Keeping Score in the Dungeon

Christian over at Destination Unknown recently made a post about keeping score in baseball that resonated with me.  He commented, more or less, about how cool it would be to "keep score" on battles in the dungeon.

Below, please find my first attempt.  Description of the events follows:

This score card represents two fights.  One fight (Rounds 1 - 4) are with a group of Giant Rats and the other fight (Rounds 5 - 6) are with Hobgoblins.

Rolf, Oryx, Hanuman, Xavier, Owyn and Kalen are the PC's in no particular order. 

At the top of the chart was the initiative tracker that I completely forgot about.  Bummer.  The idea was to write down what the sides got on their d6 so that I'd remember who went first.  :(

BATTLE ONE vs. THE RATS

During Round 1, the adventurers had surprise and no rats were able to attack.  Rolf hit a rat and killed it.  It was already partly damaged.  Had it been killed with a single stroke, it would be a backwards-K like Oryx has in round 1.  Hanuman hit a rat for 1pt, Xavier for 2.  Owyn killed a rat outright.  Kalen missed 3 times with missile weapons.  

During Round 2, Rolf hit another rat and killed it outright.  Oryx killed two rats with one swing each.  He took advantage of the "chop when they drop" house rule that I allow to fighters of all stripes and dwarves.  He was also bitten by a rat for 5 points (D5).  Hanuman and Xavier missed in melee combat.  Owyn took 3pts and killed a single rat.  Kalen took 2pts and killed a rat.  

Round 3; Rolf kills a rat, takes 2 damage.  Oryx is hit for 4 points that reduces him to 0 or below.  He rolls on my "Death Dismemberment and Deadly Damage table" and hears the bones of his left arm crunch between the jaws of the giant rat.  Ouch!  Hanuman must have missed, Xavier kills a rat, and Owyn goes ON A RAMPAGE!  Killing three rats in quick succession!  Wow!  Kalen misses and the final rat breaks morale and runs away.  Thus endeth the battle.

BATTLE TWO vs. THE HOBGOBLINS

The hobgoblins were completely ineffectual in this battle.  

Round 1(5); Rolf hits one for 5, Oryx misses, Hanuman hits one for 6 (a critical hit), Owyn misses and Kalen kills one with a single attack.

Round 2(6); Rolf hits one for 4 points, Oryx sweeps in and finishes that one off and another one and Owyn misses.  At this point, I believe, a "Sleep" spell was loosed by Kalen and all the parties troubles were over.

THOUGHTS

The sheet was handy and it did a pretty good job for the first crack at it.  Future iterations will have multiple columns for each round.  PC's will record their info that round in one; the monsters in the other. I'm toying with a third (middle) column that will show how many monsters are ganging up on each PC.  The initiative rolls are key.  I mustn't forget them in the future.  

A circled number will represent a kill.  A K will represent a critical only.   K6 will be a Kritical Hit for 6.  If its circled, that means it dropped the target.  Dashes will be melee misses and some other symbol will be missile misses.  :)   Got to account for spells and other events as well.  

Let me know what you think and I'll keep you all apprised of my playtesting progress.

Dungeon Building Challenge!

The folks at TSR WOTC have recently issued an adventure called "The Ghost Tower".  It uses only the Dungeon Tiles Master Set (DTMS) as the basis for the adventure.

The DTMS is an excellent resource and its only $13.59 at Amazon.  Economies of scale at work!

So here's a challenge to all my OSR comrades!

Design an "old school" dungeon adventure using ONLY the DTMS as the basis for the map.

I will be working on my adventure over fall break (next week) and I hope to have something posted before Halloween!  Hint: it will probably have a Halloween theme!

If you accept the challenge, please email me a .doc or .odt of your work.  (wilmanric at gmail dot com) PNG or JPG maps are fine.  If I have time, I may even re-do the maps using "re-creations" of the tiles.  :)

The deadline for entries will be December 1 so I can get the whole thing edited in time.  I'll put a compilation of all our adventures together as a .pdf for distribution by the end of the year.

Of course, you'll get full credit for your work in the book and you will retain all rights to your work beyond granting me the right to publish the .pdf to this blog (and possibly release a book at Lulu -- AT COST -- for those who might want a dead tree copy).

Sale at Lulu!

Hi all,

If you were on the fence about buying my book, "The Wilderness Alphabet", this weekend is your chance to get it at bargain basement prices!

From Lulu:

Enter coupon code EXPLORE305 at checkout and receive 14.92% off any order. Maximum savings is $50. Enter coupon code CARGO305 at checkout and receive 20% off any order over $350. Maximum savings is $500. You can only use either of these codes once per account, and unfortunately you can't use these coupons in combination with other coupon codes. These great offers expire on October 11, 2010 at 11:59 PM, so don't miss out! While very unlikely, we do reserve the right to change or revoke these offers at anytime, and of course we cannot offer these coupons where it is against the law to do so.

This reduces the price on the print version to $7.66 and the PDF version is only $3.40.

I'm pretty proud of the book.  I think it has tools inside that any GM can use when trying to develop outdoor adventures (plus there are bonus tables too!)

There's a preview at Lulu or on the right side of my blog if you are interested.  There's a nice review here.

Thanks for your consideration and happy adventuring!

The Gorbel

Through the wonders of the OGL, I have returned the gorbel to life!

Visit "The Massive Monograph of Malignant Malefactors (MMMM)" to add him to your monster repertoire!

Enjoy!

Challenging the PLAYER not the CHARACTER

James M over at Grognardia, made a post today about "Gangbusters".  In his post, he shares this observation about the scenario.  I think it neatly summarizes how "new school" and "old school" differ.

The other thing I love about Murder in Harmony isn't really about the module itself so much as about the type of old school play it (and Gangbusters itself) exemplifies. All of the clues that help the characters resolve the central problem of the module can only be found by looking in the right places or asking the right questions. There are no mentions of "a DC 15 Gather Information check reveals ..." or "Succeed at an Observation roll to notice ..." in this module. Instead, the text assumes that the players, through their characters, will try and think things through on their own, collecting information by visiting the crime scene, interviewing witnesses, and generally employing basic investigative techniques to amass enough clues to point them to other clues that might enable them to resolve the central problem of the module. Murder in Harmony is thus very much about challenging the player, not the character, which I think is an important feature of old school gaming.

This isn't new ground.  I know it's been said before, but I'm currently GM'ing a Swords and Wizardry based game AND I'm playing in a 4e game.  The cognitive dissonance between these two experiences is staggering.

I'm just trying to make sense of what's swimming around in my head.

d6 Only Weapons

In my current "Castle of the Mad Archmage" campaign, I am using d6 only weapons.  Mostly.

Small weapons like darts and daggers do a d4 and 2-handers add 2 pts. of damage, but I like this idea better, I think.

Found it over at Nine and Thirty Kingdoms:

Some old-schoolers use a simple three-damage system: roll 1d6 for average-sized weapons, roll 2d6 for others -- if the weapon is small, drop the highest roll, and if the weapon is large, drop the lowest.

I think I will be trying this out.  Has a certain flair and symmetry.  Gives daggers and darts the *chance* to do some real damage.

I currently give 2 handed weapons a damage "bonus" because the player sacrifices the opportunity to use a shield, and that has its own advantages in my games.  I have been using the 2d6 drop the low with characters who use two weapons.  They also lose the shield advantages.

Darts and daggers have a rate of fire (when thrown) of three.  I think I will now allow them to roll based upon how many darts hit a single target:

1 dart hits = 2d6 keep the low; 2 darts hit = 3d6 keep the middle; 3 darts hit = 2d6 keep the high. 

I'll let you know how it goes.

Opening Doors

Telecanter has an interesting post about dungeon crawling and opening doors.  Got me thinking about how I decide what side the hinge of a door is on and whether a door opens in or out.

Now, I normally just make that up on the fly, but I find that I tend to make doors open outward more often than inward and I often make decisions based upon patterns (the last two were in so this one is out...)

I just mocked up this die to randomly determine the hinge and opening direction of a door when the characters come upon it (ala Shröedinger's dungeon).  No sense doing this kind of thing in advance -- just spoils the fun.  :)

The first four sides were easy: In-R, Out-R, In-L, and Out-L.  The other two sides are In-C and Out-C.  The hinge will be on the side closest to the corner of the room it opens into/out of.

Let me know what you think!