Schematic Maps: Another Drawing Experiment

Another experiment in abstract schematic style mapping. This one was done in Word, with "view gridlines" turned on, drawing shapes (text boxes for rooms), and then turning the gridlines off again. Background was added with Microsoft Picture It 9, but any basic drawing program could be used for that sort of thing, really (and there may even be a way to fill in the gridlines in Word to make a background; I need to look into that more).

The small grey boxes at certain junctions are doors. Because room IDs are merely overall descriptors of each room, I'd probably even leave them in on an online players' map. I didn't do secret doors, but I think what I would do for those is have the connector line extend out from the hidden room, but not connect with anything visible to the players. This would let me know where the secret connects, without revealing it to the players (assuming online fog of war). So I wouldn't even need to have two separate maps for GM/players.

Creating a "Casual Corner" in My Game World

It all started when I read some posts at The Alexandrian about running an open table game. I was immediately drawn in with the analogy of "playing catch" vs. "joining a baseball team." If you haven't read it, it's definitely worth your time. A lot of what Justin Alexander says there seemed to apply not just to open table gaming, but to any form of casual play as well.

This came up about two weeks ago as +Tim Shorts and I chatted online, with our regular Wednesday game cancelled for the second or third week in a row. We talked about it and I said I'd toss something "casual" together just so we could sling some dice the following week.

And this is exactly what we did. Tim mentioned my abstract map in his post-game report. And I thought it could be worthwhile to post on that and all the shortcuts I took just to create a "casual corner" in my Ravensburg setting that can be used henceforth whenever a quick pick-up game might be needed.

I still plan to write up more "proper" adventures when my turn to GM for the whole group comes around. But the "casual corner" is something I want to have in my pocket ready to go at a moment's notice any time it might be needed.

A) Choosing a Spot. First I had to pick a "corner" of my setting to use for this purpose. I chose the large dungeon just outside Ravensburg. I've been meaning to create and stock it for a couple years and have just never gotten started on it. So this seemed like the perfect spot to designate.

B) Mapping the Dungeon. I used a very abstract dungeon mapping method, as Tim mentioned in his post. The map looks like this:

Sample of my dungeon map -- the section of level one Tim's character explored.

I assume that all rooms have uniform exits – that is, either all the exits of a room have doors, or all the exits open directly into a corridor. This is not terribly far-fetched, since most rooms in the real world work this way. In fact, all the rooms in my house are set up this way, and it makes sense. A door provides security and/or privacy. It generally makes little sense to provide that at one entry to a given room but not all entries. Likewise, open areas are meant to facilitate the flow of traffic, so again it makes little sense, say, in my dining room or my living room, to have some open exits, while one or more exits have a door.

This assumption makes it easy to color-code the rooms. A solid black room has doors; a white room with just the black border has no doors. A triangle in a room indicates a stairway; pointing toward the top of the page means the stairway goes up; pointing toward the bottom of the page means the stairway goes down.

Anything else, I write in my dungeon key. All rooms are assumed to be "medium" in size (roughly 30' across) unless otherwise noted in my key; so most rooms have no annotation for size. Those that are either small (say 20' across) or large (50' across) are marked "small" or "large" in the key. I'm also assuming rooms are roughly symmetrical; not necessarily exactly so, but more or less. Again, honestly, this is modeled on the rooms in my house – they're all rectangles, but they're really fat, stubby, nearly square rectangles. I assume the same for the rooms in my dungeon, whether they're quadrilaterals, triangles, or other shapes.

Each grid square equals one exploration-speed move, so about 120'.

This speeds up pre-game map drawing considerably (more on that below). It also makes in-game mapping by the players in face-to-face play much less of a chore – I've used a similar system in face-to-face games with my wife, and it works wonders.

C. Stocking the Dungeon. To stock the dungeon I went through the following processes. Bear in mind the point of this exercise was to come up with a quick and dirty adventure environment in minimal time, not to craft a creative masterpiece of artistic adventure design. To that end, I proceeded in "assembly line" style, as you'll see below, and I used Roll20's online random number generator rather than real dice, since with a series of rapid mouse-clicks you can churn out five or six random numbers in the same amount of time it takes to pick up a die, roll it, wait for it to settle, read it, note the result with a real die.

Step 1. Determine total number of levels of the dungeon and divide each level into two to four zones.

Step 2. Use wandering monster tables to determine at random the dominant monster type of each zone.

Step 3. Quicky define the relationship of each zone-based group to the others around it (e.g. friendly, hostile, neutral).

Step 4. Determine an overall "atmostphere" for each entire level – for example, the first level, that Tim began to explore, is made up of smooth stone floors and walls, and the air is unexpectedly cold.

Step 5. Randomly place dungeon dressing in 50% of the rooms. I simply put some form of dungeon dressing in every even-numbered room or every odd numbered room in a given section. That saved me lots of die rolls right there (i.e. I didn't need to roll to see whether or not there was some form of dungeon dressing in the room – the room number dictated whether there was or not). I created my own dressing table focusing on "categories" or "types" of things (e.g. "damaged adventuring gear" rather than "broken lantern" or "frayed rope"), and then quickly just made up the specifics. This kept me rolling on only one table, instead of multiple tables, for all types of dressing – again it saved time in the long run.

Step 6. Randomly determine the general type of contents (empty? monsters? traps? treasure?) for all rooms without determining the specific details of those contents. I did this using the 1e AD&D DMG room-stocking table from the random dungeon appendix. This stocks the room with a single d20 roll, rather than two rolls of a d6 – literally cutting die-rolling time in half.

Step 7. Go back for each room and figure out the exact nature of each monster, trap, treasure. Most monsters are simply the dominant monster for the zone – this again saved time – and aren't rolled for. Once in a while, I'd roll a random one just to avoid total uniformity. For treasures, I just used OD&D's unguarded treasure table, which is much simpler than using the treasure type tables. Occasionally, where it obviously made sense, and didn't require more than a second's thought, I just put a certain type or amount of treasure in a room. Additionally, I tried to make quick ties between the existing dungeon dressing and a creature, trap or treasure in the room, whenever I could do so logically. For example, the dual pit-and-pendulum trap that Tim encountered. In the dungeon-dressing phase, I had already rolled a "pedestal" in the room. In the general stocking phase I rolled a trap result. So in the detail-determination phase, I linked the trap to the pedestal by placing treasure on the pedestal as bait. This, by the way, is why I rolled for dungeon dressing first, and then monsters/traps/treasures afterward, since in many cases, dressing would dictate the exact nature of the other features.

Result: The combination of abstract mapping with assembly-line stocking, single tables, and computerized die rolls let me create the two largest dungeon levels I ever made in record time (or record time for me, anyway). In all, the mapping and stocking came out to 3 minutes per room (I'm phrasing the time scale thus in order to avoid giving away the number of rooms on the levels I prepped). To put it in perspective if, hypothetically, there were 50 rooms on a level (100 rooms total), my total time to map and stock these two complete levels would have been five hours. If, hypothetically, there were 100 rooms on a level (200 rooms total), my total time to map and stock the two levels would have been ten hours.

Experimenting in Ravensburg: Abstract Combat

The final thing I've experimented with in my Ravensburg Swords & Wizardry game with Brie is combat. I've done this in three ways, importing two ideas from The Black Hack, and one idea from Sly Flourish's advice on narrative combat here and here.


Imported Idea #1: The Black Hack's Single Stat for Monsters

One of the ideas I like in The Black Hack is that monsters have one stat – hit dice. Or more correctly, hit dice are the monsters' one defining stat, the stat from which all other stats derive. In other words, hit points, armor, and damage dealt are all determined by a monster's hit dice. This makes things ridiculously simple both in terms of prep and in terms of not having to consult anything in play for monster numbers. I brought this into my Swords & Wizardry game by adapting it like so:

So my stat blocks look something like this: 

Orc (1 HD)    or    Skeleton (1 HD, immune to sleep/charm)

Now I might not use this for bosses or other special monsters, but it's great for all the mooks.

Imported Idea #2: The Black Hack's Distance System

Instead of using actual measurements for movement and weapon ranges, I've brought The Black Hack's four abstract distance bands into play – close, nearby, far-away, distant. Some people question the need for four bands, but the four-band set-up makes sense to me. Close approximates hand-to-hand range, nearby approximates thrown-weapon range, far-away approximates projectile weapon range, and distant represents people and things visible but out of range. Add to that The Black Hack's simple movement rules for switching from band to band and I'm set. This too has worked well as a tweak to our Swords & Wizardry game.

Imported Idea #3: Sly Flourish's Final Fantasy Combat Style.

In his posts on running narrative combat here and here, Sly Flourish gives a number of really good tips for that type of play. One that I carried away into our Swords & Wizardry game was what he calls the "Final Fantasy Battle Layout." The battlemat Brie and I've been using for it looks like this: 

(yes, it's a piece of blank grey felt)

"In older Final Fantasy games, combat occurred between a line of PCs on the right side of the screen and a line of monsters on the left side. There was no movement or engagement between PCs and monsters, the PCs simply chose which they would attack and the monsters did the same. We can arrange our own table layout the same way, using miniatures mainly to show who is up front, who is in the back, and who is enaged with who." – Sly Flourish's Guide to Narrative Combat in Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition

And so that's what we've been doing.

The three of these things combined have really quickened the pace of our play. The other thing they've done is situate the focus of the action in our heads, rather than on the tabletop. Now +Tim Shorts and +Ken H  get to be my second batch of guinea pigs tomorrow night when we take a run at The Black Hack for the first time, which I've set up to run using all the elements from my Ravensburg experiments with Brie.

Sample 3 x 5 Cards

In my last post I talked about using 3 x 5 index cards to plan adventures as Sly Flourish suggests in his book The Lazy Dungeon Master. During a break in our session last night +Tim Shorts asked to see a sample card (which I neglected to include in my original post), so here are four of them. One NPC, one broad location, one pinpoint location, and one information card.

Gustaf managed to smuggle out a message to Olivia that he wanted to talk to her at the Standing Stones. They are located in a place (a broad location) called "The Briars" which Olivia would have to traverse to get to the standing stones (I use bold face on the cards to remind myself when they refer to another card):

As she made her way through the Briars a thunderstorm hit (item 5 on the random list for the Briars). The thunderstorm seemed to be blocked out of the circle of stones. Bright moonlight shone from a calm clear sky within the circle, while the storm continued raging outside it: 

Gustaf appeared in the circle (think Princess Leia hologram), and gave her information (admittedly I had to cheat on this card and use a smaller font):

Olivia left the circle and was attacked by wolves (last point on Standing Stones card) before returning to Ravensburg through the storm.

And finally this is where I keep the cards -- everything always in one place: 

Experimenting in Ravensburg: The 3 x 5 Index Card, or the DM's Best Friend

I got the idea for planning my game using 3 x 5 index cards from Sly Flourish's book The Lazy Dungeon Master. I really liked the rationale behind the concept. The physical space limitation of the card itself forces a DM to really do some triage and prepare only the things that are most important.

My take on "what's important" boils down to actionable information for the players, or broad-brush flavor from which specifics can be derived easily in play. For example, available cover in a location is actionable info for the players; the color of the banners in the baron's hall is not. So I make written note of the former, but not of the latter. Or for broad-brush flavor, "richly furnished" is all I need to write for the baron's hall; details like "bright, colorful banners" or "ornate, gold goblets" derive from "richly furnished" and need not be set down in advance. As +Ken H  has noted on his blog, improvisation does not mean "just winging it." It means having a well-prepared foundation from which details can be extrapolated. That's the whole idea behind this kind of prep.

So here is how I've been using the cards for my own prep so far:

• One location or NPC per card; locations can be "broad" or "pinpoint." 
• Broad Locations (such as a city, a forest, a mountain range, etc.) have a name, a one-line general description and a list of random encounters/events written on their card.
• Pinpoint Locations (a more specific site within a "broad" location, such as a tavern, someone's apartment, a bandit camp, etc.) have a name, a one-line general description, any usable info (e.g. terrain that can be used for cover) denizen stats, treasure, information to be gained in the location. 
• NPC Cards have a name, a one-line description, and a list of information or goods to be gained from that NPC, and stats if needed. 

I'll talk more about both locations and stats in later posts, but strictly in terms of the 3 x 5 card approach, the I'm finding that the method is working quite well for me. It cuts down on prep time (or conversely it lets me get a lot more prep done in the same amount of time). It also gives my game a more spontaneous and less scripted quality. And as a bonus, it's easier to keep track of what info the players have and haven't gotten without even taking notes, since I can just group together the cards location and NPC cards they've visited and set those apart from unvisited cards.

Experimenting in Ravensburg: Three People Can Make a Difference

Experimenting

Running a game for Brie has resulted in a longer continuous game than I've run since high school or college. This in turn has given me a really good chance to analyze my own GMing, find areas for improvement, and experiment with a lot of things. This is the first of several posts where I'll talk about some of my experimentation in our Ravensburg campaign and how those experiments are panning out.

Three People

I never really thought much about connecting the PCs to the world in my game, largely because I've typically run short campaigns and it never seemed too important in that context. As my campaign with Brie ran longer, I thought I should change that. So I asked Brie to come up with three people that her character, Olivia, knew in the world. I specifically didn't have her write a complete character history because frankly I hate those as much as I hate complete game world histories – lots of verbiage and little practical use. Rather I had her just imagine three people she knows in the world and put them in a bullet-point list. They could be anything or anybody. So she came up with:

1. her mentor Gustaf, who taught her magic; 
2. the neighbor's child Chloe to whom Olivia taught archery; 
3. the Cult of Vecna, who were responsible for Olivia's parents' death. 

Conspiracy Theory: From Disparate Hooks to Plot

The other thing that I've tried in conjunction with this is that I initially started the campaign with absolutely no plot in mind. I tossed out a bunch of unrelated adventure hooks, and sat back and watched which ones Brie would have Olivia pursue. After several sessions I decided to pick some of the hooks Olivia had followed and connect them to each other.

So in the early stages of the campaign, Brie had Olivia pursue something like the following six hooks.

1. investigate mysterious occurrences at a dead necromancer's tomb; 
2. deal with goblin bandits near Ravensburg;
3. investigate the activities of a local business woman suspected of being involved with trying to bring the necromancer (the one from hook 1) back; 
4. take out a local thieve's guild; 
5. take down the assassins who killed the elvish ambassador in Ravensburg and find out who hired them to do it; 
6. investigate Bugbear raids on Elvish settlements in the Grim Forest; 

Personalizing the Plot: Three People Make a Difference

From these I picked numbers 1, 3, 5, 6 to weave together along with Olivia's personal connections to the world (I provide here only the info the Olivia currently has of course, in case Brie reads this post).

• Two hundred years ago, the necromancer Dargol was a bigwig in the Cult of Vecna (hook 1, connection 3). 
• The Elders of Briarwood were an alliance of elvish and human mages who killed Dargol and nearly destroyed the cult as well (hook 1); Olivia's mentor, Gustaf, is the last living member of the Elders of Briarwood (connection 1).
• For decades the surviving cultists were too weak to do anything other than seek revenge – killing off the Elders or their descendants one by one whenever they got the chance; Olivia's parents were descendants of the Elders, killed in revenge by the cultists (connection 3).
• Now the Cultists are getting stronger again. 
• Their high priestess, Lilith Tenebris (the business woman), is the one who took Dargol's body from its tomb and wants to raise it from the dead (hook 1, hook 3).
• The Cultists want to ensure there is no alliance of men and elves to thwart them this time; to this end: 

                  --Gustaf is besieged in his tower by the cultists (connection 1, connection 3).
                  --Lilith's second in command, Eileen Pitworthy (a rogue member of the
                     Ravensburg city council) hired the assassins to kill the elvish ambassador
                     in Ravensburg and thus drive a wedge between men and elves (hook 5).

                  --Pitworthy has also hired Bugbear mercenaries to raid Elvish villages in the Grim

                     Forest as a diversion from cult activities (hook 6)

• Chloe is now a guard in the elvish village of the Grim Forest where she and Olivia grew up (connection 2).

Into the Future

Of course this didn't all come to Brie/Olivia as a single massive information dump. She got the info gradually over several sessions. But that's where it stands now. Even though all the previous plot-hooks are now connected, there are still a lot of ways for Olivia to go. Pursue Tenebrith? Pursue Pitworthy? Try to break the siege of Gustaf's tower? Help defend the elvish villages? And whichever course of action she chooses next, there's no way to know how the paths not chosen will evolve.