Mask, Number 28: The Dungeon Mask

This shiny black but amply scratched visor-like half-mask covers the eyes, ears and nose.

The Dungeon Mask completely overrides the wearer’s senses. The wearer feels as if they are transported into a stylized dungeon – all magenta, cyan and yellow against a black background. Numbers and icons float in the wearer’s field of view, displaying Lives (3), Ropes (2), Weapons (2), Level (1) and Score (0).

The Game starts here

Follow this algorithm:

1. Enter new Area (roll on the Areas table. If this is the first roll on the Level, roll a d4, d6 next, then a d8 afterwards)

2. Resolve the Area OR Take alternate route (roll again) for the price of Level x 50 from your Score (if this would bring

3. If the Area is Stairs, safely Exit the game OR go to the next Level

4. If Lives are at zero, reset Lives to 3 and bounce back to the previous Level

5. Go to Step 1

Safe Exit: After a game, the high score list is displayed. The delver puts their name (up to 6 characters long) and score on it. The player character (who put on the mask), gains Experience points equal to the Score!

Unsafe Exit: At any point, the player can crash out of the game to escape.

 

Areas:

1             Pit. A wide chasm. Roll d6 over the current Level or discard Rope to pass. Lose 1 Life on failure.

2             Swinging Trap. Roll d6 over the current Level or lose 1 Life.

3-4         Monster! Roll d6 over the current Level. Discarding a Weapon grants +1 (can be done after the roll). Failure: -1 Life and no reward. Success: add Level x 10 to the Score, roll d6 the Treasure table.

5             Ancient Altar. Your next d6 roll is automatically a 6.

6             Boss Monster! Roll d6 over the current Level + 2. Discarding a Weapon grants +1 (can be done after the roll). Failure: -2 Life and no reward. Success: add Level x 50 to the Score, roll d6+2 the Treasure table. The next Area is automatically Stairs.

7             Stairs. You can go to the next Level OR safely Exit the game (tally Score and go to the Hall of Fame).

8             Secret Room! Roll d6+2 on the Treasure table.

 

Treasure table:

1-3         None

4             Add Level x 10 to the Score

5             +1 Weapon

6             +1 Rope

7             Flamethrower (+6 Weapons, knowledge of the location of a magic weapon for the player character in the outside world)

8             The Holy Grail (+6 Lives, knowledge of the location of a healing spring for the player character in the outside world)

 

During the delve, the mask’s facial expression changes from calm to a tortured grin to reflect the number of Lives the delver has left.

 

Hall of Fame:

GOOBER              999999999 (who the hell is this player? Are they stuck in the Dungeon?)

OZZY                     3500

DYSON                 2220

NERD66               1500

GLAXOR              660

BOOBSZ               300

 

Post your score in the comments to be added to the Hall of Fame!!

I was tagged by Jenx; I tag ktrey!

Update: of fuckin course ktrey came through with a full d100 table of magic masks :D

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: