Dwimmermount Town Procedures (Muntburg)

My current Dwimmermount campaign, as I have stated it on this blog, is exclusively focussing on the exploration of its tentpole megadungeon. The surface world merely serves as background; even its history is just a bag of clues to the dungeon (like how the red metal called areonite was used mostly by the Eld, who were great sorcerers, thus encountering something made of that is a sign that there might be magical traps around).

The base town of Muntburg is a place where characters go to sell their hard-earned loot and replenish their supplies of torches, helmets, and hirelings. In order to make these things expeditious yet interesting, we have been using some simple rules (namely that items were limited to a stock of 6 in the market per session and the Meatshields random henchmen generator), but they got boring soon. I wanted something that offered more player agency in the form of a simple mini-game.

Note: The numbers were written with Kazamaták és Kompániák in mind, which means it should work with S&W, LL, and the rest with no or minimal modification.

Dwimmermount - Session 3-6

I suppose it is time to update my blog with the most recent events of our face-to-face campaign; fortunately, my players have been keeping quite a detailed log of deaths, accomplishments, and all sorts of things related to this game, so this shouldn't be too taxing on me.

The party have explored most of the first level (Path of Mavors), including the kobold lair - where Éöpl cut a sweet deal with the forces that secretly lead these poor creatures -, the orc-controlled parts of the Laboratory, and most recently a good chunk of the Reliquary, where they met strong undead creatures, and a strange room of forgotten technology guarded by hobgoblins.

Revisiting My AS&SH House Rules

Even though I am running a monthly Dwimmermount campaign in the capital (for which I still have to write up the latest session report, repopulate some areas in the dungeon, and create a short side quest based on the treasure map the party found on the first level), I'm entertaining myself with the possibility of starting another AS&SH campaign, this time in my home town.

First, let's see the house rules of the previous campaign, copied from the AS&SH page (which I'll probably replace with the content relevant for this new campaign, anyway, so this post is also sort of preservative in nature).

Dwimmermount - Session 1-2

Shortly after abandoning our Anima Prime game mid-campaign (on which I still intend to write a blog post; I just don't know when), we started another old-school campaign focussing on exploration. As a tent pole of the campaign, I chose Dwimmermount, a megadungeon I have recently reviewed on this very blog. Our system of choice was the under-development second edition of Kazamaták és Kompániák, a Hungarian retro-clone of B/X D&D.

Review: Dwimmermount

This is a review of Dwimmermount; something, I started working on the day I received my copy, but then I got distracted. Now it is finished, for better or for worse. I tried my best to make it as spoiler-free as possible, but still, read further at your own risk. Lastly, I present my personal thoughts regarding Dwimmermount as a whole, hoping that the Reader may see through my rambling and understand what I am trying to say.

Note that I am not interested in the discussion of the product's controversial history and Kickstarter campaign; the past is the past, and I firmly believe that the product can nevertheless be judged upon its own merits or lack thereof.

Abolishing "Save or Die" Mechanics

I have talked about my dislike for the "save or die" mechanics; they disrupt the pattern of combat by introducing ways of overcoming ablative hit points and deciding the fate of characters on a single die roll. In this post I would like to present a number of ways to eliminate such "save or die" mechanics from D&D-esque games, enumerating their respective advantages and disadvantages, as well.

Children of the OSR

Earlier I talked about some of the cool OSR stuff that was in the making (here and here). Some of these fantastic products have been released since then, and due to there awesomeness, I feel obliged to tell you about them. Also, there are a couple other things I have found, so I added them to the list below, as well. 

AS&SH Random Encounters

For our ongoing AS&SH game I have been using random encounter tables of my own design for quite some time. I decided to share the three tables used so far with both my players and fellow gamers.

Although these tables could be used for all swamp or plains areas, I quite like the idea of personalised encounter tables for different areas, so that not all swamps are completely alike.

You may find the three tables here:

• Dagon Bay (Swamp) 
• Larchmere Yys (Plains)
• Zangerios Islands (Sea)

Note that on land I roll an encounter check per every 4-hour period (so 4 "day" and 2 "night" checks), while only twice a day on sea. Since an encounter occurring has a 1-in-8 chance on land (and 1-in-6 on sea) and because not every encounter necessarily leads to combat (fearsome foes can be avoided or sometimes negotiated with), it is actually not that harsh. Sometimes it, I must add, but I never really liked the 10-minute day adventuring, anyways.

Summary of the Year 2014

It's been quite an alright year for me; somewhat less okay concerning blogging and gaming. I didn't post nearly as many as last year (24 vs. 42), nor did I play as much (22 vs. 32 sessions in 12 vs. 11 games).

The all time favourites on the blog as of now are (1) my AS&SH review, (2) Starting a Megadungeon Campaign, (3) GMC rules changes summary, (4) Rappan Athuk - Session Zero, and (5) Alternate Rule for Paralysis.

What follows is a list of games I played or ran this year, other game-related things I did, some things I wanted to do but did not, and, finally, my game-related plans for the next year.

Happy New Year, everyone!