“Boring” Combat is Fine Actually

Look at how boring this all is! Nobody is using feats or special moves or anything!

It has taken a while to write this post, mostly because I have tried to somehow form my thesis into anything remotely coherent.

So, let’s start with the title of the post itself - boring combat. What am I even talking about here?

“Boring” Combat - What’s so boring about it?

I have seen plenty of blog posts, YouTube videos and discussions on discord about making combat in OSR D&D less “boring”. The solutions tend to cover more or less the same few templates and ideas, which are implied to help make combat more interesting for the person in question. “Interesting” combat usually involves maneuvers or other actions one can take during a fight besides just move and/or attack; or making weapons and armor more diversified by adding tags or abilities to them; or borrowing the fun Might Deeds mechanic from something like DCC and porting into one’s own game (which in many ways is both previous options combined into one).

So, by inference, if those are all things that make combat interesting, then “boring” combat does not involve a wide variety of codified actions, does not have unique weapons, does not have “tactical” choices (we’ll get to that word later).

Here’s where the problem comes in for me though - I don’t particularly care about or want any of those things in combat in my OSR games. I find that those things tend to make combat overall longer both in in-game rounds and, more crucially, real life time. It makes it so combat essentially takes over large swaths of the game session. And if you are into that, and want to do that - that is awesome! Absolutely! There are entire games focused around that - 3.5E, 4E, Pathfinder…all of those offer all of those things in various shades and quality.

However, I want my RPGs to have something besides just one way-too-long fight in the session. Hence our title - I want my combat to be “boring”.

Combat - An attempt at a definition

Let me step back a bit and actually try and define what I even mean when I talk about “combat” in RPGs. Now in this post I am going to primarily talk about OSR gaming in the way I do it - games focused on exploration, a good amount of dungeon crawling, interacting with factions and NPCs and seeing how players handle tough situations with no clear and obvious answers that their characters find themselves in.

In that context, combat I feel is both a necessary and yet slightly dangerous element of the overall gaming experience. As I said, it can take over the length of the session with ease especially once you have a large number of combatants on each side (see my previous attempts at making those fights flow faster)

And I am not someone who thinks that combat has no place in an RPG session. Violence is an integral and important part of dungeon crawling and while one of the OSR mantras is that “Combat is a Fail State”, combat can also be fun and a lot of dungeon crawls tend to involve a lot of combat and murdering of dungeon denizens! Players are sociopaths like that. So yes, I do still want combat in my OSR games. I just want it to move along already and not take up more space than I feel it deserves.

I think part of my feelings on combat is that what I want combat in the context of an OSR dungeon crawler to be is probably different than what most other people think. My sample size here is mostly like at most a couple of dozen people that I’ve had casual conversations about this, so obviously this is going to be massively generalizing.

Most people I’ve talked to seem to say that they either do not want combat at all in their RPGs, or they want “tactical” combat which they use to mean the style of combat found in 3rd edition D&D, Pathfinder and other such systems with grids, action economies, powers, feats, special moves etc. etc. etc. To me though that is not tactical combat at all.

Tactical Combat - RPGs, Wargames, RTS games and Fighting games.

That definition of what “tactical” combat is to me just doesn’t quit work. I am someone who plays wargames, both the tabletop kind and also the miniatures kind and for me all the minutiae of parrying rolls, called targeted shots, 5 foot steps and special flips and twirls are not tactics. That’s just theatre. I find very little satisfaction in modelling that.


I have a friend who does historical sword fighting and so he is someone who is very interested in just how exactly one holds one’s sword, how they swing, how they parry and all that. And fair play to him, it does sound interesting to do. But in my OSR game? Nah I don’t give a fuck about any of that. That just sounds like the most inane waste of time, equivalent to someone describing to me in exacting detail every single ingredient in every single meal that their character eats. Like, yes, I love cooking and food too - I don’t need to know this.

For me, I want the “tactics” of OSR combat to be closer to those in the wargames I enjoy - tactics in this case meaning what is the general approach the party uses for a particular engagement, how they hope it plays out and how it actually plays out. Do you send out hirelings to flank the enemy? Do you deploy magic as a way to draw the enemy into an advantageous position for yourself, or do you use it to hold them back to control the numbers game? That’s tactics. And none of it ever needs to care about each individual swing of the weapon, each individual dodge left or right or just where EXACTLY your character is standing down to the 5 feet wide footprint they occupy. Those are all elements which, barring some exceptions, don’t really exist or factor into wargames. Even wargames that model figures to people on a 1 to 1 ratio. Most wargames are not concerned just how exactly your block of spearmen are holding their spears, what they care is the end result - did you win this bout of close quarter combat or not?

Tangential analogy number 1 - Video games. For me the “interesting” combat people describe always sounds closer to fighting games - your Mortal Kombat, your Soulcalibur, your Street Fighter, you get it. There all of this stuff not only matters, all of that stuff one would argue is the entire point of the game - just where exactly are you, what position are you in, how exactly do you execute your attack.

Compare this to Real Time Strategy (RTS) games. Age of Empires, StarCraft, Dawn of War. Yes, position matters there too. Weapons matter as well…but the position and weapons are on a broader level. Despite being called Strategy games, RTSs I find tend to actually be more about tactics than strategy - you are often (not always!) simulating the tactics employed in one specific engagement, not the overall strategy of how to win an entire military campaign.

And that second option, the RTS/Wargames option is what I am after. I do want there to be tactical choices in combat in my games, but I want tactics not theatre. I do actually think the fact that I’ve always been more into RTS games than Fighting games has something to do with it. That is a realisation I’ve only come to in the last two years or so, as I have started running weekly OSR games. And don’t get me wrong, rulesets like OD&D, B/X or Into the Odd and their derivatives already handle combat in a generally abstracted way which helps speed things up. It’s why I used OSE for my previous campaign and now OD&D for my current one.

What I want out of Combat - Also, pro-wrestling.

Ok now we’re getting to the actual meat of it - what is it that I want out of combat in an OSR context? Since I hopefully made it clear I don’t care about the action-by-action (or even the round-by-round) details, what do I care about?

Well I care about outcomes. I care about what position the players and their enemies are in prior to combat, and what position they are in after combat. Did they win? Did they lose? Did they win, but with heavy casualties? Did they have to run away? Did one side try and parley and surrender? Those are the things that to me lead to the interesting parts of the game.

The obvious question then is - why even bother with playing out combat then? Why not simplify it down to a single roll like some board game wargames do, where you tally up the strength of the two forces, roll on a chart and see what happens? Well…I’ve thought about doing that in games, actually. And I still might! But the reason I don’t do it now, is that I do like playing out the fights..up to a point.

Tangential analogy number 2 - Pro-wrestling. I enjoy pro-wrestling. (Or, well, used to enjoy pro-wrestling. Kind of burned out on it for the last few years, but that’s besides the point.) There are people who watch pro-wrestling specifically for the matches themselves. For the athletics on display as two or more people perform absolutely insane stunts of physical fitness in the context of a pretend sports fight. There are entire promotions like Ring of Honor which were specifically focused on that aspect of pro-wrestling.

But what I’ve come to realise is that I prefer the other aspect of pro-wrestling - the stories that those matches tell. Yes, I enjoy watching the matches (usually), but what I care about is WHY are these people fighting and what does this person or this other person winning a match mean for the overall story that they are trying to tell and play out.

And this is why I also haven’t quite reached the point where I want to completely abstract combat away into one or two dice rolls. I do sometimes want to see the actual match, even if what I care about is the outcome rather than the actions leading up to it.

Let me try and summarize then what I want combat in my OSR games to look like:

1. I want it to be fast, both in-game and out of game.
2. I want it to be generally deadly as that helps reinforce point 1
3. I want broader tactical decisions to matter more than individual round-to-round actions
4. I want it to be able to produce clear outcomes in most fights that can then lead to further interesting situations in the session
5. I want it to involve the least amount of number crunching, action picking or mental load possible for me as a referee.

What is to be done - What’s worked, what hasn’t, what might work

So, okay, how do I do this? How do I make combat boring in the way that I want it to in my games? Well, good question...

I don’t know. Some things I’ve done simply by picking a system - in OD&D combat and weapon damage are abstracted, you only use a d6 for hits, and I’ve implemented a phased wargames-style flow to the combat round (you can see the details of that in my player’s handbook document) which helps. I imagine also something like Into the Odd, with its removal of attack rolls, might also work.

I have looked at Tunnels and Trolls and how it handles combat as a possible solution, although trying to implement that into the context of D&D might require a bit of work to make it fit. Plus I have zero actual play experience with T&T so far, and as such I would need to run several games of it first before I even decide if it is a viable solution worth putting effort and time into.

I’ve also toyed around with collating the various mercenaries that the PCs have as a way to speed up the process and reduce the number of dice rolls involved in any given round, though that hasn’t had great effect so far. I am eyeballing the skirmish rules that Marcia B. has included in the optional rules document for her Fantastic Mediaeval Campaigns, however I’ve not had the chance yet to actually test it out at the table.

Lastly, as I said above, I have legitimately thought about just abstracting combat into a single die roll. Perhaps something similar to (what I think I understand) Matrix Games do. Just spend the time with the players to outline their tactics, their approach and their strength, compare it to the enemy and simply roll a die to see which way it goes. This one might be hard to sell to…virtually everyone who plays RPGs in the modern day, but it is definitely an intriguing option if I ever choose to use it.

BSSS - Session 10

 Summary

The Hedgehogs of Mercy return to their home in the Undying City, after a cryptic and urgent missive from Bel of the Lotus, the vampire they freed months ago. Turns out things are going down in the city, very very big things - the people of the city are on the cusp of being turned into silent undead if someone doesn't stop the ritual that is taking place. 

Characters

• Shimsusa the Archer - 2nd Level Fighter
• Maru the Witch - 3rd Level Diabolist Sorcerer
• Rajini - 2nd Level Sorceress 
• Athra - 4th Level Fighter
• Gal-Naha the Giant Gecko - 3rd Level Giant Lizard

Session Recap

Esho's player had decided that instead of making a new character, he will simply take on Esho's stalwart Companion Shimsusa the Archer and use her as his current PC. With that handled, the party also received a letter from the vampire Bel who they had freed several months ago in their visit to the Temple of Gladio. The message was cryptic and told them that he's in the Undying City and wants to talk to them in person about something big that is afoot. The party took a vote and decided to ignore the dungeon they had been to last few times, finish up their business in the Bastion of the Raging Bull and take a ship back home. On a more cheery note though, they did learn that the reconstruction efforts of the river shrine to the Serpent of Smoke had finally come to an end and the shrine was now fully operational with a small temple and everything. River sailors and merchants had mentioned just how calmer and smoother travel down the river was now. 

As they arrived back in the Undying City, the Hedgehogs were met with tension in the air. The docks were now full of way more guards than was usual and the northern gate out of town was permanently closed. The reason, they soon learned, was that large bands of Northern Barbarians had started appearing sporadically, slaughtering anyone and anything they can catch outside the walls then disappearing back out into the grasslands. 

Returning back to the mansion they were greeted by Bel who over lunch decided to catch up with them, see how their adventures have been going since they parted ways in the temple of Gladio, and also tell them why he wrote to them. As the new year had just begun and the wet season was finally over, the city was gearing up (barbarians or not!) to do the traditional celebrations to welcome the new year. Except this time, the celebrations were going to be different - some of the high priests of the Pale Stillness of Justice, the Lord of Order who was the "protector" of the Undying City, were going to lead the ceremony personally. And Bel, while not having enough sources to figure out what their goal was, knew that something big was going to happen. That these were plans by the Pale Stillness to cement its grip over the city once and for all and make it into a permanent bastion of for the forces of Law. 

Bel, being a former noble, an amoral sociopath, and also someone born before the Empire fell, was generally not happy with the idea of having this otherworldly power dictating things more than it already did, and so recruited the Hedgehogs to help him. How? Well, now that's the question!

After much deliberating, discussing and planning, the party settled on a rather shaky, but at least concrete plan - they were going to venture out into the old city ruins back to the remains of the temple of Ishtar, the very first dungeon they visited in the campaign. They knew that the Slime Priests in there were aligned with Chaos, and therefore were going to want to help disrupt whatever big power move the forces of Law were doing for the city. Plus, they reasoned, these guys had clearly been keeping an eye on the Undying City for months now, so they likely had a better idea of what those plans even were. 

After a trip out into the ruins, a fight with some slime-covered zombies and having to burn an entire corridor's worth of yellow mold, the party finally found some Slime Priests and offered them to work together. The priests wanted to recruit the two sorcerers in the party to join their lord - The Chaos Lord knowing simply as The Decomposition, but they declined. Instead a plan was hatched where the Slime Priests will gather whatever allies and armies they had and assault the ruins-side gatehouse of the Eternal Bridge, the party will then attack the inner gatehouse and allow the Slime Priests and their allies access into the city to help stop the ritual, or at least disrupt it for long enough for a better plan to be hatched.

They also learned what the ritual was going to do - as the procession of the new year celebration made its round around the city, the final gesture of a grand ritual that had been years in the making would take place, and the entire population of the city would be turned into empty undead husks. Perfect servants for the Pale Stillness - obedient, not worried by hunger or pain or thoughts. They also learned that the actual ruler of the city were not the high priests, but a high ranking officer within the armies of the Pale Stillness of Justice - a being not from this reality which is the actual individual performing this complicated magical ritual.

The shaky alliance secured, the party headed back, discussing among themselves just how wrong it felt to stop such a big tragedy by inviting a different tragedy into the city.

Observations

So, right off the bat - this is kind of a big thing to drop on the players, for sure. I did not, in fact, want to dissuade them from visiting the dungeon. If anything, I had spent about an hour last night just writing out more things about it.

And further more - this did not come out of nowhere. In fact even before the campaign had its first session, my plan had always been that eventually the rulers of the Undying City were going to try and pull off this big move to secure the city permanently for the side of Law. There had been plenty of hints thrown throughout the campaign and the players knew that something was going on behind the walls of the Temple District, but they also never dedicated the time to go investigate it further. So now they are left with a situation that is, quite frankly, probably way out of their scale to deal with. 

I also enjoy that, rather accidentally, this session is when so many older threads ended up resurfacing again. The river shrine had been under construction since before the party headed south, the barbarian that left to go look for the other missing pieces of the magical sword has returned, and with the looming threat of the ritual the party decided that they needed allies badly, so badly enough that they went back to the people who nearly slaughtered them months ago (luckily for them, the priests did not really recognize the characters). 

As a referee this whole situation is exciting, and the players are all clearly invested in it too. However it does present a challenge on how to properly map out just what is actually going on, so as to give the players as much of a neutral overview of the situation as I can give, and then let their actions throughout the game actually guide the outcome. Something for me to put on my designer hat on and write out in as much detail as I feel I will need. 

BSSS - Session 9

Summary

The characters return to free the Sea Nymph and there is a sudden and shocking death of a party member as they do it. 

Characters

• Esho - 4th Level Nercomancer Sorcerer [Now Dead]
• Shimsusa the Archer - 1st Level Fighter
• Maru the Witch - 3rd Level Diabolist Sorcerer
• Syphon Gandu - 2nd Level Diabolist Sorcerer
• Rajini - 2nd Level Sorceress 
• Athra - 4th Level Fighter
• Gal-Naha the Giant Gecko - 3rd Level Giant Lizard
• Arrim- 1st Level Fighter

Session Recap

During the downtime portion of the session, the group gets a properly suitable vessel (an ornately decorated and blessed clay urn) in which to house the Sea Nymph, and also get called to meet with Commander Utu, the bull-headed giant of a man, who has heard of some of their exploits and wants to get the details out of them directly. As the son of a divine being himself, Utu offers some answers to the party's question regarding the Sea Nymph, though he can't really give much specific advice not being someone who has met her himself.

They are also joined by Arrim, a new member of the Hedgehogs of Mercy who's heard of their fame and exploits and wants to join in. Just as well, as Esho finally decides it is time to hold his lecture of "Why Necromancy is Totally Fine, You Guys" in front of the gathered party, mercenaries, hirelings and assorted hangers on. (He had been planning this thing for months, but keeps getting distracted by something else.)

With preparations out of the way, the party finally decided on a course of action. They will head back into the jungle (Aho the guide slightly reluctantly leading them again, this time with an even bigger pay promised) and actively look for river pirates to capture and sacrifice to in order to free the nymph. Luckily for them the jungle outside of Bastion is apparently just crawling with pirates as they run into some of them clearly set up in waiting to ambush a ship. 

There is much debate between the characters, various strategies are formed as to how to approach these guys and finally Athra and Arrim simply decide to act as decoys, walking up out of the jungle and into the river bank and loudly proclaiming their intent to to go back into town and warn the Bull Guards that they've found some pirates. The pirates in turn kindly responded with a hail of arrows, luckily none of which managed to get through the fighters' armor. A bloody and rather messy fights ensued, with spells being cast, pirates being dropped left and right (while Athra keeps shouting at people to not kill these guys as they need prisoners), some of the pirates and the party's skirmishers get into a protracted shoot out, the works.

Finally, after Esho manages to put down some of the pirates to sleep with his magic, the party mops up whoever else is left and gets their new found prisoners (along with their boats for good measure) and heads back to town. They deliver several to the Guards as a gesture of their commitment to aid the city, and after a night of rest head out with the others towards the ruins. 

Along the way, Maru the Witch, still salty and unhappy with the party's plan on freeing the nymph, decides he's going to call for some otherworldly aid and petition a demon to get some answers. He and the other sorcerers go a bit to the side from the rest of the party (not wanting to spook any of the mercenaries, or the new guy for that matter) and perform the ritual, offering the soul of one of the pirates as payment. The being summoned offers some useful, if rather obvious information...and then as negotiations break down Maru simply dismisses it. 

Back into the ruined dungeon they go, and the party is once again standing in front of the Daughter of the Sea (although Maru, as a mark of protest, stays just outside the room). Esho has the honor of drowning one of the pirates into the waters of the fountain, with the Sea Nymph now freed from her confines. She offers all the people who freed her a blessing - the ability to breathe under water. All who agree to the blessing (everyone except Maru agrees) get a kiss from the Daughter of the Sea, which fills their lungs with liquid, slowly drowning them...until it no longer does. And they realize they can now breathe despite the water in their chests.  Thankful the sea nymph went into the prepared urn, which Esho and his companion and mercenary then lug out of the room, as the rest of the party start to loot all the coins and the golden statue that adorn the fountain (the real reason why they wanted to get the Sea Nymph out of there in the first place). 

However, being distracted by carrying the urn, Esho does not spot the fleeting glimmer of a magically cloaked figure that approaches him from the back. And before he knew what happened, he ended up with a dagger stuck into his back, piercing his heart and killing him on the spot. In his dying breath he and his followers see a pale and thin woman pull the blade out of him, before vanishing into the air. 

There is much commotion, people quickly finished gathering the rest of the loot and just hauled everything and everyone (including the urn and Esho's corpse) out of the dungeon, waiting to see if they will be followed. 

As the party finally decide to head back the remaining sorcerers do spot a glowing energy out in the distance tracking the party, but as soon as they stop to pay attention to it, it darts back behind a ruined building. 

On the bank of the Serpent of Smoke the group release the Daughter of the Sea into the waters (she told them she can find her way back to her Mother from there) and as a final gesture ask if she will take Esho's body with her. She agrees, and gently picks up the necromancer's corpse, bringing it beneath the waters and taking it off to dwell in the underwater realm of the Sea Queen. 

Observations

Ho boy! This session. The big fight with the pirates actually felt way WAY too long. And that was strange - it lasted 4 rounds in-game and probably just about 30-40 minutes out of game, yet it felt like it dragged on forever. It was also not big enough to try and dust off any skirmish rules for it. I think the main reason was that the planning beforehand just took far too long without anything actually being done. I was hoping on keeping the session short, but even right before the fight finished...I had realized that if I do that literally this one fight (and the lead up to it) would have been the entire session, and that just sucked. 

The players had previously asked me if the can somehow just go look for pirates. The way I ended up ruling it is that with Aho the Guide on hand and actively looking for pirates, as they do their overland exploration any encounter they run into (if they run into one) will be specifically with pirates. This way they still didn't know just how long this might take, yet it allowed them to direct their efforts. I am happy with this as away of solving the situation. 

Then there was the Daughter of the Sea. I had this written out in the dungeon as I was keying it several weeks ago, but I do love it when characters are able to get blessings or other abilities throughout the course of the game as a result of play rather than simply leveling up. And being able to breathe underwater (for just 1 hour, but still) felt like a very appropriate blessing that the Sea Nymph would give. 

Esho's death was also rather sudden, both to me and to the players. I had rolled a random encounter, and this woman (who my players have now already starter speculating about!) was the one to show up. I had already figured out what her general approach is if she encounters the party, and Esho did have a chance to spot her (and he failed that roll) because Sorcerers in my game all have the ability to spot magic, and Shroud (the spell from Wonder and Wickedness the woman was using) specifically states that incorporeal things or people with second sight can see them. 

So, she's invisible and hasn't been spotted, and she stabbed him in the back with her dagger. Daggers in my house rules do 1d6-1 damage ( so worse than all other weapons), but have the ability to backstab for 2d6 if the target is unaware and undefended. Well...Esho was both. And he got one-shot by it. Fittingly, the player who plays Esho had in fact planned on pulling off this exact same strategy as the campaign was starting hah! 

The player took it in good spirit, and in fact actually got even more hyped up about the game, plus the final scene with handing over the body to the sea nymph felt genuinely heartfelt and touching. This is the kind of stuff I like gaming for, and this is what I feel the OSR does so well. None of the drama or emotions in this character death came from some prescriptive scenario or expectation. People, myself included, cared because Esho had been created in Session 1 of the game and had been a consistent presence in the party since then. It is the kind of attachment and meaning one gets only through actually spending the time with the game and the character. 

Rest in Peace Esho, you weird death-obsessed man. There will be plenty of corpses on the bottom of the sea for you to bother in your afterlife! 

Dungeons and crawling around in them

 This is going to be a very ramble-y post. You've been warned.

Behold, a dungeon!

So then. Dungeon crawling. Sure's a thing, eh? 

A lot of the OSR scene, at least as much of it as I have experienced, does love itself some dungeon crawling. And you know what? I do too! And yet it is an odd feeling to focus on it sometimes.

I have seen the sentiment expressed several times from several different people (most recently this post by Traverse Fantasy that was posted like 10 minutes ago) that OSR play has never been just about the dungeon crawl. And from what I've seen that is also true. The OSR culture of play offers so much more than simply trudging through the corridors and rooms of a dungeon, and that is a big strength of this style of play. 

However, to put it bluntly - I want to do dungeon crawls. If anything the methodical exploration of a dungeon is what drew me to the OSR initially, as it is a style of gameplay I have fond feelings for. Those stems from my enjoyment of some of the PC games like Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale in particular, but even more so - roguelikes! NetHack, Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup are literally set entirely in a dungeon, and I've wanted to recreate that feeling, which is why I ended up in the OSR. 

I have played so many and different kinds of games over my time in the hobby - I've done freeform OC-focused roleplay for years on end, played various trad games of all kinds, dipped into Storygames on several occasions (even if they just never quite do it for me). I've done the "Not Dungeon Crawling" thing for years now. It feels like I have some catching up to do on the grey hallways and rooms with orcs. Mind you the games I've played and the ones I referee rarely are just grey hallways and rooms with orcs. There's much better and more interesting dungeons to crawl through, so I tend to use those. 

Where I am even going with this? Right! Just play some dungeon crawls. It's fine. They're fun. You probably shouldn't do just that in your game, as it will get repetitive pretty fast, but it really is fine.

Review - Prison of the Hated Pretender by Gus L

Hey time to talk about another module I really like, and call it a review! Since I mentioned it already in my previous one, I figured I’d write up my thoughts on Prison of the Hated Pretender, also by Gus L.

I have run the module both as a stand-alone and as a location in a campaign, though I’ve not played in it myself, so that’s the perspective I’m coming from.

Disclaimer: I do occasionally chat with Gus on various discords. Ain’t nobody paying me to write words on this blog, as if that wasn’t obvious. Also, spoilers for the module of course.

Cover by Gus L.

Overview

Prison of the Hated Pretender (Which I’ll shorten to Prison because that name is long) is a Pay What You Want introductory module for teaching both Players and Referees about the peculiarities to OSR/Classic play (Gus I am sure has opinions on which one it is).

It’s written by Gus L, I think illustrated by him too, and published by the Hydra Cooperative.

The dungeon itself is a small (10 room) and compact tower which houses a disgraced tyrant of undefined origin, along with the spirits that are set there to guard him. That tyrant is now the Pretender from the title, a miserable and pathetic undead wretch, regularly tormented by phantasms.

The dungeon has stats for Old-School Essentials (so, as usual, any version of B/X you like will do just fine) as well as having stats in the back of it for 5E, along with notes on how to adjust things to make it still work as intended.

What works for me

Quite a lot, actually!

Again, let’s start with the most obvious stuff, the look of the module. I really like the cover art, as well as the illustration of the tower within the module itself. The sketchy and rough artwork I think works well enough for the kind of dark, gloomy and grotty atmosphere that the Pretender is stuck in. The color palette is not as bold and striking as in Tomb Robbers. The layout I have some issues with which I’ll get to in the next section, however overall I think this is a good looking pdf!

After running Prison a few times I tend to default to it as my answer to the question “Hey what do I run as a teaching module for people new to the OSR?”. It helps that the module itself literally opens by stating that it is a pedagogical adventure. This was designed to be an introduction, and I think that Gus has done a good job at reaching that goal.

How it achieves that goal is by offering copious notes and commentary from the author on how to run specific elements (the “safe haven” of the Hamlet of Scabrous Yokels, the dungeon having various entrances, how to utilize factions etc.) along with keeping the scope of the adventure tight and small - only 10 rooms, not much in the way of empty winding hallways and generally at least something to do in each of those 10 rooms. The location is dense.

And I do consider the denseness a good thing in this case. While there have been plenty of blog posts old and new regarding the utility of empty rooms and empty, long hallways, I feel like those would hinder something which is meant to introduce people to the concepts of the dungeon exploration playstyle.

In both cases of me running this players did not actually ever “complete” the dungeon, always choosing to retreat after a certain point. This is a good thing. In general a dungeon shouldn’t easily be “completed” as if we were playing a video game and you want to check off another box before you move on. They are still there, and they might change and evolve (sometimes into non-hostile locations, sure) but should never simply be checked out and then left forever.

The fact that the phantasms keep spawning again and again until they are permanently destroyed helps keep the dungeon always a threat, although I would say even if they were destroyed it would be good to have someone else start making use of the tower, if the PC’s don’t want to.

Another thing I like is the loot on offer in the dungeon. There’s not too much of it, a reasonably sized OSR party of 1st level characters will likely not get enough to actually level up after going through this small dungeon, but it makes up for that in interesting magical items. And note I say interesting, not necessarily powerful. I love having weird magical items in games, as they tend to make any future situations that more complex both in terms of options and ways of approaching them. Plus, I just like it when a dungeon actually acknowledges that Magic-Users are always actively looking for more spells to add to their repertoires and actually offers you a spellbook to plunder! (Tomb Robbers does that too, and it is also good.)

Lastly, a note on its usability. As a standalone one-shot the adventure works about as well as any OSR dungeon, that is to say “pretty good, but one-shots don’t quite fit the way you should be playing these”. The Author’s Note attached to the Crypt room specifically covers this very well, acknowledging that 10 rooms is hardly a full classic “dungeon”, but Prison still offers a nice and condensed version of the kind of gameplay. If you’re going to use any OSR module to run as a one-shot, Prison I feel is particularly well suited for it because of its content-dense nature.

As a location in an existing campaign it does require some tweaking and concessions by the GM regarding their own setting - after all the Pretender and the people who trapped him are kind of big implications for the world, honestly bigger than Tomb Robbers has, because in that one it is a lot easier to simply chuck the crystal tomb somewhere in your world and not care about anything else about the Crystal Frontier.

As a location to start a campaign at, I think it works pretty good. As long as you are going for something suitably grim and grotty (Throw it in your Warhammer Fantasy-like campaign!) the tower will fit right in without too much issues, and the Armillary Sphere on top of the tower offers nearly infinite potential for the Referee to set up a follow up to the adventure!

Special note also for the writing - The stone throne with awful, unpleasant knobs on the seat and the pumpkin growing in a bathtub were really strong and evocative images for me when I read it and definitely stuck with players when playing. The Throne just actively makes you feel unpleasant as you imagine having to sit on that thing, and the pumpkin adds a bit of levity and absurdity to the whole situation.

What doesn’t work for me

Now then, onto the negatives. There are a few, most of them minor, but still worth acknowledging and addressing.

First off, the layout. The pdf is laid out in this rather odd landscape format which as someone who likes to print out documents when I run them I honestly did not appreciate. It makes it awkward to keep the dungeon in a standard binder without having to flip the binder over, and just makes it feel kind of off. I recall Gus has mentioned that he might eventually rejig it into a more standard layout so that Print-on-Demand versions can be bought from DTRPG, and I would gladly get one when and if that happens.

Furthermore, while I appreciate the denseness of the content, the denseness of the layout I am less thrilled about.

Here's an example of what I mean.

For me this starts bordering on a bit too much, especially when running this at the table. While the boxed advice notes are, in many ways, the main show of the book, I do feel like the way they are arranged ends up breaking up the actual body text in weird ways. Things feel slightly too much for me to easily reference during actual play, and I have had that happen in both cases when I ran the module (and this was after reading it beforehand both times). I do really feel like this stems from the previous point of layout. The odd landscape format makes text just flow in kind of an awkward way. I am not a layout artist, I don’t really have the proper vocabulary to express why it doesn’t work for me, but it just kind of doesn’t.

The layout does utilize bolding, underlining and other such methods to try and keep things in check, and it definitely helps, but I feel some rearrangement of the text would have done that better. Overall though I do not actually consider the layout to be that big of a deterrent to me recommending this, as it’s quite possible that I am simply the one having issues with parsing the text, which means that if someone else reads it and runs it they might be fine!

From a design perspective, I once again do have an issue with the factions in the dungeon. This is probably the one real place where the small size of it really hurts the dungeon crawling experience it is trying to convey. The only two real factions are the Pretender himself and the Phantasms that are his tormentors and guardians. In a similar way a with Tomb Robbers though, the Pretender is only even coherent on occasion, and the Phantasms are dumb, mute and aggressive as they are more or less single-purpose machines. Which makes it kind of difficult to get too involved with either faction if you are a player.

Whenever I’ve run it I simply always have the Pretender willing to talk initially, just as a way to give the players something to do besides wacking Phantasms as they move from room to room. Perhaps a ghostly commander, sacrificed by the prison-makers to oversee the phantasms might have been a good addition, providing the players with a direct counterpoint to the Pretender and being able to actually make the argument that, no, this guy deserves what is being done to him.

Conclusion

In conclusion - you really should pick up and read Prison of the Hated Pretender, even more so than Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier, I think. Its Referee advice I feel is quite valuable, and with way too many people not really being connected to the old blogs or able to really get this kind of advice or information easily, having it all be in this 21 page document helps immensely.

That advice is what makes this my go-to recommend, and I suspect it will stay that way until I find something that manages to do its job even better somehow!

Where to get it

On DriveThruRPG. You can also find Gus L’s stuff on his blog All Dead Generations.

BSSS - Session 8

 A bit late, but here's a session report on last week's Between the Serpents of Smoke & Steel!

Summary

The party follows up on the last lead they have, have run-ins with ghouls and a rather demanding and haughty Sea Nymph. They also make friends with a water elemental.

Characters

• Esho - 4th Level Nercomancer Sorcerer 
• Shimsusa the Archer - 1st Level Fighter
• Maru the Witch - 3rd Level Diabolist Sorcerer
• Syphon Gandu - 2nd Level Diabolist Sorcerer
• Rajini - 2nd Level Sorceress 
• Athra - 4th Level Fighter
• Gal-Naha the Giant Gecko - 3rd Level Giant Lizard
• Tamri Ushar - 1st Level Fighter

Session Recap

The party, having run into a bit of a wall on their last expedition decided to follow up on another lead they had while they were down south - a treasure map they had found when exploring another dungeon previously was pointing to the ruins of a nearby small town. 

Packing up their camping gear they left the Bastion and travelled east, eventually running into an old (but still surprisingly sturdy) bridge that lead them into the town ruins. With the help of the actual treasure map they didn't really need to waste time searching through the ruins. The entrance was covered under some fallen stones, but with a bit of work they managed to get it cleared off head down and away from the constant rainstorms that had been going on for the past two days. 

Once inside the vanguard of the group ran into an oddly behaving puddle, which then turned out to be a small water elemental! A very very fortunate reaction table roll and one of the players using one of their extra language slots to declare they can speak the language of Water Elementals lead to them learning that the water elemental was part of a larger group of elementals which were somehow locked away behind one of the doors in the room. 

The door, upon examination, did have a magical field surrounding it, centered on a clearly magical lock pad that was put on it. The group promised the elemental they'll try and figure out how to get it back to it's people, then proceeded with exploring. After having to electrocute some very aggressive water leeches, the group heard calls for help behind a door rather suspiciously jammed shut with multiple metal spikes. After asking who the person inside was they learned that she is a daughter of the Sea Goddess.

Unfortunately all the yelling through the door attracted attention. With the aid of a helm of telepathy the party wasn't caught by surprise and managed to form up by the next door way as three gaunt, dog-headed figures rushed onto them. The first one taking a swing at the party's fighter and immediately paralyzing him and bringing him to the ground. Luckily for him the rest of the party managed to dispatch these monsters in very short notice, and after letting him recover they proceeded with a touch more caution.

Searching through some corpses and another ghoul attack later the party was 500 silver coins richer and somehow managed to not have a single one of them get killed by a ghoul! With that they returned to the trapped sea nymph and went inside to talk to her. She explained that she had been trapped for quite a while and wanted their help in being released from the fountain that housed her (a fountain, the party quickly noted, containing quite a lot of coins and a solid looking golden statue of the nymph's mother the Sea Queen). 

The party was all for that...until they learned the plan involved having to drown a human in her waters to release the spell, and also needing to obtain a blessed vessel of some kind so that the sea nymph can be carried safely (and doesn't just end up drowning them) to the sea. They said they didn't have anyone to sacrifice, nor any vessels appropriate for the task but promised they will be back as soon as they can!

The nymph was not sold on the whole thing though - she was an ancient and powerful being, essentially a minor divinity in her own right, and apparently others had been there before and had refused to help her, so she tried to use her magical charming ability on one of the sorcerers, but it didn't quite work. At this point one of the diabolists in the party cast Dominate on her...which was quite the mistake, as it now gave the sea nymph a direct mental link to his mind, charming him instantly and making him try and drown one of his hirelings. The rest of the party subdued him, told her to please stop doing that and that they'll help her later and all left the room, with the sorcerer now being VERY pissed off at her and trying to shout at her, but mostly being stopped by the others.

As the session was getting on in time, the party decided to simply try a few loose ends on that side of the dungeon before they headed back., They explored some of the ghoul lair and ran into a room filled with half-eaten and rotting corpses, the stench being so horrendous it made it impossible to even go inside. The party's necromancer got a glint in his eyes and gleefully reanimated a few of the less chewed-on corpses, making them search the room for them (finding some ghoul treasure) and then using them to explore some of the other rooms before, just in case the spell backfired, making them go back to the room and closing the door behind themselves. Well except for one of the zombies which managed to fall in a hidden hole in some water. 

The last thing to do was to open up a locked door that they had found a key for earlier, and lo and behold it worked! Behind the door they found a pair of well fed and actually pretty chill mountain lions, chained to the walls and clearly set as guards (the fact also confirmed by the party's fighter being able to use Beastspeech to talk to them). The group was not entirely sure what to do with these things, so they simply put them to sleep and then killed them, dragging their corpses back with them and presenting them to the company's cook for skinning and then cooking the meat.

Observations

So, this was quite the interesting session for me, as the dungeon is of my own design. I simply got a map off of Watabou (a truly wonderful resource) and then writing up the key for it. I do hope the party comes back to it again, as they really only have explored about a quarter or even a fifth of the actual dungeon! But we shall see where their whims take them.

The thing with the water elemental was quite fun, and one of the reasons why I generally try and use Reaction Rolls whenever I can, short of very very clearly aggressive or friendly encounters. It makes for such fun situations like this of talking to a blob of water with the intelligence of a smart cat, hah. 

In the days following the session the players have talked at length about the encounter with the Sea Nymph (who's name is the sound of crashing waves upon the rocks, which I am also proud of) and the player of the sorcerer that got mind controlled having a personal vendetta against her now, and declaring that his character will try and actively convince the others during Downtime to not free her but instead try and destroy her in some way, as he felt personally insulted that a being of such power would also act so dismissively towards people who are trying to help it. 

This kind of engagement with the game you can't really force or cajole out of players. This stuff simply comes from people actually caring about what is going on in the game and having a very genuine reaction (another example is the vendetta one of the players has against the one hireling which said she's quitting in the middle of the expedition, sessions back). It makes me happy to see it happen, and it makes me curious what the party will ultimatley decide to do with the Sea Nymph. 

Review - Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier by Gus L

I’m going to talk about a module I really like, so let’s call this a review! This is going to be about Tomb Robbers on the Crystal Frontier by Gus L. I have read the module, and before that I’ve played through parts of it (skipped some due to scheduling issues, but what can you do?).

Disclaimer: I do occasionally chat with Gus on various discords, which is also why I decided to write up some reviews of his stuff. Ain’t nobody paying me to write words on this blog, as if that wasn’t obvious. Also, ya know, spoilers for the module.

Cover also by Gus L.

Overview

Tomb Robbers consists of the main dungeon that it explores, a chapter on how to wrap things up after the characters are done with it, some appendices on the factions and magic items found in the module, a short write up of Scarlet Town (a possible base of operations for a game set in the Crystal Frontier) and then a whole other second smaller dungeon just to round things off!

The writing and art are by Gus himself, while editing was done by Ava Islam and Nick LS Whelan.

The main concept of the dungeon is that you are exploring one of the many crystal tombs that litter the Crystal Frontier, a borderlands between two powerful nations. The crystal tombs are chucked at the planet from outer space by Evil Space Elves, and you get to even meet some of them, sort of. There’s a lot of undead, a lot of dangerous crystal dust and generally a good amount of dungeon to explore.

The smaller dungeon, called Common Grave, is also a crystal tomb, just a much smaller one. I’ve only read through that one and haven’t played it, so I won’t really factor it into this review.

Both of these dungeons are statted out for OSE, so you can use whatever flavor of B/X you like to run it.

What works for me

First off, let’s get the bells and whistles out of the way - the visual presentation is very solid. The art direction and visuals are coherent (an upside of Gus doing all the art himself), the color palette is memorable, the way the book is laid out is generally easy to follow. The book looks good, in short.

As to the adventure itself, I quite like it too. The crystal tomb is, in many ways, the main antagonist and danger in the module. While there are some encounters like the pit of way-too-many zombies, or the Stylite and a few others, the main danger actually comes from simply navigating this very hostile environment. For me that really makes it a good exemplary dungeon. I remember plenty of sessions of exploring the tomb mostly just involving ways to navigate the tomb without dying from the crystals. I wouldn’t even say it’s traps in the usual D&D dungeon way, more that the material of the dungeon itself is just fundamentally bad for you, thus going into it at all is a risk.

I like the flow of the dungeon itself - there are a few loops, some of which are not obvious, there’s an alternate entrance/exit (good if you want to screw over the person who employed the PCs to delve into the tomb!) all the hallmarks of a well Jaquaysed dungeon.

I find the key pretty decent in most of the rooms.I do wish it was slightly shorter at times (and I suspect if I tried to run it I would need to make sure I reread rooms before hand just in case), but it is not too verbose and important elements are highlighted so that’s good.

Another thing I like is that the big puzzle door in one section of the dungeon can also be simply circumnavigated through using Knock or any equivalent magical way of unlocking a door. That to me is good design too - give players the option to have a go at the puzzle, or just let them ignore if they have the resources to do so and don’t feel the desire to spend the time.

I personally enjoy the setting the dungeon and the rest of the book presents you with some good Fantasy Cowboy Shit, and if you’re into that you’re into that.

If you're also here to do Cowboy Shit, then definitely give the Crystal Frontier a look!

It does mean that using the tomb for a different setting might require a few tweaks, but honestly I think it could work pretty well in your more standard D&D fare without needing to do major revisions to the actual dungeon itself. Gus has also posted numerous other things for his Crystal Frontier setting, so if you want to specifically play in that I think you can get a good few sessions out of it by just running what he’s already released.

Oh and it has Evil Space Elves, which are great. They are always great. Put them in your campaign. I don’t care if they’re Githyanki, I don’t care if they’re the Eld, I don’t care if they’re the Empyrians from this adventure. Just shove them in your campaign!

One last positive thing to note - I like that the book offers plenty of guidance on dungeon exploration, on how to run the dungeon itself and just generally good teaching tools. One of Gus’s other adventures, Prison of the Hated Pretender, is one of my go-to recommendations for people asking for teaching modules, so it’s good to see some of that in here too. One of my issues with Prison is how relatively small it is, whereas the crystal tomb offers a big enough space that exploration does indeed become a rewarding activity.

 

What doesn’t work for me

I have had a few gripes with the dungeon as well, though not nearly enough to consider them an issue. First and foremost I feel the factions in the tomb are a bit lacking. There’s a few - the reanimated former tomb robbers, the Stylite, the Sleeper, Mab, the employer who hires the PCs, and a few others.

However of those most if not all are either undead, Evil Space Elves…or Undead Evil Space Elves. Through my experience as a player our only interactions with these individuals was to agree to whatever it is they say they want out of us and then just run away as soon as possible and hope to never meet them again. All the Empyrian NPCs specifically are kind of inimical to your PC’s (and much of humanity’s) existence and as such we never found any good reason why we would ever want to help them.

As I mentioned in the previous section, I also found the key to be a bit verbose when reading it, and whether or not that’s a deal breaker is up to you. I personally prefer things a bit more stripped down, but this is just minor quibbles honestly. At least when a monster shows up the stat blocks are near the key for it, which I always enjoy having. I absolutely hate having to flip through a module just to find the stats for something, and I am glad this doesn’t make me do that.

 

Conclusion

I think…that’s about it really? The tl;dr of this whole thing is that I think Tomb Robbers of the Crystal Frontier is really damn good and you should go read it and better yet - run it or play in it.

And if not, at least take inspiration for it and write your own thing and put it up, because while fancy kickstarters and “zines” with loads of people working on them are all well and good, solid hobby projects like these are just nice to have around.

Where to get it

On DriveThruRPG. You can also find Gus L’s stuff on his blog All Dead Generations.

Using Errant Warbands in OD&D

 I've been wanting to have a way to streamline some of the combat in my OD&D campaign, namely reduce the number of rolls involved in the close quarters combat phase, where you have say 2 PCs and 3 mercenaries facing off against a group of 6 enemies and then just a whole bunch of dice rolls need to be made. 

My first thought was to try and adapt the concept of Warbands from Ava Islam's Errant. What you see below is where I got that to. I have run one playtest of this system during my game, which you can read a bit more about in this session report. 

The long and short of it is that I am not super happy with how this worked and it brought on a lot of questions regarding practicalities of it's use. 

However, just because something failed to meet it's goals, doesn't mean I shouldn't just share it anyway, so here we go. Maybe some of you can make better use of this. Keep in mind that this is written specifically for my own campaign's house rules, but I am sure you can easily just adapt elements to your own OD&D game without too many issues.

Warbands Rules

Mercs do not fight individually in combat, but instead augment the combat prowess of their leader (usually a PC).

Warbands come in Small, Medium and Large sizes, depending on the number of people in them, not counting the leader.

Small Warbands are from 1 to 5 people.

Medium Warbands are from 6 to 10 people.

Large Warbands are from 11 to 20 people.

Warbands have HP based on how many people are in it (again, not counting the leader)..A warband’s HP is based on the hit dice of its members, with every 1 HD member adding 2 HP, 2-3 HD adding 3 HP and 4+HD adding 4 HP to the warband total. For ease of keeping track of casualties, warbands are always composed of members with the same Hit Dice, maybe having 1 singular member who acts as leader (in which case they are not counted and instead have their own individual HP pool).

Damage is always dealt first to the Warband before it is dealt to the Leader. As a Warband loses HP it might fall from one category to another.

Attacks by individuals against a Warband are impaired, unless that individual has a means of hitting everyone in an area (a Fighter or Monster’s sweeping attack, a Mage’s AOE spell, etc). From there each step in size difference (individual, small warband, medium warband, large warband) incurs either an impairment (when a smaller group attacks a bigger one) or an enhancement (when a bigger group attacks a smaller one).

1 Level of Enhancement/Impairment gives +/-2 to attack rolls and +/-1 to damage rolls.

2 Levels of Enhancement/Impairment give +/-4 to attack rolls and +/-2 to damage rolls.

3 Levels of Enhancement/Impairment give +/-8 to attack rolls and +/-3 to damage rolls.

Here's how that looks, laid out in a table.

Additional Notes

Fighters that have a sweep attack add the bonuses/penalties to each attack roll they make. When using a sweep attack against a warband Fighters ignore the impairment from attacking a larger group, if they can hit all members of it.

A Sorcerer casting Maleficence on a Warband still does 2d6 hits to it!

For every 2 (or 3 or 4 depending on armor) HP that the warband loses, a mercenary is killed.

A warband’s AC is based on the AC of the Leader.

[I would have included some example combats here, but blogger is insisting on completely fucking up their formatting so I just gave up after the third try.]