Stone Head of Asclepius

There's a weird stone head out on the edge of the wilderness. Some folks say it talks from time to time, but nobody can understand what it says. Lately some weird characters with big hoods and shiny silver hands in their sleeves have been hanging around the place. The mayor's not too happy with that, so he's hired some toughs to go check it out. So go check it out!

Journey to the Membranous Labyrinth

I find that a good dungeon comes from an act of inspiration, drawn from the persistent ideas that I just can't otherwise get out of my head. I never expected to find a literal expression of this idea, but I have.

Squidman's Membranous Parasitic Dungeon is a micro dungeon literally inspired by an infection of the membranous labyrinth the Squidman carries in his own head (don't worry, I think that's just health-mage speak for an ear infection). I am terribly jealous.

The Labyrinth is a very serviceable little dungeon with a good hook to fit it into your campaign and the potential to bring an interesting change to that campaign in the future. It has a mix of encounters which can be approached in a number of different ways. There's also lots of scope for creepy mystery and suspense.

The Things I Love about D&D

Just a little titbit from the kill list in a actual play report from Jeff's Gameblog: The headless body of Spiro Agnew (treasure: iron collar of no head required)

Deeper into the Mines

Last night, Gabe, Phil, and I fired up Apocalypse D&D again to continue our adventure in the mines of Khunmar.

When we last left them, the party was trapped in a flooding room with the Antlion King. Ebag the Thief was unable to disable the trap, but with his enormous strength, Karl was able to bust down the door before Ston the Dwarf started to seriously drown. The Antlion King got away in the fracas, however.

Beyond the flooding room, behind a secret door, the party found the Antlions’ real treasure, a horde of coins and some minor magic items. As they were counting it out, however, a group of goblins entered through the *other* secret door. Seems they’d been skimming Antlion treasure for weeks. There was a tense standoff, and one of the frightened goblins shot Ebag with a crossbow (dropping him to -1 HP) before fleeing for their lives.

Some time later, in their search for the escaped King, the party discovered a large cavern where a group of ogres had set up a sort of bar where the various monster groups met in relative neutrality. Since several goblins were already there (including the party’s escaped prisoner Toe Snap), there followed a tense dinner discussion. The goblins ended by handing the party a couple of tasty adventure hooks, then slipping away into the gloom.

But here’s the thing. The goblins definitely got the better of the discussion, thanks to some failed rolls, and ended up handing the party a potentially deadly mission to a lost secret library haunted by a ghost. I was a little nervous that I might have set them up for a TPK, but their native caution served them well. Not only did they get out with the book the goblins wanted, but they avoided the ghost. They did leave behind a potential trove of good loot, however, so I have a hunch they may come back some day.

The adventure ended back at Happy Harry’s underground bar, where the party contemplated their next move, and heard rumors of a horrible creature from another dimension.

The Apocalypse D&D hack functioned very well, with only a couple of head-scratching moments (which can be addressed by fixing up the moves some more). The new trap hunting move worked pretty well. On a good roll, the party can pretty quickly traverse a decent expanse of dungeon safely, but there are still important choices to be made regarding where and how to hunt for traps.

Fine Art Pricing, and What a Messed up World That is

I’m trying to figure out this fine art pricing thing, and it’s driving me UP THE WALL. Near as I can tell, there are two possibly contradictory worlds where fine art gets bought and sold. I care about art being bought because it presents the potential for me to get paid for doing art, and maybe make a living at it. I’m trying to figure this thing out, and here’s what the state of the Art worlds looks like to me:

In world A, Art is hung on walls in galleries and sold to collectors for large sums of money by dealers. If an artist is deemed sufficiently noteworthy, their work ends up in museums, further increasing its value and price. Since I’d love to see some of my art sold for large sums of money, I’m not against this in principle.*

In world B, thanks to digital media, it’s possible to make digital copies of an image that are practically indistinguishable from the original. These are then sold for rather less money to rather more people. Since I would really like my art to be owned and enjoyed by people, I find this prospect exciting.**

There are incompatibilities between the two. In their view of art: in world A, you're potentially handing control of your art over to other people. In world A, you're in the position of having to figure out how to sell your art on top of making it.

I don’t have much else to say on this topic right now, other than that it’s giving me massive headaches in figuring out what to do with my art next.

*World A sounds snotty, but it deserves a lot of credit. If not for the efforts of art dealers and collectors, Jasper Johns might have spent his life illustrating advertising copy, and a guy like me might never have the chance to look at a real Picasso. I would like to be represented by a good gallery, and have the freedom to execute some of the kickass ideas I have in my head. On the other hand, this world creates a distasteful façade of exclusivity and obfuscation around how art is really made and what it’s really about.

**World B sounds pretty awesome! Especially if you’re already and indie publisher like me. But then again, the pressures of trying to be publisher or a retailer are a direct drain on the time and energy that could be invested in art; and you can be a great artist but be really crappy at merchandising. I do want to make cool stuff out of my art, but I’m really bad at (for example) running an Etsy shop.

Stone Head

The poltergeists are particularly pernicious in this dungeon. They are not particularly dangerous creatures on their own. Although some form of magical assault is probably necessary to harm them physically, they disdain combat and only use it to embarras foes who are unable to bring them to grips. Their preferred way of humiliating would-be tomb robbers is to steal mundane but useful items and spirit them away down the west corridor at a speed just faster than what the quickest party member can achieve, leading incautious delvers to fall into the traps beyond. The most likely items stolen will include ropes, spikes, and other objects useful for traversing and descending pits.

Bookworm Dungeon

"Explain to me why we're on this mission again?"

The wizard chuckled. Long experience had taught him that abstract thought was beyond the fighting class, but he did not mind indulging them. He flattered himself that an easy condescension was among his virtues.

"Some years ago, the wizard Azxerkak foolishly allowed himself to be encaptured by a certain magical tome prepared as a prison by his rival. That rival, fearing discovery, stashed the book away in a library contained in this very dungeon until he could safely return at a later date."

"So this wizard's caught, like in a cage?"

"Yes."

"And the cage is a book."

"Exactly."

The fighter thought about this for a long moment. "So this wizard's caught in a prison, that's really a book in a library. So how do we know we're not caught in an even bigger book in some bigger wizard's library and he's reading that book right now?"

The wizard shook his head. "Tut, tut, my boy. The very idea is patently ridiculous."

The Mines of Ravenswood

Session three of the Apocalypse D&D game started out at Happy Harry’s Ogre tavern in the underground. Karl Ravenswood and Ebag the thief spent some carousing time trying to gather information for the road ahead (which also gave me a chance to try out the new town moves for ApocD&D).

Ebag befriended a rather stuck up wizard. He had an opportunity to befriend the fellow, but chose to wheedle some of his secrets out of him instead, gathering the location of a hidden horde of gems guarded by a Dwarven ghost of some sort. Karl was both less and more fortunate, finding himself in an unexpected an unwelcome interview with an Illithid who mockingly challenged Karl to take on a wererat King on the fourth level of the dungeon. The Illithid also got a real kick out of the fact that Karl's father, the local lord, technically claims sovereignty over the dungeon itself (a claim that Karl would love to enforce).

But our heroes are only second level at present, so they chose to pursue the Antlion king who they knew had taken refuge with the Kobolds. The Kobolds on the level 2 of the mines are a rather dirty “back to nature” lot, though not lacking in swords and pointy sticks. Down a dirty tunnel, the PCs and their retainers encountered a lone sentry, which quickly turned into a pitched battle with a sizable guard contingent. The on-again-off-again fight spanned a few rooms, ending in a huge cavern with an underground waterfall that marked the edge of Kobold territory. A hasty interrogation of prisoners turned into a full retreat when some sort of bat-winged cave Roc tore their best prisoner in half. Ebag also lost his backpack full of gear (which was better than losing his head).

In some confusion as to the Kobold’s true location, the PCs followed a narrow ledge, discovering the entrance to an abandoned Dwarven temple. It wasn’t Kobolds, but their curiosity got the best of them (plus Ston, their Dwarf cleric *really* wanted to check the place out).

There was an iron statue with gem eyes that they wisely left alone, as well as a fount of some sort full of coins, which they also avoided. The mirror-polished room with the dead adventurers was too intriguing to pass up, however, and Ebag and Karl soon had to do battle with mirror-images of themselves. Karl’s might saved the day, however, and the party decided to take a rest and bind up their wounds before continuing on.

The Eyes and Ears of the Player Characters

I'm trying to work out my own approach to running dungeon adventure RPGs. A big part of this is being the eyes and ears of the player characters. It’s the job of the dungeon master to be the eyes and ears of the players.

This idea is central to what I think of as dungeon mastering. It’s crucial to engaging the players and winning their buy-in to the game. If the players can’t see and hear the dungeon clearly, they can’t live in it or have adventures in it. The players also have a job here, which is to ask questions for the game master to answer. I’m not going to talk about that much now, but it’s important.

A lot of people equate being the eyes and ears with providing description of the dungeon and the things in it with a certain level of gleeful embellishment. This is part of it, but there’s more to ‘eyes and ears’ than a judicious use of adverbs. it’s at least equally important to be crystal clear and fair about how what they’re seeing and hearing intersects with the mechanics of the game you’re playing.

Here an illustration:

The party comes to an icy crevasse that blocks their way ahead. One of the party wants to try skirting the crevasse on foot.

How do you, the game master, indicate to the player the potential risks and rewards of this action? This is part of being the eyes and ears. There are a lot of answers to this question, and almost all of them are appropriate in some combination of system, group, and encounter.

So one answer to this suggested action, phrased in Dungeon Squad terms might be “It’s pretty slippery. You’ll need an explorer roll with a target of 6. If you fail, you run the risk of slipping into the crevasse.”

With this answer you’ve set some parameters. You’ve said what the player will have to roll. You’ve indicated that there’s a risk to failure, and described it in general terms. There’s some leeway here, and it should be set by the habits of the group. Should you also quantify the risk of falling into the crevasse on a failed roll? Do you need to tell the player how much damage that fall would cause? That’s a matter of taste.*

The point of all this is to give the players a very clear idea of where their characters stand in the fiction so they can act like heroes and adventurers and tackle the challenges of the dungeon or even fall victim to them confident that the system and the game master aren’t using underhanded techniques to trip them up.**

Probably some people are shaking their head right now, thinking that there are many times that a game master is compelled to withhold information from the players. That’s part of the being the eyes and ears as well!

Another illustration:

There’s a remhoraz lurking in the crevasse. Am I obligated to sow hints of this into my description of the crevasse somehow? In no way is the dungeon master compelled to warn the players of the threats and risks of the dungeon.

Now another consideration: a player asks if he can see into the crevasse, or asks how deep it is, or just tosses something in, waiting to hear it hit the bottom. This is clearly a way of asking the game master for more information about the crevasse. An appropriate response might be to say “you can’t see very far into it. You don’t know what’s in there”, or even, “there could be a monster in there for all you know.” This clearly indicates that there’s some risk associated with a crevasse you can’t see into, even if that risk is vaguely stated.

Being the eyes and ears is a conversation you have with the players. Like any conversation you’ve got to give and take, listen, and try to respond to the questions you hear fairly and clearly.

* I’m a strong believer in the idea of ‘free and clear’ declaration of actions. This means that before any action is taken, everyone at the table has a chance to talk about it, understand its potential consequences, take it back, suggest something else, and so on until everyone has decided what they’re doing. As far as I know, the term ‘free and clear’ comes from Ron Edwards’ Sorcerer RPG, but it’s something many game groups have done since long before Sorcerer.

** This whole idea is heavily informed by Eero Tuovinen’s discussion of challenge-based adventuring, although I’m adapting it somewhat to a more specifically dungeon-based approach.