Adding Too Much to My Adventure. When is Enough...ENOUGH?

Well, what was supposed to be a quick mini-dungeon using the DAGGER FOR KIDS rules turned into a bigger beast than I had originally planned. My daughter is getting impatient.

I’ve been promising her another round of dungeon crawling for quite some time now, but I have a couple things holding me back: First, my time is limited, so I end up writing at oddball hours and making little headway. Second, I keep wanting to add MORE to the adventure. Meaning, I am slowly walking up the downward escalator.

Sure, I could run her through what is essentially an outline of the adventure (DAGGER is pretty good at on-the-fly ideas), but my need to have all the “t’s” crossed is dragging the creative process out. Plus, dammit, I want this dungeon to be cool…or at least something that will add to her already-piqued interest in playing more and more.

As a side note, the DAGGER rules come with a cool introductory adventure titled “The Vile Worm”. Yes, it is a very tasty mini dungeon, but to me it came off WAY too brutish an adventure for a game meant for kids 5 and up. Again, I like the adventure a lot (and will, in fact, run it someday), but for my kid’s adventure I’m leaning more toward wizards, dragons, unicorns, and gold, and less about giant worms impregnating characters with eggs.  

I’ll wait until she’s 10 before I introduce dispiriting wormy chest-bursters into our games.

So as for my original DAGGER adventure, its working title is “The Disappearance of the Seasonmil Leprechauns”. Rockin’!

Initially, the dungeon was going to consist of a simple three-level tower with a total of 15 or so areas to explore. Complete with the missing leprechauns’ stolen pot o’ gold and the indispensable giant rainbow leading to it, Seasonmil sounds like a nifty mini module for little kids, yeah?

Well then, my head gets too involved, see? After all, the leprechauns’ tower is right outside the town of Seasonmil, which became more than a passing detail within the scenario. So now, with a little influence from Dave Bezio’s new Phoenix Barony setting, I’m developing the town as well. Also, doesn’t EVERY town have that one creepy abandoned house about a quarter mile into the woods? And don’t forget the centuries-old mines, which some of the town’s hunters found while out trapping food. Somehow, the tower, the house, and the mines are all connected and…AHHHH! More oddball hours and the escalator keeps moving…maybe a little faster now.

Let me quickly add that I’m not necessarily lifting things directly from the Phoenix Barony. No, I pilfer from Michael Curtis’ The Dungeon Alphabet. Hee hee! Yeah, I’m doing that. I don’t even care.

Also, I’m drawing in oodles of crazy inspiration from the new Black Pudding zine from James V West. Wow! What a fun piece this publication turned out to be. Even if I don’t use BP’s material directly, just flipping through the zine is brain nourishment for spawning creativity. True dat.

Sorry. Sidetracked.

Anyway, while I’m juggling all these ideas and pouring over my go-to books and blogs for inspiration to help complete this new adventure, my poor daughter just wants to kill some monsters with her dad. After all the promises I made to play with her, it’s time for me to step back and decide that enough is ENOUGH for this adventure and just get it finished.

So I’ll keep to the original idea of the adventure, which includes the three-level tower. I’ll minimize the town setting and strip out the creepy abandoned house and the mines. Those ideas can bloom into their own mini-modules someday.

For those of you who find pleasure in devising your own homebrew adventures, do you find it difficult to swat away fun ideas unnecessary to the main plot of the scenario? How are you able to focus and stay on target, allowing yourself to get an adventure written within a reasonable amount of time (or at least in time for your next gaming session)? OR, do you say “screw it!” and, timing be damned, add any and all awesome ideas that pop into your noggin while in the throes of dungeon writing?

For me, it’s difficult to put on the breaks, but if I don’t, I’ll NEVER get to play…and as a consequence, neither will my daughter.

My daughter, new dice, and rules-lite gaming

Hello again!

So it’s been nearly six years since my last post. My time off from the hobby wasn’t particularly interesting, but while chugging along with the unstoppable beast known as Real Life, I kept myself busy with other endeavors, all which eventually came to an end. It was fun while it lasted, though, I’m telling’ you.

Throughout this time, there were passing words of interest to start up a new Labyrinth Lord game with my old gaming buddies, but such pleasures never came to pass. I still maintained an interest in the hobby (however minimal), and bought the 5e Starter Set and downloaded the Basic Rules. I really, really dug ‘em and figured if I start up another game, I’d definitely incorporate some 5e ideas in my Labyrinth Lord game.

Still, it never happened. Boo.

So why am I turning the lights on here at the Prime Requisite Games blog? One reason: My 9 year-old daughter.

You see, I DID play the occasional game with my daughter. We might have played our first RPG together when she was 5 or so, using VERY bare-bones rules, such as:

• Class: Fighter, Wizard, or Elf

• Hit Points: 10

• Weapons: Sword, dagger, or bow/arrows

Combat: Roll d6 for initiative. Roll d20 to hit. A roll of 10 and over hits with one point of damage.

Spells: Whatever she could think up.

Ridiculously rules-lite, but the fun for her was her involvement in the story (explore a magical forest, save the princess, kill the dragon, etc.). Plus, she LOVED to roll the dice.

Fast-forward to this past December. It had been almost a year since we last played. Sure, she would occasionally ask if we could play, but there was always something else going on, and eventually she just stopped asking. That kills me. Ugh.

My daughter is an extremely creative girl. She’s cut from the same cloth as those of us who enjoy crafting, writing, reading, and even filmmaking. She WANTS to use her imagination, and if she’s anything like most of us, playing and reading RPGs will only excel her creativity. So last week I kicked my laziness to the side and sought out an RPG my 9 year-old could take on and run with.

My research brought me to Brave Halfling Publishing’s DAGGER FOR KIDS, a wonderful “lite” take on the old-school D&D rules. I snatched up the pdf.

My research also kickstarted my slobbering NEED to play a GAME. I started making my rounds through the OSR blogs and the digital stores to see what news/products I’ve missed. A lot. I’ve missed a lot. Also, I discovered most of the OSR crowd have hightailed it to Google+. Great. I’ll eventually get there, I’m sure.

Now that I have the game system picked out, it’s time to make this OFFICIAL: I need to take my daughter to the local gaming store and have her pick out her very first set of polyhedral dice. You all remember YOURS, right? It’s an awesome moment for the novice gamer, and I was thrilled to share that experience with her.

She was giddy as we opened the door to our awesome local gaming store TableTop Game and Hobby. Before we checked out the dice at the front counter, we took our time cruising the game isles. Her eyes were wide. Mine were equally as wide when I happened upon a copy of the Labyrinth Lord module Idol of the Orcs for $6.00! I tucked that treasure under my arm as we made our way to the dice display.

My daughter must have spent a solid 15 minutes looking over the dice sets before she made her decision on some purple gems. After our dice run, the plan was to hit a couple other stores to pick up a few items, but the effect of the gaming store was overwhelming.

“You want to go home?” I asked.

“YES!” she said, grinning ear-to-ear.

Yeah, we’re gonna go kill some monsters and take their freakin’ treasure!

When you’re beaming with ecstatic anticipation, a ten minute drive home can seemingly take hours. My daughter knew how to pass the time. “Where’s my DICE,” she asked. I heard her pop open the plastic container and afterward, the comforting clicking of poly dice hit my ears. *Sigh*

When we arrived home, we quickly made our way to the dining room table, gaming materials in hand. Housed inside my hardback copy of The Dungeon Alphabet was my handmade rule booklet of DAGGER FOR KIDS, a bunch of DAGGER character sheets, and David Bezio’s short and sweet Labyrinth Lord adventure LOST DAUGHTER (from his original Phoenix Barony setting for Labyrinth Lord).

As a quick side note, Lost Daughter was the first adventure I ran when I first got back into role-playing way back in 2008. So I figure it’s only fitting to run this adventure as a wink and nod to my most recent return to The Game. Plus, Lost Daughter is a slam dunk for on-the-fly conversion to the Dagger game.

We quickly rolled up three characters: Geoff the Knight, Mad-Pants the Dwarf, and Bob the Worm the Wizard.

The Worm and new dice!

Another side note. THIS is why RPGs with kids is so much fun. You see, her character is not named Bob “the Worm”, as in the character is a “wormy” kind of guy. No, he’s a worm named Bob. The Wizard.

While this might get under the skin of some of the more “serious games only” types, I just kept in mind that my little girl just wants to have fun and I want her to run freaking CRAZY with her imagination. Because, why the heck NOT?

So when I ask her, “What kind of character do you want to be,” and she says, “I want to be a worm who is a wizard.” Fantastic. Also, Bob the Worm the Wizard’s “steed” is a giant pig named Pork-chop. Good to go!

For the next two hours, Geoff, Mad-Pants, and the Worm killed some goblins and saved the Lost Daughter. My girl had a blast (as did I). Afterward, she immediately asked, “When are we going to play again?!” (“TOMORROW!” I wanted to say. “And EVERY day after that!!!”)

I’m in the process of putting together an original mini-adventure for the DAGGER rpg, and I’m hoping to set some time for her to conquer it within the next couple of weeks. Heck, if it plays well, maybe I’ll post it. It’ll give me an excuse to keep the lights on a little bit longer around here.

Art of the One-Shot Dungeon: The Adventure

I am one of those unfortunate GMs who can only manage to organize a game once a month - or every other month - due to the time restriction of real life.

Real Life. A concept that didn't fully exist until marriage, kids, house repairs, bills, and the inevitable Real Job (which either one gets because of the situations pertaining to Real Life, or the Real Job forces one into Real Life. It's really a chicken or the egg type of thing).

No matter. All one needs to know is that the beast known as Real Life can really take a chunk out of one's hobbies. I don't care if it's painting, sports, spelunking, or RPGs - Real Life will unapologetically take its unfair share.

So as a time challenged RPGer, I need to get the most bang for my gaming sessions, and that usually means one solid action-filled adventure that can be completed within one night. If we kill the momentum in the middle of a dungeon, having to pick up the pieces again one or two months later...well, that stinks. I hate that. If we had a weekly or bi-weekly gaming session, I could live with an adventure that last three or four sessions.

However, my sessions are too sporadic for such a luxury. Ain't gonna happen.

In order to prepare a one-shot dungeon, I have to understand the parameters of what can and cannot be accomplished in a single gaming session (four to eight hours in length).

1. The quintessential beginning town adventure.

In my youth, I loved starting off an adventure in a town. The inn. Ale. Rumors. Thievery. The supply shop to buy torches (and the "Magic Shop" required in every Monty Haul campaign). The town setting is a great place to Role Play before heading off to the meat of the adventure.

Not in the one-shot dungeon. The town can quickly become a time-eater. Players will get so wrapped up in local affairs, politics, thieves' guilds, and prostitutes, that they will never get to the desired destination: the last room of your dungeon.

Unfortunately, unless the adventure actually takes place in a town, you will need to either strip the city way down or scrap it all together. My modules usually begin in a generic, undefined town, mercilessly devoid of hard details as a simple jump start into the goodies: the first room of my dungeon.

2. Wandering monsters.

Also known as wondering time-eaters. Do you want to burn up enough time so the characters will never find the Lost Artifact of Whatever? Toss in teams of wandering monsters. Even one wandering monster will set your adventure off by one or two "numbered" areas within the dungeon. You will kick yourself when you have to stop the adventure a mere one room away from completion because the party had to take care of a batch of stupid giant centipedes.

To be fair, I do put wandering monster tables in my modules, but I do this for a couple of reasons. 1. Tradition. Can't help it. I rarely use it, but I can't help it. 2. There are folks out there who game frequently, like every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and can afford to eat up some time. I hate them. God bless 'em.

3. A map with tons of areas.

Thankfully, I hate creating maps. Hate it. So, for me, the smaller the map I have to create, the better. A small map with some carefully placed encounters will help to ensure a quick adventure. Also, keep in mind that if you really want to write a one-shot adventure, stay the hell away from labyrinths. Holy crap. I learned my lesson when I test-played the Labyrinth Tomb of the Minotaur Lord (available now in Knockspell #3). It ended up lasting two full sessions and the players actually missed a few numbered areas. Boo.

Plus, watching a player try to carefully map out the twisting passages of a labyrinth is the ultimate exercise in tedious time-wasting. Avoid!

4. The use of intricate puzzles.

Puzzles are great fun. The can add flavor and challenge when well-placed in a dungeon. They can also make players sit around for precious minutes, scratching their chins, while wandering aloud what they should do to solve your ingenious time-eater.

This one is always tough for me because I love to place puzzles throughout my dungeons, so the trick for me is to make the puzzle a bit obvious, but in a way that keeps the characters moving. I don't know how to explain this except that the players will know how to solve the puzzle, and the answer to the puzzle can be found somewhere further into the dungeon, so they must keep moving to other areas until they eventually stumble upon it.

This keeps the adventure moving though other important areas. They make progress until they find the key to the puzzle, and then they can backtrack (which is not too wasteful considering I eighty-sixed the wondering monsters).

5. Fast ending.

While I have no problem saying, "Good job! This one's done!" after the characters took care of the dungeon's final encounter, some players need a bit more closure to the adventure. To accomplish a quick ending, establish what will happen at the beginning of the adventure as to what events will follow after conquering the Temple of Fill-In-The-Blank.

Something along the line of a set reward to be given to the characters after bringing back proof to the citizens of whatever evil that plagued the temple is now destroyed. That way, after the characters sweep through the dungeon, you can have them "instantly" return to town (again, since the trip will be devoid of any wandering encounters), do a quick role-play session with the town officials, and close the book on that adventure.

These are just a few pointers I use. One-shot adventures for the busy adult can be fun (or it can suck, but we busy fellers sometimes have to take what we can get), at least to be able to game, even if it is once every other month.