I did a little work on Felltower today. We'll be beyond the air gate, next time, but still, the dungeon must go on.
- I updated some rumors
- I updated the Felltower main file a bit, to clean up some noise. It's a running record of changes, but some didn't get logged for some reason.
- I backed up the VTT and updated it.
Nothing really exciting - too much non-gaming work to do.
Sunday, May 18, 2025
Friday, May 16, 2025
Thoughts & Links for 5/16/2025
What's up this week?
I've been badly distracted by ice hockey playoffs, sumo tournaments, and getting a friend of mine ready for their very first submission grappling match. But I have done some gaming reading.
- The cult of the TPK and the OSR. Felltower is a good example of this - it's deliberately high lethality. It's not meant to exactly ape the lethality of the old school games we played. It's more. It's just I find the higher lethality, "hardcore mode" approach appealing for this game.
"Enjoy your death as I enjoyed killing you." - Peter, GMing Felltower. Only kidding, it's Leela, The Horror at Fang Rock.
- Why archers don't volley fire. Yeah, so much of Hollywood historical warfare is basically WWI or WWII with swords and bows even when none of it makes sense.
- I have barely played any Battle Brothers. The mods I put on help, but also revealed some errors I made in selecting brothers. No matter. But I just haven't had time to sit and play, not with all of the non-play responsibilites I have going on.
- Next Felltower game is early June!
I've been badly distracted by ice hockey playoffs, sumo tournaments, and getting a friend of mine ready for their very first submission grappling match. But I have done some gaming reading.
- The cult of the TPK and the OSR. Felltower is a good example of this - it's deliberately high lethality. It's not meant to exactly ape the lethality of the old school games we played. It's more. It's just I find the higher lethality, "hardcore mode" approach appealing for this game.
"Enjoy your death as I enjoyed killing you." - Peter, GMing Felltower. Only kidding, it's Leela, The Horror at Fang Rock.
- Why archers don't volley fire. Yeah, so much of Hollywood historical warfare is basically WWI or WWII with swords and bows even when none of it makes sense.
- I have barely played any Battle Brothers. The mods I put on help, but also revealed some errors I made in selecting brothers. No matter. But I just haven't had time to sit and play, not with all of the non-play responsibilites I have going on.
- Next Felltower game is early June!
Sunday, May 11, 2025
Felltower and the Air Gate
A few more notes on the "Air Gate" the PCs are exploring.
- there is a beautiful wilderness below them, but no sign of organized, intelligent life. No signs of destruction, either.
- the clouds meander around, and it seems likey each are on their own wind. Or on different tracks of wind, perhaps. Whatever it is, the winds change a lot and you can easily see a cloud moving too and fro with another nearby moving on a steady line, or not moving at all. There is a logic to this, but no one has the tools to manage discenring that. Maybe they'll guess it. It's a mystery but it doesn't need solving to make this worth the delve.
- the PCs loaded up for air elementals, but this isn't some elemental plane of air. It's a different thing. One of the players is waiting to hear Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum and find a goose to steal, and I won't comment if he's right or not. That doesn't mean there aren't air elementals, but it's not a repository of elementals of all kinds.
- there clearly are giant beings here - huge chairs, huge castles, huge everything. But also some evidence of "normal" sized people, based on some trophies.
- I think this might be a repeat delve gate, as long as the players manage their resources and delves well. So, nevermind, I take that back. It's one good delve and then three "this got too hard" delves. ;)
- Next delve date is still TBD. But I'm glad they finally feel they have the 3-layer deep flying ability to risk a delve here.
- there is a beautiful wilderness below them, but no sign of organized, intelligent life. No signs of destruction, either.
- the clouds meander around, and it seems likey each are on their own wind. Or on different tracks of wind, perhaps. Whatever it is, the winds change a lot and you can easily see a cloud moving too and fro with another nearby moving on a steady line, or not moving at all. There is a logic to this, but no one has the tools to manage discenring that. Maybe they'll guess it. It's a mystery but it doesn't need solving to make this worth the delve.
- the PCs loaded up for air elementals, but this isn't some elemental plane of air. It's a different thing. One of the players is waiting to hear Fe-Fi-Fo-Fum and find a goose to steal, and I won't comment if he's right or not. That doesn't mean there aren't air elementals, but it's not a repository of elementals of all kinds.
- there clearly are giant beings here - huge chairs, huge castles, huge everything. But also some evidence of "normal" sized people, based on some trophies.
- I think this might be a repeat delve gate, as long as the players manage their resources and delves well. So, nevermind, I take that back. It's one good delve and then three "this got too hard" delves. ;)
- Next delve date is still TBD. But I'm glad they finally feel they have the 3-layer deep flying ability to risk a delve here.
Friday, May 9, 2025
Thoughts & Links for 5/9/2025
- OSRIC 3 launched. I'm thinking of going for it, and seeing if I can't tempt some of my players into trying this version of AD&D.
- Speaking of AD&D, has anyone tried to feed the DMG into, say, ChatGPT and see if it can figure out how initiative works? I'm curious, but also lazy.
- I've been too busy for Battle Brothers. I am looking at trying some quality-of-life mods, like sped up overland movement and stopping on sighting enemy groups . . . but I've never done mods before so I'm putting that off until I have a little more time to unwind any damage I do if I mess up.
- Speaking of AD&D, has anyone tried to feed the DMG into, say, ChatGPT and see if it can figure out how initiative works? I'm curious, but also lazy.
- I've been too busy for Battle Brothers. I am looking at trying some quality-of-life mods, like sped up overland movement and stopping on sighting enemy groups . . . but I've never done mods before so I'm putting that off until I have a little more time to unwind any damage I do if I mess up.
Thursday, May 8, 2025
Rules, Rulings, and Notes for DF Session 208
Here are some additional notes for Session 208.
- I've noticed that my players sometimes get stuck in a dead end, right next to a way out, like a character with poor pathfinding in an old video game. Part of it must be my descriptions, which aren't eliciting in their heads the things I see in mine.
Equally, people do get fixated on what they perceive to be in front of them. In a game with secret doors, traps, mazes, weird little things to discover, and danger at all turns, that happens more.
Sometimes it's just outsmarting yourself. They deliberately snuck around the back of the cloud fortress, only to find it doesn't apparantly have a back door, and then assumed the way in was through the only thing they saw sticking out. Lots of what they did made perfect sense. It's just that I'd thought they'd have checked for doors all over before deciding what they found must be a door. Once entering the dome didn't work, looking around seemed like a better first step than digging through the cloud and searching for secret doors with See Secrets.
It's always clearer from my side of the screen, I guess . . . but groups do get fixated.
- The PCs were very cautious with their cloaks - they want to use them as emergency backup devices, and mainly rely on Walk on Air so they can walk and fight midair. Sadly for them, the environment is quite hostile to that, and much friendlier to wings. It's amusing they have mythic artifacts designed for exactly their circumstances and think, "These will make a nice backup." It's akin to Thor keeping mjolnir as a backup weapon because he doesn't want to risk dropping it. Or maybe like the X-Men having Storm keep them aloft on winds instead of using the Blackbird because they can't freely fight from within it. It's amusing. It makes logical sense, with a certain kind of logic, but it cuts the value of the mythical artifacts, doesn't it? The solution always seems to be, spam out some free-to-maintain spells and back it up with spellstones and then with whatever is designed to do exactly the job that needs doing.
- The trap took a lot of time, but I don't think people were annoyed by it. It was painful, and really beat up their resources, but still . . . I think it's because the puzzle had lots of things to try and costs for trying them. It didn't feel like the answer was, "Nothing happens." That "Nothing happens" describes a few places in Felltower, including some merely mistaken for puzzles.
- I've noticed that my players sometimes get stuck in a dead end, right next to a way out, like a character with poor pathfinding in an old video game. Part of it must be my descriptions, which aren't eliciting in their heads the things I see in mine.
Equally, people do get fixated on what they perceive to be in front of them. In a game with secret doors, traps, mazes, weird little things to discover, and danger at all turns, that happens more.
Sometimes it's just outsmarting yourself. They deliberately snuck around the back of the cloud fortress, only to find it doesn't apparantly have a back door, and then assumed the way in was through the only thing they saw sticking out. Lots of what they did made perfect sense. It's just that I'd thought they'd have checked for doors all over before deciding what they found must be a door. Once entering the dome didn't work, looking around seemed like a better first step than digging through the cloud and searching for secret doors with See Secrets.
It's always clearer from my side of the screen, I guess . . . but groups do get fixated.
- The PCs were very cautious with their cloaks - they want to use them as emergency backup devices, and mainly rely on Walk on Air so they can walk and fight midair. Sadly for them, the environment is quite hostile to that, and much friendlier to wings. It's amusing they have mythic artifacts designed for exactly their circumstances and think, "These will make a nice backup." It's akin to Thor keeping mjolnir as a backup weapon because he doesn't want to risk dropping it. Or maybe like the X-Men having Storm keep them aloft on winds instead of using the Blackbird because they can't freely fight from within it. It's amusing. It makes logical sense, with a certain kind of logic, but it cuts the value of the mythical artifacts, doesn't it? The solution always seems to be, spam out some free-to-maintain spells and back it up with spellstones and then with whatever is designed to do exactly the job that needs doing.
- The trap took a lot of time, but I don't think people were annoyed by it. It was painful, and really beat up their resources, but still . . . I think it's because the puzzle had lots of things to try and costs for trying them. It didn't feel like the answer was, "Nothing happens." That "Nothing happens" describes a few places in Felltower, including some merely mistaken for puzzles.
Monday, May 5, 2025
GURPS DF Session 208, Felltower 135 - Exploring the Air Gate, Part I
Game Date: 5/4/2025
Weather: Wet, warm.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery (322 point knight)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (358 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (318 points)
We started off in town, with the PCs gathering rumors despite a desperate desire to not get sidetracked. They did not - they finished their shopping and headed right into Felltower.
They went in through the well and reached the 1st, and then 2nd, levels, using their usual path. From there, it was through the Giant Fantastic Staircase and down to the "gate level." They began to head to the air gate, but Hannari and Vlad suffered from the stale, close air of the level. As they moved forward, Vlad heard a clop-clop noise, like hooves, and a ragged, deep breathing noise. He peered around to the left in the intersection they needed to take, and saw, quite a ways down the hallway, a hunched blue figure and two boars. The Lord of Spite!
They ran back up to the 2nd level and found a place to hang out, away from any dead ends. After 30 minutes or so, nothing - the Lord of Spite didn't follow them.
They went back down . . . and did the same routine. Only this time, Durak was closer - only a dozen yards or so away. Vlad saw him, and he saw Vlad - and laughed, low and breathy, at him. They ran, but this time in a big circle to get to the air gate by the long way. They managed to do so, and heard the drag-stomp of the Lord of Spite moving in their direction. Again, they ran.
They reached the air gate, 9' off of the ground in an ovoid room. They felt wind picking up and smelled ozone. So they piled through the gate, wing-cloaks at the ready and Walk on Air on everyone.
The gate deposited the delvers on a cloud. They stayed above it, but found the steady and often strong breezes made it hard to stay "on" a cloud while staying above it to keep their cloaks dry - they won't work wet. They saw a nearby cloud with a giant bird flying around, but they got distracted and the bird was gone when they looked again. Eventually, they headed in the direction of the only significant thing they saw in the sky - a large cloud with a fairy tale looking castle on the top. Walk on Air was too weak, but their magical wings did it. They flew and landed on the cloud near the castle. They approached it. It was a beautiful grey stone, with fluttering penants of blue and white. Thor knocked on the door using the giant knockers on the pine-like wood-made doors. A voice boomed out, "Who rings?" and Thor answered with his name.
The door opened up and let them all in. Beyond was a castle - empty, and not recently used. The doors let into what they called a "great hall," lined with banners. There was a "trophy room" - with giant animal heads, includings dragons and giant crocs and a huge bison, and also broken (mostly human-sized or SM+1) weapons. There was a kitchen with a smoky door that opened to the trophy room, sized for huge beings but without any sign of recent use. And so on. Stairs led up to an "aerie" above, with T-shaped posts and giant bird feathers here and there.
Also, all of the PCs felt just calmer and more relaxed upon entering the castle. Others, Thor and Percy (I think), felt very calm. They decided it must be some kind of gas attack (I'm not sure who decided this.) They explored the castle and used Gift of Tongues to read the names of the banners - it seemed like there was an overall slogan repeated - "We rule the skies and ground" - and a half-dozen other phrases they decided were kingdom names. Thor suggested the castle is a neutral meeting place, but Vlad is going with a hunting lodge for a group of giant-sized big game hunters.
As they searched, though, a large cloud closed in on them - they called it "cloud #2" - and they used their wings to go to it - deliberately choosing to go around the "back," away from where it was facing. Up and around the cloud, and to the top. They saw a crystal dome on top of a low tower. They climbed it, they looked for entrances, tried to get in any which way but could not. Tempers flared (mostly out of game) and people got frustrated.
Eventually it occured to someone that maybe the entrance was at the front. And lo, it was - they'd out-thought themselves and snuck up on a building to the roof and couldn't figure out why it wasn't a door. But the entrance was a flat aerie, with some T-poles and staple-like crosspole (a "hitching post.") Lots of feathers and a couple of man-sized bird crap piles also decorated the platform - it was clearly in use, unlike the much cleaner previous castle. A glowing rectangle in the wall of the white-stone building embedded in the clouds turned out to be a touch-open portal . . . 50' high and 30' wide, just like the corridor beyond.
They followed it into a circular room with eight exits. Each had an archway, colored around the outside edge, that led to a short hallway to a large portal. The archway behind them was yellow, and the others in a circle going clockwise were orange, red, black, violet, indigo, blue, green. They decided the colors must mean something. Two people said, "Black!" and two "Anything except black!" so they decided to go for orange. They got zapped for 10 injury, and found the portal they saw was gone, but they stood at the lip of a pool of water 3' down from the corridor with 10 enourmous (but not G-giant) crocodiles and a door beyond it. They stayed out of reach with Walk on Air and Vlad shot them in the eyes until they ducked out of sight. Naturally, he dropped his bow on a critical failure and had to have Duncan retrieve it with Apporation from the murky water.
They opened the door and water flowed out, filling the room and releasing the crocs from their pool. A couple survivors went into the main room. The PCs followed them out, bracing for damage but receiving none, and Vlad shot them down. They did note the archway was white from the far side.
They also noticed the colors changed, wheeling around one each in (IIRC) a clockwise direction. They proceeded to try the same archway with a different color - this time, 24 damage zapped them. They spent a chunk of time, lots of paut and potions, and managed to heal everyone enough. The same croc pond awaited them. Hannari posited it must be a proving ground - a rite of passage to prove your manhood, say, or a gladiatorial challenge kind of thing. Hence, the puzzle and the post for birds.
This time the colors didn't change.
They ended up trying all of them, in complementary color order, and then what felt like more or less at random in process of elimination. Each color did something different - inflicted catatonic madness, delt damage, poisoned to death (only Duncan fell victim, and was saved from Mortally Wounded by Chop), turned ethereal, and even petrifaction (Duncan, again, saved by Chop.) They delt with a pit to the ground below (Thor avoided it), an acid pit blocked with a force wall (Hannari and Walk on Air foiled that), a dead end, an empty room, and so on. The colors changed sometimes, sometimes not, sometimes clockwise, sometimes counterclockwise. They marked furiously on note papers and with black wax in the room itself. They couldn't figure out the pattern or what room and color went together, or what color order was the way to go.
In the end, they healed up as best they could, and went for black.
And found themselves elsewhere. Behind them was a dead end, with a black-edged archway. A glowing portal lay ahead.
We called it there for time.
Notes:
- The players were being a bit timid today - not just avoiding the Lord of Spite. They wanted to fly safely, sneak up on the castle, sneak up on cloud two. It's when they got a little bolder that things got moving a bit.
- Persistent height advantage is lethal to animals.
- I didn't design this puzzle, and it didn't seem like it would be as cunning as it turned out to be. I'll tell where I stole it after the Air Gate stuff related to it is finished.
- MVP was Chop for a lot of critically important healing.
Weather: Wet, warm.
Characters
Chop, human cleric (362 points)
Duncan Tesadic, human wizard (346 points)
Hannari Ironhand, dwarf martial artist (360 points)
Persistance Montgomery (322 point knight)
Thor Halfskepna, human knight (358 points)
Vladimir Luchnick, dwarf scout (318 points)
We started off in town, with the PCs gathering rumors despite a desperate desire to not get sidetracked. They did not - they finished their shopping and headed right into Felltower.
They went in through the well and reached the 1st, and then 2nd, levels, using their usual path. From there, it was through the Giant Fantastic Staircase and down to the "gate level." They began to head to the air gate, but Hannari and Vlad suffered from the stale, close air of the level. As they moved forward, Vlad heard a clop-clop noise, like hooves, and a ragged, deep breathing noise. He peered around to the left in the intersection they needed to take, and saw, quite a ways down the hallway, a hunched blue figure and two boars. The Lord of Spite!
They ran back up to the 2nd level and found a place to hang out, away from any dead ends. After 30 minutes or so, nothing - the Lord of Spite didn't follow them.
They went back down . . . and did the same routine. Only this time, Durak was closer - only a dozen yards or so away. Vlad saw him, and he saw Vlad - and laughed, low and breathy, at him. They ran, but this time in a big circle to get to the air gate by the long way. They managed to do so, and heard the drag-stomp of the Lord of Spite moving in their direction. Again, they ran.
They reached the air gate, 9' off of the ground in an ovoid room. They felt wind picking up and smelled ozone. So they piled through the gate, wing-cloaks at the ready and Walk on Air on everyone.
The gate deposited the delvers on a cloud. They stayed above it, but found the steady and often strong breezes made it hard to stay "on" a cloud while staying above it to keep their cloaks dry - they won't work wet. They saw a nearby cloud with a giant bird flying around, but they got distracted and the bird was gone when they looked again. Eventually, they headed in the direction of the only significant thing they saw in the sky - a large cloud with a fairy tale looking castle on the top. Walk on Air was too weak, but their magical wings did it. They flew and landed on the cloud near the castle. They approached it. It was a beautiful grey stone, with fluttering penants of blue and white. Thor knocked on the door using the giant knockers on the pine-like wood-made doors. A voice boomed out, "Who rings?" and Thor answered with his name.
The door opened up and let them all in. Beyond was a castle - empty, and not recently used. The doors let into what they called a "great hall," lined with banners. There was a "trophy room" - with giant animal heads, includings dragons and giant crocs and a huge bison, and also broken (mostly human-sized or SM+1) weapons. There was a kitchen with a smoky door that opened to the trophy room, sized for huge beings but without any sign of recent use. And so on. Stairs led up to an "aerie" above, with T-shaped posts and giant bird feathers here and there.
Also, all of the PCs felt just calmer and more relaxed upon entering the castle. Others, Thor and Percy (I think), felt very calm. They decided it must be some kind of gas attack (I'm not sure who decided this.) They explored the castle and used Gift of Tongues to read the names of the banners - it seemed like there was an overall slogan repeated - "We rule the skies and ground" - and a half-dozen other phrases they decided were kingdom names. Thor suggested the castle is a neutral meeting place, but Vlad is going with a hunting lodge for a group of giant-sized big game hunters.
As they searched, though, a large cloud closed in on them - they called it "cloud #2" - and they used their wings to go to it - deliberately choosing to go around the "back," away from where it was facing. Up and around the cloud, and to the top. They saw a crystal dome on top of a low tower. They climbed it, they looked for entrances, tried to get in any which way but could not. Tempers flared (mostly out of game) and people got frustrated.
Eventually it occured to someone that maybe the entrance was at the front. And lo, it was - they'd out-thought themselves and snuck up on a building to the roof and couldn't figure out why it wasn't a door. But the entrance was a flat aerie, with some T-poles and staple-like crosspole (a "hitching post.") Lots of feathers and a couple of man-sized bird crap piles also decorated the platform - it was clearly in use, unlike the much cleaner previous castle. A glowing rectangle in the wall of the white-stone building embedded in the clouds turned out to be a touch-open portal . . . 50' high and 30' wide, just like the corridor beyond.
They followed it into a circular room with eight exits. Each had an archway, colored around the outside edge, that led to a short hallway to a large portal. The archway behind them was yellow, and the others in a circle going clockwise were orange, red, black, violet, indigo, blue, green. They decided the colors must mean something. Two people said, "Black!" and two "Anything except black!" so they decided to go for orange. They got zapped for 10 injury, and found the portal they saw was gone, but they stood at the lip of a pool of water 3' down from the corridor with 10 enourmous (but not G-giant) crocodiles and a door beyond it. They stayed out of reach with Walk on Air and Vlad shot them in the eyes until they ducked out of sight. Naturally, he dropped his bow on a critical failure and had to have Duncan retrieve it with Apporation from the murky water.
They opened the door and water flowed out, filling the room and releasing the crocs from their pool. A couple survivors went into the main room. The PCs followed them out, bracing for damage but receiving none, and Vlad shot them down. They did note the archway was white from the far side.
They also noticed the colors changed, wheeling around one each in (IIRC) a clockwise direction. They proceeded to try the same archway with a different color - this time, 24 damage zapped them. They spent a chunk of time, lots of paut and potions, and managed to heal everyone enough. The same croc pond awaited them. Hannari posited it must be a proving ground - a rite of passage to prove your manhood, say, or a gladiatorial challenge kind of thing. Hence, the puzzle and the post for birds.
This time the colors didn't change.
They ended up trying all of them, in complementary color order, and then what felt like more or less at random in process of elimination. Each color did something different - inflicted catatonic madness, delt damage, poisoned to death (only Duncan fell victim, and was saved from Mortally Wounded by Chop), turned ethereal, and even petrifaction (Duncan, again, saved by Chop.) They delt with a pit to the ground below (Thor avoided it), an acid pit blocked with a force wall (Hannari and Walk on Air foiled that), a dead end, an empty room, and so on. The colors changed sometimes, sometimes not, sometimes clockwise, sometimes counterclockwise. They marked furiously on note papers and with black wax in the room itself. They couldn't figure out the pattern or what room and color went together, or what color order was the way to go.
In the end, they healed up as best they could, and went for black.
And found themselves elsewhere. Behind them was a dead end, with a black-edged archway. A glowing portal lay ahead.
We called it there for time.
Notes:
- The players were being a bit timid today - not just avoiding the Lord of Spite. They wanted to fly safely, sneak up on the castle, sneak up on cloud two. It's when they got a little bolder that things got moving a bit.
- Persistent height advantage is lethal to animals.
- I didn't design this puzzle, and it didn't seem like it would be as cunning as it turned out to be. I'll tell where I stole it after the Air Gate stuff related to it is finished.
- MVP was Chop for a lot of critically important healing.
Sunday, May 4, 2025
Felltower pre-summary
The PCs did a few things today:
- bravely ran away from a random encounter!
- bravely ran away again from the same random encounter!
- went through the air gate, bravely running away from a possible guardian!
- walked on clouds!
- flew like birds!
- and explored both cloud #1 and part of cloud #2.
A lot of fun to be expounded upon tomorrow.
- bravely ran away from a random encounter!
- bravely ran away again from the same random encounter!
- went through the air gate, bravely running away from a possible guardian!
- walked on clouds!
- flew like birds!
- and explored both cloud #1 and part of cloud #2.
A lot of fun to be expounded upon tomorrow.
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