Action Rolls

 It's well known in the OSR that skills are dangerous in that they tend to cause power creep and a drop in player agency. There's a slippery slope from thieves to spot-check rolls and many people choose not to have thieves in their games for this reason at all.

Thieves are one of my favorite character types, so I can't just let them go. Instead, I choose to change how I handle player actions.

Instead of having skill rolls or ability checks you have action rolls. The base level of action rolls is 1-in-6. If the player wants to do a thing and we're not really sure let's throw for 1-in-6, which is roughly 15%.

If we think there's a good chance then 2-in-6, if it's 50/50 we'll do 3-in-6. Above that I don't see much of a point in rolling. If the players have done enough work of convincing me they have a 4- or 5-in-6 chance of succeeding I'll generally just give it to them, unless they seem like they really wanna throw some dice about it. Sometimes in these cases it's better to just have the affected party roll a save to see if they avoid negative effects.

Sometimes bonuses are given for action rolls. Elves have a naturaly 3-in-6 (or +2 bonus) to searching for secret doors. Maybe if you can convince me your background helps you at an action roll we'll add a a bonus and raise it to 2- or 3-in-6.

Unlike skills players don't generally get better at their action rolls. Any bonuses are determined by character type and they're mostly set in stone. Maybe this changes, if the Fighter is taken in and trained in woodland survival by the League of Rangers or whatever, but this isn't common and is more of a treasure (character sheet adjustment) than a skill path.

These work pretty well, too, in place of ability checks. Add your ability modifier. Instead of a 1-in-6 your +2 Wisdom lets you roll for 3-in-6. Good odds! 

Though often I tend to lean towards the Apocalypse World thing w/ 2d6+mod because it gives you a nice curve and a gradient of possibilities, instead of a binary success/fail. Maybe you succeed your dive off the balcony, but you miss the rope and end up dangling from a chandelier.

Anyway, I don't like to rely on too many different kinds of rolls because I want my players to get a feel for what kind of odds their actions have. If they're fairly confident they can guess what I'll ask them to roll they get a better feel for being 'in' the world.

Plus, the less mechanisms I have to explain the better!

Differentiate races

This is a game about the end of the fourth age. Humanity is in it's twilight. Demi-humans represent the split species of hyper-specialized humans. This is after the end of the age of space travel.

The game is about humans. Placing limits disincentivizes demihuman PCs and forces them into a support, foil, or side-kick role of human characters. We can learn more about the human condition by having a few inhuman characters but not too many that they lose their otherness.

 You need to meet the attribute requirements to quality to be a demihuman. This is also their prime requisite. Each race also has a number of special abilities.

Demi-humans max out at level 6. If they meet Prime Requisite limit is boosted to 8.

 

The Fiia- Cha 9

Class as Fighters. Saves start at 4th level.

A secluded race of cheerful pigmies who make their homes in sunny valleys. Halflings abhor violence and discomfort. Most other races view them kindly and enjoy their songs and earnest disposition.

Luck: call for re-roll on any dice roll once per game. (Zoldag casts Fireball, the spell fizzes causing only 9 damage. Mikeal the Small uses his Luck ability to let Zoldag re-roll for damage. 6d6 = 28 damage!)

Blending in: halflings gain +3 on action rolls to hide in woodland settings, and +2 to hide indoors. 

Archer: Fiia gain +1 to-hit bonus on missile attacks

Tiny: halflings gain +2 AC vs Giant-size or greater opponents.

Homeward - as long as they're on the same plane, Fiia always know the direction of home.

Soulbond - a special bond may form between a Fiia and another being, allowing them empathic connection over any distance. If a soulbond is broken both partners die.

Clayfolk - Con 9

Class as Fighters. Saves start at 4th level.

Clayfolk are rugged, dire people who carve their hidden lairs into the stoney cliffs of the silver desert. Tribal merchants, hunters, and animal handlets par excellence, clayfolk caravans are a common sight.

Tireless: clayfolk can go a week without food or water before taking strain damage.

Animal friend: clayfolk gain a +3 action bonus when wrangling, taming, calming, or riding animals.

Giant killer: due to cultural rituals involving purple worms, clayfolk gain +2 AC vs Giant-size or greater opponents.

Stone tongue: clayfolk may converse with nearby stones, though they may be slow to answer and lack knowledge of anything outside their realm.

Aeleph - Wis 9

Class as Fighter/Magic-Users, combining best attributes & total XP values of each.

Aeleph are strange off-world beings descended from space faring folk, often known as witch-men. They tend to be more technologically inclined than others. Their cities are cloaked deep within swamps and forests.

Keen eyes: can project their consciousness in any direction up to one mile, can hear as well as see. Lasts 1 minute.

Firstborn: elves gain +2 action bonus when searching for hidden things and when attempting to comprehend ancient technology.

Combat training - Aeleph keep a strict warrior code known as Bushindin. They fight with a pair of specially made longswords, rolling with advantage on attacks. Additionally, they wear no armor, instead practicing dextrous dances to evade attacks. Aeleph lower their AC by one point every other level.

State of the World

 It's been hard to get a game going reliably lately. I refuse to play games over voice chat. That defeats the whole purpose of having a game; to make bonds between people in my life. I don't consider the internet 'my life,' in fact I do close to zero percent of my social interaction online.

In the meat zone needs of the family tend to take precedence over gaming. I find it interesting that the OSR is mostly childless 20 somethings or pushing the 60s without much between. Seems all the childed folks tend to take multi-year breaks or disappear after a short burst of activity. I wonder what drives these folks. I know what drives me: the need for a creative outlet. 

My original intent was to marry my family life with my need for artistic creation while simultaneously creating a fun thing to do as a group.

It staggers around the sidelines and slowly survives. I've got a new baby in the works. That typically kills "outside activities"; d&d has become my poker night. A disruputable activity to my wife, but a needed outlet and opportunity for socialization

Yes, even a total morlock like me needs friends. 

Psychedelic Fantasties #1: Beneath the Ruins Play Report

 I ran Beneath the Ruins for my players and here's how it went.

We have a little hex-crawl sandbox going. I needed some science-fantasy dungeon for the ruins they were going to explore--reports of mutants raiding caravans. Needed something good. After stagnating on my own dungeon for two weeks I just bought this off DriveThru for $1.77, which is about as much as I feel I can spend on a dungeon without feeling buyer's remorse if it sucks.

I needed a main entrance with mutants and a secret entrance the players could find by investigating. This dungeon has neither. Instead it's an entrance to a 'mythical underworld' type mega-dungeon complete with stygian boatman demanding single GPs in payment.

What it does have, though, is science-fantasy stuff, laser guns, mystery cults, and mutants, which is what I wanted.

At the start of session 2 players knew there was a secret entrance, but they hadn't found it yet. On the way back to the ruins they met a bunch of goblins holding a meeting in an abandoned building and after some tense negotiations discovered the goblins had a plan to raid the ruins themselves. Decided on the plan that the goblins would lead a frontal assault as a distraction, allowing the party to sneak in and try to nab some of that sweet-sweet high tech loot everybody wants (in this world magical items are technology of a past high culture a la Mutant Future). That's the set-up.

 Now, the secret entrance led to the underground lake with the boatman. If the players had gone in the main entrance I would've contrived a staircase down into the Luminite's base.

Players were pretty sketched out by the boatman and considered going back. But eventually let him take them across.

They get into party formation and start exploring. They get to the rubble trap room and at first just the thief is going to check it out (yesss) but last minute the whole party decides to pile in (fuuuucck). They set off the trap and half the team is killed even though I telegraphed it with loose rubble and timbers holding up a wall, and they had seen a cave-in earlier in the dungeon.

Note here that the module describes the trap as 'camouflaged'. This isn't the last time I had to refuse to take the module's advice.

They dig their 10' pole out of the rubble and decide to make judicious use of it from here. They manage to find the secret door and go down the stairs and we have fun roleplaying medieval fantasy characters figuring out sci-fi doors with hand scanners. They fumble around for a while and open a door on Luminites lifting weights, then they run awaaaay. Luminites think that's suspicious as hell and give chase. Players surrender and beg for their lives, Luminites give em a bomb and tell em to blow up the mutants to prove they're really just there for mutant treasure and not, in fact, with the goblins that attacked them on the surface.

Players get lost in the spooky area with the slithering devil after coming thiissss close to incurring its wrath which would've ended in a TPK because the thing is described as super fast and super evil. They find the spooky door bulging with evil energies, argue about using the bomb on it, and turn back missing out on the only area of the dungeon that has any treasure worth getting killed over. Headed north into the caverns they spend a fat portion of the game going from room to room, lost in caverns, with nothing to interact with. Random encounter happens with a slow moving enemy, they run away. Investigate a bit more, another surprise enemy, they run away. Oh look this room makes loud noise better leave. Oh look this room has yellow grass that doesn't like light better swim in a hole then leave.

 The players are having fun through all this because they don't know any better. They just dumb players. It's me who is trying to figure out what I can do to make any of this interesting and cohesive for myself. The module is constantly getting in the way of this. I could've done more if the rooms were keyed less because I'm an imaginative human. There is seriously not much to work with here. The enemies are either 3' worms or 3' crickets or friendly. Friendly people like to have conversations and conversations are only interesting if one side can help the other, but what can a 3' carnivorous cricket do? The crickets are described as 'monstrosities' and murderous, but also they won't attack right away? and can understand language? Why is everything friendly? Why are there no treasures?

 And the yeast-grass place where the mutants grow their food. The designer offers for you to use sanity checks when the players see it. Why? undulating smelly yellow grass isn't that weird. It's not even the weirdest thing in the dungeon.

I've seen other reviewers praise this module for its clean design and usability at the table. I disagree. I read the thing twice and went through with a highlighter and took notes for three days before the game and none of that really helped me. I ran the thing mostly from memory because I kept flipping pages trying to figure out what the enemies did, where there were sights and smells to be had, if there was something interesting buried under the lines of text and harmless encounters, and if one room had some connection to another. I was grasping at straws and could've done more stuff if I had thrown the module away and just made up everything.

There is a ton of rooms dedicated to the factions, which are the center of this module. The Luminites have the largest holding and are almost guaranteed to be the first ones the players run into. There's no clear reason in the module as to why these groups hate each other, as they're both described as being friendly and welcoming to outsiders. I decided that their mutual-hatred was over ideological differences, the Luminites are miniature Elon Musks that worship Science! and the mutants are superstitious. 

That's fine, factions are fun, but there's not much dungeon in between the factions. Most of the wandering monster encounters take place in zones controlled by factions, which doesn't make sense, even if it's a 'mythical underworld'. 

Another portion of the dungeon is super dangerous and has spooky ghosts and no random encounters. This is where the bulk of the treasure is but the dangers were too much for my players and they noped out of here.

In the end they were captured by the mutants and were being taken to their lair when they arrived at the sinkhole which is described as being easy to climb for the mutants but a death trap for the players. Now we're at an impasse. The mutants want to take the players to see the Shaman, who the players are charged with blowing up, but if I make the players climb down this hole they'll probably slip and die. The players start taking off their platemail and to my surprise the one carrying the bomb (a gift for your shaman!) pulls the pin and kicks it into the pit "Oh no! Oops! Dang! I'm sorry about that!"

The mutants are confused. I'm confused. Even the players are themselves confused. I have the mutants decide these idiots aren't worth their time and tell them to leave or else. The players flee from the caverns, getting lost and chased by crickets on the way, and eventually back to the Luminites.

The Luminites give them a laser pistol and the players decide they've had enough of this place. They leave.

On the way out they're attacked by wandering face huggers and we have the only fun combat of the game that ends with the players running away and waiting for the face huggers to leave. I reason that since the face huggers are ambush predators (like most the enemies here) they don't bother chasing enemies once they're gone.

To delineate, my problems with this module are thus:

• Factions don't make sense, don't have interesting motives.
• Enemies are boring and don't have interesting moves. 
• Rooms try to be weird but mostly end up being boring.
• No breadcrumb treasures to encourage exploration.
• No fun things to experiment with or utilize
• No fun scenery to roll, throw, tip over, set on fire, or jump off of.
• Too many choke points with nothing going on. "Okay guys, left or right? Uhh"
• Text dense, needs some judicious usage of bold italics line spaces, text boxes, and bullet points. Any kind of formatting.

Things the module did right:

• Trying to do something different
• Loops?
• Being excited about itself.
• Not wasting too much of my time with backstory.
  

You can't just not bother to have cohesion, ignore verisimilitude, and call it 'mythical underworld'. Especially if you make a dungeon that is ostensibly about faction play and area control. The Luminites worship technology and collect it, but where are they getting the technology from? The module doesn't say. The Luminites are described as 'not believing the world outside exists', so where the fuck does the technology come from? This isn't an interesting question that's answered in play, it's a roadblock to coming up with a reason for the Luminites to exist at all. You could just take them out and replace their entire area with random monster encounters and pit traps and probably have a great time.

Final comment: Aside from all this bitching, my players did in fact have a good time. They were mostly unaware of my struggles as a DM. I have an inkling that a more experienced DM could probably have pulled something more cohesive out of this.