My primary game right now is a 5e Pirate game but I am always trying to squeeze in one shots to try out my GLOG hack. This was a match made in heaven. Though, spoiler alert, we didn't finish the dungeon and will be back for a second shot. (The play report should make plenty of sense even though I used my own hack. But just FYI, I use Into the Odd style damage (no to hit roll and armor as DR).
Since my players aren't veterans, I ran the game more as an intro-to-OSR dungeon than a funnel. I gave my players a bunch of randomly generated characters -- "half level" adventurers instead of "zeroth level" peasants. Basically, they each had 1 really niche ability.
The only character to use their ability more than once was Jack Jackson, 1/2 level scout. He could spend a turn listening at doors to hear what was going on two rooms away.
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| The Ear hearing things 2 rooms away. |
TL;DR Questions to Arnold's survey
What path people take through the dungeon?
They looted GOATS, VINEGAR, CHESTS. They spent some time messing with the TUMBLERS to no avail. Then they got to PIT and searched BONE PILE for rope to free Akina. Then they bargained with Danjo. To be continued.
How many secrets did they find?
So far, they've found The Skull of Davok and Shadrakul's spell book.
Is the Lamb too threatening? Not threatening enough? Did they kill it?
They are perfectly terrified of the lamb. It killed someone who dared to mess with right away. It killed someone else who tried to sneak too close.
How much pressure was there for light sources?
At first, they were so concerned with water that they didn't care about light. Once they got a torch they really felt the pressure not to linger. They got lucky in the BONE PILE and managed to find a torch that let them keep searching.
How much pressure was there for ropes and weapons?
Once they met Akina they were laser focused on rope. They don't seem to care about weapons. Maybe because they think the lamb is un-killable?
Actual Play Report:
Jack Jackson, Paul Drone, and Ursula Wellington wake up in BOWLS in their burlap sacks as the Lamb is coming into the room. Paul has the knife so he tries to fight the lamb and is promptly eaten. This set a good precedent and the players were appropriately scared of the lamb from that point on.
Jack and Ursula snuck out of the room and into GOATS. They wanted to milk the live goat for hydration so I let them hydrate 1 PC. They chose Jack. Ursula went back into BOWLS to retrieve the knife.
Ursula is killed by the lamb, of course. Now they're really scared of the thing. But she managed to free some replacement characters who snuck into GOATS -- enter Nacho and Ivan. Ivan's shitty little half-level ability is something to do with butchery so he convinces me to let him try to hydrate by drinking the goat's blood. After some dice rolls, he hydrates but the lamb is alerted and starts stalking them.
They head to VINEGAR. They're doing everything in the pitch dark and I keep reminding them how hard the dark is making everything but they're utterly focused on hydrating Nacho. He tries to drink the vinegar but fails.
Then they kick the door down to get into CHESTS. They looted everything and released Davok. Nacho tried to bargain servitude for magically being hydrated but Davok explained that the deal was servitude for not having their flesh torn off. Nacho agreed.
The lamb shows up and they're corned in CHESTS. They plead with Davok for help so he... casts emergency exit on the lamb, teleporting it somewhere else.
((( In hindsight, I think I should have insisted that they run past and possibly suffer another casualty. That could've been a good way to teach them that they've been trading safety for thoroughness by exploring every room instead of prioritizing finding a light source. But their pleas were sincere and I figured Davok wants out so he has to help somehow but he can't just fireball the lamb. I decided that he can't kill the lamb for them because of planar politics but that he could do them this one solid. )))
Then Davok goes to sleep to scry the astral plane for his body and leaves clear instruction that he is not to be disturbed. I was thrilled that Nacho leaned into the warlock role without any prompting. He even said, "I will not tolerate a word against my master."
So they head to LANDING, finally getting a torch. They mess about with the TUMBLERS for awhile to no avail. They got much better at interrogating the fiction and moving quickly at this point. But they didn't think to take the pole.
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| Note they've combined LANDING and TUMBLERS into 1 room and drawn the secret door on the wrong wall. They've also turned the 3 MURAL rooms into 1 long room. |
At this point they've got the helmet, lotus pipe, twine and bell, a bottle, a knife, a torch, a fire-starter.
They moved into PIT and heard that the lamb was in FOUNTAIN. They had a quick exchange with Akina and began searching BONE PILE for rope. They spent an hour doing this and didn't trigger any random encounters but they only got 2 rolls because they left Jack to keep watch. They found another torch and a silver crown. (I think its a necklace or something in the adventure but I accidentally told them crown. Shrug.)
The new torch came just in time.
They searched the bone pellets so they discovered the the secret door to SARCOPHAGUS. Nacho knew right away how to get down but didn't realize he'd be trapped so fell into SHADRAKUL. He took the spell book but didn't mess with the goblet. Somehow he got the feeling it was a trick. The snake didn't attack, more on that later.
They're obsessed with rope now to rescue Akina and Nacho so they keep searching the bone pellets, spending the remainder of their torch. They rolled a 13, so I decided they found rope.
((( Between the rope and the Shadrakul snake, I wonder if I was going too easy on them at this bit. But I couldn't tell if the snake was supposed to be guarding the whole skeleton or just the book or just the goblet. And 13 is missing from the pone pellets random item table. They were playing carefully and with focus so it worked for me. )))
They got Nacho and Akina both out. A passive encountered let them know the lamb was not in the fountain anymore but they had peeked into the MURAL room and wanted to check out the CRACK so they sent Ivan inside. He traded the silver crown to Danjo for some wine to hydrate Nacho. He traded Akina's gold ring to Danjo for the promise that he would return in 2 hours with scuba gear, of all things. They got Danjo's knife as collateral. There were no spider bites, even though Ivan was in the crack for 4 minutes.
That is where we stopped the session (after 3 hours). I haven't figured out yet if Danjo is going to come back with the scuba gear or cut and run. I asked why they wanted that and they've convinced themselves that there will be water based on the fish-with-arms statue.
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