Light-as-encounter-chance /and/ different kinds of light

Reminder: the players (usually) need to see

Last post, I rambled at length about how the players need light to play. That isn't required reading but it is helpful context.

So I showed this idea to my player / GM / buddy (I'll call him Mike, because that's his name) and he thought it was a bit cool but also a total waste of time because, in 5e, the light cantrip and darkvision make torches pointless.

Why does light in 5e matter to my GLOG hack? I haven't convinced my players to switch over... yet. But they trust me to create new procedures and house rules for my 5e game, especially where the system is lacking. Cough dungeon procedures cough.

I realized 5e wants the same thing I want. That is, the players are only ever trapped in the pitch dark under special circumstances. The designers achieve this by giving almost everyone the light cantrip or darkvision and almost never mentioning light again.

So I have revised my facetious d6 table:

d6 reasons the players can see in the dark well enough to play

1 light cantrip
2 darkvision
3 ceiling enchanted to show the night's sky
4 veins of glow-in-the-dark ore running through the dungeon
5 bioluminescent moss growing in the dungeon
6 faint ambient light from somewhere deeper in the dungeon

You have been visited by the glowing jellyfish of being able to see where you are fucking going.
Repost or it will sting you.

Solving problems with problems

Problem 1. Players need info to play and they need light so I can give them info. Therefore, I don't want the tension of running out of torches to come from the sucky play experience of being stranded in the dark.

Problem 1.5. Just handwaving away darkness feels lazy.

Problem 2. The light cantrip and darkvision trivialize the need for light in 5e.

Problem 2.5. The only meaningful light rules in 5e encourage the GM to hide information from the players. In dim light they get a penalty to perception. That is bad. See problem 1.

Problem 2.9. I absolutely cannot be bothered to track the fact that torches (or the light cantrip, or whatever) cast bright light for 30 feet and then dim light for another 10 feet. That is fiddly and bad. See problem 1.

Problem 3. It needs to still be tense to run out of torches.

(1) is solved by (2). We don't even have to hand wave anymore -- almost everyone will either have the light cantrip or darkvision or both. Those that don't can carry a bag of adventuring candles (0 inventory slots, burn so slow they effectively last forever).

(2) is a little trickier but we can side step it. I don't care that the players have disadvantage on perception checks in dim light because I am not going to ask them to roll perception checks. They just get all the info they need.

For the same reason, I don't care how far out their bright light goes before turning into dim light. Effectively, their light illuminates the room they're in. (As always, dramatic exceptions may apply.)

Think about how much information the players need.
They need more than that, way more than that.

(3). Is solved by having dungeon procedures. In this case, by porting the light-as-random-encounter-chance procedures from my GLOG hack into my 5e game. To make that work, we need just 1 house rule.

Minimal light (from the cantrip, darkvision, candles, etc) sucks. 

It's shoddy, poor-quality crap. It's just barely enough to see well enough to play. It doesn't help you avoid ambushes. You can call this whatever you want. No light (as opposed to darkness), low light*, minimal light, dim light*, bad light. I like glow light.

Torch light (torches duh, lanterns, bonfire, etc) is the good shit. 

This is what the rules are talking about when they refer to having a light source. Monsters can't surprise you if you have good light. You can call this whatever too, but torch light seems obvious to me. Other possibilities include bright light*, good light, fire light.

* If you don't mind the namespace collision with existing 5e jargon.

At this point it might sound like I've recreated the "dim light" conditions from 5e that I was JUST decrying. I haven't and here is why: dim light in 5e is fiddly (need to track how far it goes) and prohibitive (hides information) whereas this is tense and player-driven (you don't have to pay the torch tax, you can just deal with the increased random encounters).

Here is a cool thing, it scales upwards and sideways.

Different kinds of light 

Moonlight. As glow, triggers lycanthrope.
Ghost light. As glow, reveals otherwise-invisible incorporeal undead.
Light from the living stars. As moon, triggers eldritch mutations.

Sun light. As torch, blinds drow and kills vampires.
Octarine light. As torch, makes magic go wild.
The true light of heaven. As sun, harms demons and prevents falsehood.

Okay, great. You can see but the orcs are not scared of your candle. On the surprise round, the fang-toothed orc splits your head with his axe. What do you do?

d8 more kinds of light that could have cool effects  

1 mage light
2 light from hellfire / dragonfire / soulfire
3 pale light
4 octarine lite
5 the false light of heaven 
6 null light
7 dwarven machine light
8 magical darkness