Take-aways from running quick pick-up games

Occasionally, when I have a free-ish evening and the urge to play, I run an impromptu pick-up game over at the OSR discord server. The first time I ran the Secret Hide-Out of Glaxorzis, that Sorcerous Creep! for a party of three players, the second time The Outpost of Stone & Silver for a single player controlling two characters, and the most recent game was a delve into A Single Tomb, Unplundered for three players. UPDATE: one of the players wrote an in-character session report!

The games were all ran on a super short notice – announced circa 30 minutes before starting time (the server has a pick-up-gamer role you can ping).

The setup is quite simple, so that we can get to the good stuff right away:

1. Searchers of the Unknown

a. Again and again, SotU proves to be the best lingua franca minimalist D&D for such quick games. If a person has played any kind of D&D, they are able to pick up right away. Of course, on the DM-side, it requires an experienced judge, who already has a bunch of rulings and tools and procedures memorized.

b. A little extra thing I introduced this time was MAGIC WORD based spellcasting. It worked quite well, although no combination spells were attempted, only single-component magics.

2. Pregens!

a. Pregens are a must for such quick games. I guess you can also do the Flailsnails thing and let the players bring in any character they want (esp. if the “setting” is kitchensink), BUT, and this is my next point:

b. PREGENS ARE THE SETTING! A lot can be conveyed about the game’s broader setting by the roster of pregens. If the pregens are “elf magic-user”, “dwarf fighter” and “human thief”, that’s a vanilla D&D sort of world. SotU doesn’t use classes, so instead I add a randomly generated two-word description to each character: “ruthless hero”, “vampiric acolyte”, “wild nymph”. They confer the vague vibe of the setting, help the players get into it + I also let them use these descriptors for in-game bonuses and in-setting knowledge. The equipment list is another setting-conferring element (“broadsword” and/or “energy rifle”? “chain armor” or “Kevlar vest”?)

c. In case of character death, left-over pregens can be used as backup.

3. Dungeon crawling (using a dungeon I already have), starting at the entrance

a. That’s where it’s at.

b. I use my own dungeons, so prep is minimal.  

4. Short session, aiming for 90 minutes (usually ends up being closer to 100-120)

a. Enough time to crawl through 4-5 rooms, have a fight, screw around with some stuff. You have to run a tight ship, sometimes cut down on random encounters to highlight the keyed stuff, but, overall, a satisfying amount of fun game stuff can happen in this timeframe.

5. Tech: Discord voice chat, tldraw for shared whiteboard 

tldraw has everything you need to quickly map stuff, record marching order, etc. Very handy tool.

Low-level games are fun. But so are mid-level games! This third time around, I went for levels 4-5 and gave the pregens more power and some cool toys. Good change of pace.

Below is how I explain the rules and the list of pregens from the third game:

[Dungeon] Wreck Worship - a sea & salt themed cult dungeon

Here's the hide-out of a shipwreck-worshipping cult of weirdos! They even have their own lighthouse to lure sailors onto the reefs. The dungeon is this best situated on a seaside cliff. 

19 keyed areas, minimal keys. Print on two pages or even on a single page. Stats are for Searchers of the Unknown, so, you know, D&D.

There are stairs to a potential level 2 (I envision it to be a Deep One cave?), but who knows if that ever gets created.

The lighthouse is not described in detail here. I imagine it to be a tall tower without an overground entrance, only reachable from below (or if somebody manages to scale the walls).

Actually, now I have TWO sea-cult dungeons. I'm gonna post the other one later as well, because it's also good, plus it was playtested in The World of Tomorrow campaign. But there is some overlap between them, so I cannot just connect them together.

The process was simple:

1. I picked 8 monsters that fit thematically, put them on the wandering encounters list, and also used that list to stock the monster rooms.
2. I rolled up the basic structure and contents from the Atelier Clandestin Sandbox Generator (pretty sweet book!)
3. I re-rolled results that didn't quite fit (like overlong corridors) and then modified everything on the go to make it fit better with the theme

GRAB THE PDF HERE

Have fun.

Searchers of the Unknown - pocketmod version

I really like Searchers of the Unknown, the super-minimal D&D by Nicolas Dessaux, where you just use the standard monster statline to represent any character. It's a one-page ruleset. So I converted it into a pocketmod.

Searcher of the Unknown pocketmod PDF for printing

I edited it a little bit to make it fit better. Then to PAD IT OUT, I added Monsters of the Unknown by Brent P. Newhall and a quick equipment list by me.

(Turns out, there is another pocketmod version out there, but I prefer my formatting)

Fight on!

[Actual Play] Secret Hide-Out of Glaxorzis pick-up game! (Searchers of the Unknown)

I ran Glaxorzis as a quick pick-up game on the OSR Discord server yesterday! Around 90 minutes, for three players – a nice group of chill folks, two of them I’ve interacted on the server before (but haven’t played together) and one new person – so, overall, a great time!

We used Searchers of the Unknown. Great ruleset for quick games. “Think D&D without the ability scores. Do you know how in Basic you can write down the scores of a monster in a single stat line? This game just uses that for player characters as well”.

I whipped up some pre-gens using my trusty science fantasy frankentable (a gigantic ever-growing generator I maintain in Inspiration Pad Pro).

The players picked these characters:

 

Baron Chosroes the Purple (enterprising mercenary)

 • Stats: Leather, AC 7, MV 9, HD 1, 8 hp, #AT 1

 • Arms: laser pistol (d8), shield (-1 AC, -1 MV), axe (d6)

 • Equipment: hand-torch, chalk, small sack, electric lamp, holodisk

 

Timo (holographic golem)

 • Stats: Plate, AC 3, MV 3, HD 1, 8 hp, #AT 1

 • Arms: energy pistol (d6), shield (-1 AC, -1 MV), sling (d10)

 • Equipment: 50' rope, hand-torch, 6 rations, 50' wire rope, backpack, moldy looking glass, with the power to make the material immaterial

 

Europa (shy hero)

 • Stats: Chain, AC 5, MV 6, HD 1, 4 hp, #AT 1

 • Arms: shield (-1 AC, -1 MV), grenade (d10), polearm (d6)

 • Equipment: musical instrument (loud synthesizer), water bottle, hand-torch, candle, grappling hook, bedroll, decaying book, acquired from the frightening tower

 

We bumped them up to level 2.

Then the players came up with their motivation to go after Glaxorzis, that sorcerous CREEP!: Timo the golem had been created by Glaxorzis and now wants to take revenge; Baron the mercenary was cheated out of a promising contract by Glaxorzis, and Europa (who joined 30 minutes into the game) was the heroic type who is generally out fighting baddies.

 

The session was enough to cover most of the first level.

• The group explored the passages, got into a fight with the Orange Goblin guards, routed them, took and interrogated a hostage (“Bingus”), then let it go free.
• They went back to free the imprisoned giant. They gave him rations and started working on bending the prison bars.
• The goblins returned with back-up and their leader, striking from two directions, and another fight ensued.
• But in the meantime one character managed to free the giant (using that randomly rolled dematerialization device). The giant (“Chungus”) went berserk – well, it couldn’t do too much, as he is a 15’ tall dude in narrow cave passages. So he crawled through with great fervor, sometimes blocking the passage, which added an interesting element to the fight.
• After defeating the goblins, the party explored some more. They steered clear of the lake with mist, got the giant to clear the passage blocked by the collapse and went round. They found the shaft to level 2, descended, and this is where we finished.
• They left three rooms on this level unexplored (which is where the treasure was…). However, they did grab the goblin chief’s Scimitar of Unhealing Wounds!

Glaxorzis, you sorcerous creep, they are coming after you! AND THEY ARE GONNA FEED YOU TO CHUNGUS.