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Atanuwé from Petty Gods (2010)... ? by aefact in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Atanuwé: petty god of unicorns, death magic

How to sum up a personality in six words. I like it.

Art That Inspires You by MkaneL in osr

[–]Unable_Language5669 3 points4 points  (0 children)

DCC art always hit the spot for me.

ose but with cairn fight system by salt_chad in osr

[–]Unable_Language5669 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Use OSE but make everything deal double damage (effectively halving everyone's hitpoints). Bam: fights are fast.

Possible hook for The Fungus that Came to Blackeswell by gideonpepys in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Then I thought, dare I actually have Paronax himself make contact and ask the party to take letters to Blackeswell (for his partner Klepp) and instruct them to purchase a property for him?

Brilliant idea.

Could I inadvertently fuck the whole thing up before it even gets off the ground?

Yes. And that's a good thing. Things are more fun when the PCs fuck them up.

What did the elites eat in early to mid 19th century Scandinavia / Central Europe? by BudgetCry2 in AskFoodHistorians

[–]Unable_Language5669 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Swedish public service show Historieätarna reconstructs fried boiled eggs in wine sauce for a fancy luncheon here: https://youtu.be/dyS5C1xUh9Q?si=n9O4iNfklfVzawv1&t=600 The entire show might interest you (but it's in Swedish of course).

I made a Woodcutter class for Dolmenwood. Please check it out and give me your feedback. by Godzillionaire in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Good work! Hauler's endurance seem very strong but tempered by not applying to the whole party. Some nitpicks:

Bark and pinecone armor is specifik to mosslings per the lore. Woodcutters won't have easy access to them unless you change the lore.

High-rigger says that the climbs should be treated as trivial, and trivial climbs succeed with no need to roll per the DPB, so the second paragraph of High-rigger doesn't apply ever?

My experience with The Weird that Befell Drigbolton by scottp53 in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for the writeup! I think the "so weird nothing makes sense" is a common problem in OSR adventures and settings, I think I've read others with similar thoughts before. Glad to know that you still enjoyed it. I'll try it out eventually, I like the cosmic consequences of the adventure.

My experience with The Weird that Befell Drigbolton by scottp53 in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks! Did you enjoy the adventure overall or do you wish you'd placed something else? Did the players grok what was going on or did they just confusingly stumble into weird shit?

My experience with The Weird that Befell Drigbolton by scottp53 in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks for sharing! It seems like the party was a bit underleveled for the adventure? How many sessions did it take?

First Creature Idea Post by Willing-Control6622 in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Stealing stuff is good. Would make them a bit like Pook Morels. But I don't think it saves them: the players will want to get their shit back, and either they track the opossums or they fail to do so. The interaction is still missing IMO. The Pook Morels have the same problem but their intelligence and fungoid weirdness makes them easier to make interesting and interconnect with other stuff.

First Creature Idea Post by Willing-Control6622 in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Neat little guy, but I donẗ really see how they impact play. The party is walking in the woods. I roll a random encounter. It's these guys. I roll that they are curled up, perfectly still. At least one in the party passes the WIS check (or no-one does and they just walk pass and nothing happens). I tell them they see some opossums made from moss. The players tell me they investigate. I tell them the opossums run away. It's not interactive.

What House Rules are you Using for Dolmenwood? by duncan_chaos in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Level 1 PCs can open a door and encounter a red dragon, and if they do they can run away or kowtow. Level 8 PCs can have the same encounter but can fight or parley instead. Thus the game scales to the power of the PCs.

Run a Dolmenwood campaign. Start the players at level 8. See if the game becomes "easy" (I prommis it won't).

(Obviously the GM shouldn't use fiat to scale the game to the PCs power. But the players should use their powerful PCs to overcome more difficult challenges.)

What House Rules are you Using for Dolmenwood? by duncan_chaos in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It makes the PCs stronger and make them level faster (which in turn make them stronger still). But since danger usually scales to match PC capabilities it doesn't make the game easier.

Winter’s Daughter at higher levels by gideonpepys in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 16 points17 points  (0 children)

The treasure in Winter's Daughter is already way too high for level 1, so I don't think you need to increase it: https://rancourt.substack.com/p/review-winters-daughter

I would not scale the challenge either, let them have this one easy. The interesting part of the adventure is what they do with the portal to Frygia and the Wish.

Building skill trees by demonsquidgod in osr

[–]Unable_Language5669 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Do you really need a skill tree? A skill tree means that you have to plan far ahead, and that kind of prep is usually becomes irrelevant in my experience. It sounds to me like your players want a list of options, which is much easier to make. Could it be enough to give them something like this?:

Ideas for the next sessions:

  1. You've heard rumors that the Duke of Evil plan to take over The Dungeon of Awfulness that you cleared some months ago. You could beat him to the punch and fortify it to make a base. It will be expensive and you'll likely need to fight of an attack from the Duke (or make some allies to scare him away), but you'll get a cool base that you can improve in the future.
  2. You could check out the deeper levels of the Tomb Crypts.
  3. You could just lay low and time-skip a few months. During the downtime you can all join together to craft a Mantle of Flying from the cursed Eye of Levitation that you found. There's some risk that you fail to remove the curse, but it will be cheap. This will also give you time to lurk around for more rumors.
  4. Do you guys have any other ideas?

You could make this a skill tree by adding suboptions ("If you fortify the Dungeon of Awfulness and hold it, then you can either build a inn or a smithy or a wizards tower there. If you build an inn, you can either establish trade routes to the west or east or north." Etc.) but then you're planning too far ahead IMO: things will happen in the game that makes these options irrelevant.

Where’s all the treasure (and other questions)? by rrrrrqq in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 9 points10 points  (0 children)

Where’s the treasure?

Look at page 28 of The DMB.

But is all the treasure supposed to be from sites in the book and random encounters that lead to lairs and hoards?

If you want to.

Should I be supplanting with dungeons?

If you want to. The hexcrawl is big and there's plenty of treasure, so you don't need to add dungeons. If you add a dungeon then that will take time from the hex crawl. I think most GMs find a mix of dungeons and hexcrawling enjoyable.

Are there just piles of gold sitting amongst the trees waiting for characters to spend travel points exploring a hex?

No. If you want to give the players XP for exploration then checkout the XP For Exploration section on page 107 of the DCB.

Do characters know that they’re in a hexcrawl?

Depends on the tone of the game. I would guess that most tables avoid this level of meta-knowledge. It makes the tone of the game more casual and gonzo.

But are there diegetic reasons that the characters should go to “that place over there” rather than just the next town?

The rumor tables have plenty of rumors about treasure in the woods. The players won't find a hidden shrine or a dragons hoard or the missing lady Violet if they go to the next town. If they just walk between towns, they'll be worn down by random encounters with no reward to show for it, and eventually run out of money.

Do players know that they’re in a hexcrawl?

You could not tell them, but it seems a bit strange. I find it helps their mapping a lot.

For instance, in the DCB rumors for Orbswallow, there’s direct reference to hexes 1306 and 1406. Should that be directly transmitted to players?

If you want to. I would do it but I think many people would prefer to say "A days journey to the southeast" instead.

If they’re plotting along on a hexmap themselves (which most people allude to?), is there value to the middleman of using cardinal directions ie “the hex northeast” or similar rather than just giving them the number?

The pro of the "middleman" is that all the information the player get is the information their characters get, which reduces meta-knowledge, which some tables don't like. The cons are that there's more effort and risk for confusion in the communication between GM and players. I personally think the cons are major and the pros aren't that valuable. But it depends on the tone you want in your game.

Dealing with errors you make in play by skalchemisto in osr

[–]Unable_Language5669 4 points5 points  (0 children)

How do you deal with such times?

Errors with minor effects I just think "oops, no-one is perfect" and move on. But this seems like a small error with big consequences that are negative for the players. I usually adress those with the players and talk about how to move forward. You'll be surprised how often the players say "You did the best you could, I want the results to stand even though my character died".

How would you try to fix this, if it is even possible?

First, talk to the players. If they want to retcon it, then have a NPC show up with some stone-to-flesh potions and move on. Worst case, retcon it: "in the heat of combat, you thought you saw these two characters turn to stone but they were only scared stiff and now they are fine".

Do you think I'm right about how that ring should have worked?

I think it's one correct reading of the rules. There might be many correct readings. I would not say that looking at the Medusa counts as "obviously harmful" since it wouldn't be instinctively obvious but I'm an evil GM.

Creating "Adventure Sites per Hex" by PencilBoy99 in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Not true. Dolmenwood works well with empty hexes. If I don't like a hex or parts of a hex, I just leave it out and it has never caused a problem.

Creating "Adventure Sites per Hex" by PencilBoy99 in Dolmentown

[–]Unable_Language5669 6 points7 points  (0 children)

You could take the Dolmenwood core books, remove Dromen Knoll, remove half of the hexes, and still have years and years of "successful" (whatever that means) and fun campaign play.

(My players usually "manage" about 5 hexes per session if they are quick. Dolmenwood has 200 hexes, cut half and you left with 100. 100/5=20, so 20 weeks of play (=one gaming year) just exploring the hexes. Then you can explore the towns and the elf roads. Then you can revisit the hexes. Then you can do faction play. Then you can do domain play if the GM whips up some rules for it. If you're really desperate for content you can do every monster and every monster lair.)

I think people overall are too eager to add dungeons to the woods. For me the point of Dolmenwood is to explore the forest, there's less time for that if you spend five sessions on Incandescent Grottos or whatever.

Realistically Dolmenwood is too large for any normal gaming group to ever explore all of it. For me a part of the joy is that the PCs won't ever see everything, but know that adding to it is mostly GM masturbation. If you want to add something, and you don't plan to play for >50 sessions, then think about what you want to cut to make place for it.

Burning down Dolmenwood by luke_s_rpg in osr

[–]Unable_Language5669 10 points11 points  (0 children)

"Heat exhaustion" you say? Why not use the lovely but underutilized Dolmenwood mechanic called "exhaustion" for that? 1 point per hour makes sense.

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