Challenge accepted! 30 minute dungeon

Go here for the original explanation on the 30 minute dungeon.  Great idea!
http://bogeymanscave.blogspot.com/2019/02/30-minute-dungeons-are-back.html

I got sorta challenged by Matt to do this, so here goes nothing! 

You can download a 6x9 version of this here. 

From Bogeymanscave
A Hook
General Background
3 Combat Encounters
3 "Empty" Rooms
2 Traps
1 NPC
1 Weird Thing To Experiment With
Some Treasure
A Magic Item

Alright here we go: 
HOOK:  Rumored to be buried in an old sewing factory is a safe filled with money left over from the ancients.  

General background:  Post apocalyptic wasteland, most buildings are destroyed, buried in sand and rubble.  Mutants and radiation are the norm.  This building in particular is inhabited by mutated slugs that spew radiation. 


1.  Large room with hundreds of sewing machines, along one wall are piles of cloth in all kinds of fabulous colours.  

There is a small pit trap right on the other side of the entrance to this room.  The distance of the pit trap is insignificant, however when someones falls in they set off an alarm in room 2.  3 large mutant slugs will make their way into the room in a few rounds. 

Mutant Slug AC 7 HD2 Att 1 DMG 2d6, Special: Spews radiated slime, on a failed save the PC will become a slug in a matter of 1d4 turns unless some antidote can be found. 

2.  Storehouse room, there are a pile of cleaning supplies including brooms, mops and buckets.  Nested in the middle of the room is a giant pile of brown slime, within it are 3 mutant slugs.  They appear to be playing some kind of dice game. 

Mutant Slug AC 7 HD2 Att 1 DMG 2d6, Special: Spews radiated slime, on a failed save the PC will become a slug in a matter of 1d4 turns unless some antidote can be found. 

3.  Empty  (sorta) This room was the employee breakroom at one point, there is a fridge (with a lot of really old rotten food in it) and a coffee pot and some chairs. 

Under the false ceiling is:  a few dirty magazines, a pack of smokes and a bottle of liquor, also $50 in ones. 

4.  This room is filled with a large glowing web (or what appears to be a web) of leather strips.  In the centre of the web is a two headed girl with a mohawk.  

Two headed girl Casandra warrior.  She was caught by the slugs, and thinks she might be fed to the queen slug.  She is a capable warrior.  

5.  Large warehouse:  There are piles of boxes stacked up on skids (they contain clothing from the factory).  In one corner is a (working) forklift near a set of large bay doors.   In the room is a very large slug! 

Queen Mutant Slug AC 3 HD4 Att 1 DMG 2d6, Special: Spews radiated slime, on a failed save the PC will become a slug in a matter of 1d4 turns unless some antidote can be found. .

There is a working satellite dish, a box of medpacks (1d4) and $100 cash buried under a pile of detritus. 

6.  A large wooden desk takes up a lot of this room, there are 3 leather chairs and a mini bar. 

Under the mini bar are 2 levers, one of them unlocks the safe in room 10, the other opens the bay doors in room 5.  

7.  Empty, this room is filled with old filing cabinets.  There is a nice decorative clock on the wall (still works, worth $30).  

8.  There is a large crater in the floor of this room, and most of the ceiling has caved in.  Broken electronics are everywhere (server room). 

Looking thru the electronics will yield a decent GPS device that still works!  

9.  This room contains old gym equipment, which is in use by 2 slugs.  

Mutant Slug AC 7 HD2 Att 1 DMG 2d6, Special: Spews radiated slime, on a failed save the PC will become a slug in a matter of 1d4 turns unless some antidote can be found. 

10.  Inside this room is a bunch of old file cabinets and a safe. 

The safe is locked and trapped with poison excreted from the slugs.  If the trap is triggered while opening the safe:  on a failed save the PC will become a slug in a matter of 1d4 turns unless some antidote can be found. . 

Dungeon created at : https://donjon.bin.sh/fantasy/dungeon/

This took me 15 minutes giver take. 
DO IT! and comment here with yours. 

Black Hack Playtest Part Trois!

So we finished up the black hack adventure that Matt was running last night.  It was filled with epic silliness.  We were originally supposed to go to this bubbling tower in search of a magical creature.  We did find one, a unicorn, however we kept looking (cuz you know your in a tower so you want to check the whole thing out).

After finishing up looking around the 2nd level of the tower (which was made by some wack a doodle architect!*) we decided to go and check upstairs.  Being a typical murderhobo thief I went first with my bow ready to shoot anything that moved.

I get to the landing of the next level, and there's a black cat and a Oculus!** Apparently he was trying to make friends with the cat.  Anyways, shoot at things that move.  I fire an arrow at him, after he shot a beam of light from his eyeball at the cat.  (You can't blame me, I thought he was going to kill the cat.  I maybe chaotic, but I have a heart).

Tim Shorts character came up the stairs and lobbed a thermo nuclear detonator (yup we are in a fantasy setting).   I was still upstairs when it blew.  Blasting apart this crazy magical lab.

I managed to grow a new arm, and when the contents of the lab blew up all these magical potions got destroyed causing effects to all of us.  Tim's character, ever 22 minutes he splits into 2, and he has to suffer thru regrowing a tooth everyday just to have them fall out at the end of the month!

Somehow the cleric saved my ass, and while I was lying there bleeding to death I saw the black cat jump out the window.  The thing that amazed me though, was that it turned into a griffon and flew away! (schrodinger's cat?)

I guess that was the magical creature that we were supposed to find.

We left off trying to decide what to do with this awesome tower, and the unicorn who poops magic gems!  Strongly considering getting a wagon and bringing all that back to town like crazy heroes!

The session was a blast, and I'm really digging black hack.  Matt was talking about trying to do a sci fi type game with it.  Although not using any of the hacks of the hack, just the straight up black hack and re name character classes.  As I was suggesting a thief could easily be a computer hacker/space pirate (han solo type), warriors could be a chewy kinda creature etc.  It's a great system, one that I intend to play in the future.

*First level was 30 x 30, second level was 60 x 30 and the top level was 30 x 30?  Nifty! 

**Turns out this oculus was young, and didn't grow up with other's around.  He was trying to find a mate and he figured the best way to do that was to get some moolah.  So he created a magical lab in order to make some cash, and then in turn find a mate that would be willing to hang with him.  The cat was his friend.  Unfortunately we almost killed him, so I hazard to guess he's coming back for us at some point. 

The Metallic Room

The hero's have worked their way thru the megadungeon, in search of treasure and the evil mage who rules the surrounding lands with an iron fist.  The campaign has stretched on for a few months.  Everyone is tired of fantasy, orcs and goblins.  Deep within the dungeon they start to feel an emanating presence, almost a low ring as if to pieces of metal were stuck together.  This ring gets louder in their ears as they get closer to a large metal door.  Odd? All of the doors in the dungeon have been made of wood, and most have been in terrible shape.  This door stands out, because its a door unlike anything that has been seen before. 

The thief grabs the handle and tests it.  Everything seems to be okay, no traps, and it's unlocked......

The hero's slowly enter the room and find a very strange sight indeed.  The torch light casts shadows over a ring of metallic chairs in a circle.  A large computer screen shows an above shot of what the PCs are doing.  The dwarf scratches an itch on his left arm, and to his surprise the monitor shows that.

What is this weirdness, is it some trick by the evil mage?

The wizard pulls a feather and a string from his sleeves, and casts a spell. 

"There is no magic in this room, but I fear for what it really is.  Truth is stranger than fiction" comments the wise sage.

Peering closer to the figures in the chair the dwarf realizes with utter horror that it is in fact the heros!

They are hooked up to a large machine in the floor, cables run the length of the room. 

The mighty warrior whose arms are bigger than his brain, immediately walks up to his doppelganger and pulls the plug. 

He opens his eyes, and breaths.  He is in a large metallic room, surrounded by machines.  The rest of his compatriots are nearby in the same circle of chairs.  Thru a plate glass window he spies a tall greenish skinned double headed woman wearing a lab coat.

The PCs are now in a bunker, the fantasy world was a dream.  They wake up to the harsh reality that they live in the wasteland. 

Black hack playtest part deux

Reconvened with Matt and the gang on Monday night for another session of Black Hack.  I have to say, much like any other system the more I play it the more I get it.  At first the usage dice, and the way armour works didn't make much semblance of sense.  That said, Matt was able to explain it relatively well.

Matt had some thoughts on TBH on his podcast here:
https://anchor.fm/mattrando/episodes/Ep-6---Continue-wThe-Black-Hack-e38m79/a-aamk1i

One thing I find when learning a new game, is to sit and create characters, and all the character types.  That is the best way for me to figure out how all the mechanics work and effect each other.  I spent a bit of time yesterday rolling up clerics, wizards and fighters for TBH.  In our current game I'm playing a thief, which I'm finding more and more is my "go to" character.

I have yet to do this exercise with 5e.  A thing I should eventually do.  Although you already know my thoughts on fifth ed.  

I have to say the adventure is crazy gonzo! Last week we started off outside this wacky tower that had bubbles blowing from the top of it.  This week we got to the second level, and found a unicorn hooked up to some kinda masheen, that was basically nursing him like a cow (yes him).  And he was pooping strange gemstones.  There was a bunch of weirdos that were watching this ficasco.  We started doing some negotiations, but it appears they are all on drugs or in some kinda trance, including the unicorn!

I believe we left off having just got into a fight. I'll have to look at my notes. 

I may or may not have mentioned this, but if you try out the black hack, I'd suggest printing off a copy of whatever character class you are playing.  It's a handy little reference as to what you can and cannot do, and what things you get advantage on.  Super handy!

I can't wait for next week!

It feels good to be gaming again.

Also I'm so getting the itch to run something. 

Random friday

A bunch of things on my mind today.

First things first, our favourite anchorcaster Colin "Spikepit" Green released his 100th episode! and it's absolutely fantastic.  No spoilers here, just go and listen to it:  https://anchor.fm/spikepit/episodes/100-Century-of-Spikepit-e359uu  

Matt Random is back on Anchor and he's got a good episode about "the black hack".  Check it out here: https://anchor.fm/mattrando/episodes/Ep-5---The-Black-Hack--initial-thoughts-e37apr

A really good article I read last night about writing, and something that I'm going to take to heart: http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2019/02/just-do-it.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MonstersAndManuals+%28Monsters+and+Manuals%29

I posted the article on mewe which brought up a interesting discussion about the "10,000 hour rule", the gist of which is "in order to get good at anything you need to put 10,000 hours in".  I don't think I'm quite there with mapping and writing, definitely layout stuff (I think rotbb I put over 10K in hahaha).  I have to say, I put more than 10K in learning how to make records.  It's almost second nature to me now.  That all being said, I intend to try and write everyday (starting today).  I have about 6 random projects on the go.  Even if I get a paragraph for each one a day, that's something! Although I think I'd like to get a bit more.

Here's an idea I was working on the other day.  Basically I like the idea of random character creation and I've been revisiting my mutant hack.  World building wise, it's mutants in the north.  I'm dubbing it "Mutant Murderhobos Of The Frozen North (tm)"

Creature Race

All characters are a mutated version of a human and some kind of animal,
unless otherwise stated (android).  Where noted, increase ability scores.
Note: Any mutation that increases damage, is only in effect when attacking with the mutation.  
Ex Moose Antlers do an extra +2 damage on a successful hit.

Roll D20	Animal Type	Bonus	Mutation
1	Polar Bear	+1 CON	Endure Extreme Cold
2	Bald Eagle	+1 INT	Fly
3	Garter Snake	+1 DEX	Move Silently
4	Beaver	+1 WIS	Large Teeth (D6+2 DMG)
5	Canada Goose	+1 CHA	Fly
6	Moose	+1 CON	Antlers (D6+2 DMG)
7	Grizzly Bear	+1 STR	Paws (D6+2 DMG)
8	Elk	+1 CON	Antlers (D6+2 DMG)
9	Cougar	+1 DEX	Move Silently
10	Gray Wolf	+1 DEX	Move Silently
11	Wolverine	+1 CON	Claws (D6+2 DMG)
12	Bison	+1 WIS	Thick hide +1 to AC
13	Squirrel	+1 INT	+2 Starting Hit Points
14	Rabbit	+1 CHA	Able to hop 4 metres
15
16
17
18
19
20

Essentially there are going to be random tables for starting weapons, equipment, mutations etc.

Alright that's enough for me today.  Hope you have a good weekend! I'm going out for Pizza tonight at a place called "little pizza heaven".  Excellent marketing!

Note: Sailors on the starless seas is currently on sale.  Excellent adventure.  $4.68 CAD.

An introductory adventure for the Dungeon Crawl Classics Roleplaying Game, Sailors on the Starless Sea pits a mob of 0-level adventurers against the legacy of the Chaos Lords and their corrupted hordes. Delving beneath the crumbling ruins, the characters discover ancient crypts, a starless sea, and an ancient ziggurat, where death and treasure await in equal measure!

What it means to me

I've been thinking a lot about the "OSR" and "Community" lately.  Specifically my community.  I've made some good friends over the years, I've cultivated my friends list on mewe, and facebook to be tailored to people I actually want to have conversations with.

As such I think that this blog is slowly going to change.  It's not really going to be about promoting people, reviews, etc.  It's going to become even more tailored to my personal experience, my ideas.  In reality, that's my OSR.  Having conversations about what I'm upto, what ideas I have, thoughts, experiences etc.  I think that the 3 Toadstools, is going to get even closer to what I talk about on my anchor podcast (if not a duplicate in some cases).  I had a super fun time gaming with Matt the other day, which lead to some gaming mechanic ideas I started working on.

I'm done with all of the outside "OSR Community".  The community at large if you will. 

If you want to be part of my community, great, if you don't that's cool.  Some days it might just be me talking about something that has me excited, and that's cool.

Further, even though there's some places to have discussions (mewe, facebook, twitter), I think that as time goes on bloggin is going to be my number one place to do so.

I am still on the fence as to whether 3 toadstools is going to move to a different platform (wordpress), or if it will just stay here.  I'm a bit of a procrastinator.  Part of me says "hey move this shit over and make sure you don't loose anything".  The other part of me thinks "fuck it, if it gets deleted start over".

For the mean time, you can find me here.

Tried some black hack last night

Chatting with Matt last night on mewe, and he had mentioned that him and his friend were creating characters for "The Black Hack".  I didn't realize that they were doing it right then.  Anyways, he shot me the hangouts link and I jumped on.  Since my wife was nicely cuddled up on the couch reading "Outlander". 

note:  if your wife hasn't read this book, and she likes sex and men in kilts, I recommend grabbing her the first book. 

Anyways, I was thinking alright "let's create some characters", which would probably take a few minutes and then we would reconvene next week to play a game. Yup nope, took all of 10 minutes at the most to create a character (actually probably five minutes) and we were off on an adventure!  Bryan was a wizard named Knox, and I created a thief named Jax.  Which we both found entertaining as I didn't know the name of his character.

Matt rolled up a quick adventure premise in the back of the book (those tables in the black hack are awesome! even if you don't run the actual game, the book is worth the price just for the tables IMHO).

Apparently we were headed to a tower with a bunch of bubbles coming out of the top.  Quite possibly the location of a Beholder. 

I gotta say that the rules are wonderful.  The roll under thing (1's are a success and 20's are bad!) is super easy.  Obviously it takes a bit to wrap your head around it (depending on the game you are used to) however super straight forward. The thing I like about it, is I don't have to add shit.  When you roll advantage disadvantage, you take the lower of the 2, not the higher.  Once again, just wrapping your head around it.  I found it easy and straight forward.  Partially because I've been reading a lot of AFF and the mechanic is roll under in it.

My character picked up a rock and hucked it down a well at a goblin.  I had to roll under my DEX (which was 16).  Alright rolled a 7, bang! smoked that goblin.

I have to say, that printing off a copy of the basic character sheets and abilities of a class is a good idea.  I had it open on my tablet to the thief page.  But I'll probably print off a physical copy when I get a chance.

Looking forward to the next game.  Nice thing is Matt likes to run shorter games, like an hour or 2 at the most.  Which is good for me, as my ADD kicks in and things get derailed sometimes.

Super fun evening!

Wooo! Winner winner chicken dinner!

So a few weeks ago, Gothridge Manor held a contest for signing up to his mailing list.  The winners were picked at random by rolling percentile dice (seriously you can't more D&D than that can you?)  And I won! (Which I blame my Irish heritage on).  Anyways, the other day I got the package in the mail, which was very nice.  Considering mailing anything to Canada is stupid expensive!

Here's the unboxing (with my lovely wife model Jen).



I was thinking the tavern cards could be a fun game as part of a drinking & carousing thing.  The idea would be the following:  Every player gets 5 cards, and throws three back (after they look at them).  The cards that have been kept get thrown on the table and you build the tavern (and story) with the cards.

I urge you to go check out Tim's new awesome site!  He's got a pile of books for sale in his store.

https://www.gothridgemanor.com/

Take it easy everyone!

Considering a change of address

With the news that G+ is caputz, and that I've lost all my comments on blogger, I am a bit on the fence as to whether I'll be staying here (blogspot).  I'm aware that I can export this whole thing out and import into a platform like wordpress.  And I may just do that.  The bugger of that is I still have to go and recreate all the extra little pages that I have on here, my blog roll that I use on a regular basis, etc. 

The other thing that I'm wondering is, "do I still have some gas in the tank?" 

When I first started blogging about RPGs I was genuinely REALLY excited.  As of late, that has waxed a bit.  At least as far as creative output is concerned.  I feel like there are a few reasons why:

1.  While G+ turned into a tire fire a LOT, there was a pile of creativity happening.  With the break of the OSR (everyone going somewhere, not all of us together), I find I'm seeing & hearing about less things. 

MeWe is cool, and I'm enjoying it.   Honestly though its more friends that I have on there.  I think on G+ I was following like 700 people, on mewe I think I've got about 100 at the most.  Sorry ranting here... even the OSR group on Mewe is a lot smaller, and it's mostly just blog posts.  That said I feel like I should still keep bloggin (It's getting people to know where the hell I went is the trick). 

2.  Because of the break up, the audience and views has changed.

3.  Because of the amount of content I was seeing, it just pushed me to keep making even more content!

4.  I've been super busy as of late, and I haven't really had much time for gaming.  When I do get to play in the next little while it'll be 5e and I won't have a lot to say honestly.  My personal focus has been switched to Advanced fighting fantasy latetly.

5.  Blogging takes away from writing.  Which is fine, but with less of a distraction maybe I'll get more shit done.  That said, I'm unsure how many 3 Toadstool releases are going to make their way to the light of day in the next year.  My focus as of late is working on a home sandbox idea for AFF (if I ever get a better computer and some actual time during the week I'd like to run some games... that however seems like a crap shoot).  I'd really like to put something out for AFF.  Just a download here.

6.  My company is currently moving (well almost moved), so that has been tying up a lot of my mental and physical resources for the last few months.  Which has left me bagged and meloncoly when I get home.  (Hence less posts, yadda).

So I'm at a loss, because I'm a bit worried that blogger is going to go away, and I'm unsure as to wether I have more to say? If that makes any sense. 

Whatever the case, If I decide to pull the pin, I'll create the site.  Archive this one (and import to the new one) and then leave a post here saying "FIND ME HERE!"

Hope all is well with everyone and you've been getting some games in!  I've been creating some AFF characters at home, and just re-reading the rules. 

My heart is happy

I have fond memories of those old green spine books from the magical island across the sea from me.

(this post was started awhile ago, and I'm finally getting back to it).  

These books were my first introduction into this role playing world.  I remember having a shelf full of them when I was a kid.  Listening to Nirvana Nevermind on a cassette and rolling dice on my lap, instead of doing homework.

When I first jumped onto google plus, I think my first search term was Fighting Fantasy.  Shortly after I found the OSR.   Shortly after that I created a community for Advanced Fighting Fantasy.  I then grabbed the NEW version of AFF by +Graham Bottley .  I dubbed it AFF 2.0, I think it stuck.  I love that there was a vibrant community around all things fighting fantasy.  All this is possible because of the internet.  I remember being a nerdy kid thinking "I wonder if other people know how cool this is?".   I didn't know that it was HUGE in the UK (yonder magical island across the sea from me, where there are pubs on every corner, note I must go there).

My interest in AFF & FF has been reignited latetly, as I've been reading a few of the solo books in my spare time.  Crown of kings & armies of death.  Which has got me thinking about either writing my own rules hack, re-buying the original dungeoneer or just running AFF 2.0.  The other night I found a PILE of resources out there for AFF.  

The original advanced rules were broken, there was a lot of things like leveling up that just made heroes gods eventually.  That being said, the simplicity of the system is JUST AWESOME.  And honestly I think it would be perfect for 1 shots or even a 3-4 session type game.  Part of the reason I don't know if I would run Aff2.0 as a one shot is that not everybody has the rules handy.  (especially if playing online).  So what I might do, is just go ahead and create a house rules document with the basics.  Possibly use a few tweaks from Troika, AFF 2.0 etc.  Basically something that allows a quick start type of game.  (speaking of quickstarts there's one for aff 2.0). 

If you haven't heard about TROIKA! you should go and check it out.  It's a throwback to the original set of advanced rules, however there's lots of fun little tweaks.  From a brief little read, there is a world behind the rules, classes, backgrounds that all tie in.  (A full review is upcoming).  Here's the blurb.

Troika! is a complete role playing game, giving you everything you need to create characters and lead them through the hump-backed sky towards adventure.

The game is a response to decrepit UK RPGs. A "retro" RPG rebuilt without sentimentality, corpses of darlings litter the streets.

The game is 56 pages and includes:

Unified art direction by Jeremy Duncan.

A fully automated character creation system to represent the vagaries of fate.

36 backgrounds. You have no influence on who you were, only on who you will become.

A setting baked into the rules and resistant to untangling.

Plainly expressed rules, easily accessible and highly modifiable.

Art Version

Pay What You Want Version (No art) 

Just a few thoughts on Troika while I'm rambling here.  I really like it!  However the baked in setting and background isn't really my cup of tea currently.  To a degree the backgrounds sort of remind me of Barbarians of Lemuria (another wonderful system that's easy to run). 

So in my quest last night to find some interesting resources I found the following cool shit: 

*This site is an amazing resource of all the advanced books (detailing the world, the mechanics etc): https://projects.inklesspen.com/fatal-and-friends/kayumi/fighting-fantasy/  (detailed in here is also explanations as to why the original advanced game was broken).  This explains a lot of the issues

*Note that's basically where I'm going to get my home brew version.

*Fan written adventures for AFF (and version 2.0): https://fightingfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Fan_Written_Advanced_Fighting_Fantasy

*A Fifth Edition conversion of "The warlock of firetop mountain":  https://homebrewery.naturalcrit.com/share/HyE1NYoSf

*Dyson Logos redrew the map for "warlock of firetop mountain".  https://dysonlogos.blog/2019/01/26/the-warlock-of-firetop-mountain-combined/

*A bunch of fan rules: http://fightingfantasygamebooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1788&Itemid=37

*A pile of monsters: http://fightingfantasygamebooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=445&Itemid=65

*adventure sheets: http://fightingfantasygamebooks.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1407&Itemid=68

*Dysons review on AFF2.0: https://dysonlogos.blog/2014/08/07/advanced-fighting-fantasys-reboot/

What I've always loved about the system is the simplicity.  That and the idea of just being an adventurer (in the books).  You start off with a backpack, a sword and a torch and your wits.  Love it.