Unused parts - Reduce, Reuse, Recycle?

Lately, I've been reconsidering the amount of work I put in my campaigns.

As an example, let's talk dungeons. No matter if you create your own, use a published module or random tables, I expect you to have a minimum knowledge of the thing you're running.

The problem is an interesting dungeon has lots of content - and, while the players will probably never see half of it, the GM has to at least give it some consideration.

It is not just the ignored rooms and secret doors that were never found - it is also the NPC with relevant information that the PCs immediately attack, the writings in languages no one speaks*, random encounters/events that do not happen, maybe even the villain monologue that gets interrupted, etc. 

[*For example, I ran Tamoachan the other day and it has SEVERAL writings and dialogues in "Olman" or whatever. Nowhere in the adventure summary I found any warning for the GM about that. I might have missed it. I used both the 1e and the 5e version].

This is what I call this "unused parts".

It seems that the DM will always have a lot more work than the players - the fun part, for me, is that during the actual game (my favorite part) I can sit back and see what the PCs do, as a neutral referee, without having to author anything.

While I love the sandbox format, I think it encourages "unused parts". A sandbox needs huge unexplored parts, and the freedom to allow PCs to go where they want. I takes the GM a lot of work to create or get acquainted with an entire setting.

Here is an example from X I've seen today (from @ericbabe3):

The PCs decide to follow the main corridor, found the treasure behind a secret door, and left. All the work the GM had choosing this module and reading it beforehand was wasted. 

I definitely LIKE the fact that the PCs can do that.

But how to deal with all those unused parts?

Let's see.

- Force them on the PCs (quantum ogre). This is just putting each encounter/trap/room you want to have in your game in front of the PCs, no matter which door they choose. I dislike this - it makes PC's choices meaningless and ruins any sense of surprise for me, the GM, as I know exactly what will happen.

- Randomize everything (random ogre). Roll 1d6 to put a random trap in front of the PCs, no matter which door they choose. Like the example above, it makes PC's choices mostly meaningless, and you still have a few traps/encounters that will simply not happen.

- Talk to the players beforehand. In my sandbox, the PCs can go anywhere, but I need at least a vague idea on where they are going. I've scattered several dungeons around the map, but I can't read - let alone remember - each one. So I just ask before the next session about where the PCs intend to go.

This is harder to do with dungeons. Depending on the size of your dungeon and your sessions, maybe you can read only a few levels beforehand.

- Minimum prep. Just do the bare minimum:  give a quick glance to the module and read the entirety of the room IF the PCs get there. This is what I've been doing, but it has led to some confusion on occasion, when the module is not clear enough and I'd need more time to understand. For example, I was once running a module that gave the PCs an "Amulet of the Phoenix" that was simply not described anywhere. I had to improvise in a case of life or death (that deserves a post in the future). Later I found out there was a "Talisman of the Phoenix" or something in the magic item list.

Another example: There are huge unmapped areas in my sandbox that are simply called "giant territory", "goblin territory", and "undead territory". No dungeons in most of these areas - I'll detail them when the PCs get closer, but they at least have a vague idea on what to expect and can make meaningful choices.

- Zooming in an out. Another way to think of this is "zooming in and out". Ideally, modules should be prepared in such a manner. You should be able to get the clear picture from a sentence or two, preferentially in bold, and the have other paragraphs describing what may happen if the players do X or Y.

Any important secrets or details must also be emphasized/ marked to make sure the GM will not miss them.

Likewise, for a overland map, with hexes or otherwise, you could have brief descriptions of each are and then a more detailed description - with a corresponding map - later on.

I know there are several attempts to do that in OSR games. I never read a module that really stands out in this manner, but I'm always searching! Have you? 

- Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. This is especially important if you're creating your own stuff.

Reduce: make it terse, keep prep to a minimum. Don't fill all the details, just create whatever you want to inspire you. "This room has two sleeping ogres, Torg and Gurps, not aggressive but starting to get hungry".  If the PCs kill them while they sleep, you haven't wasted much details.

Reuse: have recurring NPCs and factions, and let they repeat their tactics/traps/behavior sometimes. Let the PCs go back and forth in your wilderness maps. PCs usually need a home base that will be more detailed than other cities. 

Some times, the PCs will enter the same dungeon multiple times (although it is useful to consider how the dungeon changes as they come and go). In my latest "haunted castle" adventure, the undead simply rose again every night.

Recycle. Traps/rooms/encounters that are cool and unused can be kept for later. This is not a "quantum ogre" thing. The PCs must have the option of ignoring it again. You have to deliberately change where the thing is placed, and you have to do it carefully -  the new place must make a last some sense.

Let me know in the comments if you have any other methods to deal with unused parts!

Spell points revisited

When I wrote Alternate Magic, I tried to keep it very compatible to BX / OSE. 

Here is what I've been using. A spell costs 1 SP per spell level.

As I've mentioned there, the goal was: "At low levels, this is nearly identical to the existing rules. At high levels, casters gain some versatility (they can cast the same spells more often) but they can memorize and cast fewer spells."

Lately, I'm finding this system makes high-level casters even more powerful in some aspects. In my defense, I still think they are OP to begin with, as I've said many times in this blog.

Am I overthinking this? Maybe SP are just not compatible with fireballs. Maybe LotFP was right in simply removing it.

Anyway, here is where I am now:

My PCs are about level 7-8 currently.

A 7d6 fireball destroys pretty much any random wilderness encounter. If you're checking once a day, the MU can always have TWO of them. But I'm using spell points, which makes things much worse.

Likewise, Cure Light Wounds (the baseline Lvl 8 cleric has 3 every day, plus 2 CSW - about 7d6+7 healing) can cure most non-lethal wounds. Using SP gives the cleric even more healing power.

Fortunately, I nerfed the cleric in other ways (a level 7 BX cleric should have raise dead; I use the BECMI progression instead).

(And boosted fighter/thieves. The B/X fighter and thief would have about +5 to hit, plus a magic sword, while the cleric gets raise dead, better saves, and also beats the thief at AC and HD).

Anyway, I still LIKE spell points, but in my next campaign I'm probably limiting them to 2 SP per level for MUs and 1 SP for clerics. Both learn one new spell per level.

So, a 8th-level cleric can still cure a lot of wounds (8d8+8 HP), but he can do nothing else that day. 

A 7th-level MU has four fireballs - still a lot, but after that there is not much else he can do.

(I allow MUs to use swords, they might need it).

What is more, they don't recover all SP overnight. Like wounded fighters they need a few days of rest. 

I've been using "you recover one fourth of maximum HP per day, round up", something I got from SotDL, so maybe use that for SP too.

Anyway, this is not perfectly compatible to B/X (or OSE), as it makes casters a lot weaker. But I think this is necessary to make the game grittier and more balanced.

If you prefer the original feel (MUs start weak and get incredibly powerful), you can keep the original table. For a dark fantasy or S&S feel, this is probably better.

30-mile hexes

I've considered several hex sizes before. Today I will think about 30-mile hexes.

Look at this map (source):

The hexes are about 31-miles each (31 miles across, with sides about 17.32 miles).

Good enough so they can fit all major cities and the shape of Italy is still recognizable.

You'd need to add several random villages and things (ruins, caves, castles, lairs, etc.) to each "empty" hex.

The whole country could be described in 150 hexes or so - sounds reasonable to run an entire campaign., maybe giving at least one page to each hex. And EVERY hex could have one or two interesting features.

At this size, I think you could just give the map to your players. If your setting is anything like medieval Italy, it wouldn't be hard to know the general direction of Verona or Genova. 

Rome fits in an hex, but does not FILL it.

You lose some interesting detail; the map doesn't show you Venezia (Venice) as an island, nor the Lago di Garda (the largest lake in Italy - with an area of 143 square miles, it would fill one or two 6-mile hexes).

According to google maps, you can cross the entire country (from Bova Marina to to Milano, for example) on foot in 302 hours (1310 km, 814 miles).

Apparently, "Google Maps uses average walking speed of 5km/h to calculate walking times" - which is 3.1 MPH.

This is NOT a straight line, and while there are many more roads in modern days, ancient Rome had several, as you can see in this interesting site:

https://orbis.stanford.edu/

OSE says "the number of miles a character can travel in a day is determined by dividing their base movement rate by five. For example, a character whose base movement rate is 120’ could travel up to 24 miles in a day."

Of course, if you travel 24 miles a day, you might as well use 24-mile hexes (although maintained roads will increase travel speed by 50%).

Anyway, that is 34 days to cross Italy on foot.

This will probably result in around a dozen encounters - most of them avoidable or uneventful.

Most expeditions will NOT require you to cross the entire country, of course.

What I'm thinking is that hex travel requires a huge map to be meaningful.

And MAYBE it requires RE-USING hexes. Getting lost, searching several hexes for a landmark, etc.

In my current campaign, the hex map only made sense when the PCs went exploring beyond the limits of the know regions, where there are no more cities or roads.

Herein lies an important distinction others have mentioned: do you want a map for EXPLORATION or TRAVEL? 

Maybe these should be distinct procedures.

Another thing to consider is "Medieval Europe x Old West USA", and which influenced D&D hexcrawling the most. 

I reckon Europe is too dense for most D&D settings. Mapping the USA would require more than 120,000 6-mile hexes, or around 5,000 30-mile hexes (Europe is of a similar size, but in the 1400s-1500s the population of Europe was more than 10-20 times bigger).

Maybe you should consider this BEFORE choosing hex size...

For now, I'll say that big hexes look better for travelling, and you can always sub-divide them as needed when PCs go exploring (or settling in) a particular area.

Additional reading:
https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2024/04/how-big-is-6-mile-hex.html
https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2019/06/osr-sienas-6-mile-hex.html

Make your own D&D skill system!

The various D&D skill/ability systems vary in how much they rely on ability scores and level; some abilities (e.g., forage in B/X) are unrelated to both things.

We could discuss endlessly about which way is better. I like a mix of both. Should a 15th level fighter be equal or better at foraging or knocking down doors than a 1st-level fighter?

Well, you can decide for yourself. Here is how.

Give a rating, from 0 to 5, to assess how important you think ability scores are. Do the same for levels - the sum should be 5 most of the time. For example, if you think ability scores are much more important than levels, you can rate abilities 4 and levels 1.

Simply multiply your ability score and your level for the number you chose, sum it up, and you have your percentile of exceeding.

For example, if you have Strength 12, Level 5, your chance to knock down a door would be 53% (12x4+5x1).

Note that you could choose in a case-by-case basis, e.g.:

- Open doors is mostly strength, but pick locks requires more levels/skills.

- Picking locks could be Dexterity improved by only 1% per level for all classes except thieves, that get 5% per level. Same for forage and rangers.

- For tasks that are too easy or too difficult, just double or halve the percentages.

This requires some adjudicating and math, but it is overall a decent solution because:

- It is quite instinctive and easy to grasp.

- Every ability point and every level matters.

- Heroes get better at EVERYTHING, if only slightly.

- It replaces thieve's skills quite well and also gives a clear answer to "what if you're not a thief"?

- Adds no complexity to the character sheet.

I'm tempted to say each level gets you at least 2% better at (basically) everything, with each ability point giving you 3% as a starting rule.

(Even better, for some old school flavor, each score could be paired with a percentile; Figgen, pictured above, has Strength 13/55%, but we'd probably need to write down some skill percentages. Or just allow "trained" PCs to "flip" the dice, so they can count a 73 as a 37, for example, which gives the thief spectacular odds, or use some kind of "advantage" system, or just add 25% chance if trained, etc).

I'm also tempted to create a whole system out of this, with fighters improving their attacks 5% per level, plus percentile magic and saving throws... but I probably won't.

So, anyway, if you needed a new skill system (we have a few dozens, and we only needed one...), you've got it.

Additional reading:

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2023/10/you-cant-solve-bx-skills-and-checks.html

https://methodsetmadness.blogspot.com/2024/10/skills-another-thing-that-old-d-got.html

Skills - another thing that old D&D got (mostly) right?

When I was still interested in contemporary D&D, I noticed that there are only a few skills that are not necessarily equivalent to ability scores. 

- Nature.

- Arcana.

- History.

- Medicine.

- Sleight of Hand.

- Perception? (mentioned here).

Forget Sleight of Hand for now; an agile PC picking pockets or opening locks is a strong archetype, despite the fact these are completely different skills in reality.

An indeed, in AD&D a thief with high Dex gets some bonuses to both picking pockets and locks.

Nature would include things like foraging, hunting, orienting, and tracking. In old school D&D, the first three are just X-in-chances, unrelated to ability scores (or class, level, etc.). AD&D adds tracking to rangers, but not much else.

Perception would include things like hear noise and finding traps. Modern D&D ties this to Wisdom, but there is no reason to think a wise cleric is more perceptive than a quick-thinking warrior or a sly thief.

The AD&D thief gets no Dex (or Wis) bonus to hear noise, but curiously gets a Dex bonus to find traps... A mistake, IMO.

Then there is Arcana and Medicine. These are not skills in B/X or AD&D - they are just things the mage and cleric are supposed to do (although using spells instead of skills).

Finally, there is no skill for lore - players discover that by themselves, not characters.

I don't have much of a conclusion here. Except that, maybe, some skills work nicely with ability scores, while others could simply IGNORE ability scores. 

In a modern game, having two types of skills would look strange - in contemporary D&D, for example, basically ALL d20 rolls include some ability score (attacks, saves, checks/skills). I'm not sure I'd do it myself. But it is something to consider, as it seems to work quite well in old-school D&D.

Martian Community Hexcrawl

As you might know, I've been a bit obsessed with Barsoom lately. 

While I haven't managed to write my own version of the setting so far, I've been invited to an interesting project, the Martian Community Hexcrawl. Here is part of the blurb:

This is a game jam for us to all to contribute hexes to an OSR-compatible hexcrawl  set on a science-fantasy, sword-and-planet style-”Mars”. After the game jam ends, a compilation of everyone’s work – with the caveat that I will edit it and may reject some submissions for not meeting the criteria – will go on sale. All accepted contributors will get 1 share of the 1st month’s sales profits for each 1 hex that they contribute. After that point, any further sales will go to me as the editor. Everyone retains the rights to do whatever they want – including republishing – with their own work, as well as rights to use the other contributor’s work IF AND ONLY IF they are doing so in the context of releasing their own version of the Martian Community Hexcrawl with at least 50% of the word count of their version being specific to their version. 

Anyone can participate, and there are already a few very cool hexes for you to check out.

It's been a while since I participated in community projects, but I really like the idea. I'll see if I can come up with something to add to this project... in any case, check it out and see if you can contribute too!

Three-dimensional growth and thieves

 As I've mentioned before, mages gets better in three "dimensions" as they level up.

- They get more spells.

- They get better spells.

- The spells they already have (e. g., magic missile) become more powerful.

To do something similar, the fighters need:

- Better attacks (i.e., bigger "to-hit" bonus).

- More attacks.

- The attacks get better (i.e., more damage per attack).

Not hard to do at all, especially if they get magic swords and other weapons.

(Although these things are not exactly the same - spells can attack and open doors and deceive and carry stuff, while attacks can only attack. OTOH spells are limited by spell slots while attacks are not, although the MU gets more slots as he levels).

But what about thieves? I guess they should get:

- More skills.

- Better skills.

- Improve the skills they already have.

This is a bit harder to do. 

The B/X thief gets better at their skills. They do get a couple of extra skills as they level up (reading languages and casting from scrolls - which don't get better), but these are rare (the MU gets new spells every level).

Giving thieves "skill points" like LotFP is helpful - now they can distribute them freely between "new skill" and "get better at skills you have" (well, to be precise, they don't really get new skills, since every skill starts with a 1-in-6 chance, but... it could be done if you add new skills to the game that you can only access through "points").

Still, while you get better chances of success, your successes are always the same. 

So, you get better chances of hiding or climbing - but you don't usually get to hide more people nor do you climb faster as you level up. You open locks more often, but not any faster, etc.

This is "fixed" in modern versions of D&D, but not B/X or AD&D.

One easy way to change that is adding "critical successes" of some kind for thieves' talents.

For example:

If you're using 1d100, "doubles" are now criticals. For example, if you can climb twice the distance or at twice the usual speed, and if you hide you can attack once and remain undetected.

Conversely, you could just add modifiers to these skills. "Attack and hide" imposes a -30% penalty, for example.

Even better, you could use some kind of synergy for thief skills, allowing some skills to affect others.