A New Years Competition

Whenever I visit my old home town of Edinburgh I drop by Black Lion Games on Buccleuch Street, up by the University. It's a great FLGS (Friendly Local Games Store) with knowledgeable staff who always take the time to chat and it makes me feel proud to see how it's grown from a cellar stall in the '90s to a thriving hobby shop with a consistently diverse and on-trend stock.

It's also got four cardboard boxes of discount stock: a mixture of the second hand, the discontinued and the unsellable. Back in the day you'd find old Vampire and Shadowrun stuff here, endless Torg supplements and of course many many dungeon modules. It was dungeon modules I was searching for, to satisfying my OSR urges, but too many people must feel the same way and they're all long gone. Most of the boxes were full of Rifts expansions (there are a lot of these, since it's a game that lets players travel across fractured realities) but in amongst the chaff I found two shiny copies of Forge Out Of Chaos​. Near-mint, in fact.

How long had these two books lain there, unloved and overlooked? Since 2000, probably, when the product line discontinued and the Ghantus stopped howling. New Labour came and went, terror strikes and Gulf Wars, dodgy dossiers, Brexit, X-Factor Christmas Number Ones, D&D 4th and 5th editions, David Bowie died, Star Wars rebooted and of course the Old School Revival: those Forge rulebooks watched it all. And no one bought them.

Until today! Black Lion gave me a sweet deal on the pair of them and I debated what to do. Present them to my players? Nice, but a bit unnecessary; Forge doesn't really require a Players Guide. Just give them away online to the first asking? That's a good plan, but the books might just fly to another shelf where they'd lie unread. Then the idea of a competition struck me.

They could be prizes in a competition!

I was inspired by Tristan Tanner's 30-Minute Dungeon Challenge. Tristan challenges himself to write a 10-room dungeon in 30 minutes that contains a Hook & Background, 3 combat encounters, 3 empty (but interesting) rooms, 2 traps, 1 NPC, some treasure and something fun for the players to mess about with. Tristan offers sub-tables if the combat, empty rooms, NPCs, traps and intriguing things need further clarifying.

My competition doesn't require anyone to be as strict with themselves as Tristan is: so long as you keep it to 10 rooms, I don't mind how it balances out between combat, traps and NPCs. But Tristan's requirements impose a fascinating discipline that's really tempting to impose on yourself. It's the RPG equivalent of writing a sonnet. The dungeon have to have 10 keyed areas and these have to contain a certain number of fights, rewards, traps and puzzles. The whole thing has to tie together in an interesting way. And you've got half an hour to come up with it. I tried this last week but immediately got carried away: the 30--minute dungeon turned into a 2-hour dungeon and became the Midwinter Nightmare scenario on the previous blog. I'm proud of it as a one-shot scenario but it's not a 30-minute-dungeon.

I'm going to have another go.

Using Tristan's sub-tables, I roll up empty rooms that point to a combat, reveal history and offer something useful to PCs; the special room provides a boon for a sacrifice; the NPC is a rival; the combat encounters are a horde of weaklings, a pair of toughs and a tough boss; the trap is incapacitating.

Here are six scenario seeds inspired by these parameters:

1. The Crypt Bell Chimes: The chiming bell alerts the lichwardens that enterprising tomb-robbers have broken into the crypt of Ulurok the Unclean. The PCs are sent in to apprehend the thieves before they reach Ulurok's sarcophagus and trouble his unquiet repose. This involves a wandering monster mechanic that moves the thieves closer to the final room with each event.
2. Deadman's Isle: Having mutinied and taken over the pirate ship of Cap'n Redmayne, the PCs have the opportunity to use his map to dig up his treasure. But Redmayne has a few secrets in store. This 'dungeon' is a small wilderness (the island) with ten encounter areas.
3. The Vampyre's Wedding: The vampyre Jezamesh has abducted the shahbanu (empress) and will make her his bride at sunset. The PCs must penetrate his lair and interrupt the marriage ceremony before the sun sets. This dungeon is a race against time with a final boss that will overpower the POCs if night falls.
4. Goblin Deliverance: A tribe of goblins have been forced off their swampy reservation by Elven loggers intent on felling the hardwood trees. The goblin PCs must regroup and take back their home. This 'dungeon' is the PCs' home turf with adversaries occupying it. Players can use Ryan Marsh's goblin PC class (and allied Hobgoblins, Bugbears and Orcs). In Forge terms, these are good old Higmoni.
5. Cold Comfort Inn: The PCs arrive at a remote inn, low on supplies and in need of shelter. But they find the place strangely deserted. What has happened to the innkeeper and his guests, who have vanished, Marie Celeste style.
6. The Beacontower of Bluster's Point: A storm is blowing in and a carrack laden with supplies approaches the treacherous rocks of Bluster's Point - and the lighthouse has gone dark. The PCs must enter the lighthouse and relight the beacon before the ship is wrecked on the rocks below.

That commits me to 6 stories and I undertake to write up one a week in no more than 30 minutes. I'll post them on the blog and hopefully encourage other people to submit their ideas as competition entries - or just as a bit of fun.