Attending the Old School, Part 5

As my players explored their base town of Fourtower Bridge over the last few sessions, they began to interact with the sandbox that I had stocked. I still remember years ago when I watched Matt Colville's video on creating a sandbox. It blew my little mind. It's such a simple idea: take various dungeons and other adventure modules and seed them across a small region for your players to discover. But, for some reason, I never considered doing it on my own. I was brainwashed by the campaign or "adventure path" style of running a game. Probably all of those Dragonlance books I read as a teenager!

Luckily, I broke that habit quickly when I returned to pen-and-paper RPGs a few years ago, mostly thanks to Colville's video. Even when I played primarily 5e, I stocked a sandbox for my players to explore. I made a few different choices this time around ... but, before we get to those, a recap:

Dramatis Personae

Flynn, Level 3 Thief

Russell, Level 2 Fighter

Ancin, Level 2 Magic-User

Chadwick, Level 3 Cleric

Jaq, Level 1 Elf (another new player!)

Notable Events

• The party spent three days in town resting and healing up. Chadwick learned how to create holy water, Flynn joined Silar's guild, and Moira introduced then to Jaq Turntleaf - an elf who could guide them to the crystal caves
• After a quiet travel day, the party decided to try to get some rest before descending into the dungeon. However, an encounter with a full-size roc in the forest changed their minds.
• Chadwick loudly introduced himself to a group of kobolds, who provided some dubious information in exchange for the party letting them leave with their gathered purple moss. Russell escorted them out.
• Ancin and Chadwick investigated a slime-themed corridor and got surprised by a pair of gelatinous squirms lurking on the ceiling. Jaq and Flynn killed one with arrows from down the hall, and Ancin put the other to sleep.
• Chadwick barged into a room labeled Master of Dissolution and stomped on a giant rat carcass, which drew the ire of the three monstrous larvae feasting on its guts. Ancin put them to sleep, but not after they paralyzed Chadwick.

Referee Insights

Astute readers may have noticed that my players have entered a new dungeon: the Incandescent Grottoes. The first few rooms have been great fun so far. But how did they get there?

First, and probably most importantly, they had motivation. Since we're playing Old-School Essentials almost exclusively by-the-book, finding treasure is by far the quickest way to level up. This already puts the players in the mindset of engaging with the setting more. They're not looking for the "story" so that they can earn milestone XP. They want to know where the loot is!

Luckily for them, I have seeded the region with several loot-filled dungeons nearby. Quelle coïncidence! Here is my local hex map:

A box of sand (Hex Kit and tile set from Cone of Negative Energy)

Nothing fancy. I'm not even sharing this map with them - it's just for my reference. I used the arrival of a new player - Jaq - as an opportunity to give them a guide who knew the location of the Oak and the Grottoes. That meant no need to hex crawl or search. Just a day's journey, point-crawl style, to introduce some time and resource management complications.

Ok, so there are dungeons nearby. How do the players find out about them? Actively, not passively - my NPCs don't have floating question marks over their heads. They can either talk to NPCs to hear rumors through conversation, or they can head to the inn and buy the bar a round to get the rumors flowing!

Inspired by this post on rumors at Delta's D&D Hotspot, I decided to lean into rumor-gathering as a game mechanism: spend a night buying rounds at the inn (spending 3d20 gp/night) and automatically learn a rumor. I like this because it gives a way for players to quickly find leads without going from NPC to NPC waiting for someone to give them a "quest."

Now, it doesn't prevent NPCs from asking for things. Those requests will just be more organic; no need to shoehorn quests into normal conversations to keep the game moving.

During their first stay in town, they learned one rumor from the bar (using the "buy the bar a round" mechanism) about night tomatoes that grow under the Old Oak. Chadwick also learned a rumor from Moira the Holy through conversation: she believed he could find the gold teeth of St. Orlo in the Grottoes. They chose to pursue the latter for now, and I can't wait until they discover that the gold teeth are in the mouth of a troglodyte.