An Impromptu B/X Game Report

My current 2nd edition campaign group was going to meet last night but due to some scheduling difficulties we had to scrap the plans. Two of the players still came over and instead we decided to play an off the cuff session of B/X.

I had each player roll up two 3rd level characters using 3d6 in order. What resulted was great fun. One player rolled up two dwarves - brothers - named Ping and Pong. The other player rolled up Blorg the Fighter with an Intelligence of 4 and Seth the Cleric with a Wisdom of 7.

While they were rolling up their characters I was quickly trying to find a suitable adventure for the evening. I grabbed a handful of Judges Guild modules and started flipping through them for some inspiration.

After the characters were created, I had each player roll a d20 a number of times to determine if the characters had any magic item. I usually have them try to roll under their level (3 in this case) for each of the magic item categories. They actually rolled a number of 2's and had a handful of magic items.

One of the items rolled was a treasure map! This made me quickly abandon my flipping through adventures and I grabbed Judges Guild's Book of Treasure Maps. A few rolls later to determine with Wilderlands map and hex location and the group of four brave adventures were off in pursuit of the legendary Jewel of Kallapath (I just made up the name).

Alas, the adventure was short lived. After coming upon an old keep populated with goblins and ogres, the party spent a number of days travelling with few rolls on the Ravaged Ruins table to give some flavour and a few wandering monster rolls which came up negative.

Finally, I rolled up a wandering monster which led me to the Dragon subtable. Thinking to myself, "Oh, oh...", I quickly rolled up an encounter with two fire salamanders (AC 2, HD 8, 3 Attacks and fire damage to anyone nearby) which surprised the party. Seeing as this was a oneshot and I wanted to see what the players would do, I decided to just spring the encounter on them and see what happened. A roll on the monster reaction table gave the party an opportunity to try to evade. Unfortunately, the PCs decided to charge the fiery lizards and soon thereafter we had a dead party.

What Worked Well:
1. Rolling for magic items gave a great hook for the adventure with the treasure map.
2. Rolling to figure out where in the Wilderlands the adventure would be located was quick and fun.
3. Judges Guild's Book of Treasure Maps was a great help.
4. Rolling up four 3rd level characters with B/X was fast and led to some fun characters (not a surprise here!).

What Didn't Work as Well:
1. I discovered I am rusty at running a hex crawl. Being unprepared for an impromptu B/X one shot definitely contributed to this as did the fact that we randomly determined that the party started in hex 0914 of map one of the Wilderlands. However, it has been a while since I have run a hex crawl. I would like to play in someone else's game for a hex crawl just to see how others do it.
2. It being a oneshot definitely impacted the players' decisions. Four 3rd level adventures with no offensive magic going up against two fire salamanders was a definite mistake, but it didn't really matter because it was a oneshot.

All-in-all a good time and a great way to spend the evening.

The Mind Wanders to the Wilderlands

I have had a bunch of free time lately and I have really enjoyed reading Chgowiz's posts on sandbox prep for his Ultima game here and here. His process of developing towns is similar to my own.

I pulled out my Wilderlands of High Fantasy boxed set the other day and started thinking about a B/X game. I decided to fill some time with working up a homebase and some adventure hooks.

To determine a starting point I rolled a d20 and came up with a "7". Map 7 is The Desert Lands - sounds cool. I want the starting homebase to be human-focused. A couple of more rolls to determine a random hex results in the nearest human settlement to be Blackmarsh (hex 5027). Not near the Holy Cities but it has potential.

"Once a small but thriving port, fewer and fewer ships and boats anchor off the coast of this village. Unseasonable storms, strangely shifting currents, and violent sea life now drive away shipping. Locals still bring their produce to market and barter for luxuries. Dried vegetables and leather goods are plentiful. A group of especially hardy Skandiks maintains a small trading post near the waterfront, braving the unpleasant weather to trade in gold, timber and spices."

The steps I take to develop a town are to figure out what is present in seven different categories:
1. Lodgings
2. Provisions
3. Temples
4. Wizards
5. Hirelings
6. Lords (Barons, High Priests, etc.)
7. Rumours
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1. Lodgings - two Inns, one by the waterfront and one by the town market. Both are average in quality and cost.

2. Provisions - Rereading the entry for Blackmarsh and using the Judges Guild Villages sourcebooks determine some of the goods and services available in Blackmarsh.
A. Waterfront/Docks - NPC: Gladstone Currentfollower (Level 2 Elf, portmaster)
B. Community Warehouse (near waterfront) - NPC: Mirk Whitnock (level 2 Thief, customs officer)
C. Townsquare/Market - anything on the equipment list is available on a 1 to 5 on a d6.
D. Boat Maker (near waterfront)
E. Sail Maker (near waterfront)
F. Carpenter (near market)
G. Tinsmith (near market) - goods are expensive.
H. Rope maker (near waterfront)
I. Leather worker (near market)
J. Blacksmith (near waterfront)
K. Trading Post (near waterfront)

3. Temples - Temple to Yamm (Egyptian god of the sea) - NPC Cleric, Temple to Ra, Shrine to Odin.

4. Wizards - Mondugus Marow (level 5 M-U, mayor), Spellbook: 1-Read Magic, Ventriloquism, 2-Mirror Image, Phantasmal Force, 3- Invisibility 10' radius.
- NPC (level 2 magic-user), Spellbook: 1-Detect Magic, Read Languages.

5. Hirelings - given the current environment PCs gain a +1 bonus to rolls on the Retainer Reactions Table (page B21) when talking to sailors.

6. Lords - Mayor: Mondugus Marow (see Wizards)

7. Rumours (roll d6)
1. The priest of the Temple of Yamm is hiring mercenaries and is looking to hire a ship.
1a. "Why would he risk a voyage with these unseasonable storms?"
1b. "It doesn't matter where he goes. Yamm has forsaken him."
1c. "Yamm has given the priest a vision of something to correct the storms and tides and save the village."
1d. "A thief snuck into the temple and stole something. Yamm is punishing the village for its inattentiveness."
2. An emissary from Questravale has arrived and is meeting with the mayor.
2a. The mayor is looking for someone to hunt down one of the wild warthogs that live in the plains to the west so that it may be cooked for a banquet while the emissary is here.
2b. Once preaching hatred, the priests of Questravale have begun to make much more moderate pronouncements. Is this a change in attitude or a ploy of some kind?
3. A small tribe of orcs have constructed a crude tower to the south. Rumour has it that they recently captured a caravan from the mines at Bassan.
4. A huge emerald statue of a giant frog rests on the highest point of a small island to the north. But beware of the savages!
5. There is a beached longship on an island to the south, It is rumoured that when the moonlight reflects off a silver plated ram's head carved upon the bow the light points toward a buried treasure of gold and silver sharks teeth.
6. The boat maker is responsible for the storms and tides. He worships a vile demon and Yamm is punishing us for allowing him in our midst.

Verbosh

After I put my kids to bed lastnight, I pulled out my copy of Verbosh and read it through. It reminded me what a great accessory it is. Next to the Keep on the Borderlands, Verbosh is one of my favorite D&D items. I think Verbosh is one of the great examples for new DMs of how to develop an open-ended sandbox setting of limited scope for OD&D, B/X and/or AD&D.

The book cover states, "Approved for use with Dungeons & Dragons" and it makes use of all of the supplements.

The first section of the book has information on the "homebase" town of Verbosh giving on average about 6 lines of detail for about 55 locations for the walled city and adjacent village. Some of the details are a bit goofy or humourous which some DMs may not take to but many of the details, especially the rumours, are great for developing adventure ideas. It also includes brief encounter tables and information on the garrison.

A typical entry is:

Flying Falcon Inn - Marish the Mangy, AL LE, Fighter, Level 4; Marish has the ability to communicate with birds. A very nice place actually, prices are reasonable. One of the present visisotrs in this inn is Broar the Bear, friend, AL CG, Berzerker, Level 10; Broar is a were-bear. Rumors: 1) Fisherman claim to have seen a sunken ship off the point just down river; 2) A wererat was seen crawling out of the well. (I omitted stats because I didn't feel like typing them).

The next section is about the sewers and crypts below the city. It uses the now-common trope of were-rats under the city. It is an old-school dungeon but I think that it is lacking a bit in terms of the "Empty-Room Principal" as nearly every room has an encounter of some kind and most of them are likely to develop into combats.

The third section is a great underwater location, "The Wreck of the Iron Griffon".

The next section is the beginning of the wilderness descriptions. This has brief descriptions of a number of encounters, lairs, strongholds and settlements. A DM can look at these and pull out numerous adventure ideas but many of them will require some work on maps and numbered keys to flesh them out.

The remainder of the book covers the fortress of Warrenberg, the Tower of Balthon the Phantasamist, the Dead City of Haygaras, and the deadly Schuwang-Nau Tower. My only real complaint is the same as I made for the sewers below Verbosh in that there is a likely combat encounter in nearly every room.

I think that for what Verbosh does, it does very well. I can see in a alternate universe a scenario where an OD&D boxed set was published with Verbosh as the B/X box set was done with the Keep on the Borderlands. I am going to use Verbosh as a template for my development of my Northern Marches if I can ever get it going. I can picture a DM sitting over his copies of Monsters & Treasure and The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures and using the tables therein to develop the wilderness descriptions. It makes me want to play OD&D/Swords & Wizardry: Whitebox.