User avatar
Konungr
Posts: 546
Joined: Mon 10 Jun 2019, 09:39

Re: Running Spire of Qetzel

Sun 04 Oct 2020, 15:46

Image

So there is a sample of the map I would draw for myself.

In terms of the numbers you want for each path, I think you need to keep in mind a couple things.
You want the numbers high enough that the players will have a couple events traveling from one area to another. Less events if you want the 2 landmarks to be close or easy to navigate to. More events if you want the land marks to be far or difficult to get to. You don't want it to be so easy that players think navigating the place is trivial. But you also don't want it so high that they feel like nothing is happening. On the other hand if they make it through a bunch of areas and then suddenly it's taking forever to reach the next one they might start panicking. Is the next landmark just really far? Have they gotten lost? Are they going in circles?

That could be exactly what you want.
 
Mr Oldtimer
Topic Author
Posts: 391
Joined: Sun 14 Apr 2019, 12:01

Re: Running Spire of Qetzel

Mon 26 Oct 2020, 17:20

So, I've ran the Spire and used your ideas for the labyrinth like parts of the site (the actual labyrinth, the burnt downed town and the garden). It went really well, I believe. Rather than making a lot of intricate labyrinth maps myself I googled a few interesting pictures that suited each part and put them on my VTT (we use Roll20 since me and my group of players are scattered around the country since some 20 years). It took us about two sessions to complete that part of the adventure and to my delight, all of my players seemed to enjoy themself all the time. It can be hard to immerse one self for hours on end on the VTTs but they really seemed to stay focused throughout. We will definitely be using these rules again.
Some lessons learned.
I made the three part labyrinth quite big, with a lot of "rooms"/interesting sites. The result was they didn't explore more than half of it. I will continue to build on this to have the right mix of rooms and then perhaps having some pictures to draw from when they end up with the random encounters instead.
It was hard for the players to know how much time they had so they pushed most rolls and never took their time investigating or resting. Now, this was due to the fact they just knew they where in a rush, they didn't know exactly how much time they did have. We found it more interesting if they would have som kind of sense of urgency, thus their choices would be more interesting. Do we stop to rest now or do we need to press on? So, in order to give them the chance of balancing their choices, pace, rest and investigation, I rolled a D4 in front of them and said this is your sense of urgency. If you know you make good speed for a few turns I'll nock off a figure or two from the die but if you linger, rest or have a hard time making up your mind I'll add a figure instead. I told them they wouldn't want it to go higher than four or they'd be too late. So a quarter day rest would increase the dice two or even three numbers, thus they could argue amongst themselves if it was worth the time to search an interesting site, take up a fight, rest or if they had to hurry along. It made for much interesting discussions amongst the players.
A lot of rolls! I let my players roll for themself in all instances except after a fight, when they would argue over which way they came. (It was also an amusing discussion to listen to) So we quickly found out there was a lot of rolls and a lot of pushes in order to make their way through the labyrinth. It got quite boring after a while, especially since they didn't know exactly how much time they had before it was too late to finish this labyrinth. So for our next session I made the players roll for each new site they tried to reach but then I told them what the target number was and they could decide if it was worth to push the roll. If they did reach the successes necessary, I'd tell them the travel took 15 minutes. For each additional success they would have needed in order to get to the new room, it would take them another 15 minutes. Also, if they rolled one or more "1" on any dice, that would make me roll on my own "random encounter table". The more "1"s, the worse the encounter. So, they knew if they succeeded or how many more successes they'd need and could then argue if it was worth the risk of damage to themself and the risk of random encounters. Also, each "line" travelled was finished with only one roll instead of rolling multiple times till they made it. Worked really well. It takes some getting used to, setting the right amount of successes needed to advance to the next room/site though.

So, I'll definitely be using this rule again. Thank you for sharing!
 
User avatar
Konungr
Posts: 546
Joined: Mon 10 Jun 2019, 09:39

Re: Running Spire of Qetzel

Mon 26 Oct 2020, 17:37

Awesome. Really glad to hear it went well.

The system is built with a lot of "sliders" in it. How many successes to reach a landmark. How many landmarks. How long a roll represents. Etc etc... For a dungeon where they are in a rush you definitely don't want to bog it all down with a ton of rolls. Or you want those rolls to properly represent urgency and add to tension.

If they ever end up in a maze without a time limit it can be interesting to dial the requirements up and have more random encounters. Let them leisurely explore and see what happens. But definitely in a rush things need to adjust so they don't feel hopelessly lost and constantly stalled.

Again, really glad you and your group enjoyed it. It's definitely a system that could use refinement but I think it's a rock solid foundation for something that can work well in a lot of situations.
 
Mr Oldtimer
Topic Author
Posts: 391
Joined: Sun 14 Apr 2019, 12:01

Re: Running Spire of Qetzel

Mon 26 Oct 2020, 23:47

I agree.
Also, using the abstract form of a die represent a sense of urgency worked really well when you don't have anything to tie the whole resource management or strict time limit to.

I'll tinker with this some more and will be getting back with more lessons learned after next use. When ever that will be...
 
User avatar
Konungr
Posts: 546
Joined: Mon 10 Jun 2019, 09:39

Re: Running Spire of Qetzel

Tue 27 Oct 2020, 15:26

Quick question, it did FEEL like a maze, right? Like the players had an experience that simulated being stuck in corridors without being sure where they were going or which direction they were heading in? The reason I originally started coming up with this was I wanted to emulate the feel of a maze without any of the baggage and I think thats one of the most important elements.
 
Mr Oldtimer
Topic Author
Posts: 391
Joined: Sun 14 Apr 2019, 12:01

Re: Running Spire of Qetzel

Tue 27 Oct 2020, 19:41

Quick question, it did FEEL like a maze, right? Like the players had an experience that simulated being stuck in corridors without being sure where they were going or which direction they were heading in? The reason I originally started coming up with this was I wanted to emulate the feel of a maze without any of the baggage and I think thats one of the most important elements.
Yes, I believe so. I told my players these rules was for traveling a maze and then I described all parts as maze like. Both the actual labyrinth and the city and garden. I made a point of being clear on this from the start and I found it works beautiful. Also, the pictures I used had lots of windling stairs, narrow streets and alleyways.
At one point, in the city, I had the ruin of a high tower from where they could get a glimpse and a feel for the direction to the silver tower and garden. That made them always go in the direction they knew they had an interesting site. It worked better inside the labyrinth where I had the second room with no obvious exit in the direction they figured to be the center of the labyrinth.
I believe the experience from this is more maze like, compared to last time we had a labyrinth and we used that as a map in our VTT and I had one of the players rushing back and forth just because he wanted to explore all of it. Some parts of that was great as well, like when the monster started chasing them and I had prepared the walls in a way he could break them down and the players realized something strong was chasing them. But after the showdown it got a bit tedious to watch them map out the labyrinth and I had to stop that and continue our story.
This is better for story and narration. Doing it as a map where you reveal the map as they explore is better If you run a very tactical game though.
 
Lalipat
Posts: 103
Joined: Sun 31 Dec 2017, 12:43

Re: Running Spire of Qetzel

Wed 28 Oct 2020, 11:12

This is a really good model for building exciting dungeons. I will probably use it for my version of Wailer's hold, where the adventurers will descend lower and lower into the mine through a landslip.
 
Mr Oldtimer
Topic Author
Posts: 391
Joined: Sun 14 Apr 2019, 12:01

Re: Running Spire of Qetzel

Wed 28 Oct 2020, 11:33

This is a really good model for building exciting dungeons. I will probably use it for my version of Wailer's hold, where the adventurers will descend lower and lower into the mine through a landslip.
Yes. I believe this will work very well in handling any big scale site where you don’t want to draw exact maps, but rather focus on vast areas which are hard to grasp, hard to get the layout of. As long as you run a narrative driven story, rather than a tactical one.
You could actually use this method instead of the, although beautiful, grand Ravenland map and the exploration rules. Might work when you and your players want to travel over a big part of the map and begin feeling tired of all those exploration Rolls.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest