Ruminations (both of the cow and human type)

So yesterday I ran a Lamentations of the Flame Princess game, using the excellent starter dungeon Tomb of the Serpent Kings (which you can find here https://coinsandscrolls.blogspot.com/2017/06/osr-tomb-of-serpent-kings-megapost.html)

The session was over 6 hours long, starting at the crack of dawn (well not really) until the evening. I had great fun, fucked up the rules a couple times, made a few mistakes, and the players did pretty well, seemed to enjoy themselves (for the most part) and only lost one character (RIP Jengal the Feral, gone but not forgotten). But how else can you get better without practise?

So, reflections, points, general random scattershot ideas.

First, being an adventurer sucks. The party delved in the dungeon for in game a couple days and in real life several hours, and they nearly died several times, actually died, and got only a little treasure. Sadly for them, the main hoard is just around the corner.

I like this. My setting is designed around adventurers ranging from the deluded to the psychotic, since humanity knows the land it resides on is ancient, terrifying and out to get them. "Normal" people stay at home. Adventurers delve into ancient malfunctioning ruins filled with senile wizards, crazed cultists and goblin-folk.

However!

There was dissent amongst the troops. People wanted rewards, damnit, and I want to keep my players happy so I can keep hurting them (in a fair and fun way, of course).

I do, however, have a solution. As we all know, power corrupts. In the setting of The Dying Sun (original, I know) this is rather more literal. The untold thousands of civilisations and races that rose and fell in the murky history of the world all left behind a great many wondrous things, objects that if even one was properly examined would return humanity to its greatest days, if not higher. Sadly, they are found by brutes who use them to kill people. It's like a caveman finding a big drill, not working out how to turn it on and stabbing someone to death with it. Or maybe finding a nuclear fuel rod and smacking someone upside the head with it because it's heavy, slowly getting sicker and sicker, thinking it's cursed. I'm pretty sure I got this idea from Roadside Picnic, which everyone should read.

Therefore, I shall replace treasures of the boring sort (coins, gems, amulets) with treasure of the more interesting sort - such as a bracelet that makes your hand fall off and animates it - once used for fine repair work in tight spaces, boots which anchor you in place immovably, once used with power tools but now provides a bonus to AC at the very least, or a small rolled up piece of cotton which expands to fill a space with sharp thick fabric (InstaInsulateTM). Gems and coins will stay though, because they are pretty and plus the characters do need xp and cash.

I'm sure many of you have figured this out already, but hey, here I am learning it too.

The other aspect of this is degeneration and cannibalism. I like degeneration and the slow collapse of reason, and that's why I'm introducing corruption as soon as possible. Players will be offered in all sorts of situations all sorts of "boons" which will give them all sorts of advantages - at a cost. Stealing from Warhammer's Chaos Boons, of course. One I'm pretty firm on is ritually eating the remains of monster will provide a permanent (and obvious) mutation. Smashing and eating the skull of an animated skeleton may make you resistant to slashing and piercing - at the cost of halving your healing rate (you're half dead after all). Eating the heart of a kobold will give you an innate sixth sense for danger - but it will make you more cowardly. The more powerful the effect, the more powerful the downside. Eventually the disadvantages may get so crippling your party hauls your psychotic/trembling with fear/geas bound arse to the butcher-psych, who with a deft cleaver and a few sound words carves out (perhaps literally) the offending bits, leaving you scarred, potentially permanently damaged but much better than you were.

Toying with changing how combat works, my players like a bit of advanced combat, but haven't found any ideas I like yet.

I'm glad I made looking for traps (nearly) entirely diceless, it made for some of the more fun (and tense) moments of the game. As from some advice from /tg/ and the lovely OSR discord, Search became Awareness which replaced the Surprise mechanic and acted as a last second save for the person about to trigger the trap.

Finally, bookeeping fucking sucks, I hate keeping track of burning of lamp oil and daily food, the Black Hack's usage die and the people who have Light Source as an entry in their random encounter tables are smart and I shall steal from them from now on.