Preparing for my first session as GM

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JugglinDan
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Re: Preparing for my first session as GM

Post by JugglinDan »

I don't have experience with the 5-room dungeon approach, but I've been running a weekly BFRPG game since last November, with each session having just 1 hour since we play at work during lunch. I've arrived at similar conclusions to you, and so far have been sticking to smaller areas. The first region was The Sanctuary of the Cursed Druids, a one-page dungeon written for Cairn that I adapted. The second region is the dwarven mine from Gold in the Hills (AA1). Both are small and are working well for the group.

Having said that, I think that larger areas will work now for this group as well, though they may take a long time. The other thing I have found helpful is to make a written session report each week. This helps with continuity after a longer break, and for those players who miss a session.
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Re: Preparing for my first session as GM

Post by Solomoriah »

"Five room dungeons" are too limiting, and become predictable pretty quickly. IMO, of course.
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JugglinDan
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Re: Preparing for my first session as GM

Post by JugglinDan »

Yes, small dungeon needn't mean formulaic dungeon.
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Mars
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Re: Preparing for my first session as GM

Post by Mars »

I think what I like about the 5-room dungeon strategy isn't the number of the rooms, but the idea of crafting an adventure around the 5 story-telling elements the strategy mentions: 1) Entrance/Guardian; 2) Puzzle/Roleplay challenge; 3) Trick or setback; 4) Climax/Boss Battle; 5) Reward/Revelation. It seems like an interesting way to craft a (hopefully satisfying) adventure, and it allows the option of trying to work on a small scale.

I could definitely imagine an online group still doing well with a longer, ongoing story, like JugglinDan mentions of his group. But the group I'm playing with--we've definitely been having fun with the Olde Island Fortress, and there have been a lot of really cool, memorable moments, but I think they're starting to get near the end of their attention span. I'd been imagining a whole side-story with the conflict between the goblins and the kobolds, but I don't think my group has the bandwidth for it at this point. I think they'll get more out of an attempt to keep things focused on one central goal.

So I'm thinking of ways to try to direct the story toward the boss fight in the Tomb, and to streamline or minimize the encounters that don't relate more specifically to that.

Which brings me to another question: all of the players except the magic user have now earned enough XP to attain 2nd level, and we took a moment at the beginning of the last session to level them up. But in terms of the story, that levelling up just sort of happened between one room and another. I didn't have them take an extended rest or anything. I'm not sure if that's the best way to do it, though. For the cleric, for example, who has now gained a spell, wouldn't it require a pause of at least a half hour of prayer for the cleric to gain that spell? Is a pause, or a formal rest, sort of expected in order for the new level benefits (including extra hit die and improved saving throw stats) to take effect? Or is it pretty normal to just level up on the go?
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JugglinDan
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Re: Preparing for my first session as GM

Post by JugglinDan »

Re levelling up, the different groups and GMs I have played with all seem to have a different approach. I've had times where people just get stronger from one room to the next as you say, and others where you can't advance until you take some downtime, with in-game reasons given for the new level, complete with training montages. I think it depends on how much you as GM and your players care about that sort of thing. For the cleric, I would still require time spent in prayer so they can be granted any new spells by their deity. Magic-users might acquire new spells slots, but they still need to find or learn the spells somewhere. That can be a good way to siphon money out of their pockets.

If my players levelled up mid-dungeon, I would probably get them to rest for a night so the cleric can pray and the magic-user can study new spells (if they have any). And that will require the party to weigh the risks - setting a watch, losing time against their goals etc. As GM, I'd be rolling a random encounter check.

I don't know that the right approach exists though. If everyone at the table is having fun, that's good enough for me.
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Re: Preparing for my first session as GM

Post by Boggo »

I've had a single face to face campaign last about 10 years, I don't think that online helps with campaign length (In fact I think it hurts it)

I usually allow levelling up when the players get xp, but I only give them the XP they've earned when they do a rest period (either camp for 8 hours or return to town overnight) then I give them the XP and if they have enough a new level.

As for the clerics spell, it requires 8 hours of rest, including prayer to get their spells (traditionally)
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Re: Preparing for my first session as GM

Post by dymondy2k »

Not sure this is one of the things the author meant, but I remember when exploring an 90' hallway was cool. But as a GM when running a game with my family, they hated them so much they had sarcastic comments every time they came across one. So I redesigned all the dungeons to remove long and wasted hallways and make the dungeon a bit more tighter.
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Re: Preparing for my first session as GM

Post by Boggo »

dymondy2k wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 7:50 pm Not sure this is one of the things the author meant, but I remember when exploring an 90' hallway was cool. But as a GM when running a game with my family, they hated them so much they had sarcastic comments every time they came across one. So I redesigned all the dungeons to remove long and wasted hallways and make the dungeon a bit more tighter.
just throw the odd trap or ambush into them, and they soon get their nervous anticipation for the long corridor back (I have a 120' corridor that has in the middle 2 hidden cutouts on either side (offset) each has 2 Bugbears with crossbows and swords, when the party is between them 4 crossbow close range attacks with surprise, no roll unless they detect the secret passages, then next round the bugbears burst out with their swords.
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Mars
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Re: Preparing for my first session as GM

Post by Mars »

Thank you JugglinDan and Boggo for the thoughts on XP and leveling up. I prefer the idea of giving XP updates and leveling up in moments of pause. It's been a bit tricky with the current campaign though because of the shortness of the sessions and how little they manage to get done in each one--usually just a few rooms. They've only taken one breather so far, from being so loaded down with coin they couldn't carry any more, and they're reluctant to pause or leave the dungeon for a break--they want to power through it.
dymondy2k wrote: Mon Mar 27, 2023 7:50 pm Not sure this is one of the things the author meant, but I remember when exploring an 90' hallway was cool. But as a GM when running a game with my family, they hated them so much they had sarcastic comments every time they came across one. So I redesigned all the dungeons to remove long and wasted hallways and make the dungeon a bit more tighter.
This definitely relates to what I'm talking about. I think the problem we've been having with long hallways/corridors is that they're often just a passage leading from one place to another, especially when they're behind a secret door and are mainly serving as an alternative route. The first time we encountered one it was a novel environment and a pretty scary one--a long tunnel stretching off into the darkness, taking you ever farther from the safety and wholesomeness of the open air. But after having passed through a few of them, my party doesn't seem to find them as engaging. They proceed with strategic caution--move slowly, check for traps, etc--but the actions feel rote.

To a certain extent, of course, this is just a reflection of my group's interests. I've heard of other groups where map-making is a major part of the game, and certain players really like the challenge of creating an accurate visual representation of the Gamemaster's descriptions. But for my group--they're not so interested in that, and currently (after the departure of one of the players) there isn't anyone who wants to draw a map.

This brings me back to why the 5-room dungeon approach is of interest to me--mainly the idea that a dungeon can be designed around encounters/experiences, and that the map itself is secondary to the events you want to confront the players with. Designing a dungeon in this way, there wouldn't be any empty rooms or corridors (which is in itself sort of out-of-keeping with certain traditions; I feel like I remember reading Gygax specifically setting forth a ratio of how many empty rooms you should include in the dungeon). Boggo's example of the ambushed corridor could work with this approach--the corridor isn't just a passage, it's a specific type of encounter/experience.

And speaking of Boggo's example, it brings up another thing I've been wondering about: how to handle secret doors. I find myself struggling a little with the best way to incorporate them into my descriptions. There's no elf in the party so there's no one who has a chance of just casually noticing a secret door. So far, in the areas where there are secret doors, I've sometimes added something to the description to give the players a clue that there might be a secret door that can be searched for (for example: "the dwarf notices something strange about the stonework of the wall on the left side of the corridor.") but it's a difficult dance between feeling like I'm making it too obvious (giving it away) and giving no indication at all--in which case the only way they'd be likely to find the secret doors would be if they meticulously search every ten feet of wall.

Going back to the 5-room dungeon idea (which, for what I'm interested in, wouldn't even necessarily mean 5-rooms), today I was dreaming up a project that could be built around the concept. Sort of like J.D. Neal's suggestion, in The Chaotic Caves module, of splitting the caves up and sprinkling them around the map, I was getting excited about creating a module with numerous mini-dungeons grouped together in a shared range. The idea I started dreaming up would be an open "Badlands" area, near a little outpost town, with ancient tombs and burial sites sprinkled throughout it (sort of like the Plain of Jars in Laos, or the Valley of the Kings in Egypt. There could be a person in the town who's interested in relics from the tombs--either for monetary or archaeological or spiritual reasons--but he and everyone else in the town thinks the tombs are cursed or too dangerous to approach. The territory could be a site where many different cultures settled the land at different times, allowing for each tomb to be very different--I'm thinking Egyptian Tombs and Celtic Burial Mounds and half-empty sacrificial sink holes like in Cancun for inspiration. It'd give a writer a chance to create a lot of mini-dungeons that could be finished in single 2-hour online sessions, but they'd fit together within a larger story.

I'm tempted to create a thread in the workshop forum, and to dive into the project. But, knowing how limited my time is right now, I'm worried it'd be just another big dream destined for failure...
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JugglinDan
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Re: Preparing for my first session as GM

Post by JugglinDan »

I find it helped me to stop thinking about passages and corridors as something different to rooms. Anything that could happen in a room could equally happen in a passage. Hidden treasure, encounters, plot-specific items hidden in a decorative vase or funerary urn in a niche on the wall, statues that do something. Combined with doors, already discovered known pit traps and other features, the passageways can form part of effective tactics for combat encounters as well. In my current game, the players have decided to try to draw a large group of goblins into the tunnels where terrain features will force the goblins into a slow single file, shifting the odds in favour of the party who are severely outnumbered.

But yes, long formulaic passageways that either contain nothing or exactly one trap can get boring. I usually gloss over those because sometimes connecting two other areas is exactly what you need.
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