I've been meaning to post about treasure in my GURPS Dungeon Fantasy game.
Bog-standard DF uses a copper standard, with copper/silver/gold being worth $1/$4/$80 respectively, 250 to the pound. Gems and jewelry are salable for 100% of stated market value. Other things are worth 40% of their list value if sold, although the Wealth advantage allows you a better network of contacts and buyers and thus increased take-home from other stuff.
Mine is a bit different:
I'm using a silver standard.
Copper Pieces are $0.10. 250 coins/pound. One pound of copper pieces is worth $25.
Silver Pieces are worth $1. 250 coins/pound. One pound of silver pieces is worth $250.
Gold Pieces are worth $20. 250 coins/pound. One pound of gold pieces is worth $5000.
Gold Eagles are worth $100. 50 coins/pound. One pound of gold eagles is worth $5000.
Gems, jewelry, statues, art objects - obvious pieces of fungible wealth - sell for 100% of their value.
- I tend to round off gem prices. If you check here, the GURPS carat-based system works but often gives overly specific numbers ($188, $920, etc.), so I tend to round them off like I learned in math class.
Magic items, weapons and armor, and other goods are generally salable for 40% of list value - modified for Wealth as above, although wear and tear affects everything you sell.
Notes:
Why are gold pieces different? 50 coins/pound is not a physically imposing coin when it's made of gold, but it's on a larger scale than the smaller ones. Well, basically, I screwed up early on. During our one-shot playtest of DFA1, I said gold was $100, and silver was $5 a coin, which was fine. Then I changed silver to $1 but forgot to change gold before our game. My players strongly vetoed changing gold after the fact. They like gold coins being $100, although they mostly wanted it to be 250 coins/pound. But if I did that it messed with gold jewelry badly - a pound of gold would be $25K and a 20 pound gold ingot worth $500,000. So I sized gold coins at 50/pound (not crazy, gold is heavy) and recently just went ahead and added a $20 gold coin at 250 coins/pound so I could spray around more coin variety.
No electrum? No platinum? No. Electrum jewelry exists, but I find it an odd choice for coins. Platinum just hurts my brain. There is so little platinum in the world, and it's so hard to work, that I can't see people making coins out of it. It'll show up sometimes in my games as jewelry, though.
What about odd coins? They exist. Oddball coinage that might be salable as jewelry, or sold for its metal weight, or exchanged with a conversion tax for local coins. That's where I drop in jade pieces, bronze pieces, odd-sized silver coins, crazy etched pieces of rock, etc. - put it in, give it a value, and let the PCs sell it like jewelry.
You can just sell magic items? And why less than full value? Sure, why not? They aren't totally rare, just hard to make, and the PCs often have ones they can't use effectively or ones worth more in cash than in adventuring utility. Someone will buy them, but no one wants to pay full markup for a used item when they could pay 100% cost and buy a new one from some NPC enchanter. The market price is based on the cost to get one made, and you'll get less for the finished product when you're selling to someone who's going to sell it to someone else.
Why so much treasure detail? Because the game is about finding loot. The whole damn game is fight the monsters (the big fun for the players) and find the money (the other big fun for the players and the motivation for the PCs). So I make monsters exciting, combat evocative and scary and detailed, and I make the loot descriptive and interesting. Packets of spices, rare gems, strange foreign coins, pieces of beautiful jewelry, and unusual art objects sit in piles of copper, silver, and gold coins or spill out of from chests or get hidden behind clever traps by those who couldn't haul it away. Once the nasty monster is dead, the players should be salivating over the interesting treasure, and I find this helps.
Isn't this confusing? It hasn't come up yet, but we had two sizes of gold coins in my last game, and two sizes in the one before, and it didn't confuse anyone. So I don't see it confusing anyone now. As for the rest, it can all get converted to sp for the lazy types, and since town is a safe base, they can more or less just leave it behind when they adventure and I don't molest it. I don't mind if they convert everything they find to sp, divide it up, and that's that - it's the coolness of the find that matters to me, not the composition of coins in their pockets once they've got it.
* GURPS uses the $ for all pricing, to aid conversion, so I use that shorthand too.
Monday, October 29, 2012
Sunday, October 28, 2012
DF Game, Session 17 - Felltower 8
October 28th, 2012
Characters: (approximate net point total)
Vryce, human knight (about 315 points)
Jon Hillman, human guard - a shieldbearer (62 points, NPC)
Al Shieldbearer, human guard - a shieldbearer (62 points, NPC)
Moe Redshirt, human guard - a crossbowman (62 points, NPC)
Grey McCape, human guard - a crossbowman (62 points, NPC)
Nakar, human wizard (about 295 points)
Inquisitor Marco, human cleric (about 280 points)
Red Raggi, human berserker (?? points, NPC)
Galen Longtread, human scout (262 points)
Reserve (players couldn't make it)
Honus Honusson, human barbarian (283 points)
Borriz, dwarven knight (290 points)
Kullockh, human scout (250 points)
We opened as usual in Stericksburg.
The group did their usual routine - hunting down potions, carousing, gathering rumors, and general prep. Satisfied with the results of the hireling hiring from last time, they found the same four hirelings and paid them for another trip.
They also did some shopping, getting some flammable oil (in case stuff needed burning) and some shovels for their henchmen.
The group headed up the mountain, arriving a bit after noon in the face of some tough winds (game-world weather matches real-world weather, and Hurricane Sandy's leading winds were already blowing things around by us). They spent the day digging up the rocks covering the trap door they'd found in their first trip to Felltower. Not wanting to deal with a ghost at their backs at night, they went back to camp.
Said ghost did, in fact, make itself known. The watchers heard moaning at night, but the ghost didn't bother them and they didn't bother it.
In the morning, they opened up the trapdoor - Vryce did it, hoping that leaving the trap door they'd found unlocked last session would mean no black lightning this time. He was correct - this trap door did lead down, and it was safe to open. They climbed down and secured the bottom.
The quickly found the place where the secret doors were, and after some fiddling opened them - it took time without See Secrets, but they knew they were there. They went through, found the room with the trap door, opened it up, and went down.
They tried the nearer of the trapdoors, but it was stuck. So Vryce crowbarred it open, and managed to force it despite it being bolted shut from below. PIIIINNNNNG! His great leverage and strength (ST 17) and a great roll (5 on 3d) broke the bolt. They pulled the "door" aside and realized it was a plug of stone, obviously dug from above to below, later than the rest of the dungeon so far. Galen squeezed in and looked - he could see a hallway leading south, with doors along the sides.
They pounded in an iron spike and dropped some rope to climb down. It was only 10', but they wanted to secure their retreat.
They systematically moved down the hallway, checking the rooms on the sides. They noted the exacting similarity to the level above, in the rooms they'd found the wights. At this point getting joined by latecoming Nakar*.
The first pair of rooms were empty. The second included one with a potion vial labeled "healing," complete with the proper markings for a Minor Healing potion on it, sitting in the middle of the floor. Keen-eyed Galen noted the stone it sat on had been recently worked at, and then scuffed up and covered with dust to make it look like the others. Nakar checked it, and decided to grab the potion. So he cast Apportation on it, backed up, and floated it over to himself. No problem. They couldn't leave well enough alone, though, and started to push and pry at the stone. SPROOOOIIIINNG! As Vryce dug at the edge with his crowbar, the slate slammed up into the ceiling and broke. Underneath was a small hollow with a metal baseplate and a bent metal strap "spring" set to launch the floor stone into the ceiling. At the sound of this, they heard a door open and another slam closed. By the time Galen looked down the hallway with Dark Vision on, he could see nothing else.
They searched the next pair, and found a pool of what looked like mercury in the corner of one (but they couldn't figure out how to safely remove it) ("What do you do in the lab in real life?" "We call hazmat.") The other had a chest, which open examination was a) brand new, b) trapped with stubby little poisoned needles in the lock and one handle, and c) was empty once pried open with a crowbar. Nothing under it either.
The next pair had an empty room with food wrappers (cloth from preserved food from the local suppliers) and a couple empty wineskins (one still leaking wine). The other was locked, and a door south out of this hallway was wedged shut from outside. They dealt with the padlocked door first. Nakar Lockmastered it open, and inside they found a chest. It wasn't trapped, and when opened had a mail shirt in great condition, 500 cp, and 200 sp, as well as a bottled marked with a skull-and-crossbones ("A Potion of Piracy!" - actually, it turned out later to be elfbane poison). They took the loot and turned to the other door. Clearly they'd been heard (guys in plate pounding spikes aren't stealthy) so they took their time. Inq. Marco tried talking to the people on the other side of the door, but no answer. So Vryce wedged out the wedge with his crowbar, and they shoved the door open. Corridor left and right. The went right.
They basically went a short distance and found another corridor lined with rooms, this time with doors alternating sides instead of lined up in pairs. They moved in, busted up the nearest door, and got jumped by six norkers (my favorite humanoids). Vryce (as he would all night) rolled badly on initiative, and they got struck first. He took a hit from a norker's axe but his layered armor (thanks to his knight's Armor Master perk) saved him. They quickly fought back, while their invisible scout Galen back up into the hallway. The norkers kept yelling something in their goblin dialiect** and another door opened and six more big norkers piled out, also armed with axes. Four more followed shortly after from down the halway. The PCs killed two norkers and wounded another when they heard someone yelling "Hey, humans!" in Common (and goblinistani, respectively). Most of the norkers stopped swinging, but one took a shot at Vryce and got sliced up with a sword in return. The armored hide of the norkers saved a few of them - and so did their good defenses.
The owner of that voice turned out to be a gnome - a little guy wearing armor, a tricked-out crossbow (crossbow sling, rest, site, etc.), and a multitude of weapons. They started to talk to him. Long story short, he said he was from out of town, but had been dropping into and out of the dungeons for a while "trapping for goblins . . . well, hobgoblins anyway." He'd set traps, you see, and then bait them, then come back to see what he'd nailed. He claimed to make a good enough living at it, even though he used to have to pay the ogres and their apes to let him come down to level two (until somebody killed them). Asked about his norkers, he said they were his. How much does he pay them? "Well, I don't exactly pay them. I bought them off some guys, I didn't ask where they got them." "And you feed them and they're happy?" "They could be happy, sure."
Inq. Marco negotiated with him for an equal share of treasure if he wanted to come along, but in the end the gnome - named Gnobit Gnortz - declined. He'd stay in his area, and trap for goblins, and if he changed his mind he'd leave a note here or find them in town. Inq. Marco told him to leave a note in church. The gnome cheerfully told them what to expect when they headed back the other direction, and then they peacefully parted ways. Before they left, the two wounded but still living norkers got tapped with Inq. Marco's Staff of Healing as a peace gesture.
The PCs went back the other way, and started checking some double-doored rooms.
First one, empty, although the privy was full of old waste. Nakar argued someone (someone else) needed to search it. He'd argue that every privy all session.
Second room - they heard moaning, so they got ready for undead. Vryce finally decided to try the undead-bane talismans they'd found, and put all three on his sword (where they must remain until the sword is destroyed). They busted it open and found . . . druagr!
Dead northerners with axe, shield, and broadsword, wearing tattered mail and pot helms and pretty damn grumpy about being bothered.
Vryce and Raggi waded in as Inq. Marco turned them, keeping them back quite a ways from him. Vryce found his sword did indeed hurt undead, but normal weapons hurt these guys anyway. However, they took a heck of a lot of killing. Inq. Marco shouted out they were vulnerable to fire, but too late for Nakar as he'd already started charging up a stone missile. Galen shot one a few times, but they kept blocking his arrows until they got tied up in melee. Raggi got sliced badly and went berserk. The NPC hirelings stayed out of the fight, covering the flanks.
They found out the undead-killing tassles worked pretty well. Three together were +3 damage, and a roll of 3-4 means 3x damage (so a 3 is max damage x 3). This helped, because draugr are extremely hard to kill - Vryce sliced one for triple damage and a ridiculous damage roll and it kept coming for another handful of hits. But Nakar was able to torch one down with a fireball, Raggi put paid to another, and Vryce dropped another two. Inq. Marco's turning helped the most - the druagr were kept 8 hexes from him, so greatsword and long axe wielding Vryce and Raggi mostly stayed out of the undead's shorter sword and axe reach and diced them up. It wasn't always the case, and Raggi got hit again, but that's all they managed.
After putting them down, they looted them (taking their still-good swords, axes, and pot helms) and checked the room.
Next room they found the skeletons and battle fragments of a group of humans, two smaller guys (unknown type), and a dwarf, all lacking valuables . . . and lacking skulls. Again, no loot.
Final room was equally empty except for a dead strix in the empty privy pit.
They searched the dungeon a bit more, finding the mysterious black hemisphere room from last session. They headed past that and left, to an area they hadn't searched before too much. They found a few things:
- an empty small (well, 20 x 40) room
- another empty small room, this time with a hollow floor. Glasswall revealed stone spikes below, so they didn't mess with it - clearly a trapped/pit room.
- a third small room, this one with a chest in it. The chest was iron, carved with gargoyles, and a mouth-shaped lock. It bit their crowbar when they tried to open it, so they Lockmastered it and tried again. Once open, they found 666 copper pieces, 66 big gems (turned out to be only 10 sp each, oh well), and a scroll of leather. Nakar read it . . . and found it was cursed. He became giddily euphoric, but didn't want to be "cured" - he felt happy and great! The lettering had faded from the scroll, but that was of little importance! He took it anyway! Aren't happy adventurers great?!
Next room was on the other side, double doored. When opened, it was an exact duplicate of the illusion-filled "luxury" room from last session, which sits next to it. They checked it, although no one searched the privy despite Nakar's urging, and it was equally mysterious to them - nothing to be found.
The checked one last small room, and it had glowing but small runes on the far wall. Nakar entered, as did Vryce, while Inq. Marco, Raggi, and Galen entered but hung back near the door. The NPCs stayed outside, watching both directions, with orders to come in if they saw anything.
As Nakar tried to read the writings, he realized they were equally real runes and nonsense. Hey . . .
Suddenly the door banged shut, everyone's vision warped, and there was a stomach-wrenching shift.
They found themselves on the surface, in the main hall of the ruined castle above! A couple guys (Galen, Nakar, and Raggi) all failed their HT checks by enough to vomit, and puked up food, beer, and everything else. Inq. Marco and Vryce were okay. They realized they'd been teleported. They waited for 30 minutes for their hirelings to show up, but nothing. Seeker attempts by Nakar on three of them failed.
In the face of rising winds and coming bad weather, and over the repeated protests of "Never Leave A Man Behind!" Vryce, they headed back to town. Next time, they'll come back and find out what happened.
Did the hirelings enter the room and find themselves teleported elsewhere?
Did they fear to enter, and try to find their way back but run afoul of something or someone else?
Are they still down there, waiting, but unable to be magically sought due to the layers of magic-resistant barriers in the dungeons?
No one really wanted to leave them, but it was late in the real world so we had to stop, so they had to be left.
* Amusingly we play at Nakar's player's house, but he was off being Uncle Nakar in the morning so he arrived late. Presumably he followed a trail of breadcrumbs or ration wrappers.
** Goblins apparently speak Goblinistani, since they come from Goblininistan.
***
Random notes:
- Again, Undead vs. Inq. Marco = undead lose. Undead vs. everyone else but no Inq. Marco = tough fight.
- Most of the worry about using the undead-bane tassles was, "but this sword is worth 9 gold, so I should use these on a cheaper weapon or save them for a better weapon." I don't get the logic, but whatever.
- I won't penalize the PCs with Sense of Duty for leaving the hirelings behind, because I made them not go back down into the dungeon after them because I needed to go home and do storm prep. Not their decision.
- We had our usual "make fun of the map" fun. We have one professional artist drawing sometimes (Kullochk's player), and one backup (Nakar's player - Nakar actually does the mapping). The confusion over map sheets, which sheet lines up where, why Nakar's player doesn't draw the room contents into the rooms in perfectly legible pictures like Kullochk's player does, etc. - fun, fun, fun.
- barely profitable session, even with the lost retainers carrying some of the loot. Oh well, these happen. It was fun though.
Characters: (approximate net point total)
Vryce, human knight (about 315 points)
Jon Hillman, human guard - a shieldbearer (62 points, NPC)
Al Shieldbearer, human guard - a shieldbearer (62 points, NPC)
Moe Redshirt, human guard - a crossbowman (62 points, NPC)
Grey McCape, human guard - a crossbowman (62 points, NPC)
Nakar, human wizard (about 295 points)
Inquisitor Marco, human cleric (about 280 points)
Red Raggi, human berserker (?? points, NPC)
Galen Longtread, human scout (262 points)
Reserve (players couldn't make it)
Honus Honusson, human barbarian (283 points)
Borriz, dwarven knight (290 points)
Kullockh, human scout (250 points)
We opened as usual in Stericksburg.
The group did their usual routine - hunting down potions, carousing, gathering rumors, and general prep. Satisfied with the results of the hireling hiring from last time, they found the same four hirelings and paid them for another trip.
They also did some shopping, getting some flammable oil (in case stuff needed burning) and some shovels for their henchmen.
The group headed up the mountain, arriving a bit after noon in the face of some tough winds (game-world weather matches real-world weather, and Hurricane Sandy's leading winds were already blowing things around by us). They spent the day digging up the rocks covering the trap door they'd found in their first trip to Felltower. Not wanting to deal with a ghost at their backs at night, they went back to camp.
Said ghost did, in fact, make itself known. The watchers heard moaning at night, but the ghost didn't bother them and they didn't bother it.
In the morning, they opened up the trapdoor - Vryce did it, hoping that leaving the trap door they'd found unlocked last session would mean no black lightning this time. He was correct - this trap door did lead down, and it was safe to open. They climbed down and secured the bottom.
The quickly found the place where the secret doors were, and after some fiddling opened them - it took time without See Secrets, but they knew they were there. They went through, found the room with the trap door, opened it up, and went down.
They tried the nearer of the trapdoors, but it was stuck. So Vryce crowbarred it open, and managed to force it despite it being bolted shut from below. PIIIINNNNNG! His great leverage and strength (ST 17) and a great roll (5 on 3d) broke the bolt. They pulled the "door" aside and realized it was a plug of stone, obviously dug from above to below, later than the rest of the dungeon so far. Galen squeezed in and looked - he could see a hallway leading south, with doors along the sides.
They pounded in an iron spike and dropped some rope to climb down. It was only 10', but they wanted to secure their retreat.
They systematically moved down the hallway, checking the rooms on the sides. They noted the exacting similarity to the level above, in the rooms they'd found the wights. At this point getting joined by latecoming Nakar*.
The first pair of rooms were empty. The second included one with a potion vial labeled "healing," complete with the proper markings for a Minor Healing potion on it, sitting in the middle of the floor. Keen-eyed Galen noted the stone it sat on had been recently worked at, and then scuffed up and covered with dust to make it look like the others. Nakar checked it, and decided to grab the potion. So he cast Apportation on it, backed up, and floated it over to himself. No problem. They couldn't leave well enough alone, though, and started to push and pry at the stone. SPROOOOIIIINNG! As Vryce dug at the edge with his crowbar, the slate slammed up into the ceiling and broke. Underneath was a small hollow with a metal baseplate and a bent metal strap "spring" set to launch the floor stone into the ceiling. At the sound of this, they heard a door open and another slam closed. By the time Galen looked down the hallway with Dark Vision on, he could see nothing else.
They searched the next pair, and found a pool of what looked like mercury in the corner of one (but they couldn't figure out how to safely remove it) ("What do you do in the lab in real life?" "We call hazmat.") The other had a chest, which open examination was a) brand new, b) trapped with stubby little poisoned needles in the lock and one handle, and c) was empty once pried open with a crowbar. Nothing under it either.
The next pair had an empty room with food wrappers (cloth from preserved food from the local suppliers) and a couple empty wineskins (one still leaking wine). The other was locked, and a door south out of this hallway was wedged shut from outside. They dealt with the padlocked door first. Nakar Lockmastered it open, and inside they found a chest. It wasn't trapped, and when opened had a mail shirt in great condition, 500 cp, and 200 sp, as well as a bottled marked with a skull-and-crossbones ("A Potion of Piracy!" - actually, it turned out later to be elfbane poison). They took the loot and turned to the other door. Clearly they'd been heard (guys in plate pounding spikes aren't stealthy) so they took their time. Inq. Marco tried talking to the people on the other side of the door, but no answer. So Vryce wedged out the wedge with his crowbar, and they shoved the door open. Corridor left and right. The went right.
They basically went a short distance and found another corridor lined with rooms, this time with doors alternating sides instead of lined up in pairs. They moved in, busted up the nearest door, and got jumped by six norkers (my favorite humanoids). Vryce (as he would all night) rolled badly on initiative, and they got struck first. He took a hit from a norker's axe but his layered armor (thanks to his knight's Armor Master perk) saved him. They quickly fought back, while their invisible scout Galen back up into the hallway. The norkers kept yelling something in their goblin dialiect** and another door opened and six more big norkers piled out, also armed with axes. Four more followed shortly after from down the halway. The PCs killed two norkers and wounded another when they heard someone yelling "Hey, humans!
The owner of that voice turned out to be a gnome - a little guy wearing armor, a tricked-out crossbow (crossbow sling, rest, site, etc.), and a multitude of weapons. They started to talk to him. Long story short, he said he was from out of town, but had been dropping into and out of the dungeons for a while "trapping for goblins . . . well, hobgoblins anyway." He'd set traps, you see, and then bait them, then come back to see what he'd nailed. He claimed to make a good enough living at it, even though he used to have to pay the ogres and their apes to let him come down to level two (until somebody killed them). Asked about his norkers, he said they were his. How much does he pay them? "Well, I don't exactly pay them. I bought them off some guys, I didn't ask where they got them." "And you feed them and they're happy?" "They could be happy, sure."
Inq. Marco negotiated with him for an equal share of treasure if he wanted to come along, but in the end the gnome - named Gnobit Gnortz - declined. He'd stay in his area, and trap for goblins, and if he changed his mind he'd leave a note here or find them in town. Inq. Marco told him to leave a note in church. The gnome cheerfully told them what to expect when they headed back the other direction, and then they peacefully parted ways. Before they left, the two wounded but still living norkers got tapped with Inq. Marco's Staff of Healing as a peace gesture.
The PCs went back the other way, and started checking some double-doored rooms.
First one, empty, although the privy was full of old waste. Nakar argued someone (someone else) needed to search it. He'd argue that every privy all session.
Second room - they heard moaning, so they got ready for undead. Vryce finally decided to try the undead-bane talismans they'd found, and put all three on his sword (where they must remain until the sword is destroyed). They busted it open and found . . . druagr!
Dead northerners with axe, shield, and broadsword, wearing tattered mail and pot helms and pretty damn grumpy about being bothered.
Vryce and Raggi waded in as Inq. Marco turned them, keeping them back quite a ways from him. Vryce found his sword did indeed hurt undead, but normal weapons hurt these guys anyway. However, they took a heck of a lot of killing. Inq. Marco shouted out they were vulnerable to fire, but too late for Nakar as he'd already started charging up a stone missile. Galen shot one a few times, but they kept blocking his arrows until they got tied up in melee. Raggi got sliced badly and went berserk. The NPC hirelings stayed out of the fight, covering the flanks.
They found out the undead-killing tassles worked pretty well. Three together were +3 damage, and a roll of 3-4 means 3x damage (so a 3 is max damage x 3). This helped, because draugr are extremely hard to kill - Vryce sliced one for triple damage and a ridiculous damage roll and it kept coming for another handful of hits. But Nakar was able to torch one down with a fireball, Raggi put paid to another, and Vryce dropped another two. Inq. Marco's turning helped the most - the druagr were kept 8 hexes from him, so greatsword and long axe wielding Vryce and Raggi mostly stayed out of the undead's shorter sword and axe reach and diced them up. It wasn't always the case, and Raggi got hit again, but that's all they managed.
After putting them down, they looted them (taking their still-good swords, axes, and pot helms) and checked the room.
Next room they found the skeletons and battle fragments of a group of humans, two smaller guys (unknown type), and a dwarf, all lacking valuables . . . and lacking skulls. Again, no loot.
Final room was equally empty except for a dead strix in the empty privy pit.
They searched the dungeon a bit more, finding the mysterious black hemisphere room from last session. They headed past that and left, to an area they hadn't searched before too much. They found a few things:
- an empty small (well, 20 x 40) room
- another empty small room, this time with a hollow floor. Glasswall revealed stone spikes below, so they didn't mess with it - clearly a trapped/pit room.
- a third small room, this one with a chest in it. The chest was iron, carved with gargoyles, and a mouth-shaped lock. It bit their crowbar when they tried to open it, so they Lockmastered it and tried again. Once open, they found 666 copper pieces, 66 big gems (turned out to be only 10 sp each, oh well), and a scroll of leather. Nakar read it . . . and found it was cursed. He became giddily euphoric, but didn't want to be "cured" - he felt happy and great! The lettering had faded from the scroll, but that was of little importance! He took it anyway! Aren't happy adventurers great?!
Next room was on the other side, double doored. When opened, it was an exact duplicate of the illusion-filled "luxury" room from last session, which sits next to it. They checked it, although no one searched the privy despite Nakar's urging, and it was equally mysterious to them - nothing to be found.
The checked one last small room, and it had glowing but small runes on the far wall. Nakar entered, as did Vryce, while Inq. Marco, Raggi, and Galen entered but hung back near the door. The NPCs stayed outside, watching both directions, with orders to come in if they saw anything.
As Nakar tried to read the writings, he realized they were equally real runes and nonsense. Hey . . .
Suddenly the door banged shut, everyone's vision warped, and there was a stomach-wrenching shift.
They found themselves on the surface, in the main hall of the ruined castle above! A couple guys (Galen, Nakar, and Raggi) all failed their HT checks by enough to vomit, and puked up food, beer, and everything else. Inq. Marco and Vryce were okay. They realized they'd been teleported. They waited for 30 minutes for their hirelings to show up, but nothing. Seeker attempts by Nakar on three of them failed.
In the face of rising winds and coming bad weather, and over the repeated protests of "Never Leave A Man Behind!" Vryce, they headed back to town. Next time, they'll come back and find out what happened.
Did the hirelings enter the room and find themselves teleported elsewhere?
Did they fear to enter, and try to find their way back but run afoul of something or someone else?
Are they still down there, waiting, but unable to be magically sought due to the layers of magic-resistant barriers in the dungeons?
No one really wanted to leave them, but it was late in the real world so we had to stop, so they had to be left.
* Amusingly we play at Nakar's player's house, but he was off being Uncle Nakar in the morning so he arrived late. Presumably he followed a trail of breadcrumbs or ration wrappers.
** Goblins apparently speak Goblinistani, since they come from Goblininistan.
***
Random notes:
- Again, Undead vs. Inq. Marco = undead lose. Undead vs. everyone else but no Inq. Marco = tough fight.
- Most of the worry about using the undead-bane tassles was, "but this sword is worth 9 gold, so I should use these on a cheaper weapon or save them for a better weapon." I don't get the logic, but whatever.
- I won't penalize the PCs with Sense of Duty for leaving the hirelings behind, because I made them not go back down into the dungeon after them because I needed to go home and do storm prep. Not their decision.
- We had our usual "make fun of the map" fun. We have one professional artist drawing sometimes (Kullochk's player), and one backup (Nakar's player - Nakar actually does the mapping). The confusion over map sheets, which sheet lines up where, why Nakar's player doesn't draw the room contents into the rooms in perfectly legible pictures like Kullochk's player does, etc. - fun, fun, fun.
- barely profitable session, even with the lost retainers carrying some of the loot. Oh well, these happen. It was fun though.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Magic item creation
Over at 1d30, there is an excellent post on making magic items.
Make Your Own Magic Items
Things I like about this:
On the fly magic item creation - I like the idea of taking found items and making them effectively magical. This can be done as a temporary effect - make something effectively awesome out of found stuff, but if you want it to stick around long-term, you may need additional magical effects/special efforts to make it permanent.
Think of this as not only giving players a chance to affect the game world, and be rewarded for cleverness. Attaching conditions to keeping a one-off home-made magic item allows the GM to say "yes" freely knowing if it turns out to be too powerful, he can take it back later. That spiderweb rope of entanglement? Maybe it wears out quickly unless you throw Permanancy on it (D&D) or perhaps invest some energy into it with Slow & Sure or Quick-and-Dirty enchantment (GURPS). Or perhaps you need to invest other magical items (pour a special potion over it, grind up a powerstone over it, etc.) or go to a special place (dunk it in the Well of Power, sanctify it in the Cathedral of the Good God, have it touched by the Crazed Enchanter of the Woods) to get it to stick around.
Ingredients - I like the idea of special ingredients from monsters. This idea goes way back (look at the DMG for 1st edition AD&D) but it's pretty common in GURPS, too, so it's easy to steal. The eyes of a beholder might have a reserve of magical enchantment power. Perhaps the horns of a dragon, the blood of a hydra (poisonous, if Heracles's story is to be believed), the wings of a bat-demon, the slime of a gelatinous cube, etc. have a certain amount of latent magical power. Combine enough of the right ones and you've got a power pool to enchant a new item. Perhaps you can split it up - 50% power from the enchanter PC, 50% from an assortment of special equipment, magical wellsprings, and ingredients from appropriate monsters.
I've touched on this obliquely in my posts about skulls and heads, too - monster bits can be magic items. If a beholder's eyes are charged wand-like versions of the monster's attacks, maybe you won't stab its eyes killing it. If a medusa's head works as Perseus's story demonstrates, you probably don't want to reflect her gaze to deal with her. And so on.
I found that post very inspirational!
Make Your Own Magic Items
Things I like about this:
On the fly magic item creation - I like the idea of taking found items and making them effectively magical. This can be done as a temporary effect - make something effectively awesome out of found stuff, but if you want it to stick around long-term, you may need additional magical effects/special efforts to make it permanent.
Think of this as not only giving players a chance to affect the game world, and be rewarded for cleverness. Attaching conditions to keeping a one-off home-made magic item allows the GM to say "yes" freely knowing if it turns out to be too powerful, he can take it back later. That spiderweb rope of entanglement? Maybe it wears out quickly unless you throw Permanancy on it (D&D) or perhaps invest some energy into it with Slow & Sure or Quick-and-Dirty enchantment (GURPS). Or perhaps you need to invest other magical items (pour a special potion over it, grind up a powerstone over it, etc.) or go to a special place (dunk it in the Well of Power, sanctify it in the Cathedral of the Good God, have it touched by the Crazed Enchanter of the Woods) to get it to stick around.
Ingredients - I like the idea of special ingredients from monsters. This idea goes way back (look at the DMG for 1st edition AD&D) but it's pretty common in GURPS, too, so it's easy to steal. The eyes of a beholder might have a reserve of magical enchantment power. Perhaps the horns of a dragon, the blood of a hydra (poisonous, if Heracles's story is to be believed), the wings of a bat-demon, the slime of a gelatinous cube, etc. have a certain amount of latent magical power. Combine enough of the right ones and you've got a power pool to enchant a new item. Perhaps you can split it up - 50% power from the enchanter PC, 50% from an assortment of special equipment, magical wellsprings, and ingredients from appropriate monsters.
I've touched on this obliquely in my posts about skulls and heads, too - monster bits can be magic items. If a beholder's eyes are charged wand-like versions of the monster's attacks, maybe you won't stab its eyes killing it. If a medusa's head works as Perseus's story demonstrates, you probably don't want to reflect her gaze to deal with her. And so on.
I found that post very inspirational!
Thursday, October 25, 2012
More on Mapping
Here is a bit more on how I run mapping in my own game. This is mostly new to me - none of my previous groups mapped, I don't ever remember us mapping back in the "good" old days, and we didn't really need maps in my previous game. Not a lot of dungeons in that game, fantasy though it was.
As I've discussed before, I don't give specific sizes and cardinal directions when describing places.
I did rule that if the party has someone with Absolute Direction, they get specific measurements - I figure that makes up for the lack of utility of knowing North in a dungeon. This makes having the ranger-type who took that along very useful!
But I generally lay out what they see on the hex map, using props, building blocks, minis, etc. If they want to write it down, they can, if some character is mapping. Same for any other props - if they want to keep the handout picture of the six-fingered hand, the map of the surface, the picture of the critter - the characters need to spend in-game time and in-game resources making that picture. Then they can keep it. I've found this adds a bit of fun to the game - PCs paying for extra paper to make copies, PCs handing the picture or map to NPCs and then trying to explain to illiterates what the symbols mean, and PCs debating selling their inaccurate maps they re-did as real treasure maps.
So moment to moment, the players can see what the environment is like. But I'm not promising to leave it out there or show it to them again anytime they want - no way. You have to map for that.
We also use the DF rule (also in DF2) that lets the mapping character roll Cartography skill to get to ask me if what's down is correct. That's pretty amusing, when they're sure something is wrong but equally sure they've mapped their current location correctly. Warped dungeons, oddly shaped rooms, tricks and twists - all serve to make this tricky. I can at least tell them if they drew it correctly.
I also force the group to move a bit more slowly when mapping. Or at least charge them more passing time to move while mapping than when they move without. This is partly why they hit so few wandering monsters on the way out of the dungeon - they move back at a much greater speed. And any time spent in the real world arguing about the graph paper orientation, fiddling with the maps, erasing and re-drawing - it's minute for minute real time in the dungeon, which means more wandering monsters. There is a real cost for doing the map.
Finally, I did tell my players the scale of my graph paper, just so they know that they aren't "getting close to the edge" or any other meta-gamey type problem like that. I'm using a tiny 8-to-the-inch map, and some maps are portrait, some are landscape, some fill the page, some don't. They still use a much easier to read 4-to-the-inch map.
All in all, I've found that insisting on a mapping character (rarely the player of that character, though) and these ways of running the mapping/props/battlemap have really made the dungeon come alive. It adds another dimension of interest to our games in a way I didn't expect.
Plus it's funny to hear them say, "No, no, it should T out here. What the hell?" when they made some silly boo-boo six rooms back and can't figure out where they went wrong. Then, the slugbeasts come . . .
As I've discussed before, I don't give specific sizes and cardinal directions when describing places.
I did rule that if the party has someone with Absolute Direction, they get specific measurements - I figure that makes up for the lack of utility of knowing North in a dungeon. This makes having the ranger-type who took that along very useful!
But I generally lay out what they see on the hex map, using props, building blocks, minis, etc. If they want to write it down, they can, if some character is mapping. Same for any other props - if they want to keep the handout picture of the six-fingered hand, the map of the surface, the picture of the critter - the characters need to spend in-game time and in-game resources making that picture. Then they can keep it. I've found this adds a bit of fun to the game - PCs paying for extra paper to make copies, PCs handing the picture or map to NPCs and then trying to explain to illiterates what the symbols mean, and PCs debating selling their inaccurate maps they re-did as real treasure maps.
So moment to moment, the players can see what the environment is like. But I'm not promising to leave it out there or show it to them again anytime they want - no way. You have to map for that.
We also use the DF rule (also in DF2) that lets the mapping character roll Cartography skill to get to ask me if what's down is correct. That's pretty amusing, when they're sure something is wrong but equally sure they've mapped their current location correctly. Warped dungeons, oddly shaped rooms, tricks and twists - all serve to make this tricky. I can at least tell them if they drew it correctly.
I also force the group to move a bit more slowly when mapping. Or at least charge them more passing time to move while mapping than when they move without. This is partly why they hit so few wandering monsters on the way out of the dungeon - they move back at a much greater speed. And any time spent in the real world arguing about the graph paper orientation, fiddling with the maps, erasing and re-drawing - it's minute for minute real time in the dungeon, which means more wandering monsters. There is a real cost for doing the map.
Finally, I did tell my players the scale of my graph paper, just so they know that they aren't "getting close to the edge" or any other meta-gamey type problem like that. I'm using a tiny 8-to-the-inch map, and some maps are portrait, some are landscape, some fill the page, some don't. They still use a much easier to read 4-to-the-inch map.
All in all, I've found that insisting on a mapping character (rarely the player of that character, though) and these ways of running the mapping/props/battlemap have really made the dungeon come alive. It adds another dimension of interest to our games in a way I didn't expect.
Plus it's funny to hear them say, "No, no, it should T out here. What the hell?" when they made some silly boo-boo six rooms back and can't figure out where they went wrong. Then, the slugbeasts come . . .
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Mapping by PC, or by player?
One thing GURPS Dungeon Fantasy specifies is that a character needs to be mapping if the players want to make a map.
"For the players to be allowed to make a map in the real world, a party member must serve as “mapper” in the game world. He requires ink, paper, and two free hands. He can't carry a ready torch, shield, weapon, etc."
- GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 2: Dungeons, p. 6
In my current game, Nakar does most of the mapping. He has a (pretty silly) item that lets him draw a map on paper held on the inside of his shield - basically a shield-mount clipboard. I don't actually care which player does the mapping, as long as one character is set up to do so.
In fact Nakar's player maps sometimes, and another player maps another time. But if Nakar doesn't show, and no one has ink, paper, and the inclination to map instead of staying armed, no mapping can be done.
Does anyone else play this way? Is this very unusual?
I know for us, this makes it seem more real. My players have even bought into it so far as to pay to make a copy of the map and leave it in town, in case the map gets lost and they need to replace it (or need to buy it for their new PCs, in case of a TPK). But I can see some people disliking this.
If you allow mapping for the PCs without a mapping character (IOW, no one has to have ink, free hands, etc.), does this every affect the verisimilitude of the game?
"For the players to be allowed to make a map in the real world, a party member must serve as “mapper” in the game world. He requires ink, paper, and two free hands. He can't carry a ready torch, shield, weapon, etc."
- GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 2: Dungeons, p. 6
In my current game, Nakar does most of the mapping. He has a (pretty silly) item that lets him draw a map on paper held on the inside of his shield - basically a shield-mount clipboard. I don't actually care which player does the mapping, as long as one character is set up to do so.
In fact Nakar's player maps sometimes, and another player maps another time. But if Nakar doesn't show, and no one has ink, paper, and the inclination to map instead of staying armed, no mapping can be done.
Does anyone else play this way? Is this very unusual?
I know for us, this makes it seem more real. My players have even bought into it so far as to pay to make a copy of the map and leave it in town, in case the map gets lost and they need to replace it (or need to buy it for their new PCs, in case of a TPK). But I can see some people disliking this.
If you allow mapping for the PCs without a mapping character (IOW, no one has to have ink, free hands, etc.), does this every affect the verisimilitude of the game?
Sunday, October 21, 2012
GURPS and system mastery
Do you need system mastery to run GURPS?
Over in his excellent wrap-up post on his GURPS game, David Larkins argues, that yes, you do.
I disagree, to a degree.
I'd argue that GURPS, like any game system*, rewards system mastery.
But it doesn't require it for all players.
It only requires it for one person - the GM.
So long as the GM is willing to make up the characters according to the player's descriptions, and the players are willing to describe their actions in real-world terms and trust the GM to adjudicate them, it will work. This doesn't even slow things down, if the GM is conversant in the system.
Case in point, I'm absolutely certain some of my 1st edition GURPS players had no idea how anything worked except "roll below your target number to attack, defend, or resist, and roll high for damage." I'd have to help them make PCs, spend points, figure encumbrance, and tell them when to roll. They just didn't care. They'd tell me what they wanted to run, and I'd help make it or just make it for them. I'd figure out what the penalties were and told them and they'd roll. Everyone seemed pretty happy, but I'm sure most of them never read the rulebooks (one did, the others, I'd bet no).
My new group is different - all but two are pretty rules fluent. Of those two, one is moderately rules fluent and the other doesn't care to learn more than the very basics. He doesn't need them - he can lean on the others for rules help, or just say "I'm doing [whatever]" and I'll rule on how it works.
Now, I'm not saying rules mastery, rules fluency, etc., doesn't help. It helps in the same way as it helps if everyone in your group knows the Labyrinth Lord rules or is can quote page refs for spell effects out of the AD&D Players Handbook from memory. It's just handy, and it speeds things along. It relieves some of the pressure of the GM of remembering it all (although it introduces rules lawyering and fights, potentially). But you could run a whole game with GURPS Lite, or even with a subset of GURPS Lite, without any real loss, if all you want is a rules system to cover the generalities of play and are willing to wing the specifics.
And as long as you keep to "roll low to do something, roll high for effect" as your guideline, you can ignore a good 90% of the rules. I know, because I have. I've skipped over a lot of rules when they just got in the way. Only a few are truly required. Skipping defense rolls will fundamentally change combat. But ignoring the rules on a combat Step vs. a combat Move, well, not so much, not if everyone is doing the same thing - it's not a game-breaker. You can toss out reaction rolls, death checks, fatigue rule, surprise and initiative, whatever. Roll low for success, roll high for effect. It'll work out. Some things work better with a few more rules, but that's fine.
You'll still want the person making the keep-or-toss decisions on rules, and running the whole show, to be game system fluent. A game master, if you will. It's part of the job. D&D was sure better when I played with someone who actually knew the rules. Ditto for everyone else I played. But it's only the one person that needs this mastery.
It just takes one person who knows what he or she is doing, and the willingness of the players to go along with it.
* Yes, even early D&D does. Know all the spells and memorized the "to hit" tables and have a precise knowledge of the odds of all of your saves? Try and convince me that doesn't help - heck, even the DMG advises you to take away magic items from the PCs if they read the DMG. Why, because it doesn't matter? Heh.
Over in his excellent wrap-up post on his GURPS game, David Larkins argues, that yes, you do.
I disagree, to a degree.
I'd argue that GURPS, like any game system*, rewards system mastery.
But it doesn't require it for all players.
It only requires it for one person - the GM.
So long as the GM is willing to make up the characters according to the player's descriptions, and the players are willing to describe their actions in real-world terms and trust the GM to adjudicate them, it will work. This doesn't even slow things down, if the GM is conversant in the system.
Case in point, I'm absolutely certain some of my 1st edition GURPS players had no idea how anything worked except "roll below your target number to attack, defend, or resist, and roll high for damage." I'd have to help them make PCs, spend points, figure encumbrance, and tell them when to roll. They just didn't care. They'd tell me what they wanted to run, and I'd help make it or just make it for them. I'd figure out what the penalties were and told them and they'd roll. Everyone seemed pretty happy, but I'm sure most of them never read the rulebooks (one did, the others, I'd bet no).
My new group is different - all but two are pretty rules fluent. Of those two, one is moderately rules fluent and the other doesn't care to learn more than the very basics. He doesn't need them - he can lean on the others for rules help, or just say "I'm doing [whatever]" and I'll rule on how it works.
Now, I'm not saying rules mastery, rules fluency, etc., doesn't help. It helps in the same way as it helps if everyone in your group knows the Labyrinth Lord rules or is can quote page refs for spell effects out of the AD&D Players Handbook from memory. It's just handy, and it speeds things along. It relieves some of the pressure of the GM of remembering it all (although it introduces rules lawyering and fights, potentially). But you could run a whole game with GURPS Lite, or even with a subset of GURPS Lite, without any real loss, if all you want is a rules system to cover the generalities of play and are willing to wing the specifics.
And as long as you keep to "roll low to do something, roll high for effect" as your guideline, you can ignore a good 90% of the rules. I know, because I have. I've skipped over a lot of rules when they just got in the way. Only a few are truly required. Skipping defense rolls will fundamentally change combat. But ignoring the rules on a combat Step vs. a combat Move, well, not so much, not if everyone is doing the same thing - it's not a game-breaker. You can toss out reaction rolls, death checks, fatigue rule, surprise and initiative, whatever. Roll low for success, roll high for effect. It'll work out. Some things work better with a few more rules, but that's fine.
You'll still want the person making the keep-or-toss decisions on rules, and running the whole show, to be game system fluent. A game master, if you will. It's part of the job. D&D was sure better when I played with someone who actually knew the rules. Ditto for everyone else I played. But it's only the one person that needs this mastery.
It just takes one person who knows what he or she is doing, and the willingness of the players to go along with it.
* Yes, even early D&D does. Know all the spells and memorized the "to hit" tables and have a precise knowledge of the odds of all of your saves? Try and convince me that doesn't help - heck, even the DMG advises you to take away magic items from the PCs if they read the DMG. Why, because it doesn't matter? Heh.
Saturday, October 20, 2012
AD&D MM Minotaur & Lich t-shirts
I dropped by my FLGS (well, it's local when I'm at MMA, anyway), Fantasy Games & Hobbies.
They had an advert for the up-and-coming line of D&D/AD&D t-shirts. The ad had these two:
Trampier Minotaur
and
Holmes D&D Cover
as well as one (not on the website that I can find) of the Trampier Lich from the Monster Manual.
I'm not sure I want to pony up $25 for a t-shirt, and I hardly need more t-shirts, but it's pretty tempting to have that lich t-shirt. Or the mino. I do look good in red . . .
They had an advert for the up-and-coming line of D&D/AD&D t-shirts. The ad had these two:
Trampier Minotaur
and
Holmes D&D Cover
as well as one (not on the website that I can find) of the Trampier Lich from the Monster Manual.
I'm not sure I want to pony up $25 for a t-shirt, and I hardly need more t-shirts, but it's pretty tempting to have that lich t-shirt. Or the mino. I do look good in red . . .
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