavily homebrewing my campaign. If I were running games right now, I'd be running a weird cross between S&W and ACKS with some LotFP and DCC RPG thrown in for good measure, along with plenty of stuff I've taken from the OSR blogosphere and some of my own contributions.

Homebrewing is fun, and, especially when I do it in consultation with my players, results in a game that is more fun to play for us than running a game straight would usually be. Over time the game is shaped to fit us like a glove.

I've noticed a cycle, though, in homebrewing. I find my homebrewing getting out of hand, the complexities and ramifications needing to be resolved and enumerated. For example, I've decided to include something like a Carcosan sorcerer in my games, as well as various academies of magic, and to have the clerics tied intimately with the setting… all of that requires a good deal of either figuring out the execution, a good amount of time sitting down and generating/writing it all out, or both. In the meantime, if I'm going to start running my old game again, I need to write some more dungeon. It's all pretty exhausting and I find myself taking a step back sometimes until I get another burst of energy to finish the current cycle of changes I want to make and it makes sense to run games again.

I don't like this.

I want to be running and playing games all the time. I don't want for it to be a chore. Here's my solution.

On the one hand, I'm breaking the homebrewing I need to do up into manageable chunks in the form of a 'zine. I'm trying to decide whether I'll make it available to others, and if I do I'll probably get a few issues done first so I create a time buffer and know I can deliver, but just breaking everything into one or two pages of a digest-sized 8-page 'zine, I think, will help me to take it bit by bit, not all at once.

On the other hand, in order to get playing again I think I'm going to start running DCC RPG straight, and use written modules instead of my own dungeon. I'm funding the Peril on the Purple Planet Kickstarter, which is on track to reach all of its stretch goals if it brings in about $600 each of the remaining eleven days. As part of my funding, I'm buying four modules that should level my players up from 0 level to 4th level, ready for the Peril on the Purple Planet. There's a FLGS that opened up recently and, along with asking about buying Zocchi dice, I want to see about setting up a face-to-face game and maybe creating a gaming group there.

The things I like about DCC RPG is that it's different enough from the directions I'm going in my own homebrewing that I think it will diminish my temptation to homebrew it, and yet it also is committed to OSR gaming… and is all sorts of zany, dice-whimsical fun.

So, anyway, that's where I am with my gaming right now. Hopefully I'll be checking in more in the future, but no guarantees right now.

Setting Design by Committee

I realize the conventional wisdom is that doing much of anything creative by committee, or even in a team, is a poor idea, especially when it comes to RPGs, but I've been wondering…

What if a dozen or so people got together and everyone who had an idea (the more out-of-the-box the better, though creative, interesting takes on classic/traditional-style settings are allowed) for a setting drew lots to decide who's idea they would work on first. Then they spend six months fleshing out the setting together, improving the format, making art, writing gazetteers and bestiaries and porting them into 3-5 different systems to be released simultaneously.

And then what if they spent the next six months writing adventures. There would be some leeway for each person to contribute during the setting creation phase, but the real license to go their own way would come here, with all kinds of adventures, varying in tone, style (sand-boxy hooks and relationships, one-shots, adventure paths, etc.), seriousness, whatever.

Then, after those adventures have been released, we have a reasonably well developed setting, complete with maybe 20-30 adventures. That counts as well-supported, I'd say.

Then everyone with an idea for a setting draws lots again and works on fleshing out a new setting for the next six months.

Then, during the six-month adventure-writing phase adventures are allowed to be written for either setting already produced, allowing for continuing support. The added choice, especially as the cycles continue, encourages fresh, exciting, well-done adventures, with more settings hopefully increasing the chance of good ideas occurring to adventure writers.

As this continues, more people join in, allowing for new settings to still have enough adventures written for them and eventually allowing some members to skip the setting-creation cycles sometimes and write adventures for 18 months straight.

I've Got Your Sword-Wielding Wizards Right Here!

Idea for a magic system:

Ingredients:

1. Enough non-magic-using classes that you think the campaign will be interesting. How many counts as interesting obviously depends on you and your players.
2. A spell list.

Instructions:

Only non-magic-using classes are available. When stocking treasure, increase the chances of magic scrolls being found by at least 2, maybe more, depending on just how much magic you want the PCs to have access to.

When characters find magic scrolls, they can choose to read them. If they read them, the magic spells leap from the scrolls into their heads (erasing the scroll). They now know the spell and can cast it, as with standard Vancian magic. Casting a spell memorized in this way erases the spell from memory, as with standard Vancian magic. There is a 1/6 chance that such spell scrolls are labeled so that characters can determine what the spell is before reading and memorizing the scroll. 

The number of spells that can be held in memory at one time is limited by class level. The simplest way to do this is to have the number of spells memorized be equal to or less than the class level.

Whenever the character levels up while having one or more spells memorized there is a chance (a Wisdom check, or # of currently memorized spells/20, say) that one of the memorized spells (select randomly) will "stick" and the character will be able to cast the spell indefinitely. The simplest way is to allow each "permanently memorized" spell to be cast once a day.

Ways to make this more complicated:

• Labeled scrolls may be mis-labeled
• Stipulate that spells of spell level higher than class level may not be memorized
• Stipulate that total spell LEVELS memorized must be equal to or less than class level
• Bolt on some sort of damage or sanity mechanic, or some other consequence, if memorizing more spells or spell levels than is allowed is attempted; if spell levels rather than spells are being counted, this means that memorizing an unknown spell is always a risk
• Alternately, stipulate that the only way to read a spell (and figure out what it is) without memorizing it is to read it while already having memorized the maximum number of spells currently allowed to be memorized
• Introduce costs to casting a spell, such as hit points or attribute points, which replenish at some rate
• Stipulate that how often a permanently acquired spell can be used depends on class level and spell level ratio. For example:
• A spell that is 4 or more spell levels below the character's class level is an at-will spell
• A spell that is 2 or 3 spell levels below the character's class level can be cast 3 times a day
• A spell that is within 1 spell level of the character's class level can be cast once a day
• A spell that is 2 or 3 spell levels above the character's class level can be cast 3 times a week
• A spell that is 4 or more spell levels above the character's class level can be cast once a week
• If using a system like this to determine how often a permanent spell can be cast, choose between having the frequency with which a particular acquired spell can be cast either always stay the same as it was when first acquired or increase as the character levels up
• Bring in a second spell list. The first list is for the spells that can be found. The second list is rolled on to determine permanently acquired spells. Arcane spells could be found, but Divine spells acquired, both Arcane and Divine spells could be found, but psionic powers are acquired, etc.

The Blessed Helmet of Flummoxification

The Blessed Helmet of Flummoxification appears to be a standard, well-made riveted helmet. When found, it is immaculately clean and usually finds its way onto a pedestal that will mysteriously be lit as from above. The Helmet smells faintly of garlic and onions.

The Helmet radiates magic so strongly that any caster with Detect Magic even prepared will sense magic radiating from it, and those who cast Detect Magic on it will sense what is most likely the strongest emanation of magic they have ever sensed…

Part of the magic, however, is that no amount of trying will reveal what the Helmet does! The Helmet may be put on and taken off with ease - the only obvious sign that this is not technically a cursed item.

The benefits of the Helmet last only until the Helmet is removed. They are:

• ONCE per owner, the Helmet will restore all hit points and health, healing all injuries, neutralizing all poison, removing all curses, restoring all drained levels and experience, etc. This will ONLY occur when death is otherwise inevitable (most commonly when hit points drop to whatever it takes to die in your system of choice).
• The Helmet improves the wearer's AC by 1 more than a normal helmet.
• The wearer of the Helmet adds +1 to attack and damage rolls.
• Whenever the wearer of the Helmet would normally be surprised, the wearer instead surprises the enemy. If the enemy would normally have a bonus to attack or damage, or some other ability, during a surprise round, such as a backstabbing ability, the wearer of the Helmet gets that bonus or ability for the surprise round.
• While the Helmet is worn, none of the costs of the Helmet adversely affect the wearer's ability to conduct combat. Any actual benefits to combat from the costs are adjudicated by the Referee, as are in-combat disadvantages if not wearing the Helmet.

Whenever the Blessed Helmet of Flummoxification is put on, a random effect upon the wearer takes place. Roll on the following table to determine the random effect:

1. Nose grows into an elephantine trunk
2. Earlobes droop to the knees
3. Eyebrows sprout half-sized peacock plumes
4. Mouth replaced by hawk's beak
5. Ears grow into pachyderm flaps
6. Beard grows or falls off, depending on previous beardedness
7. Grows long, gerbil-like tail
8. Face turns various shades of red, blue, green and yellow, which migrate slowly across the face in patches
9. Nose increases 3 times in size and is covered in scales
10. Canine teeth grow into saber-tooth fangs
11. Canine teeth grow into large tusks
12. Mouth grows into a duck's beak
13. Ears turn into a bloodhound's flaps
14. Mouth and nose turn into a mastiff's mouth and nose
15. Eyes grow out on stalks, like a slug or snail's
16. A small octopus tentacle sprouts from each cheek and temple (4 total)
17. Fairy-like antennae sprout from forehead
18. Eyes bulge out into fly-like compound eyes
19. Daisies burst forth from the elbows and knees
20. Each finger is replaced by a finger-length, fully prehensile tentacle

The mechanical and/or role-playing penalties (or benefits) of these effects are left to the referee to adjudicate as the referee sees fit.

The costs of the Helmet last NOT until the Helmet is removed, but until the wearer loses consciousness. This means two things:

• If the wearer manages to sleep with the Helmet on through the night, the wearer may wear the Helmet the next day with all the benefits and none of the costs. An unsecured Helmet has an 80% chance to fall off during sleep. Measures taken to secure the Helmet to the wearer's head during sleep are adjudicated on an individual basis by the Referee using common sense.
• If the wearer dons the Helmet, takes it off and then puts it on again during a single period of consciousness, the wearer now experiences TWO random effects. Taking it off and putting it on again once more results in THREE random effects simultaneously affecting our unwise hero.

There are rumors of a Cursed Helmet of Flummoxification, completely identical to the Blessed Helmet except that it has no benefits and cannot be removed once put on, per normal cursed item rules.

30 Day Challenge: How I Got Started in RPGs

So this is apparently a thing. Let's see about breathing some life into this blog, shall we?

I first heard about RPGs in the mid 90's in an infamous Adventures in Odyssey episode that dealt very badly with them. Adventures in Odyssey is usually, I think, a very good kids radio show, so it doubly disappoints me how badly they handled RPGs. Fortunately, I had absolutely no idea what they were talking about.

I was introduced to RPGs, D&D 3.5 specifically, in college. One of my floor-mates was running a game and my roommate joined in. I think I heard my DM talking about people criticizing RPGs as evil and so my guard went up and I didn't join in; I didn't have enough information to know what I thought and didn't have the time to quickly research and figure stuff out for myself.

I eventually did do enough research to figure out what a farce B.A.D. is; I seem to remember an article by Michael Stackpole helping out a lot with that, and I joined one game, but decided I was too busy right then to game regularly. I did enjoy myself. I played a Dwarf.

The next semester, I think, another friend invited me to play as he ran the 3.5 introductory set and I played the pre-generated Dwarven Cleric. I remember things getting tense with my roommate as I hadn't figured out gaming etiquette and had my character pick a fight with his character.

My friend went on to begin a full-on 3.5 campaign in which two of his sisters, my roommate and myself played. I played a Marshwiggle (from Narnia) Cleric that I'm pretty sure was severely underpowered; my roommate and I homebrewed the Marshwiggle race and neither of us really knew what we were doing. 3.5 is complex, but we can already see the beginnings of my inveterate homebrewing.

At some point I began poking around online during this campaign and stumbled upon the OSR blogosphere. The rest, as they say, is history.

"Realistic" Female Armor

So, whenever the RPG blogosphere gets back around to debating what kind of armor women should wear in illustrations, this should probably be thrown into the mix.

Top Ten Troll Questions

Last week I started running my game again. That was cool.

I also have been doing a lot of rules-brewing/synthesis and world-building. I've almost finished mixing ACKS Elf classes with the Theorems & Thaumaturgy Fey Elf idea and my own contributions.

So let's see if I can get back in the swing of things at all. For today, Random Wizard has posted ten questions that I'm going to answer about my game.

(1). Race (Elf, Dwarf, Halfling) as a class? Yes or no?

 No, but I do love the ACKS idea of demi-humans having their own classes. So we use that.

(2). Do demi-humans have souls?

Elves are Fey, so they probably don't have souls. Dwarves are mortal, so they probably do. I keep everything pretty ambiguous and not spelled out; there are even some sects that don't believe Men have souls.

(3). Ascending or descending armor class?

Ascending. My players threatened to revolt when I mentioned considering switching to descending, and it just works well for us so I've worried about messing with other rules areas.

(4). Demi-human level limits?

Probably, maybe? We haven't hit any yet, so it's kind of up in the air.

(5). Should thief be a class?

I actually really like my Scoundrel class. And what this guy said.

(6). Do characters get non-weapon skills?

I have this great d12 skill system that both my players and I really like… that never gets used in play. I've been strongly considering switching to ACKS proficiencies, or scrapping them altogether.

(7). Are magic-users more powerful than fighters (and, if yes, what level do they take the lead)?

At some point, probably, since we're playing S&W. My players haven't gotten there yet.

(8). Do you use alignment languages?

Nope.

(9). XP for gold, or XP for objectives (thieves disarming traps, etc...)?

XP for playing, which I'm strongly considering ending, save for my fear of player revolt, and XP for gold spent.

(10). Which is the best edition; ODD, Holmes, Moldvay, Mentzer, Rules Cyclopedia, 1E ADD, 2E ADD, 3E DD, 4E DD, Next ?

Probably ODD, just for its incompleteness. Home-brewing is a big thing for me, and it's an attitude that it took me a while to acquire; being forced to make decisions helped a lot with that.

Bonus Question: Unified XP level tables or individual XP level tables for each class?

With my latest round of rules revisions, we're moving from unified XP tables to ACKS individual XP level tables for each class.

King and Lionheart