Easter eggs and the joy of recontexualisation

What lies beneath?

Last night, I set up a quick Easter egg hunt for the kids. It was simple: a card on the kitchen table with a couple of mini-eggs and a slightly cryptic note about where the next treasures could be found. And so on. So they went scurrying from room to room, looking in bookshelves and behind masks, out to the garden and back in again. Despite the simplicity of the exercise, they really enjoyed it, with the younger proudly boasting about the clues she'd worked out.

One set of treasures was concealed beneath the "antelope statue", which my daughter immediately recognised as the scenic gaming item we made from one of my son's old toys (above). This was on the table about a foot away from the first note, and there was a weird satisfaction in the doubling back.

This got me thinking about dungeon design. One of the problems I have with classic  adventure modules is that they typically have hidden treasures and secrets that most parties will never find.

These features presumably stem from a time when inch-by-inch investigation was a norm, and where checking for traps and the application of ten-foot poles were standard.
But most players I run games for don't act like that. They'll happily ransack sleeping quarters, store-rooms and book-cases, but they won't go around twisting the left horns of statues or tugging on torch brackets.

That's probably as it should be: sessions would crawl along at a tedious pace if the PCs were looking for secret doors at every turn. And there's much more realism in players assuming that the world conveyed to them by floorplans or GM description is largely as it seems.

At the same time, treasures and hidden doors that give themselves away are a bit silly: what's the point of them if any passer-by can spot the cracks in the stonework?

But, as this morning's egg hunt demonstrated, hidden treasures are exciting if their discovery feels earned. And that's especially true if you're recontextualising something that you've already encountered. That huge bronze statue in the hexagonal room on the first level of the dungeon? Down here on the third level, you've just learned that twisting the left horn opens a secret cache in the torso. Back we go!

How might such information be discovered? Well, here are a few ideas.

1. "Let me live, and I'll tell you a secret ..."
A dungeon's denizens will doubtless know some of its secrets. And what better way for the last hobgoblin guard to secure his wretched life than by bargaining some of the information to which he is privy?

2. Carved in stone
Murals and reliefs deeper in the dungeon can contain revelations about areas the party has already passed through. Perhaps that brazen antelope was used for horrifying Moloch-style sacrifices. If so, a relief carving might show hideous beastmen opening it by tugging on its horns and imprisoning victims within. That tells the players that the statue opens, and it shows them how it's done. But it doesn't tell them what's inside it. Their curiosity should be piqued.

3. Book learning
Sorcerers' libraries are great resources, particularly if you have a random table to generate their contents. But for especially useful information, it might be better to have a single book (open on a desk, perhaps) that describes or illustrates areas with which the players are familiar. Or perhaps a map, showing the rooms they have passed through and some secret chambers they have missed: "That door must be behind the carvings with the griffins!"

4. Tavern gossip
If the dungeon has a market or tavern - and no self-respecting underworld should be without a Mos Eisley-style speakeasy - then the PCs may overhear all sorts of useful tibits: "That fancy warrior we roasted in the goat? He had all sorts of shiny weapons, but they burned us when we touched them, so we melted them down with him."

"They didn't melt, Gruznok. I looked yesterday. Still shining in the ash and bones."

5. Threats and menaces
A villain or NPC might threaten the players with imprisonment in some secret vault or oubliette. "I'll tell you where the last sneakthief ended up - under the Jade Giant's foot. There's no getting out from the pit under that - but there are things that can get in."

Once the villain's dispatched, the PCs are likely to revisit the Hall of the Jade Giant. Of course, if the villain is merely subdued, he might offer up some additional information, as in 1 above.

6. Unusual correspondence
Remember those huge statues of open-mouthed snakes coming through the floor on the first level? Well, down here on the third, there's a matching snake descending from the ceiling. And is that ... a ladder inside the mouth? But if this one joins up to the one in the hobgoblin shrine, where does the one in the armoury lead?

And so on.

All of these should give the PCs ideas about returning to places they've already visited. The lure of loot is strong, but discovery sings a siren song of its own. Who knows? They might even find an Easter egg ...

Ollam's Ring: more thoughts on magic items

In the two weekend games I ran, there were three 'magic items' for the players to find: an ancient energy weapon, the Drinker and Ollam's Ring. One of the groups of PCs had twice encountered the Drinker before, which led to some amusing squabbles over ownership rights.

Ollam's Ring is a twist on a spell I often allow Wise PCs to use in Whitehack. The spell has a simple formula: the Wise character can turn invisible but suffers 1HP in damage each round (until they pass out, at which point they are no longer invisible, or they stop the spell). I really like this because it offers a good balance of risk and reward.

One of the games I ran last year featured a magic ring with the same power: 1 HP per round for invisibility. Those rounds tick away quickly, so the ring-wearer takes a big risk in using it.

Ollam's Ring is largely the same, but for one important difference: it glows. When not being worn, the ring glows with sufficient light to serve as a lantern - and to shine through clothing. It also shone through the belly of the fishman in which the PCs discovered it.

I was pleased with this. Why? Well, the ring has a prime function: stealth. And it's really, really useful for that when worn - albeit at a high cost in hit points. But when not in use, it achieves the opposite of its prime function, by making the bearer highly conspicuous. It's hard to escape pursuit in a cavern or in a forest at night when you've got an unearthly glow hanging round your neck.

That heightens the risk/reward aspect of the item. It's risk to carry as it's clearly valuable and hard to conceal.  Also - and this is something I really like - it creates the potential for a situation in which a player might want to get rid of it. If you're low on HP and heavily outnumbered, you might well decide that your best bet is to throw Ollam's Ring deep into the forest to draw your pursuers off.

And that's exactly how I want my magical items: ambiguous, treacherous yet alluring. So far in our Whitehack campaign, the Drinker has caused the death of a couple of PCs (directly and indirectly). The last time they found it, the PCs were happy to accept a reward for it, because they knew how dangerous it could be. This time, they appear to have forgotten the hard lesson they learned the first time. We'll see how it turns out ...

High-tech weaponry in Whitehack

One of the big successes in the Whitehack campaign I ran for my kids and their friends last year was the judicious introduction of high-tech firearms. These were discovered in the wreckage of a spaceship underneath Dragonfell - so named for a fiery "dragon" that plummeted into the side of the mountain centuries before.

The revelation that the dragon was actually a spaceship prompted equal measures of delight and outrage ("This was meant to be a fantasy game!"), but what really got the players going was the discover of three long, metallic staves that could be manipulated to fire destructive bolts of energy.

The mechanics for this were very simple: the weapons did 1d20 damage. I like to keep weapon damage in a one-to-whatever range (i.e. a single die) whenever possible; I'm not a huge fan of "1d8 + 3" or whatever, so I'm highly sympathetic to Dungeon World/The Black Hack-style damage by class - even though I'm not that keen on character classes otherwise. The swingy d20 meant that a monster might just be grazed (though alarmed) by the energy beam. It also meant that there was a reasonable chance of obliterating a five-hit-dice monster in a single blast. The players loved that.

What they didn't love so much was the revelation that each weapon had only six shots. Boom! Boom! Click, click, click ...

By the time they discovered this, all three energy weapons had been used fairly heavily. But they hadn't been keeping track of the shots. I had, of course. That led to some great tension, especially as the bad news came when they were far away from Dragonfell.

In our current Whitehack campaign, energy weapons have yet to feature, though Dragonfell is on the map. In time, we may find out whether the players have learned the lesson of using powerful weaponry sparingly.

The Drinker

Just how common are magic items? It's always a big question. I used to deplore their abundance in games: I wanted a magic sword to be the object of a quest - nay, of an entire campaign - or even just a legend, not something that a wandering adventurer might have swinging by his side.

Increasingly, though, I've begun to think that magic items should be more common than magicians - for the simple fact that magicians (along with dwarves and elves and other supernatural creatures) make them - and probably make several over the course of a career. But rather than providing unqualified benefits, magic items should be - at the very least - double-edged. Here's one that is - quite literally.

The Drinker

This is a plain-looking longsword with a grip and scabbard bound in a peculiar soft leather (human skin, in fact). When drawn, the blade reveals "veins" of blue and red in the metal. In combat, it does 1d20 damage (1d20 + 1 if wielded in two hands). When it draws blood, the veins on the blade writhe and pulse, and the sword appears to suck noisily at the wound.

Once drawn, the Drinker cannot be sheathed until it causes a wound. It poses no threat to its owner when combat is underway, even if that combat breaks into successive skirmishes. Basically, if the wielder can still see living enemies that he can hope to attack, he's safe. But when there are no more foes to fight and the sword has not caused a wound since being drawn, it will twist in its wielder's hand to deliver 1d20 in damage 

Any attempt to avoid this by throwing the sword away or otherwise discarding it will prove futile; the Drinker will slake its thirst before it will allow itself to be abandoned. The wielder can, of course, avoid this by turning on a friend, though friends are likely to prove scarce if this becomes common practice. 

When it has caused a wound, the Drinker becomes docile and is easily sheathed. If it is not drawn during a fight, however, it will sigh and groan in its scabbard - sufficiently loudly to attract nearby creatures. The Drinker thirsts only for the blood of the living and cannot be assuaged with even the most freshly slain corpses.