[Secret Santicorn!!] A second, more serious oracle for character simulation: The Methodical Oracle

As promised, a more serious offering for Kirt Dankmeyr, based on his request of a "A small oracle for solo OSR play oriented toward simulating party members and not the GM. Tho bonus points for a GM replacement oracle that dovetails with the first one".

The Methodical Oracle!

The point of this small oracle is to aid the solo GM in "in-character" decision making.

Create a Profile for each player character in the party by assigning one of the five Methods to each slot:

Profile types:

Balanced	Focused	Hyperfocused	Method slots
2-3	2	2	Rare
4-5	3-5	3-4	Secondary
6-8	6-8	5-9	Main
9-10	9-11	10-11	Secondary
11-12	12	12	Rare

The five Methods:

Violence	Direct confrontation, brute-forcing
Diplomacy	Smooth-talking, bartering, calling in other parties (e.g. NPCs)
Knowledge	Monster lore, survivalism, arts & crafts, history & politics
Trickery	Exploitation of the space, devices, creative use of objects, falsehoods
Magic	Spell-slinging, prayer to higher forces, decipherment of arcane clues, activation of weird objects

The Procedure:

At any decision point, pick or randomize a lead character. Then roll 2d6 and consult the character’s Profile to see which Method they offer.

To make things more interesting, pick or randomize a second character and cross-check their Method using the same roll result as the lead’s (so if you rolled 6 for the lead, check what’s a 6 on the second character’s Profile). Describe the conflict or the synthesis of their Methods. You can use a standard Reaction roll to see whether the other character likes or dislikes the alternative proposal.

 

Example Profiles:

Bubba the Wizard

Hyperfocused	Method
2	Violence
3-4	Knowledge
5-9	Magic
10-11	Trickery
12	Diplomacy

 

Morax the Duelist

Focused	Method
2	Knowledge
3-5	Trickery
6-8	Diplomacy
9-11	Violence
12	Magic

 

Example Decisions:

Situation 1.

The party enters a cave, the lair of a dozen goblins. The goblins are surprised. Bubba the Wizard takes the lead, and, after some deliberations (2d6: 11 = Trickery), offers to sneak by them. Morax the Duelist (11 = Violence) might offer to take advantage of the situation and charge the unaware goblins.

Situation 2.

The party is looking for their patron’s stolen ring in the big city. Morax the Duelist takes the lead and comes up with the ingenious plan (2d6: 5 = Trickery) to create a fake ring. Bubba the Wizard (5 = Magic, Reaction roll: 9 = Positive) agrees and checks his books for an illusion spell to help with the plan.

[Secret Santicorn!!] Player simulation oracle for solo games

It's Santicorn-time on the OSR discord server!

Kirt Dankmyer requested "A small oracle for solo OSR play oriented toward simulating party members and not the GM. Tho bonus points for a GM replacement oracle that dovetails with the first one."

Okay, my entry here is a bit of a stretch... But to truly replicate the OSR (and RPG...) experience, you need to account for the whims of the players themselves! So, you, as the solo DM, present the situation, then roll to see just how you, the solo player, are interested in this stuff...

THE PLAYER REACTION CHART (2D6)

		Sample quip (1d5)
2	deal with it begrudgingly	1.    “Mehh, I think riddles are stupid” 2.    “Sure, although this is not how Jeff runs it” 3.    “This fight is a slog, I stab myself” 4.    “Ugh, not *another* ‘you start in a tavern’ session” 5.    “This goes against all established lore though”
3-5	scatterbrain	1.    “Sorry, I thought this was still Elsa’s turn” 2.    “Remind me, who is this guy again” 3.    “Wait, what do I roll for that?” 4.    “Yeah, it’s on my character sheet. Or this piece of scratch paper. I just can’t read it” 5.    “Can I borrow your dice?”
6-8	acknowledge & participate	1.    “Yes, this is all part of the game” 2.    “Fair enough, I hit it with my sword” 3.    “I ask the wizard if he knows the location of Castle whatsitsname” 4.    “My thief checks the lock for traps” 5.    “We ascend the stairs”
9-11	honest interest	1.    “Oh, I have this in my notes!” 2.    “Let’s try and befriend these goblins, we need allies against the Fish Lords” 3.    “That blacksmith is quite a character, I’m sure we can ask about her battlescars AFTER we are done with what we had planned” 4.    “What a quirky trap! We reset it to lure the next monster into it” 5.    “And I have just the spell we need!”
12	HYPERFIXATE	1.    “OMG so adorable let’s adopt this random gnome fighter” 2.    “We could make so much money by bottling the healing water from this random pool! Leave dungeon crawling behind” 3.    “I check for secret doors and traps every 5’ instead of 10’. There MUST be something here” 4.    “No, these broken chairs cannot simply be dungeon dressing. The GM mentioned them for a reason” 5.    “Okay, I examine the next book. And the next. The next one too…”

  

More adventures in miniature painting

I painted a couple more miniatures. I'm taking it slow, savoring the process... Soon I will have enough for a warband or two, to play some skirmish games. I'm building terrain/ruins as well. I might play Frostgrave or Song of Blades and Heroes. 

So who do we have here? From left to right:

• Witch, casting a fire spell from a scroll! A Frostgrave Wizards II figurine. I'm quite happy with how she turned out. The burning scroll in particular. I didn't intend her to be so Dragonbally, but these things happen...
• Skeleton, champion of the oppressed! A Wargames Atlantic skeleton. The horned skull is supposed to be for the standard, but looks good on the model too.
• Skeleton, laughing and chilling! A Wargames Atlantic Late Roman soldier, with a skull. I particularly like the casual pose.
• Tiger-man warrior! A Wargames Atlantic Dark Age Irish body combined with a goblin head. Initially I wanted to do an orc, but then decided to do a beast-person instead! 

[Review] The Shattered Circle by Bruce R. Cordell (1998, AD&D 2e)

I’m finally taking the time to finish this review, because Jenx told me it’s a good practice to review adventure’s you’ve run. And I agree.

The Shattered Circle is a Dungeon.

It is a pretty solid dungeon.

It is also often overlooked, despite having been written by a pretttty famous designer, Bruce R. Cordell. It came out towards the end-times of TSR D&D (for AD&D 2e), and, among that batch of adventures, it is overshadowed by his works for later editions, or the Sahuagin or the Illithid Trilogies.

When compared to those adventure cycles, The Shattered Circle is different in scope and aim. It’s supposed to be a true adventure MODULE, one that you can easily slot into your own world. So, while I was also drawn to the over-the-top beauty of, say, Cordell’s The Gates of Firestorm Peak, I picked this one when I needed a medium-sized dungeon complex to slot into the 5e campaign I ran back when (there is a Classic Modules Today supplement available). It’s almost setting-neutral. And the dungeon’s connections to the overworld are easy to tailor to your own liking. And you probably should, because the hooks offered in the book are, hmm, underwhelming/uninspiring. However, as this was an on-going campaign, with established conflicts and NPCs, I just modified a couple of things as needed.

 

--- From here on be spoilers ---

 

What did I change? Surprisingly little. I put the campaign-driving portal to the Feywild the party was seeking down in the deepest room of the dungeon. I got rid of two or three empty rooms, and the riddle-based tests in one of the areas – I don’t generally like riddles.

What did this leave me with? A lot of fun stuff.

This is a 75-room dungeon, spread out over three levels. The Upper and Lower levels are part of an ancient dungeon complex/arcane laboratory. To keep things varied, they are separated by a middle area, which is a large cave, with one of the best set pieces of this module. There is one main entrance into the complex, but after that there are many passages to follow, with alternative ways of access to deeper levels.

The main sentient creatures are the arachno-humanoid Chitines, split into two opposing factions. You get a lot of variety from the other monsters and wanderers: from the more common undead to freakin dinosaurs and gibbering mouthers. So there is definitely a cool weird tinge to this place. The presence of all of them is explained, and there is ample space in the dungeon between their main lairs, so there is no “monster hotel” effect.

Speaking of ample space: I love it when the cramped corridors of the upper zone give way to the caverns below. And in the central cave, there is the magnificent set piece of the Chitine city, a gigantic spherical mass of webbing suspended mid-air. Comes with a great illustration to boot!!

The dungeon also presents a variety of challenges: from combat through diplomacy to navigational challenges. There is even a flooded sub-zone. One of the challenges is a three-component “key search”, which might feel a bit computer-gamey, but my players actually enjoyed it (and it forced them to face their greatest fear, the aforementioned flooded area, for some cool underwater action).

I ran this from a PDF, and printed out the maps for ease of reference. The publication is overwritten by today’s OSR standards, but many important details are highlighted, and the room keys are structured in a uniform, predictable way, so there shouldn’t be much trouble running it after a read-through of the whole thing. Yes, there is boxed text, generally kept to a sensible length (3-4 sentences), and evocatively written, so I used some of the phrases and sentences as-is. They give a good description of the initial impression the party gets from the room.

Overall, I definitely recommend this adventure. It is a good fit for modern or old-school games, quite versatile, and evocative. The tone veers towards dark fantasy, with some Lovecraftian touches you can emphasize if needed.