itch.io

> usually decide what's plausible

The issue was that every time we thought we had a decent idea of the physical constraints, without handwaving the entire thing as ludicrous amounts of magic architecture (to our sensibilities), someone eventually noticed that it didn't work out. Not a subtle problem, more like "uh actually if you built a 3d model of what we just described there wouldn't end up being any path between the two floors".

Okay most were a bit more subtle than that one. But that one did happen.

btw, ran this a while ago. Mostly went well, but we had quite a lot of hiccups trying to navigate (literally) the area not pictured in the tower. What happens if you manage to break through the stairs and try to climb up (down) to escape. Specifically the geometry and terrain were very very hard to figure out something plausible for. Goblins got away with the ruby, a ton of valuable picked delicacies, and the need to rebuy or repair nearly all of their gear.

Just finished running this one yesterday. The goblins did not defeat the ooze, there will be fallout. But they did get away with quite a bit of loot! For goblins, that is. Some chalices, everything the porter was carrying, and miscellaneous human adventurer campsite salvage. And fond memories of an oven they really wanted to drag upstairs. And nightmares of a great cat running from a darkness even scarier.

I ran issue #2's lost scouts. Here are some notes on things that surprised me!

Pack moths were hilarious and debilitating. Because player avoided opening his infested pack until the very end. Lost 4 rations, a bow string, and a pack. Then town had extreme scarcity.

Usumbara needs more loot. Owls leave pellets with their indigestible bits and this owlbear eats humanoids. For their searching, I gave 6d6 of: 1-2, salvage. 3, darts. 4, blowgun. 5, trap parts. 6, leaf cloak.

Usumbara is terrifying. Make sure players are well aware that without "big weapons" they may not even be able to effectively whack the creature.

Don't skimp on the number of scouts. I said 6 but that ended up with just one in elf camp. Say 8-12 instead for plenty for Usumbara to have eaten, the two hiding, and several with the elves.

Guidance on resolving town things that don't fit in town procedure or adventure? For example: it's established that the boss smith (currently missing) is the only one with certain tribal knowledge but our PC smith would love to get the forges running. Seems like an obvious candidate for an action roll. But it doesn't really fit anywhere and adding it doesn't have the "time passes" downside other rolls do. For this particular one we can probably substitute it for the job roll but a few potential things came up.

Ah yeah that makes good sense. Hybrid-on-the-fly but this is a good procedure for easy hybridizing. And I guess use judgment to optionally replace one move if it seems right.

Result: higher ev, higher variance than a standard dungeon. Another goblin area is quite the resource at stake, and getting on their bad side might mean certain death. But they're intelligent beings with a lot in common, so I'd expect by default PCs can do very well here.

My prep was:

1. Define the necessary town elements. The PCs had established that this other goblin settlement had a profusion of cooks and a mine. Choose its size. I chose smaller than Goblinville but with the same number of starting elements. Roll the other elements. I chose to reroll duplicates so it was completely distinct from Goblinville, and ended up with a sawmill and barracks. We already knew the hex was primarily mountainous, so I put the new town in a forest on a mountain with a mine in the mountain and gave it a backstory that a wiped out warband settled here.

2. Set up three big problems, write names for the obvious NPCs (a big boss, a boss for each town element, an extra cook, and an NPC to showcase each of the big problems if none obviously already did). Give each NPC a one word personality and write their relationship to the big problems and what I know the PCs are coming here for.

Edit: also a dead simple map just so I could describe locations consistently.

3. Take your suggestion of 1 ration to enter town phase and use a town element; camp is normal; no progression on major events by default because that's too coincidental, not everything is Going Down exactly when PCs arrive. Instead just play the NPCs.

Things worked out pretty well... getting what they wanted wasn't a pushover, though aborting at most points would have been easier than when deep in a dungeon. But they were poisoning folks and framing them and causing trouble all on their own, plenty of Danger to be had.

What happens if a goblin doesn't work while in town? GM decides? What if they don't go to work because the disorder crisis says no work is to be found? If the only detriment is "you might not get1 scratch", that's not much of a downside.

Ah yes, almost came up but didn't.

1 wolf: X "hp".

2 wolves: X+1 "hp".

1 wolf and 1 gnoll trainer: X+Y(+2?) "hp".

How do you handle mixed-type fights? Do each of them get all of their moves? Do they both get armor for being in a group? Do you construct a hybrid on-the-fly? In particular I expect this to come up a bunch with 1 leader plus their minions, which is how it almost came up for me.

Question! Our goblins are about to have an adventure in the ville of another group of goblins. Any experience prepping such a thing? Pitfalls to avoid? The reason they're here is to try to find someone actually good at cookery to import that skill into Goblinville. My current plan is to prep like I normally would prep a "dungeon in a town", namely, NPCs who would want things from the PCs and larger-scale town issues that simply exist and see what happens. There are two resource bits I'm not clear how to rule, though: what should I do re: gaining and spending scratch? and what should I do re: letting the PCs use this other town's "available locations"?

I have two apologies to make, then... ;)

Was the injured/sick bit in the text and we missed it or do I get to feel better about myself? :D

Went to town! Some questions.

1. Seems like leaving adventure to travel back to town without camping first is a terrible idea if you have conditions and enough rations, in that there are no other times to recover before you're forced to Work. By design? Should there be a warning in the noob-text "hey now's the last chance to remove exhausted/panicked before you might be forced to gain another condition!"

2. Do injured/sick's +1d, drop-highest effects apply to the rolls to recover from injured/sick?

3. Can goblins decline to advance while in mid-dungeon at the end of a session because they wish to avoid becoming a veteran and going from  3 available titles this session to just 1 next session with no short-term gain?

Finally got to run this yesterday, and had a couple of questions.

1. To give "advantage" of sorts, it's always just putting the goblins in better position or reducing the intensity of the danger, right? Never a free die?

2. When using equipment for an extra die, is that always a twist? Equipment is not mentioned in the "Action Rolls" section, except for "put their gear at risk" in a twist. But in Camp, we see under Making Supplies "While adventuring, supplies can be used up to add 1d6 to a relevant roll." Sounds like that's in addition to a twist.

(all in all, it went well, and because of some reaaaally bad rolling the 3 goblins came frighteningly close to being tpk'd by 2 owls, so I was wondering if it was really just that bad rolling or if I missed some bonus dice they should have. yeah, they used title and traits.)

In particular, if the roll looks good, what would you do on failure or progress? Condition, or "now you're tumbling to the (new) ground, what do you do?", or something else... actually I don't care too much what you _would_ do, more what might someone do that's _not_ good practice. Like maybe give-a-condition isn't really kosher.

Suppose the goblins are in a room and there's a trap that just triggered which fairly rapidly flips the room upside down. We're talking about a trap that wasn't foreshadowed here, so best practice is to tell the players that the room is flipping and look to them to see what they do next.

Let's say one of the players says something like "we run and jump on the wall as it rotates and get up as fast as we can and run and jump on the next wall which is I guess the ceiling as it's about to become the floor!"

Is this how you'd adjudicate?

Definitely a roll. Next in marching order rolls, or cedes their position, or gives their die to someone who's already gone.

Action: everyone does the running stuff
Danger: stuff falls out of packs/hands and goes flying and gets broken
Harm: yes; everyone gets exhausted

If Action is failed, then everyone gets injured (is this way too harsh?). If Action is progress, then... one wall? Seems lame, they'll just try again, but maybe that's intended. Danger would be less and maybe no harm and maybe action failure after the second is just exhaustion.

Bartizan of the Blood Egg

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b9r4vu1uhd7zhhOx1yzqyI7NckMpYxX8K_JUeBkL56Y

Took a one-page-dungeon I liked and made the (very few!) conversions needed. How's it look?

It might be nice to have a standard format for monsters?

Boar
Moves: Slash, Gore, Charge
Loot: 2 rations when cooked
Special: 1 armor that's only usable if goblins are in bad or standard position

Dire Wolf
Moves: Find, Flank, Bite, Bowl Over, [X] Hamstring
Loot: Pelt (1 torso/2 inventory/2 scratch) if skinned, 2 rations when cooked
Special: never found alone

Mimic
Moves: Look Just Like An Object, Whack, Adhere, Excrete Acid, [X] Munch What Dangles
Loot: 5 scratch of random, old, acid-proof, adventurers' gear

Wraith
Moves: Resist, Resist, Immunity, Fly, Be Intangible, Spawn Spectre, [X] Life Drain
Loot: magic ring inscribed with "courtesy" in a language of your choice
Special: When exposed to sunlight, immediately cross off one Resist and Immunity if they are still uncrossed. Spawn Spectre is only usable if there is a fresh corpse present.

Magic Ring: Lets you fade into the spirit realm but sometimes the pixie might leave the ring for good turning it into a worthless iron ring and it only works when you remove the ring from your own finger and place it on another goblin's finger.

Spectre
Moves: Resist, Be Intangible, [X] Life Drain
Loot: whatever loot the fresh corpse had
Special: When exposed to sunlight, immediately cross off Resist if it is still uncrossed.