Showing posts with label Level Two. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Level Two. Show all posts

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Playing the Dungeon of Voorand - giant frogs!

Last Thursday we had our latest session of my Tunnels & Trolls megadungeon campaign. I am a few days late with the write-up. Sorry about that.

I have now notified my players that I will wrap up this campaign, but since this is a campaign of the "sandbox" style, I can just go on playing without having to bother to much with wrapping up of "story lines". That is a relief.

We chatted a bit about what the players wanted to check out now. They have found entrances and stairs to multiple levels and sublevels. How it fits together is still pretty much unclear, but apart from a short pilgrimage by our half-dragon to the majestic wyrm guarding a treasure on a rock in a lava sea they decided to focus on tying up loose ends on the fairly well explored level two.

The maps came up on the table and then they started to chart the places they had missed or left for later. They moved around a bit, mapped and became confused and gleefully kicked in the doors that had been stuck (my little piece of old school nonsense). One of the rooms that occupied the characters and their resources was a classic "Green Devil Face" where they spent some time figuring out what triggered the trap and how to possibly evade it. Much fun was had with electricity. Don't try it at home!

Having gotten through the trapped room they finally found my jungle. I shall spend a few sentences explaining where that one came from. As some of you might know, Gary and Rob put in many "sub realms" and other dimensional pockets in the halls of Castle Greyhawk. I know that WG6 Isle of the Ape was a homage to King Kong, and also somehow a part of the Castle. That sure is one weird castle. But, if they could, then can I. Naturally, being a fan of Blackmoor I couldn't help including some giant frogs. All added and stirred gently became a sub realm which can be entered on level two of the Dungeon of Voorand, a gigantic cave filled with dense jungle which is magically kept lit and rainy. My poor players suddenly found their characters fighting random encounters in a jungle, underground. I was happy when I managed to roll up a gigantic frog and a werewolf. The first one was slaughtered, with love and the other one with magic. I decided to be generous and allow not only silver weapons (none available at this delve), but also magic. I think the ability in T&T to power up your spells saved the day. Only one of the characters now have to be chained up in the cellar come the full moon.

Outside the dungeon there's now a fully stocked tavern, built and manned by hyenakin. Food and drink should be available for anyone coming in or out the dungeon thirsty and hungry. Should that not be enough, one of the magic trinkets found in the dungeon can be seen outside. It was a small red bouncing rubber ball, but enchanted to double in size each time it bounce. It's now as large as the tavern, and fastened with chains and is a popular tourist attraction. Could I have planned this myself? Lucky me I have players with imagination. Sometimes I think they have to much of that, though. They have had their own "gazebo moment", and refuse to trust the tavern inside the dungeon. Well, now there's competition and it should benefit all.

Friday, June 19, 2009

Playing the Dungeon of Voorand - the entrepeneur phase

Note: I have a newborn son who's only a couple of days old, so right now I'm not totally focused on blogging. I'll try to keep up. This post is a little late. Sorry about that.

Our Wednesday game have had to move to Thursdays, and I've been worried that some of the walk-in attendees would be confused by this. Unfortunately that happened, but we still had enough show up for a game this week.

Now we have entered what I call the entrepreneur stage. Our dwarven hero have lost a couple of limbs, and in order to scale back on the hazards he decided to start a tavern. Earlier that player managed to become the chief of a small tribe of hyenakin by defeating the former chief in single combat. He is now the player's second in command and gets to run the show as usual. Now the tribe have become recruited as loggers, and builder of the tavern. I really like this development. I have not set out any clear targets for the players, except some hooks and rumours about the dungeon. From out of player initiative we now have another campaign reaching development! I can let this tavern be a source of more information, problems and adventures for the players. The best part of being the one player who has to build the environment and provide the building blocks for fun, is when a player starts giving you building blocks they have carved themselves.

The delving this time focused on a weird intra dimensional room they found earlier, which spins like a carousel. Tugging the rope that hangs from out of nowhere in the centre of the room, they started the room spinning and then opened the doors that now lead to adventure. What was most fun for me at this point was when they found a room which wasn't really like anything else they have encountered before. Save or die effects are hated by some, and ridiculed by others. In this instance I had a room with a very subtle threat, that none the less had hints to decipher about what was going on. To my amusement they looked in the right direction and draw other conclusions than the wholly correct one. Hilarity ensued and the party was split in two and had to flee when a fight showed itself way to much for them. Learn to run away, and remember that sharks swim in the shallowest water. I have good players, and they know that. But, it is fun to see them not just waltz through it all and get a reminder once in a while.

Sometimes you hear that any touch of technology or "science fantasy" makes hard core fantasy gamers run away screaming. The module Expedition to the Barrier Peaks is one that those kind of gamers love to hate. Those also seem to be vary of anything related to Blackmoor, since they know there are hi-tech there. Personally I kind of like to mix anything fun in. I decided to put a piece of gaming history in my dungeon. Anyone ever heard of Adventure or The Colossal Caves? If you have, you have probably also played the version with the vending machine in the labyrinth. For me vending machines are neat. They are fun to play with and might dispense all kind of wondrous stuff in a world of magic. Needless to say, I couldn't resist putting in a vending machine filled with toys, gewgaws and magically powered trinkets. I have no idea what some of them can be used for, but I trust my players to come up with something funny. Already the bouncing ball that doubles in size every time it bounces have provided us with fun and laughter. Imagine that one in a cramped environment down in the tunnels of a dungeon.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Playing the Dunegon of Voorand - traps and tricks

Having had little time to prepare, I came to today's session with the intention of delaying my players. Sometimes it comes like a natural thing when the delving expands out of the dark, and the outer world gets involved in the adventure. It happened somewhat last week, when one of the PCs capable of flying decided to fly high over the mountain of the dungeon and scout the area. He found some standing stones, tracks of cattle rustling orcs and enough to entice him to explore some more. This week I actually didn't have to delay much, since the taster of wilderness adventure and wider and wilder lands made further exploration and research about the surrounding lands something they took on voluntarily! Add to that the fact that another player had decided to use some of the NPCs he had recruited and start some serious carpentry down the dungeon to build bridges and stuff. I love when my players get creative like that!

I couldn't really resist using the awesome Carousing Mishaps table by the inventive Jeff Rients, from issue four of Fight On! magazine. So, they did not only get the opportunity to chase down facts about the countryside, they also was tempted to spend some hard earned gold and get some fun to happen. Maybe getting 1 Adventure Point per spent gold was a bit generous, but whattaheck! Our brave dark elf partied like there was no tomorrow and ended up without any clothes or memory in the temple of the Earth Mother, where the angry priestesses chased out the defiler! Fun was had by all.

When they finally entered the dungeon they decided to go down a hallway where I had basically drawn a long empty corridor and then just filled it with odd traps. I made it fairly clear to them that they were traps, and it's impossible to surprise someone that's so lucky like their rogue. But, it turned out that even if it would have filled me with glee to see some tense moments when the traps went off, we did get some good moments out of them anyway. You see, they didn't just roll a couple of dice and them moved along, and they didn't have to think their way through a mental headache while they were trying to have fun with their friends. I managed to do something different.

Leave a trap out in the open, and players will spend time on it. They will take it apart, prod it with ten foot poles, try to circumvent it and then understand what it could have done when they are finally safe. Remember the fun you had when you put it there for them to solve? Just watch your players as they carefully reassemble the machinery so that they can feel that satisfaction when they come back and see that some other delvers have triggered it! I noted that even if the players hadn't understood how the mechanism worked (and I didn't actually give then all the information needed), they still spend a lot of time safeguarding themselves if the trapped would do this or that when they out of curiosity wanted to test it out after they passed it by. Having the whole party kibitzing and taking different precautions was a very interactive way of handling a trap. Playing a game where traps are a thing unto themselves is a mindset, and my players are good at it.

Talking about minds. I was actually fooling around with their minds a bit today. I had hinted that there was a tavern down on level two, and today they found it! It's not just any tavern, though, and I messed with their heads a bit and placed the Tavern out of Time (AKA The Come Back Inn) from Dave Arnesons Blackmoor in there! They seemed scared by time travelling and plane hopping taverns and left quickly. I hope I learned something from Dave of how to keep the players on their toes.

There was some fighting, and they used some of the stuff I posted about combat, and effectively halved the combat adds of a golem by knocking the not so dexterous creature over! It takes a lot of power to challenge these guys in a fight now. We'll see how long they'll stay on level two. Well, they now got one of the colour coded keys I've left in the dungeon, and some rumours about other areas and the pool of the black one down on level five. We'll see where they go next time.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

Playing the Dungeon of Voorand - threats from above and below

Tonight the game went well! Everyone was having fun and we had one character get below zero hit points! They had encountered a room before with water and some kind of hungry monster, that had killed a PC before. This time they were intrigued enough by the three doors on the opposite side of the water filled room to decide to "do" this room tonight.

The room was filled with water, and had poles sticking up with some wobbly planks of wood on them. Since T&T is what it is, they of course have a fairy PC, so she flew into the room to investigate, and everyone else had actions ready to fry anything that moved. It moved. A swirling mass of slithering flying eels attacked and tried to knock the intruder into the water. A minute later it was clear that when prepared, the PC will succeed at what they try to do if they get information and are prepared to act upon it. Fried eel.

Now it became interesting. How do they try to make the crossing safer? It was by no means an easy task just because nobody was trying to push you into the water. Having tied ropes, and also having the flying member of the party steadying along the way did a lot to alleviate the danger. Now it went from interesting to downright scary. Crossing a wobbly plank was a third level SR on DEX or LK. With a rope I reduced it to second level. With someone to hold your and, to one. Our poor human warrior rolls a 1 and a 2. I'm thinking they have really done their homework preparing, so I rule he is still holding on to the rope, but have to make a STR check to pull himself to safety. He rolls a 1 and a 2. Piranhas feeding frenzy ensures and they finally manage to extract the whole party from the room, bleeding. I love fumbles!

Now they get to explore what's beyond that mysterious room. They map a few corridors, open a few doors and find (amongst other things) garden gnomes that makes you dance and a really nice magical axe with a Gristlegrim rune on it in a big chest. They also find another trap.

This time I was almost smiling when they methodically observed the corridor trap, searched for triggers and on the spot invented half a dozen ingenious way to make a trap like this. Then one player decided to just walk down the corridor with his axe at the ready. Gristlegrim will protect his own.

Now, I'm not saying Gristlegrim doesn't protect his own, but sitting at the table hearing the players figure everything out and how to safely disable the trap, I was amazed when one of them decided to just go in there! I love seeing things like that.

In the end they got him up from the spiked pit and decided it was time to head back home. Guess what happens when they go back to the piranha room? I am lost for words when I see a 1 and a 2 hit the table. Same player, same character. They get out, finally, by the skin of their teeth. One character decides to stay in the dungeon and wait for the hyenakin (oh, yes Paul. There are hyenakin in my dungeon!) tribe. He defeated the chief in combat and his second in command runs the tribe while he is delving.

One of the funny things that was said tonight was when the player who rolled fumbles repeatedly tonight levelled up and got a new Talent. He said roughly "I'm taking Carpentry! If I take that I will have to be inventive and find a way to bring it into play!" Good thinking. He got some Adventure Points just for his attitude.

Next week we'll see if they decide to go down one of the mysterious stairs they've found. Will they almost die on level five next week? Level three? We'll see.

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