Difficulty: Not Just For Players

What if the players one-shot your BBEG?  Do you fudge his hit points?

What if the players decide to head north, when your elaborate deathtrap dungeon is to the south?

Do you use DM-PCs to keep the party going “where it should go”?  What if the players refuse to listen to the DM-PCs?  What if they slaughter them in their sleep?

In a recent blog post, I talked about “difficulty” in role-playing game scenarios.  That post was about the kinds of difficulties players experience to make an interesting game.  But difficulty is not just for players.  The Game Master also experiences difficulty, both away from and at the table.

A lot has been written about the difficulty GMs experience away from the table – after all, designing a scenario has its own types of difficulty.  Designing a scenario well may be one of the largest challenges facing a role-playing game enthusiast.  One might even say that, the better you design your scenario away from the table, the less difficulty you will experience at the table.  But there is no getting away from difficulty at the table entirely, and the way you handle it says much about the kind of Game Master you are.

To some degree, role-playing games are built upon a fundamental tension between the people playing the game and the person running it.  The person running the game has done some heavy lifting in the design department, or spent money for a module, and wants that investment to pay off in terms of the players going along with the scenario the GM wishes to present.  The players, for their part, want to have fun, have their characters survive, and have their characters prosper.

The experienced GM knows that players have the most fun when they overcome adversity.  The blog post about difficulty was, in some ways, a discussion of what adversity is within the context of a role-playing game.  Yet the experienced GM also knows that the player goals of “survive and prosper” run counter to “meet adversity” where the outcome of that meeting is not known ahead of time.  Players want to “play smart”; the GM wants to lure them into situations where the outcome is uncertain.  Both players and GM are trying to meet the goal of making the game as fun as possible.

Trying to keep the players “on track” is trying to keep play in the zone “where the fun is”.  This is a potentially laudable goal, if the players are of the same mind as to what “the fun is”.  In this event, the GM need merely provide more context to the players in which to make their choices, and the result is good for everyone.  Sometimes, though, the GM is trying to protect his investment, and the interests of the players is not taken into account as strongly as they should be.  In such a situation, the players cannot “play smart” – they are not allowed to.  Dungeons move, die rolls are fudged, and events conspire to drive the players “where the fun is”.

I am not a big fan of this sort of thing.  When the party heads north even though they know that “the adventure” is to the south, chooses to avoid your carefully stocked dungeon, and runs like hell from your DM-PCs, maybe it is time to re-evaluate how you are running your game.

Dealing with the unexpected actions of the players generates at-the-table difficulty for the Game Master.  Want your players to deal well with the difficulties you put in their path?  Now is the time to show them how, by dealing well with the difficulties they put in your path.  Sooner or later, the players are going to diverge from the path you imagined.  Tacking with the wind is an essential skill for good GMing.

Note that this does not mean that there has to be “an adventure” anywhere the PCs go.  It does not mean that everywhere need be equally interesting.  But it does mean that there should be options and that, when it makes sense within the context of the world, going away from the expected route should be rewarded.

Why rewarded?  Doesn’t that train the players to ignore adventure hooks?

Well, it does to some degree, but it also teaches the players that their choices matter.  It teaches them that the world is not just the GM telling them where to go and what to do; when they end up in difficulties, it is not because the GM forced them into it.  If a character dies because of those difficulties, it is not because the GM forced them into it.  If there is a TPK because of those difficulties, it is not because the GM forced them into it.  By being allowed to make these kinds of choices, players become responsible for the choices that they make.

If the GM really wants the group to explore the Death Trap of Deadly Von Lich, don’t force it on them.  Entice them.  Let them know something about the treasure that might be found there.  Give them reasons to make going there a goal that they choose.  Have dangers issue from there.  Dare them.  Indeed, warning them away from the dungeon is the strongest lure to it for some players.  In other words, supply some context that motivates your particular group.  Create hooks between various locations in your game milieu, to remind players of areas yet unexplored, to pull them back to old areas, and to entice them into new.  That’s just part of good scenario design and presentation.

The GM has vast powers within the context of the game.  When things don’t go the way you planned, it is tempting – and all too easy – to merely force things back on track.  Just like experiencing difficulty makes things better for the players, doing the difficult thing, and letting the players go where they will, can make things better for you. 

Remember how the players having to change tactics denotes difficulty for them?  Well, so does the GM having to change tactics denote difficulty for you.  Have fun with it.  Keep a couple of minor lairs ready to place where you will.  Roll for wandering encounters.  Make shit up.  Keep in mind what is nearby, and important, and keep throwing hooks to those areas – towns, dungeons, castles, or whatever.  Let the PCs encounter a wandering circus. 

Although it may seem strange, I have found that the more you allow the players to take their characters wherever they will, the more attention they pay to the hooks you hand out.  After all, now it is incumbent on them to figure out where “the adventure is”!  The more choices the players feel they have, the less likely they are to avoid following your lead on principle.

Most of the difficulty the Game Master experiences is away from the table, in scenario design, selection, and/or comprehension.  There is always difficulty at the table, though, unless you demand your players to run their characters in lock-step with your wishes.  Accepting difficulty in play is less frequent for the GM than the players, but, if anything, it is more important that the GM be willing to experience difficulty for the game to be its best.

Everyone Else VII: Crawl! Fanzine

Part of the idea behind the “Everyone Else” series was to support folks creating products for the Dungeon Crawl Classics role-playing game.  Why?  A number of reasons.  The first is that, while I wanted to promote the products I am working on for this game, it just feels better to do so within the context of other people’s products.  The second is because there are so many excellent products being produced for DCC and I have been getting them all.  It goes without saying that, having them, having read them, and in some cases having played through them (or being in the process thereof), I have opinions.  Finally, I want to encourage others to continue promoting this amazing game!

And here we come to our first check, because, as I have been doing this, I have contributed to other products.  My contributions to Crawl! start with artwork in Issue 2, and, while there is much more to Crawl! than my scanty contributions, it is important to be upfront about their inclusion.

As I write this, there are four issues of Crawl! which I have read, and another issue that is in the post on its way toward me. 

So, let’s look at the first four issues.

Issue #1:  This issue contains several truly useful articles for the aspiring DCC judge.  Wizards & Warriors! (Part I) looks at alternate rules for running DCC games without demi-humans, thieves (as a distinct class), or clerics.  These rules, as well as the alternate death and dying rules presented in Save or Die! would be appropriate for use in games with a single (or a few) higher-level PCs.  The issue has an article on easily converting spells from OSR games on the fly that is worth the cover price if there was nothing else but blank pages in the issue.  Another article looks at the DCC skill system, and offers some refinements.  Rounding this all off is part one of the first third-party published patron for this system, Van Der Dandenclanden!

Issue #2:  I got this issue and #1 at the same time, and this is the issue that gets the most regular use at my table.  It is “The Loot Issue!” and within its pages one will find many ideas on the topic of treasure.  Dungeon Crawl Classics avoided including treasure tables, but, if you want them, they are here….with some discussion about converting treasures in OSR adventures into the types of loot one might hope for in DCC.  There is an article on lucky items which is very appropriate for a game in which Luck is a real factor.  There is discussion related to how an item can become lucky…or even legendary.  Jon Marr (of Purple Sorcerer fame) contributes an article that ties into the Sunken City line of modules.  One would think that would be the whole issue, but one would be wrong.  New rules for shields and helmets, new weapons, and new equipment round out the issue….the new equipment lists being the most referenced Crawl! pages at my table.

Issue #3:  The Magic Issue!   NPC Magic is an article that uses the ideas in Issue #1 to easily stat up NPC casters using simplified spells.  Consider the Kobold offers a kobold that is not based off of reptilian dog-men (or…shudder…really weak humanoid dragon-kin).  Van Der Dandenclanden is complete in this issue where his patron spells are revealed.  Talismans of Anti-Magic are introduced, and the physical forms of familiars are expanded upon.  I wrote a version of the magic wand spell for this issue as well.  As far as I can tell, this issue marks the first third party publisher spells for DCC – a second first for Crawl! with the three patron spells and magic wand.

Issue #4:  The entire issue is taken over by Yves Larochelle’s module, The Tainted Forest Near Thorum, a level 5 adventure.  The issue cover is detachable, with a map of the Village of Thorum and its environs on the inside.  The adventure itself is very sandbox-y, with a lot of people to interact with, interesting monsters to fight, and an interesting overarching story that ties in well with the dangerous nature of supernatural forces in a DCC milieu.  The adventure location invites expanding upon, and Thorum could easily be used for lower-level adventures in the days before the Forest becomes Tainted.  Finally, unless I am somehow mistaken here, Hargn the River Dragon is not only the first dragon in a published third-party DCC product, but it is also the first dragon in a DCC adventure! 

(There is a “snapdragon” in Purple Sorcerer’s Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk, but I do not think that counts as an actual dragon!)

The Crawl! website says, “Crawl! is created to support the DCC RPG and its community of players and judges.  This also includes publishers and developers that support DCC RPG.”  That is a great sentiment, and one I can easily get behind.  It does leave an open question, though:  Is any part of Crawl! open content under the OGL, or similarly usable? 

As I was looking through each issue to write this blog post, I began to realize just how much stuff here should be used in published adventures.  As far as I know, the official stance of Crawl! is that submissions continue to be owned by their creators,  so one should presumably contact the creators for permission.  A listing on the Crawl! page of what is allowable would be helpful; I officially offer my version of magic wand to be included on a list of Crawl! open gaming content.

In any event, this is a really good deal.  If you play DCC, but have not subscribed to Crawl! yet, you are really missing out.

Now I just need Issue #5!

EDIT:  Crawl #5 arrived last night.  Not sure what time my mail carrier is getting here these days, as it was not in the mailbox at 5 pm when I checked!  In any event, here is another first - the first new class for DCC!  Once again, an issue filled with very cool stuff.  Fung-eyes (inspired by Jim Henson's Labyrinth?) for the win!

Here, Squiddy Squiddy Squiddy!

http://www.indiegogo.com/squidsorcerer

Six days left.  Please consider it!

If not for yourself, think of the squids......

From the depths of the well comes a hissing susurrus of voices that echo within the dank stone shaft.  You cannot make out what they are saying, although they seem both feminine and strangely alien.  They have a quality that makes your flesh creep to hear it, even if you cannot make out the words.  Suddenly you can hear a man’s voice, speaking clearly, “I defy you!  I defy you!  I defy you!”  Then the voices all fade away.

(From Mermaids from Yuggoth)

Everybody Else VI: Perils of the Sunken City

Perils of the Sunken City, by Jon Marr, is the first third-party product I managed to get my hands on for the Dungeon Crawl Classics role-playing game.  One of the first things I noticed with the module was that it set a different, but complementary, tone from the approach taken in the modules by Goodman Games.   

The tone was definitely lighter, but it held an undercurrent of menace that I found appealing.  It also offered up an entirely new setting – the Sunken City – that offered many potential adventures beyond Perils.  

And that lighter tone?  It in no way should be taken to mean that the adventure is any less deadly. 

Appendix N includes a lot of potential sources, and the tones of these sources vary considerably.   It follows, therefore, that adventures in the Appendix N vein will also vary considerably in tone, depending upon who is doing the writing and what they are trying to achieve.

Spoilers, of course, will follow.  And, I know.  We get a little blasé about spoiler warnings in the Age of the InterWebs, but, really, if you are going to be playing this instead of running it, reading ahead is going to spoil your enjoyment.  This is true for any DCC module, where the primary joy is not just facing down opponents using a carefully constructed character, but figuring out the twists in the adventure itself.  DCC adventures share an appreciation of difficulty – stretching the player’s limits as well as the characters’ limits.

I really appreciate your reading this blog.  I really appreciate your interest.  And I really, really appreciate what comments and feedback I get.  I try to limit spoilers to a minimum needed to get my point across, but I am really, really serious as well in urging you not to read these adventure reviews if you are a player.  Like the early Dungeons & Dragons and Advanced Dungeons & Dragons adventures, the joy of discovery through play is seriously harmed by foreknowledge.  Don’t diminish your fun!

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Okay.  If you are still here, I am going to assume that you are a judge.

In my own campaign world, I placed the Sunken City as a future version of New Orleans.  Why?  Because that is entirely in keeping with Appendix N authors like Michael Moorcock’s future/alternate Great Britain and Sterling Lanier’s future/alternate Canada.  Plus, with creatures like crocodillos, opossum men, and a giant catfish, I couldn’t help but imagine the Bayou!

Perils of the Sunken City describes Mustertown, on the outskirts of the Great City (in my campaign world, New Orleans sprawled as far as Shrieveport, which eventually became the Great City of Nawleans), as a place where 0-level funnel characters can muster themselves into a company, role-play a little, and (later) be evaluated in terms of how well they did and sell what treasures they may have found.  The Sending Stone and the associated demon named “Sender” are a clever means of starting a number of 0-level funnels in the same location, making a good portion of Perils of the Sunken City reusable throughout the life of a campaign.

The “perils” in the module are several, and they are well thought out and fun.  My players were able to avoid the crocodillos, but they did encounter the opossum men.  In fact, we had enough deaths in the upper works of the module and the area immediately below that some of the players ended up playing the opossum men funnel characters so kindly provided on the Purple Sorcerer website.  Opossum men are sort of amusing, and sort of disgusting….rather like one would expect.  When they fumble, they “play dead”!

(Let me note here that the Purple Sorcerer website also includes paper minis and printable battlemats as free bonus material….Along with its die roller and character generator, Purple Sorcerer is all about supporting your game, and I feel it is only fair to support them with my purchases!  I hope you do, too!)

Interestingly, the ruins being explored were an ancient arena, brought low because of the jealousy one patron had when a wizard took a second.  The first patron is not fully described in the module (sadly) but there is enough information in the module to make the judge wish that a patron write-up had been included.  Some of the PCs, after all, may end up tied to the patron to some degree.

My favourite encounter in the complex occurs in the latrines (!) but my players, unfortunately, bypassed it.  If you have read the module, you will know that it is not how the encounter plays out, but how it is written, that is so darn good.  Even so, it is an encounter that I will eventually echo in my home game, preferably at some point where comprehend languages can be cast!

Overall, Jon Marr is to be congratulated on such a strong adventure right out of the gate.  I found myself craving more, and was very glad when I could get my hands on Purple Sorcerer’s next offering.   Although I get ahead of myself on the “Everyone Else” series, The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk is enhanced by the Mustertown section of Perils of the Sunken City, so this module is really the “anchor” for exploring the Sunken City.  To say that I feel I got my money’s worth is an understatement – although I had bought it in pdf format, I also bought the print version when it became available.

Conan or Aragorn

A simple quiz. 

Which statement refers to Conan, which to Aragorn, which to both, and which to neither?

Original author sources only.

1. One of the greatest travellers of his era.

2. Became King of the greatest nation of his era.

3. That he was the rightful king was revealed by a broken sword.

4. Is stealthy in the wild.

5. Travelled under different names.

6. Was born on a battlefield.

7. Served in armies ruled by others.

8. Has dark hair.

9. Comes from the north.

10. Is descended from a smith.

11. Is descended from people who one dwelt in a lost civilization, and who escaped its sinking.

12. Is one of the greatest warriors of his time.

13. Has dealings with rangers.

14. Fights in a battle that includes oliphaunts.

15. Is aided by a wizard who was trapped by a rival wizard.

16. Gazes into a stone to uncover hidden knowledge.

17. Fought against hill men.

18. Is moved by music.

19. Is opposed by someone whose power is linked to possession of a singular Ring.

20. Is an able captain, both on land and on sea.

21. Speaks many languages.

22. Has moments of melancholy or fey moods.

DCC Crowdfunding

If you have been reading Tenkar’s Tavern, you will have noticed his interesting posts related to Kickstarter projects.  If you are not reading Tenkar’s Tavern, shame on you!  You should be!

I am currently involved in two Indiegogo projects:  Angels, Daemons, and Beings Between:  A Patron Sourcebook for DCC RPG, http://www.indiegogo.com/Unusualsuspects?a=699890 (which is funded, has its main product written, and is currently going through editing and layout) and In the Prison of the Squid Sorcerer http://www.indiegogo.com/squidsorcerer?a=699890 (which is currently pretty far short of its funding goal, but which has some kick-ass writing and art done for it already, and which I urge you to support). 

It is disheartening to note how many crowd funded RPG projects are behind schedule, and I am pretty sure that this affects the willingness of future crowd-funding efforts.

As far as I can tell, both projects I am involved with are on schedule.  In the case of the patron project, waiting for writing wasn't as much of a problem as determining what the best parts were, to fit into a book that is bulging at its seams.  Layout is taking a while simply because of (1) the large number of charts in a patron-based project, and (2) fitting all of this goodness into a single book of reasonable size.  

While I wrote a number of these patrons, I am more amazed by the creativity of the ones I did not write.  So, if you liked the previews on this blog, you should like the final product.  And, if you didn’t join in the crowd-funding, you should still seriously consider picking it up when it becomes available.

In the case of Squid Sorcerer, writing is proceeding extremely well, and the artwork is fantastic in my opinion.  Funding will determine more how this product comes about than if it does – and I urge you to consider funding so that the product will be in print (rather than pdf) right out of the door.  

Either way, the product is on track to be released in a timely manner, although no funding could push that timeline back a little.  Remember that Indiegogo products are tied to meeting goals; there is no risk of funding a project that doesn’t meet its primary goal, you’ve lost nothing.

My own contributions include (but are not limited to!) Tomb of the Squonk, Mermaids From Yuggoth, and one of the stretch goal module, a 0-level funnel where cavemen investigate a crashed spaceship.  I have had the opportunity to read through several other contributions, from more than one author, and I can say unequivocally that this book is going to be cool.  Because these are adventures, rather than a supplement like the patron book, I am hesitant to post serious spoilers here….doing so might damage your enjoyment of the final product.

Jumping into the fray of publishing is a huge undertaking.  I am currently engaged by several publishers, and I take all of these projects seriously.  The people I am working with also take these projects seriously.  Dungeon Crawl Classics is a great game, and I am seriously lucky to have be able to be contribute to it.

We have no intention of letting you down.

Difficulty in RPG Scenarios

If you need each post of this blog to have “IMHO” and “YMMV” written into it, this is probably not the blog post for you.  I recommend that you just move along to the next blog.  Today I’d like to talk about something that relates to the sandbox series of posts, fudging, and the Dungeon Crawl Classics role playing game.  The topic is difficulty in role-playing game scenarios.

What is difficulty?  In this context, I am talking about when the players need to strive in order to succeed.  Note that I am not talking about their characters needing to strive – “The swamp is infested with leeches” has little bearing on the players, unless the players have reason to believe that the characters will be affected mechanically.  Nor am I talking about “pretend difficulties”, which miraculously clear themselves up regardless of what the players do (through fudging, for example, or the “timely” intervention of NPCs, or whathaveyou).

Contrary to what years of WotC-D&D have told you, a “difficult fight” is not simply one where the characters’ resources are stretched or used up, it is one where the players cannot rely on their usual tactics and still win, regardless of how their characters end the scenario.  In other words, even if the characters are beaten, bruised, and bloody at the end of the scenario, if they win without the players having to stretch their imaginations to figure out some new tactic beyond what they conventionally use, the scenario is not really difficult.

Because the game is about the players’ experience; the characters’ act as a conduit to that experience.

I recently ran a modified version of the haunted house from The Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh as a 0-level character funnel.  It resulted in a TPK, as the players did not decide upon a stealthy approach, and eventually ran into almost all of the potential opposition in a single go.  Having allowed intelligent opponents to know that they were there, they ended up facing those opponents acting intelligently.  When things began to go south, they failed to change their tactics to match the situation.  And they died.  Which is as it should be – changing the outcome, fudging, or those other “GM tricks” to ameliorate outcomes train players not to change tactics when things go south.  Why should they, if they are consistently rewarded with “almost failing”?

One of the most exciting things about the Dungeon Crawl Classics game is the decision to make monsters monstrous.  Not only in the core rulebook, but in the modules.  Especially as the modules contain encounters that encourage players to think laterally…or die.  Even game mechanics like the warrior’s Mighty Deed of Arms require players to think about what is happening in the game situation, and strive for outcomes that will actually affect that situation.

The entire “Quest For It” section is a breath a fresh air in a role-playing environment where PC options have become a menu to select from.  Want a caveman character?  Here is a funnel adventure; hope you survive.  Want to learn a specific spell?  Your research indicates it might be learned from the un-dead lips of a colossal sphinx.  Good luck.

This sort of difficulty does not result in characters who are “cool” just because you thought up a neat way to use the rules – these characters are “cool” because you, as a player, overcame difficulty and made them cool.  And what they have gained is cool because no one else can get the same simply by picking up a splatbook or a character generator.  It is not bought.  It is earned.

The original Dungeons & Dragons modules were the same way; if you played them without fudging, players would have to overcome difficulty or characters would die.  A lot.  And that was glorious, because when you won, you had actually accomplished something.  You had to become a cannier player, one who could read a situation, decide what response was called for, and then – should events prove your decision wrong – adapt your strategy on the fly.

I know that there are players who prefer fudging.  I know that there are players who do not want to have to adapt, and who do not wish to face difficulty.  I know that there are players who want to feel the thrill of vicariously overcoming the illusion of difficulty without ever actually having even their characters in danger.  And, obviously, if you are one of these players, you may play whatever you wish.  But the farther down this road you go, and the less difficulty included in your games, the more that game becomes one where “there is no strategy involved – players are never required to make choices, just follow directions.”

To my mind, how utterly boring.

Thankfully, I have been blessed with excellent players over the years, including those who play in my regular weekly games and in my play-by-posts.  Thank you all, current players and past!  And thank you, Joseph Goodman & crew, for making a game that encourages the sort of play where players face difficulty on a regular basis!

Everyone Else V: DCC Free RPG Day module 2012

Free RPG Day in 2012 was a cool day altogether, with some impressive goodies like a cool poster-sized map of Hârn, but the coolest of the many bennies rpg companies had to pass onto their fans and potential fans was the Free RPG Day module from Goodman Games.  Why?  Because it contained two seriously kick-ass adventures, and because it contained a contest that will net someone out there $1,000 and the chance to see their adventure in print.

Now, the contest entry date is almost upon us as I write this, so that isn’t going to be the reason most folks pick up this module (in pdf format) going forward, so let’s look at the adventures!  The two adventures in the module are The Jeweller Who Dealt in Stardust, by Harley Stroh, and The Undulating Corruption, by Michael Curtis. 

Need I say that spoilers will follow?  They will.  Don’t read on if you don’t want to read them.

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If you have read my previous reviews, you know by now that I don’t think Harley Stroh could write a bad adventure if he tried to.  Certainly here has tried to write a great adventure.  The Jeweler Who Dealt in Stardust is for 3^rd level characters, and is a city-based adventure wherein the characters attempt a heist in the home of a jeweller known to be a fence for the thieves’ guild.  Nothing could go wrong with this set-up, right?

I’ve been lucky enough to run this one twice, once for my home group in preparation for Free RPG Day, and once at Duelling Grounds in Toronto for Free RPG Day.  The first time, I ran it using pregenerated characters culled off the Internet, the second time I used the pregenerated characters supplied by Goodman Games on their website.  In the following, Group A is my home group, and Group B are the players at Duelling Grounds.

Both times the adventure was a lot of fun.  The basic set-up is that Boss Ogo, a notorious fence for the Thieves’ Guild of Punjar, who fronts himself as a jeweler, has gone missing.  His house is closed and locked, with no sign of life therein.  For the bold, a fortune in jewels is surely there for the taking, but it is equally sure that others will be watching the house, thieves and vultures waiting for their own chance to swoop in and steal the prize.

There are three (relatively easy) ways into the house – through a large window on the upper floor, through the sewers and cellar (Group A), and through a side door protected by a walled garden (Group B).  Within…..well, Fritz Lieber or Robert E. Howard would be proud of Harley Stroh for what is within.  Needless to say, there is enough cool here to seriously creep-out your characters, and enough encounters that require combat or cleverness to test 3^rd level PCs well.

There is a nice handout illustrating Boss Ogo’s house from the front, showing all three potential entrances.  Group A includes more than a few outside-the-box thinkers, and they tried the windows on various floors, and checked the chimney as a potential entryway before settling on the sewers.  Of course, these other possible entrances have been considered by Boss Ogo (through the agency of the author), and entry there is made practically impossible.

Group B went through the patio, facing Spiders of Ygiiz – a very well realized monster, with some cool effects that, sadly, I didn’t get to use either time I ran this adventure.  What was notable for me, when I ran this for Group B, was that a player who had no previous experience of the Dungeon Crawl Classics system decided to cast spells not for their primary effect, but for the mercurial magic effect that went along with it, and in a successful way.

The sewer/cellar entrance, the one used by Group A, is my favourite, because the way in offers the supreme creepy moment in the module – three men hang, wrapped in webs, in a place containing thousands of mundane spiders.  The spiders go in and out of the men’s open mouths, which are all that is uncovered.  If you investigate, you discover that they are wrapped in bandage-like cloths marked with runes dedicated to Ygiiz, and they are still alive.

Do you kill them?  Do you not?  Encounters are logically linked together, and what you decide here may affect what you discover elsewhere.  Some of the encounters are potentially quite brutal.  Others have cool eerie components.  All is not as it seems.  Players who decide to use up their resources inside the house

At the very end, Ogo’s lieutenant and his men wait outside for the PCs, prompting a last fight that is likely to be deadly for PCs who have used up their resources inside the house.  Group A shut themselves back into the house and took to the sewers.  Group B was strongly considering surrender when I pointed out that, as a one-shot adventure, they might as well go for glory.  The fight was memorable, and they almost won, but it ended in a TPK.  Still, fun was had by all.

Michael Curtis’ The Undulating Corruption is a different kind of adventure.  In search of the means to deal with magical corruption, the PCs uncover references to the Crucible of the Worm, and eventually uncover its location.  Now, as 5^th level adventurers, it is time to remove some of the debilitating corruption that has afflicted the party wizard.  Or wizards.  Or elf.  Or elves.  Or other characters foolish enough to make spell checks using 1d10.

Unfortunately, the Crucible is in ruins when the party arrives, and the very well-conceived Night Worm is on its way toward the nearest population centre.  Will the PCs be able to stop it?

The Undulating Corruption is a pretty cool little adventure, despite being fairly linear in nature.  There are some neat monsters to fight leading up to the Night Worm, and the fight with the Night Worm is one which the players are likely to remember!  The Night Worm makes use of the strengths of the DCC system, so that fighting it is not as straight forward as one might expect, and the party may discover itself loathe to slay the creature too soon. 

That some of the party may want to keep the monster alive long enough to benefit from it, while each round increases the damage that the party takes (and therefore diminishes their overall chance of success in defeating it before it reaches a major population centre) is the masterstroke in this adventure. 

The encounters leading up to the “main event” are flavourful, and help build the proper mood for what is in turns a terrifying, icky, funny, potentially lethal, and potentially useful final encounter.  Players who “figure out” the rules of the Night Worm may be well rewarded.  Those who do not will probably pay for their failure with their characters’ lives.  But there is enough tension between the potential benefits, the damage taken, and the overall threat to force players to make tough decisions for their characters on a round-by-round basis.

While I have not run this adventure yet (I had meant to for Free RPG Day, but the opportunity failed to arise), the themes, setting, and monsters would mesh very well with the Great City from Purple Sorcerer Games’ Perils of the Sunken City and The Ooze Pits of Jonas Gralk.  There should be no difficulty in placing this adventure in any campaign setting.

Death Frost Doom Part III: Doom Comes to Us All

(Spoilers, Sweetie)

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So, last night my players finished James Raggi’s Death Frost Doom.  Running that last bit was a draining experience.  Playing in it seemed to be equally draining.  When the last die dropped, two players were out of characters, and the survivors were pretty glad to be alive.  On the other hand, faced with the overwhelming odds of what was occurring, my 13-year-old daughter swore at me for the first time.  I didn’t blame her, either.  It was an emotion-laden adventure.

The group used a combination of a rope work and a very potent spider climb to get to the ceiling of the ceiling of the main temple, and from there up the shaft.  When they saw that the shaft was barred, some groaned, but Mike, playing Dob, knew that his wizard could rust the bars out as a consequence of the mercurial magic effect on his magic shield spell.  Another wizard then used his rope work to shoot 50 feet out of the hole, immediately becoming ghoul bait.

(As a brief digression, we had a discussion about how something is easier to see if it is above mist than through mist.  Also, used to other campaigns I’ve run, my players know that I tend to have some un-dead able to sense the living.  They also know that my ghouls do not like the sun, and believe that if they can just get beyond the mist, they will be all right.)

They need to haul up their rope, which means having a front line against ghouls converging from all directions.  On round one, 1d6 ghouls come.  On round two, 2d6.  On round 3, 3d6.  By round 4, everyone is either on the floating rope or dead.  Dob, the wizard whose lucky rolls saved him from the Hound of Hirot, is slain and falls back down the shaft into the Temple of Duvan’Ku.  The rope is long enough to drop the remaining PCs beyond the mist, but ghouls follow them along on the ground.  Dropped in the sun, the ghouls leave them alone.  For now.

Two hours later, the PCs discover that their dog and falcon are gone.  Their conclusion?  Zeke Duncaster ate them.  Two hours after that, as night falls, they decide to camp and start a fire.  Remember, the cold is deadly on the mountain.  The PCs are wounded, dismayed, and low on Luck.  For some reason, they think that the un-dead will be confined to the cemetery even after dark.  One of the PCs is still paralysed at this point, because ghoul paralysis in DCC lasts 1d6 hours, and the clerics are concerned about disapproval by this point.

The fire attracts the ghouls.  I decide that 1d30 are attracted every 5 minutes, appearing as they did before:  1d6 on round 1, 2d6 on round 2, etc., until all the ghouls arrive.  Only five are rolled, 3 arriving on round one and 2 on round two, but the players do not know this.  One cleric is paralysed, and there are still two ghouls left.  The players are pretty sure that more will keep on coming.  The PCs flee, leaving the paralysed cleric behind.  I state odds and roll; the ghouls are distracted enough to eat the cleric while they run.

This is seeming more and more like a horror movie with each choice made, and as the consequences of those choices pile up.  The module as written offers players some hard choices, but the extra oomph of DCC magic actually prevented my players from taking some of the “outs” worked into the module, much to their overall detriment.

The PCs reach Zeke’s shortly before dawn, and collapse from exhaustion.  When they have recovered, they take Zeke (“I told you so!  I told you that you were all doomed!”  “Only half of us were doomed.  So you’re half right.”) with them.  As it turns out, going up there to get more names, Zeke found their animals and rescued them, so they are at Zeke’s “hut” in the woods.   

The group flees onward to Hirot, where they attempt to warn the town.  This means soap-boxing in the town square, visiting the new Jarl, Clohn the Bald, and talking to the witch.  Ymae is openly disdainful and asks what they are going to do about it.  The answer?  Nothing.  Run.

Overall, a bleak module, but definitely worth running.  The players keenly felt their net loss.  The surviving wizard has the spell, cantrip, which the player has been moaning about the uselessness of, so I pointed out that they could have recovered the lock of hair they were after with cantrip, without having woken the dead.

We talked briefly about what the players would like to do next, but my players decompression as much as I did, so I am not completely sure what the next session will be.  I am considering running another session of Through the Cotillion of Hours, to give the players a chance to undo some of the damage they have done.  There is a certain pulp grandeur in giving them the chance to travel back through time to prevent the dead from rising – one last chance to win or lose their surviving characters – that seems irresistible to me.  Of course, they would have to solve the Cotillion to do so.  And then they would still have to deal with the earlier version of Death Frost Doom if they succeed with the Cotillion, and James Raggi still holds some surprises for them!

As I said in a previous post, a little Raggi goes a long way.  I think I’ll hold off on The Monolith from Beyond Space and Time for a while!