Wandering Monsters

I was just thinking about the philosophy of Wandering Monsters.  It's interesting that indoors and outdoors they serve opposite purposes in some ways.   In a dungeon, the wandering monster check exists as a balance against players wasting in-game time.  If not for wandering monster checks, then the players could just enter each room, and  say "we're staying here checking everything until all secret doors are found, all treasure discovered and until we bust open every chest."  With wandering monsters, players have to balance the risk of the monsters showing up with the possible rewards of taking a long time to search.  Wandering Monster checks also give some purpose to picking locks, knock spells etc, ways of opening doors and chests without bashing them with large hammers, since the bashing raises a racket and a monster check.

With Old School versions of D&D (basic, original, AD&D1), most experience points come from treasure, and monster experience is less important (especially at low levels).  Wandering Monsters in dungeons are usually lacking in treasure.  Therefore, wandering monsters are a drain on resources without any real reward and so are something that the players should be eager to avoid.  There existence forces the players to make choices about actions, and balance consequences, and I think that is a key to a good game session.

Using the game trappings of "turns" and a standard check roll and pre-made table, makes the monsters easier to take than if the DM were just to throw a "grudge monster" when he thought the players were wasting time.  I find the general scheme of a "objective" structure to be the best tool for running a game where the players don't feel like tools.

In wilderness travel, wandering monsters serve a different purpose.   They often have treasure with them and so can be actively sought by the players.   What they really exist to do is to slow down the real-world time spent in overland travel.   The existence of the wandering monster check makes overland travel a serious choice to be made.  It makes the world more vivid.   If the players take advantage of them, the wilderness wandering monster checks can be complete adventures in and of themselves.

Games like Savage Worlds and D&D4e, combats are longer to run and more involved to set up and to run out.  The real time length of running the encounters is a bit too much to justify the encounters.  I noticed in the Slipstream campaign that while we were supposed to run random encounters for space travel, and I tried to do it in the sessions I ran, it was an overwhelming time suck.  I ended up giving the crew a special high-speed engine just to cut down the number of encounter checks.   So, in many ways the uses of the wandering monster depends on quick and easy encounter resolution.

"Personal Business Session"

I was thinking that it might be cool to have a game session, in the not too distant future, that would be about "Personal Business."  Maybe even having Andrew and I sharing GM time.   We'd have to have each player come up with a personal goal for the session, some target, that would not involve the entire party and wouldn't involve a dungeon expedition.  For example, Marlon might want to score a big flock of black-wooled sheep,  Bob might want to find out who tried to kill him.  

I like how Marlon has got his own house and "secret" lair all set up, and would like to see more of that sort of thing happening.  Whether you develop fine living in Portchester (at mom's house or elsewhere), or some fortified base in the Badlands.

I'd toyed with the idea of having alternating "expedition" sessions and "home town" sessions, but need to give it a bit more thought as to just how the "home town" sessions would operate.

Bosco Smokey visits Squatters' Corners

July 27th,  Ardean Year 1420

I decided to take a cart full of cheap cigars that I couldn't sell in the Kingdom across the border into the Badlands.  I've heard that there's a decent sized settlement at Squatters' Corners, and it's closer than Bosco Crossings.  The biggest advantage is that one can reach Squatters' Corners in one day's travel from the southern border, so you don't have to spend the night outdoors in monster country.

You smell Squatters' Corners before you see it.  It smells strongly of animals and garbage.   The village is surrounded by a dirt rampart 30 feet wide and 20 feet high, with a 15 foot ditch around the outside.  The top of the rampart is thickly planted with tall thorn bushes, and I've heard tell that there are wooden and metal spikes hidden among the thorns.  There are 2 gates, one west one south.  Next to each gate is a wooden watch tower.  Above the gate is the town motto inscribed on a wooden plank.  It says "Mind your own business."

Inside the rampart there are no regular streets, instead there is a random scattering of wooden sheds, log cabins, plank-built houses, and even a few houses made of bricks salvaged from old villas from Ardean days.  There aren't really any business establishments in the village.  Most of the squatters farm small plots within a mile or two of the town, mostly root vegetables like turnips, since they aren't easily destroyed by passing monsters.  However, the chief pasttime of the people is "making a deal."  There are no taverns, but dozens of the squatters brew beer or ale in their houses and sell it to anyone who asks.  There are no tailors, but most of the women spend time sewing and repairing clothes.   A certain portion of the population are hunters, the wild pig population in the area being quite high.  Also, a certain portion of the people are pickers, scavaging the Ardean ruins in the area, or they are bandits sneaking across the border (of course some of the pickers and bandits are the same folk). 

There's a big open square in the center of the village, which acts as a public market every 7th, 14th, 21st, and 28th of the month.   People come with excess goods and sell or swap.  I managed to unload my rancid cigars, mostly by swapping then for boar hides, which I sold at a decent profit in Portchester. 

There are no public buildings.  There's no courthouse, jail, arsenal or any such thing.  If there's a dispute a mob is summoned up and the complainers shout out their cases.  Whichever side gets the loudest shouts by the crowd is deemed the winner and must give way or get out of town.   Everyone in town is expected to do 1 day of gate-duty per month or else he gets pelted by dung by his neighbors.  Folks told me that occasionally a thug tries to set himself up as boss, but there is an immediate violent reaction to the attempt.  Each of the last 3 local bandits who tried to take over the town were killed by a local resident called Iron Frank, who otherwise keeps to himself.

There was no church until this month, when one cabin was purchased by an out-of-towner and a missionary curate was installed.  The people expected him to be preaching up a storm, but he seems to spend most of his time sitting by himself in the cabin drinking corn liquor.

There are a number of colorful characters in town, one calls himself Taglac, and is a big, ugly fellow (he might be a half-orc, but might just be ugly).  He has an exceptionally hairy body and goes around wearing a cloak that is covered by small bells.  This has led to the locals calling him 'Tinkerbell" behind his back.  He recently hired a large gang of squatters to build him an underground chamber outside the town.   He might have wanted it to be a secret, but there were 30-40 guys engaged in the digging, so everyone knows it's there.

Another notable resident is Granny Crawford, the town busy-body.  It's rumored that in her youth she got herself into serious legal trouble in Portchester and is outlawed, but no one has any details.  Now, she is famous for gossip and an extremely palatable turnip mush.

I doubt I'd make this place a regular stop on my rounds, but it's okay if you have stuff you want to dump in exchange for hides or Ardean bricks.   On the other hand, it's a lot more open and far less oppressive than trying to do business in Bastardville, where the "Bees" take a cut of everything and bully you the whole time.

Your pal,
Bosco Smokey

Movies

I watched 2 movies on TV recently, both of which are not exactly recent, but not exactly ancient:

The DaVinci Code:  I had read the book when it came out, and thought, to quote the emperor (Dom Deluise) in "History of the World, part 1"  "Nice, nice, not thrilling, but nice."   The movie was pretty much just like the book, and it does prove that you can make a book into a movie without doing violence to the story.

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull:  I had avoided watching this because everyone said it was so bad.  Actually, I didn't think that it was any stupider than any of the other Indiana Jones movies (putting aside surviving a nuclear bomb test by hiding in a refrigirator).  So, not as bad as I expected, nothing to write home about (although apparently something to write about from home).

Aggh

I really didn't realize it had been 2 weeks since I blogged here.   The last 2 weeks have been completely insane at work (which you might have guessed at if you've seen the local paper).  I think that the most grevious parts are over, so I can do more game stuff.

I did print out a bunch of cards for the hireling deck.  I updated the Professionals, Lenny the Stabber and Bull-buggering Jack and a few of the other henchmen who weren'tt correct.  I also added a handful of replacements and additional guys.

Of course, right after I wrote them up, I ran out of toner in my printer.   I ordered a new cartridge online and didn't get it until yesterday.   I was also having a problem with printing out cards on my printer.  It's real fussy about how you set up the file.   You have to set the size as 4" WIDE and 6" HIGH and then switch to landscape, any other set up just doesn't work.

I'm going to try to do a Portchester News tomorrow before the game.