We Were Wizards: Halloween Costume Game of Forbidden Caverns of Archaia, A Play Report and Review

TL;DR Played a session in this dungeon while dressed up as wizards.  We had a great time but I wish the module was better.

It's a strange Halloween year.  Tuesday is an awkward day for the holiday, so people have been intermittently partying all weekend.  I've avoided most of it, but the party happily came to me in Friday.  Our good friends Nick and Michelle came over after dinner with wizard costumes, but no party to go to.  Jah and I put on what we had, Medusa and random Renaissance Faire stuff respectively, and there we were, eating and drinking cocktails.  How about a game?

Nick was intrigued by my copy of Forbidden Caverns of Archaia sitting on the coffee table.  It's Fall colors appealed.  "Let's play that!"


AN UNCOMMON EVENING
We whipped up characters for my "Uncommon Dungeons" ruleset.  It was quick and easy.  My wife and our friends have mostly played type V D&D, but they soon got into rolling 3d6 for the stats, writing the minimal information on a blank paper and getting down to business.  I was pretty happy with the speed and ease of it.  The longest time was spent writing down gear.  I had no time to prepare so I got right to it.  "You have been trekking through the badlands all day, through sand storms and scorching heat, buzzards circle overhead as you pass macabre crucifixions in wastes.  Finally you arrive.  You see this."  I held up the illustration.

An overly fanatical Dwarven Cleric, a crafty Elf Wizard, and a brave Fighter descended the rocky trail to canyon floor.  I said, "Now you see THIS," again I held up a picture in the book.

Player rolls on the Doom Die forced the group to hunker down and eat their rations.  While they did that, a tremor rumbled through the canyon.  The walls shook and one nearby cliff partially collapsed.  They group rushed into the nearest cave they could find, for shelter.

Within, an ominous silence.  Torchlight revealed a long hall, pockmarked with holes and splattered with dried blood.  The sharp eyed elf spied a secret door on the right so the dwarf barged in a promptly fell through a trap door!  A Pfaetherfall spell saved him but he happily took a proffered rope back up as he found himself in a barred cell with a skeletal inmate and a jailor coming to investigate.

The trio fled that cave and ran across to an ancient arch with a skull shaped keystone.  Carefully tapping their way down a long stairs, the three began to explore what was certainly an ancient Archaian building.  They found an old scroll still sealed in its stone tube.  A rigged crossbow trap shaved a whisker off the dwarfs beard.

Then a sudden tremor shook the complex violently.  Stone and dust rained down, the earth lurched and suddenly a gaping crevasse opened across the trio's retreat.  Then came the zombies.  They came through a crack that had been opened in a wall.  The wizard stepped forward and poured fire upon them all but it wasn't enough.  Still they advanced.  The fighter hacked with her axe.  The cleric healed then tried to heal again.  He remembered this morning's augury.  "Woe".  The dwarf died at the hands of his own hubris.

A the last zombie fell, and the fighter realized she was on her own for the wizard had succumbed to her own magics as well.  The fighter loaded the frail elf on one shoulder and ran out of there.  She didn't stop until she got back to Eastdale.

 The Forbidden Caverns were gamed.  Totally spontaneously.  They claimed their first PC.  We had a great time.  In wizard costumes.  The players did more drama troupe acting and funny voices than I did this session.

REVIEW OF THE FORBIDDEN CAVERNS OF ARCHAIA
I have to admit I've been fairly ambivalent about the Forbidden Caverns.  I'd been looking forward to it for about a year as I have been steadily playing the Barrowmaze Complete book I bought as part of the same kickstarter.  I was stoked when I finally got my copy in the mail, started doodling in it but lost interest kinda quick.  I've gotten more playtime out of BMC than most game books in my collection.  The classic simplicity of it works well.  This is all well and good.  I really like the aesthetic of the book.  Stefan Poag and Peter Pagano do a lot of really great work that really makes the whole things look really cool.  I don't love the cover.  Erol Otus is awesome but the covers for these two books are not that rad.  Maybe too cartoony, not mysterious enough. 

The Forbidden Caverns are more of the same after Barrowmaze.  That's part of the problem.  The set up doubles down generic/classic depending on your perspective.  There is a canyon full of ruins and caves inhabited by every type of evil humanoid monster: goblinoids, beastmen, lizardmen, evil humans, even giants.  They are all part of an army that will one day pour forth to devastate the world.  In the meantime they are collecting trash and living in a very geologically active area.  There are dozens of small to medium to huge dungeons in the book,  Unfortunately the dungeons themselves are pretty straightforward.  Here's this kind of monster.  Now here's this other one.  I have had to really look through the book carefully a couple of times to start to figure out which questions to ask to make this dungeon interesting.  How is it any different than Barrowmaze (or even Caves of Chaos)?

It actually suffers from some of the same problems as Barrowmaze in that it is unclear what anyone is doing there.  In Barrowmaze most things are undead, so they're obviously just hanging around zombie-ing out, but then you occasionally run into Necromancers of Orcus or Set or Nergal and there is no personality to any of them, no sense of in what way the three factions are different (skull face,  pentagram head, uh) or really what they want in the maze.  The campaign setting is super similar as well.  The town of Eastdale is basically just a re-skinned Helix with some mention of how the local paladins are teetotalers so carousing is frowned up.  Now there's the mission!

Forbidden Caverns is similar.  There are all these monsters and hideouts and lairs, and a bunch of them have these Chaos Priests/Warriors of Impurax lurking in the back rooms but there's no sense of what their doing and why.  The Chaos dudes get names but no sense of who they are our how the wrangling of their particular group of evil humanoids is going.   Deep in the final dungeon are the High Priestess of Impurax and also a couple of old magical liche type creatures.  How do they relate each other?  I'm going to need to use one of those old npc relationship tables from Vornhiem to make it interesting.

It all seems very static, but unlike Barrowmaze, the Forbidden Caverns are the opposite of static.  There are constant earthquakes and collapses (I decided that anytime a Doom Die roll repeated itself that would signal a quake), there is a growing garbage mound, there are violent evil monster armies full of factions who don't like each other.  This sandbox needs to be dynamic.

The DM needs to do a bit more prep.  Basically, every dungeon resident needs to have a grudge against or alliance with another (Froglings plotting to take out the Kobolds for example).  Especially the Chaos warriors.  They have names, so we need to make a table add some random stuff and give those guys problems with each other, goals, attitudes toward the beastmen and orcs they are supposed to by wrangling.   The archons at the end need it as well.  Just a couple of "wants" and "needs" phrases for these guys would really help the whole thing.  The only reason for all these different monsters to be hanging to together is because this great prophecy of Impurax that must say something about how it will require "ever finger of the hand of Chaos to bring the dark god to this realm."  That has to be the thing, and that needs to become player character knowledge pretty early on in a campaign but that sort of hint and clue is left entirely up to the DM.  At the very least all the Impurax guys should be carrying around the Rotting Hand diagram.

I get that this style of dungeon module is supposed to be bare bones so that the detail and amazing parts can be more emergent, but for such a huge module, you'd think there'd be more color, more about the npcs and some more creative weirdness in the dungeons.  For a city of lost magic, the magic is pretty straightforward.  Where's the crazy weird remnants of magic as technology stuff?  I don't know how much I'll use this book, but if I do I'll be using my old Ruins of Myth Drannor and Undermountain item cards for sure.

I don't mean to bag on the book too much.  I just had a great session with it.  I obviously have been thinking about how to run it.  I love the art.  The "wheel of time" is great.  There are some cool magic items, especially the modular staff items that can be put together in different combinations to unlock different abilities and different magic gates.  It is totally playable from cracking the book and I love the illustration section.  I love BMC's illustration section.  I always dig the illo sections of Goodman Games modules as well.  All modules should have dedicated illustration sections.

All in all, I'm going to stick this dungeon in my campaign world somewhere, but it doesn't make me want to lure my players out of the Barrowmaze to explore the Caverns.  Might happen at some point though.

This diagram needs to be found in the possession of the Horde bosses and Fanged Legion reps, because how else are they gonna keep it all straight?

The Barrowmaze, an Uncommonly Good Dungeon

DOOM IN THE DARK

Careful exploration, sudden traps, overwhelming foes, a ready shovel and sledgehammer.  Torchbearers running screaming into the darkness.   It's the Barrowmaze.  This dungeon has helped facilitate a classic "Old School" style of campaign unlike any other I've run.  It is perfect for short episodic sessions online using a traditional D&D ruleset.  Using the magic of Roll20 and Google Hangouts my friends and I are nine sessions (40 in all) into a nicely emerging campaign.

I mostly run Type V D&D because that's the game people know; it's the new and shiny, but I've been reading OSR gaming blogs for years, wondering if that sort of mythical "old school" dirtbag style of play would really work for me.  It requires a different set of assumptions than a more heroic high magic style game.

A few months back I picked up the 261page megadungeon Barrowmaze Complete via the Kickstarter for the forthcoming sequel.  I'd been thinking about it for years and the magic of Kickstarter hype got me to pull the trigger.  That and the epic cartoon trailer.


Barrowmaze makes a great set up for this style game, it's a complete campaign setting: Starting in a dirty little village on the edge of a backwater duchy, the dungeon delvers wake at dawn to make their way to Barrow Moor, where ancient barrow mounds hide entrances to a sprawling maze beneath.  The goal is to get in and out with a bit of treasure, get back to town and spend it on carousing!

EPISODIC

One of the really nice design decisions of the Barrowmaze is that it is a single level, with multiple points of entry.  The bane of big dungeons is that the whole thing can get bogged down when the characters are trapped in the dungeon, unable to recover and unable to vary the play over multiple sessions.  The way Barrowmaze works out is that the players discover more entrances the further East they go, deeper into the surface map.  Some entrances are discovered from the surface.  Others have been discovered as an escape from below.  On the whole, it makes for a nice session, into the dungeon, back out, makes some carousing roles, count up XP.  There is a bit of a story to the Barrowmaze, but its secondary to the players' story.  That said, this dungeon can be defeated, and it would be pretty satisfying to do so!

A PROCEDURAL GAME

Wandering monster rolls are crucial to this dungeon.  Loud noise triggers rolls.  And it creates a time pressure.  Should they break down that wall or move on?  Should they search through all the burial nooks?  Wandering monsters can add up quick as well, and players have fled from an encounter with Sapphire Skeletons or Coffer Corpses ("They just won't die!").  This is a dungeon that is enhanced by keeping track of time, torches, and rations.
The Doom Dice mechanic I introduced to Uncommon Dungeons has really helped for this.

EVERYTHING IN IT'S RIGHT PLACE

The book is pretty self-contained.  Most of the monsters featured have descriptions and stats (for Labyrinth Lord which works fine for my rules) in the back of the book, as do magic items and key spells.  Tables for treasures, dungeon dressing, rival tomb robbers, and re-stocking are included as well, but they can be hard to find in the moment.  I use a lot of bookmarks and a cheat sheet.
Best of all, there is a large section of handout art to show players for particular rooms and encounters.  I've always really like these sort of additions.

HOT STYLE

The writing and art direction are really great.  The visual theme on a whole makes me think of a cartoon version of death metal album.  The writing is brief, useful and friendly.  There's a bunch of sidebars telling stories of the author's games, which is amusing and serves to highlight the intended play style.  The illustrations are all black and white, heavily inked drawings.  It's mostly very useable, with illustrations of the things you want to be able to show players.

EXCEPT A FEW THINGS...

Overall, this is a book I was able to sit down and run multiple games with hardly any preparation, so the book is obviously organized well enough, but I have a couple of quibbles.  There's a few funny decisions on organization.  The special rules for things like barrow exploration and runic tablets are sort of buried in the book, just before the Barrow Mounds section.  It makes sense to read, but in play I wish is was collated in an appendix in the back.  The other quibble is with the dungeon entrances, or rather the exits.  The Barrow Mounds section clearly states where each stair down appears in the maze, but sometimes I have players discover an entrance from below, and the map has no indication of what mound # it goes up to.  So, the DM makes some notes.

The maps are simple and mostly clear.  I did run into a moment last session where the group unexpectedly made it to room 100, which which nicely spans the gutter of the book.  In the moment it was hard to figure that one out!  The map is a huge sprawling affair that spans six pages, but in the book it is divided into slightly themed sections, with limited travel from one to another.  The result of this is that each section could be taken out and used as it's own small dungeon complex in your own campaign world.  It also means you can wrap your head around a particular constellation of foes if you know where your players are heading next session.

THE PLAYS THE THING

There's been some criticism about the price of this product, but this book outplays the cost.  It is more expensive than most of the osr products out there, and indeed that held me back for a long time despite really liking what I saw in terms of style and design.  Through play I've found that I've used this book more than many rpg products I've bought, so I consider it well worth it in the end.  Any rpg book is worth it if you actually play it a lot!  I've been continually stoked on playing in this dungeon and hope to keep it up for awhile yet!

Huzzah! A review of the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG

I dig it.

Warpig

This is the game I've been wanting ever since 2nd Ed AD&D started repackaging itself with crappy covers.  I always wished they'd just release a limited edition 3e (then 4) without all the crappy dungeon punk art and just do a throw-back version with the same rules, and maybe an authorial voice that didn't remind me of stereo instructions.

I guess Joseph Goodman was wishing the same thing.  When the Beta came out last summer, I was burning out on DMing Type IV D&D (after a 1-13 campaign and a stint DMing Encounters), and I have happily pinned my rpg hopes on DCCRPG.

I have been looking forward to the Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG for so long now that I feel a bit like this will be a rave more than a review.  It was a long wait, and it's only the pre-order PDF!  The actual book doesn't come out for another month or so.  I played and DM'd the Beta quite a few times over the last year and have even gone so far as to create an extensive houserule doc that must now be reconciled with the final product.

This game is well written.  It is loose and weird and has personality.  The names of spells and demons and monsters are cool, the art is inspiring and entertaining (I particularly enjoy Kovac's full page illustrations), and Goodman writes in an engaging manner full of obscure vocabulary and strong opinions.  Small valleys are important to him.  He is promoting the game he wants to play, and his enthusiasm shines throughout a book full of good humour and excitement.  Goodman know his audience as well.  He forgoes the traditional "What is roleplaying?" paragraph and just says something like, "Hey most of you guys are old hands at this rpg thing, and the rest of you can figure it out."
 
The art!  This is definitely a book that is fun to just pick up and read bits while grooving on the pictures, much like the old AD&D PHB and DMG.  The first couple of pages feel like an old Groo comic! This is on par and better than my two favorite clone pdfs, Swords & Wizardry and AD&D3.

The only part of the presentation I don't dig all that much is the cover and name!  I think I just don't care for the colors of the cover.  Of course, the black'n'gold Warpig cover is epic.  I think I'll have to laminate that onto my copy since I didn't spring for the deluxe edition.  Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG is a pretty awkward title.  DCCRPG is a mouthful.  Whatever.  It's D&D, and I've taken to calling my hack of it DC'sRPG based on my own initials.

Ok cover

The rules are exactly as may be expected from any d20 derived game.  A d20 is rolled and a number is added.  Beat and AC or a DC.  DCCRPG changes this up in a couple of ways.  First, Goodman discourages DMs from asking for too many checks during the exploration and roleplay phases of  the game, encouraging player ingenuity over dice rolling.  However, once initiative is rolled, the dice rule!  The game uses obscure dice, like d30s, d16s and d7s.  I think its funny when I see people on the internets being grumpy about buying d14s, d24s and such for this game.  Aren't they buying dice anyways?  I am.

Combat is highlighted by Critical Hit tables by class, Fumble tables, and Success/Misfire/Corruption tables for each and every spell.  It gives the impression of a very swingy, unpredictable game, but this is mitigated quite a bit by two things, LUCK/Spellburn, wherein players may sacrifice their Ability Scores to adjust Fate to their liking.  In my play experience, the Luck and Spellburn rules go a long way towards giving players agency and some metagame strategy options during play.  This leads to the other major difference from standard D&D type games, character classes.

Classes are standard fantasy archetypes: Warrior, Thief, Cleric, Wizard, Elf, Dwarf and Halfling.  Goodman implores the reader to roll ability scores  3d6, 6 times, arranged in order.  The ability scores are a bit different.  Constitution and Dexterity have been renamed Stamina and Agility.  Wisdom and Charisma have been combined into Personality.  The new Luck stat rounds out the six.  Personality is a nice change for me, as the Intelligence/Wisdom divide has always been weird, but Luck is the fun one.  Luck is the stat that all classes may sacrifice to nudge the dice their way.  Thieves and Halflings in particular ride their luck.  Wizards and Elves may sacrifice their physical traits to make sure a spell is successful, though nothing may revoke a roll of 1!

Wizards are scarey and dangerous in this game.  They can roll high and punch far above their weight, casting an epic spell, and they can fail spectacularly, cursing themselves with the marks of chaos.  Every spell is different.  Every time a Wizard casts a spell it is a risk that must be weighed.  Rather than loss of a spell, the wizard risks losing his soul! or at least a lot of Strength.  It's all very evocative, but it also plays well, making the wizard a unique experience.  Clerics, by contrast, are far more predictable with their prayers, though they to risk angering the gods.

Warriors are the stars of the game.  They have a great mechanic that is so simple and fun I can't believe it has never been thought of before.  Instead of a straight +1 to hit at 1st level, the Warrior rolls 1d3 and adds that to his attack and damage!  The dice advances with levels.  This makes the Warrior capable of hard hits, but somewhat unpredictable.  The best part of this Deed Dice mechanic is that it incorporates an open-ended panacea of Might Deeds of Arms.  A Warrior describes some type of blow or tactic he is attempting, such as a knockdown, called shot, disarm or whatever, and, if the Deed Dice comes of 3+, it's a go!  So easy!  This eliminates the need for weird encounter/daily/feat rules and encourages shenanigans.  Thieves can do all their thief-y stuff, but they also the most out of their Luck score, which encourages shenanigans as well!

There's a lot of other great stuff in the book.  The monster and magic item sections are short but really evocative and creative.  The rules for Wizard Patrons are great and left me wanting more.  There's some neat stuff in the appendixes, including a pretty cool shout-out to OSR blogosphere.  The experience rules are really simple and a lot of people will dig it.  I do.  And, of course, its basically D&D tarted up with rad pictures and a couple cool rules, so any of your endless stacks of old game books will work just fine.
This is the game for me.



Appendix H
This game is made to Hack.  Hacking goblins and hacking the rules.  So I have hacked.  I've done all kinds of things to the Beta.  I've changed Dwarfs from Shield-bashers to ShieldWallers and I've slowed down all the attack bonus progressions.  I've fiddled with damage dice for weapons.  I've lowered Warrior HD to d10.  I made a Barbarian class with d12.  I've toyed with redoing stat bonuses and having Wizards use Dice Pools for spells that start at d14.  I have players rolling 5d4 for stats... I'll post all that another time.  It has certainly gotten me invested in the game.

Appendix R
I've been drawn to the OSR over the last couple years for the style and creativity.  So many great blogs!  I've read and DM'd DCC modules for years as well.  I still play Type IV D&D, and I used to really dig the tactical combat, but I've gotten frustrated with the glacial pace of the story when each battle takes a whole evening.  I've had multiple short DCCRPG sessions where we have made characters and completed a dungeon mission/adventure in one sitting.  So much fun!
To rant for a moment, though I like the computerized Character Generator for Type IV, all the dizzying options available seem to lure players into playing strange exotic characters that strike their fancy at the time but tend to be unrealized at the table.  I have a player with a genasi artificer, and I don't think anybody really has any idea what she does or looks like.  It/s kinda hard to imagine.  It's like disassociated character generation.  Making a DCCRPG is much quicker, deals with well know archetypes, but uses the whims of the dice to add unexpected twists to the common character.  A gong farmer who was struck by lightning you say?  Well I'm a thief now!  Watch me backstab for an automatic crit!  Huzzah!