The Alexandrian

Reactions to OD&D – Hex-Clearing Procedures

May 19th, 2019

Not to be confused with hexcrawling, hex-clearing is the process by which monsters and other hostile forces were cleared out of a hex in preparation for a stronghold to be constructed. Clearing a hex was the first step towards bringing civilization to an uncivilized portion of the world. It was also the transitional point between the low-level activities of monster slaying and the high-level activities of realms management. It is one of the oldest game structures in D&D, yet I feel comfortable saying that probably 99% of all current D&D players have never done it.

In pursuit of a tangentially-related project, I decided to do a brief survey of the extant hex-clearing procedures in old school D&D. I offer them here in the thought that they might be of use to a wider audience.

OD&D HEX-CLEARING

Hex Scale: 5 miles

Referee rolls a die to determine if there is a monster encountered.
If encountered monster is defeated or if no monster is encountered, the hex is cleared.
Territory up to 20 miles distant from an inhabited stronghold may be kept clear of monsters once cleared.

AD&D HEX-CLEARING

Hex Scale: 1 mile / 30 miles

CLEARING HEXES

Make wandering monster check.
If encountered monster is defeated or if no monster is encountered, the hex is cleared.

Once cleared, hexes will remain cleared, except:

Once per day, check to see if a monster has wandered into an uncleared border hex.
Once per week, check to see if one of these monsters has wandered into the cleared territory.

Patrols: If regular (1/week) patrols from a stronghold are made through a cleared territory, the check to see if a monster has wandered into a border hex is made only once per week.

CONSTRUCTING THE STRONGHOLD

Must map and clear the central hex (location of stronghold) and six surrounding hexes.
Unless 7 hexes are actively patrolled, there is a 1 in 20 chance per day that a monster will enter the area.

GYGAXIAN VAGUERY – PATROLS

Because Gygax was objectively terrible at writing rulebooks, the rules above are actually incomplete. They overlap with a different set of incomplete rules which directly contradict the first set of rules. If you use this second set of rules, a cleared hex that is being patrolled should be handled in this way:

Once per week, check on the Uinhabited/Wilderness encounter table to see if a monster enters the cleared territory.
Once per week, also check on the Inhabited table. Or, if there is a road, check three times on the Inhabited encounter table.

Zone of Civilization: If a territory is cleared to a 30 mile radius [should probably be 30 mile diameter, filling the large hex that the stronghold is at the center of], make ONLY the second type of checks, but ignore all unfavorable checks except once per month.

Reversion to Wilderness: If patrols are not kept up, the territory automatically reverts to wilderness status. “Unless the lands around it are all inhabited and patrolled” in which case “all of the unsavory monsters from the surrounding territory will come to make it a haven for themselves.” [So it won’t revert to wilderness, it will just really revert to wilderness.]

RULES CYCLOPEDIA – HEX-CLEARING

Hex Scale: 8 miles / 24 miles

Clearing the Hex: You just… do it. “An area is considered clear when all significant monsters in the area have been killed, driven out, or persuaded (through bribery, threats, persuasion, or mutual-defense agreements) to leave the PC’s subjects alone.” There are no further guidelines.

Constructing the Stronghold: Clear the 8-mile hex in which the stronghold is being built.

Patrols: Cleared areas automatically remain free of monsters as long as they are patrolled.

Patrols can range 24 miles from a stronghold in clear terrain.
Jungles, swamps, and mountains require a garrison every 8 miles.

There are more detailed rules for dominion management, but they don’t really pertain to hex clearing.

EXPERT SET VARIATIONS

Hex scale is not clearly defined. (Isle of Dread, the sample adventure included in the set, uses 24 mile and 6 mile hexes.)
Patrol ranges are limited to 18 miles and 6 miles (instead of 24 miles and 8 miles).
The 18 mile limit of patrols matches the 18 miles an encumbered character can travel on foot in a day. The Rules Cyclopedia oddly maintains the same rule for determining overland movement rates (divide by 5 to determine the number of miles a character can travel over clear terrain per day, and therefore 90’ divided by 5 = 18 miles per day), but the Traveling Rates By Terrain table doesn’t follow that rule and instead uses values calculated to divide evenly into hexes (so an encumbered character only travels 12 miles per day in clear terrain).

JUDGES GUILD – HEX-CLEARING

Hex Scale: 5 miles

As I’ve mentioned in the past, Judges Guilds’ hexcrawl procedures and management had a major impact on the game. Virtually all of OD&D’s hexcrawling procedures, for example, were abandoned by AD&D in favor of systems clearly drawing from Judges Guild material. This was somewhat less true when it comes to hex-clearing, but I thought reviewing the material from the Ready Ref sheets might be useful. In this case, it largely was not:

Constructing the Stronghold: Clear 4 hexes radiating from the stronghold’s hex.

Patrols: Automatically keep hexes clear of monsters, except for mountains, swamps, and dense woods.

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Filed under: Roleplaying Games Comments (10) Article tags: d&d, reactions to OD&D

Ptolus: Running the Campaign – Simple Dramatist Tactics: Hear the Reinforcements

May 3rd, 2019

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

Session 18C: The Smoke of the Foundry

Sun Tzu said:

If large numbers of trees move, they are approaching. If there are many [visible] obstacles in the heavy grass, it is to make us suspicious. If the birds take flight, there is an ambush. If the animals are afraid, [enemy] forces are mounting a sudden attack.

Back in Session 13 I discussed the value of having a toolkit of basic tactical techniques in your back pocket as a Game Master. The headline for that essay was “Simple Simulatonist Tactics,” and the reason I did that is because I believe that the Game Master’s tactical acumen is not necessarily limited to the diegetic tactics of their NPCs.

In other words, the tactical techniques you use as a GM don’t always map to what would purely constitute tactics in the real world. You can think of tactics as being the techniques by which you achieve your desired effect upon the battlefield: In the real world / simulationist play, the desired effect is usually victory. (Often the method used is to manipulate your opponents’ thoughts and their decisions – see the Battles of Trebia and Cannae, for example – but ultimately you goal is victory.)

In dramatist and gamist play, however, your tactical choices as the GM may be made to achieve ends other than victory. Instead, you use tactics to achieve either dramatic effects or to create interesting challenges.

For example, the combat system in D&D 4th Edition is heavily designed to create My Perfect Encounters™. These encounters are balanced on a razor’s edge in order to create a gamist tactical challenge, and in order for the game to work properly the GM needs to make tactical choices appropriate to that paradigm.

When I was playing the D&D Gamma World version of this ruleset, for example, I once forgot what system I was using and had the bad guys perform a tactical retreat from a combat they were losing and seek reinforcements: This completely unbalanced the precarious encounter balance of 4th Edition and resulted in a near-TPK. (You can read a fully playtest report here.)

Even when a system isn’t mechanically tying your hands like this, though, you can still make decisions like this: It would be more interesting, from a gamist perspective, to fight the Big Bad Guy in his stronghold, so he won’t come charging out from his sanctum to save his minions. It’s dramatically more interesting to fight a sequence of elementally-themed bad guys, even if it would make more sense for the bad guys to form mixed-force tactical groups. And so forth.

HEAR THE REINFORCEMENTS

Here’s a simple dramatist tactical technique your can add to your toolkit: Letting the PCs hear the reinforcements coming.

(To be clear: This is certainly something that can arise naturally out of simulationist play – as the result of opposed Listen and Stealth checks, for example – but if the GM is specifically choosing to let the PCs hear the reinforcements coming order to create effect, that’s a dramatist decision.)

This is a great technique because it gives the players a space in which to make decisions that aren’t possible when the reinforcements just burst into the middle of the encounter: How can they prepare for what’s coming? Is there a way that they can delay the arrival of the reinforcements? Do they take the opportunity to withdraw before the reinforcements arrive? Do they pull out some heavy guns to clear their current opponents? And so forth.

One of the Shuul who had been in the front hall, satisfied that Tor and Dominic were pacified, turned and headed back through the hall and into the materials storehouse. Two more turned and headed into the second foundry, directly below Tee’s feet. In the sudden silence pervading the Foundry, Tee could hear their footsteps echoing ominously below her…

You don’t really get the Platonic ideal of, “Oh shit! There are more goblins coming!” in this multi-faceted conflict between the PCs, Shilukar, and the Shuul, but there are numerous examples of how auditory cues of what’s happening elsewhere can affect the immediate battlefield.

In this case, the basic technique of hearing the reinforcements coming is being complicated through the more advanced techniques of crossovers. In practice, this single battle is being treated as several different encounters, with things happening in one battle crossing over (often through those auditory cues) into the other encounters. (The proximity of those encounters also means that characters – particularly the NPCs – are often rushing between one encounter and another.)

Filed under: Roleplaying Games Comments (2) Article tags: d&d, in the shadow of the spire, ptolus, running the campaign

In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 18C: The Smoke of the Foundry

May 3rd, 2019

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 18C: THE SMOKE OF THE FOUNDRY

March 22nd, 2008
The 7th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

ON SHILUKAR’S TRAIL

They headed back to the alley. This time all of them headed down the alley. A few moments later, the mysterious informant had again slid his away into the alley. (Elestra leaned over to Ranthir, “That’s a neat trick. I wonder if I could learn it?”)

“I wasn’t expecting to see you again this soon,” he said. And then, catching sight of Tor: “And who is this?”

“Master Torland of Barund.”

“A pleasure to meet you. My name’s Shim. Now, what can I do for you all?”

“We need to find a thief named Shilukar.”

“And there’s a catch,” Tee said. “We need to find him by morning.”

Shim seemed to ponder it for a moment. “That’s a tall order. If it can be done, I’ll need a payment of 7,000 marks. And even if I fail, I’ll need 500 for my efforts.”

It was expensive, but they were out of options. They agreed and paid him the 500.

The carriage ride back to the Ghostly Minstrel – including a stop at the Hammersong Vaults to withdraw the cash they would need if Shim was successful – was subdued. They were excited by the prospect that they might soon have another opportunity to capture Shilukar and recover the idol from him, and they all took the time to congratulate Ranthir again on his quick-thinking, but they knew that they had a long wait ahead of them.

When they reached the Minstrel they quickly retired: Their long and busy day had exhausted them, and Ranthir in particular would need time to rest and prepare his arcane rites for the challenges of the day to come.

Unfortunately, they were not destined for a full night of rest and recuperation: Shortly after midnight, Elestra woke to find Shim sliding between the panes of her window.

“I don’t know what you’re doing in Agnarr’s room, but Shilukar is planning to attack the Foundry in the Guildsman’s District in less than 30 minutes. If you want him before dawn, this will be your only chance.”

Elestra quickly roused the rest of them. Tee saw to paying Shim and then they were off as quick as a carriage could carry them – their muscles still stiff and their bodies exhausted from their exertions. Read more »

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Left Hand of Mythos – Node 2: Minnesota 13

May 2nd, 2019

Minneapolis - 6th and Nicollet - 1922

Go to Part 1

NODE 2: MINNESOTA 13

INVESTIGATING BOOTLEGGING

Cop Talk – The O’Connor System:

The former police chief of St. Paul, John O’Connor, established the O’Connor System, in which the police allow organized crime figures to “layover” in St. Paul as long as they don’t perform any criminal activities there in exchange for payoffs and kickbacks.
The primary liaison is “Dapper” Dan Hogan, boss of St. Paul’s Irish Mob. But Kid Cann of Minneapolis has been benefiting from it, too, ever since the “handshake” deal which settled their mutual territories.
Cann is the guy in charge of virtually all the bootlegging in the Twin Cities. If he’s not doing it himself, he knows who is. He can be found in the Cotton Club in Minneapolis most nights.

Library Use: As far as the mainstream papers are concerned — the Tribune, Daily Star, Pioneer, St. Paul Dispatch — there is no organized crime in the Twin Cities. The only possible explanation is that pressure is being applied to keep it out of the papers.

Library Use 1: Smaller, tabloid newspapers occasionally attempt to cover local political corruption and criminal activity, which is apparently rife. (See O’Connor System above.)

Streetwise:

Moonshine generally isn’t made inside the city limits.
Bootleggers run the liquor in from out-of-town distilleries and make the local sales.
Kid Cann is the mob boss who runs most or all of the local bootleggers. Everybody knows that.
Streetwise 1: There’s a network of supply – the guys in charge don’t just get booze to the bootleggers; they’re also in charge of the smuggling operations that get the distilleries their raw alcohol.

MINNESOTA 13 WHISKEY BOTTLES

Minnesota 13

The whiskey in the bottles recovered from the James J. Hill House has a slightly purplish color.

Craft/Chemistry: Can determine that these bottles are brand new; not from 1905.

Chemistry: Can detect the presence of the Tanit parasites. (See General Research: Lab Analysis – Tanit Parasites.)

Chemistry: The Whiskey has been flavored with Juicy Fruit gum.

Chemistry 1: The Juicy Fruit may have been used to cover up the flavor of denatured alcohol.
Library Use / Cop Talk: Using Juicy Fruit as a flavoring is a unique trait of Stearns County bootleggers, up near Holdingford (“moonshine capital of Minnesota”).

Leveraged Clue (Juicy Fruit Flavoring / Minnesota 13 Label)

Oral History (Stearns County): Can find someone willing to identify Node 6: Davis Farm as the source of this whiskey.

PETE’S

A speakeasy on Hennepin Avenue, north of the Mississippi. Oleg Andersson can be found here.

OLEG ANDERSSON

Left Hand of Mythos - Oleg Andersson

APPEARANCE:

Prop: Photo of Oleg Andersson

ROLEPLAYING NOTES

Smirks.
Fidgets with his tie.
Fronts as tough, but quick to backpedal in face of real threat.
Voice goes nasal when he gets nervous.

BACKGROUND

Born 1898 in Norway. His parents came to America and settled in St. Cloud when he was two years old.
Came down to Minneapolis in 1921 looking for day labor work. Got tangled up in a robbery gang instead; was out buying cigarettes when the rest of his crew got rolled up.
He ran to his friend Dan to hide out until the heat died down. Dan was running booze and Andersson’s connections up in Stearns County made him useful. Dan was killed a couple years ago in a drive-by.

CLUES

He gets the Minnesota 13 Whiskey from the Davis Farm. (Billie Davis is the only bootlegger in Stearns County with the expertise to fix the denatured ethanol Kid Cann hooked him up with.)
He delivers denaturalized ethanol to the Davis’. He picks up the ethanol from a warehouse location. He doesn’t know who drops it off — Kid Cann hooked him up with the connection and it all stays anonymous.
Following Oleg: Following Oleg will eventually lead to the Davis’ Farm, where he drops off barrels of chemicals from his truck and picks up crates filled with Minnesota 13.
Oleg’s Address Book: Carried in his breast pocket. Contains addresses for his pick-ups with notations – Davis Farm is marked as a place that he makes a special drop-off; and checking the noted dates it’s clear Rachel’s whiskey came from the Davis Farm.

NOTES

Drives a 1922 Ford Model TT truck

OLEG ANDERSON: Athletics 6, Driving 6, Firearms 3, Fleeing 4, Scuffling 4, Weapons 3, Health 8
Alertness Modifier: +1 (keeps an eye out)
Stealth Modifier: +1 (knows how to stay out of sight)
Weapons: sap (-1), .38 revolver (+0)

KID CANN

Kid Cann (Isadore Blumenfeld)

(ISADORE BLUMENFELD)

APPEARANCE

Prop: Photo of Kid Cann

ROLEPLAYING NOTES

Proud
Prone to violence if threatened.
Gestures with both hands

BACKGROUND

A Jew born in 1900 in a Romanian shtetl, his parents emigrated to America in 1902.
Left school as a kid to sell newspapers on Minneapolis’ “Newspaper Row”, where the best locations were held by gangs of kids.
Began running errands for pimps and whores in the red light district.
Prohibition let him and his brothers expand their operations. Forged connections with the Chicago Outfit (Al Capone) and New York’s Genovese crime family (Mafia).
Oversees illegal distilleries in the forests near Fort Snelling, bootlegging operations, prostitution, and labor racketeering.
Cann insists his nickname is derived from his boxing days, but it’s rumored that he earned it due to his tendency to hide in outhouses/bathrooms when shooting starts.

CLUES

Hooked Oleg up with denatured alcohol from the Harris Chemical Plant. (He’s bribed people in charge over there to “leave it unattended”; then it gets picked up and taken to a warehouse. Oleg picks it up from there and takes it to his people in Stearns County. Cann doesn’t know who he takes it to.)
He can identify that Minnesota 13 from the party as one sold by Oleg Andersson.

KID CANN: Athletics 6, Driving 5, Firearms 6, Fleeing 4, Scuffling 8, Weapons 4, Health 9

Alertness Modifier: +1 (wary)
Stealth Modifier: +2 (sneaky)
Weapons: Brass Knuckles (-1), .45 automatic (+1)

KID CANN BODYGUARDS: Athletics 6, Driving 4, Firearms 6, Scuffling 8, Weapons, Health 8
Alertness Modifier: +1 (watchful)
Stealth Modifier: 0 (unskilled)
Weapons: .38 revolver (0), Sawed-off pool cue (-1), switchblade (-1), Fists (-2)

Go to Node 3: Alicia Corey’s Boarding House

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Ptolus: Running the Campaign – Gather Information vs. Knowledge (Local)

April 29th, 2019

IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

Session 18B: Missed Opportunities

“The Crimson Coil?” Elestra said. “I think I’ve heard something about them. Random acts of violence. Vandalism. That kind of thing. I got the impression they hadn’t been around for years, though.”

“That’s right,” Tee said. “I was still living here. The cult members wore blood-red robes and hoods. They’d spontaneously appear in huge gatherings to wreak random chaos. Then, about two or three years ago, the Knights of the Pale tracked them to their stronghold – I think it was called Pythoness House. Reportedly the whole cult was wiped out.

Last year I wrote Rulings in Practice: Gather Information, which discussed how to handle information-gathering tasks like canvassing and research.

The 3^rd Edition of D&D, however, features a very interesting and fairly clear-cut distinction between “information you gather” (in the form of a Gather Information check) and “information you just know” (in the form of a Knowledge (local) check). Given that the information in question was often the exact same information, I found it necessary to really figure out exactly what the relationship was between these skills and how they should be handled in play. It’s a distinction that I think remains valuable in subsequent editions of D&D, including Pathfinder (which has the exact same distinction) and even 5^th Edition (which lacks the specific skills but nevertheless will run into similar issues of adjudication).

The short version:

Knowledge (local) gets you the same information, but at +5 DC.

Knowing something off the top of your head is simply more difficult than going to look it up. From a balance standpoint, the +5 DC is also the cost you pay for not needing to spend 1d4+1 hours (in the case of 3^rd Edition) looking for the information.

This same basic principle can be applied widely, even in systems that don’t mechanically distinguish between different forms of knowledge acquisition: In some cases, depending on the exact mechanics involved, you might test to see if they know something off the top of their head and then, if they spend the time necessary to actively look for that information, you can apply a bonus to their check.

(If you wanted to focus even more attention on this aspect of game play, you could even vary the size of that bonus based on how they actively look: Better libraries give better research bonuses, for example.)

In practice, there are some forms of information that very specifically require canvassing and, therefore, Knowledge (local) simply isn’t applicable for. (Did anyone see Bob Anonymous in the silver light district on Friday night? You need to actually go down there and ask around.) In practice, though, I recommend generally being pretty liberal in what you allow people to now.

ACCLIMATION

The other issue raised by Knowledge (local) was exactly what “local” consists of and also what happens with the skill when you leave one “local” and go to a different “local.”

As a loose guideline, I would apply a -4 penalty to Knowledge (local) checks on a scale from whatever your “local” was: Different city in the same area. Different region in the same kingdom. Different kingdom. Different continent (or similar divide). Different plane.

(So the penalty would be -8 if you were from the boondocks and went to the capital.)

This penalty could be quickly abrogated by a character who became acclimated to a new locale. At various times I would use a period of a fortnight or a month, but at the end of each period the size of the penalty would be reduced by -1. (That reduction was against the base -4, not the total penalty.)

The logic was that part of your Knowledge (local) skill is, in fact, the knack for picking up local knowledge.

On one occasion a player wanted to speed this process up, so I allowed them to make Gather Information checks once per day (and with the normal time required) vs. DC 15. Each success reduced the number of days required by the margin of success on the check.

This never really came up in the Ptolus campaign, of course, because it’s all set in one city. But in other campaigns I found it was a nice balance between making the Knowledge (local) skill useful for globetrotting characters and also allowing characters to enter strange places f without instantly being experts on their minutia.

Filed under: Roleplaying Games Comment (0) Article tags: d&d, in the shadow of the spire, ptolus, running the campaign