Take-aways from running quick pick-up games

Occasionally, when I have a free-ish evening and the urge to play, I run an impromptu pick-up game over at the OSR discord server. The first time I ran the Secret Hide-Out of Glaxorzis, that Sorcerous Creep! for a party of three players, the second time The Outpost of Stone & Silver for a single player controlling two characters, and the most recent game was a delve into A Single Tomb, Unplundered for three players. UPDATE: one of the players wrote an in-character session report!

The games were all ran on a super short notice – announced circa 30 minutes before starting time (the server has a pick-up-gamer role you can ping).

The setup is quite simple, so that we can get to the good stuff right away:

1. Searchers of the Unknown

a. Again and again, SotU proves to be the best lingua franca minimalist D&D for such quick games. If a person has played any kind of D&D, they are able to pick up right away. Of course, on the DM-side, it requires an experienced judge, who already has a bunch of rulings and tools and procedures memorized.

b. A little extra thing I introduced this time was MAGIC WORD based spellcasting. It worked quite well, although no combination spells were attempted, only single-component magics.

2. Pregens!

a. Pregens are a must for such quick games. I guess you can also do the Flailsnails thing and let the players bring in any character they want (esp. if the “setting” is kitchensink), BUT, and this is my next point:

b. PREGENS ARE THE SETTING! A lot can be conveyed about the game’s broader setting by the roster of pregens. If the pregens are “elf magic-user”, “dwarf fighter” and “human thief”, that’s a vanilla D&D sort of world. SotU doesn’t use classes, so instead I add a randomly generated two-word description to each character: “ruthless hero”, “vampiric acolyte”, “wild nymph”. They confer the vague vibe of the setting, help the players get into it + I also let them use these descriptors for in-game bonuses and in-setting knowledge. The equipment list is another setting-conferring element (“broadsword” and/or “energy rifle”? “chain armor” or “Kevlar vest”?)

c. In case of character death, left-over pregens can be used as backup.

3. Dungeon crawling (using a dungeon I already have), starting at the entrance

a. That’s where it’s at.

b. I use my own dungeons, so prep is minimal.  

4. Short session, aiming for 90 minutes (usually ends up being closer to 100-120)

a. Enough time to crawl through 4-5 rooms, have a fight, screw around with some stuff. You have to run a tight ship, sometimes cut down on random encounters to highlight the keyed stuff, but, overall, a satisfying amount of fun game stuff can happen in this timeframe.

5. Tech: Discord voice chat, tldraw for shared whiteboard 

tldraw has everything you need to quickly map stuff, record marching order, etc. Very handy tool.

Low-level games are fun. But so are mid-level games! This third time around, I went for levels 4-5 and gave the pregens more power and some cool toys. Good change of pace.

Below is how I explain the rules and the list of pregens from the third game:

A variant for Magic Word spellcasting

For Magic Word spellcasting, see, e.g., Papers & Pencils or d4 caltrops! The gist is that instead of a fixed spell list, the Magic-Users are given a list of words which they can combine on the fly into spells. So it leads to more free-form and varied magic.

Here’s a simple variant on using such a system.

• Magic Words are recorded in the M-U’s spellbook.
• Every day, a set number (depending on level) of Words can be memorized.
• The M-U can opt to cast one-, two- or even three-Word spells. The more Words, the more powerful the spell can be.
• After casting, all but one Words are crossed off the memorized list. If a one-Word spell was cast, that Word is crossed off.

There is a tactical element: if you want to keep a particular Word, keep casting it with other components, so that you can keep your lil’ favorite. But, of course, don’t be afraid to kill your idols either.

As for the number of Words available for daily memorization, 2 + caster level feels alright. So that’s three Words for a starting M-U.

Example

Gambozo, Magic-User 2, memorizes these Words from their spellbook: Darkness, Mind, Water, Free (rolled from the d4 caltrops list)

During their next adventure:

1. They cast Water of Darkness, a sort of flowing/mobile darkness that engulfs creatures (Darkness, Mind, Water, Free)
2. Then they cast Free Mind to break out a comrade from under vampiric influence (Darkness, Mind, Water, Free)
3. Then they cast Mind Darkness to wipe the memories of a guard (Darkness, Mind, Water, Free)
4. And they have a weak single-component Darkness to cast if they need to cover their escape.

 

Quick recommendations for interpreting new spells:

Caster level	Range	Area of effect	No of targets	Damage
1	10’	1’	1	d6
2	20’	5’	2	d6
3	30’	10’	3	2d6
4	40’	15’	4	2d6
5	50’	20’	5	3d6
6	60’	25’	6	3d6

etc.

Putting more component Words in a spell can bump it up a bit.

Sun Ra, because why not