For those following along at home, and for those players of mine who use the blog to track their own progress, here are some pages I updated this morning:
World of Felltower Gazetteer
- minor updates to existing locations for more detail.
- several NPC names added to the rumor list.
- added elves and goblins
(And by the way, I love that the DFRPG took my own tack of making Elvish an optional language and Dwarven an old language not commonly used any longer. Heh.)
Known Gates
- added the newest gate discovered, called the "air gate" by the players.
Monsters Encountered So Far
- added the Death Brain
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In non-blog updates, I started to go through my spells house rules document and bring it in line with the DFRPG. Page references and going to Spells, now, not GURPS Magic, unless the spell exists only in GURPS Magic. Changes I made have been tweaked back in a few cases to make it easier to just use Spells.
I'm also gathering a list of what rules we use that aren't in Exploits so we can assemble them in one place for reference. I probably should have done that before, but it works out better for me that I didn't because I don't have to re-do work.
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Otherwise, I did some stocking and restocking - mostly the former - in order to keep ahead of the players. They have lot of options at this point, so I need to do a lot of work to stay ahead. I'm not at the point of requiring the players to tell me before the session where they intend to go in the dungeon. But I did make it clear that I'd prefer they decide ahead of time with gates when they'll go through, as it can be an involved process (or not), and I need to be ready.
That's especially true if they, say, want to go to the Lost City and "finish the job" or something. That's a whole set of material I need to pack up, be ready to run, ensure is up to date, etc. Just making sure I have the minis alone is a big deal. It's not a lot to ask in a meta-game, real-world sense that the players tell me when they're going to do something that can involve an entirely different set of preparations. Much like how we don't tell our Gamma Terra GM that we'll go to the Robot Farm and then show up and say, "No, actually, we'll go to Unknown Area #2 right now instead!" Even if he's got both ready to go, it's easier on everyone if he's only got to re-read and bring along one of the two.
I find restocking decisions hard.
ReplyDeleteThe last time I ran a megadungeon, I barely restocked, because I thought it would be more fun if the players reached new areas rather than continuing to trudge through the same ones. But it's important to restock some, to keep players on their toes and give a reward for fast progress.
I guess how much to restock is similar to how often wandering monsters show up. Hmm, I wonder if it's worth merging those mechanics...
I use basically identical mechanics for when I roll.
DeleteI restock because a static, un-restocked dungeon feels like a task to be completed rather than a living area where opportunity must be seized. It can have negative consequences - players unhappy with fights that take up game time and mostly consist of loot-free menaces, for example. But that's what you get if you keep going to the same places over and over, hoping to find every last little bit of treasure.
Given my average session is three to five hours, thats not a whole lot of actual combats.
ReplyDeleteSome GURPS combat takes five minutes real time.
Some takes an hour.
Some takes five hours plus.
So in an average session thats less than three combats.
So even if I restocked 100% that's three times.
You need to scale to your game, for sure. With mine, with 8 hour sessions, and 60-odd of them so far, even with long combats great sections of the dungeon have been cleared. Then you add that several years of game time have passed and you get a great need to restock.
DeleteI had had an area purged of trolls (race not moster, although a few were there) and while the owner of the building had kobolds clearing out the remains, a troupe of ogres moved in. The group's druid leprechaun has short circuited the expected fights by turning a few ogres into fish...
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome - that's what monsters are for, ultimately - a challenge and a chance for the PCs to show their stuff.
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