Remixing: Spelljammer Light of Xaryxis Part III

tl;dr: how the players actually bounced around the sandbox made by chopping up Light of Xaryxis

In the first part of this remix I wrote about what I did
* Read through Light of Xaryxis (LoX) and rework the framing of the campaign.
* Adapt the adventure by breaking it up into 'plot chunks' which could be separated.
* Created a system for all the action to happen in.
* Dropped the various plot chunks into places that made sense - this got more focus in the second part of the write up.

Below are the records of how the players moved among the various planets where the encounters from the adventure were scattered. Overall it worked well, with the start holding fairly true to what the adventure lays out then going all over the place in the middle before running through the ending more or less as planned out in the book.

To give context for all the movements described, the roster of planets in the system was:
0. The Snuffed Star – the guttering remains of a star, where a prototype starseed had fizzled
1. Gorondirs Throne – small, with a fiery moon that makes it habitable, dwelling of the Sussurans, quasi-Xaryxian loyalists
2. Mystra’s Mirror - small, flat waterworld - uninhabited
3. Hrungirs Roar - titanic air world with a fiery moon and a habitable earthen moebius-strip, seat of the local astral elves, system capital
4. The Great Belt - chain of asteroids within an extended atmosphere inhabited by miners of many origins
5. Obsidian Depths - vast water world, inhabited only by great aquatic beasts
6. Fanthirs Ruin – enormous earth world, once populated by dwarves, now a mindflayer hold
7. The Ring Sea – water belt with rocky clusters and a great moon within it
8. Tears of Joy – tiny warm water world with a population of raft-dwellers

Below is a mid game map with the long diagonal mapping the 'rings' of the system using the old Spelljammer notation. The closer rings (top left) are one day travel at Spelljammer speed, the further apart rings are two days travel apiece. The astral boundary is bottom right corner - so a fair ways out. The map is from mid-campaign but as you can see, there is quite a chunk of distance, multiple days travel between the different planets - so this hex-crawl became *lengthy*.

Orc-shifted world (RPG Blog Carnival)

For this months RPG Blog Carnival because the prompt it’s not easy being green from RPG Wandering got me thinking about orcs - and how the world changes, if any, if we slot orcs into the central world spot that humans typically occupy.

What if orcs and goblins were our 'base' for our fantasy world in place of humans? Taking standard D&D fantasy world, you get lots of mixed entities from the influence of magic, the planes, dragons, etc. What does a world look like where the assumed base block of the world is an orc?

This is not Orkworld where we assume Orks are the protagonists in otherwise standard fantasyland, this is assuming a world grown up around orcs rather than one grown up around humans.

There looks to me like three major blocks of creatures that would change to 'orc-based' versions
- those changed by the influence of magical forces - planars
- those combined with other fantasy races through heritage
- those affected/cursed during their life

Shiny TTRPG links #173

Choice links from this week on the interweb including some sweet Jams! For yet more links, see the previous list found here or you can check the RPG Blog Carnival or on Third Kingdom Games news roundup. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.

Prismatic Wasteland creates Barkeep Jam

The Colours of Pentagrams proposes reCalled from Action - Blogging Challenge

Gnome Stew gives us Give them a War Room: Player Facing Threat Maps

Rise Up Comus gives us Legojam: Castle Hexcrawl

u/i_am_randy shares 11 years of running open tables at local game stores

Archstone Press writes Running Your First Sandbox

Review: Royal Blood - A Game of Cards

tl:dr; a fun tarot-based heist game, great for whipping up vibrant characters and an intricate challenge for a punchy one-shot.

I got to play this as part of the forever-DMs support group - and it turned out it was on my drives so great chance for a review. Royal Blood is from Rowan Rook and Decard of Spire and Heart fame. I think I got this as part of a bundle and had given the blurb a read but it did not click with me - but now after playing it I have a lot more time for it, I could see this being useful for folk as a world-builder even for other games.

The high concept is that you are a 'Royal' - one of the court cards from the tarot deck - with magic flowing in your veins. Above the world are the Arcane - those who managed to claw or trick their way up to quasi-god-hood, recognised as one of the major arcana of the tarot. The game is about pulling off the heist that tears our the heart of power of one of the Arcane - to ascend yourselves potentially.

Art by Banana Chan

Mechanically it resembles Blades or Spire - not dice thrown but the minor arcana drawn and success depends on the value of the card - yes but, yes and, etc. The design is riotous - great evocative writing set over some bright pages - zine-sized, not a huge amount on each page but punchy and does what it needs to.

Own Personal Blorb/AntiBlorb

tl;dr: I like Blorb because it anchors on the concept of the oracular dice, that the DM facilitiates, guides the odds by writing the tables to be rolled on, but the dice decide fate. I like Anti-Blorb because it reflects how engaged players paint in the world too.

I read the original Blorb article and thought 'yes, of course' then I saw quite a lot of dismissiveness from commenters I otherwise respect that made me question had I missed something. After further digging I figure that the reasons they disagree is the portrayal of the principles of blorb as iron laws as opposed to a neat heuristic to make a GM's life easier. For that I find Blorb is great.

Hacking Technoskalds summary of Sandra's original model we have three tiers of in-world truth when the group sits to table and the curtain raises on the session:
Explicitly-noted facts are in the GM's binder to be uncovered as play begins
Rules or mechanics (including random tables) which generate truths about the world through play and how the dice fall
Improvised facts are things the DM will create in the moment to fill in gaps not covered by the first two

I find the toughest challenge over long form campaigns is keeping things consistent in-world. Everything reverts to the mean fantasy land mulch in my brain if I do not have some big hooks to hang a seperate world off - and things that remind me of the random little stuff I thought up that would be cool at some point. Setting it out in tiers helps me because it recognises the practical reality of some big set pieces get written up that you are going to use once the players find them, some stuff you are going to make up as you go along - but the intermediate tier is little systems and encounter tables is what helps keep things consistent.

I am fascinated by the description of 'blorby' by Fail Forward as a 'highly detailed pre-written setting' because it is to me one of the ways of *minimising* the detail you need to write into your setting. You generate some reasonable principles for the world - a good encounter table permits the players to wander wherever in a hex crawl for as long as they like. Combine that with mechanics like an overloaded encounter dice to allow any given encounter table entry to serve multiple duties - the encounter, the spoor, the lair, etc.

I like the specific expansion of anti-blorb - which again, weird name - because it maps to my table experiences over the long run.

Per Liches Libram Antiblorb follows the hierarchy:
explicit GM notes and overwise established truths, and if none exist
if the facts would be known to PCs, established player headcanon, and if that does not exist or is inapplicable,
if the facts would already by known to PCs, player fiat, and if that is not applicable,
procedures like random tables for generating truths flagged by the GM in advance, and if none exist,
GM fiat

My first read of 'player fiat' was very character driven 'my back story says' but when I think about my tables with longer running campaigns then it is much more the "I figure that..." of players deducing elements of the world that the DM simply had not yet considered. The DM may have arrived at a different answer if they had come to it alone but with the players here creating perfectly world-coherent answers, why not write it down and make it canon.

Pure unstructured improv for me runs the high risk of me whacking into some inconsistency that players will latch onto and either burn time on something that is not there or require immersion-busting back pedaling. The least wild improv I do the better because things getting generated off pre-thought-through procedures ought to be in-world consistent and support the players general vision of the world. Ideally this then sparks more player headcanon and player driven fact-making which then gives me more world-coherent material to riff off.

I like how Knight at the Opera talks through this approach and the benefits of this 'selective prep'.

It is also helpful as anything after long, draining days or weeks when the creativity within any given thing I am improving might be trying to draw from a dry well.

It helps me structure my creativity and keep the worlds consistent and different from each other, especially when there are gaps between games and switching between worlds.

Godspeed to those who can sit down and extemporise entire campaigns - I used to be able to do it back in college running IOU while my expresso machine ran continuously but not no more. These days, I blorb, because if I come up with a good idea, great! If the players tell me what great idea is implied by stuff I told them earlier, great! If I'm stuck but I've got some tables I can pull a quick random-but-tailored encounter out of, also great! And finally if I find myself way down this list - nothing prepped, the players don't know what should be here, it is off the charts of stuff I have thought of before - then we are in genuine blank space of the world and that is also engaging. Whatever I come up with here in this blank space is going to be informed by all the things it wasn't which at least is better than starting from absolute zero.

Joesky Tax - d6 Abandoned Heist Hauls
1. Smashed chest of small coins, obviously fallen from a great height, bloody scrapes along one edge, short trail of coins away
2. Multiple antique urns, with fading illusions to look like one of the urns, which has an illusion to look differently
3. A great rusted pile of chainmail, swords, helmets, halbards and other gear, within which glint gold and some gems
4. A tipped over coffin with a scarred lid, something crudely hacked off the center of it, scrolls tumbling out across the ground
5. An extremely obvious burial sight hides a chest of the local tax collectors. Multiple trails come too and from the burial pit, signs of multiple reburials.
6. Heavy bundles of fresh furs from a large, dangerous predator. Getting a bit gamey but treated soon might be sold for good coin

Shiny TTRPG links #172

A fair few interesting links this week. For yet more links, see the previous list found here or you can check the RPG Blog Carnival or on Third Kingdom Games news roundup. Originally inspired by weaver.skepti.ch End of Week links.

DIY & dragons kicks off Summer LEGO RPG Setting Jam

Goblin Punch writes Deconstructing Healing, Potions, and Shrines

Technoskald's Forge gives us Blorb: The Technoskald Interpretation

Planarian Calamarium shares Unified THACO Resolution

Blue Bard gave us Say Yes to the Players

Coins and Scrolls gives us OSR: 1d20 Dungeon Merchants

Traverse Fantasy writes Materialist Magic / Magical Materialism

The Wondering Monster shares Motivating Players to Hexcrawl with Maps Found as Treasure

Hidden in Shadows writes It started with Blackmoor - Firsts

Loot the Room gives us Appendix N Part 2: Games

Nothing's RPG Zone shares Staying Classy in the Stone Age 1

Dice in the North gives us Delver's Tools

Elfmaids & Octopi shares Factions for Chagrinspire For a Prison Adventure

Remixing: Spelljammer Light of Xaryxis Part II

With the campaign over, diving into a chapter-by-chapter pull-apart of Light of Xaryxis and how I turned it into a sandbox.

In the first part of this remix I wrote about what I did
Read through Light of Xaryxis (LoX) and rework the framing of the campaign.
Adapt the adventure by breaking it up into 'plot chunks' which could be separated.
Created a system for all the action to happen in.
Dropped the various plot chunks into places that made sense.

This post is going to go into more detail on the last point now - how exactly I pulled apart the adventure into how many chunks. The broad toolkit I was looking towards was The Alexandrian 'How to Remix an Adventure' in making a node based structure - where all the nodes here were planets. My initial work up had Chapter 2 happen then direct to Chapter 4, then Chapter 5 and after into 'sandboxing' where Chapters 3, 6, 7 and 8 were the recruitment quests for a different faction. Chapter 6 ropes in the vampirates, chapters 3 and 8 the mindflayers, chapter 8 the local barons and chapter 7 the local imperial loyalists.

To recap the system I rolled up:
0. The Snuffed Star – the guttering remains of a star
1. Gorondirs Throne – small, with a fiery moon that makes it habitable, dwelling of the Sussurans
2. Mystra’s Mirror - small, flat waterworld
3. Hrungirs Roar - titanic air world with a fiery moon and a habitable earthen moebius-strip, seat of the local astral elves
4. The Great Belt - chain of asteroids within an extended atmosphere, with mines and Bral-like asteroid cities
5. Obsidian Depths - vast water world, inhabited only by great beasts
6. Fanthirs Ruin – enormous earth world, once populated by dwarves, now a mindflayer hold
7. The Ring Sea – water belt with rocky clusters and a great moon within it
8. Tears of Joy – tiny warm water world, with a seafaring/spacefaring culture

Chapter 1 - tossed overboard entirely - replaced with a bridge from a 'space whaling' two-shot. I had the intro as the githyanki whaler captain be so impressed with them that they signed them up for what they figured would be a cushy number of a letter of marque with the Githyanki empire to go find a lost agent. This also served as an on-ramp to add players to the party. None of the book content got used as we never witnessed a Starseed drop from the ground. I could have recycled the Moondancer with Cpt. Sartell, Flapjack the Flumph, Traevus and his mutiny and all that elsewhere but I had no shortage of ships to use so they got sidelined.

Chapter 2 - used the Darkstar encounter more or less as is at the system boundary, just kept a more traditional hadozee crew to make the Dark Star and its mission a more orthodox fleet ship. My players, raised on Master and Commander, of *course* took the Dark Star as a prize. Rock of Bral was swapped out for main port in The Great Belt.

Chapter 3 - wreck of the Lucid Edict is a great encounter, lifted as the 'faction quest' to get the local Mindflayers of Fanthirs Ruin allied against the Xaryxians.

Chapter 4 - the Ebonsnare neogi ship got turned into a wildspace encounter - I did not bring in the Space Galleon rescuers since the PCs were well able to take the Ebonsnare apart alone. The Stalwart and Incorrigible were available for use but never got used. All the content about the Rock of Bral got lifted straight over to the local asteroid port, including the astral elf ambush; interestingly, this set the dogs running for the PCs that the Xaryxians must be running a big spy network, how to find it and rip it out? Krux gets found, mentions the Second Wind but the party has their own ship so they ignore it and head to Topolah's for intel. Fel Ardra got recycled as the Xaryxian spy network encounter later, Flinch and Starbough never got used. Hastain the reigar gets placed as an ambush encounter at the asteroid port but the PC's keep doing fast, cunning port departures and coincidentally spoiling Hastains ambush a few times.

Chapter 5 - Topolah's tower and the scavvers were used as is, placed in the Great Belt. Topolah was much appreciated as a source of good intel and her advice to find Gargenhale was taken seriously. The Kindori pod never got used; but this bunch had already been space-whaling. The Gargenhale content was used as was, placed over Obsidian Depths, the big local ocean planet. Throwaway lines in the Gargenhale set up - two starmoth wrecks, evidence of a fight - all this provided lots of investigation by the players trying to reconstruct the timeline of events which took a lot of DM prep on my side to figure out reasonable answers. The players of *course* stopped to strip the Starmoth wrecks to the deck-nails, looking for valuables and intel.

Chapter 6 - Gargenhale and his mutinous crew played as is - though the TPK potential of the explosive cargo of the Last Breath was something I watched nervously as people split up during the fight. There was also a good chance to blow Xedalli to kingdom come before ever meeting her if things go sideways in the fight with Agony. Xedalli was however found and promptly re-imprisoned by the party aboard their own ship.

Chapter 7 - Xedalli got used as is. Pretty much all the long-haul voyage content is here in the voyage to Doomspace so that got repurposed into general travel encounters. Aartuks of Aruun got recycled as the 'faction onboarding' quest for the ssussurans of Gorondirs Throne, including the bulettes. Doomspace itself got chucked - I kept everything in-system, especially since it turned out to be large with weeks of travel between planets.

Chapter 8 - Vocaths base got re-framed as the mindflayers orbital trade station over Fanthirs Ruin. Arena of Blood got turned into the "mindflayer alliance quest" and went by the numbers. Prince Xeleths ambush of his sister was recycled to trip once Xedalli showed herself in public (wherever). Xeleths back-up snatch team got repurposed into the Xaryxian spy network as an ambush on the capital of Hrungirs Roar.

Chapter 9 - Alliance in Doomspace was re-painted and used as a faction-building challenge series to recruit the quarreling local eleven remnants on Hrungirs Roar, the local capital planet. The goals/ambitions etc remained but I switched the races to be residents of Hrungirs Roar.

Chapter 10 - From here on the adventure ran pretty close to 'script'. Citadel assault was played straight up apart from the githyanki knight encounter getting thrown overboard. With the players allying with mindflayers and *being* the local githyanki force it did not feel like a good fit.

Chapter 11 - Trial by combat went more or less by the numbers - some villain monologuing then a beefy fight with a Zodar.

Chapter 12 - Betrayal, fight-back and then final decision to destroy Xaryxis were used as is.

So after I pulled all those bits out and scattered them around, I threw in another faction on Tears of Joy to be an accelerator - they would join once a majority of others were onboard.

I unleashed the players and after a fairly direct route in to liase with Krux they found themselves aware of the problem (sun is cooling due to starseeds, Xaryxians are assholes, they are attempting to reconquer the place, we need to get the locals off their butts by doing things to get them on-side against the Xaryxians). After that they had a bunch of leads to chase down corresponding to encounters from the book set on different planets and off they went. I did not worry too much about what level things were tuned for because with my experience 5e players can usually nova their way through whatever you throw at them and this table were some hard-bitten 30yr D&D vets.

I retooled the milestone levelling to be check-list - once a certain set of encounters were done, they levelled, which meant that it took a while as they cruised around doing bits and pieces then they started completing things and levelled relatively rapidly into the end game.

All in all it worked pretty well - the players went off on some tangents I was able to catch and over all 80% of the campaign sessions worked through at least some content from the book so we got good use out of it. I will walk through how the players interacted with all this on another post.

Light of Xaryxis lends itself well to remixing this way as there are lots of elements that can be swapped around without greatly impacting it