(an OSR-driven World of Dungeons game in an archipelagic Yoon-Suin)
originally posted 28 Aug 2017
I'll put the GMing notes up top so you don't have to scroll through a session write-up before deciding if it's interesting.
- Seafaring: my current procedure is... 1) roll for weather at the start of each day; use the hour-by-hour changes only if a chase or sea combat/action sequence happens; 2) there's a 2 in 6 chance of an encounter at sea each day in the Kulon archipelago (the 'near home' setting); 3) we use the Undertake a Perilous Voyage move once for the whole journey. What if we roll more than one random encounter? Does the scout's result apply to all of them? I don't know, we haven't had more than one yet. I am open to suggestions.
- Labyrinth move + reaction roll = FUN TIME creative constraints. So they were looking for the Caves of Chaos and rolled that a threat emerges. I had some lizard people show up. I rolled on the reaction table. Even if I'd applied a modifier (I didn't) they were very friendly. what's a very friendly threat? Well, see below.
- IKEA catalogue as source for proper nouns: tick.
- A "successful" warning shot causes a new reaction roll in the other crew. I no longer think this needs to be rolled for: if you do it, the crew makes the roll. I checked in with someone with expertise after the fact and his explanation was that a warning shot is a specific message: "stay away or we'll shoot". So you can't really use your gunnery skills or some form of long-distance Charisma stat to fire a "better" or "worse" warning shot. From the other side, if a PC ship receives a warning shot, the PCs would have to deal with the outcome of the new reaction from their own crew.
- We used the "labyrinth move" ((c) Jason Cordova). This seems to have worked well. I was worried it would come off as too repetitive but according to the players, it isn't. "It felt like a journey", was one comment. So that's good. As prep I've taken the encounter tables and fixed monsters & treasures from the KotB module, and arranged them as possible results for exploring the wilderness, and for the different levels of the Caves of Chaos themselves. I only had 3 threats for the wilderness, though, and you need more than that! I actually repurposed a treasure as a threat at one point, making it more dangerous compared to the rewards than it originally would have been (the ruined palace).
Session 2 Events
The PCs were joined by a new guy this session, a blind navigator/priest called Hanif who can talk to birds.
They decided to head for the Keep on the Borderlands, maybe a little bit to do the mission on offer but mainly to find the Midnight Sage and Nolmyra plants they need for the spell to turn Dereika back from a yak into a human. Adjo is convinced she is a wealthy princess who will reward them. (This was a great player suggestion: choosing from the adventure menu but also tying in their own goals.)
A slugperson merchant hired them on as the officers for its ship, to take the vessel as far as Wawatesan, where the Keep is. Despite the value of the cargo, the PCs resisted the temptation to steal it.
After two days of unfavourable winds and little progress, the ship at last winged its way eastward on a broad reach, making good time. Halfway to their destination, another mayang was seen two miles off starboard, and upwind. Its crew made friendly signals as they approached but our heroes sussed very quickly that these people had piracy in mind. A chase ensued, with the pirates gaining rapidly before some sharpshooting from our heroes saw them off.
At Wawatesan there was more teahouse time. But of course! The group fell in with a moonlighting town guard called Girija, who accompanied them into the wilderness (having signed the necessary permits) along with his friend Bishweshwar as a guide, who is reckless but wears a giant's tooth as a lucky amulet so that should be fine.
Exploring the wilderness used the labyrinth move as mentioned above. Since they're not 100% focused on the "find the Caves of Chaos" mission, the players also used their hold to find the Midnight Sage they need as one of the treasures of the area. They'll need one more hold to find the Caves, and one more to find the other plant.
Encounters:
- an undead baital with a freezing touch
- lizardfolk who cordially invited all but one of the group to a soup feast, which they were expected to donate a body part to (maybe they don't know humans can't regrow tails or limbs?) -- but everyone got away intact, with a little blood loss.
- shaky ruins of an ancient palace (Bennu snaffled an antique samovar to sell later)
- bandits
Undertake a Perilous Voyage
When you set sail for another shore, the captain chooses one member of the party to act as first mate (in charge of the deck crew), one to be second mate (navigator), and one to be quartermaster (in charge of discipline and supplies). Each character with a job to do rolls +Wis.On a 10+: - the quartermaster reduces the number of rations required by one - the second mate reduces the amount of time it takes to reach your destination (the GM will say by how much) - the first mate will spot any trouble quick enough to let you take the intitiative. On a 7–9, each role performs their job as expected: the normal number of rations are consumed, the journey takes about as long as expected, nothing catches you by surprise (if it’s another vessel, roll Sailing Initiative as normal). You can’t assign more than one job to a character. If you don’t have enough party members, or choose not to assign a job, treat that job as if it had been assigned and the responsible player had rolled a 6.
Someone in comments asked "what's the labyrinth move?"
Wilderness: Searching for the Caves of Chaos When you look for the Caves of Chaos in the wilds around the Keep, describe how you do it, and then roll +STAT. *On a 12+, hold 2 *On a 10+, hold 1. *On a 7-9, hold 1, but you also encounter a threat. *On a miss, you encounter a threat. *On a 1-3, also lose all hold. If multiple party members navigate in turn, their hold is pooled together for the entire party. To find something useful or valuable, spend 1 hold and describe the area it is found in. You may spend 3 hold at any time to find the entrance to the Caves of Chaos.
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