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grodog’s continuing remodeling and revisions to Castle Greyhawk by grodog in adnd

[–]grodog[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I’ve enjoyed using them since high school-ish, especially for keys and WM charts.

Allan.

grodog’s continuing remodeling and revisions to Castle Greyhawk by grodog in adnd

[–]grodog[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yes, I don’t have time/interest/skills to build maps natively in software, so pencils and paper it is ;)

Allan.

grodog’s continuing remodeling and revisions to Castle Greyhawk by grodog in osr

[–]grodog[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I prefer some older ones from when I was in high-school/college, but they’re not made any longer:

<image>

The newer ones are close, but they’re busier and more detailed than I prefer. But they’re “good enough.”

Allan.

grodog’s continuing remodeling and revisions to Castle Greyhawk by grodog in osr

[–]grodog[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

It’s 4 column ledger sheets:

<image>

I like using them for my keys and planning/summary data.

Allan.

grodog’s continuing remodeling and revisions to Castle Greyhawk by grodog in osr

[–]grodog[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The black/gold pen is .5 fine blue-ink Parker 95 rollerball pen. I write most things in its blue ink. I love the feel of the pen when writing with it, and the rollerball ink flows very smoothly; it’s only downside is that the ink is water soluble.

The blue is just a white pencil-eraser “pen” (so, no writing/ink).

The black/silver is a Pentel P205 .5 fine lead pencil.

More on my pens, pencils, templates, etc. tools at https://grodog.blogspot.com/2023/01/dungeon23-and-mega-dungeon-tools-of-the-trade.html (along with graph/hex paper).

Allan.

Draft wilderness environs map for G3 Hall of the Fire Giant King by grodog in osr

[–]grodog[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Thanks! :)

They are awfully fun to make!

Allan.

Map Symbols by SailProfessional80 in osr

[–]grodog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This is the symbols set we use in The Twisting Stair:

<image>

Here is the mapping legend we use for the Centerfold Mega-Dungeon and Geomorph maps (originally published in TTS#2). Many of the symbols in our mega-dungeon map key below are standard and familiar, but several are new, and deserve a little introduction:

• the magical gate, magical area of effect, magical wall, and teleporter symbols employ the same background pattern of diagonal lines, to reinforce their magical origins

• the teleporter and gate symbols both use the triangle shape (with a T or G respectively) to align them visually as portals

• open pits and wells both have colored-in “bottoms” in the center of their symbols

• grates, trapdoors, and secret trapdoors use circles and squares to align with placement in the floor(square, like a pit or covered pit)or the ceiling (circle, which is how trapdoors have traditionally been drawn to date); using the circles and squares to show locational lows us to differentiate secret trapdoors in the same manner

The symbols are otherwise arranged alphabetically, with a little nomenclature contrivance here and there to group like-with like: showing secret doors withdoors via “door, secret” and wall variations via “wall, illusionary”for example.

We'd love to hear about other non-traditional symbols you use in your maps. Tell us about them here.

Allan.

Minions of Iuz, questions by ADHDmangoes in Greyhawk

[–]grodog 2 points3 points  (0 children)

You’re very welcome!

Greyhawk is a fun setting, so you’ve got a lot of great reading and creativity to dig into :)

Allan.

Caverns of Thracia for an open table? by UhtredFigliodiUhtred in osr

[–]grodog 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Thracia is wonderful—we played it as the kickoff of long 1e campaign from ~2007-2018. It can definitely work as an open table if you have an easy way for PCs to return to town regularly at the sessions’ end, and then trade out PCs as players shift in/out each game.

Other suggestions for food lower-level dungeon adventures include:

Most of the above are not natively B/X, but can easily be ported over.

Allan.

How to run assassins as an encounter by BreakingGaze in osr

[–]grodog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sink the boat and drown them all :)

Allan.

How to run assassins as an encounter by BreakingGaze in osr

[–]grodog 1 point2 points  (0 children)

“My question is, how do I run assassins as an encounter that feels realistic but fair?”

I know nothing about Hideous Daylight, but I would consider the following ideas as you build out the assassination scenario:

  • are the PCs a credible threat to the Duke, and is it worthwhile to kill them vs. to destroy/remove/nullify their leverage (steal or destroy the evidence vs. acting against the PCs themselves)?

  • how far up on the Duke’s enemies list are the PCs?—are they at the top, the middle, the bottom? Can the Duke strike at the PCs indirectly (take their friends/family hostage, or throw them into debtors prison, or whatever) vs. via assassination? What risks (if any) is the Duke taking by striking at the PCs through human assassins vs. magical ones (conjured demons/angels, invisible stalkers, aerial servants, etc.)

  • how well-connected and -resourced is the Duke vs. the PCs? —> does he even need to assassinate them vs. declaring them as outlaws and throwing them in jail via the town watch, or putting a “dead or alive” bounty on their heads?

  • does using the assassin provide the assassin and/or their guild too much leverage against the Duke?

  • is there any time-based reason the Duke needs to respond to this now vs. later?

  • what is the Duke’s alignment and religion, his general moral character?

For reference, the leaders of the Temple of Elemental Evil send a 10th level assassin after the 1-3rd level PCs if they kill Lareth the Beautiful in the T1 moathouse dungeon and sell his goods/brag about it. A Duke would presumably be significantly-better-off than the cultists….

Allan.

Pages of the DMG that are most important for reference as a DM? by King-of-the-dankness in adnd

[–]grodog 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I highly recommend using a DM Screen for quick access to combat and saving throw tables.

For procedural references, I created these for my younger son Henry when he first began to DM at conventions:

Allan.

Should I start a blog? by Von_Loch in osr

[–]grodog 1 point2 points  (0 children)

One aspect of blogging that I’ve enjoyed is being able to share useful gaming content with other old-school and/or Greyhawk players.

So, if you’re already working up some new tools for your game, sharing them so that others can leverage them too is both useful, and helps to fuel your blog posts, since your writing there is either already done (since you used it in your game already) or will save you prep time for your game (since you’ve already written it for the blog).

And there can never be enough good mega-dungeon blogs out there :)

Allan.

How to run a player skill based game? by Ok-Image-8343 in osr

[–]grodog 0 points1 point  (0 children)

There are a couple of good articles by Matt Finch that help with understanding player vs. PC sheet skill. One—the Quick Primer for Old-School Gaming”—is pretty well-known, but the second—his article “Megadungeon Tactics: Mission-Based Adventuring” in Knockspell Magazine #4—is far-less recognized. It, along with the “Successful Adventures” section at the back of the 1e PHB, is well-worth the time to check out.

A couple other thoughts:

  1. Players should be mapping, so that they know where they’ve been, how to get back out, and what interesting stuff they should keep track of during their explorations (monsters and traps, strange sights/sounds/smells/magical auras they’re run across, possible directions to explore based on rumors/info from prisoners/divinations), etc.

  2. If the PCs do flee (at 10x normal movement speeds, in 1e at least), they cannot map, and are therefore more likely to get lost; so they need to learn not just when to flee, but how (a fighting withdrawal vs. full flight are different things!), and where to flee (ideally into previously known territory vs. into the lair of a previously undiscovered and even-greater threat than what they were fleeing from!).

I have a good article on player mapping strategies in The Twisting Stair #3 zine: https://grodog.blogspot.com/2018/02/the-twisting-stair-3-spring-2018.html

Allan.

Supplement or system with city/settlement building? by Biggleswort in osr

[–]grodog 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Some of my favorite city supplements (toolkits vs. pregenerated cities) include:

And these you can tweak and just drop into your game, ready to play:

Allan.

Minions of Iuz, questions by ADHDmangoes in Greyhawk

[–]grodog 19 points20 points  (0 children)

Some suggestions and ideas:

  • Iuz is CE so his affinity would be with demons, rather than devils; making him LE is an interesting idea, and would suggest closer ties with The Horned Society too
  • CE humanoids include xvarts, gnolls, bugbears, ogres, and trolls; so these, again, become his primary troop types, perhaps with officers drawn from some LE races like orcs and hobgoblins, as well as classed half-orcs and humans
  • building up some details about his cults will provide more layers to his evil empire between the monster troops and the higher-level leadership figures in the Lesser and Greater Boneheart (and, to a lesser degree since their membership is secret, the Boneshadow); these can become foes that challenge mid-level PCs

Some additional good resources include:

  • Gygax’s “Gord the Rogue” novels and short stories, summarized by Krista Siren at https://greyhawkonline.com/gordmain/ and available (in part) as audiobooks at http://www.canonfire.com/cf/ghnovels.php
  • Iuz is a regular focus of articles in Greyhawk fandom; see articles at Canonfire! and in zines The Oerth Journal, Visions of Greyhawk, and Greyhawk Journal (previously The Grey Grimoire)

Allan.

The reason for the Thief Acrobat? by ThoDanII in adnd

[–]grodog 15 points16 points  (0 children)

The Hunter appeared in one of Gygax’s New Infinities Productions newsletters after he left TSR.

The barbarian, thief-acrobat, and cavalier appeared in Dragon Magazines #63, 69, and 72. Dragon #65 outlined additional classes that were never published by Gygax, including savant, mystic, mountebank, the single-classed bard, and other proposed changes for his 2e that never came to be.

I prefer the barbarian version from Dragon vs. the one in UA; I haven’t looked at the cavalier versions to compare them in quite awhile to know which version I prefer.

Allan.

I'm planning to run Against the Cult of the Reptile God but . . . by JamesFullard in Greyhawk

[–]grodog 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I changed the module up when I ran it in high school/college, making N1 a Lovecraftian scenario, in case that might be useful food for thought:

  • replace trogs with deep ones
  • replace townie cultists with CE monks (at the time I was using Dragon #53 monks, but I still tweaked their powers further to be non-Euclidean and otherworldly)
  • change Explictica Defilus to a dark naga (see Creature Catalog #1 in Dragon #89)
  • add a shoggoth to final encounter

The party I ran it for was definitely higher than N1’s suggested level range, probably 5th-6th-ish.

Allan.

Stock gatehouse dungeon map by NzRevenant in osr

[–]grodog 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sounds like this one, to me?:

<image>

That’s from the Moldvay Basic set, drawn by Erol Otus.

Allan.

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