Creating Tension through Character Advancement Rules

A few days ago, user Ryan on the Necrotic Gnome Discord server asked if anyone used a simpler version of 3d6 Down the Line's "Feats of Exploration" XP rules, something without its extra calculation steps. I shared my campaign's rules for gaining experience through exploration, and the subsequent conversation led me to ponder the role of character advancement rules in adventure and campaign design.

There's always treasure inside the giant skull (art by Carlos Castilho)

Your rules for character advancement should reflect what's important in your campaign, and should reinforce the campaign's tone and hammer home its general vibe. Experience points for treasure sets this precedent. It incentivizes players to do anything for gold, and thus they become the very scoundrels and antiheroes of Sword & Sorcery that early TTRPG innovators sought to emulate.

XP for GP turns PCs into Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser. XP for slaying monsters turns them into Geralt of Rivia. XP for stepping out their front door and going on an adventure turns them into Bilbo Baggins. You get the idea.

Let's be real, though: XP for GP is the best of these. But why? When PCs delve into the dungeon, they push deeper and deeper to accumulate more and more loot. Most importantly, the players strive to accumulate as much loot as they can in a single trip. Because, every time they leave and return, they must ...

1. Ascend back to the entrance of the dungeon safely
2. Travel from the dungeon back to town safely
3. Resupply for another trip
4. Travel back to the dungeon from town safely
5. Deal with new threats that have moved into the dungeon

All just to get back to where you made it last time. Who wants to do that? These serve as cons against leaving the dungeon for both the player and the character. The character has to spend more money to resupply and risks more random encounters. The player has to spend more play time retracing their steps and dealing with logistics.

Don't get me wrong: spending play time on logistics can be fun. My current campaign revolves around exploring an uncharted continent; trust me, we love logistics. But, it's not something you want to keep doing over and over in a short period of time. You want each expedition into the dungeon to be worth it.

All of this comes together to give the adventure a sense of velocity; momentum pushing the players in one direction. Keep delving, get as much treasure as we can possibly carry. Hire retainers and buy mules just to carry more treasure per trip. Open another door and risk another encounter.

Along with this momentum comes increasing risk, which in turn gives the game an intoxicating sense of tension. As you delve deeper, characters use up more resources. They carry more treasure: heavy bags of coins and bulky golden statues that slow them down. And, they attract more attention with their light and noise.

Rules that primarily grant experience for slaying monsters don't typically provide the same combination of velocity and risk that creates this delicious tension. If your goal is to slay monsters, then running into monsters isn't exactly a con. This leaves resupplying as the only valid con from the list above, and when a system trivializes resource management with powerful spells or simply hand-waves it altogether ... well, then the tension evaporates completely.

So, when you grant character advancement via means other than treasure, your game benefits if you can recreate that same velocity-risk cocktail. In my campaign, with its emphasis on wilderness exploration and discovery, I did this by granting an exponentially increasing amount of XP for every fully explored area (or, a 6-mile hex). Exploring that first area grants only 200 XP. By the fourth area, the character can earn 1,000 XP just for pushing on into the fifth.

Earn XP for Exploring the Wilderness!

This drives the players toward longer expeditions that go further from home. It encourages them to spend just one more night in the wilderness only to stumble into a new faction's territory the next day. During my campaign, this has yielded multiple exciting races to get home, where players have gone without food and rest in a mad dash to get to safety before they starve to death or get caught by monsters.

By customizing the game's source of character advancement while maintaining the same tension inherent in using XP for GP, the players themselves have chosen to go on exactly the sort of adventures that I have yearned to portray. And, they've done it for diegetic reasons that maintain a sense of coherency within the fiction.

A Staging Post for Adventure

Sometimes, you don't need an entire base town.

I recently started running one of the adventures from the OSE Adventure Anthology 2 for my young nephew (and others, but the game is primarily to show him the tabletop ropes). Neither of the anthologies come with a town of any kind. Most of the dungeons within are the kinds of low-level affairs where you can roll up new PCs and start them right at the entrance without issue. However, there is enough content here that a trip or two back to a haven to rest and restock seem likely. (Note: The same is even more true for other town-less low-level OSE adventures like A Hole in the Oak or The Incandescent Grottoes).

Given my nephew's unfamiliarity with the expectations of pen-and-paper RPGs, introducing a full base town in the middle of his first real delve could prove distracting. "Hey, there is the inn, and next door is a tavern, and over there is the smithy, and that's the thieves' guild ..." etc. etc. So, I sought an alternative.

One common and entirely valid alternative is to abstract the return to town. You don't need to go into detail regarding the people and places around town, just get in, get some gear, sleep, and get out.

My approach, though, is to offer a taste of town without too much distraction: a small staging post / coaching inn along the road, about half a day from town. Give it some personality so that he can experience a respite from the dungeon without so much to do that he loses momentum.

While I decided upon this approach to cater to a novice player, it could be useful for more experienced players as well. Maybe you want to run an adventure but the referee hasn't come up with a whole town yet. Maybe you aren't sure that you want to turn this adventure into a campaign that even needs a town. Maybe you haven't decided if you'll be going to Illmire or Brandonsford next and you aren't ready to commit.

If you fit into any of the categories above, check out the "A Staging Post" PDF for a small but detailed waypoint with an inn, a store, a few personalities, and some fun secrets. And, if you're interested in my "author's notes," keep reading after the download!

A Staging Post for Adventure

The premise of this point of interest is that it sits near a crossroads with a once-great trade route (in my game with my nephew, I called it the Royal Spice Road). Though there is a town "four leagues" away, any travelers just passing through could spot the buildings from the crossroads, rest for the evening, and continue along the trade route without delay in the morning.

However, I insinuate that trade has fallen on harder times, and that fewer travelers pass through this particular crossroads anymore. Perhaps this is because of whatever rumor or incident that your party is in the area investigating. Whatever the case, the waypoint isn't depicted as bustling with people. It's quiet and neither the innkeeper or the shopkeeper expect much traffic.

But, as I fleshed things out, the lack of site-based action gave me space to let the NPCs breathe a bit. They don't have anything to explain, any exposition to deliver, nor any fetch quests to offer. They can be people living their lives as opposed to people waiting around for PCs to show up. I enjoyed that freedom.

There are some secrets here to discover, if the players wish. But, I try to keep it passive. For example, I specifically say that the innkeeper will never ask you to take his wannabe-adventurer daughter along. He will let you if you ask, but the PCs have to initiate it. Later, if someone frees the whiskey-slurping Shadow, I suggest having it flee. The players may pursue if they wish, but not because they have to "protect the NPCs."

Finally, I need to shout out a few influences. The name for the "Shut Eye Inn" was inspired by Miranda Elkins' blog post The DM is a Shut Eye (which I heard about on the excellent Into the Megadungeon podcast). Herman's shield came from the treasure in one of Ktrey Parker's Dolmenwood Dozen. The "glamboge glim" and the magic dog whistle are from Sarah Grove's Sixty Pointless Items in Knock #2. And the "threshold putty" is roughly based on one of Chris McDowall's arcana from Into the Odd.

A Silver Lining to Everything

Most of my 5e books still take up space on my shelf, despite not playing the system for years now. Occasionally, I will browse the monster books for some ideas. Mostly, they get dusty.

One book still gets opened frequently, though. Xanathar's Guide to Everything. Is it for the sub-classes? Definitely not. The spells that have been so meticulously balanced so as to remove all magic from them? Nope, not those either.

It's for pages 175 - 192: the lists upon lists of d100 names. Without a doubt, these rank at the top of 5e's lasting impact on my tabletop gaming life.

Long live random tables!

Random art with a table in it

What Happened to the Dungeon?

A post on Reddit asked for advice: what should a referee do (if anything) when higher level players return to a dungeon populated with lower level monsters? Users provided some solid responses, including:

• Change nothing, it will remind them how powerful they have become
• Evolve the dungeon over time: new monsters have moved in
• Another adventuring party has already looted the place

Whatever choice one makes, I advise against considering "balance" as a major factor. Do not tune your encounters to make them all "level appropriate." Most good players will notice your heavy-handedness. If you're reading this, you probably already agree.

That said, in a sandbox where players can follow whatever leads they choose, the game world should not stand still waiting for them.

So, how should you determine what happens? Sometimes the answer will be obvious from the establishing fiction of the dungeon: the cultists finished their ritual, or the prisoner you were sent to rescue is already dead. When the answer isn't obvious, do what any good OSR referee does: consult a random table!

I created a d66 table to determine what happens to the dungeon while your party followed other leads. The results generally follow the reaction roll curve: lower results increase the challenge and higher results likely prove fortuitous in some way. Most results in the middle add complexity that isn't inherently good or bad.

What Happened to the Dungeon d66 Table

With these results you can simulate a living world without artificially tuning your dungeons to some "challenge rating" or relying solely on referee discretion. Enjoy!

EDIT: I created the same table in a slightly more attractive half-letter booklet format. I didn't like the way the original looked when printed.

What Happened to the Dungeon d66 Table (Booklet Version)

Scaling Up Player Tools

I often see a variation of this piece of advice in OSR circles:

Give players fun tools without specific applications and encourage them to use those tools in creative ways.

For example, many old-school spells exemplify this adage. They don't simply deal xd6 damage. Instead, they provide you with a tool in your toolbox - the power to warp wood or heat metal - and the spell descriptions lack the hyper-specific limitations included in the name of balance that you see in modern editions.

The principle behind the advice is that giving your players powerful tools without obvious uses enhances your game because it fosters creativity and lets players feel like they outsmarted the game. Use this advice, it's good. Don't try to balance your tools. Let your players "break" the game.

And, importantly, don't forget to employ this adage when your campaign transitions into the wilderness and domain tiers. Your tools don't have to necessarily be more powerful. You can scale them up in other ways: size, distance, duration, etc.

Some examples from my ongoing Age of Discovery campaign include:

• A talking mountain who will let you hide inside its cavernous mouth to avoid magical or mundane detection
• A lighthouse that, when lit, either enhances or repels magic
• A well the purifies anything that passes through its opening
• An entrance to a parallel realm with shortcuts to various places across the continent

A fantastic discovery waiting to break the world

All of these are tools in a party's toolbox. Need to lay low after making off with some hot treasure? Go hide in the talking mountain's mouth for a while. Need to sneak out a besieged army? Brave the freaky parallel realm's shortcut.

Open your mind to radical possibilities that the players suggest. Sure, the magic well purifies water. Is that water considered holy water if the blessing is maintained or enhanced? What happens if an undead creature crosses the threshold?

Too often I see referees saddle tools of all shapes and sizes with strange caveats to avoid making them "game-breaking" (whatever than means); lame restrictions like "you can only send fewer than 10 people into the parallel realm" or "you can only pass inanimate objects through the threshold of the magic well."

Restrain yourself from doing this with magic items and show the same restraint when your party starts discovering magic locations as well. Just like you let them unbalance an encounter with their magic dungeon loot, also let them change the world with their fantastic discoveries in the wilderness.

Posts from an Ill-Fated Zine, Part 2

You can enjoy any campaign - even one set in an Age of Discovery like the Last Continent - without any fancy classes. The “core four” presented in OSE Classic Fantasy - Cleric, Fighter, Thief, Magic-User - cover the basic archetypes and allow for endless variations. In fact, many argue that every character boils down to either Fighter or Magic-User.

However, a referee can use unique character classes to convey certain truths about a setting. A Cleric class insinuates that either monster hunters or crusaders - religious zealots of some sort - are commonplace. If the Cleric instead gets branded as a Missionary, that probably means they rely less on violence and more on social skills. It also strongly suggests that they seek to convert people to their cause.

Most of the classes used in the Last Continent take familiar abilities and remix them to fit better in the flavor and tone of the setting. For instance, the class showcased here - the Minuteman - takes the abilities of OSE Classic Fantasy’s Halfling class and frames them as those of a hardy frontiersman. It really can be as simple as that. My players have been using this class for nine months and have yet to realize that it's a "re-skinned" Halfling.

Minutemen wearing +1 tricorns of scowling

The Minuteman class draws inspiration from stories of early American colonists who styled themselves as a reluctant militia defending their homes and livelihoods from British oppression. American poets later romanticized these legends in works such as Emerson’s “Concord Hymn” and Longfellow’s “Paul Revere’s Ride.”

The Minuteman class for Old-School Essentials

Posts from an Ill-Fated Zine, Part 1

Months ago, I considered releasing a zine that mixed my insights from running a successful Old-School Essentials hex crawl with some of my own adventure sites and a dash of custom classes and monsters. I wound up running out of steam during the layout process, but I figured I could at least release some of the content that I had already created here.

So, over the next few weeks, I will share bits and pieces as blog posts. These posts will reference my campaign setting, the Last Continent - a fantasy realm inspired by the Age of Discovery.

When I first envisioned this setting, I started with the following thesis: "the campaign should revolve around discovery. The world, characters, monsters, magic, abilities … everything must feel fresh and fantastic for the players." I chose the setting - literally, an age of discovery - to reinforce that thesis.

Is that a new world? Nope, just more water.

But, the real history of humanity's Age of Discovery comes with a lot of baggage. How can we play a game in that setting without making light of the atrocious acts and behaviors that characterized that era? The following note from the opening pages of my failed zine tries to address that question.

A NOTE ON COLONIAL HISTORY

Colonialism has been a source of much human suffering throughout history. In particular, the period of European colonialism that began in earnest during the 16th century has repercussions that continue to affect us to this very day.

Unfortunately, tabletop role-playing games also deal with the specter of colonialism. Its influence stems back to the very roots of the game and permeates many settings and adventures. We should not ignore this.

Why even play in a colonial setting, then? Because the prospect of exploring a new world is ripe for adventure. It injects a much needed sense of wonder and discovery back into the game at every turn.

If you decide to use this material, have a conversation with your players. Decide what aspects of colonial history will be off limits. Let them know that they can reach out to you at any time if a topic makes them uncomfortable.

During play, do not glorify the myth of the burden of “civilized man” to tame the wilderness. Steer clear of the idea of the “noble savage.” Portray indigenous peoples as nuanced and complex. Show the real impacts of a cultural and ecological exchange between the old world and the new.

These ethical questions are fertile ground for good stories, but a lazy referee can also perpetuate negative colonial stereotypes. Avoid this. Be thoughtful and vigilant. Game on!