The Black Hack + Roll20 + The Overrun Mines

I and +Kookko Jaskinen  continued the game we started in public at eat-all-you-can pizzeria Rax via Roll20. One major change was, that we ditched Swords & Wizardry WhiteBox and decided to use The Black Hack instead. Converting the character was easy, because all that matters is attributes.

Mad real time mapping skills, looks exactly like the original map!

We continued the adventure of Jarod, who gained epithet "Unlucky" because he did not only lose a finger, but also half of his face in Temple Of Greed. After this Fighter's master died at the temple, Jarod had no future in the religious order. So he started traveling and ended up to this remote mining town. Drinking was what he started to do...

There he met new party members, Thurnsted the Rogue, who made home of this towns tavern avoiding the law for a reason he called "a misunderstanding". The second addition to the party was Ivan Slick, the Cleric, who was sent to a pilgrimage, where he was supposed to see a holy sign that would grand him his praying ability (read: second level). That never happened and he got frustrated ending to the very same mining town drinking.

They had jolly time drinking and eating and sleeping, but the day came when they ran out of money. Lucky for them, the mines had some trouble. I rolled random rumors from The Overrun Mines adventure and got:

• "Here have been cave-ins, something rustles the stone in the deep and I barely escaped with my life."
• "There is a dungeon holding cell deep within the mine; I have no idea what it was used for."
• "The mine used to be a goblin hideout, we cleared it of those foul creatures years ago."

They left Thurnsted to the tavern, because his Intelligence, Wisdom and Charisma were low, so he wouldn't say anything stupid or haggle like an idiot, and went to meet minemaster. They got the mission to go check these rumors so employees would get back to work. From 100 SP (I use silver standard) reward they managed to haggle to 200 SP! Great! That's plenty of money to continue easy life!

In a fantasy setting full of monsters, who of a right mind would work in a
place like this?!

Inside the dungeon in the common room where ore is loaded and supplies unpacked they took some pick axes and rope with them and continued deeper. Ivan the Cleric scouted the first intersection a little and they decided to go forward where seemed to be a big cave.

The cave is where the ore is dug. In the middle of this large cave was a cave in, and deep down a wounded grey worm. They figured out, maybe this grey worm was the reason for cave-ins and rustling noises, and decided to kill it. They started pushing rocks down trying to squash it!

Thurnsted is a weak fellow, so I decided every rock they drop (dealing 3d6 damage) on the work, Thurnsted should roll STR starting from advantage, then normal, and the rest disadvantages. If he failed, he would refuse to push down any more rocks because he has hurt himself. The second rock down and whining starts! The worm had 9 HP left and Thurnsted tried to deal more damage with his crossbow, but didn't deal near enough to kill it. They were thinking, they must kill it to claim it their work so no one can deny their reward.

I ruled, that Thurnsted could try to roll one extra rock with a disadvantageous STR roll, but if he failed, he'd suffer 1d3 damage for hurting his muscles more. Luckily there was a melting oven with liquid hot iron in it. They poured it in the cave-in killing the worm. When it's skin bursted and boiled, it made exactly the same noises as cheese sausage on a grill. Shizzle shizzle crack pop. The worm was dead.

Dead gray worm. It was 30 meters long!

The opening to the south-east had many killed miners and they figured out the worm came that way and managed to grab and kill few. As the miners flew around the cave-in the blind worm fell in following them. There must be more of these worms, maybe, but they didn't care. One was dead and that's enough! But there's still those three other rumors to take care of...

They follow the passage and take the intersection north, where there is a barred door. Thurnsted opens the door and jumps back like a coward and Ivan steps in like a hero. Nothing inside, except remains of a fire and blackened goblin bones, which naturally reanimate and attack. The combat was not tough, but they decided to spend a hour fixing their armor after it (to restore their Armor Points).

There is no random encounters table in The Overrun Mines, so I decided to use Underworld Day Rules table. Once a day underground you roll it to see the effect on the party. I wanted to use it, because this party wouldn't be underground for a day (necessarily). Die tells, that Thurnsted the Rogue suffers 1 (5%) penalty to every action until he gets some fresh air. He starts to get frustrated because there are no treasures, goblin bones where empty.

Forward they venture and take a junction to the left to barracks. No treasures, just junk. Player Jaakko wanted to roll again the Underworld Day Rules table, because he thought that Thurnsted got more frustrated for the lack of  treasures and it effects the whole group. Everyone's morale suffers and they lose 2 permanent HP until they get out.

Back and forward to an ancient goblin throne room. On the throne there is a shackled, very living dead goblin king. On the floor four goblin skeletons lay. What makes Thurnsted run to the room yelling "FINALLY TREASURE", was a partially open fake wall.

Image from http://3drt.com

And the goblin king breaks it's straps and the skeletons reanimate. Combat started quite well, but soon turned into murder - of adventurers. Ivan was first to be KO'd and Jarod decided to both hit a skeleton and chuck some healing potion in his system (second level Fighter has two attacks, I ruled he can attack with a disadvantage and use a potion on his friend). Ivan is back in game, but suffering broken bones and -2 to physical attributes.

Thrunsted, even though he is weak and a dick, was lucky both in hitting and avoiding to be hit. Their second level Warrior, Jarod was soon downed and not too long, and Ivan followed him to oblivion. Thurnsted managed to kill the undead goblin king with cunning (running and shooting) and force (stabbing like mad). With the band's last potion of health, he revived Jarod. They decided to flee, but Jarod insisted they take the corpse of Ivan Slick with them to find someone to resurrect him - or at least offer him proper funeral.

They also decided they should tell they have dealt with the problems, get the reward and get outta there as soon as possible, before they figure out that not all problems are dealt with. Good luck with that! Next time... A new dungeon to explore and to die in!

DM notes, NPC stats and info, initiative counter, combat tracker. All well organized. I didn't actually use Death & Dismemberment table, because The Black Hack's Out of Action (OofA) works fine! That red d20 on the picture was a bomb! It gave crits for adventurers (natural 1) and crits for enemies (natural 20)!

Big thanks for Jaakko for a fun game, and for helping me out writing the final combat. There was lots of things going all with one-shot-kill goblin skeletons, and falling party members.

Jaakko is also a great player for 1-on-1 games, because he is Dungeon Master in his own games. It's fun to create some scenes and details together. I can throw him a ball for a moment to ask him for some details on something, and it is fun! Also the background story for this adventure (basically downtime between Temple Of Greed and The Overrun Mines) we developed together, which was great fun! I really enjoy gaming 1-on-1 with Jaakko, we are good together... arrright now it starts to sound inappropriate!

Well, until next time!

And hey, if you want to, you can suggest a dungeon for one level characters. Preferably one you can run in one session (two dungeons down and like 1/4 explored in both!!!) IF you don't have any greater ideas, they will travel to... No Country For Weak Men by +Anders Hedenbjörk Lager. And when the party (or anyone) hits 3rd level, there will be an extra episode of The Flayed King by +Tim Shorts where a new character of a new character class will be introduced to the game... well, only if he survives!

[Review] The Tomb Of Gardag The Strange

A Labyrinth Lord compatible adventure by 3 Toadstool Publishing, +Shane Ward. PDF, pay-what-you-want available at DriveThruRPG.

Presentation

Artwork is very cool, looted from openclipart.org. Shane finds the best pictures there! Layout is clear two columns. What I like very much in descriptions is that general information is separated from italic GM information. This style makes entries easy to read and separate what should be told right away for players, and what not.

The Adventure

Dungeon with a good introduction. Something else than your average "there's treasure, go get it". Background of the adventure is nice and easily put in a setting of your choice. In only 16 pages (including OGL) there are 24 rooms! That's a lot!

The adventure is quite dark with undead, tombs and stuff like that. I like it. If you've played Skyrim you know what I mean if I say that I can imagine Tomb Of Gardag like draugh tombs.

I think that all content fits together quite nicely, I didn't get any "that's random" or "what is that doing there in the first place" feelings like some dungeons give.

Extra Stuff

You also get three pregenerated characters. The adventure is for 3rd level adventurers but the pregens are first levels. Shane told that it's a mess-up and leftover, because initially this was going to be Dungeon Crawl Classics funnel adventure inspired.

You also get 12 interesting henchmen. No stats, but cool descriptions. I like little things what can be used elsewhere even if the adventure is used.

Value For Money?

Yes. This is great dungeon! It is pay-what-you-want, so it doesn't cost anything to get. So I think this is a must have. Although I think this is worth money, and the money is well spent.

When Shane was writing this I saw WIP and got very excited about it. Now published, it claimed my excitement and gave more.

I like this!

[Review] The Overrun Mines

The local mine has been overrun by foul creatures, stopping all mining operations! The Lord has dispatched a call for brave heroes to clear out the mine, but what lurks below the surface?

That's the premise written on cover of The Overrun Mines (that's a Drivethru link, it currently costs only 0,39€) by 3 Toadstool Publishing, +Shane Ward.

Looks

Illustration is from https://openclipart.org and it does look like it's taken from a source where you can get pictures for your stuff. It is not necessarily a bad thing and the pics chosen for this adventure are ok. Only the cover picture is lame. But hey, look at the price tag of this adventure and don't judge!

Layout is normal, two columns, easy to read. Nothing fancy. Everything doesn't have to be fancy as long as it is easy to read and to check things up.

In my review copy there were some mistakes (I pointed these out early, don't have updated version if there is any). Really minor and easy to work around. AC and HD mistakes and dungeons section number 13 twice replacing number 12. Nothing too bad and definitely no game crippling.

The Dungeon

Map is hand-drawn, no special effects here. But it is clear. The dungeon is interesting in my opinion though a little railroading. By this I mean that soon after entering the dungeon you go left, right or straight. Basically all of these end in dead ends (except one what leads to part two of the dungeons). So exploring is an u-turn at some point.
I have two thoughts here:

• It's okay because this place is a mine, not a labyrinth complex. So it makes perfect sense. Also this is a small dungeon you can throw in your campaign so characters are not going to spend damn long there (this is a problem I'll deal with later)
• It's a little dull and either all places get explored, or player rushes through (my player!).

The sections (14 in first and 8 in second part) are good though. Nothing super special, but I enjoyed running and reading it. Not everything must be flashy and gory and what-the-funkery all the time and  more traditional approach (for me) is something I welcome. There are great things what I enjoyed a lot (wounded worm was awesome in play) and something what made me a little confused (undead goblins waiting for you). There are also some NPCs you could rescue, what was fun!

The second part is better, because behind an ordinary dungeons experience there's something else. You can do a lot with this part, if you want to. I did! It fit my campaign very well, actually inspiring it. I did not run the second part fully by-the-book but it was very good resource and idea to push my campaign to this new direction... That was great in this adventure, to inspire.

I am not sure how many force the adventures to work as written, and I am not sure if the review is not as good if you didn't run it b-t-b (heck, I don't even run or use everything I review!) but that's the fun of roleplaying. You take something someone else created, and make it your own. The product cannot be bad if it inspired you. It is bad if you don't even want to use it! In this, The Overrun Mines worked fine.

Extra

Okay, the dungeon is ran, what next? I like products what give something extra you can use. Small rules, new monsters, something. When you have used the adventure or the dungeon there's still some value left. And here is.

First, you get pregens (four human race-as-classes, they look like Labyrinth Lord and B/X stats) with equipment ready.

Then you get rumors. I love rumors! In my opinion the rumors tell a small story about the game world the writer wrote the adventure for. Even though it is generic the rumors are the people of the adventure, what make the background even if there is no setting background involved. These are good rumors and good adventure catches.

Also you get two optional rules. The first is Resurrection rules. Simple. When you get resurrected, roll D12 and see the table for results. You might loose 1 from stats, or level, or HP. Mundane, but nice addition (not always resurrection table results should be gore-gruesome-weird).

The second rules is Underground Day Rules. Basically the more you stay underground in the dungeons without daylight, the more symptoms you get. Like saving throws worsen but there are also good things that can happen. I have to say, there is not much logic why some day you might feel weak and next day you can memorize more spells or get bonus to combat. Maybe the dark claustrophobic surroundings can make you feel bad, or make you perform better. I don't know.

Conclusion

Nice, short adventure to run. Nothing earth shattering. It is cheap and easy to throw in your campaign and for me the second part of dungeon worked as campaign altering inspiration.

I don't know how I could have liked it more. If undead goblin enemies made more sense (why those are there, why miners didn't just throw the corpses away) and Underground Day Rules idea was better explained. But still this was good enough for me to enjoy it!

Cheap dungeons to throw in the middle of your campaign, go get it!