Rolling, Rolling, Rolling - Dice, in Game Actions and D&D

I had a session Friday that exemplified the kind of D&D we find exciting at our table, and it is a good example of why I play 1e, it is a perfect fit for this kind of game. I wanted to review the session here to show how the game handles this sort of adventure, then ask some questions at the end.

The party has signed on to help at a settlement (Fort Maegar) on a new continent, and earned the favor of the fishermen at the Fort as they saved them from a vodiyani. So one of the fishermen passed on a rumor that there was a sunken ship just up the coast. The merchant ship, the Ebon Caul, formerly captained by the Rakshasa warlock Euleak the Gold, had went down about a day’s journey north along the coast by boat. Right around there the treeline recedes and turns to hills, off the beach a few miles lies a small rocky island

The Ebon Caul is rumored to have gone down to the west of the island. So the party decided it would be worth a look up the coast to see if they could find it. The settlement is in need of wealth, and there is always the possibility of magic items  

That’s where the players jumped in, a rumor and a location from a fisherman. The party consists of an aarakocra, a rakasta, two lizard men, a yuan-ti and a kobold. All but the rakasta and the aarakocra are amphibious. So the first item of business was what to do about that

In my campaign warlocks can brew potions, there are odds for it based on their intelligence, and the party warlock’s patron, Maegar the Mighty, has a lab and a library. The procedure requires them to find a “sympathetic ingredient” as the base. So for speed potion the paw of a cheetah kind of thing. If you get a “normal” component you have certain odds, if you get fantastic components (e.g. a quickling’s foot) you get better odds. As it happens they decapitated a vodiyani and kept its head,that was a sufficient component for a water breathing potion. They rolled and were successful. As they took 4 weeks to do the brewing, I rolled two other things. A 1 in 20 chance each week that the Fort would be attacked by something while they were at work. None of those came up. I also rolled a 1 in 20 chance that someone else would find the wreck in the 4 weeks. It didn’t come up either.

They had enough for 6 potions, 12 hours of underwater breathing if needed. That was covered. 

So then they asked me if the Fort had a ship. I told them they had a small galley they used for defense and supplies, anchored at the coast on the river mouth, they had a guard house there and it was kept ready to go. They also had fishing boats. Then they asked which was faster, the galley’s were, for the most part. But one of them pointed out the boats were less conspicuous, and that spawned more conversation. Eventually they settled on the galley. 

When I run a AD&D game they have to account for whatever they would need to sail a ship. None of them had sailing skills, so they had to recruit. 

“Where is your crew coming from?” They decided to ask the Fort Commander, Uraku, about this, and he was reluctant to send soldiers. So they decided to ask some of the fishermen. I decided that the local fishermen would have likely worked as sailors before, itinerant with different jobs. So they had the skills and there were enough amongst the population to be able to crew a small galley. I rolled to see if they responded positively to the request from the party, with modifiers for their past service and such. The party decided to sweeten the pot with an offer of a (small) cut of the loot for the fishermen who came along. The result was positive. So they had a crew of 8 fishermen to accompany the party. They were equipped with swords, crossbows and shields, and they decided to leave early in the morning. 

I divide my days into 4 parts, morning, afternoon, evening and night. I roll for encounters once per part, so any travel has potential risks and rewards

And time matters. Since the ship’s speed was tied to the weather, I rolled a d6 to determine if the wind was in their favor: 1-2: very much 3-4: moderately, 5-6: not at all

They rolled for each part of the day, to reflect the fact that the wind can change during the day, and they got 5, 5, 4, 6. So the wind was in their favor for only one part of the day (the evening). At that point I had to decide when they would arrive at the island. I had assumed a moderate result all day would get them there by the beginning of evening, with their results I decided they would get there late at night. 

That meant 4 random encounter rolls before you get to the place where the ship is. The wind determined the time, which determines the number of random checks. But the odds for those checks changes depending on the time of day you cover in your travel. For example, in the wilderness encounters are more likely at night, as the game world is plentiful with dangerous nocturnal predators in this setting. So if you start the journey at a particular time of day, for some journeys that might make your odds better.

So they travelled, and despite making four checks, there were no encounters. Keep in mind, though many of the encounters are with dangerous creatures, not all are hostile, and not all are dangerous. Still, no hits meant no delays, people often think that having random encounter rolls will gum up the works and you will never get anything done. However, if you use the dice, they don’t come up all the time.

I make a note to remind myself to roll a random encounter check, about 2 hours into the encounter, to represent the “night” check. So I ask them, “you have arrived at the island, it was easy to find with the fishermen crewing the ship, what do you do now?”

“We look for the Ebon Caul”. 

“OK, how do you do that?”

“We look into the water?”

It’s night time, so I take out two d6, 

1-2: full moon, 3-4 half moon, 5-6 crescent moon

1-2: clear, 3-4 cloudy, 5-6 really cloudy

I roll a 2 and a 6.

“You look into the water and see about a few feet down, it’s black beneath that, the moon is behind deep clouds and the sky is black, so you see virtually nothing.”

 Discussion ensued. 

“We have a polymorph potion, we could use that to go explore.”

That was ruled out as they were worried about larger predators coming after them, and no one wanted to be in a form that wouldn’t allow use of weapons or spell casting. They considered using magic. A comb of the collective spells available to them held some promise. One of them had “locate object”, and it works on “known or familiar” targets. So that was a possibility, and it reached 300’, which would likely be enough.

However, they had a lot of space to cover, as they didn’t know where it went down, just West of the Island. How to determine that? The party priest went to her spells and saw Augury, she can cast it three times per day. So she says, she can look at the area west of the island and divide it up into three sections, say the bottom, middle and top. Then she can cast an augury and ask, “if I look in the bottom section first, will it bring weal or woe?” If the augury says “weal”, then search there first, reducing the search area by ⅔. If it says “woe”, then cast it again and ask the question about the middle area. If it say’s “woe”, you know the top area is where to start. 

Now they were cooking with gas.

They decided to cast it for the first time and it came up “yes” to investigating the lower section, and I rolled it as a successful augury, so the boat was there. This is a great example of how the PCs choices create the game world. I hadn’t specified an exact location for the wreck, their use of a spell made that choice.

“So we go to that section and look”

“You can’t see beyond a few feet down”

Then one of the players asked if anyone had a light spell. The party priest said yes, then they asked how long it lasts… one hour and 40 min. So the player (with the Kobold PC) decides that the priest should cast light on his sword, and he will swim down and look, the party can follow in the ship. 

And that was the plan. The kobold would swim in a spiral pattern around the area where they were looking, and the ship would follow from above. At this point I needed to decide how long it would take for the kobold to find the ship. I set the max time as 2 hours, divided it into 8, and rolled a d8. I got a 2, for ½ hour of searching. I then rolled for potential random encounters for the kobold while swimming, none came up.

I next needed to determine how deep it was around the island. I rolled a d100 for 1-1000 feet, and it came up 2, so it was around 200’ deep in this area. 

“How deep are you going?”

“Right to the bottom”

Now, I had to determine if they could see him from the ship. 200’ down, ink black water and no moonlight, but a light spell is being used. The light spell has a 40’ radius, but just like you can see lights from far off but not see what is carrying them, I figured they should be able to see a dim light from below when he was swimming. So they could trail him as he swam. He strapped his sword to his back and dove in.

So I described fish swimming by, rocky features on the bottom, scuttering crabs, that sort of thing, then I described him swimming past a big rock and seeing this:

“You see the wreckage of a galley, it has a gaping hole in its side, and appears to have settled amongst an outcropping of rocks. The masts are broken off, and it has been partially overgrown with weeds and moss. Just beyond the ship, to the North of it, there is a figure, 25 feet tall, which looks like a humanoid, arms, legs and head on the body, it very much looks like an ‘absence’ in the water, filled with swirling, violent mists. You can’t tell if it is looking your way or not.”

That thing is an air elemental. It is bound to the area by a curse. 

The elemental was formerly imprisoned in a ring worn by Euleak the Gold. The warlock called on the creature to fight but was subsequently killed while the elemental was free. It will attack any living thing that comes near it as it is enraged that it cannot leave the area. The owner was cursed that “when he died his servant would not leave his side”. That binds the elemental to the area of his body. If the party explores the shipwreck and finds his bones, they can end the curse by casting a dispel curse / magic against a 12th level caster, or by completely destroying his bones (2 in 6 chance of success, if it fails the elemental is permanently bound to this spot). Destroying the ring won’t help. The ring can still command the elemental though.

If the party finds the ring they can command the elemental with the ring, and they can remove the ring from the presence of the sorcerer’s bones. But without the dispel curse/magic the elemental can’t leave. If they take his bones away the elemental will move with them. 

So the PC is now deciding what to do. I roll to see if the elemental is looking his way or not. I decided on a 50/50, it was not looking his way.

The PC sheathed his sword to kill the light, plunging himself into darkness other than a faint glow coming from the giant underwater creature. He then swam towards the ship. At this point up above the party loses sight of his glow, and the glow from the elemental is too faint to register above, so they just see things go dark, and decide to drop anchor.

I roll to see if the elemental notices that, and it doesn’t.

The kobold swam to the ship, and dove into the main cargo hold. Once he was inside the ship he took out his sword again.

I describe bodies, some picked clean of meat, others half eaten. I describe a single chest on the floor (this was from another room, I decided it was thrown free when the ship went down and ended up here). The kobold noted the chest and swam to the aft section to investigate the rooms.

He goes through several rooms that appear to belong to the crew, there are some bodies here, suggesting the ship sank suddenly when not all crew were on deck. He swims into a room that appears to be the captain’s room, and he searches the room looking for wealth, items, maps, etc. 

When someone searches for this sort of thing in my game, I have them tell me where they want to look, as they cover different areas I make them roll for finding concealed items. They see their roll results. But only the result that happens when they are in the right place matters. The rest don’t. 

Now, I’m also tracking the time, as the light spell on his sword lasts an hour and 40 min. He dove in and searched for ½ hr to find the ship, it took him 5 min to get through the hold, he passed right through the crew quarters, so he has an hour left. He searched the captain’s room, his chest was under a floorboard. He described where he looked and we rolled checks, sometimes he was successful but found nothing, other times he was unsuccessful and repeated to get a successful check. After about 5 more min of game time doing this he said he was checking the floor. I had him roll to find concealed items, 2 in 6 chance, he failed. So that was another 5 min. He repeated again and failed. Another 5 min. Now he has 50 min left.

Now, I decide that since the ship has holes in it and has broken apart in places, the light from his sword could catch the notice of the elemental. I roll a 1 in 20 chance, it would be small, but you never know. It doesn’t come up.

So he swims to the front of the ship and investigates several more rooms. He finds a large, lavish room with a skeleton in it, as well as three chests, a net and a sword on the wall. He notes the chests and the sword, and takes the ring off the skeleton.

This is the ring of elemental command, and as soon as he takes it off the body the air elemental is aware of it being moved. It roars and turns and moves towards the boat. The PC feels the shift in the water and hears the muffled roar, and decides to book it out of the room

He heads back to the captain’s quarters and hides. The air elemental starts to tear apart the ship, tossing pieces of it in a rage, until it stops, focuses and then turns to where the kobold is hiding out. It shoots through the water and its head emerges into the Captain’s quarters

And then it screams, in rakasta, “WHERE IS THE RING”!  As the air elemental was commanded by a rakasta for years, it speaks the language rather than common. As it happens, the kobold speaks rakasta, so he understands the elemental. Now he’s worried. But then he decides that if it wants the ring, the ring can probably control it, so he steps out of hiding and tells the elemental that it wants to make a deal. At that point the parlay rules kick in, as the elemental can understand the kobold and vice versa. The elemental pauses and thinks

I roll an encounter reaction roll for the elemental, it is positive, so it is willing to make a deal. It turns to the PC and says, “give me the ring, you can have all the other treasure here, and I will leave you alone.” At that point the PC decides that he will take his chances, and he orders the elemental to back off. The ring does the job, and the elemental howls in seething rage, then backs off. The player now decides to swim back to the surface, and tells the elemental to bring the treasure up to the ship for him. He swims back to the ship and climbs aboard

He tells the party what had happened, and the elemental comes out of the water with the first chest. He is then ordered to retrieve the rest. He dives back down and heads to grab the next chest, then brings it back. At this point the kobold decides the longer the elemental stays around the more of a chance of something bad happening, he may have been remembering how Conjure Elemental works, so he sends the elemental away.

They go down themselves to retrieve the rest of the chests, bringing up one at a time using a net and four of the amphibious PCs. I roll for a random encounter at this point, and it comes up, so now 20 sahuagin show up. 

I roll for surprise and the party gets surprise on the sahuagin, so I interpret this as the party spotting the sahuagin as they are approaching. They haul it back to the ship but are spotted by the creatures. The party climbs up the side of boat as the sahuagin emerge from the water, since these sahuagin are attacking passing ships I decided they know some common. They shout at the party, “our god has left us, where is our god!”, I decided on the spot that the sahuagin had come to worship the air elemental, given its fantastic appearance. 

At that point the kobold PC shouts back, holding out the ring, “I command your god to my service, did you see it removing treasures from the ship, I made it do so!”

So that generated an encounter reaction roll, which came up neutral, so I decided that they would leave and discuss what had happened.

The party decided to leave. So they dropped sails and headed home, the wind was in their favor this time and they checked out their loot. I decided that the sahuagin were going to trail the ship and attack when they were unaware.

They found thousands of GP in gems, jewelry and gold, which made them happy. They gave the sailors each a share of 100gp, nothing to the adventurers but a ton for each of the sailors. They found a customized net the captain had made for him, one of the party slayers (ranger/assassins) took that as he already had proficiency with a net. 

They also found a sword, a Chinook Blade, 

Chinook Blade

A Chinook blade is a gladius, it has a +1 magical bonus, +2 against water dwelling creatures. 

In the hands of a thief the sword can manifest a dry, warm wind that blows through an area of 2” square with the wielder at its base, centre or edge, once per day. The wind lasts for as long as the wielder concentrates, or 1-3 rounds without concentration, if damaged while concentrating the effect lasts for 1-3 more rounds. For every round a being is exposed to the wind it leeches off 1 hp (no save), which is stored in the blade. Up to the thief’s level in victims can be so drained per round. When the blade absorbs 50 hp the wielder may transform into an invisible stalker for 1 hour any time thereafter. Until they do so the sword may drain no more HP. When the wielder transforms they will have 3-18 hp regenerated. The blade then resets itself and new HP must be drained. 

This weapon only works for thieves, so it went to the party aarakocra thief, who was very pleased to get it. 

The sahuagin had been following at a distance, and eventually attacked the ship, just before dawn. The climbed up the sides of the ship, and fortunately the party member on watch (the yuan-ti slayer) saw them and shouted out a warning.

This roused the crew, who made it topside just as the sahuagin came over the sides. Mayhem then ensued, with the crew shooting crossbows then rushing to melee with swords against the sahuagin’s spears. The yuan-ti impaled one as it crested the side of the ship with his trident, he rolled the exact amount of damage as the sahuagin had HP, which allowed me to describe a spectacular death. 

The party warlock cast a stinking cloud, in the system I am using there are failure and harm odds with any casting, but in this case he was successful. That took out a good chunk of the sahuagin, and a well placed net thrown by the party yuan-ti took out 4 more. The tide of the battle turned quickly after this and the party finished them off. 

What they don’t realize yet is that the elemental is still bound to the location of the sunken ship, as it is bound to the bones of the dead warlock Euleak the Gold, which are still there. So they THINK they have an elemental they can command at their whim no matter where they are, but in reality they have a ring that can be used to command elementals, but that particular elemental is bound to that location.

Not only that, but they don’t know the ring has other powers, so there’s that. What I’m expecting is that they will THINK they have the elemental at their beck and call and perhaps get in over their heads, but we shall see. 

They sailed back to the fort without further encounters, and we stopped for the night.

Observations

This was a great session, the players LOVED it. A lot of this session was made up of rolls that were set based on the decisions the PCs made. Gygax created detailed rules for certain activities (like combat) but left other areas undeveloped, recommending to the DM to make up odds as she sees fit, rather than specifying many different situations ahead of time. 

So the game does not have formal systems for many things, but it does have a recommended system for anything the game rules don’t cover: assign odds based on your assessment of the situation, and roll. I know some people dislike this aspect of the game, but to be honest I love it. I have delved into more complex mechanics for exploration and such, but I find that most if not all of them are wanting in one way or another. At the end of the day I prefer to free form this sort of thing as there are simply too many things to note. Does the elemental see the lit sword from within the wrecked ship? How deep is the water a half mile off the coast? Does a locate object spell work on something you “know” but aren’t personally acquainted with? Is the night sky bright enough to show you what is deep under the water? 

These sorts of questions are of course amenable to a complex set of specific rules, but I resist this for a few reasons.

1. So many things come up that I can’t see a specific set of rules ever being enough. The elemental seeing the party member in the ship is a perfect example. I suppose you could come up with a mechanic for this sort of thing, and I guess you could fold it into a surprise roll or something like that, but it seems like there will always be more situations that don’t fit an existing mechanic or rule than those that do.

2. One of the things they love is that as they plan and come up with ideas it determines when they have to roll dice for success. So the more they choose their actions and plan out what they are doing, the longer they can put off having to roll at all, or they can maneuver into a situation where the odds are better. Take searching the captain’s quarters. The player’s choices as to where to search in what order determined how likely he was to find the secret chamber. D&D is a game of situational modifiers, and they learn to try and align them in their favor. 

3. Another reason I like assigning odds to actions like this is that it is part of a negotiation. I describe the situation and assign odds, then my players will make the case for changing them if they think of another interesting aspect of the situation that would impact the odds. So when the kobold was investigating the ship and I decided to roll to see if the elemental noticed him or not, the player pointed out that his PC was quite small, and that might impact being seen when the light was noticed. This back and forth is part of the dynamic of the game. It encourages players to bring in real world knowledge to the decision making process to help them out. They also enjoy the process of trying to convince me (and often the other players) of their perspective. If there is a formal mechanic for different situations this tends to shut down the negotiation process a lot of the time, either the rule applies or it doesn’t. This method is more interactive and frankly more fun.

4. And at the end of the day they find it exciting when I roll the dice to see if their gambit works out or not. Every time I assign odds for a PC course of action the dice roll is exciting for them as it can make things immeasurably harder or much easier. Even rolls for weather or a full moon become important and exciting, and thus command the player’s attention. 

So this method, without an extensive set of specific rules, instead using the DM and players to negotiate a set of odds and assign them on the spot to their actions, gives them agency, relies on skill and knowledge (so rewards good play), and creates excitement as it has immediate in game consequences when the roll is made.

Question

I have a question. 

Some of you reading this play other systems instead of D&D that handle actions differently. D&D explicitly tells you (well, AD&D explicitly tells you) that if you have a situation that is not outlined in the rules, you should assign odds and go from there. Some people find this lack of specificity to be a flaw, I think it is a strength for the reasons I mentioned above.

My question is this, can you recommend a system that could handle an adventure like this, because any system I am going to play would have to handle this sort of adventure. It would have to handle other sorts of adventure as well, but if it couldn’t handle this I wouldn’t want to play it. This session had resource planning, exploration, negotiation and combat, any system I want to use has to handle these things. 

If you do know a system that could handle this sort of adventure, can you explain how it would handle the situations that came up here, e.g. how would it have handled searching for the Ebon Caul, how would it have handled the time limitations on the light spell, how would it have handled the elemental noticing the PC in the ship, etc. Because I'm not above pinching an elegant system for things that happen regularly in my game if there is one out there.

I will post a thread on Twitter with a link to this post, if possible respond on Twitter with your answers if you are so disposed.