Observations on Onboarding

The few chances I had to crack open the dusty ol' tomes and partake in adventure gaming has been on the refereeing side of the table. Normally with some green recruits on the other side. Checking my notes on the number of sessions I participated as a Player versus the ones as a Referee, there is about a 1:3 ratio. So I'm more often than not running.

Albeit me favoring the take from someone arriving fresh and new to the hobby, rather than a veteran grognard, I ran into some friction when on-boarding new players. This post is collecting some of my personal Observations on Onboarding (new players, that is).

People come to the table with all kinds of backgrounds and expectations. I've had players that have never watched Lord of the Rings/Game of Thrones/Harry Potter - these are rare but they happen. Even cultural pillars of entertainment media as they were. We need to adjust your Common Framework to the media and stories your players are familiar with.

I still don't know if it's better to a) play on Middle Earth. Or b) Middle Earth with the serial numbers filed off - a la Sword of Shannara. Or c) something completely mashed together from different sources - either kitchen sink style, or with a strong vision from the Referee and buy-in from the players.

And let's face it - TTRPGs are a very strange medium and form of entertainment:

• There are rules, but they are constantly modified and interpreted by the play group during (and outside of) the act of play itself.
• It is assymetrical, because the Referee/Game Master is a special player that carries a lot of weight in the whole experience.
• Depending on the Common Framework, the expectations and knowledge taken by the player to the game will be wildly different. If you have watched or read LotR, you will expect dwarves and elves to be a very particular way in the game world.
  

Accept that you as the Referee/Game Master are the most invested player in the game, by a wide margin. This is the way of things. Accept it! instead of trying to herd cats. You spent hours understanding the rule book. Bought an adventure module, or even worse spent more hours creating one. Even a simple dungeon will take time to muster or understand. Players, especially new ones, see TTRPGs as an alternative to boardgame night. Or chatting over a Netflix show. It's just another form of collective entertainment.

Allow for tactical infinity. Combat is very codified in most Old School systems. It has more rules to it, owing to the wargaming roots of the hobby. Which in turn means that the flow of the game is changed to a turn-by-turn sequence with codified options. The beauty of RPGs however is that you are not constrained by a set of actions (attack/move/cast spell). New players come to the table with a lot of creativity, and few or none bad habits. So outside the box solutions will flourish. Encourage creativity and ad-hoc refereeing. Otherwise we might as well be playing a videogame like WoW or similar.

Stop fussing or sweating about character and story continuity. Say a PC dies mid-dungeon. Don't waste time explaining why their cousin suddenly appears as a replacement character in the middle of the dungeon - they just do. Having Hirelings help in this regard, since they are just replacement characters waiting to rise to the opportunity. If we have 2h to play per week, the last thing needed is time and momentum wasted.

Some questions and situations that have come up in my games more than once:

• "How do I/we win? There is no win condition!? WAT!"
• "Why are rolls so different? Why is opening doors 1d6 roll 1 or 2 (low), but Thief rolls d100. And then hireling reaction is 2d6. But combat is d20 roll high? Why?"
• "What happens if I kill the Mayor?"
  "But hold on, he's hiring you to rescue the orphans from the <Insert Mook type>."
  "I don't care, he's an ass, I stab him."
• "Why do we need Torches? Can't we just use sticks on the floor?" - What follows is an awkward explanation on ressource management, realism, and outdoor survival.

Five Inspirations, Issue 2

In no particular order, and with no cohesive fabric between them, here go five sources that have I have consumed, and provided great inspiration for roleplaying. Go read part 1's five inspirations if so inclined (heck, it's been how many YEARS already?!?!). Each in this new batch is probably worth a post of its own.

As my disclaimer usually goes, these are things that I personally like, paid with my own money, and nobody is pushing them my way. Other than the sophisticated advertisement apparatus of the tech giants, of course.

1. Thorgal

Thorgal is a great comic book read from the early 80s. If I were to describe it in a few simpleton words it would be "soft Conan, padded with historical curious and psychedelic dimension hopping". 

Art is tremendous.

There are enough planar adventures and science fantasy shenanigans. The titular Thorgal traveling to the land of the dead, discovering ruins that are not what they seem at first, etc.

2. Piranesi

The following is an excerpt that starts around pg 29 in the hardcover version:

I saw a vision! In the dim Air above the grey Waves hung a white, shining cross. Its whiteness was blazing whiteness; it far outshone the Wall of Statues behind it. It was beautiful but I did not understand it. The next moment brought enlightenment of sort: it was not a cross at all but something vast and white, which glided rapidly towards me on the Wind.

What could it be? It must be a bird, but if I could see it at such a great distance, then it must be a bird of much grater size than the birds I was accustomed to. It swept on, coming directly towards me. I spread my arms in answer to its spread wings, as if I was going to embrace it. I spoke out loud. Welcome! Welcome! Welcome! was what I think I meant to say, but the Wind took my breath from me and all I could manage was 'Come! Come! Come!'

The bird sailed across the heaving Waves, never once beating its wings. With great skill and ease it tipped itself slightly sideways to pass through the Doorway that separated us. Its wingspan surpassed even the width of the Door. I knew what it was! An albatross!

Still it continued, straight towards me, and the strangest thought came to me: perhaps the albatross and I were destined to merge and the two of us would become another order of being entirely: an Angel! This thought both excited and frightened me, but still I remained, arms outstretched, mirroring the albatross's flight. (I thought how surprised the Other would be when I flew into the Second South-Western Hall on my Angel Wings, bringing him messages of Peace and Joy!) My heart beat rapidly.

The moment he reached me - the moment that I thought we would collide like Planets and become one! - I gave out a sort of gasping cry - Aahhhh! In the same instant, I felt some sort of pent-up tension go out ouf me, a tension I did not know I had until that moment. Vast, white wings passed over me. I felt and smelt the Air those wings brought with them, the sharp, salty, wild tang of Faraway Tides and Winds that had roamed vast distances, through Halls I would never see.
...

This book's setting is ripe for implementation as a depth-crawl, a la Gardens of Ynn.

3. Atlas Obscura

This website probably requires a dedicated post. A trove of inspiration that highlights the most bizarre corners of our planet and history. Temples, shop, sites, curios.

There is also a hardcover book which compiles a good selection of articles.

Because sometimes the most imaginative inspirations are right in front of our own noses.

4. Dead Cells

Not one for videogames, whilst everyone and their mother is raving about Elden Ring and their ilk, I decided to restart an old favorite of mine: Dead Cells. A roguelike metroidvania game, it is part of my holy trinity of essential masterpieces (Hollow Knight and Blasphemous being the other two, thanks for asking).

Once again, I remind myself of how much we can learn from it and others in this genre, when we think of elfgames. Moreso megadungeons.

5. Scavenger's Reign

The implied setting is imaginative to no stop. The planet is the main character, and I was taking copious notes. Will probably rewatch very soon, lots I missed for sure. Go watch!

To Kill Frost Demons

LINK TO DUNGEON

Blurb:

The Village's crops froze overnight. In Midsummer! Tax season mere weeks away, not to speak of the devastating hunger when colder days arrive... The peasants will grant an ornate sickle (worth 500gp) and a stellar word to the Ruler to whoever slays the demons that caused this!

This is a quick 10 room dungeon, as prescribed in this evergreen post.

Instead of providing here the room descriptions and embed it, I went down with this video from Nate Treme to generate the HTML file and slap it into my itch page. At the end of the day, result is the same I guess? Just an exercise for me to start learning the ropes of itch.

Things to do at some point never:

• Better map - I feel equipped to do this with some paper and relaxing japanese hip hop in the backgroud.
• Art of the baddies - maybe I take a stab. Otherwise I will ask a more talented relative I know, see if they are up for it.

The Once and Future King

I recently finished The Once and Future King by T.H. White.

A stitch up tome made out of four different novel, it has been my entry to the Arthurian Mythos. An unorthodox path, I'm sure. Not without its evident flaws, at least it has wet my appetite for more reading in this area.

D&D in general, and OSR enthusiasts in particular, really like to praise the infamous Appendix N. Myself included. Like Lord Dunsany, Lamb, and other works pre-dating the pulpy stories we all know and love, I found portions of The Once and Future King ripe for gaming ideas.

The first third of this 660 page tome is great. Merlin is a hoot, and sadly only present on that portion of the book (the rest of the book suffers for it). It is like a training camp on steroids for Wart (young Arthur). Ripe for ideas for your OSR games - read that part and steal them!

• Turning Wart into a fish by Poseidon, who is full of tattoos and reeks of cigars and the Seas.
• Meeting Robin Wood and his troops. Yes, the name is wrongly attributed in history.
  
• Queen Morgana le Fay being an overweight despicable witch, in her castle made of spoiled meats, lard, and general nasty foodstuff. Brilliant little twist.
• Wart turning into an owl by Archimedes: bieng fed a dead mouse by an owl, under the full moon (? that last bit is my addition)
• Turning into an ant: Wart lies flat between two ant nests
• Invisibility spell by one of the witches: cooking their black cat, and then trying out the resulting bones one by one by sticking them in the mouth. In front of a mirror. It is hard to know which bone is magical, and given their diminute size, the whole process takes a while.

The rest of the tome deals with a romance (between Lancelot and Guenever) which frankly I didn't care about. Many crucial and interesting events are told, not shown (battles and wars, the quest for the Grial, the war against Mordred, etc.). Surely there are many more interesting retellings of the Myth.

OSR: Stonehell OSE Open Table 11-16

Noticed that I never finished this one, was rotting in my drafts folder. This is a continuation to the general notes on sessions 1-10, about 6 additional session of Stonehell. Note that each session was about 3 hours, excluding ~30 minutes at the start to buy equipment, get hirelings and generally get everyone in the ElfGaming mindset. We played online via virtual table-top.

The game broke down due to personal circumstances on my end, a couple of years ago. But since players were doing written reports/notes for each session, I can trace back some of those sessions and write down what transpired.

Since then, I've used some bits of Stonehell as individual dungeons in some of my games. Levels 2A and 2C to be precise. Such fantastic books, Stonehell are, they just work like that.

Stonehell spoilers ahead, be warned!

General Game Notes

Players explored many portions of the outdoors canyon and about 60-70% of Level 1 of the dungeon proper. That is but a tiny sample of the thing! I did regenerate content between delves, so rooms would fill up again between gaming sessions, but (after a player cleverly pointed it out) already mapped locations could be traversed at 3 x the exploration rate in B/X / OSE.

Parts explored of Level 1, where most of our games took place

General Game Notes

After each session, one player got the chance of writing a session report for a bit of extra XP. This helped with Stonehell being rather stingy with treasure in the first portions of the megadungeon. And to introduce new players (, or remind existing ones) to what had transpired before. I have my doubts that anyone read these reports, ever. I can however extract some anecdotes from the game:

• Attracting the bear from the canyon is not harmful. And skeletons can be reduced with ease when Clerics with Turn Undead are available in the party.
• Helpful kobolds (yay reaction rolls!) and the talking stone head with laser eyes provide a lot of helpful information early on to the party: where are the (neutral) Korners, where is a significant magic item in the level.
• The party avoided conflict when possible: bribing orcs with food, and having a wrestling match for sport, giving commitments to noble dwarfs, shooing giant rats away by setting rubbish on fire, feeding fire beetles, etc etc.
• Iron spikes were sorely missed with self-locking secret doors. The Keeper of Secrets' riddle was answered with success, granting generous coinage, potions of healing, and a wand.
• One of the most dangerous areas, the crypts of 2B, were treated with the utmost care and respect. There were several kerfuffles with ghouls and zombies. The latter claimed a couple hirelings.
• Party decided to purse "Da Dragon" around session 6. The Thief purchased a chicken with the intent to lure or tame it. And despite successful sneaking efforts, the feeding plot was a disaster. I changed the creature a bit, giving it a gliding ability and two baby lizards. All whilst making the environment closer to a hothouse (aka players couldn't see the ceiling). Still it was a neat battle, and a Light spell saved the day. With 5500gp in treasure, I believe this was the biggest score of the (short-lived) campaign.
• The invisibility trees of the Canyon level almost catches the party once due to a random roll. Would have been a perfect score for the bandits, since the party had a good chunk of treasure. Luckily, the PCs fled with arrows on their heels.
• The Wheel of Fortune claimed a(n unlucky) Halfling, Mylo. Curiosity and foolishness was the end of him. The body is carried back to town, giving a proper burial.
• Green slime was lethal! And one very hard to deal with challenge for the party. Fear the Slime!
• There was a schism in the kobold faction: one loyal to Skiff and the Korners, the other led by a human lady with kobold workers fed up with their conditions. The players latched onto this conflict, but an action/outcome never materialized.
• Players started then to use the Korners as a second base of operations. There were clear indications that Level 2 would be explored in the coming sessions (before the campaign petered), on suggestion of a dwarf noble in search of a dining Hall.
• For some reason the players latched to an encounter with a cow god/spirit. Opening a church to it and moving that agenda forward also seemed to be in the pipeline. I guess it was material ripe for memes :-)
  

General Lessons Learned

• By making fresh hirelings available every week, and any equipment at standard rates (including Plate), the PCs were carrying a lot of material, were very resilient, and rarely challenged by the hardships of the Dungeon. At least that was my impression.
• The feast-or-famine nature of treasure was much commented. I sensed some frustration from the players. But in my opinion, this is a feature and not a bug of Stonehell (and early B/X as an extension).
  
• It is hard to keep up with the Treasure Economy, once it starts to hit. B/X as written has even a 2nd level PC capable of acquiring all the equipment they want, several hirelings, war dogs, etc. Imposing taxes, jewellers and banks, carousing rules, etc. are left alltogether to the imaginative Referee and obscure supplemental materials. And it is often met with resistance from the players. This remains in my opinion a sore point of my games, and I understand why many don't want to engage in Dungeons & Dragons & Accounting if it carves out from your 2-3 hours of session fun-time in the week.
  
• The trip back and forth to the dungeon was hand-waved, but it meant that, for the most part, carrying treasure out was a trivial endeavour. A single overland random encounter check could have made sense here.
  
• We used a Caller role - someone to discuss options within the players, and make final decisions towards me - the Referee. This all in all worked well, especially in online play. With its awkward silences, there is always someone other than the Referee moving things forward.
  

Secret Santicorn 2023: 6 Unusual Spells

Locheil asks for: A table of unusual spells - and no damage spells!

CW: some violent and nasty entries below! Proceed with caution.


1. The Cloth's Confusing Caprice

Toss onto the floor a fellow's handkerchief, bearing their gold-embroided-sigil. Their physical presence and visibility are requisites for this enchantment.

Upon repossession of the cloth, for as long as the fabric is in your pocket, the masses will confuse you with its true owner. This effect does not alter any physical appearance, only external perception.


2. Diabolic Foulish Renown


Inflict severe wounds or death upon three individuals, by your hand or your command.

Hurl the blades responsible for the deed into a well, alongside with three slaughtered chicken.

Henceforth, rumors and whispers of your ruthless malevolence shall echo across the land. Your name becomes synonym with dread and fear. Invitations will start pouring in, from coronations to galas, merchant halls, and any realm you deem worthy.

The effect persists for three weeks.


3. Defilement of the Cosmos


This spell demands an enclosed room. Does not work otherwise; the Sun and the Moon do not approve of your wretched intentions and scorn at your nefarious acts.


All entities and elements within the confines of the room traverse time by up to 11 hours and 59 minutes. The Caster must Save or be transported by exactly 11 days and 59 hours instead. If a one appears on the Save die, the Caster suffers aging by 11 years.

In this temporal flux, wounds will heal or kill. Food spoils or reverts to its raw materials. Plants shrink or burgeon.

Mainly, any consciousness hurtles forward or retreats.


4. Ghoulish Vengeance

Hang the deceased person from a tree for three days.

Insert a piece of jewelry worth at least 5000 gold pieces into their lifeless mouth, consumed by the spell.

Bestow one final kiss upon the corpse, gifting them your breath.

After the elapsed time they shall return to life, adorned with a flower-shaped scar at the place of your kissing. This much is known.

Should they fail to avenge their demise within three weeks, the scar will multiply like a ravenous pustule, transforming them into a devil of equivalent Level. This curse is irreversible and admits no reprieve.

5. Ancestral Family Shame


Kinship with the target of this spell is mandatory. Be it by Blood or by Law. Present either a pound of the former - yours or theirs - or a tome of the latter, this implement is consumed.


The victim gets to Save trying to resist this vile effect. If they fail, they succumb to imprisonment into a pocket dimension for a randomly determined time span. Never exceeding a week.


Fear not! During their internment, an Angel attends to their every need. Their cell is sumptuous: fine dining, wine and spirits, an opulent repose.

Upon completion of the sentence, they return to the location where the spell was cast.


6. The Canto

Upon repeated singing and reciting of ancient psalms, for no less than ten consecutive minutes, the Caster has a beguiling effect on a number of targets equal to their Winters divided by ten.

The subjects are charmed and will see the singer as an idol to be shielded and obeyed.

After a day, the charm effects wane, and the subjects must Save. Failure brings a sense of dread and betrayal to poison their hearts, wishing the worst and even instigating violence towards the Caster. 


2023 Ends, 2024 Begins

I have done a few of these in the past (here and here). It is that time of the year, where Mariah Carey crawls her way back from the dead, we remember Sinatra was a thing, and we reflect on the year past.

This blog has been pretty quiet. That is because there has been very little gaming this past 2023. If nothing else, this drought has shown me a deeper appreciation for the times in my life were silly elf games were my biggest worry, and have reinvigorated me to make a return to them. The luxurious position to be able to revel in gaming. One day.

My free time has been reduced, and also that of my semi-regular group (The Calaveras, from which I've written before). Mental energy to arrange a new group or join an existing one has not manifested. And realistically since online games tend to exhaust me, in-person ones are a beast to arrange with my current life obligations.

Instead I have been avidly reading a decent amount of science-fiction and Russian classics. And I picked up on Magic the Gathering play, which I know is hypocrite given my distaste with WOTC to be throwing them some of my limited discretionary money. As a hobby I'm less invested. It is just so much easier to drop by the local club whenever I can make it, play and have a good time, and not drop by in the next month or two. There is less emotional investment. Less preparation. That is my personal experience.

In terms of role-playing games, my engagement was front-loaded to the beginning of the year. Covered was:

• A dip into two sessions of story games (no GM/master of ceremonies).
• Winter's Daughter by Gavin Norman. With Basic Fantasy
  
• The Sky-Blind Spire by Michael Prescott. With Basic Fantasy
• Microscope (two sessions)
• One-off sessions at the local club: one of the Knock! 2 dust jacket cover [1] adventure, another of Mork Borg (never remember where the umlauts fall).

If some sessions materialize next year, given my recent affinity with science fiction media, I could see myself taking one of {Mothership, SWN, Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells} for a spin.

Be it as it may, I wish everyone a prosperous 2024.

[1] Disclaimer: I got a monster published in that magazine, and got paid for it. They are great books, but take my opinion with that in mind.