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All posts for the month February, 2016

Time Tracking Sheet (Curabel/AD&D 1E Campaign Tool)

Posted by craddoke on February 11, 2016
Posted in: Campaign Design, Campaign Tools, Curabel Setting, Dungeon Exploration, Meta, Sandbox-type Campaigns, Uncategorized. 3 comments

Earlier this week, Richard LeBlanc shared his OSR time tracking tool on G+. It was an excellent resource, but not quite what I needed for my current campaign. Using his sheet as a model, though, I decided to create my own version optimized for dungeon exploration in the ongoing AD&D 1E campaign detailed elsewhere on this blog (I will likely create another specialized sheet the next time the group embarks on wilderness adventures). Creating the tracker specifically for my campaign allowed me to highlight those exploration activities I find myself most often needing to record as well as add sections for tracking rounds.

CurabelTimeTracker

Link to PDF: CurabelTimeTracker

Link to Adobe Illustrator File: Google Drive

Here is a quick explanation of the document’s contents:

  • The header allows the DM to record the date (both real and according to the in-game calendar), adventure location, and campaign session number. My own inclination is to use a new sheet each session. I make a quick G+ community post with various bookkeeping information the day after a session, and this tracker has already proven easier to use then tally marks on notebook paper (not to mention the greater granularity of information).
  • Below the header is the first major section of the sheet (each section being indicated by double horizontal lines). This first area is for recording the time spent on activities typically measured in turn increments. As with Richard’s sheet, I use six-piece pies (each representing one hour of in-game time divvied up into ten minute turns). However, instead of generic recording forms that could used for any activity, I went ahead and created dedicated subsections for the specific activities I tend to track: Exploration (i.e., movement), in-depth area searches, casual examination of areas, resting, treasure collecting, destroying doors, memorizing spells, ten round combats, and spells. A few of the activities I am less likely to mark as distinct activities are grouped based on the typical time they take to complete.
  • Next, the middle section of the sheet has areas to record activities that most often take place in increments of one round (i.e., minute) divvied up into blocks of ten — which would be equivalent to a pie slice in the upper area. I wanted somewhere to record this information in the tracker document because these one minute activities tend to add up but often happen in fractions of one turn. A great example of this are listening checks — if you have six rounds of combat and four listen checks spread across a four-hour gaming session, that’s equivalent to a turn and there should be an easy way to track that alongside those activities that are normally a full turn in length.
  • Finally, the bottom section of the document has places for recording the use of limited resources such as light, rations, water, and spells. Light and spells are setup to allow turn-based recording, while the rations and water are simple check-boxes since they are normally exhausted at a rate of one per day for each adventurer.

Fully aware that this document is derivative of Richard LeBlanc’s original and specialized to reflect the peculiarities of my campaign, I still hope there are some who find it useful.

Play Report: Dynamic Worlds and Dungeons (Session Five)

Posted by craddoke on February 4, 2016
Posted in: Graveyard of Empires Campaign, Session Summaries. Leave a Comment
Roman Bathhouse Mosiac

One of a number of mosaics that inspired my description of the dwarven bathhouse now occupied by warring factions of goblins and bullywugs.

[This is the fifth post in a series of session summaries (i.e., a play reports) for the first campaign I have run in the Curabel setting. Each summary was written by one of the players, but I am adding my own ‘DM Annotations’ on these write-ups before uploading them here. These annotations will mostly call attention to bits of the summaries that will be significant later in the campaign (with links to relevant summaries to follow as they are posted) or else explain my rational for my game-mastering choices.

Please note that the summary will be displayed as regular text and my annotations as block quotes throughout. Also, my original intention was to post my next random generator this week, but it needs a bit more polish. Sorry for the delay on that.]

Session 5: Wednesday, April 16, 2014

This is the second session summary written by Larry, who still plays the dwarven fighter Thorfus Ironhand. You can find his blog here: http://followmeanddie.com/.

After healing up several of our intrepid adventurers purchased lock boxes and hid them about the rented townhouse, each to store his loot. (It was determined that a 12″ x 6″ x 6″ lock box can hold 3024 coins at 7/cubic inch.). We then re-stocked oil and other supplies.

It may be worth noting that my campaign uses a house-ruled version of an encumbrance system that apparently has its origins in Lamentations of the Flame Princess (although I stole the idea from some intermediary blog). Items generally occupy one slot and a character’s allotment of slots are determined by both strength (1 backpack slot per point) and dexterity (1/2 quick inventory slot per point). 100 coins fill an inventory slot, so this chest has a capacity of 30 items. Incidentally, it’s funny that this particular session summary came up this week – one of the players asked after last week’s session (#93) to buy some large chests for his wagon and wanted to know how much they could hold. Somewhat miraculously, I came to the same basic conclusion.

Sthorm stopped an old woman on the street and asked about crime, and learned of the Mad Dogs, the local crime syndicate. They sell drugs and the son of one of the lords of the city recently died of a drug overdose. She pointed out that a lot of seedy types, who might be Mad Dogs, hung around the general store nearby.

As is often the case in AD&D, the party’s thief was the first one in need of finding a trainer for second level. This was the immediate impetus behind the group’s investigation of the local criminal element. Of course, I also used this opportunity to lay out another adventure hook – the young noble’s overdose – although the party never investigated that particular event any further.

Sthorm made contact with a member of the thieves’ guild, a woman named Adwissa who along with her husband runs the general store near our town house. The store is called Wright’s Mercantile. Sthorm learned that it was a good thing that we spared the lives of those who attempted to rob us on our first day in the city since they have some connection to the Mad Dog gang (which controls the thieves guild).

The opportunity to reward the party for their unorthodox decision to spare the lives of their would-be bandits was satisfying – although I would have been equally happy to complicate their search for trainers if they had done the natural thing and left their enemies to bleed out. In the end, the party discovered that Efam and Gartric were the illegitimate sons of some high-ranking member of the Mad Dogs but not who that person was in particular.

The entire party then went looking for Efam’s brother, Gartric. He was still convalescing at the small Ark Shrine. Galron preached the way of righteousness to him and seemed to make him think. Galron then healed him. Galron did cure disease on an old man, so if he had a disease, he does not now.

Contrary to appearances, Gartric was not swayed by the paladin’s preaching. He just thought it would be unwise to insult the warriors that kicked his behind, chose not to turn him over to the authorities, and even arranged for his healing.

We then went to the townhouse to rest for the return to adventure the next day.

We met up with Kottar and Sturloc the crossbowmen at the Flotsam and Jetsam, and located Kilmar the lantern bearer. Kilmar was all set to use his new trident to slay bullywugs, but Galron dissuaded him since he had no armor. Kottar and Sturloc wanted 5 gp for this day in the sewer instead of the normal 1gp. We made a deal of 1 gp now and 2 more gp each if we found treasure.

These three NPCs turned out to be very long-lived. Kottar and Sturloc are still with the party serving as hirelings while Kilmar left to become Galron the paladin’s squire when that character’s player decided to switch to a magic-user. For a while the party believed Kilmar died fighting an undead infestation in a small village (another adventure hook they ignored), but recently news arrived that he may be alive and a prisoner of dark elves – providing yet another hook, this time baited with the group’s feeling of obligation to their former lantern bearer.

We then went to the street in front of the university. The street was more deserted than normal due to rain. It is a cool 80 degrees.

When we got into the sewer, we noticed that the first chalk mark we found now had a big X over it and every chalk mark until we got to the wet slope where we tied off a rope to go down safely.

As a DM, I find that making slight changes to a dungeon/adventuring environment implying the interference of outside forces when the party returns after an absence can be very rewarding. Players often get into a mindset where they believe these locations, even if they are obviously dynamic, are self-contained and that each victory they achieve fills up a progress bar towards completion. The reality – or even just the possibility – that new challenges and opponents could wander into their playground makes it clear that these secret places are still part of a bigger world.

When we got to the big room with pillars where we met the goblins before, we say a pile of 6 dead bullywugs, and a dead half elf, gnome, and halfling. The goblins informed us that these new adventurers attacked them when the goblins asked if they were there to help fight bullywugs. The goblins thought they were us. The goblins killed three adventurers and captured two more. Then the bullywugs came, and the goblins did a number on them this time.

Here the group sees examples of dynamism in the dungeon environment itself (i.e., the war between the goblins and bullywugs doesn’t pause when they leave) and in how the dungeon environment interacts with the outside world (i.e., rival adventurers). Now, without imposing an arbitrary deadline for completing the adventure, the party naturally starts treating time as a limited resource – after all, if they waste too much of it, who knows what other new complications will arise?

There is a shaman type with the tattoos that looked like the ones that glowed on the one goblin and we learned can cause a big explosion when the goblin nears death.

A handy bit of information about the goblin shamans that the party was lucky to discover second-hand; of course, this also meant that their original mediator with the goblins was dead now, but the group still managed to convince the new shaman that they should be allowed to continue their mission.

We inquired after the two prisoners and learned that they were a half orc named Ermengarda and a gnome named Walteris, both fighters. These other adventurers were there at the behest of Talessin and were looking for stone blocks. They were reluctant to tell us what they were sent to find, but we told them we could not help them without information.

Again, the party is forced to deal with the consequences of their actions. In this case, that action was selling the gorilla corpse to Talessin and carelessly mentioning their discovery of an ancient dwarven bathhouse underneath the city. As a rival or their new employer (Desric the dwarf), Talessin immediately hired his own adventurers to swoop in and get the rewards – although that didn’t quite work out.

We convinced the two prisoners to help us kill bullywugs and the goblins reluctantly agreed, but they will not let any of us leave until the bullywug boss and the devil fish are dead.

The goody two-shoes paladin detected evil and learned that the half orc is evil but the gnome is not.

We got their weapons and armor from the goblins and headed back to the balcony.

The group is now a traditional first edition party with the hirelings and NPC associates equal in number to the actual player characters.

We went through the double doors into the big room and ran into two bullywugs that attacked, but we easily defeated them. During the fight, Sthorm attempted to hide in shadows and sneak behind them, but one of the bullywugs impaled him with a spear. Galron saved him before he expired and Ir’Alle healed him so that he is now under his own power.

There was a bullywug on the lower level between the stairs that the archers were shooting at, and one managed to hit it. Axel ran around to the north and came down the stairs and killed it. Axel lit a torch so that the crossbowmen can see to keep an eye on the double doors.

This time the party was ready to deal with the layout of this two-story chamber, rushing to secure its entirety and prevent the kind of flanking that hurt them during their last foray.

We searched the remaining rooms to the south on the upper level and learned that they are saunas.

We came down the southern stairs and worked our way around the south wall and found a door in the middle of the east wall and it opened to a room with some blocked stairs to the north, and a door to the south. There was a bullywug guard in the middle of the room. It was surprised and bolted to the door on the south and pounded on it. We swarmed it and Axel took it down.

We opened the door and met a bullywug. We slew him and discovered a key around his neck. There were four locked doors in this hallway. We opened them. One held a dead man, we later learned was David. Two were empty. The last room held an older woman and a girl, Jocassa and Em. One of the empty cells held another woman, Kaitlyn, but she must be with the bullywugs being tortured. Jocassa said that they were taken from the canals and had been there several days, but not weeks.

This introduced another group of important NPCs, although only Em still figures into the game these days. The party was clearly delighted at being able to rescue innocents, which was good information for me to have as DM in terms of anticipating what kinds of adventures hooks the group was likely to pursue.

Jocassa told us of an opening in the NW corner of the lower level of the big room hidden behind some junk. She also told us of an idol that the big bullywug keeps with him. It is evil and spoke to her mind. It told her that all land dwellers must suffer the wrath of Lysander, the sea deity that embodies the fickle and violent nature of the sea. This deity is usually worshiped by pirates, etc. She also said that the devil fish spoke to her mind in the same way.

This new information about the devil fish and their goals continues to build on information from the very first scene of the first session of play when the party’s boat encountered a ship sunk by devil fish on its way into Midmark harbor. What was previously a general threat to the city now seems a much more real and personal now that the group has rescued NPCs who suffered because of these creatures.

We sent the women upstairs to one of the sauna rooms on the south with Walteris the gnome to guard them since the goblins won’t let us leave.

We then went to the opening behind the junk. Sthorm found a set of chimes set as an alarm, but easily removed them. We moved the junk, which was placed for ease of moving to cover or uncover a 5′ opening.

Thorfus lead the way and we found that it became a standard ten foot passageway, leading to a four-way intersection. To the east and west were doors. To the north is what could be a room.

We elected to go to the door to the west and found a lone bullywug with a glaive guarding a junk-filled stairway going up and a flooded stairway going down. Axel and Thorfus charged in but failed to hit it. Ir’Alle stepped into block the water filled stairway. After much thrashing about, the bullywug wounded Thorfus, but Thorfus cleaved it’s skull in twain.

Naturally, next session will include some Bullywugs flanking the party using a flooded lower-level of the bathhouse (where the heating mechanism for the pools were located) and climbing up the submerged stairs. The party was not completely surprised by that development, though, showing that they are beginning to consider the strategic opportunities and threats built into a dungeon’s layout.

We then heard the sound of approaching bullywugs from the norther passage of the junction.

Will our adventurers prevail? Will the bullywugs bully their way to supremacy? Tune in next week for more of the exciting adventures of our heroes.

It’s nice when you can end on a cliffhanger like this.

So far, we have killed six bullywugs, rescued two adventurers and two female commoners, and only two party members have been wounded. One of the wounded was knocked down, but has been healed enough to be mobile.