PRACTICAL MAGIC: The Collection

This is a small collection of posts about my experiences, thoughts, and advice on how to run 1st-level MUs as well as make them seem like more than just a 1 spell, 2 hp chump. The class has great potential in old-school D&D games, but its early fragility and seemingly low starting abilities are barriers to people's enjoyment. 

Having gotten a MU up to 6th level in a fairly aggressive megadungeon, I have thoughts which I've been putting into posts:

PRACTICAL MAGIC: Or what to do now that your 1st-level magic-user cast their one spell

PRACTICAL MAGIC II: Or A Magic-User's Tools of the Trade

PRACTICAL MAGIC III: Starting MUs Are Not Feeling the Magic

Foldable spellbooks for your game

HOW I PREP: A Weekly-ish Megadungeon Campaign

 

Context For How I Prep

Jumping in on the "How I Prep" series started at Roll to Doubt by describing how I prep for my megadungeon campaign using Miranda Elkin's Nightwick Abbey (of which the first three levels, plus a lot more, is available at the Patreon). 

Let me start by providing some context for the megadungeon campaign. My Nightwick game is played roughly two to four times a month, lasting 2 to 2.5 hours, with 3-5 players. After 31 sessions, each player as a PC level 3 or 4. The "area" I am trying to cover in the world is a loop between two 6-mile hexes consisting of the Abbey and the titular village.

Like many who have recently posted, my goal is to have prep take a short amount of time, demonstrate the impact of player choices, and make the world move independently of the players (factions, events, ect.). To that end, I keep a Google doc of campaign notes, employ a one-page tool that helps me prep, and I restock according to Nigthwick Abbey's prescribed methods.

Campaign Documents

It is a collection of both session notes and session one-pagers (which I'll talk about below). Collections of other elements that I want to incorporate into the game or to modify to be more Nightwick-flavored or specific, like the carousing table and the overloaded encounter die. 

I have also thought of other geomorphs that might be good substitutes should I want to expand areas of the megadungeon itself or replace pre-existing 'morphs due to player actions. I will often doodle these or think of themes, so instead of letting them be idle thoughts, I write them down! Why let good ideas go to waste?

The last little bit labeled "articles" are more long-form thoughts about how I think about elements of the megadungeon. Again, after being a player in ~100 sessions and a DM for ~30 sessions, I have ideas about how run the dungeon, so putting them down helps me remember and keeps me consistent. I also, for a little bit was conferring with another DM who ran 50 sessions of Nightwick, so we traded notes.

Session One-Pager (the Actual Prep)

Here are the sections for my prep sheet which I try to keep somewhat digetic by framing it as if the characters are having a drink at Nightwick Village's best/only inn:

• AS THE WORLD TURNS
• IN YOUR IDLE TIME 
• WHAT IS THE CHATTER FROM THE BADDERS' BOYS
• AFTER DRAINING YOUR CUPS, FIGURES APPROACH

AS THE WORLD TURNS: Here is where I am reviewing the yearly, monthly, and weekly events that shape the world and the current attitudes of Nightwick Village. I try to place faction movements (if the party were aware of them) here as well as random events.

• I also try to tie yearly & monthly effects to an increase/decrease of resources, especially those that the players might need to use in the dungeon. And/or have the event impact their downtime abilities. I think this is one of the best ways to make these events feel real. For example, a recent monthly famine removed rations from the store. The woodsman PC had to hunt in downtime for rations, of which only about 1d4+1 were ever hunted. 
• For weekly events, I try to make them a potential problem to be solved before or in lieu of going to the dungeon. The PCs don't have to pursue it, but it might have an impact depending on the action they do or don't take.

IN YOUR IDLE TIME: The is just time for me to run down a list of what actions and effects downtime choices had on the PCs. This is also a time we check in on the progress of various crafting efforts and with those who have been gravely injured. This is also the place where I think about how the PCs actions might have affected NPCs that they want stuff from.

WHAT IS THE CHATTER FROM THE BADDERS' BOYS: The goal of this section is to show how last week's session might have impacted the village. Its also an opportunity to hold up a mirror to the PCs actions from the point of view of the NPCs and in particular, the "law" of the land represented by the Badders' Boys. So they talk smack, in loud whispers, about the PCs: "Funny how that lot always drags 2-3 poor peasants into that abbey, but only they seem to come back alive...yeah....real funny..."

AFTER DRAINING YOUR CUPS, FIGURES APPROACH: And just when everyone is about to leave the inn, they are approached by hirelings (if any) looking for employment. I generate the number of hirelings, the type, quirks, and try to tie each hireling to one of the 7 deadly sins for added fun in the Abbey.

Dungeon (Re)Stocking

Miranda has a nice method of restocking Nightwick that is based on a decreasing die size with each real-life week that passes between sessions. I usually also review the random encounter table here to make sure it best reflects the current state of the dungeon and the level of agitation the dungeon might have toward the PCs. This is also a time for me to upgrade villains that have continued to plague the PCs. The final thing I might do is try to alter parts of the dungeon if the yearly or monthly events warrant it. 

And that is it! 

INVESTIGATING SARAH CONNOR: My Ideal CoC Game & The Terminator

 

A campaign big on torches, less on tommy-guns

My ideal Call of Cthulhu game would consist of the following materials:

• Copy of Cthulhu Dark, which is a small 3d6 dice pool system

• A Sears Roebuck catalog from the 1920's as the "player's handbook"

• A campaign structured around Sean McCoy's investigation sheet like here 

• A map of CoC's Arkham City, which really can be Anywhere Town, US Anywhere

Investigators Are Everyday Outsiders: Pull out an index card and write your name and profession, which can't be a part of any established power center like the police, city hall, military, or even university faculty (could be new professor or pushed aside faculty). I’d even exclude “big” criminal backgrounds because they themselves are enforcers of (inverted) power structures. Ideally, its professions that push boundaries or study obscure corners or exist in the cracks of power structures. You can’t be anyone important.

In terms of investigations, I think Sean McCoy’s investigation sheet is the bee’s knees when it comes to empowering the player to actually be fully invested into the mystery of the world. This stands in a little bit of contrast to the official CoC publications as well as Cthuhlu Dark’s own philosophy via Stealing Cthulhu. Both sources frame their campaigns more as revelations that true “whodunits”.

No to Sanity Mechanics, Yes to"Cassandra Effects": Basically, do away with "insanity" because the investigators aren't insane- ever. There really are evil fish-people, they did see star-vampires, and reality-eating colors totally ate that guy. There is nothing to cure because they are not suffering from any delusions. NPCs can go "insane," but players always maintain agency, but are thwarted by non-believers.

Instead, it will be up to the investigators to explain to the humans around them what the hell they exactly were doing when the local Presbyterian church blew up with Mann Co.'s suspiciously missing dynamite. This crime-suspicion-alibi structure will also reinforce the campaign's framework. Players will have to avoid their investigators becoming the prime suspect in their own investigations!

Cthulhu Dark's Insanity Die becomes the "You're Crazy" Die: Okay, so here's how the dice work in Cthulhu Dark:

[Roll 1 or more of your dice] [t]hen your highest die shows how well you do. On a 1, you barely succeed. One die if the task is within human capabilities. One die if it’s within your occupational expertise. Your Insanity die, if you will risk your sanity to succeed.On a 6, you do brilliantly. Your Insanity die, if you will risk your sanity to succeed

In some respects, a CoC campaign very much embraces noir influences of being an outsider investigating the dark corners of society. So instead of risking your literal sanity, let's risk the public perception of your sanity. As the score increases, you lose access to people and institutions because the good people of the town won't be seen with you, let alone listen to you. At max level, you lose access to society in toto, not because you are insane, but everyone perceives you as insane.

Mechanically, this means different institutions/NPCs have varying levels of tolerance on this scale. For instance, Joe's Soda Shoppe might stop letting you in if your score is 2, meanwhile the local speakeasy, Diamonds, will keep letting you in if up to a score of 4.

Arkham Library is closed off to you at a score of 3, while Ms. Terry the local, supposed, medium and fortune-teller to the ladies of Arkham might still let you come by if your score is 5. She, too, knows what's up in Arkham. Cults, the real ones, are always ready to welcome new congregants, but you can't be less than a 5.

The Terminator & Cosmic Horror: Or The Slow Train Wreck You Can’t Stop: It will be up to the GM to continuously press on the tension between the reality the players know and the illusion of normalcy the NPCs maintain.  And, to spell it out, this always includes the press of law and government, who keep the peace and enforce the law. The horror here is knowing the absolute truth with a big "T" and being almost powerless to stop it and in fact thwarted by the institutions who could do something about it. Not so much a jump-scare by tentacles.

With this framing, Sarah Connor in Terminator is the perfect Lovecraftian protagonist. She is a waitress in LA who meets a drifter claiming to be from the future sent back to protect her from a murderous robot sent from the same future by a machine intelligence so powerful it invented time travel to kill her before she births the child who will stop it from destroying humanity. Sarah (and the audience) knows this to be true, but part of the horror of Terminator, besides being hunted by an unstoppable killer robot, would be trying to convince others of this truth. No one would believe you, you might even hardly believe you. By Terminator 2, she is put in an asylum and has her child taken away for being “crazy”. But again, she’s not! Its all true.

Magic the Cosmic Cheat: If we are somewhat logically deducing our way through means, motives, opportunities, and suspects, what is the role of magic in this context? Most obviously, it allows the solving of investigations/mysteries with a greater supernatural element to them. But more importantly it provides a way to cheat. I think too attempting the investigation framework will also provide the temptation to do so too!

For instance, players might have a victim, motive, location, but 3 different suspects, all with not entirely air-tight alibis. A speak with dead spell could fix the issue because you can merely ask the victim who killed them. But now you have to exhume the body or break into the morgue. A small crime in the greater context. But then if you know the perpetrator, how do you legally bring them to justice, given you don’t have admissible evidence? Maybe you take the law into your own hands. After all you know the truth and that is what matters right? Again this puts characters back at odds with the “polite” society around them. 

My goal here is not to turn our investigators or the game into some 90’s grimdark Frank Miller Batman, but instead have players themselves experience somewhat the same temptation of magic NPCs feel. And also have things only get more complicated from there. Which, while maybe not a direct reflect of CoC source material, does put this game and magic in contrast to fantasy adventure games– magic is dangerous not because it causes insanity, but because it allows you to act in anti-social ways. Its continual use naturally drives you away from normalcy.

Summary: An investigation-focused game that features normal folks attempting to keep it cool while peeling back the Truth about fish cults, trans-dimensional travelers, space fungus, and elder gods all the while trying not to let the magic at their fingertips go to their heads.

Specifically for the players, this means using a rules-lite systems to find a solution (not necessary “solve”) a logic set-up that structures a crime/mystery with natural and super-natural elements using whatever is in the fictional environment: libraries, NPCs connections, skills reasonably linked to chosen profession, and anything else in the Sears cataloge. So there you have it, my ideal “CoC” campaign.

P.S. Downtime: I love carousing tables in D&D, so I'd most likely have 3d6 version in this campaign too. The objective here would be providing outcomes for very mundane tasks the characters who try to get a handle all while they are investigating some mythos plots. I might have their current "perceived sanity" score added to the roll (low = good, high = bad). How can you keep your university position if you are coming into class beat up? Will you ever get tenure? What will your family think if you disappear in the night, then show back up in the morning, soaked in sweat and dragging your torn-up friend into the house? How can you maintain your job at the garage if you never show up consistently for your shift, but weird people keep coming in asking for you?

NIGHTWICK ABBEY: The Purple Eater of People Session 117

Want to learn more about the world of Nightwick from Miranda Elkins? You can follow her blog here and the ongoing development of Nightwick Abbey at her Patreon here.

Previously in Nightwick...

Blossom (Rogue 6)
Mayfly (Magician 6)
Liminal Space (Changeling 5)
Thekla (Magician 5)
Krupe (Cleric 5)
Yvgeny the Coward (Cleric 5)
Pataki (Grave Robber 1)
and THAT hireling...

AT THE MEDUSA'S HEAD...

Theklas appears to be afflicted with a spirit after a magical research mishap. The party decides to travel south to the town of Blackleg in order to seek help in removing the creature's presence much to Mayfly's protests: "Think of what you could learn!"

...DOWN IN THE ABBEY...

• Deals Are Made: The meddlesome spirit offers little reprieve and the party is forced to strike a deal with it which they will regret do doubt (PC EDIT: And we did...) inorder to prevent it from continually spooking the horses.
• Abbey Is Not The Only Place The Dead Are Buried: A small investigation reveals a blizzard depression which could indicate buried treasure- our grave robber investigated and digs up two large buried urns.
• Not All Spirits Are Evil, Some Helpful: Mayfly consults the Thing-In-His-Pocket and the party learns there are things from the Abbey trapped in there.
• Better Left Buried-- By Someone Else, Not Us: After a failed fireball, the party decides to drive our holy sword down into the jars, hoping to destroy anything there, but spare the treasure. The plan is enacted, but the strike is not true enough-- a ghost erupts from the urn with a terrifying scream! 
• Silver Hairs, Silver Treasure: Liminal, Krupe, and Thekla take of running as horrible visions filling their minds and their faces age 10 years in horror of it all. Mayfly, fires back with a lightning bolt that seems to just do enough to destroy the spirit. The reward: 19 platinum disks which our rogues believe is values at a total of 1900 sp. Hmm, might be worth taking a crack a the second one...
• Two Things We'll Regret (Maybe): The party collects our lost colleagues, makes camp to decide how to tackle the next jar, and make good on our promise to the medelsome spirit.

...STILL ON THE ROAD...

THE SUM OF LESSER LITURGIES: An Alternative Cleric In the Shadow of the Cleric Spell List

The D&D cleric has been with us since the game's inception, initially to handle one blood-sucking Sir Fang using the combined powers of the Holy Bible and Hammer Horror's Van Helsing. Here is a nice post from Scroll & Coins post from 2017 describing those influences in the Cleric's spell list.

Dracula, not Sir Fang

What I would like to focus on is the lesser-known "liturgies" of the Cleric's spell list. The secondary effects or alternative uses for some spells. For instance, when reviewing the cleric spell list in OSE for a wholly other post, I stumbled upon this surprising bit in cure disease:

2. Kill green slime: This monster is killed instantly

I knew about a few other instances of additional uses for spells in BX, most notably light (blind) and cure light wounds (cure ghoul paralysis), but did not remember this bit for cure disease, which had escaped my notice. Looking in the Rules Cyclopedia, for another Basic D&D comparator, I found that cure disease is phrased:

This spell will cure one disease, such as those caused by a mummy or green slime

There is also a corroborating note in the green slime monster entry in Rulese Cyclopedia noting the same vulnerability. 

This got me thinking about what an alternative cleric would look like if conceptualized using these secondary spell effects.  Here are those alternative effects listed out. Its a slim list and perhaps could use some padding with reverse spell effects, but I wanted to stay true to my query.

Level 1 Spells (at 1,500xp)

1. Cure Paralysis (cure light wounds)
2. Blind Creature (light)
3. Cancel Magical Darkness (light)
4. Touch Immunity from Constructs, Demons, or Enchanted Beings (protection from evil)

Level 2 Spells (at 6,000xp)

1. Ritual of Purification or Consecration (bless)
2. Silence Creature (silence)

Level 3-4 Spells (at 25,000xp)

1. Permanent Blindness (continual light)
2. Destroy Green Slime (cure disease)
3. Communicate with Monsterous Plant (speak with plants)

Level 5 Spells (at 50,000xp)

1. Banish Enchanted or Undead Being (dispel evil)
2. Destroy Undead (Raise Dead)

So what sorta vibes to I get from this list? Honestly, when I initially thought of this post, I was expecting to generate some sorta "dungeon hermit" who was born in the mythic underworld and can manipulate, and be resistant to, the environment therein. But upon review, especially with the first 6 spells, what the spell list signals to me is a class more like a wizard-hunter or Witcher (TM).

Cure paralysis, cancel darkness, blind creature, and silence creature all seem good options to battle opposing spellcasters. You prevent your hirelings from becoming immobile, remove the darkness that hinders you from seeing, and then you can blind the enemy spellcaster and silence them to prevent further spellcasting.

 Touch Immunity helps keep you safe from melee attacks from summoned/extra-planar creatures or constructs that are guarding the warlock and their manse. And finally, the purification or consecration spell can destroy whatever magical device, altar, idol, or gate they were using to do their foul deeds. Finishing the job right!

Toss A Coin To Your (Wizard-Hunter)

Reg: STR 09+ and one stat must be 13 (a mark of your unlucky past)
Prime: WIS
HD: As Cleric
Attack: As Cleric
Save: As Dwarf (dipped in the waters of Styx)
Armor: Any + Shields
Weapons: Any one-handed, thrown weapons (everyone knows wizards can't be hurt by normal arrows)
Spells: As Cleric, using spells as above; Detect Magic 2-in-6; Extract component from killed monster
XP: As Dwarf

You were a child who survived a terrible calamity caused by or infused with magic. Stark white hair and a thousand-yard stare made it easy for the order to find you. They bathed you in spring water mixed with 7 drops from the river Styx. They said this would protect you from the more harmful effects of magic. Then they fed you milk & honey with 13 drops from the river Lethe. They said would make you forget the pain of your loss. Then they put a sword in your hand and drilled you in liturgies of gods lost spoken by the 77 sphinxes of Bnazic. Then the order sent you into the world to hunt the same wizards that stole your childhood long ago.

TORCHES (6): A RPG Microblog Collection 5

 

1. The Moon Realm: One of the minor domains of the OSR is screwing with the moon and Alone in the Labyrinth maintains that tradition with their "exiled stone-age psychonauts exploring the spirit realm". I especially enjoy blogging about settings/campaigns because it harkens back to blogging of yore.

2. Market Instability: Nickoten at Pathika lays out a brief rule for market instability: 

The “base” price of a good is 2d6 of your standard currency, which can be rerolled for each item or each shopping trip. This price is then multiplied depending on the price category. So a “Plentiful” good is 2d6 coins, a “Limited” good is 10x that, a “Rare” good is 20x that, and a “Treasured” good is 200x that.

3. Review of Appendix N: False Machine not only does a nice job reviewing Appendix N: Weird Tales From The Roots Of Dungeons & Dragons but I think it also succinctly frames what is attractive about the energy of sword & sorcery stories: 

Impulsivity, immediacy and atavism, but always with intelligence, sharp wits and keen senses. These stories are about things happening now. Too late! In the time it took you to read this sentence the Barbarian has killed a man and moved to another scene. 

Also, I have this book and I am on my second read-through despite having read a few of the stories like Tower of the Elephant many times before. However, its interesting to consider them all in aggregate. Its also a great gift for D&D fans, young and old. 

4. Most Adventures Are Bad: Gus L. has a breakdown of why a published adventure might miss the mark in terms of quality as well as a few questions we all could ask ourselves when putting together something for the table.

5. Where to Start With OD&D: I faced this same issue when running the Gygax 75 Minute Challenge. I am leaning toward WhiteBOX: FMAG as it seems to keep me from overly obsessing about the ruleset, which puts attention back on the game.

6. Holme Alone: This is a nice post about a 2008 thread from Carcosa's author McKinney about looking at Holmes Basic as a complete game. No AD&D supplementation, Level 3 is the cap, and it would last as long as it would take to reach third level which is about 33 sessions. I like this because it matches some of my ideas about level 4 being a natural break point and 33 sessions make for a nice timeframe, especially with today's modern entertainment environment. Its a sorta capsule campaign and something to think about as I frame Tropics of Cancer. Also, Blueholme: Printice Rules is a favorite ruleset of mine. And if you are thinking of such a game, the Zenopus Archieves Holmes Reference is a must!

THE SPARK COLLAGE FOR DUNGON STOCKING: When You Got Vibes But Need Definitive

 

I am trying to quickly key the last dungeon level for my Tropics of Cancer campaign so I can start running it for friends and family. I'd like to do this quickly and often that means being a little more loose with the "rules" of good dungeon design and more needing tables of, I dunno, "organized vibes" to round things out. 

Now, this will result in weaker dungeons than those more clearly thought out with a purpose, room placement, and enemy design but with this campaign, I am aiming for the dungeon-building equivalent of slapchop. So I have the vibes for this dungeon stated in my last post, with an associated small collection of pictures that I've found that match the setting.

I decided a solution might be turning those pictures into a collage with a grid overlay so I could create rollable segmentation: part oracle, part die-drop table, part spark table, but all dungeon stocking goodness. Now I have something that complements my existing monster, trap, and treasure table and can help me fill in more details. A d66 table (1d6 x 1d6) seemed to give me pretty good division but you can make each box smaller if needed. But I would stick to a standard die size that could be read in a glance.

So I could ask for a room's contents, roll d66, and interpret what's in the square. I could also do the same for the color of a room or object- roll d66, interpret either by general color or pick among objects in that square. Since the pictures that make up the collage ARE things that remind me of the dungeon the overall composition should approach some cohesion that players won't notice unless they look super close-- much like slapchop.

And again, much like slapchop, the goal is to get it good enough to the table for play, not to win painting or dungeon design contests. Just trying to have fun!