Hello, Dear Readers! I’ve been working on my Gods of the Forbidden North Campaign a bit this weekend, and I wanted to share with you what I drafted. One of the PCs is a mystic (BECMI/Rules Cyclopedia). We are leaning into the asian cultural influence contained in the GotFN. We generated a shrine/monastery that houses a group of students in a style of martial arts called Crashing Mountain. The shrine is led by an aging mystic named Fang Jin.
It makes sense in light of the many diverse cultures moving to Valkengaard. So far, our campaign has Norsemen and people from the Orient inhabiting the city. Why wouldn’t there be a monastery or shrine dedicated to a martial art?
With Zak S., Nebulith, martial arts have been introduced into LotFP. His system is a bit different than the one contained in Oriental Adventures (AD&D1e). It isn’t as strict in terms of advancement for each of the martial arts contained in Nebulith. That being said, it is full of ideas to develop your own martial art technique.
With all that said, I’ve borrowed from Nebulith and Oriental Adventures to develop Crashing Mountain style kung fu. Some of the maneuvers require a prerequisite before they can be learned. They are indicated in parentheses. I hope you enjoy it!
Crashing Mountain focuses on summoning inner strength to withstand blows, to act as a sentinel against all enemies, to stand motionless against the changing tide of battle. Chi is focused on a devastating attack that can permanently incapacitate several opponents at once.
Silent Mountain – meditation technique – for every 1 hour of meditation, the mystic gains the equivalent of 2 hours of sleep. On a successful constitution check, the mystic may forego food and drink for the day. This can be done a number of times equal to 1/2 the mystic’s level before the mystic suffers the effect of starvation.
Enduring Calm – (Silent Mountain) – Meditation technique – Always in effect – Through rigorous meditation, the mystic calms his mind and makes it an impenetrable fortress against any mental attack. The mystic gains a +2 to all saving throws against enchantment, charm, illusions, and other mind-altering magical and psychic effects.
Unyielding Peak – (Silent Mountain) – Meditation technique – always in effect – An advanced form of meditation, wherein mystics are required to meditate while struck by bamboo spears. They learn to harden both mind and body. The mystic gains a +1 AC bonus
Unbreakable Mountain – Weapon technique – When using maces, hammers, or morningstars, the Mystic gains a +1 to attack. They can also shatter the weapon of an opponent with a successful attack roll. The mystic’s opponent must save versus paralysis. On a failure, the weapon is broken.
Falling Mountain – Throw technique – The mystic learns how to fall correctly. The mystic learns to fall and roll, taking the impact of the fall on the safest areas of his body. It is constantly in effect. The mystic takes half damage from any fall.
Rolling Boulder – Throw technique (Falling Mountain) – the mystic learns to instantly stand upon being knocked to the ground. This is always active. The Mystic may immediately stand without suffering any penalties to movement or attacks for being knocked prone.
Eternal Mountain – combat technique – (Enduring Calm & Unyielding Peak) – The mystic goes into a meditative trance in combat, becoming an immovable object. By foregoing any attacks, the mystic may absorb damage equal to twice his level. The damage is not deducted from the mystic’s hit points unless it exceeds twice the mystic’s level. The mystic gets a paralysis save versus any attack that would knock him down, even if the attack normally does not. Similarly, the mystic gets a paralysis save against any attack or effect that would move him, even if the attack or movement does not normally gain a save.
Crashing Avalanche – Combat technique – (Eternal Mountain) – The mystic can now absorb three times his level when using Eternal Mountain. On the round following the use of Eternal Mountain, the damage absorbed can be unleashed as pure chi energy in the form of a devastating attack against one or several opponents. For purposes of the attack, consider the abosrobed chi energy as a pool that can be used by spending 1 point per bonus to attack, 1 point per bonus to damage, or 1 point per extra attack against separate target.
Hello, Dear Readers! Today, I am going to provide you with my current set of houserules and homebrew for my Gods of the Forbidden North Campaign. Gods of the Forbidden North was written with OSE in mind. I am using the Rules Cyclopedia as I am not a huge fan of how OSE handles the later levels. It’s a quibble, but one I wanted to avoid. I’ll probably make a video about it at a later date.
Anyway, one quibble I have in favor of OSE is that I like the way it handles skills: it doesn’t use them. Rather, you select a secondary skill for your character, which represents a broad and generalized skill set that may come into play during the game. The Rules Cyclopedia, on the other hand, provides skills that function more like feats in some cases (danger sense, detect deception) or a role under ability check (engineering, singing). In many cases, either skill type ends up overriding the fundamental rules of the game in the same way magic does.
For example, Persuasion is a simple role under roll that has no effect on –and replaces–the 2d6 reaction roll. If you use the reaction roll the way I do (to determine an NPC’s reactions in social situations), skills like this completely replace the roll. Another skill, “Danger Sense,” allows a player to avoid a trap or a surprise attack with a roll under check because “they sense it.” This not only replaces the surprise check but also replaces player skill.
As a quick aside, RPG Pundit’s Encounters on the Silk Road is a great resource for using the reaction table for social encounters. Check it out!
Magic should be the only thing in a game that can do these sorts of things. Thus, I began reviewing these skills and replacing them with mechanics that augment existing subsystems within the RC. I am much happier with the way things work now.
Bravery: This skill allows a PC to avoid a fear-based attack on a successful ability check! Terrible design! Rather, it now gives a PC +1 to save versus fear effects.
Deception: This skill is tough to replace. Thus, it can only be used after an encounter. It represents the PC walking away from the encounter with doubt about the veracity of the exchange.
Danger Sense: Rather than allowing you to avoid surprise or a trap altogether, I give a +2 saving throw bonus against anything that requires enhanced reflexes. Ex: avoiding dragon fire or a rolling boulder trap. However, a poison needle trap doesn’t count.
Alertness: Rather than being surprised on a 1-2 on a d6, you will be surprised only on a 1. Thus, it is possible that the group is surprised, but you are not.
Stealth: This skill is particularly egregious. If you have a 15 dexterity, at level one, you have a 75% chance to stealth through particular terrain. A level one thief cannot beat this. Therefore, this skill grants a PC to move silently and hide in shadows as a level 1 thief. Additional points can be spent to improve to the next level of thief. This will require training time. (1 week per additional point spent).
Caving – Borrowing from ACKS2 – On a successful skill check, I will examine the PC’s map and let you know if you made a mistake and where it is located so you can fix it.
Blind Shooting is dumb, so I’ve banned it. Deceiving is superfluous, so it is banned as well.
A note on Persuasion, Bargaining, and Intimidation: I expanded on the reaction table a bit. If a PC has one of these skills, they will get a +1 bonus to the reaction roll. I’m also allowing the reaction roll to be modified by another stat depending on how the PC approaches the situation.
You tell me what you are trying to do. (i.e., I wish to convince the Valkengaard city guard of our position through logic and reason.)
Provide the table with a short description of what the action looks like.
”I politely explain to the city guard that we couldn’t possibly be guilty of the murder because the evidence points to the actions of a murder hobo. We are flush with cash. Ergo, we aren’t murder hobos!”
I make the 2d6 reaction roll. However, rather than being modified by just charisma, you can choose to use the following stats instead.
Logic & Persuasion – modified by Intelligence
Bargaining or emotional appeal – Modified by Wisdom
Fear & intimidation – Modified by Strength
Additionally, if you have proficiency in Bargaining, Intimidation, or Persuasion, you may add 1 to the reaction roll.
Additionally, as many of us know, being a thief is incredibly unforgiving at the lower levels of BECMI, RC, and OSE. They die a lot. To make the thief a bit more interesting to play and to blunt the difficulty just a bit, the following ability scores will modify specific thief skills by 5% per bonus modifier. For example, a dexterity bonus of +2 will confer +10% to the appropriate thief’s skills.
Strength: Climb walls
Dexterity: Open Locks, move silently
Wisdom: Find traps, hide in shadows
Intelligence: Remove traps, Learn language
My gaming crew is composed of modern gamers who enjoy character builds. The Rules Cyclopedia (and OSE) do not provide too much in the way of options, so in addition to the changes I made to the skills section noted above, I’m incorporating RPG Pundit’s alternative magic systems from The Old School Companion 3. I really like RPG Pundit’s companion series. I highly recommend them. The third in the series is my favorite precisely because of this alternative magic system.
1 – For every non-weapon proficiency point a PC spends on Alternative magics, a PC may select an alternative magic system: Enchantment, Glamour, Miscellaneous (ritual magic), the Path of Trees, Magical Stones, Northman sigils, Dream Magic, and Cult of the Saints.
2 – Many of the magic systems have a leveling system. To unlock higher levels, a PC must spend additional non-weapon proficiency points. E.g., to unlock the second tier of enchantment, you will need to spend an additional non-weapon proficiency point to have access. A PC may do this at character creation or at a later level. Training time will be required.
3 – Exceptions:
Northmen characters (Whudjan)(Chaotic) who have Mysticism as a skill gain a +1 to any Runic magic.
Enoruuk characters (Neutral) who have Mysticism as a skill gain a +1 to any Path of Trees magic.
Lawful characters (Hadean) who have Ceremony as a skill gain a +1 to any Cult of the Saints magic.
Dwarven characters can use Mining or Stone Crafting to gain a +1 to any Magical Stones roll.
Elven characters can use Singing or Music to gain a +1 to any Glamour magic roll.
Halflings may use nature lore to gain a +1 to any Ritual magic roll.
Clerics gain a +1 to use those magics associated with their alignment
Lawful – Cult of Saints
Chaotic – Northmen Runes
Neutral – The Path of Trees
As you can see with the alternative magics written by the RPG Pundit, I tried to connect them to the specific cultures of Titherion. My hope is that it will reinforce the world, assist with the worldbuilding, and (hopefully) the immersion for the players.
Anyway, that’s what I have for you today, Dear Readers. I hope you find this useful. tried to err on the side of simplicity.
Hello, dear readers. It’s been a while since we last chatted. I’ve been incredibly busy with new projects, such as The Second Watch, a livestream I host every Friday night at 11:00PM Eastern Standard Time. I’m also dipping my toe into writing a horror anthology for the Shadowdark system. I’m calling it the Living Darkness, Vol. I. It is an expansion on a few game jam supplements I drafted over the past few years. Much hit the cutting room floor that I liked so…I’m rewriting them! It should be ready by September. Fingers crossed.
Today, I am making this humble offering of a campaign idea that I have in mind that I may never get to run! The last one is here. This new one dives into The Wretched RPG, specifically Wretched Country, Wretched Folklore, Wretched Dixie, and a little help from RPG Pundit’s Wild West timeline. Running a campaign inspired by HBO’s 1883 would be awesome. Sprinkle in some mythical monster-related creatures, and I think you have a neat campaign to run. I did a little internet research into the Oregon Trail to help with this idea.
Technically, the Oregon Trail spanned approximately 2200 miles from Missouri to Oregon. They had to cross the Rocky Mountains, and many didn’t make it. Much of where they crossed took place in Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, and Idaho. It is estimated that over 400,000 settlers used the trail. The Great Migration started in the mid-1840s before the Civil War broke out. And, of course, the covered wagon was a prominent feature of these caravans heading west. They faced attacks from Native American tribes, sickness, extreme weather conditions, and the loneliness of the prairie.
I’ve read a handful of RPGs devoted to Wild West themes, and the one that stands out the most to me is Wretched Country. It is cinematic and captures the zeitgeist of the time better than most others. The Wild West was brutal, gritty, and the lines between good and bad, right and wrong, were not always clearly defined. It was a lawless land. With Wretched Country, you get a game that embraces that ambiguity. Indeed, the very first step in character creation is picking a vice (or virtue) that defines your character. Coupled with its status as an OSR-adjacent game, you have a fun time on your hands. It should not be discounted that The Red Room’s inspiration comes from cinema that has firmly established the myths and tropes of the American West in the minds of moviegoers and the public at large. The game is cinematic. It invites you to embrace the cinematic experience with streamlined play, compelling character flaws, and interesting scenarios.
My supplement, Wretched Folklore, not only adds many options for your players, but it expands the supernatural elements of Wretched Country with unique monsters, more shamanistic rituals pulled from actual history, as well as rules for prairie madness and weather. Coupled with the disease rules included in The Wretched RPG and Wretched Country, your team of wagons will have a lot to contend with.
RPG Pundit’s The Pundit Files 25 provides a comprehensive timeline for events occurring in the wild west that you can incorporate or use for inspiration for adventures, NPCs, and events during your campaign. I cannot recommend this enough. He’s done the historical research for you!
There is another supplement I would consider picking up: Wretched Dixie. It is a free supplement as it was an entry into The Red Room’s Winter RPG Game Jam. Therein, it gives you a brief timeline of the Civil War, additional backgrounds for characters, and basic mass combat rules. While I think more could be said for a setting set during the Civil War, this is worth picking up as a reference, as many a cowboy, bandit, and desperado were former Confederate soldiers disaffected by the war, or who lost everything for their cause. It is an excellent resource for background information that players can use when developing their wretched PCs. The thing I want to focus on right now, however, is the mass combat rules.
These mass combat rules are abstract and are not granular like you would see in something like Chainmail. This is okay, because we are playing a game that is more cinematic than granular; the broad strokes used by these mechanics make mass combat simple. I think this is a strength of the supplement because the mass combat doesn’t need to be front and center. However, I would suggest the following changes to incorporate Wretched Folklore.
The Shaman’s Ghost Dance ritual provides bonuses to combatants who participate in the ritual. I would consider each native American unit to have bonuses to the mass combat roll equal to the shaman’s level, distributed evenly to each unit of native American warriors controlled by the shaman to a maximum of +1 per unit.
Skill
Target Number
Leadership
10
Persuasion
12
Intimidation
12
Military History
10
I would also recommend incorporating the use of skills to provide additional bonuses to the roll. I recommend allowing players to get an additional +1 when using the following skills. This will give players a bit more influence on how the battle plays out. I recommend only allowing one skill to be used at a given time.
The rules from Wretched Dixie will go a long way to help you resolve mass combat when bandits, natives, and other creatures of the wilderness attack your wagon trains!
Speaking of Wagon Trains
The Wagon, also known as the Prairie Schooner, was a bit of a paradox. It had to be strong enough to make the 2000-mile trek, but light enough not to overtax the mules and oxen pulling the wagon. Most pioneers used the typical farm wagon with a canvas cover stretched over a hooped frame. A family of four could manage with a single wagon, although space was tight. If a family could afford it, they would take a second wagon as the wagons were loaded up with supplies: typically, food, clothing, and personal items of significance or importance. Heavy items would, eventually, be left on the prairie.
The wagon’s bed was a rectangular wooden box, usually 4 feet wide by 10 feet long. At its front end was a jockey box to hold tools. Its undercarriage was composed of the wheels, axle assemblies, the reach (which connected the two axle assemblies), the hounds (which fastened the rear axle to the reach and the front axle to the wagon tongue), and the bolsters (which supported the wagon bed). Dangling from the rear axle was a bucket containing a mixture of tar and tallow to lubricate the wheels.
The wagon could transport loads up to 2500 pounds. Two mules or two oxen were enough to pull a wagon moderately encumbered. The wagon could typically travel 15 miles a day, with 18 to 20 miles on the prairie being considered a good day.
Encumbrance points
Miles per day
0-10
24
11-15
18
16-20
12
21-25
6
26+
0
Supplies needed to be carefully considered, given the small space the wagon carried. To avoid making this too nitpicky, I’ve tried to abstract the concept of resource points from The Wretched RPG settlement rules and borrow a bit from Lamentations of the Princess encumbrance rules. To determine how fast a wagon will go, the following encumbrance rules will apply.
For every adult riding on the wagon, the wagon is loaded with 5 encumbrance points. Children take up 3 slots, with infants taking up 1 slot.
To track food, we will use resource points. Thus, a family of four will consume up to 1 resource point per day of travel, if we assume three square meals per day. Settlers supplemented their meals via hunting and harvesting game from the land. Starvation was a real concern. Food taken on the journey included rice, flour, beans, bacon, dried meat, hard tack, cornmeal, dried fruit, and eggs. Eggs and bacon were typically stored in barrels of cornmeal to keep them fresh for longer.
Item
Resource points
Item slots
Acquisition TN
Prairie Schooner(wagon)
n/a
n/a
12
Mule
n/a
n/a
8
Oxen
n/a
n/a
10
Cattle
n/a
n/a
10
Horse
n/a
n/a
12
Food
2d6
1 item slot per 2 resource points
8 +2 per additional d6 resource points
Wooden chest (for clothing and small items)
n/a
2 slots
TN 5
Personal items (chairs, tables, etc.)
n/a
1-2 slots depending on size
TN 5
Chuck Wagon – Can stretch out food for the whole wagon train. A cook will need to be hired. A cook will expect payment with a TN 15. The chuck wagon was smaller, but it carried an iron stove and supplies for cooking. Typically, two mules would suffice to pull the wagon. For every successful cooking check TN 12, the chuck wagon will reduce the number of expended resource points for the day by 25%.
Supply wagon – carry additional cargo: food, personal belongings such as furniture. A typical supply wagon could be pulled by a single ox.
Starvation – Starvation occurs when there aren’t enough resource points to feed the wagon train. Every week of rationing incurs a -1 to the Wits roll for Prairie Madness roll from Wretched Folklore.
In The Wretched RPG, PCs can supplement food through hunting, fishing, and foraging. It was not easy on the prairie. With a successful TN 15 roll, the PC can find 1d6 resource points plus 1 additional resource point for every point rolled above 15.
Will this outline work for a campaign, Dear Reader? What do you think? Let me know in the comments.
Hello, Dear Readers! Today, I am going to flesh out how I am going to experiment with hex flowers to resolve an issue I’ve struggled with. My co-host, Gary, and I touched upon this on a recent episode of The Second Watch. This is a problem that came to the fore when I contemplated a new campaign that will take place in Avalidad, The Red Room’s fictional mega-city, for its Wretched New Flesh setting. How do I properly make factions and major NPCs function without feeling like I’m making a decision by fiat? In other words, is there a way to make the NPC/faction decision-making process feel organic but still tied to a subsystem within the game?
The campaign world is cyberpunk with a healthy dose of both body horror and eldritch horror. It is one of the most unique settings I’ve ever had the pleasure of reading. The issue here, of course, is that with a modern campaign setting, quests and adventures are more likely to be tied to NPCs and factions rather than locations, as they would be for a fantasy setting.
To be sure, Dear Reader, you could have an adventure that is focused on a location, vis-à-vis, the players decide to raid the office building owned by a corporation—that’s part of cyberpunk! However, what I am talking about is world-building. Locations will have history and rumors, encouraging players to explore the locations. In a modern setting, such locations are rare. The real motivators for players are NPCs and the factions they belong to.
The problem is that, unlike a static location in a fantasy setting, NPCs/factions are not static. They are moving. They are doing. They are interacting with the world in the same manner as a PC. Most GMs I know use timelines or triggering events. Timelines seem arbitrary to me, especially when the PCs do something that might alter the timeline indirectly. GMs run the risk of implementing a quantum ogre to ensure the timeline’s integrity is maintained. Even if they don’t, how do we know the NPC is going to switch course or maintain it? Furthermore, do we know the NPC is going to fulfill whatever goal the NPC is trying to achieve precisely on that date anyway? At the end of the day, it seems arbitrary.
Triggering events feel static to me. Your NPC is effectively standing still until the players interact with the NPC. More importantly, what if the players never interact with the guy? He’s like a dormant AI program: non-existent until someone interacts with it.
Okay…so what am I proposing? Hex Flowers.
The Hexflower is a mini-game (or subsystem if you prefer) that is, essentially, a random table with memories. I encourage you to check out Goblin Henchman’s Hex Flower Cookbook for a detailed dissertation on the subject.
A great use of a hex flower is a weather table. Rather than have wildly random weather generated from a d20 table or a somewhat static 2d6 table, the weather will slowly morph as it moves around the hex. The changing weather feels organic as a partly cloudy day turns to an overcast night, then a light snow shower the following day.
This is how I run weather in my campaigns now. It’s perfect.
The Hex Flower can be more complex than the weather table. As you can see, the hex flower can be used to set up terminal events. In the example to the right, the hex flower is being used to track the progress of a pending volcanic eruption. Can this terminal event hex flower be used to track the actions of NPCs and factions?
I think so.
The terminal event on the hex flower would be the NPC/Faction’s Goal. The NPC/ Faction begins play at the starting position directly opposite the terminal event. As the faction/NPC moves along the hex flower, they move closer to their goal.
Should the NPC/Faction make it to the terminal event, your campaign world will change as the NPC/Faction has reached the goal.
The collar sections around the terminal event of the hex flower are the final actions the NPC/Factions are taking to advance them toward their goal. These should be large events that are talked about by other NPCs, the locals, and maybe even those in charge. These events should get the player’s attention, thus getting them involved with the NPC and/or faction if they haven’t done so already.
The lobe sections (green/purple) should be tangents that the NPC/Faction is engaged in that are somewhat related to the goal, but not so intimately connected that these events qualify to be placed in the collar section. The lobes could also involve lesser-ranking members of the faction pursuing their own ends. In either case, these events are big enough for the PCs to get the player’s attention, much like the collar sections.
The center hex, or the special section, should be set up as a wild card section. This can be anything from the faction getting involved with the PCs randomly, a setback the NPC/Faction suffers, or, maybe, the NPC/Faction runs into a problem with another faction.
Let’s take a moment before we go any further, Dear Reader. I think I know what you’re thinking: “This is looking to be a lot of work for an NPC/Faction.” It is. However, I submit to you that it isn’t any more work than spending time developing a dungeon location for exploration. Instead of spending time populating rooms, we are populating 19 hexes.
Indeed, if you’ve seen The Forbidden Lands encounter tables, you will note they aren’t encounters. They are specific events with specific actors engaged in an action that the PCs upon while adventuring. What I am proposing is not much different. The only real difference is that the events on the hex flower are all related to a single faction. We don’t even need to fill each hex with a particular event. We could just put modifiers into the hexes to demonstrate, in an abstract way, the efforts the NPC/Faction is taking toward the goal, or connect the hex to a random table.
So, let’s put theory into practice. I’ve been working on a cult of punk rock necromancers for a fledgling Wretched RPG scenario and/or setting taking place in the late 1970s and early 1980s. They are called The Grinning Choir. The Grinning Choir isn’t a single band. It’s a scene. A loose, shifting collective of dirtbag punks, gutter goths, and street-corner necromancers who believe death isn’t the end — it’s the ultimate liberation. The Grinning Choir is infamous in the punk scene for actually doing the things other bands just sing about. Their ultimate goal is to push the city into chaos by creating a George A. Romero, “Day of the Dead” type scenario. At a major punk rock concert—they call it a Rotshow—that is part show, part necromantic ritual that will transform those present into the living dead.
Headlining this event is Life is a Cage, The Rotting Cocks, and Rubella Screams Sweetly. The frontmen to these bands, Mattie Black, Chris Coffin, and Rubella Soho, are the cult’s top necromancers. They will perform a major ritual calling forth Varis, an entity they worship, who will absorb the souls of all present. If they are successful, everyone at the event –including themselves—will turn into nightmarish, flesh-starved ghouls. The city’s children will then tear the city apart, rending flesh and bone in ecstatic chaos.
Sounds cool? Hell yeah, it is! Let’s put together that Hex Flower!
First, you will see that the hex flower distribution is set in such a way as to make an upward shift more likely. I’ve also included an approximate 16% chance for no movement on the 2d6 roll. Whatever hex The Grinning Choir is in will be repeated.
The Red Collar represents actions taken by The Grinning Choir in preparation for The Rotshow. For an event that takes place in the collar section, a cumulative +1 is added to the 2d6 roll. This represents the cult gaining speed as it gets ready for the Rotshow.
Massive grave robbery and desecration of graves—hundreds of them across the city.
The burning of a major cathedral, church, synagogue, or mosque occurs.
A police precinct is firebombed.
The Green Lobe is going to represent the actions of a more enigmatic figure in the scene—Glenn Ghoulish. Glenn is my G.G. Allin stand in—he’s fucking insane (and undead). What he does will cause problems for the cult, even though it could advance the cause. Each green spot will cause a random roll on the “What did Glenn Do” table.
Glenn got into a fight with the police. He escaped, but one officer was seriously injured. His face was nearly ripped off by Glenn’s teeth. (-2 to the next hex flower roll)
Glenn was found picking his teeth in the public park one morning by a jogger. The thing is? The jogger could’ve sworn the decrepit-looking punk was using a human finger bone to do it.
Glenn walked into a corporate office building wearing only his leather pants, a tie, and sunglasses. He demanded a job, took a shit on the reception desk, and proceeded to fight with the security. He escaped. (+1 to the next hex flower roll).
Glenn showed up at a wedding venue with a corpse as his plus one. He fled before the police arrived. (+1 to the next roll).
Glenn tried to eat a groupie after a show. She escaped. Now there is a manhunt for him. (-2 to the next roll on the hex flower).
Glenn crashed a punk show at a local venue. The band tried to get him off stage, but he snarled, howled, and threatened to kill everyone until he had a chance to read his poetry. When the band relented, he stared at the crowd for twenty minutes, picking his scabs and breathing heavily into the mic. (-1 to the next roll on the hex flower).
Glenn ran through a local mall, high as a kite, shouting incoherently about Jenny Sharp’s pending return (lead vocalist who committed suicide a few years prior). Police attempted a mental health arrest, but he escaped. (+1 to the next roll).
Glenn was arrested at the zoo trying to fuck an orangutan. A mysterious patron paid his bail. Glenn disappeared shortly thereafter. (-1 to the next roll)
The Purple Lobe represents Rubella Soho’s jealous quest to replace Mattie Black and her band, Life is a Cage, as headliner. This could lead to setbacks for the cult as a whole.
Riot breaks out at a local venue between another band loyal to Rubella, Funeral Hag, and RotMilk, a band that frequently opens for Life is a Cage. The police are investigating what happened. -1 to the next roll on the hex flower.
A home in a more affluent part of the city is attacked by a group of punks from The Grinning Choir. The home was hosting a party of teenagers while their parents were away. Playing at the party was a Life is a Cage cover band. Members of the band are either seriously injured or killed. The police are conducting an investigation. There is a -2 to the next roll on the hex flower.
Rubella tries to kill Mattie Black. She has a 2-in-6 chance of success. If she is successful, treat all purple lobe results as revenge from those loyal to Life is a Cage. Otherwise, Rubella is beaten into submission. Add +2 to the next roll on the hex flower.
Rubella calls out Mattie Black for being Worm Food (a poser) in a rambling screed in Cass Dead Baby’s zine, Rotworld. +1 to the next roll on the hex flower.
The Blue Special section will be a random event that could set the cult back, advance their position, get the players involved, or just be something weird and random. It will be represented by a random table. Here are some examples.
A Grinning Choir zine, Rotworld, is found advertising The Rot Show. The zine’s author, Cass Dead Baby, prints an insane screed against life itself. The City is a metaphor for life and is a “great enemy” that must be put underground. The zine is filled with vague threats and a call to action to “kill your parents.”
Punks from The Grinning Choir scene are starting to scare the “normal” punks. They are getting more and more violent at shows.
The Grinning Choir has a run-in with another faction in the city, a biker gang rumored to be lycanthropes. It resulted in a bloodbath. Police report it as gang violence.
Police officers are looking into violent graffiti being found across the city. The PCs may be asked to help investigate.
Wherever the PCs are, 2d6 punks from The Grinning Choir show up. They start fighting with anyone over a perceived slight.
A member of The Grinning Choir wants out. The cult member approaches the PCs begging for help.
Low-level Grinning Choir members make the mistake of roughing up patrons at a Mafia nightclub. If the PCs have ties to the Mafia, they may be asked to help find the culprits. Otherwise, the Mafia is trying to find the punks to punish them.
The city police commissioner sets a curfew for teenagers in light of the punk/gang violence occurring in the city. The city’s punks—not just The Grinning Choir—do not take the news lightly.
The yellow sections represent The Grinning Choir going about their day-to-day activities. If players are looking for rumors for adventure hooks and plots, roll on the following table.
Graves are routinely desecrated, and the police are having a hard time tracking down the culprits.
More and more punks are being seen walking down the street at night, hanging out at bars. They have a distinctive patch: Three grinning skulls, the center skull with protruding fangs.
PCs walking down the street will notice flyers pasted to street lights, brick walls, and storefronts. They advertise “Rotshows” performed by punk bands under the label “The Grinning Choir.”
Graffiti is prominently spray-painted on the side of a building that reads “See you underground.”
Punks got into a fight outside a venue that turned bloody. Further inquiry leads players to learn that there is a group of punks that are particularly violent.
Players learn of a fight that broke out between the police and local punks. One police officer was seriously injured when one of the punks tried to eat his face.
Some punks sneak into the crowd of a popular morning talk show. They do not cause any problems but they are wearing Rotting Cocks t-shirts. They try to be on screen as much as they can.
A street preacher, dishelved wearing clothing pulled from the garbage, is preaching about death being a release. His leather jacket bears The Grinning Choir logo.
Okay, Dear Reader, this is just a rough sketch of what I would do with this group’s hex flower. Given the cult’s singular purpose, it may make more sense to roll on the hex flower once per game month or every couple of weeks.
This would be just one hex flower out of a handful to address the other factions in the city. The Mafia would need a hex flower. Perhaps the biker gang? What about a hex flower for city officials and/or major corporations operating in the city?
The key here is that the hex flower is only used if the PCs are not actively involved with the group. The Faction Hex Flower is to help you develop the faction organically behind the scenes. If the players get involved, their actions would override whatever is going on in the hex flower. Furthermore, any random encounter tables you generate for your cities and regions can still have faction members placed on the table—it’s just that the entry will likely be colored by where the faction is on their hex flower.
Anyway…thoughts, Dear Readers? Is this idea crazier than Glenn Ghoulish? Am I off base? I wish I had this idea when I started Lamentations of Elemental Evil, as managing the factions in Hommlet would’ve been easier. Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
Hello Dear Readers! This weekend I returned to Shadowdark on the Borderlands after a considerable hiatus. The truth of the matter is that my gaming group and I needed to chat about what we wanted to do next as we’ve had a lot of false starts, cancellations, and no real commitment to any campaign. It was tough as I really like Forbidden Lands as a system but the lore of the world is not for me. I wasn’t too excited about it; thus, neither did my players.
In the end we decided to play Gods of the Forbidden North using the Rules Cyclopedia. During this time, I am going to update my homebrew world of Arynor to Forbidden Lands. We are going to then run Forbidden Lands as a system in my homebrew setting. My crew really liked the setting when I ran a 5e game years ago. I’m looking forward to working on it.
But, I digress…
Due to my wife having some family stuff to take care of, my son joined my in-person crew for game day. As such, I ran Shadowdark on the Borderlands as my son is familiar with the game and really likes it. He was very excited about gameday yesterday as he realized he would be the most veteran player in the group!
It was a fun day as my in-person gaming group received an introduction to Shadowdark. The consensus was that it was a good game. One of my players really liked it and purchased the book!
Anyway, so here’s what happened. The four new players made an elf wizard, a half-elf (I subbed that for the goblin ancestry), and two human fighters. Another player, who played in session one last year, reprised his role as the dwarf warrior Dirge, brother to my son’s character Thorin.
Because Thorin helped defeat the bandit camp, he was gifted 2d10 gp (12). Further, the Castellan of the Keep gifted future adventurers a special room at the inn and tavern where they can rest and plan their next forays into the borderlands. As part of that, he gifted them a specially crafted table with a map of the borderlands carved into the tabletop.
Dirge and Thorin playfully argued about money and my son has decided he’s playing a very greedy dwarf!
The group decided to venture back to the Bandit camp to investigate whether anything was left there. Along the way, Thorin remembered two boats—stolen from the bandits—were hidden by the river for easy access to the forest south of the keep and the river. When they reached the camp, they found poor-quality tents and a barrel of wine.
The group decided to bring the wine back to Herwin, the Barkeep and Tavern owner. They also decided to turn the bandit camp into an auxiliary base camp in the event that they were trapped outside the keep at night.
Pooling their money together, we used the carousing rules. They had 5% of the gold stolen by the local thieves’ guild thanks to the carousing roll. Thorin gained a level.
Also, thanks to the carousing roll, there is a thieves guild in the Keep!
The following day, they decided to tackle the Caves of Chaos. Once again, they entered the Kobold lair entrance A. Sadly, they were ambushed from behind by 8 kobolds jumping out of a tree. The fight was quick with the players dispatching them quickly. The kobold’s morale failed them and they ran to the Ogre cave at entrance E.
The players chased after them hoping to kill the kobolds but then ran into the ogre! I thought for sure they were going to be killed. Thorin (my son) wanted to fight the ogre, but his brother Dirge dragged him away from the cave entrance. My buddy’s fighter was smart enough to toss some coin at the Ogre’s feet and apologize for disturbing his sleep. Thanks to a good reaction roll, the Ogre agreed to let them go. The ogre then smashed and ate the trespassing kobolds.
It was the first time I’ve seen my in-person gaming crew act with fear in a long time. Shadowdark is no joke!
They entered the kobold lair entrance and the half-elf thief started working on the pit trap to disable it. The 6 kobolds from before jumped the party, but they fended them off. They were going to give chase to the remaining 3 kobolds who were retreating deeper into the cave. However, the 17 giant rats from the cavern opposite the pit trap attacked!
Thanks to some quick thinking, the PCs put them to sleep with a spell and set them on fire with flaming oil. One party member was bit and contracted the plague losing 3 constitution points in the process.
They collected the treasure from the goblins and started heading back down the cave the retreating kobolds had gone, only to encounter the 3 who had grabbed 17 additional kobolds to take on the intruders.
Another sleep spell and a flaming flask of oil later took out the remaining kobolds. The party decided to head back to the keep to lick their wounds.
Not much treasure was discovered but they learned that the game can be deadly. Many of my players became converts to Shadowdark in the process. It was a good day.
When we start Gods of the Forbidden North, I will give you all updates on how that goes! I’m thinking of meshing the Rules Cyclopedia with the AD&D2e Viking Handbook supplement with it…I’ll discuss that on another day!
Hello Dear Readers! It has been a while since I’ve done a 20-question post. I like to get to know people in the industry, and there are a few creators who are little known or who operate in very niche areas. My hope with these blog entries is to introduce you, Dear Reader, to these interesting people. Today, I bring you a gentleman who popped up on my radar with his work writing third-party supplements and settings for the award-winning (and historic) RPG Shadowdark.
He has written a Shadowdark version of one of my favorite settings (Dark Sun) called Shadowsun. He’s written a setting book inspired by Skyrim called Shadowrim. Beyond that, he has been pumping out supplemental material for core rules. The guy is a machine. Let’s begin, shall we?
Who introduced you to the Tabletop RPG Hobby?
I went to a summer camp for many years where guys were playing Rifts and 2nd edition D&D. I think I was probably 12-13 when I first got into it. I don’t remember any specific person; it was definitely a group effort.
What was the first game system you played?
I’m not sure if it was Rifts or 2nd Edition D&D. I only played Rifts, but I ended up buying a ton of 2e D&D books, and I still have those to this day. My first boxed set was Undermountain. The map was intoxicating. I was a 2e D&D dungeon master.
Aside from what you have been publishing, what game would you drop everything for just to be a player? What about this game gets you excited to play?
ACKS2. It requires a lot of player investment, and I was able to sustain a campaign for about six months using the PDFs from the Kickstarter. But my players got weak and lazy! I never got to play, so I want to play myself now.
How would you describe your gaming preferences? Do you prefer exploration? Combat & Tactics? Heavy role-playing?
I am personally a stealth thief in my soul. I always come up with nefarious plans, assassinations, political intrigue, etc. I’m not a min-maxer, and I will play any class/type of character. I don’t even care if I die, really. I would rather play a broken character and see how it goes. I am the guy who wants to push the big red button. But I don’t do it myself. I push some other guy onto the button and stand back.
When playing online, do you prefer Theater of the Mind or Virtual TableTop?
I use a VTT every time these days. It just fits my needs.
Do you prefer to be a player or a GM? Why?
I am usually the GM because I have a higher creative drive. I also need to playtest stuff that I write. My personality is also a good fit. I don’t care about any particular NPC. I am OK with the player’s plans working out just fine.
Every game designer seems to have their own Appendix N—books, movies, music, etc.—that inspired them and influenced their work. What is your Appendix N?
I worked at a movie theater for 5 years as a teen. I go deep on ’80s and ’90s movies in particular. Modern movies are basically trash. I also play tons of video games and push for completionist outcomes. I have every Fallout game map memorized. I can find my way around in Skyrim without a second thought. I have beaten Kingdom Come Deliverance in hardcore mode. I have a very strong spatial memory, and I am deeply affected by settings. Sometimes I just walk around picking flowers and taking in the world.
What was your first published work? What motivated you to write it?
Technically, my first published work was Synapse, a GURPs like universal game released for free while I was still learning. It is no longer available on my publisher account, but I bet some people out there have a copy. Ambition and Avarice (an OSR D&D-like game) was the first game I charged money for.
Do you consider yourself an OSR designer/author? If so, how do you define the OSR? If not, why not?
Yes. I deeply believe in the basic principles that align with the OSR. Player agency is paramount. There should be no narrative. The game should be run like a sport with a referee. I actually sell a $3 primer on how to be an old-school game master.
I became aware of you through your Shadowdark material. Is there something specific to Shadowdark—aside from its popularity—that draws you to the system?
ShadowDark is a streamlined design that does everything that I need out of a basic system chassis. It is open enough to write almost anything you want using it as a base. We have people releasing non-medieval settings for it now. And it is untethered from older mechanical solutions (like B/X) so that nobody will accuse you of being a traitor to the design in some way.
Do you prefer to work within an existing system, or are you tinkering with your own?
I have written my own games. The first A&A was a simple OSR chassis. There isn’t even a monster manual; you can just use monsters from any OSR system. A&A2 was a full complex treatment with a lot of detail and content. They have sold reasonably well, but I am not a marketing machine. I do writing, layout, design, and art direction. By tapping into the marketing strength of a game like ShadowDark, I can spend my time doing what I like to do (writing) and not doing something I really dislike doing (marketing).
You’ve written a few settings inspired by existing IPs, like Shadowsun and Shadowrim. Is there another setting that has piqued your interest?
I love quite a few existing IPs. I am working on an Al Qadim inspired setting, but it is still in the planning phase. I have a vampire-oriented project that I am working on a side burner. I have considered doing a Fallout adaptation. I always have more ideas and creativity than I have bandwidth for actually writing.
Do you think the future of the OSR is in setting and supplemental material, or is there room for more retro-clones?
I think there is always room for growth, but it requires innovation. With every product I make, I try to push the envelope in some way. People want something new, something exciting, not just a continuation of the past. The focus has to be on innovation and new ideas. The market rewards people who do it, and that is what will be dominating the market in 5 years. I hope that OSR material is part of that.
Have you ever considered writing for a game system that is outside the orbit of the OSR, such as Free League’s Year Zero Game engine?
I actually really enjoy Free League’s ALIEN game, which uses that engine. I wrote out an outline of an adventure for it, but I just don’t have the passion yet to write it. I have to go where the muse demands. I don’t have the willpower to work on something I don’t have enough passion for. It’s the only way I have to choose a project.
In light of the lackluster sales of D&D 2024, where do you see the market going? Is there an intellectual property or game that you think is poised to take the spotlight?
I think we are seeing the failure of WotC, and that’s a good thing. They are consistently delivering products that the market doesn’t want. It might result in fewer total customers, but every hobby has expansion/contraction cycles. I would rather corporations get the message that they have to deliver what the customer wants. They must get this message, come hell or high water.
Will the pending failure of WotC have a negative impact on small independent creators?
No. My outlook is extremely positive. Too many creatives see their role like a remora fish on the side of a shark. Be your own fish, dammit!
Do you see social media platforms (X, YouTube, Rumble) replacing the local gaming store in terms of getting product exposure?
With AI coming along, authenticity is king. People need to know you are a real person with real ideas and that you are passionate about what you are doing. They see right through the fake corporate jargon. The internet is central to this process.
It looks like you publish most –if not all—of your stuff on DrivethruRPG. Are there other platforms you are looking into for print-on-demand publishing? If not, why not?
I have an exclusive contract with DriveThru, so I don’t use other venues. I am somewhat vertically integrated. I have everything I need (writing, layout skills, stock art, etc), and I don’t need crowdfunding to pay for things. I can just make a product and publish it. I like that people can just click and have my stuff without having to wait for a kickstarter to finish. When my products are ready, they are ready. The end.
Artificial Intelligence is becoming a lightning rod for controversy. Do you see a role AI can play in design and/or production?
AI sucks at writing. It hallucinates, it gets things wrong, etc. I would spend way more time fixing its work than if I just wrote it myself. The only thing that it is really good at is coming up with a list of 10 things. For example, it can give you 10 ideas for a wilderness encounter. But that’s about it. And they will be mundane, run-of-the-mill ideas. If you ask for 20, it will start to repeat them, or they will get really stupid. There are 1,000+ encounters in my latest work. Using AI never crosses my mind.
The Most Important Question
Where can we find your stuff? Is there something specific you’re shilling right now?
I just released two books: the GM Companion and Terra Invictus. Both are for ShadowDark.The GM Companion is essentially a book of tables- bigger, more comprehensive tables than are in the ShadowDark core rules or just an entirely new table, so now you have 2 tables for the same thing. For example, the core rules have a single hazard table for all terrains. I have Arctic, Coast, Desert, Forest, Grassland, Jungle, Mountain, River, and Swamp. It’s the same principle for traps, with tables for each type of dungeon environment. I added a new gambling game to use in addition to Wizards and Thieves. It is a resource for the GM to expand what they are bringing to the table each session.
Terra Invictus is a massive 300+ hexcrawl with built-in OSR ideas like tons of rumors for player agency and a vast array of encounters to keep wilderness travel fresh and exciting. My playtesting experiences resulted in the party having so much information that they spent a lot of time considering what to do next, making plans, etc. Engagement is high when you have choices to make. Should we sail down the coast to investigate this rumor of a pyramid, or should we cross the river and try to find the tomb that this NPC told us about? The product is focused on overland hexes, and you can use ShadowDark’s random dungeon generation system to build out dungeons whenever you find them. I provide guidance on what monsters might be there, the purpose of the structure, etc. Then, the GM can quickly build a unique dungeon every time.
There you have it, Dear Reader! Check out Chubby Funster’s stuff at DrivethruRPG!
Hello Dear Viewers! I’m a bit behind schedule on this, thanks to my family’s vacation from a week ago. So, the January section of the Dungeon focused on two potential factions and their respective lairs. In contrast, the February section of the map (the bottom part) is more diverse. I wanted to make it seemingly more random.
I should probably provide some context. I don’t have a name for the dungeon, but the backstory is composed of a small, corrupt city-state buried by the Gods as retribution for the people’s vile degeneracy and evil. The larger, wider hallways are what’s left of the roads; caverns are former dwellings, although some caverns are natural- the result of cave-dwelling creatures’ burowing and excavating sections for their own purposes.
I will be focusing on the right-hand side of the map in March. The locations here will be the remains of stately homes of the city’s former nobility and upper class. My thought is that few of the impoverished homes would’ve survived the cataclysm. Thus, most of what the PCs will be exploring on the upper floors of the mega dungeon are the remains of temples to vile deities and the manor homes of the corrupt nobility.
Beneath this section, starting in April, I am going to start diving into the underworld section. This will be a cross between the remains of the sewer system, basements, and other “things” that have tunneled their way toward the city.
With that said, I’ve just finished reading Stonehell: Through Night Haunted Halls. I prefer this mega dungeon’s layout compared to the layout presented in Temple of Elemental Evil. Stonehell is an easy two-page layout for each section of the dungeon. The only complaint I have is that it makes the dungeon less organic-looking, as each section is a square quadrant. It is only a minor complaint, considering what I’ve been trying to deal with running ToEE. I’ll have to make a separate post comparing the two.
I’m plugging away on a few projects still. I’m going to start playtesting Defenders of Alatria by the end of the month. This project started off as a “throw away” intellectual curiosity type of project. However, it is turning into something that I think has some actual potential. I am looking into how I will fund the art. I might stick with AI just to keep costs down. However, I am also thinking about reaching out to digital artists to see if there is interest in an alternative means of funding art: rather than paying for each image, the artist would be deemed an “art director” who will get a percentage of the profits for each sale on DriveThru. I’m not sure if anyone has tried doing something like this. We shall see if this works…
Anyway, that’s all I have for today, folks. Until next time…
Hello Dear Readers! I’ve recently read Twilight of Empires by The Red Room and wanted to give you my initial thoughts. But before we get into that, I wanted to let you all know that, I got second place in The Red Room’s Winter Game Jam. My submission, Together, To the Beyond, is now up for sale ($3.50) at The Red Room store.
Basically, it is a toolkit to get you started on an alien invasion campaign. The supplement was inspired by the television show V, the movie They Live, and good old-fashioned H.P. Lovecraft. I hope you enjoy it!
So, Twilight of Empires…
This is a campaign setting and rulebook from The Red Room that is set in 17th-century Spain. The history of Habsburg Spain— the social and economic rise and decline of Spain—is all meticulously presented. And, as is always the case with Miguel Ribeiro’s work, the major thematic elements are clearly presented so that you can craft your own campaign that will immerse your players into this period.
Twilight of Empires utilizes The Red Room’s alternate system, Red, for gameplay. Rather than use traditional OSR character classes, the game requires players to choose an archetype and advance their character by spending experience points to increase the character’s skills. The Red system creates a grittier game but it is just as flexible as Wretched RPG. Indeed, there are elements contained in Twilight of Empires that make it very distinct from The Red Room’s other offerings.
To fit the setting, Twilight of Empires adds an honor system for your players to track. Rather than a traditional alignment system, your players will track honor and infamy. The more positive the character’s score, the more honorable the character is; conversely, a negative score denotes a character with a reputation for treachery, cowardice, or heresy. The honor score is the kind of thing that will change with each game session. One bad day could lead a character down a path of infamy!
The more honor you have, the more you can influence social skill checks positively. An infamous character is going to have a harder time in social situations!
This leads me to a separate alignment system that is at work in Twilight of Empires: Paths of Sin and Virtue. Like honor, this mechanic will lead to fluctuating scores based on the actions of the character. The more sinful they are, the more likely the character will have a negative score. These scores will have an impact on the character’s reaction to Fear Rolls when confronting horrible situations and/or creatures.
Twilight of Empires has a rather familiar combat system, but this book also gives you rules for sea battles with stats for a host of ships that your players may end up using. The sea battle rules are simple with maneuvers that can be performed with ships. There are also additional random tables to determine weather, wind, and sea conditions that could drastically affect rolls during combat.
To further provide immersive storytelling, Twilight of Empires gives you superstition rules that, should a character not heed the superstition, have penalties to certain rolls and skill checks. But there is more!
Rather than have a clerical class, particularly pious characters can invoke miracles provided they have the Divine Favor perk and at least one rank in Miracle Work skill. Miracles are not easy to invoke, but they range from minor blessings and healing to divine intervention, the last of which is only for the most pious of people. This section of the book also details saints, angels, and other religious figures for reference when using this mechanic.
Twilight of Empires provides you with a rather comprehensive Alchemy system with over 24 potential alchemical recipes a character can learn and use. Included in this subsystem are tables for catastrophic results, which include explosions, mutations, and reality-bending phenomena.
No Red Room game would be complete without a section on ritual magic. This is very similar to what you may have encountered in Wretched RPG. However, there are a few differences that make the system more refined. Twilight of Empires gives you categories of rituals that range from a simple target number of 15 to an advanced ritual requiring a target number of 30.
Also, as always, you get a starting adventure, plot hooks, and other random tables to assist you in putting together a campaign.
To be honest, given the period Twilight of Empires is set in, you could probably import quite a few Lamentations of the Flame Princess modules as well. I know I plan on mashing the two systems together when I use Twilight of Empires.
I have to say Twilight of Empires and The End of Innocence feel like The Red Room has found its voice. In both instances, you have complete games that are richly detailed, both in terms of setting and theme, with clear rules for gameplay. The layout for these books is fantastic and, given the flexibility of the core game engine, Red, The Red Room can manipulate it to fit just about any genre.
Dear Readers, I can’t recommend Twilight of Empires enough. You can get the physical copy at Lulu.com.
Hello Dear Readers! I’ve wanted to bloviate for a few minutes on the #dungeon23 “thing” (or is it #megadungeon23?) for some time but, thanks to the OGL debacle and life, getting to this topic has been a bit of a challenge.
It was so much of a challenge, that I completely missed it and doing it Dungeon2024!
I wanted to participate in #dungeon23 as I have never created a mega-dungeon before and I think it would be a neat challenge. Earlier in 2024, I tried to use Veins of the Earth to create a dungeon, but it didn’t work out. I want to put together something less cavernous and unwieldy. I want something for my players to discover. I want to put together something that focuses on a pillar of the gaming experience that I think is not given enough attention in the TTRPG hobby: Exploration.
Combat is discussed a lot. The social pillar has been given a lot of attention in the past few years with the many talking heads on YouTube talking about immersion, character motivations (both PC and NPC), and thematic story building. What I would like to see is more discussion of exploration.
This takes me to my project: Megadungeon2025. (I am always soooo late on these things!!!)
What makes for a good mega-dungeon in terms of exploration pillar? I don’t readily have an answer to that. I know that there is a lot of commentary on dungeon design principles, but has anyone really tackled how to make the MegaDungeon a central character in your campaign?
By that I mean, the mega-dungeon clearly is something that has its place in the world but it is an unknown. The PC’s exploration of the dungeon reveals more truths about the history of the dungeon, why it came to be, and who may have lived there (and who may still do!).
I want my players to have to take notes. I don’t just want a Mapper and a Caller. I want a Scribe who writes down clues, keeps track of discoveries, and makes reminders of lore discovered for later use.
I also want to write a dungeon that is more than just lots of monsters to fight with factions to play off. I’ve been running Temple of Elemental Evil. The most interesting parts of the dungeon are the temples themselves. They provide interesting puzzles and challenges to overcome. Players have to think through the clues and/or explore the room carefully to unlock its secrets. The sessions where my players interact with the elemental temples are my favorite sessions.
The remainder of ToEE is just locations for minor factions that could be manipulated for player benefit. This can be interesting and is certainly important, but where are the interesting discoveries driving players to dive further into the dungeon?
What really got me thinking about this particular issue is the video game Hello Neighbor. For those who are not familiar, Hello Neighbor is a first-person horror video game that involves a lot of exploration. The player is required to solve puzzles, find clues, and unlock hidden secrets of the neighbor’s house. All the while, avoid getting caught by the Neighbor. It’s kind of an addicting game and my son is really into it.
Essentially, there is a mystery about the Neighbor’s house. The main one is: What is in the basement? To unlock the basement, you explore multiple levels of the house to find clues, keys, and other items to be used in other areas of the house. Once these puzzles are solved, a new one is presented. This has you, the player, running back and forth, looking to solve puzzles. All the while, the neighbor is hunting you down.
Hello Neighbor sounds an awful lot like the exploration pillar of an RPG, doesn’t it?
Now there are plenty of design principles that go into a megadungeon. Just google “mega-dungeon design,” and you will get a bunch of blogs talking about it. I want to focus on one in particular in which Hello Neighbor actually provides some really good insight into the design of a mega-dungeon.
I submit to you that, to have a successful mega-dungeon campaign, the mega-dungeon must be more than a weird encounter. The players must do more than just count gold and experience points for their next level up. There must be a compelling reason and/or mystery about the mega-dungeon that really focuses player attention on the exploration pillar. The mega-dungeon should have mysteries about the dungeon itself that can be unlocked which leads to exciting discoveries about the mega-dungeon’s backstory, its creator(s), or items hidden deep within the mega-dungeon.
Indeed, I think an emphasis on the exploration pillar is paramount to mega-dungeon design. Exploration should not be limited to a single room or a single set of interconnected rooms. It should involve the whole damned dungeon! There should be backtracking required. As the players learn more about the dungeon, they realize strange objects, statues, fountains, or basreliefs previously discovered have new meanings. That new meaning encourages players to backtrack to prior rooms to uncover (and maybe unlock) new areas of the mega-dungeon.
That weird idol the players found in room 22 on level 1? Well, they need it to be placed on a pressure plate in room 7 on level four. How do the players know this? The idol appears on a mural, sitting on a plate at the base of a larger statue, in room 13 on Level Two. How do the players know it is this particular pressure plate? Well, the pressure plate sits between two statue’s legs, the remainder of the statue, long since collapsed and broken off at the knees. These stone shins and feet look exactly like the ones in the mural.
In fact, maybe the pressure plate is buried beneath some of the rubble? Why do the players care about this pressure plate and idol? Well, that mural depicts a treasure room behind the statue.
Anyway, exploration is what I prefer. I want to have to use all five senses to survive the dungeon. I’ll give you all updates on this, Dear Readers. It will be an interesting experiment.
I will say that, thus far, doing one dungeon room a day has given me the time to really think about what I am putting into the dungeon, how the rooms are connected (if at all), and what kind of creatures are populating the particular section. I’ve come up with some neat traps already. I’m really looking forward to the finished project.
The mega-dungeon is being constructed with Shadowdark in mind. Perhaps I will get it playtested next year. Who knows…
Hello Dear Readers! I have a treat for you today. I recently picked up the pdf of The Red Room’s The End of Innocence RPG and I was blown away. It is truly a beautiful piece of gaming material. I can’t recommend this enough. For the $11 the pdf costs, you won’t be disappointed. You can get a physical copy here at Lulu.
What is this? It is The Red Room’s take on the Kids on Bikes genre of RPGs. You play children, at the end of their innocent days of exploration just on the cusp of young adulthood, responsibilities, and the fading of their near-limitless imagination.
Normally, I would not be interested in this type of game. I own Tales from the Loop starter set, and I also own Things from the Flood, both by Free League. While I like the world-building those games provide—and it is truly an accomplishment as I really felt like I was reliving the 80s and 90s while reading those books—the idea of running a mystery for adults playing as children does not really excite me. Kids on Bikes is just not the type of game I would like.
Then I picked up The End of Innocence.
The writing is beautiful and the mechanics familiar: It utilizes The Red Room’s alternate ruleset Red, which is a gritty, skills-based game that eschews classic OSR level-based character classes and exchanges them with character archetypes and point-buy skill progression. The End of Innocence continues to use The Red Room’s life path system to round out the character’s background. As always, Miguel Ribeiro and Silvia Clemente demonstrate their literary acumen by invoking character archetypes pulled from classic coming-of-age stories of both literature and film. You have everyone from the Adventurer to Arcade Wizard; from Bookworm to Little Detective; from the New Kid to Class Clown. There is a lot to choose from, all of which will either invoke a memory from school or from a favorite movie or book.
While there is a combat section, the game is focused on solving mysteries. The Red Room provides you with a primer on designing mysteries and how to run investigations. Also, as is typical with any Red Room offering, you are provided with plot hooks and adventure seeds to get you started.
What makes The End of Innocence special are the unique rules that emulate childhood imagination. You aren’t just running a mystery, you are recreating the magical experience of childhood.
Childhood Dream Abilities – Every character gets a special ability that exists in the space between reality and imagination. These abilities only manifest themselves when certain triggering conditions occur. These abilities range from generating a protective shield around the PC and a younger companion to moonlight wings that allow you to glide when the moon is full. This section of the book provides random tables to assist you in generating your own abilities beyond the ones contained in the book.
Weird Meter – This mechanic is to reflect the unique sensitivity of a child to the things that go bump in the night. Where an adult will rationalize the supernatural away, a child knows something is not right—that something is weird. As the PC encounters the strange, the PC gains weird points. As they accumulate points, they unlock special abilities that can range from bonuses to panic rolls to instant awareness of a supernatural presence.
The End of Innocence also provides you with psychic rules and magic for those of you who may want to add more supernatural elements to your campaign. The psychic system functions like a skill system with more powerful psychic effects requiring a higher target number (TN) to meet on a roll for the psychic ability to work. The magic system is the familiar ritual system adopted by the Wretched RPG.
The Red Room gives us two potential settings in this book as an example of play: San Cristobal Bay and Oakbrook. Both settings are placed between the 1970s and 1990s. Oakbrook is a midwestern railroad town that holds deep supernatural mysteries including a Fall Carnival that may or may not have a sinister side. San Cristobal Bay is less supernatural and more grounded. It is a coastal town that has deep historical mysteries to uncover with a social dynamic that must be navigated as part of childhood.
A good comparison is San Cristobal Bay will emulate stories like movies The Goonies or Stand by Me, whilst Oakbrook—drawing heavy influence from Ray Bradbury—is more akin to Stranger Things.
The setting examples are rigorously detailed and the NPCs are rich and complex. You get spooky and scary adversaries for your young adventurers to face, many of which are unique to the settings or derived from cryptids of American folklore. Indeed, when I read the werewolf entry, I was reminded of an old Stephen King story, Silver Bullet, starring Gary Busey and the late Corey Haim.
As I stated Dear Reader, I never thought I would be interested in running a kids on bikes mystery campaign, but The End of Innocence is just too beautiful a book to pass up and at least try it. There is a nostalgic melancholy that weaves its way through the pages of this book that I haven’t seen anywhere else. Like I said before about Free League’s offerings for this genre: they are thorough and well-researched. When I read Things from the Flood, I got flashbacks to the 90s when I was listening to Nirvana and sneaking cigarettes behind the gymnasium when I should’ve been in study hall. It was a joy to read those games for the nostalgia of my (ill)spent youth. However, The End of Innocence does something these games do not: capture the magic of childhood in a way that is gamable and fun. It is that magic that is the source of that nostalgic melancholy. It invokes something more distant than an odd memory of youth. It is a feeling of a time and place that we cannot return to.
Maybe, perhaps, we can again, if but only for a few hours rolling dice with dear friends while exploring San Cristobal Bay or Oakbrook?
Lord Matteus' Ancient Tomes and Wondrous Items 
