Hidden depth of domain encounters (GLoGtober 3 '24)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #2 is from a list by Vivanter - "An encounter table for domain-level play."

So for this I thought of the many things that would crop up in domain play and thought I would have another go at a universal chart. For a domain level game, the problems scale up but the boons also change. For me domain level means 'so big, the king needs to send ...' either the cavalry or the tax wagons because it makes a difference on the scale of hundreds to thousands of people. The problems, if left unattended would threaten the viability of the realm itself. The type of stuff even high level adventurers would get out of bed for.

I blocked things out into a couple of groups
Catastrophes - big, rare things going very wrong in the deep wilds
Bad Times - things that hit 'civilization'
Critters - all the usual sorts of monsters but more of them or bigger.
Pesky Humans - people, either the neighbours or outlaws, being the nuisance
Civil Matters - things happening in the towns and cities
Stars Align - other peoples magical fantasy nonsense happening to you and your realm

Then blocked out a hidden depths table with the first four blocks and filled it out to a potential d30 roll with the last group.

You could run this as a chaos clock - switching 6d4 > 4d6 > 3d8 > 2d12 > d24 > d30 as things get weirder.

Score	Roll	Group	Event
2	d4d20	Stars Align	Treasure hoard uncovered
2	d4d20	Catastrophe	Major volcano
3	d4d20	Catastrophe	Fey incursion
4	d4d20	Catastrophe	Plague
5	2d12	Bad Times	Terrible Weather -
6	2d12	Bad Times	Crop Failures - peasants on the move
7	3d8	Critters	Minor monster tribe
8	3d8	Critters	Beast herds
9	3d8	Critters	Bountiful harvest
10	3d8	Critters	Insect swarms
11	4d6	Pesky Humans	Cult outbreak
12	4d6	Pesky Humans	Banditry
13	4d6	Pesky Humans	Herdbeast rustling
14	6d4	Civil Matters	Festival
15	6d4	Civil Matters	New construction
16	6d4	Civil Matters	Trade fair
17	6d4	Civil Matters	Crimewave
18	6d4	Civil Matters	Riots
19	4d6	Pesky Humans	Raiders
20	4d6	Pesky Humans	Siege
21	3d8	Critters	Big Scary Individual Monster
22	2d12	Bad Times	General Revolt
23	2d12	Bad Times	Plague
24	d4d20	Catastrophe	Divine incursion
25	d30	Stars Align	Lost secrets unearthed
26	d30	Stars Align	A mighty warrior arises
27	d30	Stars Align	Blood War Incursion
28	d30	Stars Align	A craft falls to earth
29	d30	Stars Align	Titans War breaks out (giants, dragons, etc)
30	d30	Stars Align	An archmage takes up a new goal

Shiny TTRPG links #193

Links from about the interwebs, both new and time-tested. For even more, 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.

The Other Side blog writes ITS OCTOBER 2024!! RPG Blog Carnival and Horror Movie Marathon

Attronarch's Athenaeum compiles RPG Blog Carnival: Wondrous Weapons and Damning Dweomers Round-Up Post

Warhammer Conference has proceedings on their Youtube channel

Direct Sun Games gives us With the Cult of Crimson Revelers

Play Material gives us Putting together the Scene Kit and boiling it waaaaay down

Trilemma Adventures shared Some Thoughts on Intrigue

Sword of Mass Destruction gave us Rethinking clerics and religion, part 1 and part 2

Personable Thoughts gives us The Freedom of Constraints: Game Jam Writing

Play Material writes Doing a TTRPG game jam changed my life

Patrons Seeking Adventurers (GLoGtober 2 '24)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #2 is from a list by CommonUse - "Patrons: their source of power/wealth and their goals in using the party."

Practical Patrons, their natures and what they seek from their hirelings
1. Sithulf - whiter-than-white, the clergy of Bahamut, support through the church, needs deniable catspaws but if things are done by the book, they can drop the hammer on anything proved
2. Mallory - keen long-haul traders, breathless explorer, demands good notes, provides good briefings, can find or fence anything
3. Master of University - classic wizard, wrong species, lots of weird help to hand out, bound imps, consumable magic
4. Ragnbjorl - delvers into beyond, hunters of eldritch monsters for profit, seek gutsy, ask-no-questions types, support subcontractors, tend towards wild victory parties
5. Rynskald - ancient house, guardian of hazards, dangerous deeds, well paid, good intel, operational support, bloody handed defenders of the realm, everything is expendable
6. Kalfyra - minor members of the ruling house, odd hobbyists, sketchy briefings, official support, shows appreciation through lands and titles.
7. Hentlebrock - minor lordly deeds, local political power, fixers for the common folk, often seek classic adventurers for typical quests
8. Pillars - bordermarch lords, monster expertise, local guides, often seek rescue assistance for lost travellers or cut off settlements
9. Mhysanor - glitteringly wealthy coastal lords, sleek and polished, seek spy-hunters and capables to stalk magical foes on their home terrain
10. Kordites - disorganised church, motivated, messianic, supported by living saint, temple network plus mythic overlap, has prophetic visions to be handled
11. Sellal - river-baron, trade-taxers, covert actors, connections to the seelie courts, seeks sneaks and spies
12. Crown - the realm, ultimate but distant authority, officially their writ is law, lots of support until there isn't, quests often wrong on the details
13. Mysmys - Orthodox Church of Tiamat, guided by oracles, seeks contract killers, ruin delvers and hoard plunderers
14. Alchemists Guild - makers of warforged, tomb-divers and tower-raiders, pay well, need deniable
15. Chiming Zam - smuggling boss, network everywhere, needs discrete, cunning folk to help shift cargos quietly
16. Drizero - looks like a dragon cult, is the local lord, sponsors ruin diving
17. Uncargicks - wealthy smiths guild, pays top coin, needs muscle for clearing mines, path-breaking, caravan escort
18. Thenya Palace - city rulers, the local law, lots of odds and ends the palace guard cannot deal with, mostly message runs or ruin exploration
19. Gray Wasp - sorcerers collective, continuous demand for wierd and exotic fetch errands
20. Garzidh - military stronghold, excellent equipment, henchmen support, steady mercenary work keeping supply routes open

Bonus Eldritch Patrons seen in-world
1. Queen of the Terror Birds - recently dug up after long aeons underground, gleefully seeks to restore avian dominion
2. Last Star - the Special light
3. Ezbotha - your local hag, runs a very charming bathhouse
4. Master of Tongues - gruesome plucker of the strands of fate

Dungeon Cities (GLoGtober 1 '24)

Taking on Glass Candles GLoGtober '24, challenge #1 is from a list by Walfalcon - "A city where you can dungeon crawl."

The key difference between a 'lost city' and a standard dungeon to my mind is that there are a bunch of factions/peoples present who are just living normal lives to a relatively sophisticated standard - it is just that the distance to very dangerous neighbours and deadly ruins is measured in minutes walking rather than days of hiking.

I am using 'Lost Conchordia' from my home campaign for my model here - the city of the Titans, predating giant-kind, from the time of Amman ruling supreme, before the Ordning. I had it lost beneath a glacier but this also works for buried under sand or silt, engulfed by volcanic ash or any other number of cataclysms that would fill the streets and spaces of a city with something solid.

Intent is that your standard urban location toolkit would be used, whatever that is, then layer on these tables below to capture the 'buried city' flavour.

Conchordia beneath ice.

d6 room types
1. dug out of ice
2. old room as was
3. adapted room
4. non-dwelling space but big enough to be room
5. rubble/ruin still navigable
6. bubble/crevasse or other naturally occuring gap

In Conchordia, the original inhabitants were mostly gone but for a very few remnants - automata, undead, moving statues, etc. Things of course had moved into the space over the long run of time - both beasts and people finding spaces to live within the old city. Finally there are other non-dwellers - both welcome visitors and unwelcome intruders that might happen to be there.

d20 things encountered
1-2. original inhabitant
3-8. beastie moved in
9-17. recent dweller
18-20. intruder/adventurer

My suggestion for cities where you dungeon crawl is to set the range on attitude tables as equivalent to cities, and have monsters encountered be both more savvy around humans - like urban bears, crows and coyotes - habituated to people, not man-eaters, and perhaps more of a nuisance, less of a direct threat. Going about your daily business is a little more risky however with things falling on you or out from under you and the poorly ventilated buried nature of the whole place.

d6 background hazards the locals cope with daily
1. rickety walk ways over plunges
2. low door lintels
3. bad food
4. sleep-ruining noise
5. random collapses
6. bad air
7. disease
8. getting lost and disorientation

This would also come into play during any chases.

Shiny TTRPG links #192

Links netted from about the interwebs. For even more, 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.

Thriftomancer hosts Hexcrawloween

The Foot of Blue Mountain gives us Having an Opinion; How to Play OSR Games

Zedeck Siew's Writing Hours shares GNS is not a Theory; it is a Tradition

CBC writes How Dungeons & Dragons went from 'satanic panic' to pop culture fixture

u/_Zodaxa discovered A Google groups conversation board for Fantasy RPGs with archived posts dating back to 1982!

In My Campaign gives us Making History

Actual Play: Goblin Mail

I tested out the Goblin Mail - a zine about a chaotic goblin post office I reviewed recently. Written up to follow Gorgon Bones first best practice: "Record your hobby experience".

Cover by Evlyn Moreau

Run as an open table at our regular Friday night sessions using 5e, this was a seven player table and we ran a ~4hr session, half of which was Goblin Mail.

Characters were:
Maxi the Tabaxi - a rogue
Gwensora - a cleric
Giovanni Giovanni - a rogue
Hyperion IV - a barbarian
Thomas Wetsack - a cleric
Archie Gruble - a fighter
Balthus Darkcloud - a cleric

Session Report: Goblin Mail

Our heroes received a letter from the Merchant da Pra, whom they helped previously in Pesto Alla Lungarvese. They ask that a package be delivered to their aunt out in the Penumbria borderlands - with the catch that the package needs to first be retrieved from the goblin post office.

Venturing into town our heroes find the ramshackle goblin post office, barge into the office and are directed to customer service. They point them to the boss. After scrambling up the stairs to find a loud and horrible break room they interrupt a card-game-argument to get directions up to the boss. Forging their way through drifts of letters and thieving gremlins they arrive at a second more civilised breakroom and thence to the bosses office.

[DM Commentary - initial interactions with the goblins went well, a lot of barging past the queues of locals but getting to the front did not make the goblins much more helpful. The coffee and snacks in the break-room proved an unexpected attraction and the gremlins among the letter drifts were a good hazard. I played those more as 'save vs effect' hazards rather than combat since the gremlins were so out matched. One was captured and hauled around for the rest of the adventure cursing its captor.]

The boss queries them then sends them to customer service, where the party splits. Half deciding to just try searching the next room - special package storage - and the rest returning to customer servce. Archie decides to follow the 'faster service' ladder and finds Griselda the All-Seeing. Directed from their to the basement and Agatha then venture down and find Agatha who despite the irregularities, directs them towards the special package storage.

[DM Commentary - by this point 'you need to go see the boss' was causing eye-twitch reactions among some of the party as they were failing to distinguish between who is in charge in this room and who is in charge of the whole building. There was much running up and down to try and out-pace the package. The party split into a group led by Archie who followed the Boss instructions and another of Giovanni, Thomas and Balthus who decided to just start searching for the package themselves.]

Arriving first into special package storage, Thomas, Hyperion and Giovanni poke about in the giant stacks of parcels and when Thomas casts a Detect Magic, filching one or two. As the others arrive, and finally bring some light to the gloomy room, a giant book worm is revealed nibbling packages in the far end of the room. Returning (most of) its packages, they are told the latest delivery has already been sent to the roof.

[DM Commentary - the random package generators came in very handy here as the room was searched and random packages pocketted. Eventually someone cast Dancing Lights and the bookworm woke up - they assumed it was staff and did not fight it.]

Scrambling up the ladder they find a giant stork in its nest and a baffled goblin staring in, with a sack of packages abandoned nearby - and a trio of hogmen sneaking up to grab it. Shooing off the hogmen, our heroes attempt to reconcile the stork and goblins confusion over the hatched winged lizards in the nest before Balthus manages to grievously insult the storks parenting skills and they are chased off.

Archie and Giovanni grab the package they are looking for and dash back down the inside of the post office while everyone else follows the hogmen back down their grappling-rope.

[DM Commentary - the random roll for the Stork and Goblins disposition had them confused over the strange hatching of winged lizards - so I made the mail bandits be a group of sneaking hogmen in place of a loud attack. The players managed to intimidate off the hogmen then tried to help the stork figure out what was going on. This turned into an effort to persuade the stork to give up the hatchlings for adoption by the party that was going ok for a bit until it was blown by implying the stork was a bad parent for building their nest here. Cue angry chase off]

Abandoning their plan to deliver the package today, our heroes return to the Golden Cockerel with two packages - one for the Wizard da Pra and another covered in ancient return addresses and warning stickers. Giovanni cuts this open and find a mysterious animated bug which speaks a strange tongue. They give it a lute and it plays music unlike any they have heard before. Deciding not to worry about it, they leave the bug at the Golden Cockerel and set out again to deliver the package.

Session report for Goblin Mail ends

Overall view - it ran more quickly and less violently than I might have thought, people did not dig into the 'why are there goblin post offices' at all. It very much got across the kafka-esque run-around of being endlessly pointed to different desks. By the time the party left they needed to go for an in-game drink.

All in all a nice little drop in module - use it the once for a sessions of have it in the background to be used and re-used. No reason more goblin post offices might not be encountered in the future.

Field Report: The Arcanists Tavern

Stopped into the Arcanist's Tavern in near Hoxton in London. Billed as "London's first immersive tabletop gaming cafe" I found out about it through Wyrd Science #6 and since I was in London for work I thought to check it out. I caught up with an old gamer pal for a couple of drinks - both of us, ridiculously travel shocked so we weren't exactly up for taking full advantage of the facilities, but it was more of a recon for like, what is this place? The premise sounds awesome but how is it actually?

The place has an upstairs bar/cafe/board-gaming space, the downstairs is the wargaming/TTRPG space. On this occassion we mostly sat upstairs, admiring the giant wall of games and acknowledging that if we were less shattered there were many things we would have gone for. I also had a pint of the tastiest stour I have had in ages, really nice. Overall the place was busy while we were there on a random Wednesday, there seemed to be two shifts of folk in, an early evening bunch and a later bunch and when we packed it in at ten there were still folk chucking dice about in full flow. Vibe was very chill and relaxed, lots of folk running games, including what looked like another TTRPG session running in the upstairs space. A strong 'dark wood walls with weird things mounted on it' vibe wich is just what you want. Lots of nooks about the place for quieter games if you wanted too.

They have a fairly large table space in the upstairs that you take games out of the giant board games library. There's a bar with a couple of available drinks, a selection of pizza's, toasties and nibbles to eat - good to get you through your session. The board games library was a giant wall of games with a great selection of stuff in it. There were some properly chunky ones in there - bless the optimism of someone who's going to pull Twilight Imperium down off of board games library and get stuck in - that game is a full working day worth of play! Plenty of other good ones there too.

Off on the other side you could buy TTRPG stuff - I was very amused to see that there was a copy of Where the Wheat Grows Tall on their little sort of side shelf of indie games. That was cool.

The downstairs has a ton of space for playing war games. Lots of big tables, good space around them in there. There were also six kind of booths for RPGs that each had a private dining niche sized space - imagine that double depth, double width of a family dining table. Not a huge amount of space around the sides, enough to get in and out, but maximised for table-top space. Heavy theatre-curtains close off the front and that would be your space.

There are some fairly significant add ons and widgets like screen-in-table that intrigue me - I would be interested to try out this hardware-heavy mode of play with digital maps and all the good elements of digital gaming there on the table. My standard playing away from home model is pretty light, meeples-and-scribbled maps, it would be fun to test out.

Not super cheap but looked like decent value for the effort gone into it. I think next time I'm back I'll be trying to pull together a table and try it out for real.

I like that this space exists, in fairness in the big bad city of London you can find anything, but I like that this particular little niche is well served, long may it last.