DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 30C: The Two Letters

The next morning Tellith gave Tor two letters that had arrived for him during the night. One of them was from Sir Gemmell of the Order of the Dawn.

The other was from Sir Kabel.

“I think I just wasted two hundred gold pieces,” Tor muttered to himself.

We’ve got a couple of things I’d like to highlight here.

First, the setup.

As we discuss in The Art of Pacing, meaningful choices are the beating heart of a roleplaying game, and as a GM you really want to put the spotlight on those choices by strongly framing scenes around them. In this case, Tor had put himself in the middle of the Order of the Dawn, and now the Order of the Dawn was splitting between two leaders: Sir Kabel, who was remaining loyal to Seyrun, and Sir Gemmell, who was loyal to the self-appointed Novarch Rehobath.

The core question, obviously, is: Who is Tor going to support?

I certainly had my suspicions (and you probably do, too) based on the party’s reaction to how Rehobath had handled Dominic. But the party was also technically working for Rehobath at the moment, so there was absolutely nothing simple about the situation. It was pretty muddy and very complicated, actually, which is precisely what made it such an interesting question.

Having the letters from both Kabel and Gemmell arrive at the same time was, of course, a way of slicing through all that complexity: Kabel. Gemmell. Who do you respond to? How do you respond? What’s your choice?

What Tor actually chose to do blew my mind.

But that will have to wait until our next update.

HONOR CHOICE, BUT USE YOUR PREP

The other factor here was Tor’s choice, earlier in this session, to seek out Shim and hire the information broker to deliver a message to Sir Kabel. I hadn’t anticipated this at all, but it was an inspired bit of gameplay.

(It somehow hadn’t occurred to me at all when I decided to reveal that the PCs had hired Shim during their period of memory loss that they would then continue hiring him for various tasks.)

The problem this created for me, however, can be neatly summed up by what Tor says: “I think I just wasted two hundred gold pieces.”

The logical response to Sir Kabel receiving Tor’s letter, after all, was for Sir Kabel to send him a reply telling him how they could meet… which was, of course, the letter I had already prepped and which was scheduled to be delivered shortly thereafter.

Stuff like this can actually happen quite a bit: You know that something is going to happen. Then the PCs do something completely unexpected, but which logically would result in the same thing happening (with perhaps minor differences). This is just a particularly clear-cut example of it.

And, as a GM, it feels a little weird when this happens. The PCs did something unexpected, so… something unexpected should result, right? But instead the exact same thing happens?

… is that railroading?

Well, sometimes, yes. It is. If you’re forcing things to play out according to your prep, that’s negating player choice and that’s railroading.

But sometimes it’s just a weird coincidence: You are, in fact, honoring their choice. There’s just a weird act of judo where their own momentum throws them right back where they started.

When you find yourself in the position of performing this weird judo, one thing you can do is really focus in on how their choice did make a difference and then think about how that could be significant.

For example, in this case Sir Kabel’s letter was literally identical. (I didn’t rewrite the prop.) But there was a key difference: In the “original” continuity (which never actually existed), Sir Kabel made the decision to reach out to Tor without truly knowing where his loyalties might lie. But in the actual continuity, because of what Tor’s player had done, Sir Kabel sent his letter because Tor had reached out to him; had, in fact, taken great risk to make contact.

That’s actually a huge difference! It meant that Sir Kabel would be far more confident of Tor and far more trusting of their alliance. (Assuming that’s how things played out.)

So even in a moment like this — where the prepared prop of the letter made my player say, “I think I just wasted two hundred gold coins” — I was still able to, a little while later, show them that their actions had been meaningful.

Campaign Journal: Session 30D – Running the Campaign: The Undead Sequel
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

SESSION 30C: THE TWO LETTERS

September 20th, 2008
The 16th Day of Kadal in the 790th Year of the Seyrunian Dynasty

THE AFFAIRS OF THE PALE TOWER

Tor left with the intention of returning directly to the Banewarrens, stopping only long enough to collect Blue from the Ghostly Minstrel so that he might ride more quickly.

But as he passed through the doors of the Ghostly Minstrel, Tellith called him over to the front desk. A letter had arrived for “Mistress Tee and her companions”. Tor opened it and read—

Please come to me at the Pale Tower. You have filled my heart with great concern.

Aoska

So instead of riding directly to the mansion on Nibeck Street, Tor stopped first at the Pale Tower.

He was greeted at the doors of the tower by the Graven One, who led him to a small, domed room. There Tor was forced to stoop to step through the doors. The walls and floor were built of blue jade, the surface of which seemed to subtly swirl with whirlwinding eddies of multi-hued colors. In the center of the room nine small idols of the same blue jade – each depicting one of the holy animals of the Nine Gods – formed a circle on the floor. In the circle, Aoska sat in meditation.

“Please sit, Master Tor.”

Tor knelt on the floor, keeping a fair distance from the circle of idols.

Aoska opened her eyes. “We have received the message that Mistress Tee left for us regarding the Great Warrens of Danar. I have summoned you here to tell you that we cannot help you. And to offer our apologies.”

“That’s all right,” Tor said.

“Nonetheless, I think some explanation is deserved. We among the Malkuth have been honored to stand before the Nine Gods themselves. But for that honor we pay a price. Each of us has been sworn not to interfere in the matters of the mortal church. And since the Imperial Church has involved itself with this affair, we can have no part of it.”

“I understand.”

“I offer, too, a warning,” Aoska said. “Be wary of removing anything from that place. The wards which Danar raised suppress the effects of the taint and prevent the Warrens themselves from becoming tainted. But the items are no less dangerous in their use. And if they were to be removed from the Warrens, the full effect of their corruption would be felt.”

“We would like nothing more than to seal that place and never set foot in it again.”

“That would be wise.” Aoska smiled. “I thank you, Sir Tor.”

“Thank you, milady.”

THE TALE OF A CONFESSING KNIGHT

From the Pale Tower it was a short ride to the Nibeck Street mansion. Tor used a door to create a ramp of sorts down the stairs and led Blue all the way to the cusp of the Banewarrens.

When he rejoined the others there were greetings all around.

“What happened?” Elestra asked.

Tor quickly explained what had happened at the Godskeep, at the Cathedral, and at the Pale Tower. He gave the Ranthir the scroll that Thad had given to him… And then he took a deep breath. “There’s something else… I think you should sit down for this.”

Then Tor told them, for the first time, that he had secretly joined the Order of the Dawn.

“Congratulations!” Tee said, a huge beaming smile spreading across her face.

“Don’t congratulate me yet,” Tor said. “I also promised Sir Kabel that I would spy on Dominic.”

Dominic was confused. “What?”

“Oh! I didn’t tell him anything! And it wouldn’t matter if I did. He’s looking for allies.” Tor quickly explained Sir Kabel’s opposition to Rehobath’s claim to be the Novarch. “I hope you still feel like you can trust me.”

“It’s all right,” Tee said. “Of course we do.”

“Thank you,” Tor said. “But what should we do? I don’t know what to do next. I wish I knew why Sir Kabel had tried to assassinate Rehobath.”

They continued discussing the situation. None of them were quite sure what to do, but it became even clearer that none of them trusted Rehobath.

“Then what are we doing down here?” Elestra asked, looking around at the walls of the Banewarrens.

“Working for Jevicca,” Tee said.

“And what happens if we do find the Sword of Crissa?”

“I don’t think we should give it to him,” Tee said. “Not if he’s going to use it the same way he used Dominic.”

Tor grew thoughtful. “So… what would the reaction be if Dominic killed Rehobath?”

None of them had an answer for that. Least of all Dominic.

THE CASTING OF THE LORE SPELL

While they talked, Ranthir had been examining the scroll that Tor had brought. He confirmed that it would do what Brother Thad had told them it would do.

“At least they were telling the truth about that,” Tor said.

“The casting of the spell could take awhile,” Ranthir said. “Maybe as long as an hour.”

They set up a defensive perimeter in the generator room. Each of them guarded one of the upper passages into the chamber while Ranthir began casting from the scroll.

For more than half an hour they kept watch, letting the soft drone of Ranthir’s words wash over them. They had actually begun to suspect that they would be able to finish the casting of the spell without interruption when, out of thin air, a hulking monstrosity of dark, blue-black flesh seemed to step out of thin air next to Elestra.

Before she could even shout a warning, Elestra was slammed up against the wall, torn up badly by the creature’s long, yellow claws. Its yellow eyes glowed with malicious and sinister glee, framed by its lanky black hair.

Dominic, whirling with the others at Elestra’s scream of pain, recognized it as some sort of troll-spawn – common enough in the mountains near his village – but of a variety he’d never seen before.

Agnarr moved quickly to protect Ranthir. Tor, meanwhile, closed with the troll-spawn while Tee circled around it. The creature lashed out at Tee, but the elven maid narrowly avoided the blow by virtue of the enchanted armband she wore (which skittered her slightly through time and space).

Agnarr hurled an axe from where he stood. The blade buried itself in the troll-spawn’s back, but with a shrug of its shoulders the creature shook it free. They could all see that the wound was already closing.

Tor, meanwhile, was struggling. Whenever the creature landed a blow, his thoughts filled with black and terrible things – a void of horror that drew itself across his mind. He could feel it deadening his limbs – threatening to overwhelm him.

While Tee and Tor kept the troll-spawn at bay, Elestra – badly hurt – fell back to where Agnarr was waiting by Ranthir’s side. “I’ll keep an eye on him,” she said. “You go.”

Agnarr raced around the iron catwalk, arriving barely in time. Tor had, at last, been overcome by the rapacious blackness working its way through his mind – his joints seized as his thoughts retreated to the safety of his inner soul. The troll-spawn surged forward, looking to finish Tor off… but then Agnarr’s burning blade struck true, eliciting the first cry of real pain from the creature as it ripped through its chest.

The force of Agnarr’s blow drove the troll-spawn stumbling back, adding to the force of Tee’s blade as she drove a precisely placed blow between its shoulder blades. The tip of Tee’s longsword actually thrust out the front of the creature’s chest. It stumbled forward again, ripping itself off her blade in a gush of blue-black blood.

Elestra, still standing guard by Ranthir on the far side of the catwalk, placed a precise shot from her dragon rifle, nearly ripping the creature’s arm off at the shoulder. It collapsed into a bloody heap…

… but it’s wounds were still healing at a preternatural pace, and before anyone could react it had simply vanished back into thin air. With a howl of frustration, Agnarr smote the floor where it had lain.

… and in that moment, Ranthir turned – his eyes glowing bright – and chanted aloud:

Only the hand of creation can undo the seal which it has wrought.
Those who wish but for a moment can undo the creator’s work,
But those who would be his heirs must first wield his hand.
Into the heart of darkness they must follow him.

Seek the hand in the heart of the shard.
There all paths begin.
Thus all things shall be done or undone.

RETRENCHING THE DEFENSES

Ranthir sagged forward as the magic of the spell left him. A moment later, however, he was scrabbling through his many pouches and bags to find paper and pen. He hastily jotted down the words that he had said.

“Did that make sense to anyone else?” Elestra asked.

“A little,” Tee said, frowning thoughtfully. “But not really.”

There were no clear answers written in the words that Ranthir had spoken. And with Tor still paralyzed, they had no choice but to seek more powerful magical aid. They let the Banewarrens, meeting Kalerecent where he stood guard in the cellar of the mansion.

They quickly explained to the knight what had happened. With Tor strapped to his saddle, Tee led Blue up the stairs (“Ah,” Kalerecent said. “So that’s why the door was there.”) and then mounted himself. Agnarr walked alongside as the three of them headed to the Temple of Asche to receive healing from Mand Scheben.

Ranthir, Elestra, and Dominic, meanwhile, returned with Kalerecent to the excavated cave nearest to the Banewarrens. Kalerecent had hoped to keep his guard in the cellar itself, but the others were concerned that the caverns where they had fought the umber hulk might lead to another exterior access point.

Once they were healed, Tee, Tor, and Agnarr returned to the Banewarrens, as well. After a brief discussion, they agreed that all of them – except for Tor, who had business early the next day – would camp there for the night on a rotating guard shift.

SEEKING SIR KABEL

Tor left the Banewarrens. But instead of heading directly back to the Ghostly Minstrel, he turned south towards the alley where they had met with the mysterious, shadow-like Shim.

Tor  touched the symbol at the alley’s dead end. A few moments later Shim exuded himself from a crack in the wall.

“How can I help you, Master Torland?”

“Can you find Sir Kabel of the Order of the Dawn and deliver to him a letter?”

“I can,” Shim said. “The real question is, ‘Can you pay for it?’”

“How much?”

“Two hundred gold pieces.”

Tor agreed and quickly wrote out a note for Sir Kabel.

Sir—

Please know that you have friends in Ptolus. Vehthyl is not fooled, but it is crucial we know what has occurred.

Send word back if you are able. The safety of the city is in the balance.

Tor very specifically neglected to sign it, hoping that his elided reference to Dominic as the Chosen of Vehthyl would be enough to identify who the letter had come from without betraying him if it should fall into the wrong hands.

Shim took the letter and disappeared back into the wall. Tor left and returned to the Ghostly Minstrel for the night, satisfied that he had done all that he could. If all the might of the Imperial Church and the Order of the Dawn couldn’t find Sir Kabel, it wasn’t likely that wandering randomly around the city would do much good.

A NIGHT IN THE BANEWARRENS

Back in the Banewarrens – or, rather, the small excavated cavern just outside of them – Kalerecent and the rest of the party settled on the order of the watch and bedded down.

A few hours passed and the watch shifted twice without any cause for alarm. But then, about an hour before midnight, Tee’s sharp eyes spotted movement coming along the passage leading to the Banewarrens. She quickly roused the others, whirling back towards the tunnel entrance in time to see the purplish-red wraith they had encountered before floating with sinister serenity into the cavern.

Kalerecent, who had been sharing the watch with her, moved to engage it. The engagement didn’t last long: Kalerecent’s magical blade ripped through its ethereal substance and then, a moment later, a single blast from Tee’s dragon pistol tore it apart.

The others had barely even woken up.

After some mild complaints, Tee and Kalerecent resumed their watch while the others rolled over and went back to sleep.

A few minutes later, however, the wraith returned again. Dominic, rising impatiently from his bedroll, banished it with a burst of divine power, sending it fleeing back down the tunnel.

The group mustered their defenses and waited anxiously for its return… but after a quarter of an hour there was still no sign of it.

Agnarr eventually got tired of waiting and rallied an expedition back into the Banewarrens. They headed straight to the area where they had first encountered the wraith and the gem that spawned it. They found no trace of the wraith itself, but were entirely unsurprised to discover that the gem had somehow reformed itself. Without a second thought, Agnarr smashed it again.

Dominic raised the possibility of taking some of the shards of the gem with them – and thus, perhaps, preventing it from reforming again – but Tee and Elestra were both wary of the idea of carrying around shards from an artifact of clear and potent evil. (Hadn’t they just been warned by Aoska not to risk removing anything from the Banewarrens?)

Ranthir couldn’t even hazard a guess on what might happen (or not happen) if they took pieces of the gem with them. He did briefly ponder the possibility of storing the gem in the stasis box they had recovered from Ghul’s Labyrinth, but he couldn’t guarantee that it would actually stop the gem from reforming.

And so, in the end, they settled for simply shutting the once-warded door leading into the area – hoping, even though the ward had been broken, that this would stop the wraith from escaping.

“Aren’t we just locking the wraith out?” Dominic asked.

“Well, next time we see it we’ll kill it and then it will be trapped,” Agnarr said.

While the others settled back down, Tee left for her guard duty at the “new project” of the chaos cultists. The rest of the night – both at the project site and in the Banewarrens – passed quietly.

THE TWO LETTERS

(09/17/790)

The next morning Tellith gave Tor two letters that had arrived for him during the night.

SIR GEMMELL’S MESSAGE

Master Torland of Barund—

I know that that the recent chaos surrounding the Order must have proven quite distressing to one so recently squired among our ranks. I pray to the Gods that this letter shall find you in good health and that no untoward danger has fallen upon you as a result of the treacherous actions of a handful of discontents.

I wish to assure you, however, that the Godskeep remains secure. I know that you were to receive training this afternoon, and I would like to avail myself of this opportunity to meet with you personally and make the proper arrangements.

My humblest thanks,

Sir Gemmell of the Order of the Dawn

SIR KABEL’S MESSAGE

Tor—

The days are darker than I had imagined. Come tomorrow at dawn to Nadar’s Pub in Rivergate. Ask for Patrim. Bring Dominic if you trust him still.

                                                                                -Sir K.

“I think I just wasted two hundred gold pieces,” Tor muttered to himself.

Running the Campaign: Honor Choice with Judo  – Campaign Journal: Session 30D
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index

Go to Part 1

Here are a few advanced pointcrawl techniques you may find useful. Or you can ignore them entirely. Or mix-and-match them. They’re tools. Use the right ones for the job.

Some of them may be more immediately obvious in player-known pointcrawls (where the players can directly invoke them), but they can also be useful for GMs looking to interpret PC actions into a player-unknown pointcrawl.

Some of these advanced procedures include suggested mechanics. For clarity, I’ve chosen to present these as they might be used in a D&D 5^th Edition campaign, but they can be easily adapted to other RPGs by simply using the appropriate skills and difficulty numbers for your system of choice.

PATH TYPES

The paths in a pointcrawl can be differentiated by type. Examples might include:

• Roads (including further distinctions between highways/thoroughfares vs. byways/side streets)
• Tracks
• River
• Landmark chain
• Supernatural (portals, fairy paths, etc.)
• Stairs/Shafts
• Mazes

On your pointmap, these types might be indicated by color, line type (dotted, double, etc.), labels, or other iconography. They can be useful for purely descriptive purposes (“you follow the River Wyth as it wends its way through the Forlorn Hills”), but might also be distinguished by:

• Modifying travel time (this could also be done for terrain type)
• Requiring skill checks
• Requiring (or preferring) certain types of vehicles, mounts, or spells

Not every pointmap, of course, needs to feature every single type of path. Think about which paths are most useful and relevant to the pointcrawl you’re designing, and then see if there’s a way that you can make the different types of paths clear and significant.

PARALLEL PATHS: Once you have multiple types of paths in your pointcrawl, it opens the possibility of having two points connected by not just one, but two (or more) paths simultaneously. If you do this, the key thing is to make sure that the paths are distinguished by choice and not just calculation. (For example, if you have two paths and the only difference is that one is faster than the other, the PCs will always take the faster path. Just don’t bother including the other one. On the other hand, if one path is faster but you need to make a skill check to traverse it safely, you now have a meaningful choice in which path to take. Thinking About Wilderness Travel takes a more detailed look at this issue.)

HIDDEN ROUTES

A hidden route in a pointcrawl is simple a connection between two points that is not immediately obvious; i.e., the PCs have to find the route before they can use it. In a wilderness this might be illusory druid paths. In a city it might be linked teleportation circles or perhaps the sewers.

Hidden routes are often discovered as part of a scenario or while exploring a particular location (i.e., you’re looking around the crypts beneath the Cathedral and discover a tunnel heading to the Harbor). In some cases, discovering the hidden route might be as easy as making an Intelligence (Investigation) or Wisdom (Perception) check to find the route.

SHORTCUTS & SIDE ROUTES

The PCs want to move from one point to another without moving through the points between. (For example, they want to go directly to the Trollfens without first passing by the weird red rock. Or they want to go south to the Docks without passing through Shiarra’s Market.) What happens?

In some pointcrawls this might not be possible. (You can’t walk through solid rock.) In a typical wilderness it might require trailblazing (using the procedure below). In a typical, safe city, on the other hand, it usually just means getting off the major thoroughfares and circling around on side streets, and probably just happens automatically.

SIMPLE SIDE ROUTES:

• Determine an appropriate base time. (If they’re trying to go the long way around to bypass something, you can probably set this to whatever the travel time would have been going the normal way. If they’re trying to save time by using an unorthodox shortcut, eyeball the best case scenario.)
• Make a random encounter check.
• Make an appropriate skill check. (This is probably a Wisdom-based check. Perhaps Wisdom (Stealth) if their goal is to avoid attention, or Wisdom (Survival) if they’re trying to cross a trackless waste.)
• If the check is successful, they arrive at their intended location.
• If the check is a failure, then they’re lost and will need to make another check. If they were trying to avoid trouble, the trouble finds them. Either way, they’ll need to repeat the random encounter check and the skill check until they succeed.

TRAILBLAZING

Trailblazing reduces the party’s speed by one-half (adjust the base time of the journey appropriately), but also marks an efficient trail through the wilderness with some form of signs — paint, simple carvings, cloth flags, etc. Once blazed, a trail is effectively added to the pointmap.

Note: If the strata you’re using for your pointcrawl is a wilderness hexcrawl map, you can alternatively use the hexcrawl trailblazing mechanics to create these new trails.

HIDDEN SIGNS: The signs of a trail can be followed by any creature. When blazing a trail, however, the character making the signs can attempt a Wisdom (Stealth) check to disguise them so that they can only be noticed or found with an opposed Wisdom (Perception) or Intelligence (Investigation) check.

You don’t need to make a check to follow your own hidden signs (or the hidden signs of a trail you’ve followed before). Those who are aware of the trail’s existence but who have not followed it before gain advantage on their skill check to follow it.

OPTIONAL RULE – OLD TRAILS: Most trail signs are impermanent and likely to decay over time. There is a 1 in 6 chance per session that a trail will decay from good repair to weather worn; from weather worn to poor repair; or from poor repair to no longer existing.

Someone traveling along a weather worn trail can restore it to good repair as long as they are not traveling at fast pace. Trails in poor repair require someone to travel along them at the trailblazing travel pace to restore it to good repair.

Note: You might use these same guidelines for similar trails on your original pointmap. But it can be assumed that any trails in regular use — whether by the PCs or otherwise — either won’t decay or won’t decay past poor repair.

TRAVEL PACE

You can use D&D 5^th Edition travel pace in a pointcrawl fairly easily. I recommend simplifying/fudging the normal travel distances:

• Slow Pace: 1 interval per watch
• Normal Pace: 2 intervals per watch
• Fast Pace: 3 intervals per watch

(You can replace “watch” with whatever timespan is most useful for the pointcrawl.)

ALTERNATIVE 1: Indicate the connection length in standard intervals, but then separately indicate interval duration for normal, slow (¾), and fast (x1.5) travel paces.

You may also want to reduce the chance of a random encounter for fast travel paces. (Slow travel paces would theoretically result in more checks, but in 5^th Edition this is usually cancelled out by the reduced encounter chance due to the extra caution being taken.)

ALTERNATIVE 2: Reference the pointcrawl’s strata and calculate the actual distance (and terrain modifiers). Then simply use the standard rules for travel pace to calculate time, making encounter checks per watch. (The disadvantage here is that you’re adding a lot of unnecessary complexity to your pointcrawl procedure.)

ADDENDUM
Depthcrawls

Pointcrawls are a pretty straightforward scenario structure: You create a map with locations which are connected with paths, forming a node map. If you want to get more clinical in your descriptions, you can also refer to the locations as points (hence the first half of the name) and the paths as connectors. During play, PCs in a location can choose one of the paths connected to that location and travel along it to another location. They can thus crawl (there’s the other half of the name) through the pointmap.

The concept of the pointcrawl was first formalized by Chris Kutalik on his Hill Cantons blog in 2014, although antecedents can be found. For example, Dragons of Hope, the third Dragonlance Chronicles module, features a proto-pointcrawl of linked regions. Even the famous, multicolored tube map of the London Underground first designed by Harry Beck (and seen above) displays similar properties.

THE MANY-HEADED POINT

What makes the pointcrawl so versatile as a scenario structure is that each “point” can be literally any point of interest. It might be extremely specific, like “that strange red rock outside of town.” Or it could be very large, like “the city of Warnock” or “the Kingdom of Catalac.” The structure can even be adapted to other milieus entirely, with points like “the VR server of Thunderdome, MLC.”

The structure is quite flexible, with points of different “scale” easily coexisting. (For example, “that strange red rock outside of town” and “the city of Warnock” could easily both appear on the same pointmap.) It can also be trivially fractal, with the point on one pointmap being an entirely self-contained pointcrawl in its own right.

LITERAL vs. ABSTRACT PATHS

A pointcrawl exists within a strata, and to truly understand, design, and run the pointcrawl, you need to have an understanding of that underlying reality. For example, the city of Warnock and our strange red rock aren’t just floating nebulously in a hypothetical node map: The red rock lies east of Warnock in the Forest of Arden. Or maybe it instead lies to the west on the far side of the Daggerpoint Mountains.

Understanding this will allow you to answer questions like:

• Which connections exist (and don’t exist) in the first place?
• How long does it take to travel from point to another?
• How should you describe the journey along the path?

And so forth.

The most literal application of a pointcrawl system is to model wilderness travel along a trail system (i.e., the connections between points are literally wilderness trails or roads running between those locations). These are examples of literal paths, and are almost always a player-known structure: The pointmap has a one-to-one correspondence with the game world, and the characters can see the trails or roads that they’re following.

But pointcrawls can also work with abstract paths, which seek to capture the conceptual navigation of an environment in a way that allows you to focus prep and structure play. An example of this is an urban pointcrawl, where a pointcrawl would not for example, include every single street and building in the city. Instead, the connections of an urban pointcrawl represent the way we think about traveling through a city.

This can be a bit harder to get your hands around than literal paths, so how does it actually work?

When the players indicate a navigational intention, the GM basically acts as an “interpreter” who translates that intention into the pointcrawl system, uses the pointcrawl system to resolve it, and then describes the outcome to the players in terms of the fiction.

This works because we naturally think of navigating a city in broad terms. “We need to head west to Lyndale Avenue and then take that south into Edina.” What was the exact route we took to get to Lyndale? Did we take 36^th or 38^th or 42^nd or 46^th? We don’t really care. Particularly in a pre-GPS era, navigation was even more likely to funnel into landmarks and major thoroughfares: Cross the river at such-and-such bridge, head east to the cathedral, and then cut south through Littlehut… and so forth.

The points of the pointcrawl match the mental model we use to navigate through a city.

For example, consider this map of the hellish city of Elturel from the Alexandrian Remix of Descent Into Avernus:

You can see how this navigation works most clearly at Torm’s Bridges (Area 9). Here the conceptual and literal geographical navigation of the city are basically unified; the funnel effect is as literal as possible: If you want to cross the gorge between the western and eastern halves of the city, you’re going to have to cross those bridges.

But this conceptually remains true even when the literal geographical funnel is not so precise: If the PCs decide to head south Area 1, for example, they’re going to pass through Shiarra’s Market (Area 2). Yes, it’s technically possible to take a different route that narrowly avoids the market, but in the absence of intentionality the point-map represents the general “flow” of the city.

You can also see from this example how literal and abstract paths can coexist in the same pointmap: Torm’s Bridges are quite literal; “you’ll pass through Shiarra’s Market on your way to the Docks” is more abstract. The same thing could hold true in our hypothetical wilderness pointcrawl from before (“you can follow all these literal roads, but if you try to cut through the Forest of Arden you’ll bump into the weird red rock”).

So you can really think of this as more of a spectrum options than a hard choice.

EXPLORATION vs. ROUTE-PLANNING

Another finesse to consider here is whether the PCs are exploring the pointmap (i.e., they don’t know what points are available and/or what paths they can take until they discover them) or if they have some sort of map or comparable knowledge which allows them to plan their journeys.

This may or may not be related to whether or not the pointcrawl is a player-known structure. (For example, the PCs might have a diegetic map of Elturel even if the players don’t know that the GM is using a pointcrawl.) Hybrid approaches are also quite common, with some routes or points being known while others remain secrets to be discovered. And, of course, an exploration model will naturally turn into route-planning as the PCs make their discoveries and create their own maps.

THINGS YOU’RE LIKELY TO SAY

Things you’re likely to say while running a pointcrawl include:

• “Crossing Waterloo Bridge, you head south past the London Eye to Lambeth Palace.” (The PCs are leaving a vampire den somewhere near Covent Garden. Waterloo Bridge, the London Eye, and Lambeth Palace are all locations on the pointmap. In this case, the players already have some familiarity — or perhaps a great deal of familiarity — with the city, recognizing these locations without the GM needing to elaborately describe them.
• “Following the bonsai turtles, you pass through an arch in the hedgerow and find yourselves standing at the top of an ancient amphitheater. Benches of worn stone descend to a circular area where three of the bonsai turtles have already gathered. On the far side of the amphitheater you can see two other arches like the one you’ve just come through, leading to other paths through the Maze.” (The amphitheater is a location the PCs have just discovered. The GM is indicating the existence of two other paths, leading to other locations, that the PCs could follow.)
• “You’ve been following the deer path for a couple of hours when Lavid hears the distinctive hooting call of the local goblin tribe. It sounds like they’re coming down the path from the opposite direction.” (The PCs are currently traveling along a connection and a random encounter has been triggered.)
• “You take Nephranter’s Street through the Court of the White Bull and then south to the Caravan Court.” (The nodes here are the Court of the White Bull and Caravan Court. “Nephranter Street” is a way of contextualizing the journey; it’s pulled from the strata of the Waterdeep city map to describe the abstract path. The GM could just as easily say “…passing through the bustling crowds of River Street before reaching Caravan Court” or simply “…you cross the Trade Ward to Caravan Court.”)
• “You’ve reached the weird red rock. Do you want to head north towards the Trollfens or south towards the Black Bog?” (The weird red rock, Trollfens, and Black Bog are obviously all points which the PCs are familiar with.)

Although the examples vary, in each case the basic structure of connection-point-connection-point becomes a comfortable framework for the GM to describe the journey, and for the players to understand it and make choices during it.

BASIC POINTCRAWL PROCEDURES

The basic procedures for a pointcrawl are very simple.

STEP 1 – FOLLOW A PATH. The PCs choose one of the paths connected to their current point and follow it.

Time: The length of time it takes to follow a path may be standardized for an entire pointcrawl. (For example, you may assume it always takes 10-15 minutes to move from point to another in an urban setting.) Alternatively, different connections may take different amounts of time. If so, this can be indicated directly on the map using either small numbers or dots (with each dot representing one standard interval of time). In setting these times, you’ll most likely be taking the strata of the pointcrawl into account (e.g., traveling one mile down an open road will take less time than traveling ten miles through the tangled bracken of a wild forest).

STEP 2 – RANDOM ENCOUNTER. Check for a random encounter.

Procedure: Any number of random encounter procedures could be employed here. I discuss these options in more detail in Part 5 of the 5E Hexcrawls series. If you are using standard time intervals for your connections, you might consider making one check per interval.

STEP 3 – ARRIVAL. The PCs arrive at the next point.

If the PCs are in a point on the pointmap, you can simply follow this procedure. If for some reason they’ve slipped “off” the pointmap, simply funnel them logically into the pointmap and continue from there. (You might be able to assume they’re “at” the nearest point on the map; e.g., they may not be at the cathedral, but they’re close enough that they’re basically “coming from the cathedral” as far as other points are concerned. Alternatively, if you want to get all formal with it, you can think of their current location as a “temporary point” and think about how it would attach to the pointmap.)

Go to Part 2: Advanced Pointcrawl Procedures

DISCUSSING
In the Shadow of the Spire – Session 30B: Golems & Ghouls

As Agnarr leapt into their midst, he could see one of them peeling flesh from its own arm and chewing on it.

“They’re eating themselves?!” Agnarr could hear Elestra’s horrified gasp from behind him, but he paid it little heed as he hacked his way through the ghouls.

For a moment it seemed as if Agnarr would dispatch them all – his flaming blade tore easily through their frail frames. But then the last of them leapt suddenly upon him and got its teeth into him.

This might be a little early to talk about this, but over the rest of this session and the next few sessions you’re going to see a lot of horrific beasties and strange curses get unleashed in the Banewarrens, by both the PCs and NPCs.

Something you’ll notice (albeit not with these ghouls), that most of these banes will either (a) attempt to flee after engaging the PCs or (b) target someone other than the PCs as their first (or subsequent) action. This, of course, creates long-running problems for the PCs, as they deal with the consequences of these ancient evils breaking loose into Ptolus or just wreaking havoc on their allies.

This is, of course, thematically appropriate for the Banewarrens, which were originally built to lock all of these banes away from the world; sealing them in a prison from which they were never meant to escape. Whether you agree with the Banelord’s belief that there’s a Principle of the Conservation of Evil that the universe abides by or not, there’s little question that mucking around down there not only risks releasing a whole bunch of evil stuff, but also a whole armada of ethical questions about your responsibility for having done so.

But this also reflects a broader GMing tenet I believe in: Spray your bullets.

What I mean by this is that when we think about releasing something into our campaign, we have a tendency to think about it strictly in terms of how it might intersect and affect the PCs: There’s a phase-shifting troll loose in the Banewarrens, when will it attack the party?

In other words, we aim it very precisely at the PCs.

This makes a lot of sense, because, of course, the other players are sitting at the table with us. Our entire focus is on continually generating and communicating the fictional game space for them to take their actions in. So there’s an obvious predilection, whenever something might happen in the game world, for us to aim it at the PCs. It’s target fixation.

What I’m suggesting is that, when we shoot stuff into the campaign, we should get a little sloppier with our aim: Don’t just hit the PCs. Start hitting stuff all around them. Their friends, their allies, innocent bystanders, even their enemies. To continue our metaphor, let stuff ricochet around a little bit and see what happens.

The ricochet is actually quite important, though, because if stuff happens and the players never learn about it (or its consequences), then it’s probably wasted prep. So you want to have stuff impact things around the PCs, but then you want the consequences of that to ricochet into the PCs: they read the newspaper headlines, they find the body, their friend calls them for help.

The benefit, of course, is that this makes the game feel more dynamic and believable: The PCs aren’t the only people who exist, moving through a world of shadow puppets. Instead, the world is filled with people who seem to be living lives of their own.

And this will also mean, when the bullets in question are being shot in response to the PCs’ actions, that their choices will become even more meaningful.

Campaign Journal: Session 30C – Running the Campaign: Honor Choice with Judo
In the Shadow of the Spire: Index