The Netrun is Just Another Dungeon (and That's a Good Thing)

I'll admit I have very little experience with cyberpunk themed RPGs. My cousin borrowed Shadowrun from a friend back in the early 90s and we looked through the book. Maybe made characters? And that was it. In the 00s, my buddy Steve had some Forge-inspired story-first games he was developing, and we did some cyberpunk themed games with that. Alex tried to get a RIFTS game going around 10 years ago, which had some cyberpunk elements but was really more superheroic/mecha oriented. More recently, at the Busan Tabletop Gaming Con, I got to play in Keith's Cyberpunk RED game, which was a lot of fun. I think that's about it. 

And yet, while cyberpunk is not my go-to sci fi subgenre, I do really enjoy the themes and aesthetics of it. And I've got some (I think) good ideas for my Missions & Mayhem cyberpunk campaign module, which for now I think will be titled Neon & Nihilism. (Unless I can think of something better in the meantime). 

In M&M's base rules, computer hacking is designed to be relatively quick and painless for the group, as most often only one Hero will be hacking while the others wait around. Make a few quick choices, a few quick rolls, and maybe have to deal with some complications before you succeed or fail. 

For N&N, though, the netrun is probably going to be a fairly important aspect of the campaign. And one complaint I've read about with that in other games is exactly what I was trying to avoid with the main game's hacking rules -- one player taking up a large amount of the game session on the hack/netrun, while the other players sit around twiddling their fingers or scrolling on their phones. 

For N&N, I think I've got a good idea to handle this and get everyone involved. Each Hero (PC) will have a net avatar. This is a secondary character that represents the Hero in cyberspace. The Avatar will have its own class (I'm thinking a Fighter/Thief/Wizard style trio). And the Net will be dungeons. In order to hack into a company's system, the Avatar adventuring party will have to brave the dangers of the dungeon to collect the treasure (whatever info or sabotage they have planned for the netrun). 

The Fighter type class (Cyber-Samurai?) is there to battle security modules and sentient programs to protect the other runners. 

The Thief type class (Shadow Slicer?) is there to retrieve (or plant) whatever needs retrieving, as well as outwitting security programs. 

The Wizard type class (Code Mage?) is there to try and rearrange the virtual environment to the runners' advantage, and will have some limited specials (spells) that can help with combat or infiltration/exfiltration. 

A corporate computer system, internet construct, or AI becomes a series of encounter areas with various challenges meant to keep the party OUT, or eliminate them once they get IN. And somewhere in the maze of programs, data files, subroutines, and whatnot is whatever goal the netrunners are after.  

So pretty much like a D&D dungeon crawl. 

The upside is that the netrun becomes its own adventure, and everyone participates. The downside is that the netrun becomes a dungeon that needs to be prepared, and that players will need two separate character sheets for the campaign. 

I'm also not sure yet how advancement of the meatspace Hero will affect the netrunner Avatar, and vice versa.  

Luckily for me, our modern age isn't that far removed from the typical dystopian cyberpunk setting. Late-stage capitalist megacorps, invasive surveillance tech, government controlled by the oligarchs, and the masses mostly sheep willing to stare at their screens all day waiting for the next dopamine hit. So I won't need to add a lot to the meatspace side of the rules (maybe some replicants, a few gene-splice mods, some cyberware, a bit more near-future tech). M&M can already handle a lot of that. Most of the focus of the book can be on the netrun aspect of the campaign. 

Infinite Cryptids!

 For Cryptids & Conspiracy, the first campaign module I'm working on for Missions & Mayhem, I want to keep things brief. For this reason, I've got only a handful of cryptids, aliens, paranormal entities, and prehistoric beasties statted up for the game. 

However, I've got a "Create-A-Cryptid" system for GMs to make their own. It's got guidelines for giving the creatures stats, and also several random tables for the cryptid's appearance and behaviors. With that, a GM will never run out of strange creatures for their Heroes to investigate. 

I finally finished up the creature section. Yesterday, I wrote some guidelines for how to structure missions (adventures) in the game. Most cryptid hunts won't be "dungeon" adventures, although a haunted house could be. So I've got guidelines for using the 5-Room Dungeon narrative structure in a more loose sense to stage not five encounters in five locations in a row, but five stages of a mission with some advice on the types of possible encounters that could happen in each stage. 

So, to keep score, I've got complete: 

Advice on what sort of campaign this is (or could be with modification)

3 Advanced Classes

Psychic Powers

Relevant Gear/Vehicles/Weapons

Guideline for creating Conspiracy groups

Creatures

XP guidelines

Mission creation guidelines 

 

What I still need to finish: 

Freelancers/Hirelings/Services (halfway done)

Occult and Alien Devices (notes only) 

Example Missions (I plan to include two or three short ones)

___________________________

So I'm almost done with this. Of course, I still haven't finished the Mission Creation Guidelines for the main rule book. Need to work on that, too. That and a bit of a better introduction/explanation of the game at the start are all I need still to work on for the main game. Well, of course there will still be some adjustments as I continue to play test it.  

After Cryptids & Conspiracy, I'll probably start working on Bughunts & Bedlam, the military sci-fi/horror module (based on Aliens, Starship Troopers, The Forever War, Terminator's Future War, etc.). I'd like to have three modules done before I start getting the main book finalized and laid out for release. But who knows, maybe I'll have all five of my planned modules done in time. 

Dinosaur Island

Another successful play test of Missions & Mayhem. 

Even though the rules aren't complete yet, I used the Cryptids & Conspiracy module to prepare for today's play test game. 

I was inspired by a board game I had as a kid, called Dinosaur Island. There's a newer game with the same name, riffing off of the Jurassic Park franchise. The 80s game wasn't a very good game, but as an 8 year old, it was fun. The idea is that players go around the island, trying to get the best photos of dinosaurs. The player with the best photos at the end is the winner. No need to hash out the problems with the original game (which even as 8-10 year olds, we realized wasn't that fun after one or two games unless we put some toy dinosaurs on the board to spice things up). 

The concept was good enough. I grabbed an island map made by the Welsh Piper (thanks!). Then I started to make some random encounter charts, but I realized I needed a rationale for why an island full of dinosaurs would be undiscovered in 2026. So one LOST style anomaly and a missing expedition party later, I had my set-up. 

In C&C, I have a suggested organization that Heroes can work for, the Fortean Investigations Association (FIA). In my game, it's an NGO but I suggest it could be a governmental organization, or even a loose collection of amateurs sharing findings, depending on the campaign. The FIA sent a team to investigate the anomaly. They found a way through, but their signal was cut off. The final message was one of the team members saying, "Is that a dinosaur?"

The Heroes were sent in to try to find/rescue the first party, and also collect evidence of any dinosaurs, cryptids, or other weird things. 

I won't go into too much detail, because I will probably include the adventure as an example in the finished book. But of course their first encounter with a dinosaur on the island, via random roll, was with a T-Rex! 

No one has been eaten yet, but we stopped in the middle of the adventure and will pick up more next time. They all had fun, and we got to test out the money/shopping system (semi-abstract seems to work well), the encumbrance rules, a chase (with gambling), a little bit of combat, some investigation work, some exploration, and some clever thinking. 

Missions & Mayhem Module 1: Cryptids & Conspiracy

 The draft for Cryptids & Conspiracy is coming along fairly quickly. Over the long weekend (Chinese/Lunar New Year), despite lots of family stuff to attend to, I've managed to write up quite a bit.

The conceit for this campaign setting is that the Heroes investigate rumors or reports of cryptids, paranormal activity, and the like. In the background, one or more conspiratorial adversaries are working against them. So basically...

 Of course, me being me, and flexibility being a design goal of Missions & Mayhem, I've got advice for limiting the types of weirdness the Heroes explore, running the game without conspiracies working as adversaries, or running the game with the conspiracies but not the weirdness. 

There are three advanced classes, adapted from ones in the d20 Modern core book. I've shortened them to 5 level classes, because the originals had five dead levels. They are the Battle Mind, Occultist, and Telepath. These are all optional, if GMs want to allow Heroes to have these powers. 

Battle Minds use psychic powers to improve their combat potential, including making weapons or shields of psychic energy.

Pretty much this.

Occultists study and learn about magic, but they're not spellcasters but they can employ magic items limited to spellcasters. They do get (in my version) to Turn Undead and get an occult creature sidekick at higher levels. 

Using this picture instead of the comics, because comics Constantine is more of a sorcerer. Keanu version mostly used items and knowledge, IIRC

Finally, Telepaths are the pure psychic class. They get a wider array of powers to choose from than the Battle Mind, but aren't as combat capable. 

Not this powerful, but you get the idea.

 

In addition to the advanced classes, I've got the equipment sorted (a few weapons, gear, vehicles useful for cryptid hunting or paranormal investigations). 

I've got advice on creating conspiracy groups and using them as opposition (occasionally allies), including a random 6-step d12 chart for the Who/What/When/Where/Why/How of conspiracy groups. 

I've got a list of a bunch of cryptids, ghosts, urban legends, and prehistoric beasties, but I haven't statted them all up yet. Quite a few I can borrow from d20 Modern books or my own TS&R books, but a few will be original. No one had heard of Slender Man or the Hat Man when d20 M came out. 

After that, I'll have more notes on creating missions (adventures), as well as two or three short sample adventures. 

_______

I've already referenced the more fantastic Van Helsing/Dark Shadows/Stranger Things-ish module I have planned called Hellspawn & Horror, so that one should be next. But I'll probably do the sci-fi Bughunts & Bedlam next, just because I love the genre of sci-fi action/horror. 

Guns Blazing (or maybe not?)

 Yesterday, I ran a relatively straightforward combat mission for Missions & Mayhem to play test some of the combat rules. And of course, as we got started, the players were looking for ways they could solve the mission without resorting to combat. But after straight up telling them I needed to test the combat rules, they went with it. 

The players went in with a good tactical plan, hired mercenaries for extra firepower support (old school D&D players want their men-at-arms, you know!), and good use of the "I Know a Guy" rule to get access to night-vision goggles. 

We were able to test out surprise and initiative (just like Classic D&D, and they work just as well), regular attacks and the special double-tap, burst, and spray autofire rules, grenades/explosives, and the first aid rules. 

One area I had been wondering about were the double-tap and burst rules, which I'd imported directly from d20 Modern. For both of these, in d20 Modern, you sacrifice accuracy and ammunition for increased potential damage. As a game mechanic, it's elegant. Firearms all deal 2dX damage. With a double-tap, you fire two rounds and take a -2 to hit, and deal an extra die of damage (3dX). With burst autofire, you fire five rounds and take a -4 to hit, and deal an extra two dice of damage (4dX). 

However, in M&M, it's not as easy to get bonuses to hit (no feats). Also, there's less hit point inflation, because NPCs/creatures have mostly flat hit dice, not bonuses to each die for Constitution scores. When I ran the solo test with Jeremy a few weeks back, we'd discussed the option to change double-tap and burst autofire to be a bonus to hit, rather than a penalty, but deal standard damage on a hit. The thing that holds me back is that ammo expenditure becomes the only reason NOT to double-tap or use burst fire if you have the proficiency for it. 

The rules for spray autofire (expend 10 rounds, trying to target several people with one attack) works similarly to the explosives rules. You only need to hit AC 11 (ascending AC) with your attack roll, but the targets in the area get to make a reflex saving throw. In the case of spray autofire, they take no damage on a save. With explosives, they take 1/2 damage (like fireball in D&D). This seemed to work well. No need for a change. 

I do have notes for figuring out where a grenade or other thrown explosive goes off on a miss. I think I need to also implement them for both burst and spray autofire. We had one instance where a burst attack missed a terrorist standing among the hostages. On the spot, I had the player roll a reflex save to avoid the bullets striking a hostage (failure! But the hostage survived with 1 hit point). That worked, but since I already have rules for how to determine where an explosive goes off (and it may still affect the intended target if you're lucky), it's easier to implement those for missed autofire attacks in crowded areas as well. 

We didn't get to test out the suppression fire rules (empty your magazine in one direction, opponents must make will saves or dive for cover/lose their actions for the round), but everything else went fairly well. 

Right now, I'm working on the first campaign module: Cryptids & Conspiracy. Basically, X-Files, but with potential for psychic or occult Heroes (and villains). I've got the advanced classes and psychic powers done. I need to write up a system/advice for creating and running conspiracy groups as opponents, and of course stats for a bunch of cryptids, alien visitors, and ghosts/demons that can be investigated. Once those are all done, I'll add some mission design guidelines and XP award guidelines. I'll likely include a few sample missions as well.

So still early in the process, but so far I'm happy with what I've done. 

The Appendix N Jam Results are In

 While the contest judges are still working their way through the entries for the 2025 Appendix N Jam adventure module contest, the community judging has completed. 

My entry, Mistborn of the Thorn Isles, rated 177/227. Pretty low. But overall, it looks like there were mostly good entries. My weighted score was 3.176 out of 5, but the raw score was 3.709 from 11 reviewers. 

Looking at the criteria, I ranked best in playability (#140), and while the lowest ranked criteria was how well my game would fit in Appendix N (#189), that was also the highest individual score (3.425 weighted, 4.000 raw score). So it looks like most people got the assignment. 

[I couldn't find what criteria was used to weight scores on the site, but I'm sure it's there somewhere.]

 Some people had trouble downloading the module during the review, but I contacted Itch and they say the file wasn't indexed properly but should be now. So feel free to hop over and download it!  If you're running a salt-box/wavecrawl game, or just want a spooky sorta Celtic themed island to drop in your campaign, it should be a good fit. 

Mistborn of the Thorn Isles (Appendix N Jam 2025)

 I'm not on itch.io...or rather, I wasn't on itch before last week. So I wasn't aware of the Appendix N Jam adventure writing contest until Justin (of Vaults of Ur fame) told me about it. With his encouragement, and with only a week left to submit something, I applied, got a title, and made a 4-page (A5 size) adventure. 

 You can see my submission here. If you use itch.io, you can log in and vote for it. And check out the other submissions, too. I've only had time to look at a small fraction, but there's a ton of creativity and cool ideas on display. 

 If you're unaware (as I was), the idea is that the guys running the contest pick a title that sounds like it could be a story or novel in Gary Gygax's Appendix N. Something written by Lovecraft, Leiber, Anderson, Howard, Tolkien, Moorcock, Burroughs, or one of those other luminaries of early genre fiction. Then you design an adventure for an old school style RPG with similar flavor. 

There's a cash prize for the two best entries, but I'm not likely to win and don't care much if I don't. It was just a fun way to spend a weekend. I had a few ideas in my head for adventure ideas in the old adventure fantasy style, but when I got my title, Mistborn of the Thorn Isles, none of my preconceived notions fit. But it seemed like the sort of title a Fafhrd & the Grey Mouser, Conan the Cimmerian, Solomon Kane, or maybe Corum story would have. 

So I came up with an idea for a cursed island, Celtic themed (with definitely a dash of Christopher Lee in The Wicker Man), and with some elements that might be found in Appendix N style stories (a cursed people, pirates chasing damsels in distress, and a treasure map leading to the isle). It's for 3rd to 6th level PCs, and written for BX/BECMI, but should be easy enough to convert to AD&D, OD&D, or your retro-clone or modern OSR game of choice.

Of course, I had to leave some stuff out. With a mock up cover page taking up 1/4 of my page space, that left three pages for background, a map, a time counter, random encounters, placed encounters, and a new monster write up. I had ideas for making a small dungeon, or notes to expand on the adventure, but there was no space for that. Maybe, after the contest is over, I'll expand it a bit. But I think it's good enough as it is. 

Anyway, if you were unaware, check out the Appendix N Jam. I'll be looking over more submissions over the next couple of days. I doubt I'll have time to read them all before the audience judging portion is over. But I'll be downloading a lot of them to look over when I have more time. 
 

Some Updates to an old Dungeon

The Seoul-based TTRPG in Korea group is gearing up for their Online Summer Con. The days haven't been decided yet, but it will be a weekend in August. I'm hoping it will be either the 2nd or 4th weekends, because on the 3rd I'll be up in Seoul for an academic conference and won't have a lot of time to get online and play games. 

Of course, the 2nd week is the final week of English Camp, so I can't play in any Friday games, but Saturday afternoon/evening, or Sunday will work for me. 

The 4th week is best for me. Nothing much else going on that weekend. 

Assuming I have time to run something, I've been working on updating an old one-shot adventure I made during my time in Yamanashi. I ran it for them so they could experience a mid-level game, with more powerful characters and enough magic items. They ran through the adventure, but I don't remember exactly how it turned out. I have a few notes from those sessions (I think we spent two evenings on it), but they're incomplete. 

So I'm updating it for the Summer Con. And if it goes well, I'll also probably run it for the Busan Tabletop Gaming Con (that's not the official name yet, just the one I prefer) that Justin, Scott and I are organizing. 

The adventure as I wrote it back then (20ish years ago) had too many monster encounters and not enough interesting puzzles/situations. I redrew the maps, simplifying them a little but also making them less linear at the same time. I took out or changed some monster encounters, rearranging a few things. I added more exploration/navigation/spelunking challenges. I've upped the treasure a bit, but since this is a one-shot, that's probably not so important aside from magic items. After the Cons, I'll probably format this and sell it through Hidden Treasure Books, though, so the treasure content may matter to players in the future. 

The basic premise is that there is a tower built by a wizard. A dragon destroyed the wizard long ago, and has laired in the caves beneath the tower ever since. A new wizard has shown up and taken over the tower, but stirred up the dragon. Both the wizard and dragon are problems for the local lord, so he's asking adventurers to deal with one or both problems for him. 

So players may decide just to deal with the dragon. Or just with the wizard. Or get ambitious (in a 3-4 hour time slot) and take on both. And of course I'm prepared with ideas for if they try to team up with one side to take out the other.  And the inevitable double crosses that may happen. 

I found a file with some pre-made BECMI characters that I used for another project. That means Elf, Dwarf, and Halfling are classes, so it doesn't completely follow my TS&R rules, but I'll use them anyway for simplicity. They were 1st level, so I updated them to be anywhere from 5th (the Elves) to 8th level (the Thieves). I had pre-made magic item packets from the time I ran this adventure in Yamanashi, so I added those magic items (with a few changes here and there) to the characters. And updated them with TS&R abilities (mostly for Fighter types, since I have rules for Sweep and the like). 

I need to finish up a few more encounter area descriptions (the wizard's lair). And for the Seoul Summer Con, scan the maps and prepare them for a VTT. I'm looking forward to running some old school D&D for hopefully some new blood.  

Don't let the limits of tournament play limit your campaign

Riffing off of my last post, I was thinking of how the "module" as presented by TSR, Judges Guild, and others back in the day has had an overall negative influence on the game. This is not a new observation, by any means, but it's what's on my mind. 

As mentioned in the last post, most modules focus on dungeon delves (at all levels of play), with some wilderness exploration/sandbox modules and a fair number of epic quests for artifacts for higher level play, but very few dedicated to city/social adventures, domain level play, or planar excursions. The rules suggest that the development of players' skill should develop from dungeoneering out to wilderness exploration, then to domain management/war gaming mixed with RPGing, then on to the epic quests and planar exploration. But the examples of play provided by the vast majority of modules are maybe a bit of town play or wilderness exploration as a prelude to the dungeon, if it's not just the dungeon itself. 

There's a good reason for tournament play to focus on the dungeon. If you're going to have many groups of players competing, it makes a lot of sense to just run everyone through the same dungeon. Other types of play are much harder to compare. And scoring is easy. How many monsters were defeated? How much treasure was found? How many traps avoided? 

It's a lot like in teaching. Often, the most effective ways to teach students are the hardest to fairly measure with a test. So we get teachers teaching to the test, rather than trying to inspire and motivate their students to become independent learners. We focus on grammar and memorizing facts and formulaic mathematical calculations rather than inspiring the minds of our students. Well, I try to inspire my students as much as possible. I think I do a pretty good job of it. But many teachers don't. 

Many DMs are similar. They look at the rules, and read over the ideas of what the game could be. Then they look at modules produced by TSR or WotC (or others) and see it's just dungeons all the way down. Not that there's anything wrong with dungeoneering (and I totally read that in a Seinfeld voice as I typed it, although that wasn't my intention when I started writing it). But it does limit the game, and the appeal of the game, if it's only ever dungeon of the week play. 

I tried all sorts of odd adventures when I was young. I'd get a crazy idea from a book, movie, TV show (especially Saturday morning cartoons), Nintendo game, or whatever, and modify it into a gameable situation. And the only modules I  had back then were Isle of Dread and Crash on Volturnus for Star Frontiers. I had alternate realities, dream worlds, other planar pocket dimension dungeons, weird quests for not overly high level adventurers, etc. And we all dove into the domain game once we had enough high level characters and the Companion Set to guide us.

Was it consistent world-building? Hell no. There was often no rhyme or reason. But I did explore many facets of game play. But as I got older, and was exposed to more modules, my play design did shift. It wasn't something I consciously decided to do, it just sort of happened. My designs for adventures shifted. Even my current campaign has a relatively realistic area map, with relatively mundane (by fantasy adventure standards) dungeons. There is a room in my micro-megadungeon that has portals to odd places, but the party hasn't found it yet. 

I need to start adding some more things like that into the game. Get back the vibe of freedom and creativity I had when I was younger. Shake off the yolk of "module" design and just have some fun with things. Get a bit more wild and wahoo with the game. And encourage others to do the same. And that doesn't mean to throw out consistency in the world, or realism to balance out the fantasy. It's just that my designs for many years now have been a bit too "realism" based rather than just letting my imagination run wild. I need a bit more of that creative chaos in my games.

Tiers of Play, Repetitive Modules

Despite the way a lot of people view Frank Mentzer's Basic Set for its hand-holding tone directed at 10 year olds, I've said it many times that as an 11 year old with little experience in fantasy gaming other than Choose-Your-Own-Adventure and Endless Quest books, that tone was just what I needed to get me into the game for life. 

There's also something to be said about how the box sets of BECMI break down the tiers of play. 

Start out with dungeons. Clear premise (monsters and treasure in dangerous ruins). Focused game play.

Expand to wilderness and town adventures after you've gotten used to dungeoneering. Explore the world, go on quests, become more powerful.

Once you've gotten enough dungeon/wilderness exploration done, you build a stronghold and become a ruler. Deal with political factions and grow your power even more.

There are also epic quests to go on, including to the other planes of existence or searching for extremely powerful artifacts. 

Get powerful enough, you might challenge yourself to become one of the deities. 

Become a deity, do god stuff. Maybe decide to become a mortal and do it all again? 

_____

But despite this obvious progression, there really are some holes in published modules, aren't there? Plenty of dungeons at all levels. Lots of wilderness adventures for low to mid level. A good number of epic quests for artifacts for high levels. 

But not so many town/city adventures. Very few domain game modules (CM1 Test of the Warlords is the only one that springs to mind, outside of the Birthright AD&D stuff). And not a lot of planar adventures. And a lot of the planar adventures are either a brief jaunt into another plane, or a trip to an alternate Prime Plane. Not a lot on the elemental planes, astral plane, or most outer planes. Just lots and lots of dungeons. 

It's no wonder the people at WotC decided to focus all their efforts on games of never-ending but progressively harder (but not really because you level up with them) dungeon adventures.

Again, the Giants?

 My players are slowly creeping towards the more dangerous areas of the West Marches, now that the lowest level party member (my 6 year old who only sort of participates) is 3rd level, and most are in the 4 to 6 range. I've got the next ring done (although I think I still need to convert a few zones from 5E notes to Classic -- while just pulling open my monster book is often good enough, treasures are too low if I leave them at 5E levels), and they have made a few tentative in-roads into that band of challenge. So I'm working on the next ring out. 

The Giants modules are going in this region, even though they're a little tough for the intended level. But since I have at least one player who's played many of the classic modules before, I want to switch them up a bit. Rework a few things, maybe make some map changes. And no, I won't give out too many details of what I'm doing, since a few of my players read this blog. Suffice it to say they won't be exactly the same. 

Also, since West Marches is player-driven in terms of plot, I will not likely be sticking the D and Q modules anywhere. And while I'll likely retain connections between the three giant strongholds, there won't be as much metaplot to discover (maybe, I could change my mind on that). 

Today I read through Glacial Rift, and really, even if I wanted to play them straight, the upper level is a bit bland. There are some interesting encounters and situations there, but a LOT of them are similar. Want to spice things up a bit. Also, will probably switch out some of the treasures to again provide some uncertainty/discovery for my veteran players. 

Plus, as I've mentioned before, Gygax can be a bit verbose. These modules are fairly compact, but at the table, I really don't need all that level of detail for most of the areas. So I'll be spending some spare time in the next few days doing some mods to the module.

Caves of Chaos in the Bag, Plus Gundark Hunting!

I'm about to start teaching another intensive English Camp tomorrow, so I got in some extra gaming this weekend. Last night I ran a second session of d6 Star Wars and today I ran West Marches.

In the previous session of West Marches, the party found a magic bag. Today, almost all of the treasure went into it. And it was a bag of devouring, not a bag of holding. Just shy of 3000gp worth of treasure and a shield +1 disappeared. Still, the party still got the XP for the treasure they earned, and they managed to strike bargains with both orc tribes (after eliminating most of the warriors from Cave C and the leaders of Cave B), took out the ogre, and then negotiated with the goblins, who were already weakened from previous losses and the elimination of their hobgoblin and bugbear allies. So at least one PC leveled up, and anther is less than 100xp shy of leveling, and they're happy about that.

Last night's Star Wars game was a blast to run, too. I'd started out with the basic Seven Samurai idea -- defend the village. But instead of bandits (or stormtroopers), I decided the threat was gundarks -- not realizing just how tough they are in d6! Plus, instead of being hired by villagers, I had them working for an ore mining company -- company spaceport, company shop, company mining village, etc. In typical 19th Century style, the company owned everything, and the gundarks needed to be driven off to protect corporate property (oh yeah, and the ugnaught technicians who operate the machinery and repair the mining droids). The party had a tough time with the gundarks, until in one round a few good rolls completely changed the tide of battle in their favor. And we played for nearly 5 hours with only that one battle.

Monster Roster Sheets

I've been going through TSR modules again, looking for dungeons to stick in my West Marches.

Partly, I'm lazy. I do make my own dungeons, usually small ones. But having a few larger dungeons here and there is nice, too. Places they can't clear out in a single session. Since I use a variation of Jeff Rients' table of nearly certain doom to make sure each session ends with the players in a safe haven, it becomes a choice for the players whether to return to a location and further explore it, or not. The Caves of Chaos have been pretty popular. Quasqueton so-so. Xak Tsaroth not so much. One player really wants to go back to Castle Ravenloft, but keeps getting voted down.

Partly, it's that I grew up playing D&D, and hearing about these famous modules. TSR advertised them in the backs of rule books, in the Endless Quest books (and some EQ books were based on famous modules), and in the Mail Order Hobby Shop catalog that I would occasionally send away for but never once placed an order from. I heard other players talk about them. I read the descriptions in the catalog or other TSR products. But I never got to play in any other than Isle of Dread (which came with the Expert Set). I had a few of the less well known modules (Drums on Fire Mountain, Test of the Warlords, The Endless Stair, Into the Maelstrom). One of my cousins had Against the Giants but we never played it.

And since I have a ton of old TSR modules in PDF form, I thought it would be fun to play through them with my players, if in slightly (or sometimes heavily) modified form.

Anyway, going through Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth the other day, I got to thinking about the Monster Record Sheets that some modules have. The one page with a listing of all the monsters and their basic stats. Like this:

I think Endless Stair was the first module where I encountered this. But since monster stats were also listed in the encounter area descriptions, I don't remember referring to it that much when we ran the module. I did run a one-shot game many years ago (I was still living in Japan) where I made up something like this for my monsters in that dungeon. It was pretty handy.

And now, in my West Marches game notes, each area or zone has its own random encounter list. And I put the important stats on the wandering monster tables similar to this. It's pretty handy. Unless the monster has lots of spells or weird abilities, I can usually run encounters just with that. And that's pretty handy. Especially since when I first started up the campaign (using 5E) I would just note the page number in the 5E MM and then look it up. So I'd be juggling my maps, encounter notes, and the MM which was not so handy.

No big observations or enlightening discoveries today. This post is mainly just so I will remember to make monster rosters like this in the future. If you've got any thoughts on using monster rosters like this, positive or negative, I'd love to hear about them in the comments.

Redone Barrier Peaks Map

So, yesterday and this morning I redid the first level of the map for S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks for my personal use. I used GIMP 2.10.10. It was a lot easier than I'd thought it would be. The biggest hassle was setting up the grid to the proper proportion. Once that was done, the "snap to grid" feature made it really simple to lay down all the lines. Hopefully I got all the doors correct. I probably missed one or two.

Instead of letters for coding the color cards for the door locks, I used colors. Of course, gray and black didn't look good with the already black lines and gray shading for the lighting effects. So I switched them go green and blue.

And with layers, I was easily able to make some alternate versions.

Modifying S3 Expedition to the Barrier Peaks

Yet another classic TSR module that I want to stick in my West Marches campaign.

I've been going through the module the past few days. Here are a few observations (in no particular order):

• I have no problem dropping "sci fi" or tech in my Medieval fantasy game, so I don't need to re-fluff everything as magic items. In fact, I might even do away with the Gamma World-style "roll lots of dice to see if you figure this thing out or shoot yourself in the chest" charts. It's always been one of those subsystems that seems like a good idea in theory but just isn't that fun at the table. 
• Instead of the tech discovery chart, maybe just have a simple Intelligence check, and if failed, a saving throw to avoid mishaps? Easier and faster than trying to describe what's happening while a series of d10 rolls are made and I'm consulting the chart. And it still preserves the outcomes of: "you figured it out" "you have no idea" "it blows up in your face"
• Classic D&D doesn't have a comprehend languages spell. Read languages is low level and easy to come across, so they can figure out any written information if they need to. Speak with monsters requires a level 11 caster. I might want to throw a few scrolls of that spell the party's way before they find the ship. Or communication with the androids and recorded voice messages will just be missed. Or just make it clear to them that while they may (probably will) stumble upon the ship at a lower level, they should wait until they're higher level to fully explore it.
• The map in my PDF scan of the original module is fine on screen, but when I print it out it's really hard to read. I should redraw the map. 
• This place is huge! I knew this, but considering how the players so far have not been as interested in dungeon crawling (with the exception of the Caves of Chaos), I think only the first level will be enough crashed spaceship for them. 
• Since there are plenty of empty spaces on the first level map, I may throw some of the interesting encounters from lower levels into the first level so that it's not just vegepygmies and androids. 
• I copy/pasted the text and have been editing out extraneous bits that I won't need at the table. I was complaining about Gygax being wordy a few weeks ago, and while this text has a lot of unnecessary verbiage, it's a lot more concise than some of the other modules I've been using. Gygax packed a lot of useful information into the descriptions of the areas. 
• I love the rooms with a bunch of stuff to experiment with -- you know (as a player) that some will be helpful, some harmful, and some could be either depending on how you mess with it. There's a lot of that in this module.

Man, Gygax could be wordy

I'm restocking parts of the Caves of Chaos that were previously cleared by a (slightly different) party in my West Marches game. Only one PC from that era of the campaign is still with them (although my son will be back in Busan in a little over a month and hopefully rejoining the campaign).

Anyway, I copy/pasted from the PDF of the module to a word processor, and I'm just deleting all these wonderful but extraneous details about the place. It's nice to have that detail there to help set the mood, or if the players start asking detailed questions. But in practice (at the table), I find it all just gets in the way of the important game elements.

So, stripping it all out. Saves paper anyway.

Ruined Keep on the Borderlands

I've had this idea in my head for a while now. I'm always looking through old modules for things to appropriate into my West Marches campaign. And the Caves of Chaos are one of the most popular so far. But looking through the module, and thinking of other blogs that have suggested there's more treasure to be had by sacking the Keep itself than in all of the Caves, why not use the map and key of the Keep as a dungeon in my West Marches?

Fairly simple idea. I can keep the map and most of the keyed entries' descriptions...just make them all run down and such. I can even keep the treasure distribution as it is. All I need to do is substitute monsters instead of the keep's normal inhabitants.

The layout of the keep is already sort of dungeon-y. The outer bailey has rooms and passages basically. And you need to penetrate the security systems of the keep (or bypass them with clever planning) to get to the good treasures in the inner bailey.

Now I just need to think of where to put it in the West Marches map, and what sorts of monsters I want to populate it with.

Recycling

The new round of Chanbara play testing draws nearer! And I'm revising and expanding on the old adventures I ran with my Evansville Group years ago. Back in 2013, the play test didn't last long, and we never got to these adventures. So I'm dusting them off to use them again.

I've completed converting all the information from the original adventure from AD&D to Chanbara stats (wasn't hard) and doing a bit of revision in the notes. Now, I'm adding some extra contingency plans for things that could happen if the players take the adventure in an unexpected path (or fail at something). The hooks may make this seem like a simple "fetch quest" but of course it's not going to be that simple! And when things get complicated, things are less likely to go according to plan.

When I ran this back in the late 90's in Evansville, the party failed the "fetch quest" which then inspired them to try and rectify the situation and led them on to greater threats and to uncovering the enemies' plots (well, some of them... we stopped playing before they had even figured out who was behind all of this). It was possible then, and it's possible now that at the end of the adventure, the PCs will have the object of the quest, so I need to plan on both contingencies.

So, expansion and preparation for contingencies is the plan. It's also helping me flesh out some NPC faction motivations a bit more. Or maybe I had the motivations figured out 20 years ago, and have just forgotten them in the intervening years.

The up-side of this over-prepping and revamping is that I should be able to publish the module; possibly as a super-module with the whole darned campaign if the play test goes well and I can keep up the pace while working on my dissertation. Possibly as a series of linked modules. This series, along with the standalone Ghost Castle Hasegawa (which I'm planning to play test again via PbP if anyone's interested) will give Chanbara a nice little bit of support when released that Flying Swordsmen never got.

D&D Winter Workshop

Today was Day 2 (of 10) of my "Developing Communication Skills through Role Play" special workshop class. What do we do in the workshop? Play D&D, of course!

I'm using a slightly different set of house rules for my students, because they are all learning to play and in a second language. But it's still Classic D&D.

I have six people registered for the class. Five came yesterday, but only four today. Yesterday I introduced the game, its history (briefly, and some basic concepts. Then I let them explore the solo dungeon from the Basic Set.

The Fighter lost her plate armor to the rust monster, the Halfling was killed by a skeleton (the player then picked a Magic-user fro the pre-gens), and the whole party lost its treasure to the magic mouth riddle.

Today, 3 Thieves and a Magic-user  (the Fighter's player didn't come) started in on N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God.

Even though the people at the first plae they visited warned them not to stay there, they spent the night at the Golden Grain Inn and were captured by the cultists.

When taken before the naga, only one was charmed. The magic-user of course! (The player is taking his bad luck in stride.) The others were put in a cell and when they came up with a plan to escape, I made the MU be the guard they unarmed sneak attacked to escape.

They had met the ranger in town briefly, so I had him rescue them from the marsh and take them to town and advise them to see Ramne the NPC Magic-user. They did, but his dispel magic failed to free the PC MU of the charm.

The player said he will try a new character tomorrow. :)

Too many ideas!

I think many of you suffer from this problem. Most gamers are creative types, so we're always coming up with new ideas. Maybe it's a character concept you really want to play. Maybe it's a campaign you'd love to run. Maybe it's an adventure you'd like to develop. It could be your next awesome rule-set. But before you get to it, or just after getting started, you've already got another idea or three knocking around your brain.

I'm at that point big time right now. And since I'm actually starting to prep for my dissertation study, I really have NO TIME for any of it. But just got give you a glimpse of things you may, possibly, some day see from me in a possible future where I suddenly have oodles of time to write gaming stuff, here are some of the ideas I currently have:

Chanbara (of course, that's #1): My OSR with heavy character customization fantasy feudal Japan game. The third (or is if fourth?) draft incarnation of the rules are ready to be tested. I think they'll work better than before. I just need some time to run a few games. Well, that and flesh out the "starting area" for the campaign section of the book.

Presidents of the Apocalypse: Paul's and my take on super silly, super simple super presidential post-apoc gaming. One of these days, Paul and I will agree on a final version of the rules (or agree to make two versions). Then you, too, can be a mutated Founding Father beating the crap out of Ronald McDonald, Mikhael Gorbachev, King George III, Kim Jeong-Il, Justin Bieber, and any other foes of America you can think of, set in a ruined world of the future.

Under the Hillfort Ruins: The adventure module I wrote originally for 3E and have recently revamped for Labyrinth Lord (or whatever classic or OSR game floats your boat). A fairly standard dungeon tomb complex with lots of puzzles and traps, and plenty of loot as well. I just need to make a few edits, add some random encounters for the actual hillfort ruins above the dungeon, write up some hooks and rumors, and then this one will be ready to sell.

Demon Castle Dracula: This one's been on my mind recently, what with Halloween a week away and all. Not that it feels very Halloween-y here in Busan, where most people don't celebrate it. Anyway, this may end up being for LL or for Retro Phaze (the 8-bit OSR RPG) since it's basically the Castlevania games translated to table top. Could I get this Gothic horror-action sandbox ready for sale before next Halloween? Guess it depends on how the dissertation study goes.

Mysterious Seas: The maritime campaign I tried to run about 4 years ago or so. The idea was to mix up Jason and the Argonauts, the Odyssey, Sindbad the Sailor, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, and the like into a big nautical sandbox. If I get around to finishing this (I really only had the first map half-way keyed, and there are nine maps), it may have to get broken into separate modules for each sector.

Ghost Castle Hasegawa: The test adventure I created for the previous version of Chanbara. I'm planning to update it to the new version when I get around to play-testing it, so eventually I'll also probably publish it. A castle cursed by its lord when it fell to his enemies, the Hasegawa family would like the curse removed so they can move back in and restore their standing at court.

Oni no Ran: The old 1E/2E Oriental Adventures campaign I ran back in Evansville in the late 90's before going to Japan was building up to a conflict between the Oni King and the PCs' daimyo. It wouldn't be too hard to convert stats to Chanbara (once I decide this draft is final or not) and release this as either a series of linked adventures, or a mega-adventure (again, if somehow time ceases to be an issue).

Of course, if I ever get any of these finished, they'll be for sale from my DrivethruRPG storefront, Hidden Treasure Books. And if I have time to write up modules and game systems, hopefully I'll have time to create more of my paper minis series.