Session 6 - The Cruiser
This one was a big experiment for me. I made up this "party dungeon" on a boat, this was the map I made for myself, though I incremented it slightly as we went:
The basic pitch was that one of the friends of the players was spirited away to this boat during Mardi Gras, where there was happening a big gala for spirits all over.
The experiment here was:
- Can a dungeon work without a real resource management? Since it was a gala, there were no need for torches, food was plentiful, and the time constraint was "until sunrise", and 12 hours was more than enough to complete 12 rooms.
The result was overwhelmingly yes, because the "resource" being managed there was notoriety. The players weren't supposed to be here, it being stealthy place, so if they got caught, as far as they're concerned it would be game over.
- Can a dungeon work without accounting for geography? The structure of the rooms is dead simple. It goes up and down, there were guards on the connection from the Mezzanine to the Smoke Room, but most other connections were unguarded. And there was a dumbwaiter / freight elevator that could carry things up and down, if unjammed.
The result was also yes. I didn't put any effort into making the space feel like a "mythic otherworld"; there were a few decks and the "servant quarters" are basically a cargo hold.
The way I thought about it was basically like a Delta Green investigation. Usually there isn't much to the environments, since they're the real world, but they act as containers for relevant people and information.
Since I am using a variation on Violence, I have very little dials to turn, so it was a bit of a challenge to figure out what exactly to put in there.
- Could a dungeon work where you have no XP-sources inside?
This sounds like a silly question, but I think it's pertinent. After all, usually the reason to delve in a dungeon is to find gold for XP, or the object of the game in some fashion. Last time I had a dungeon in front of the players in a game where that wasn't the object of the game (Delta Green) they considered very hard if it was worth going inside at all, since their orders were mostly to clean up the place.
This eventually did work because "rescue your friend" was a good enough reason, and it shaped the entire game around that.
- Could I pull off a dungeon with extremely sparse room descriptions?
Mr. Mann once showed me a page for 1000 Statues and I thought "that's it?? That's the key?? That is ONE LINE for a room. I would need at least a description to ground myself."
For this dungeon, this is how I wrote my keys:
2. Main Deck (Port) - A small mass of tiny grass spirits try to figure out how to operate a fishing rod. They are protective of it, but will be willing to part with it for a good joke, some other monkey business, or if the fat lady sings. Not that one can’t just take it from them.
⬇️ Stairs to guest quarters.
The finding was also "yes" but with an asterisk, which is that I don't know if I would be able to pull it off as well had I not written it. Much of it was left unsaid and undescribed because I had already thought about it and relied on imagery I would create on the spot. So for these spirits above, I described them as "like the Kodamas from Princess Mononoke", because that's what I associate with that, but they're not grass spirits in that movie, so someone else would be totally different. I didn't even have them talk, they just produced clicks.
That said, I think I would be able to manage it so long as the material inspired me enough. If they had orcs and other "standard fantasy" stuff I would not care, but if it were, say, cool ape men or something, then it might pique my interest.
- Could the Point and Click / Resident Evil school of game design work in a dungeon?
You know those old Sierra point and clickers where you'd talk to a guy and get a thermos, and then take to another guy who wanted the thermos and he'd give you a bottle of milk and you'd have to figure out where to put it? Or in Resident Evil where you mostly have to navigate a dangerous place to find an item to take it somewhere else and open new areas? This was basically how I approached this thing. I tried not to have specific solutions for each situation, but a lot of the puzzles did have correct solutions - the big one they had to figure out on their own, with no correct solution, was how to get themselves and the person they came to rescue out of there in the first place. I think this created a good contrast where some things did require a "right answer", but the ultimate question didn't, so they felt more like steps towards a climax.
Overall,
I think it worked really well. Players liked it, Mann said it was "the most engaged I've been in a Hearts Aglow session" (which I consider a good thing as it means things are improving), they now have a long term goal too which is returning there next Mardi Gras and finishing it.
As for me, I consider it not just a resounding success, but an important milestone in my unrotting my brain from the OSR. After finding out about it circa 2021 ~ 22 and taking an unwilling break from playing due to not having a group, I went really really hard on pre-written tables, modules, randomizers, dungeon-structures, etc. This whole thing was almost entirely me just drawing a map then thinking hard about what I want to put there, making my own random tables, and trying to conform it as much as I can to my own sensibilities - such as the waiters being little yapping Pomeranians and that being contrasted with a really fucked up broader plot about a teenager trying to "grow up faster" to be taken seriously.
It also tested a broader idea for me, which was that agency only really matters within the confines of the adventure. I had my players extremely free but with a solid structure for the past sessions, like I've talked about, but after removing that structure and having a more cohesive adventure, with a semi predictable start, middle, and finish, everything slotted better into place. I should not worry as much anymore about simply putting things on their path and trusting them to run after it (although I still want to justify their involvement due to it being a contextual game); the devils of "ultimate player agency" and "emergent gameplay" kept whispering in my ear and I found out that the most radical version of that just isn't very fun. "Emergent gameplay" still requires me to put them in the situation where that gameplay can emerge - it feels a bit like "the House Always Wins" in the sense that I can predict their movement very well and know where they will end up, which feels like the gameplay isn't very emergent at all since I know where it will go, but that's... a non-issue. It doesn't actually matter. I as the GM don't have to be as surprised as the players for the game to be fun; I just have to make it happen.