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Module Review: Welcome to Eastwood

Module Review: Welcome to Eastwood

Posted on by sullijo

Welcome to Eastwood presents a clever sandbox location — a mysterious Old West town that, through the vagaries of magic or technology, can be dropped into any campaign — for players to explore and interact with.

Like Museum at the End of Time, combat isn’t the only danger in the town of Eastwood. Without giving too much away, PCs can become enamored of the various opportunities and encounters, failing to realize (until it’s too late) that they’re trapped in the town. The more they attempt to peek behind the scenes, the more bizarre — and perilous — the situation becomes.

This includes a clever resource management component the Judge must handle concerning PCs’ ability to leave. Normally I’m not a fan of putting additional work on the Judge, but the module comes with a handy tracking sheet, making the task less onerous. The adventure also comes with an appendix detailing various features of the “town,” including random encounters, new artifacts, and new creatures.

The module is well laid out and illustrated throughout, giving Judges a taste of the town’s atmosphere and inhabitants. The map is especially nice and makes a good handout to give the players once they have the lay of the land.

I’ve had the opportunity to both play the module with the author and run it for my regular MCC group. Both times we had a blast as the PCs came up with theories as to what was happening and who was puling the strings of Eastwood.

Welcome to Eastwood is a 28-page 1st- or 2nd-level module compatible with both Mutant Crawl Classics and Dungeon Crawl Classics. It was written and illustrated by C. Aaron Kreader of Studio 9 Games.

Game with Me at Gen Con!

Game with Me at Gen Con!

Posted on by sullijo

Event tickets for Gen Con Indy go on sale this weekend! I’ll be running four games:

  • Museum at the End of Time – Thursday, 2p: During your Rite of Passage, you stumble on a monument to the greatness of the Ancient Ones. Will you find glory and treasures for your tribe or the bitter sting of failure? A 0-level funnel for Mutant Crawl Classics.
  • Museum at the End of Time – Friday, 9a: During your Rite of Passage, you stumble on a monument to the greatness of the Ancient Ones. Will you find glory and treasures for your tribe or the bitter sting of failure? A 0-level funnel for Mutant Crawl Classics.
  • Seekers of the Un-K’nown – Friday, 2p: Brave the dreaded Lands of Boom to rescue members of your post-apocalyptic tribe! Can you discover the secrets of Quartum-Q and its inhabitants? A level 1 Mutant Crawl Classics adventure.
  • A Fairly Odd Tale – Saturday, 9a: A band of hapless adventurers is sucked into a book of fairy tales and must use their wits and cunning to make it out alive! A new 2nd-level DCC adventure; younger gamers welcome!

I hope to see you in Indy!

Heroicon PostOp

Heroicon PostOp

Posted on by sullijo

This past Saturday I drove to Decatur, Illinois, to attend Heroicon, a small convention supporting Games For Troops, an Illinois non-profit delivering board, card, and other games to the men and women of the US Armed Forces.

I was supposed to drive over with my friend Luau Lou, but he had to back out a few days before, so it was a solo mission. On the plus side it meant I didn’t have to leave so early in the morning, as the game I was scheduled to run was in the afternoon. I arrived about 2 hours before my game so I checked out the vendors and got my wife some dice earrings for Mother’s Day.

While in the vendors area I was invited by designer Keun Ahn to play his game Shadows: Heroes & Monsters, a PvPvE (Player vs Player vs Environment) CCG that recently completed it’s crowdfunding campaign. At first I thought it would be a little fiddly due to the number of counters and stats to keep track of, but after a few rounds I got the basics. I even managed a pretty great feint, causing Keun to prepare for an attack that never came, for the win.

I was a little apprehensive about my Mutant Crawl Classics game as I only had one person signed up. Fortunately the player’s father had an open slot so he joined us for a round of Museum at the End of Time. Since it was just the two of them I gave them each 6 zero-level characters; in the end, only 5 left the museum. They really enjoyed the game (both were new to DCC/MCC).

Afterwards they invited me to try Dungeon Draft, a clever card drafting game with a fantasy theme. It went a little slow because several of us were playing for the first time, but I can see it being a nice filler game.

All things considered I had a good time and, while attendance seemed very low, I wouldn’t say no to attending Heroicon for a day again!

The Gongfarmer Militia is available for hire!

The Gongfarmer Militia is available for hire!

Posted on by sullijo

My first Kickstater project, The Gongfarmer Militia, is now live on Kicksarter!

The 20 page, saddle-stitched black & white digest-size zine expands on the Dungeon Crawl Classics rules for hirelings and includes:

  • Rules for creating, hiring, and upgrading followers for your player characters;
  • Expanded morale rules and a random table for morale reactions;
  • 7 hireling classes: the gongfarmer militia, hired muscle, temple acolytes, hedge mages, elven guides, halfling cutpurses, and dwarven sappers;
  • Random tables for each hireling class to give your followers unique abilities and traits;
  • Artwork by Charles Ferguson-Avery of Feral Indie Studio!

I’ve got some exciting stretch goals lined up that could add up to 8 more pages to the zine, including additional hireling archetypes by Luau Lou of Dandyline Games and Matt Robertson, author of the DCC module A Conspiracy of Ravens.

I’m really excited to be getting this zine out into the world. Check out the project today!

The key to drawing on what you know…

Posted on by sullijo

The key to drawing upon your personal likes and interests for adventure fodder while keeping the players happy and responsive to your scenarios is moderation. Role-players pursue this hobby because it provides them an outlet for their imaginations, exploring and experiencing places and events they might not otherwise ever perceive. If every game session involves exploits into the complex world of art and art history, for example, and the players are looking for dungeon crawling hijinks, nobody is going to be happy. The players will become bored with the repetition and the game master will be frustrated when no one seems interested with the adventure.

Michael Curtis, “Know (and Love) What You Write” in How to Write Adventure Modules That Don’t Suck (2017)

Module Review: The Sunken Temple of Set

Module Review: The Sunken Temple of Set

Posted on by sullijo

Chris Doyle’s The Sunken Temple of Set was released in 2021 as one of Goodman Games’ Free RPG Day modules. It’s a 7th-level adventure for Dungeons & Dragons set in the classic Dark Tower setting and ties in with Goodman Games’ upcoming DCC/5e conversion of the original module.

The adventure’s titular temple is dedicated to the lesser deity Sobek, but has recently become the locus of a powerplay by a son of the evil god Set. The PCs can be roped into the conflict in a number of ways, but wind up (unwittingly) working on behalf of the temple’s former high priest to oust the usurper and his minions.

Things start off with a great sequence around the lake on which the temple is located as PCs must navigate to the entrance. Investigation and exploration are rewarded, with multiple paths possible. Once inside the PCs must contend with secret doors, an underwater crypt, and numerous crocodilian monsters, culminating with the three-headed son of Set, Makura. The module also features some new desert-themed weapons and spells.

I’ve had the opportunity to run Sunken Temple for my regular 5e group and online as part of Gary Con. Both groups enjoyed the old school challenge of the adventure, with my regular 5e group, which is made up of players relatively new to the hobby, particularly intrigued by a style of play they weren’t accustomed to.

Crafty players can make quick work of the module if they don’t do a lot of exploration — my Gary Con group completed it in about 3 hours by avoiding a major fight and speeding through the crypt. This might be mitigated somewhat in campaign play, when PCs are more prone to search for treasure than in a one-shot.

Bottom line: The Sunken Temple of Set is a fantastic 5e adventure with old school charm. It can be easily slotted into an existing campaign (my regular group is playing through Descent into Avernus, so the sunken temple became part of that plane’s hellscape) and can serve as a fun side quest or one-shot.

What you can control…

Posted on by sullijo

Mind you – you can never guarantee that any given gaming crew will have a good time playing your adventure. A million things can go wrong, up to and including incompatible styles between yourself and the group playing through your dungeon. Games go off the rails all the time, and there is nothing you can do to prevent that from happening. What you can, and should, control is the quality of your design. The better adventure you write, the more likely it is to facilitate a fun night of gaming for a group when the GM picks up your adventure.

Brendan J. LaSalle, “Unleashing Your Dungeon Creativity” in How to Write Adventure Modules That Don’t Suck (2017)
Game with Me at Ethereal Gary Con!

Game with Me at Ethereal Gary Con!

Posted on by sullijo

Ethereal Gary Con will be running online March 24-27, 2022! Game tickets go on sale tomorrow; I’ll be running three games at the con:

  • Museum at the End of Time (Friday, 7p ET): The Rite of Passage is a generational custom, and the PCs’ future position and rank within their society is largely determined by the quality of artifacts brought back to the tribe! A zero level funnel adventure for Mutant Crawl Classics; pregens provided.
  • A Fairly Odd Tale (Saturday, 10a ET): A band of hapless adventurers is sucked into a book of fairy tales and must use their wits and cunning to make it out alive! A 2nd level Dungeon Crawl Classics adventure; pregens provided.
  • The Sunken Temple of Set (Saturday, 6p ET): To the east of the village of Mitra’s Fist is a secluded temple, partially flooded and shunned due to a deific curse. But now a host of evil resides in the once sacred edifice which plots to thwart the efforts of good in the region. Is your band of seasoned heroes up to the challenge of exploring the sunken temple? D&D 5e; pregens provided.

I hope to see you there!

Because of the rules…

Posted on by sullijo

It’s hard to deny that magic is the default mode of human storytelling. All the old myths and poems contain transcendent magical powers and transitions. Medieval romances and epics are full of fantastical and miraculous things. It wasn’t until the 18th and 19th centuries in which stories arose in which nothing magical happened, and verisimilitude became the watchword. We sometimes call it realism. I have nothing against realist novels, as it happens… I just think we need to acknowledge that they are the aberration in the larger context of humanity’s appetite for stories. For the moment however, this rejection of the power of miracles extends even to our stories about the miraculous. One feature that Rowling’s and Pratchetts’ series share with nearly all narratives and stories predicated upon magic is that magic has rules. This is because magical thinking has rules. Psychological rules, that is. Magical thinking is that near-ubiquitous human state of mind at work in ritual, prayer, and religion, as well as obsessive compulsive behavior. The belief that there is a causal relationship between human actions and beliefs, and cosmic eventuality. I wonder what it would be like to write a fantasy novel in which the magic has no rules at all. That would be bracing, and might bring out this buried truth: millions who think they love fantasy because of the magic actually love it because of the rules.

Adam Roberts, forward to Monday Starts on Saturday (2017)