Thursday, February 13, 2025

REVISING B1: IN SEARCH OF THE UNKNOWN

 At this point, I've run through B1: In Search of the Unknown twice. This last time, nearly all the way through the module. And I've come to the point where I feel like I can revise /slash/ tweak how it runs. With an eye to running it again for different groups and at local cons.

Here are my thoughts so far:

  1. Treasure: As I've indicated, I've hacked the treasure table to make it more hoard-worthy. There are still some tweaks I need to make -- like with the ever-present artworks, probably needing their very own subtable of my invention. But key the various rooms in the dungeon: minor treasure, major treasure, minor hoard and major hoard.
  2. Wandering Monsters: My thought here is to move away from a duration-based check for most wandering monster checks. Instead, I'm thinking to check each time the characters reach an intersection where they have to choose a direction. Roll D12. On a 1, they encounter a wandering monster. I like this also because it captures the feel of them running into /slash/ bumping into the monsters. But when they rest, make it time-based again, say, once an hour at D12 or a lesser die. (But my real reason for this is to reduce the cognitive load for the DM of keeping track of time.)
  3. Stock the Dungeon: Self-explanatory. Ideally, stocking it thematically.
  4. Introduce the Ghost of Zelligar: This could-be one of those "oh shit" TPK moments -- or a roleplaying encounter that can provide background and motivation for the dungeon itself. The ghost would not start out immediately belligerent, though. I would roll a DF: +kindly, [blank] indifferent, -hostile. There would be at least one round of parlay, before any conflict -- giving the players the option to actually choose to fight or not.

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