OOC Discussion

[Keehnelf]

Some thoughts I had about Splitting the Party and interesting ways TB mechanically reinforces the idea that it's bad and dangerous without having to resort to obviously-going-to-kill-stragglers wandering monster rolls:

1. The Grind continues for everyone based on every Test made by any member of the party, whether alone in a group, and it affects everyone. That means tackling two obstacles as a group or separately takes the same time but if you do it separately you lose out on pooled resources.

2. Because of limited inventory space, resources for key activities are often shared out across multiple people, most especially light sources. As a result, one person splitting from the party might have no way to light a path for themselves and they become even more vulnerable.

I think these are both really insightful and nuanced approaches to this that reinforce both the mechanics and the flavor of the game without being ham-fisted.

Thoughts?

[sulldawga]

Agree with all of the above. Of course, what happens when the party split is forced upon the party by an evil and heartless GM?

I hate being a Fighter who has to carry his own torches. I have to forego carrying a weapon or shield and then inevitably the torch goes out when I drop it hastily to draw my sword...

[Keehnelf]

Evil and heartless? Awwwww...

I'm not the one failing my rolls! And you totally could have jumped down--it's only an Ob2 Health test to avoid injury--both of your wimpy party mates managed it

[Keehnelf]

Also agreed about the Fighter + Light source thing. It's really an interesting interplay of rules. It's just nice that you packed some torches anyway.

[sulldawga]

And you totally could have jumped down--it's only an Ob2 Health test to avoid injury--both of your wimpy party mates managed it

I do what the birds tell me to do. And they told me not to go down the hole.

[Keehnelf]

They didn't tell you not to--just that it would be dangerous to do so

[sulldawga]

I didn't get a chance to make my map over the weekend and I spent my lunch break making my Paladin for QQ's game. Got a soccer game tonight...

Hopeful I can make my map at lunch tomorrow and get back into the game.

[Keehnelf]

Sounds good--good luck at soccer!

[sulldawga]

Agrom leads the way into the chamber to the right, picking his way past the boulders of broken wall toward the doorway into the stairway room. As he passes under the tall archway, he sees the crumbling stairs stretch above him, blotting out the feeble light of the midday sun and making him thankful for the light the group brought with it.

Raizenbrayne's torch reflects on the feces-caked wall to the left, atop which at a height of eight or nine feet a number of ragged nests can be seen. A handful of crows turn on their stone perch to blink with dark intelligence at the intruders, heads cocked to the side. The only exits from this room appear to be the stairs (up or down) and a pair of wide heavy wooden doors set with iron bands and standing slightly ajar on the wall to the right. A very faint light spills out from between the double doors onto the floor of the room.

Are the double doors in the Crow Room on the south wall?

EDIT: And can I assume that all rooms are 30' by 30' unless otherwise described? I know the first room we entered with the watery hole was 30x30 and the Dining Room was 80x30 but all other rooms were not described as far as overall size.

[sulldawga]

Agrom boosts Harlan up on to the wall and his earlier impression of vast mounds of metal goods remains intact.

There are huge heaps of tarnished silver, slightly corroded iron and even a bit of half-rusted metal scattered here and there among the other, more intact items. It certainly seems worth a look--at the very least you can stuff your packs with old silver and pawn it off when you return to town. There is a heavy wooden door on the right-hand wall of the chamber standing slightly ajar (metal objects cover the floor there and would make it noisy to open or close the door more), and in the wall directly across from Harlan there is the obvious outline of the door frame set into the stone surrounding an expanse of blank wall that appears to be on the exterior of the keep structure.

Italics mine. What does that mean? Is there a door frame there but no door? It leads back outside?

And can I assume that because we climbed over the south wall, the door to the "right" is on the east wall?

[Keehnelf]

Agrom leads the way into the chamber to the right, picking his way past the boulders of broken wall toward the doorway into the stairway room. As he passes under the tall archway, he sees the crumbling stairs stretch above him, blotting out the feeble light of the midday sun and making him thankful for the light the group brought with it.

Raizenbrayne's torch reflects on the feces-caked wall to the left, atop which at a height of eight or nine feet a number of ragged nests can be seen. A handful of crows turn on their stone perch to blink with dark intelligence at the intruders, heads cocked to the side. The only exits from this room appear to be the stairs (up or down) and a pair of wide heavy wooden doors set with iron bands and standing slightly ajar on the wall to the right. A very faint light spills out from between the double doors onto the floor of the room.

Are the double doors in the Crow Room on the south wall?

EDIT: And can I assume that all rooms are 30' by 30' unless otherwise described? I know the first room we entered with the watery hole was 30x30 and the Dining Room was 80x30 but all other rooms were not described as far as overall size.

Generally I try to avoid overly specific sizes unless they're needed to get a sense of scale. Also because TB is designed to eschew graph paper mapping entirely. The important thing is connections between areas that could all be mapped as similarly sized in an impressionistic way.

And yes/no, double doors are in the south wall of the stairway room.

[sulldawga]

So here's where I get confused.

We climbed the east wall of the Floating Stone room and dropped down into a narrow corridor. The corridor led south to an open door but the floor was unstable. I am fairly sure that's the door that leads to the first room we entered, where the center of the floor had collapsed and there was water below with some scaly gator swimming around.

I also get that we turned to the north and passed through the slot door to reach the Armory. The Armory had a door in the west wall which led to the Crow room.

The problem I have is that there's another door on the west wall of the hallway. It should lead to the room with the stairs... except there's no corresponding door described to us when we first entered the stairway room.

Also, the dimensions that you have given me for rooms are starting to contradict each other. Unless the Dining Room wasn't actually 80' long...

Anyway, I guess it's not that big of a deal. If I want to know where that door on the west wall of the hallway leads, I can just open it, right?

[Keehnelf]

Agrom boosts Harlan up on to the wall and his earlier impression of vast mounds of metal goods remains intact.

There are huge heaps of tarnished silver, slightly corroded iron and even a bit of half-rusted metal scattered here and there among the other, more intact items. It certainly seems worth a look--at the very least you can stuff your packs with old silver and pawn it off when you return to town. There is a heavy wooden door on the right-hand wall of the chamber standing slightly ajar (metal objects cover the floor there and would make it noisy to open or close the door more), and in the wall directly across from Harlan there is the obvious outline of the door frame set into the stone surrounding an expanse of blank wall that appears to be on the exterior of the keep structure.

Italics mine. What does that mean? Is there a door frame there but no door? It leads back outside?

And can I assume that because we climbed over the south wall, the door to the "right" is on the east wall?

The door on the right is in the east wall. The outline of the door looks like someone built a doorway into the wall but then just kept building more wall inside of it rather than a door. It's currently sitting on the open ledge furthest from the east door and thus is very difficult to reach, but if there's a door somehow involved it looks like it would lead directly outside.

[Keehnelf]

Anyway, I guess it's not that big of a deal. If I want to know where that door on the west wall of the hallway leads, I can just open it, right?

That's the intention of the TB "mapping" system, yes. If it helps to wrap your head around the in-story dimensions, the floating stone room is wider (east-west) than the stairway room.

[Keehnelf]

Another good rule of thumb is: if I offer dimensions, consider them approximations unless someone in the group decides to take the time and pace out the distances involved. Those approximations can be influenced by lighting conditions, perspective, etc. and are not intended to be grossly misleading but are almost guaranteed not to be 100% accurate.

[sulldawga]

Anyway, I guess it's not that big of a deal. If I want to know where that door on the west wall of the hallway leads, I can just open it, right?

That's the intention of the TB "mapping" system, yes. If it helps to wrap your head around the in-story dimensions, the floating stone room is wider (east-west) than the stairway room.

That doesn't help. Well, it helps but it makes the map more complicated.

It's ok, I have the general gist of things. And I guess more will be revealed as we keep exploring.

I should have just sketched it on paper. I'm trying to do it in Excel with each cell being 5x5 and it's like a jigsaw puzzle with a bunch of missing pieces.

[Keehnelf]

Haha yeah, BWHQ actually says "Don't try to map TB like you would another system--just make each room a circle with lines going to the other rooms that are connected to it."

[sulldawga]

That way of mapping is ok except that you can miss rooms in between spaces. Like I think there's a room between the Stair Room and the Hallway but I never would have figured it out without mapping. I need to open the Burn Door to find out.

Also, I might have assumed that the cave in the north wall of the Statue Room led directly to the Floating Stone Room but now I think Chorko's Bedroom is in between.

[Keehnelf]

That way of mapping is ok except that you can miss rooms in between spaces. Like I think there's a room between the Stair Room and the Hallway but I never would have figured it out without mapping. I need to open the Burn Door to find out.

Also, I might have assumed that the cave in the north wall of the Statue Room led directly to the Floating Stone Room but now I think Chorko's Bedroom is in between.

Important thing to note about TB, though: secret doors and hidden rooms aren't supposed to be discovered by clever mapping--it's via examination of the details of the world as described that their existence will become known!

So some of your assumptions may be correct and others may not, but generally the ones you can find support for in the fiction thus far (beyond measurements of distance) are more likely to be correct.

[sulldawga]

In that case, don't worry about my request in the IC thread for Agrom to count off paces and accurately measure room sizes. My map should be more or less ok for my current purposes.

And the exercise was actually good for me because I picked up on a couple things I hadn't noticed the first time around.