Drakenwelt Replay II - Session 3 - Random encounters...

Preface

Sometimes the forest is just a forest, and that's the cool part about it. I see a lot of advice in world building and D&D — it's always about giving it a twist. A forest is not enough, it needs to have a bunch of crazy magical things, same thing with cities… and I don't know man, that's not the type of stuff I think about. What's in Cornelia that makes it particularly interesting? Nothing much, there is a castle with a king, but that's just an excuse to go fight Garland — and it's not like the way to Garland has any interesting stuff either!

You are traveling to a place with all kinds of dangerous things; D&D 5e players and DMs that skip travel need those twists because they are skipping the conflict of the story. I am sorry, but your character is not owed a heroic death… sometimes some fantasy lizard spits acid on them while walking through the forest. I think all of this stems from the uniqueness of characters — people will make all of these complex backstories and then expect to play through a game where everything is related to that backstory.

Thankfully, I don't have to deal with any of that. I don't have to deal with the DM's necessity of making it interesting and involved for its players, while also, I don't need to make a place interesting for the reader the way a novelist would. My world is quite uninteresting. Today I'll talk about this uninteresting world.

World-building

Molinos

Is this a world-building episode? If you've read any of my books or blogs you'll know that I don't like world-building; preparation is opposite to the spontaneous nature of automatic writing — preparing things is not the surrealist's way. I like preparing something only to the degree where I am able to use it. Since I am going to use these, then I guess it'd be fine to do some world-building.

The region of Molinos, which is part of a larger kingdom, is surrounded by a large dense forest called The Wild Depth[1]. As such, I imagine that Molinos itself is a sort of… messenger city. The main way of air travel is through griffons or wyverns, so there should be a market for those, and they send and receive letters through birds (unspecified bird type) and transport merchandise. In other words, they are fantasy Amazon.

The adventurer guild of Molinos is small because there isn't a need for adventurers other than for tackling jobs unrelated to the military. Most people in Molinos want to be merchants or join Molino's (or the Kingdom's) air cavalry. I think most of the city should be a large district dedicated to trade. The adventuring guild should be in the back of some store as a subsidiary of that store. You may be wondering… hey… what are they selling in particular? Like… what is their export other than being some third-party messaging city? Nothing… I don't know… wood. I don't care honestly, realism can suck my balls.

Other places

North of Bridgen there should be mountains. East there should be some village past the bridge which is the place Lialia and Felnini come from. Lialia is traveling because of a duty she has as a figure within that village, that's the reason why she has the Book of Names, which allows her to summon creatures from other dimensions; she is a summoner doing a pilgrimage to connect with those inter-dimensional beings.

Lialia and Felnini wanted to explore the ruins independently from the ring, but would've preferred going through the elf village (Leaflin[2]) first rather than through Descanso.

On the topic of Descanso and Leaflin. There aren't any details! Haha~ I don't know, they are just… places, same with Bridgen — although… in my mind Bridgen is a farming village. The name Descanso means rest in Spanish, so I'll say it is a place for resting. Molinos means windmills… there aren't any windmills in Molinos (lol.)

Monsters

Remember all of that long rant I made about monsters and animals in that one session of Replay 1? Throw it out the window. Since I am making my own monsters, I don't know what they are like, and I don't feel like thinking about that… they are somewhat smart I guess, but attacking the party is easier than having to imagine how they'll behave in a non-combat scenario. So my world is built like video-games and so are my monsters — you'd think I should just play video-games, but it's my own story and my own world, as game-like as it is, so I'll take it.

Other things

Uhh… we are currently in Spring. The seasons are Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter. A year is 240 days. A month is 30 days. A season is 60 days. A day is 24 hours. There are 8 months in a year: Nero, Fereb, Mein, Abra, Julen, Aghost, Octra, Dectra. That's very original.

We are in the year… 260. If I ever said otherwise, then consider it changed. It is the year 260. As the replay is going… it is the day 20 of Nero — as I said, it is currently Spring. The hour… It was 9 PM when the party went to bed, they only slept for 4 hours before the random encounter so as the random encounter happens… it's 1 AM.

Replay

21/01/60 - 1:00 AM — 20 hours since departure.

A random encounter… what is it? It could not be a monster, it could be a person, or something else? I will ask the oracle to figure it out. I'd say it is likely to be a creature… what person would walk around at 1 AM on a dark forest? Maybe beastmen… Let's say that it is likely for it to be a creature and otherwise likely to be a beast-man or beast-woman.

Q: Is it a creature? (⅔)
A: No. ⚁
Q: Is it a beast-man or beast-woman? (⅔)
A: Yes. ⚅

Okay so this is weird. Beastmen live in the mountains, they are tribal furries that only care about strength. It is possible for beastmen to travel, in particular for the purpose of their rite of passage:

When they are 10 years old, which is already a grown adult for animal people as they live an average of 40 years, they are sent to the wilderness with the task of hunting a large creature — the largest and strongest the creature, the higher their social position within their tribe; the judgement of the ranks determine their position within their ranks. That determines some things such as tasks they do for the tribe and with whom they are able to mate. The idea being that… if you are strong you should only mate with other strong people (members of your own rank) to have strong children.

This rite of passage is done by both males and females. So first let us determine their gender with a fifty-fifty, then I'll ask if they are alone with a likely chance, if they are alone then they are doing their rite, otherwise the group may be doing some sort of task for the tribe or they could be exiles.

Q: Are they male? (½)
A: Yes. ⚃
Q: Are they alone? (⅔)
A: No. ⚁

Very weird… we are very far away from the mountains. I'll roll a six-sided die and divide the result by 2 to determine how many additional people there are. ⚀ One, rounded up… one. So there are two people in total.

Q: Is the other person also a beastmen? (⅔)
A: No. ⚀

That's got to be an exile. Let me roll the race table to know what the other character is.

Holy fuck! So… beastmen are one of the two rare races that are still playable through the random table… the other one are dark elves… I rolled ⚀⚀ — that's a dark elf! This is very interesting… you know what? I am going to generate their characters and alignment, they are up to some weird shit.

I see… I see… these guys are not good news. Tosjen, the beast-man is very strong, even for his race, he's strong and evil — he also rolled very good for his health roll. And the other man, the dark elf Sinille… he's also incredibly powerful, even for his race — he has a 14[3] intelligence which dark elves can use to quickcast ancient spells... And he's also evil! (lol) Look, it's a stereotype, okay? It's just a coincidence that the first dark elf we meet is also evil.

This could go to shit, like TPK-type of shit. This is what I am going to do: I am going to ask the oracle if they are working together with a larger group or organization with a likely chance. Then I am going to roll their objective on a table. Then I am going to roll for wisdom for the party to see if they notice them. Then I am going to roll wisdom for the duo to see if they notice the party… and finally, if they do notice them… I am going to ask if they are interested in the party to the oracle with a likeliness depending on what their objectives are. I hope it's not something like "Destroy Being."

Roll Action Target
1-2 Move Being
3-4 Obtain Object
5-6 Destroy Place

Q: Are they working for a larger group? (⅔)
A: Yes. ⚃

Okay, let's determine the goal assigned to them by that group:

⚁ Move ⚁ Being. Oh, they are moving somewhere, so they are just traveling for the purpose of arriving at a place. That's not too bad. Even if they are interested in the party there's nothing about that being inherently aggressive. But they are traveling at night… so perhaps they don't want to be seen.

Q: Do they want to avoid being seen? (⅔)
A: Yes. ⚂

Heh… let's see if it does happen.

Demfand sits on a rock holding to his staff. He thinks the turn to shift is soon, but suddenly he notices a shade of dark in the distance.

Demfand: "Hey… do you see something out there?"
Lialia: Wisdom — ⚁⚂⚀ Success (Disadvantage) "There are two people walking up there…"

Let's see if they noticed… that they noticed. Sinile and Tosjen have the same wisdom (a 9) but I will roll for Tosjen since he has perfect vision at night.

Tosjen does… ⚂⚀⚅ not notice.

Lialia: "Let's keep quiet and wait for them to leave…"

Q: Is the duo's direction away from the group? (½)
A: Yes. ⚅

Ah, thank goodness. If you are thinking "wow all of that was wasted because nothing happened" — then you are wrong! Now that I've generated characters for those two, I will use them later[4]. A strange encounter with low odds to even occur turned into a little bit of a scare but it was over in a second.

I could role-play a bit but… I feel like moving on. One thing that I've noticed is that due to the fact that the characters only spend two turns and don't do rounds properly, they end up sleeping only 4 hours each. But I don't care, the reality is that the rules only specify that they must rest for 8 hours — it doesn't specify the amount of sleep or taking guard, and doing anything else would be a pain. So yeah, they manage to rest the full 8 hours.

21/01/60 - 5:00 AM — 1 day since departure.

Let's check for weather. Why not?
⚄ Clear. ⚄ No wind.

Let's get moving then — nice day to (finally) reach Descanso.

9:00 AM — 1 day and 4 hours since departure.

Should I roll for random encounter? We are technically in the town… Well it is possible that a random encounter occurs while in town. Sure, let's roll, the odds are ⅙ anyways.

⚀ Are you kidding me?! They have a random encounter while in or near town?! I'm going to ask the oracle if it is outside of town or while in town. I'd say it is likely to be outside of town.

Q: Is the encounter outside of town? (⅔)
A: Yes. ⚄

So they are near the town and the party notices… is it a creature? Usually I'll say it is more likely, but since it is near town… maybe it is ½ odds.

Q: Is it a creature? (½)
A: No. ⚂

Here we go again. Let me see, this time they are traveling so maybe it is a static object rather than a person, I'll ask if it is a person with a likely chance and if that's not the case then it must be some object.

Q: Is it a person? (⅔)
A: Yes. ⚃

There surely is a faster way to do this, I need to make a table to generate them more quickly if they are going to be such an important part of the game.

A week has passed. Yes, I started this session a week ago and now I am back. I found myself pretty frustrated with this thing. One of the fundamental problems of the random encounter is: why should I care? If it doesn't provide a benefit or a detriment… does it matter? A lot of random tables do not take this into account, they only care about presenting you a character and an action of sorts… but an action doesn't mean anything! Yes, you could find a man shitting in the middle of the road, but does that affect you in any way? Much like I did with my objective table — I made a table for non-combat random encounters.

Roll Type Detrimental Beneficial
1 Detrimental Material Material
2 Detrimental Material Material
3 Detrimental Informational Informational
4 Beneficial Informational Informational
5 Beneficial Danger Side-quest
6 Beneficial Danger Side-quest

Time to test it. ⚀ Detrimental ⚄ Danger so there's something threatening there. Let's say that close to town… there are two griffons out of control. They belong to a group of 2 to 4 people. Let's roll two D2s. ⚀ 1 ⚃ 2 — So there are 3 people here. I believe all of these to be the owner of the griffons, they are used for travel but… I think they saw something that scared them so now these guys are trying to calm them down.

This is sort of informational, but you'd only think so if you are the DM. I will generate the race and genders of the three folk trying to hold them down. Female Imp, Female Human, Female Elf. They are all women of different races... What is up with my die? Hmmm… they could be representatives of something traveling for a meeting.

Actually, that's not a bad idea. It is unlikely but perhaps Lialia and Felnini know that imp. Q: Do they? (⅓) A: No. ⚃ — Okay, so that imp is not from their village, and there are not that many villages according to my made up lore… I know! These are representative from nearby villages and towns, and they are here to discuss… the tension with the elves. But that doesn't matter that much right now.

Let's see if our party can do something about the two griffons… we definitively do not want to kill them. Demfand has bind, that's useful.

Demfand approaches one of the griffons and attempts to cast Bind. ⚂⚂⚁ Success The griffon being held by the female elf is immobilized by invisible chains.

With the others holding the other down, it is very likely both will be subdued. Eventually, with the passing of… let's say… 30 minutes should be enough for them to calm down after realizing they are no longer in danger. With that said, it is possible that while holding it down the struggle may hurt one of the party members. I'd say it is a ½ chance.

Q: Did anyone from the party get hurt? (½)
A: Yes. ⚄

Damn, I ate a burger. I know, these are half-blogs — I don't even know if anyone read these… huge burger, very good. So I'm ready to keep going. There are three possible party members to get hurt, since Demfand will not approach the creature. A roll of a D6 should decide. ⚂ Felnini… griffons are level 3, so she takes… ⚁⚃ 9 damage.

I don't feel like role-playing their exchange. But they are grateful for the help, and basically, will give them something in return once they arrive at Descanso, as they are in a bit of a hurry. When trying to figure out the reason why the griffons were scared, no one really knows.

And finally… with that out of the way… at 9:30 AM the party arrives at Descanso. And in 4 hours, the Crimson Strike Band will also arrive. Next session I am going to:

I've decided in the future to not roll random encounters in town… it limits what I can do a lot (lol.) I've also been working in another system for another replay, and I thought about playing an already existing game — with a twist.

  1. It is a regular forest, no twist — just trees. Damn, that sentence looks like it was written by AI. Fuck it, it's just a footnote.

  2. Dude, my names are genius. You can't think of a more generic name for villages and cities than Bridgen for a village next to a bridge, and Leaflin for a village of elves in the woods.

  3. For you to understand, a human's average intelligence is 11. A dark elf's average intelligence is 12. Sinille has a +2 to his intelligence which is the maximum modifier above average for the race. In other words, he's very smart — maybe not a genius, that'd be a special character-type thing.

  4. I also think that just the act of figuring that out was interesting by itself. To me, part of solo role-playing is that aspect of figuring out what is happening. This is the sort of thing that you don't get simply writing a novel — I never planned for any of this!