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Cheers, man. You've got a great channel.

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From the dust of the old ways: healing and repair, training and research, travel to and from. These are the reasons for down time. (Plus it gives the dungeons time to restock). And... if the campaign or adventure is running on a time sensitive thread, maybe the players must continue without fully resting or researching.

I like your videos in general, but this is by far my favorite yet! Thanks!😊

Sandboxing is the way to not get burned out. Reject the railroad.

This is an excellent set of tips for newish players and dms. Also great tips for any rpg really. I always felt training at low levels not such a big deal. But once characters get to level 3 or especially by level 5 to gain a level required some teaching. The thought was to get to 2nd level... anyone swinging a sword or exploring their natural abilities will get better just by doing it. But up only to a certain point. Then you need a teacher to get better. Higher levels you can even build a small side quest just trying to find a high enough level teacher for your character.

The Archmage’s consciousness takes several days to recompile? That guy is built on C++.

Adventurer Conqueror King utilizes downtime and gold of the characters really well. They include the things you mention plus even more. If you use OSE, I recommend you at least consult ACKS. They are compatible.

good stuff, thanks

Pendragon has one adventure per year and then a winter phase where you can roll to see if you have any new kids :)

STRICT RECORDS MUST BE KEPT!!! Love how Gygax is still looming over the hobby.

Played Temple of elemental Evil. In game characters aged a month. Hated that. Current campaign. Adventures take place once a year. Characters started at 15. They are now 40.

For me, after you prevent the world from exploding every 5 s e c o n d s. You train, trade, research and improve your arsenal while the bad guys are doing the same. Like imagine thr barbarian learning how to s p i n 2 w i n without puking or crashing into your teammates. The wizard can coat a foe in metal shavings for extra lighting dmg or you research how to make like frostfire.

Training is one thing I'm aiming to include in an upcoming Rules Cyclopedia campaign. Among other things, I'm coming up with a system that allows time and money spent to add experience over time, up to a ceiling. This ceiling will increase as the campaign progresses. The idea is to allow inexperienced PCs in the stable to get help to advance, so they won't be quite so vulnerable when they head out with the more experienced ones for the first time. It's also something to spend your gold on if you're not saving it for a stronghold.

Zero to Hero in no time flat! Downtime is great for pacing. It's a shame the 2024 D&D rules don't include any mention of it, 2014 had a whole section in the DMG.

Always love your content :) keep it up!

Why would you have old men's hair in a hex? See 10:51.

Shows the Witcher Plot explained is Elric of Melnibone

Cool shirt!

Thanks for the great ideas! I'll be using those resources as I work on my own hex crawl.

Nice

I have never had a plot to any of my games. My first DMs didn’t bother with it either. I have been playing since ‘83 or ‘84, so I’m one of the old farts to the younger generation of gamers. I have 30+ years of notes for campaigns to recycle villains and plots from. If I start a new campaign, I pick 3-5 villains and they each have their own plots and plans already written out. If the players end up picking up a clue, it could be from one of three villains at a minimum. For really gritty games, I’ll plug 6 or more villains into it. Those plots move forward whether the players interact with them or not. A minor villain that could be easy to beat early on may be a royal pain a couple of levels later. Remember that evil isn’t monolithic. All those villains are fighting against each other too. That kindly old wizard who hired you to do something might just be a villain throwing you at his rival. Every NPC is a potential villain with a plot to take over their part of the world too. I never use “end-of-the-world” plots. The villains live in the world too, so destroying the world is a bit on the stupid side. They are all trying to take over, not destroy everything. I keep a notebook with the stat blocks for different encounters ready to go. City watch, I have that. City guard, I have that too. Orc warband, yep. Goblin raiding part, yep. Thieves guild, another page. Bandits, yet another page. I save maps. I never destroy one or throw it away. I can reach into a folder and pull out a map for pretty much any type of location. I learned that from a guy who used The Keep on the Borderlands maps for pretty much every dungeon and we never noticed it as players. It takes about a week to get the calendar ready for the various plots of the villains but session prep is under ten minutes. If a villain gets killed, I swap in another. If a villain’s plot succeeds, they become harder to beat later, because then they have the power, authority or influence to use against the players who get nosy. Never toss your notes. You can recycle everything later.

GDW had a catastrophe as a major part of their campaign environment in both their Traveller and Twilight game worlds. One was just coming back from the AI virus and the other was just as the worst of nuclear winter was passing. Nearly every D&D world has at least one fallen empire in the game world. Some have several. GW has multiple catastrophes built into their Warhammer and 40K settings. The reason for this is that the future is always built on the ruins of the past. There are always things in those ancient ruins that could help rebuild or destroy it all again. Both options require the players being active in exploring the world and that is where the adventure comes into it.

would love to see you demonstrate a 5 or 6 hex example.

Been building my own hexcrawl following the Hexcrawl25 challenge. This helped me realize how samey my whole map was becoming!

I highly agree with the "no blank hexes" caveat... Or the premise, at least. See, I've heard some people say, "You only ever need 1 feature per Hex," but that's just so very few... Especially if "particularly knotty tree" is a possible feature. But I do find upwards of 3 features fine for 6 miles. You need to draw a line somewhere, and the next nice number (6, because Hexes) is way too many.

This video actually made me consider return back to the OSE

Got the pdf a bit ago, shipping was a bit too steep and would have to pay import costs but the pdf is well worth it!

Great video. Love your channel and promotion of OSE.

Thanks for the look through. One thing: The center stapled binding is called "Saddle Stitch". Sorry, 40 year graphic designer - almost as long as my gaming experience.

This will probably be worth it for a new Chance Dudinack dungeon alone. Dude really knows how to write them. Thanks for the breakdown! Unrelated, but I'm looking for dungeons that slot into Dolmenwood (besides the official adventures). Any ideas?

Picked it up, glad they included the deities, my home game is a sandbox based off the implied setting of the OSE Rogue’s gallery and Gavin Norman’s old blog glad we’re getting more details to flesh it out!

Interesting. Thanks a lot for this info.

Thanks for the Flip through. Will have to pick this up.

Cool!

Just about bought this yesterday, but almost $20 (with shipping) felt a little much. But i do really like all this supplemental content OSE is creating.

You can go one step further when fleshing out your factions: not only a faction leader, but one or more lieutenants. Characters who are nominally aligned to the interests of the faction but, like the leader, have their own interests that might bring them into conflict with the head honcho. Things the PCs can exploit, whether by helping the lieutenant(s) or helping the leader against them. Example: The faction leader is a wealthy Noble, who keeps in his employ two lieutenants, an Alchemist and a Rogue. The Alchemist not only provides the Noble with all manner of useful concoctions (explosives, invisible ink, aphrodisiacs, etc), but also helps the Noble keep the Rogue in line. Because the Rogue needs a drug only the Alchemist knows how to make that suppresses the effects of the Rogue's "demonic possession". (In truth, the Rogue just has Schizophrenia, and the drug suppresses the visual and auditory hallucinations he attributes to being possessed; but while the Alchemist knows this, the Rogue doesn't, and it's a distinction with little difference to the Rogue). If the Noble dies, the Alchemist is pretty sure he can keep the organization running himself with his knowledge. And so long as he has the formula for the drug, the Rogue is beholden to the Alchemist. The Alchemist is motivated by wealth and power, but more as a means of controlling people and acquiring more alchemical knowledge. The Rogue, meanwhile, hates being a pawn, and would leave if he could. Meaning he'll gladly cut a deal with the PCs to steal the Alchemist's book of formulas, so he can either learn how to make it himself or find a different supplier.

I cap PC HP at level 5, and reduce NPC Humanoid HP values accordingly. It avoids a lot of drawn-out combat, and makes combat with powerful monsters much scarier. My players really try to strategize if they need to fight a high HP monster. If they can't engineer an advantage, they'll (wisely) avoid violence (including running away until they come up with a plan).

Great video. I listened to it through the lens of a Dolmenwood campaign I’m starting soon.

I'm starting out with a 1d6 random encounter system, with the potential for non-combat encounters. Sometimes they'll be ambushed, or they'll see something in the distance, or they'll have the opportunity to flee or fight an area encounter. Great videos!

Hey Earthmote. Just realized it's been a hot minute since I've seen one of your videos, for whatever reason, RUclips has not been showing them to me. Just commenting and resubbing in hopes the algorithm recognizes. Cheers!

Another great one!

Roleplaying games are NOT story. Everything in stories comes from meaning, and the beginning, middle, end, little details, metaphors, symbols and allegories all spring from that meaning.

Thanks for sharing.

I run a monthly game at my local library and I do a "mega" dungeon crawl scenario. I generally use the 1 month real time = 1 month game time in order to justify repopulating some of the room. The first time, my players were surprised to find that a band of Goblins had moved into a bunch of rooms that they had cleaned out previously! >:-]

Hey! I love your vídeos! Amazing content. Do you any video on how to handle and manage pacing on a sandbox explorarion focused rpg?

9:50 "...and get some assistance from this faction ĩ̴̢̯̱͚̟͕̠͚̀͑͌̚͝͝ń̶̢̙̜̫̩͎͍̹͌ ̶͖̄̋̾͝ą̸̧̜̯͕̪͖̳̀ ̸̙̱̥̱̭̓͛l̷̠͕̉͠ǫ̵̺͚͍̞̍̅́͘ͅç̴̺̇̋͗ă̵̲͖̙͚̕t̷̡̜̎̆ì̶̩͇͈̮͇̟̺̅̆͘͘͝͠͠ọ̴̢̘̄̽͜͠ṋ̶̠̺̞̞̥̆͗̀̈́͜ ̴͕̞̺̗̪͇̫̂̌͗̏̈́t̵̫̼͉̉̽͊̉͊h̸̢̹̟̯̳̰̋e̷̛̺̩̪̖̪͓̾̾͜y̶̢̹̘͉̰̬̟̔̆́ͅ'̸͓̮͐v̶̭̘͍̪̗̬͚͚͑̽̎̽̌̌͘è̵͔̼͇͕̇ͅ ̸͔̳̠̾̈͝ä̷͖̣͍̮̞̘́͝l̵̪͉̏̐r̵̥͖̗͚͍̈͌̀̈͛e̶͔͍̦̱̥͇̲̍̇̉̈́̍͒̆ã̵̛̗̻͉̟̣͗͐̂̇̓́d̸̡̗̜̯̫̄͋͑͆͗̕̕y̵̱̳̒̌͂͛̚͝ͅ ̷̛̼̙̭̪̮̔̿̀̀̎͗b̵̡̺͓̮͈͍̾è̸̱̗̜̮̼͆́͊e̶̞̍̊̑̅n̷͇͍̞͖̦̲̔̈́̏͐͘.̷̜͓̖̝̮̱̟̻̈́."

The 5e combats drag like molasses. As. DM I try to keep the energy going and ask the players to even roll their attacks and damage before their turn. I’ve even tried all the different initiative systems but the HP bloat is one of the big problems of the system. It’s crazy how weapons do the same damage as the old systems but the HP has multiplied over the editions. When leveling up I feel like skills should increase not HP.

This is good information its help me flesh out my factiins however mine is not based in a dungeon but i might try that sometime

3:30 Did you throw your own lego build to get that footage? xD