IN THE SHADOW OF THE SPIRE

SESSION 16B: THE SANGUINEOUS DRINKER

January 19th, 2008
The 6th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

PRISON CELLS AND TORTURE CHAMBERS

Eventually Tee concluded that there was no way for her to get the door open: There was no mechanism for her to manipulate and she couldn’t figure out any way to fool what identification magic was being used by the palm reader.

They headed back to the hallway crossroads and went in the opposite direction. This took them into a small area with four chambers similar to the antechambers in which they had found the black cords upstairs. In each of the chambers, they could see the smashed remnants of complex machinery.

“What are these things?” Elestra openly wondered.

Nobody knew. But Ranthir, poking around through the wreckage, found more of the black cords leading from walls and attached to what was left of the machinery (suggesting that machinery like this might once have been found in the chambers upstairs, as well).

A doorway on the far end of this area led back out into the pool room. They turned around and went back to the crossroads, continuing on their way.

A set of double doors led them into another hallway, this one ending in another bluesteel door. This bluesteel door, however, had been heavily battered from the outside, bending it hideously inward. Despite its warped condition, however, its tremendous strength did not seem noticeably lessened. They had no luck trying to get past it.

So, instead, they took a side passage that led them into a narrow hall flanked by four prison cells. Each of the cells had a lever on the wall directly opposite it, and some quick experimentation by Agnarr revealed that these levers opened the bars on the cells (retracting them into the floor).

Two of the cells were occupied by skeletons. Tee shot a couple of arrows at them, just to be one the safe side, but they didn’t appear to be undead… just dead.

One of the cells, however, didn’t need to be opened: The bars had been broken and bent outward. (Clearly whatever had been locked in there hadn’t wanted to stay put.)

Agnarr was pondering the cells with a thoughtful look on his face. This made Tee nervous. “What is it, Agnarr?”

Agnarr turned to Dominic. “Is one of these bodies an orc?”

Dominic did a quick examination of the bones and identified that, in fact, one of the bodies had belonged to an orc.

Agnarr grinned, grabbed the hand from the orc skeleton, and ran back to the room with the rods and iron door. He stuck the bony hand into the palm reader…

Read more »

Go to Part 1

In the First Fantasy Campaign, Dave Arneson includes a system of “Special Interests” of which he writes, “Instead of awarding points for money and Jewels acquired in the depths of the Dungeon or hoarding items against the indefinite future, the players will receive NO points until they acquire the items listed below…”

What’s somewhat murky, in my opinion, is exactly what the provenance of this system is. Was it used from the very beginning? Implemented pre-D&D? Implemented as a post-D&D revision? The phrasing seems to suggest that that this system should be used as an alternative to “acquiring” or “hoarding” wealth, which only makes sense as a reaction to such a system already existing. But was that phrasing part of the original notes? Or was it added by Arneson in 1977?

And how was it used in actual practice (if it ever was; although, unlike Gygax, Arneson’s MO doesn’t seem to have included writing up elaborate rules he never used)? The most extreme interpretation is that experience points were ONLY awarded for spending gold pieces on special interests. The less extreme interpretation would be that this system is only meant to “replace” the current wealth-based XP system, while leaving the monster-slaying portion of the XP system intact.

Perhaps Daniel Boggs’ exploration of the Richard Snider Variant can shed some light on this.

For the purposes of running Castle Blackmoor, as you’ll see below, I’ve decided to go with the most extreme interpretation: The only way to gain XP is to pursue your special interests. (This is, again, not a declaration that I believe this to have been what was happening at Arneson’s table circa-1971. It’s just the most interesting choice to make as we explore alternative play dynamics.)

Unfortunately, the system as published in the First Fantasy Campaign is more or less unusable as it appears in print, including tables that are not explained, alternative generation methods which are described as being roughly equivalent but actually produce radically different results (suggesting that their explanation has either been mangled or that the material is actually an inchoate mash-up of several different revisions of the ruleset), multiple “examples” that all contradict each other and any version of the rules, and copious references to other sub-systems that have simply not been included.

As a result, the system below can be described, at best, as being inspired by the best ideas in Arneson’s system, liberally fleshed out with my own ideas. For example, the racial special interests are wholly mine as are all of the caravan guidelines (although not the idea of goods being brought in by caravan) and the hobby project rules, these latter being heavily influenced by Blades in the Dark because Arneson provided no meaningful mechanical insight for this and I didn’t feel like there was value in reinventing the wheel (pun intended).

GENERATING SPECIAL INTERESTS

• Roll 1d8 to determine a random Special Interest. Your character will have a 100% rating in this Special Interest.
• Add your Racial Special Interest (see below).
• For all other Special Interests, roll 2d6 x 10% to determine their rating.

GAINING EXPERIENCE POINTS

• You only gain XP for GP which are taken out of the dungeon and spent on a Special Interest.
• XP is gained on a 1-for-1 basis modified by the character’s rating in the Special Interest. (For example, if you have an 80% rating in Philanthropy and you donate 1,000 GP, you would gain 800 XP. If you have a 120% rating in Carousing and spend 100 GP at the bar, you would gain 120 XP.)

COMPLICATIONS

• Spending GP on a Special Interest may lead to complications. For some Special Interests, these complications will be generated randomly. In other cases, they can be avoided with a saving throw (as indicated in the Special Interest description). Use a 1 in 6 chance unless specified otherwise.
• If a complication is generated, roll on the complications table for that Special Interest. [Note: Until these complication tables are generated, complications will be at the GM’s discretion.]

COMMUNITY LIMITS

• The size of the community that you’re pursuing your Special Interest in will limit the amount of money you can spend on a Special Interest per quiescence.
• This limit is per character (i.e., Lynmae could spend the community’s full GP limit for Carnavale, but that wouldn’t prevent Derk from doing the same).
• The limit is also per Special Interest category. (If Lynmae has spent all the GP she can on Carnavale for this quiescence, she can still spend additional GP on Carousing.)
• The community’s base value is often modified by specific Special Interests, as noted in their descriptions. Some communities might also have higher-than-usual or lower-than-usual limits for specific Special Interest categories or activities, and community investment will also change the values the GP limit of the town for different Special Interest categories (see below).
• Wards: Alternatively, the GM might model large cities and metropolises as a collection of wards. Each individual ward can be given customized GP limits and complication tables, reflecting the differing character of each section of the city. PCs who have “exhausted” one ward can simply continue their spending in another ward.

Quiescence: By default, this term is a synonym for the downtime between sessions played. (In other words, if you go back to the dungeon your spending limits will be reset.) The GM may decide to set the quiescence to a particular time period (a month, for example), or set a particular time period as a minimum (so that if, for example, a player goes many months between sessions played, they may be able to spend many times the normal community limit representing their character’s activities during that time).

BLACKMOOR – BASE LIMITS

• Base GP Limit: 1d6 x 100 GP
• Great Kingdom Caravans: 1d6 x 10000 GP limit. 10 + 2d6 days to arrive.

For the purposes of my open table (at least for the moment), I chose to simply abstract the origin point of all caravans as being the Great Kingdoms to the south. This is not dissimilar from what Arneson describes, with players simply needing to meet the caravans at the “edge of the board” and escorting them in town. (Because they were playing on the map of Avalon Hill’s Outdoor Survival game.)

CARAVANS

Expenditures larger than the community’s GP limit can be made by sending a purchase request to a nearby community. (This purchase is, of course, limited by the other community’s GP limit.)

• Time: The GM should calculate the amount of time it takes for the caravan to arrive (remembering to include the time it takes for the order to arrive and for the requested goods to be assembled). The PC does not gain XP from the GP spent until the caravan arrives.
• Cost: Caravans charge 10% of the GP value of the order. (This expenditure does not grant XP.)
• Collective: Multiple PCs can collectively ship their supplies on a single caravan.
• Community Stimulus: When large amounts of material are shipped into a community, it stimulates the local economy. When a caravan shipment larger than the community’s maximum GP limit in a category arrives, apply 1% of the difference to improve the GP limit of the community (as per a community investment).

Caravans – Jeopardy: Caravans are subject to brigandry, natural disasters, and eldritch fates of an even stranger character. In some cases, characters might also simply be scammed by unethical caravan masters who simply abscond with their funds.

• Basic: To quickly determine the fate of a caravan, simply roll on the Basic Caravan Jeopardy table. If goods have been captured, it may be possible to recover them from the lair of whatever bandits, robber barons, or creatures were responsible. (Generate randomly.)
• Hexcrawl: If the campaign includes a full hexcrawl, the GM can simply track the actual movement of the caravan (generating random encounters as usual and adjudicating the outcomes of those encounters to determine the caravan’s fate).
• Trail/Road: As caravans will usually follow the same trade routes (whether by road or otherwise), similar results can be achieved without generating a full hexcrawl: The GM can develop each route as a trail, with landmarks along the way and appropriate random encounter tables.

Caravans – Protecting: If PCs decide to travel with the caravan in order to protect it, roll on the Basic Caravan Jeopardy table normally. The PCs, of course, will have a chance to directly respond to the dangers encountered by the caravan.

• Mercenaries: PCs can pay additional funds to hire men-at-arms to beef up the caravan’s security. (This expenditure does not grant XP.) In the basic jeopardy system, these forces provide a modifier to the Basic Caravan Jeopardy roll. (There is always at least a 1 in 10 change of the caravan going astray.) Continue rolling and resolving events until “Arrives Safely” result is generated.

COMMUNITY INVESTMENT

PCs may be interested in improving their community. They can do so by spending GP on community investments.

• Community Investments are generally targeted at a specific Special Interest category, but in some cases the GM may rule that a particular investment would have a positive impact across several categories (in which case its value is divided across those categories).
• GP spent on community investments do not grant XP, but the base value of the GP Limit of the targeted category is increased by 5% of the investment. (For example, Blackmoor has a base GP limit of 1d6 x 100 for Carousing. If someone makes a 1000 GP community investment in opening a new tavern, the village’s GP limit for Carousing would increase by 50 to 1d6 x 150.)
• The community investment system is abstract. Players are encouraged to explain where their investment is going and what tangible results it has. (A new wing at the School for Young Wizards? Improvements at the gladiatorial arena?)

Next: Special Interests

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Go to Part 1

The creative and evolving process of restocking a megadungeon is something I discuss at length in (Re-)Running the Megadungeon. I’m not going to rehash that material here, and if you’re unfamiliar with that earlier essay you might want to take a few minutes to peruse it.

As I’ve mentioned in the past, I find that the process of restocking a dungeon is as much art as science: You want to look at the context of how events are evolving within the dungeon — the actions the PCs have taken, the responses NPCs have to those actions, and so forth — in order to determine how the dungeon will evolve over time.

With that being said, I often find it rewarding to incorporate random procedural content generation. It can prompt me to pursue unusual creative directions and force me out of my comfort zone. It can also “force” me to put in the work when it can sometimes be easier to default to “nothing happens”. For example, at the beginning of every session in my OD&D Thracian Hexcrawl I would check every dungeon lair that had been previously cleared out by the PCs with a 1 in 8 chance that it had been repopulated. This “forced” me to revisit areas that I might otherwise have left fallow.

For Castle Blackmoor I could have easily just used my standard procedures for megadungeons: A kind of instinctual “feel” for each section of the dungeon, combined with on-demand procedural content generation checks or creative inspiration for restocking each section. (I, personally, draw a distinction between game mechanics and procedural content generators: Although they can be superficially similar, I think their function in the game is quite different. One way that this manifests in my campaigns is that I consider mechanical results binding; they can’t — and shouldn’t! — be fudged. Procedural content generators, on the other hand, exist to prompt creativity and, because they’re not mechanics, they’re not mechanically binding. But I digress.) Since my design goals for Castle Blackmoor were explicitly about exploring an alternative to my typical megadungeon procedures, however, I thought it made sense to take a closer look at the restocking methods I would use with the dungeon.

As far as I know, however, Arneson never explained his restocking procedures. (If he even had a formal procedure.) So there’s nothing explicit for us to base our restocking techniques on. What we can do, however, is look at how a restocking procedure could be created to capitalize on the tools provided by the Arnesonian procedures we’re using.

Here are three approaches that I developed.

EMPTY ROOMS METHOD

The first option would be to simply rerun the original stocking procedure between sessions: Check each empty room to see if it now contains an encounter. If so, generate the encounter.

The problem with this method, even if it is limited only to the room that the PCs passed through during the previous session, is that it will, statistically speaking, usually lead to the generation of more creatures than the PCs are eliminating. The dungeon will slowly turn into an overcrowded tenement.

GLENDOWER TEMPLATE METHOD

An alternative would be to use your original dungeon key as a Glendower template during restocking: Check each empty room which has a protection point budget to see if it has been reinhabited. If it has, respend the original protection point budget and check to see if the room has treasure.

This method has the advantage of simplicity. It also eliminates bookkeeping during the session: You don’t need to keep track of exactly which areas the PCs have “tapped” in their explorations, you can simply check the key after the fact to see which areas have been depopulated.

A potential disadvantage of this method is that it can result in the dungeon becoming predictable: The same rooms will always be where monsters live, and the other rooms will never be filled.

Under the logic that your Glendower template was designed to present an interesting tactical challenge regardless of how its budget is “filled”, however, this might actually be viewed as a feature. Any predictability of the dungeon will also be undercut by your wandering monster checks. It’s not like there will be any place in the dungeon where the PCs will be “safe”; it’s more like there are certain areas of the dungeon which make for good lairs, and those are the areas that monsters keep moving back into.

QUADRANT CHECKS

When Arneson adapted the Blackmoor dungeons for convention play in the late ’70s, he instituted a quadrant-based system of wandering monsters: He divided the map for each dungeon level into a quadrant and pregenerated a random encounter for that quadrant. (“Players rolling a wandering monster in Quadrant A will have encountered Sir Fang!”) It’s an effective system for pushing specific, prepackaged content into play in a convention setting, but it’s not a system I was particularly interested in exploring.

For the purposes of restocking, though, this concept of “dungeon quadrants” interests me. It can be somewhat crude, but it also mirrors my own “sector” understanding of a dungeon complex. (These are the Tombs, this is Columned Row, these are the Worg training facilities, this set of rooms ‘belongs’ together, as does this one over here, etc.) If you wanted more detail, you could block out specific sectors. Quadrants, however, give you a simple one-size-fits-all approach that can be quickly slapped down onto any level of the dungeon.

You’ll still want to use common sense, of course: In the map above, for example, you can see how I’ve tweaked the borders of each quadrant on Level 1 to follow natural divisions in the dungeon corridors.

Here’s the procedure I’ll be experimenting with:

1. For each quadrant that the PCs entered during the previous session, there is a 1 in 6 chance that it will be restocked.
2. For each restocked quadrant, check each uninhabited room (using the normal stocking procedures) to see if it is now inhabited.
3. Check ALL rooms in the quadrant for treasure, although rooms that were currently inhabited only have a 1 in 20 chance of generating new treasure.

Note that this procedure can add new encounters even to areas that the PCs haven’t previously depleted. This is intentional, and a likely explanation would be creatures reinforcing their ranks in response to the armed thugs rampaging around their homes.

It’s quite possible that, after a little playtesting, you may want to tweak the odds listed here. As I write this, I haven’t actually had much chance to put these into practice yet. (I suspect 1 in 8 for the quadrant test might be a better fit. And the 1 in 20 chance for adding treasure to currently inhabited areas might be too low, but I’d rather be conservative with the money spigot.)

Next: Special Interest Experience