Mapping Felltower today

It's a Felltower Sunday, so I spent a bit of a time working on maps.

I have a nice book of 4 squares to the inch graph paper from someone recently (thank you!) and turned it into a "fine detail for Felltower" map book. I've been working on the levels far ahead of where the PCs have been going. It's a relaxing way to spend the afternoon, drawing up maps of locations the PCs will get to eventually.

That's pretty much what I've been doing each week. If I don't have any other Felltower work to do, I do some close-in maps to be ready for future play.

To aid this, I bought a few more tools:

- a better rule set
- a proper L-ruler

I do need a new mechanical pencil. Any recommendations for a 0.5 mm mechanical pencil?

Felltower Work Today & Looking ahead to next session

Felltower

I spent today doing maps - not in the VTT, but on paper, for a few areas of Felltower and it's connected regions that I hadn't mapped out yet.

I also have a nice binder of graph paper that I am using to do small-scale maps I could potentially put in a VTT for when certain areas get explored. It's quite enjoyable, although I did realize I need a good L-ruler and small metal ruler, so I ordered those. Otherwise the artitecture templates I have from one of my players will do nicely for just about all mapping.

Brotherhood Complex

Next week the PCs will continue their delve into the Brotherhood complex, with the likely additions of Percy and Duncan. I figured I'd get a few potential questions out of the way with that.

More hirelings? Yes, Percy and Duncan can come with additional hirelings. They'll need to make the rolls themselves, bankroll it themselves, and otherwise equip them, if necessary. They can't have any retroactive help from the other PCs because they technically left after the others did, even if only shortly. I don't allow retroactive action in my games, with very few exceptions.

Extra consumables? Sure. They can bring whatever they want. If players want to order stuff on the sly through them and have them just happen to bring someone someone else suddenly realized they need . . . that's very meta, very lame, and very disappointing, but how would I know? I trust people to play the game they want.

XP for the full delve? Yes, everyone gets XP as if they participated from the beginning.

Mapping Lessons from Ancient Ruins

I toured around Pompeii on my trip to Italy. Naturally, noted a lot of things from a mapping perspective.

- rooms are pretty small. A lot of the rooms in buildings - and solo residences - were not much bigger than 10 x 10 or 15 x 20-ish. Not a lot of the giant rooms I like to stick in dungeons.

- lots of doorways in corners.

- lots of small, narrow doorways. Couple that with the door in the corner, it's enough that "face the doorway and choke the enemy off in the doorway" will be difficult. There wasn't much room for 2 people, nevermind 3, to face the doorway. On top of that, the portals were pretty tight, and it would be hard to engage someone in the doorway with a swinging weapon - the sides and top of the doorway would severely restrict that.

- ceilings were quite high, where there were ceilings. So 10 x 10 rooms were a thing, but not 10 x 10 x 10 rooms. Ceilings were way above my head and I'm over 6'.

- raised sidewalks would give a real height advantage in a street fight. Enough to justify a 45 degree angle bonus in DFRPG rules.



Given all of that, I'm a bit more likely in the future to do smaller rooms, corner portals, and high ceilings in an ancient style setting. I might also, in a realistic game, put in rules prohibiting - or limiting - cutting attacks launched into doorway hexes in a small doorway. You'd need a clever angle to get one in, and that would also limit your path of attack and logically make it easier to predict. Stabbing away would be a solid tactic in those cases.

And maybe I shouldn't make so many rooms 50 x 50 or 60 x 80 and things like that. I could be going a bit overboard.

Felltower Maintenance

We're still stuck mid-fight in Felltower, but that doesn't mean I can't get ready for the following session.

- I updated the rumor table, based on the current delve and some rumors/events I had planned for ahead of time.

- I updated the VTT and its modules; I didn't get to test it to see if it's still crapping out but at least there is a chance it is better.

- I looked at a few "restock" areas and made sure they're ready to go.

- I dug deeper into the dungeon and fleshed out a couple of areas that were very sparse notes. While "Tough Worthy, $10000 + trap" is enough for me to start with it's a bit light for actual play. Heh.

- I realized I need to re-copy my maps at some point . . . I have to get out to Staples or something and re-photocopy the bigger maps; some of them are 11 x 17, which makes it tricky for home printers or scanners to do much with.

Felltower Regrets 1 and 2

A big pair of regrets I have with Felltower are as follows:

1) I didn't make the upper levels and surface area a starting area for beginning delvers instead of using the Caves of Chaos.

2) I didn't add a lot more connections between the upper levels and one another, and then to the lower levels from there.

Let's look at those in turn, as a lesson to would-be megadungeon GMs.



1) One issue I've encountered again and again is the need for side areas for starting groups to explore. But I started the game with the Caves of Chaos because it was the fastest way to start.

The downside to that is that there is always a temptation to go look for a "side area." There is always a pull toward going back to the Caves, or the Lost City, or the Cold Fens, or some unknown additional location. It's a fallback, and a megadungeon game works best when the megadungeon is the main pull. Given a chance to play again, I'd burn my ships at the shoreline and commit the group to the megadungeon and nothing else.

That does mean more work - you need to have basic details for everything the PCs can get to in the first session or two before you start and furiously map and prep ahead of them. But in the end it should be a better game.

2) I made the top level of Felltower a little too tight. Yes, it was meant to be a fortress and had chokepoint entrances. But it should have expanded behind that to 3-5 ways to pass between each and every level for the top few levels at least, and a central way down to the deeper levels accessible from the start. I had one for the top few levels, but it would have been better to allow it access to even deeper levels - I could have used magic to restrict access deeper, instead of doing a Wizardry-inspired pair of staircases (although Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord used two elevators.)

Allowing for more too-and-fro access would have resulted, in my opinion, in a better delving experience and less "we can't go there!" b.s.

Just a couple of thoughts on Felltower for today.

Dungeondraft

One of my players has suggested this tool for uploading maps to Foundry VTT - Dungeondraft.

He did a little tutorial which makes it seem pretty effective. It's $19.99 . . . and if it will allow me to scan my Felltower maps and turn them into maps, it's worth it.

Of course, I'll need to find someone with a scanner, deal with my maps being 11 x 17 in some cases, and otherwise spend a bunch of time putting my stuff up. But it's something I'm giving some serious thought.

Anyone have an opinion I should know before I buy it?

Must-Have Dungeon Features

If I'm creating a dungeon, I make sure to include these:

Latrines - or something similar. A midden, refuse heap, garderobe, etc. There needs to be some place for folks to relieve themselves. Lack of these indicates the builders don't produce wastes, or the GM just forgot. Make sure it's the former.

Pro tip: Put these in convenient places but where it's unlikely to interfere with living there. Humans rarely want to live right on top of an open sewer. Ensure there is a way to have them emptied, or make sure they self-empty.

Dining areas - and lacking these, a place to eat where people barracks up or otherwise live.

Storerooms - absolutely necessary to live, given a lack of Doesn't Eat or Drink on everyone in the place. Plus players will probably insist on going through this stuff like crazy. I've seen players spend more time on barrels of hardtack and "what kind of dried fruit do they have? My character wants to eat some" than on 1,000 pieces of gold. Make sure the amount makes sense - if you have X guards and 2 days of rations for X guards, that should be an issue.

Water Source - lacking Doesn't Eat or Drink, you need this. Bonus if you can also clean dishes, wash yourself, etc. in this. Make it liveable.

A Way to Restock - not more monsters, although that helps. I mean reprovision food, etc.

Stuff to Do - unless your inhabitants are automatons, they need entertainment. Dice, cards, books (for a literate culture), a practice area, etc. are necessary if you're saying the inhabitants live there for weeks and weeks.

I'm sure I'm missing some things . . . but these are pretty important in my book. I've seen too many dungeons without them.

Additional notes from Felltower

A few notes on last session:

- I like our XP system, but it does sometimes seem a little unfair to new PCs that they can't get XP without going deeper. On the other hand, too bad. Suck it, newbies.

- I couldn't coax anyone into using the teleport room, despite proven history showing it's fun. Lethal, yes, but fun.

- We had a long run of purely human parties, or very nearly so. Now we're down to one human and a lot of non-humans.

- We were discussing how a bard might fare in Felltower, and it sparked a rule idea. I'll get that up another day.

- Finally, we do really need to update the maps. I'll need to talk to Vic and see if he can update the ones we have so I can upload them.

Notes & Rulings from Felltower session 168

A few rulings and issues and notes from last session.

Walls

I still struggle with walls. I really need to master the tools I have right now so I can:

- put down vision-blocking walls

- put down visible terrain walls

- have areas big enough that my players can freely move over a large area, if a fight spills out that way

This is on me. I'll complain when my tools suck, but these tools don't suck, they just aren't very intuitive. I have not put in the time to make them work better for me. I need to make sure to do that.

As a stopgap, Vic made a "cobblestone" image I could use as a blank. I will make a light grey field I can use instead so I can just lay down hexes, and see if the wall images someone else gave me might serve until I master Dungeon Draw.

As I run, I look!

My players are big fans of "I take a quick look . . . " Basically, it means, they want a Perception check or an automatic success of vision while they still take their full action. So it's "I look left and right and then attack in the center with my full complement of attacks" or "I run past this hallway at Move 11 and look down it without actually losing my full Perception roll to spot anything in front of me."

So how to resolve that? I decide it's a flat -10, plus an additional -5 per direction. Looking left and right and then back to center to do your thing? -10, -5 = -15. Looking right as you spring past the hallway but keeping an eye forward? -10.

An object in plain site is generally +10, so this cancels that out. A man-sized object is +0, so a Per 10 guy has a 50/50 shot of noting a normal, unconcealed human with a quick passing glance. If he's trying to scan left and right, he has a 5 or less . . . not likely. A direction is basically a hex-line, although that naturally means a cone-shaped sight line. You can easily miss something by trying to look in many directions at once.

Seems workable.

Teleport Nude

An oldie but a goodie. You know I had to include it somewhere, right?

The PCs might not be in the worst possible place. Prior exploration made them more equipped to deal with this. They've likely been to this area before, they're unworried by the loss of magic, and might even be able to win free. Or not. We'll see. But it could have been far, far worse. It could have been to some deep area of the dungeon they'd never been to, or a sealed room, or above the flooded prison. It's not a perfect trap, but much of Felltower is that way - it's a layer cake where not everything is in tip-top shape or ideal circumstances for delvers or inhabitants. It serves a purpose, and it makes sense given sufficient information . . . which the PCs may or may not be able to acquire.

And it's fun as hell. Plus, we found out Gerry has a massive skull tattoo on his chest. Win-win!

Felltower: Dungeon Draw day

I'm pretty much spending my free time today playing around with Dungeon Draw for Foundry.

It's rough going, but I'm hoping I can get a solid, usable battle map out of this.

Dungeon Draw

I got distracted by this, though:

Dungeon Map Doodler

So we'll see if I get anything done for real. I need to - there are a few big battles I expect to have in Foundry for DF Felltower and I need to have an accurate map for them.

Stericksburg's environs

Let's look at the wilderness environs of Stericksburg.



Stericksburg sits up against the Silver River, which is polluted by a mix of spillover from its tanning, alchemical, and non-magical concoction industries. Possibly from other sources - it's a bit too nasty even for a combination of those.

The Silver River largely divides "civilization" from "wilderness" and "uncivilized."

Only the slums and Sterick's Landing sit north of the river but are considered part of the city. Sterick's Landing is the original site of later-Baron Sterick's arrival near Felltower. The slums are where the day laborers who work in a variety of industries in Stericksburg live, as well as assorted other people living on the fringes of society or forced out of the city due to Social Stigma (Savage) or worse or sheer poverty (Dead Broke, generally.)

To the immediate south of the city are farms and orchards, fanning out from the city to provide its base of support. They heavily cling to the roads along the river, and to the south bank of the river. Despite the pollution, the river is useable enough to be valuable to sit next to. Smaller villages exist with a half-day's ride of the city, and a full day's ride out are somewhat larger towns.

Immediately north of the river are some farms and cultivated lots - orchards and grain crops. Some farms south of the river own and work land north of the river, traveling by small boat to their fruit orchards, but this isn't common. Mostly the north bank is used for wood, gathering mushrooms, trapping, and hunting. Even then, due to the number of owlbears, maned rats, occasional griffin fly-bys, threat of orc raiders, and so on, it's a risky business.

Further north are rougher and rougher hills (forested to the west, just hills to the east), mountains, and eventually the Bay of Ice. Due to unfavorable air currents and possibly magic, it's cold year-round and it's not uncommon to see chunk ice late in Spring and early in the Fall. Many cold-acclimated barbarians come from those regions.

In gameable terms, then, adventure happens north of the Silver River. It's also where those "camping" outside of town largely are doing their camping. The "local" druid cirlce is some miles off to the west in the woods. It's a trip to get there. The Silver River divides the game in half - it's largely safe south of the river. It's largely dangerous north of the river.

Next wilderness update - a little more on the rulership of the surrounding areas. I'd say states, but "nation" and "state" don't really fit in this pre-Renaissance structure. Short version - it's still largely feudal rulership and a manorial economy but slowly transitioning away from such.

Known Entrances of Felltower - 9/6/2020 update

Here is an updated version of the Known Entrances of Felltower post.

As of: 9/6/2020

Bugbear Tunnels - a narrow entrance requiring crawling, from the surface ruins on top of Felltower.

Current status: At least one inside access point has collapsed completely.

Castle - not an entrance, but surrounds the main entrance.

Current status: Accessible. The portcullis is in the "down" position but a passage has been made it in through a steady stream of Acid Jet.

Dragon Cave Mouth - a mouth-shaped cave on the west side of the mountain, leads to the cavern warren roughly 100' or so below the first level of tunnels. Originally guarded by a fierce dragon.

Current Status: Home to a giant of some kind, and a pack of dire wolves.

Felltower Entrance


Main Entrance - fortified main entrance under the castle (pictured above).

Current status: Occasionally guarded by orcs via the "pillboxes." Pillboxes are heavily shielded against magic and direct attack, so the PCs haven't yet been able to fully disable them. Requires entrance through the surface castle.

Orc Hole - exit from level 2 to a distant valley full of orcs. Current status: Unknown.

Underwater Entrance - an underground inlet to the Silver River believed to reach deep into Felltower.

Current status: unknown.

Tower Entrance - there is a "hatchway" entrance under the collapsed ruined tower knocked down by the PCs.

Current Status: Often locked from within. Requires entrance to the surface castle of Felltower. Recently re-opened by the PCs. The PCs have investigated ways to break the locking mechanism but do not have the right tools for the job.

Well Entrance - a secret entrance at the bottom of a dry well.

Current Status: Inside the surface castle of Felltower, completely blocked up (filled top to bottom with trash, dirt, feces, etc.)

Gates - there is a gate from the Lost City of D'Abo to the "apartment level" aka "the gate level" aka "level 4."

There are rumors of other ways in, too, but they may have been identified already:

- the well. (almost certainly ID'ed.)

- the second surface entrance in the castle. (Probably the tower "hatch" or the bugbear tunnels.)

- possible entrances from other dungeons or caves far, far from Felltower. (In other words, find another dungeon, clear the sucker, and then march underground a long way, not even remotely identified.)

- the "slums" entrance. Heard of in rumors, but not confirmed. Attempts to find it by "research" have been considered but no one has enough Streetwise for a reasonable chance of success.

It's interesting that as a result of play, the PCs discovered a lot of entrances, but ended up getting them sealed off by the orcs (and others, possibly.) Attempts to ensure an entrance stays open through destruction - such as the well and the walls - have generally backfired by forcing a complete blockage.

They have not been able to open up any of the previously open entrances that were sealed. Most of them involve being inside the gates in any case. There is still no convenient and safe entrance to Felltower.

Random Megadungeon Tips for a GURPS GM

Here are some tidbits I learned about megadungeons & GURPS that I've been meaning to set down somewhere but which don't quite fit anywhere just yet.

- Long straight hallways make exploration easier for people with access to Dark Vision. They can see all the way down them. Liberal use of doors, turns, and vision-obscuring devices like curtains, smoke, and temporary barricades will help spare you, the GM, from describing the entire map from end to end if someone situates themselves well and has this ability.

- Wizard Eye makes that go double - now turns and twists won't do much for you, either.

- You really need to know the DR and HP of everything. Be prepared for occasional argument about how it can't possibly take that much damage to knock though 10' of stone based on how this one time one player knocked down a brick wall during house repairs.

- Wandering monsters are a tax on the GM, too, and may only cause more rest and more inclination to the realistically-reasonable 15-minute workday. Keep other hazards on hand for resting too much, like monsters that get more prepared or general hazards (smoke, lack of air, temperature) that make taking your time bad.

- PC groups, especially in GURPS, will likely favor open-order formations. These can be long. A group of 10 PCs and NPCs will likely take up a minimum of 5 yards depth, and likely more like 9 yards if they array 2 across a 3-yard corridor with gaps for second-rankers to fill in for a combat space. This will affect traps, combats, and spell effects.

- GURPS PCs can generally spam out a lot of lower-power magic but less high-powered magic. Couple this with an emphasis on defense, healing, and buffing, and combats with large groups will go slower even if the PCs have the upper hand thanks to superior fighting power. This will eat up big chunks of sessions and reduce the overall pace of exploration.

OSR Christmas Arrive - Towns & Villages

I won this thanks to Tenkar's Tavern's OSR Christmas.



They're really attractive. I think I might need to copy them or cover them to use them and mark them up. But they're very beautiful and they'll be useful when I play a non-megadungeon-centric game. Very nice stuff.

Six Mile Hexes links

For a variety of reasons, I've been thinking about 6 Mile Hexes. Not that I run a hexcrawl, but still, it's useful metric to keep in mind when thinking about PCs and NPC carving out kingdoms.

I decided to put together some links that I've found useful concerning them.

In Praise of the 6 Mile Hex

How Much Adventure in One 6 Mile Hex?

So Hex Size in Square Miles (about 32 miles)

The AD&D DMG discusses setting up a stronghold by clearing an area, and discussed 20-40 mile hexes (p. 47) and even 200 yard hexes for small-scale mapping (p. 93).

What other links should I add for discussions of the basic structure of a six-mile hex for domains or exploration?

Circular Stonehell

I think this circular map of Stonehell level 1 is neat as can be:



Pretty cool.

What's in the middle? Is it a shaft straight to Hell?

Yes, of course it would be in my game. Why wouldn't it be?

Pictures from Gamma Terra

Here are some visuals our GM created for our Gamma Terra game:


The logo on the seed crates:



The local adventuring area:


The campaign area, updated. I'll post about some of the new features - the Earthscraper and that giant scryscraper in Sault Ste Marie - tomorrow. I wonder if the Greyhounds still play there, just in the Quebec Mutant Junior Hockey League?



My theory, which all the evidence supports, is that some of those craters that don't have any radiation, glass slicks, etc. were trek bombs that just disintegrated spheres upon detonation. You'd want a ground impact rather than an airburst for maximum damage with those, I suspect, but either way, that's my theory.

Random Gamma Terra Facts & Notes

We've learned a lot of little things in Gamma Terra.

Dates

The War was May 1st, 2322.

It's, as far as we can tell, 2562.

We don't know what day of the year it is, but we've been out of the bunker - we, the original five* - for 142 days. The additional troops have been out since a few weeks after that.**

Technology

We've hit a fairly bewildering variety of technology. It's a weird mix of 70s-vision future tech and modern visions of technology. Computers with giant disks and blades, plenty of keyboard interfaces with green-on-black displays, etc.

Some highlights:

- Duralloy, an impenetrable metal that absorbs force

- Transport gates (which means my goal of getting into orbit isn't unrealistic, there must be a gate to an orbital weapons platform somewhere!)

- Idiot-proof medical pens

- Will-powered lasers (not my favorites)

- Disintegration grenades

- Anti-grav

- neural-directed military and law enforcement equipment

And 8 generations of androids.

Languages

So far we only know that the Bal'Kree have their own language, and some of us know some of it.

We haven't found much use for our other languages; we really need a Latin speaker, based on how much we find. We're hoping one of the new guys will speak it.***

Lots of races seem to speak their own languages. We got around in Boomtown thanks to a telepath and a 20th Homeland person.

Groups

We've encountered/know of:

- Purists - former 20th Homeland, now an army with an anti-mutant bent. Hillbilly being a mutant now doesn't endear this group to him.

- Restorationists - folks dedicated to restoring the wonder of the Ancients. Sometimes helpful.

- Army of the Bear - mutant animals who follow a mutated bear.

Random Bits

There are a half-dozen or so bunkers of the 20th Homeland. Many of them are in Purist territory and are the basis of the Purists.

Midden is the current name of Michigan, which the Bal'Kree say is from "Mitten" for the shape of the land. Michigan, really.

Bear Lake is north of the great forest, and north by a bit from where that Airbus was supposedly going to take us:




I'm sure I'm missing a lot of bits, but I may have to keep up a "Gamma Gazetteer" and this will make a good start.


* Barbie, Caveman, Hillbilly, Princess, Short Bus.

** Fatbox, Love Handles, Momma's Boy, Oinker - and a mess of fools who followed Lt. Newb.

*** One of our potential players studied Latin, so he may as well take it on his PC. I regret taking Spanish and not Japanese, if only because I speak way more Japanese personally and I like using that skill.

Megadungeon Best Practices XIX

Yesterday's Megadungeon "best practices" prompted a comment from Darnizhaan that was worth expansion into a blog post:


Use Multi-Level Structures

It's a megadungeon, so put in some mega structures that impinge upon multiple levels, such as:

- chasms

- waterways (and waterfalls between such)

- giant staircases

- huge caverns (top is effectively on one level, bottom on another)

- rooms with mezzanines and multi-level access

- towers, pyramids, and ziggurats within large caverns/rooms/etc.

Embrace the size of the dungeon and show it off with multi-level structures.


This is where your side view and top-down view both come in handy for placement.

However:

Corollary: Don't accidentally impinge

Make sure you aren't accidentally having pits impinge on open areas on a lower level, staircases that bypass a level but are blocked (or opened to) by an intervening level, and so on. Using large structures and multi-level connections, and pits down to deeper levels, is a great way to take advantage of the megadungeon . . . but do it on purpose rather than by unhappy, oops-my-map-is-wrong mistake.


Thanks again to Darnizhaan for bringing these up!

Megadungeon Best Practices XVIII

It's been a while since I put up some megadungeon "best practices." I've discovered a few more in the process of designing, running, and maintaining my megadungeon, Felltower.

Avoid Useless Choices

Providing alternative ways to get around a dungeon is great.

Providing distractions and false paths adds to the dungeon experience.

But, in general, avoid too many useless choices. That is, a choice between A and B when A and B end up the same way. Two hallways leading to the same area is generally okay, but two doors to the same room, from the same other room? Useless. It just kills the most valuable resource - real world playing time. Provide alternatives without providing an excess of choices that don't actually make a real difference.

Avoiding this is as simple as asking yourself - is this an alternative, or a choice that won't matter in actual play?

Understand the Space Between Your Places

Players are resourceful, and some game systems - GURPS is one of them - provide them with a lot of resources for making their own passages in a dungeon - Shape Earth - or determining where to go - Pathfinder, Seek Earth. The depth between levels, the relative angle of passages, the nearest source of X from area Y - you'll need to know these. It's worthwhile to note this on your GM master maps so you don't get stuck when the PCs need to know how far down stairs go, the depth of a shaft, the thickness of a floor, etc.