Building Bhakashal - Session Report

Last night’s session was a ton of fun, and it highlighted the value of random encounters and skilled play, so I thought I would write it up.

The party had returned from a successful adventure and had went to their patron, Quin Faal the Iolite, for a new assignment. Most of the jobs they get from their patron take them out of the city, but this time I decided I wanted to run an in city job. Bhakashal is a fully fleshed out setting, and it has lots of potential for adventure within the city walls. 

Quin Faal is a high-level warlock at House Quannar, but like all warlocks, he has allies and enemies at other Noble Houses. Quin Faal was concerned about an ally of his, Ghollag the Ebon, who he was supposed to meet several weeks ago but never showed up. Faal had waited for a time, but decided that Ghollag might need assistance, so he sent the party to investigate. Ghollag has a tower in the Ward of House Phars, the party was to go to the tower to locate the warlock and see if he was OK.

They chose to go there during the day first. They took a canal boat and made their way over to Ghollag’s tower, located across the city. They knocked on the door, no one answered, so they decided to come back at night. Around 2am they returned, it was a cloudy night, and I rolled for random encounters all the way over. The map shows their route.

No encounters came up. There are two fliers in the party (garudin, Bhakashal arracockra) and one of them flew the party fighter up to the roof of the tower. 

Most buildings in the city have rooftop gardens, usually with a guardian of some sort on top

This one had a giant snake. The party fighter rolled well and dispatched it in 2 rounds without being bitten. The rest of the party followed suit. Rolled again for an encounter to see if they were spotted during all of this, but none came up. 

They entered through a door on the roof, but not before the party Seer (priest) cast find traps on the door and found a trap! He cast silence and then smashed the trap to pieces with his mace. The Seer has finally started to pay attention to his spell list and it is paying dividends with the party. Previously he has been focused on healing, they are starting to see his wider utility. 

So they entered the tower. Now, here is the thing about warlock towers in Bhakashal. They are not an endless series of traps and monsters. Warlocks LIVE in their towers, they are not going to have traps everywhere, they have to walk around their towers half asleep in their bathrobes like everyone else. Also, when I design a warlock’s tower for a powerful warlock the rooms all serve functions. They are not there as an excuse for deadly traps to mess up the PCs, they are lived in and real.

So they arrive on the top floor. The tower is 100 feet across and the room is entirely constructed of purple marble. There is a throne in the middle. If you sit in the throne and you have a charisma of 15 or greater you have a vision of the future. They decided to ignore the throne and stay on point, not even investigating it. They went to the next floor down.

This room was constructed entirely of orange marble. There is a pedestal in the middle of the room with a book laying on top of it. If anyone else but a magic-user or illusionist approaches the pedestal they must make a save versus magic. If they fail they will be knocked unconscious for 1 turn. If they succeed nothing else will happen. A magic-user or illusionist will feel drawn to the book which has seemingly empty pages, when they arrive at the book it speaks to them and instructs them to cast a spell into the book. If they do so a page with that spell written on it will dislodge itself from the book on a sheet of vellum. Ghollag used this item to create scroll spells. However, the book will work once per day. Each time it is used more than that there is a cumulative 25% chance that the spell will be permanently erased from the caster’s mind, and can never be cast again.

They decided to move on without discovering any of this. But they also discussed it for a bit, and there is little as entertaining as listening to your players speculate about what some item in a warlock’s tower will do. They are endlessly imaginative and their suggestions are almost always more horrific and cruel than I would come up with on their own. These sorts of discussions are the unofficial 5th pillar of D&D - “player speculation”, and are a key part of the excitement of play. 

They repeated the pattern all the way down to the first floor of the 8 floor tower. The first floor had a large glass sculpture of a hydra in the center. Anyone using light in the room will activate the sculpture’s magic and all in the room will forget why they are here and want to leave, if they don’t make a save versus spells. The party had lights, and multiple PCs failed their saves and fled the building. The rest of the party followed. 

They decided to report back to Quin Faal. He decided that they should go back in and investigate, and they told him about the enchantment on the first floor of the tower. Faal decided to give them a scroll with Anti-Magic Shell written at a high level to temporarily neutralize the magic on the statue so they could look around more. 

The party has also come to realize that high level spells on scrolls are a risky but valuable resource for the party.

So they returned the next night. They used the same approach to get to the top of the tower, I rolled for random encounters all the way there and while climbing/flying to the top. Nothing came up. They found the snake’s body still there, suggesting that no one in the tower had been to the roof since they were there, assuming there was anyone in the tower at all.

They skipped each of the rooms again, going down to the first floor. The party warlock cast Anti-Magic Shell from the scroll, they were VERY nervous about that, as a failed casting could lead to a harmful result, and they didn’t know what that would mean. But it was successful, and the statue’s effects were temporarily neutralized. 

Now they searched the first floor, and found a trap door. They were about to open it, when the party Seer suggested that he cast Augury to see if that was a good idea. Well, as it happens, Ghollag the Ebon was in the basement, a vampire had managed to catch the high level warlock unawares and was feeding on him slowly, draining blood every few days to keep him weak and unable to cast spells, the vampire was using his tower as a launching point for his nightly forays for victims. So when the seer cast the Augury and it was successful, it told him that going into the basement would be VERY BAD. So they left and went back to Quin Faal.

Again, random encounter rolls were made on the trip, nothing came up. When they told Faal the results he insisted that they return to investigate that basement, “Or I will send other agents of mine to do so”. They agreed, and returned to the tower.

So they went back again at night. We repeated the trip across the city and the entrance from the roof. None of the random encounter rolls come up, and they enter the tower. Now, unbeknownst to them, every time they entered the tower I rolled to see if the vampire was there, or out “hunting”. In every previous case he was out, this time he was in. Halfway down the tower he appeared in the room. He was a well dressed emberi (Bhakashal human), and he was accompanied by 6 wolves. 

Yijama the Black - Vampire - 5th level Warlock - 7 spells per day

MV:12,HD:8,HP:40,NA:1,DA:d6+4,SA:Strength drain (2 pts/strike), convert to gaseous form, transform to bat, charm gaze -2 save, SD: Regenerate 3 hp per rd, +1 weapon to hit, reduced to 0 hp change to gaseous form, immune to sleep, charm, hold, poison or paralysis, ½ damage from cold or lightning 

(6) wolves (AC:7,MV:18,HD:2,NA:1,DA:2-5)

Spells

Magic Missile 

Morshoggoth’s Boisterous Braids

Wizard Lock

Shalin’s Fantastic Fetters 

Protection from Normal Missiles

Dimension Door

Polymorph Self

Wall of Ice

The party were shocked, in each previous foray the tower was empty. So they talked with the guy. He managed to convince them that he was asked by Ghollag to watch the tower, and that Ghollag had left on a trip several weeks ago. Warlocks travel around and seek out items of power, monsters to defeat to use for spell and magic item creation, it was a plausible story. They listened, then left to tell Quin Faal what happened. Amazingly, they bought the story and assumed that it was all just a misunderstanding. 

I guess I’m convincing.

This time Faal decided it was time to use divination magic to figure out what was happening. Technically, you can cast divination magic as often as you like, but for the more powerful spells, warlocks like to minimize their casting of spells that involve bothering higher powers. Still, this seemed like a fair use situation. 

He cast a Contact Other Plane spell (note: I have randomly generated all of Faal’s spells, so he doesn’t have access to any spell he wants, there is a specific list) to ask about Ghollag’s fate. He asked a series of questions that the party and I came up with together, I, as Quin Faal, came up with one question, the rest were the party. 

Quin Faal - “Is Ghollag the Ebon alive?”

Roll - No answer. This wasn’t planned, but it fit the situation well, Ghollag was being kept barely alive by the vampire to continue feeding on him, so the absence of an answer here felt right.

Quin Faal - “Is Ghollag the Ebon in his Tower?”

“Yes”

Quin Faal - “Is Ghollag the Ebon in the basement of the tower?”

“Yes”

Quin Faal - “Is he being kept there against his will?”

“Yes”

Quin Faal - “How many are keeping him against his will?”

“One”

I decided that Quin Faal had contacted the elemental plane of fire and was talking to an Efreet to get his answers. For some reason they were entirely delighted with this.

So now they were armed with the information that Ghollag was indeed in the basement of the tower, that he may or may not be alive, and that the person they met was very likely the one keeping him there. They had a discussion with Faal about the man as he seemed odd.

They noted that they had only seen him at night, though on two previous visits they did not encounter him. He moved silently, and had wolves around him. Several minutes of discussion and they decided he was likely a werewolf, the fact that the moon was not full explained why he was in human form. 

So they decided to return again at night and confront him.

This time, however, a random encounter came up on the way there. Now, the in-city random encounter tables are very heavily weighted towards non-combat encounters. Every ward has it’s own table based on the kinds of businesses / services that are common in those wards. You can encounter ward patrols, or “toughs” looking for trouble, but most city encounters will be neutral. A monster encounter comes up when the roll (or its inverse) on the city random encounter table matches the number of the ward. There are 54 Noble Houses, each occupying a Ward in the city. They were in Ward 41, belonging to House Phars. Their target was the building marked with a red star. 

So if a 41 or a 14 came up on the random encounter roll it would be a monster. It came up with a 14. All rolled in the open. So now I have to roll on the monster sub table. I get one of the players to roll, and he rolls an 8… crimson apes. Crimson apes are a custom monster in Bhakashal, it is not known exactly which warlock created them, but they have been in the city since its inception. They stick to the building tops and towers for the most part, as well as Ward Vinnos (a forest ward). They run in packs surrounding an alpha ape. It has been speculated that they were created by a warlock in the past but proved difficult to tame and train. It is well known that they only cooperate for beings of great power, and the naming ceremonies for high level House Warlocks usually involve letting loose a crimson ape that bows before them, demonstrating their power. The wizard Konkarrin of House Viinos is celebrated to this day as during his naming ceremony dozens of Crimson apes appeared unbidden and surrounded him, bowing in supplication. It is also known that they tend to appear when something important is about to happen to, or due to the actions of, a warlock. 

I rolled for surprise for both sides, the party won, and saw the apes moving from building to building, and I decided that one of the party members might know the lore about crimson apes. In Bhakashal all warlocks are sages with one major and one minor field, as well as a specialization. I rolled to see if the party warlock knew the crimson ape lore and he did. So I told them the story.

Since the apes were surprised they didn’t see the party, and I had to decide which warlock they were there to witness, the party warlock, Borun the Majestic, the vampire Yijama the Black (who was also a warlock) or Ghollag the Ebon. If I rolled the party warlock the apes would have approached the party, but I rolled Yijama, so they continued on towards the tower. The party watched as the apes headed to the tower that they were approaching. Since they knew that the apes only showed up when something important was about to happen to a warlock, they knew that big things were afoot, but not what they were or if they would impact the party.

It was terrific, tense gaming. They debated turning and running, but they wanted to see what was going to happen with the apes, so they continued on. Now, full disclosure, I had NO IDEA what the apes were there to witness at this point. That would have to be discovered as we play, but I knew it would involve Yijima the Black in some way. 

They arrived at the tower, the apes had already climbed up (they saw this as they approached) and they followed. When they hit the 5th floor of the building they found the apes in the room along with Yijima and his wolves. The apes were standing at the edges of the circular room, watching. Yijima knows the significance of the apes showing up, and he decided to mock the party a bit by suggesting that they were there to see the party’s warlock, Borun the Majestic. They decided to lay it on the line and accused him of keeping Ghollag in the basement against his will. 

No more messing around. 

We broke there for the session and will be picking up there next week. They have 7 days to ponder what is going on, potentially figure out that Yijima is a vampire, and decide how to handle the presence of the apes. Also, one of the players casually suggested that Yijima might be a vampire, but the rest of them dismissed it. He will be vindicated soon enough, and the “I TOLD YOU SO’s” will be loudly proclaimed.

Discussion

One of the things I love about my players is that they have learned enough about the game to realize that you don’t just barge in to fight everything you find. And you don’t have to engage with everything just because it is there. They avoided the special magical features of all the rooms in the tower because they could. They walked away from the first encounter with Yijima to gather more information because they could. They understand that magic is dangerous, and that fighting is deadly, so they only engage when they have to.

In short, they play smart, and gauge their encounters before engaging with monsters / NPCs / environments. And the best part was that they were riveted throughout the process, they may not have engaged with the magic statues and thrones, but they were still fascinated by them, and wary of them. This was a high tension session, in every room they anticipated doom, and the look on their faces when the Augury called for “woe” if they went into that basement was priceless. 

They know that encounters in the game world are not “balanced”, that they can be outmatched at any point, and that everything is rolled in the open where I can’t save them. This sort of play is the polar opposite of “story focused” gaming where the referees job is to steer them to “exciting” encounters and tweak those encounters to ensure their survival or success. 

I know referees who would be upset that they didn’t get to showcase their cool encounters, the party blew past 7 of the 8 encounters in Ghollag’s Tower, without engaging with them in any way. I know that some referees would have maneuvered the players into interacting with these features in order to produce a “fun” and “exciting” session, but these referees are missing something important.

No maneuvered encounter will ever produce as much tension, fear and immersion as the encounter they are anticipating. Players build up the risk and danger of whatever you put in front of them, letting them decide whether to engage or not gives them agency and makes the world feel real. Unplanned encounters just enhance this. The rolled encounter with the crimson apes was very rare, so special by that metric alone, the party has not encountered crimson apes in 2 years of play, but also makes the whole process more exciting. They don’t know what will happen, but they do know it is important!

What you see here is a group of players who know that every decision could be their last, and that they have to be smart to survive. They are fully engaged with the game world as they realize it is independent of them and dangerous.

This is the stuff.

Building Bhakashal - Teaching the Game

I run D&D a bit differently than many. I don’t do “voices”. I randomize almost everything. I run a “true sandbox” game where the players can do whatever they want, we don’t have “backstories” at all, your playable group (race), class and skills are your backstory.

But the place where my style of refereeing is the most differentiated from traditional D&D relates to teaching the game to the players.

For me, D&D is a GAME first, not a storytelling engine (though you can tell stories about it), not an “immersive experience” (though it can be immersive at times) but a game. And a fairly complex game at that. People like to talk about simplifying the game experience, rules lite and all that, but for me at least, that’s not D&D. D&D has a lot of rules for a lot of stuff. Not rules for “everything” of course, that would be far too cumbersome. You have to improv a LOT to make the game work, particularly when you are running a sandbox style game. But even then, the game ends up having a lot of rules.

And one of the purposes of running games for me is to teach players how to run their own games. Ideally, every player at my table that wants to become a referee will learn a lot about how to run a game while playing and feel confident enough to start their own game. 

In order to make that happen, I do a few things that might be considered unacceptable at other tables. The main reason for this is that they break immersion in the game as they draw attention to the game mechanics or decision making process of the referee, not to the “in character” experience. 

I understand the appeal of immersion, the idea that when you sit down at the table you become your character for a time, perhaps speaking in the first person, “I swing my axe”, as opposed to “Ragnar swings his axe”, that sort of thing. I’ve played in a few games where the idea was that you were in character whenever you were sitting at the table, no OOC references, etc. Immersion is one of the gems of the D&D experience. There is something visceral and rewarding about, in a way, being your character, and feeling like the game world is somehow “real”. 

However, I also break immersion regularly to reveal the mechanics of the game, the decision-making process that undergirds play, because I want the players to learn how to run a game, not just play it. I also encourage certain aspects of the play with the players to help them learn how to run the style of game I run. Playstyles emerge from a combination of player choices and referee choices. 

Here are a few things I do to make these things happen.

1. Rulebooks - When I was playing back in high school we all took turns as the referee, and we all read the books, it didn’t make the game any less fun or any less challenging. 

The rule at my table is that all of the rule books are available during play with the exception of the monster books when the PCs are involved with a monster, or the treasure entries when they have found treasure. I don’t want them looking up the stats for the dragon as they fight the dragon. However, what they do when they are not fighting the dragon is entirely up to them. I vary monster stats sometimes, “re-skin” monsters, and create a lot of home brew monsters as well, and I’ve told them I do this, so there is still some mystery, but I’m not concerned if the players know things about the monsters they fight. There are any number of in-game reasons why a PC might know some piece of lore about a monster if you need an in-game reason for it. I know a lot of people would lose their minds at this suggestion, as they feel this breaks immersion, they want to be able to “surprise” their players at the table, and they would feel this gives them an unfair advantage. What I find the most surprising is that players often don’t know what they are fighting when they fight it, even though they have access to the books. 

2. Player Consultation - There are many instances while running a game where the referee is required to come up with odds for something that is not explicitly covered in the rules. For example, in last Friday’s game the party traveled to a small village and one of the players asked if they had a leatherworker that could make custom armor out of the hide of the monster they had just defeated. I figured the odds of finding a leatherworker in a small village was fairly low but not impossible, one who was experienced with exotic monster hides was less likely, so I initially suggested a 1 in 6 chance. One of the players suggested that since the monster was found in the area that it should be more likely that a local might have experience with this, we discussed it for a few minutes and all agreed bumping it to 2 in 6. Involving the players in these sorts of exchanges helps them when they are running their own games and have to come up with odds on the fly. It also shows them that refereeing is a process that involves a significant amount of improvisation. 

3. Bring on The Rules Lawyers! - Rules discussion is ALWAYS welcome at my table. If it’s obviously disruptive or bad faith that’s another thing, but for the most part I find players who know the rules are a boon to the game. D&D involves a lot of judgment calls, and the sooner the players realize that the ref will have to handle occasional rules challenges the better. There is a strain of perfectionism in modern gaming, a desire to “get it right” all the time. This is a HUGE burden to put on the referee. Being comfortable and welcoming of player questions is a big part of growing and improving as a referee. Over the last 40 or so years of gaming I have only encountered a handful of players who abused this privilege, and they all didn’t last long at the table. 

4. Multiple PCs per Player and Mounts/Animal-Monster Companions - I have always encouraged players to have more than one PC, and to purchase mounts and use animal/monster companions. Not just because it allows me to run a very deadly game without the delays of having to roll up new PCs real time in game while the other players wait, nor because it speeds up overland travel with mounts. Instead, I do this as it allows players to become familiar with a greater range of PC classes through play, if you want to run the game, the more experience you have with different PC classes the better. Also it helps the player to become familiar with determining and tracking the actions of multiple characters/creatures. The referee is ALWAYS running multiple NPCs/monsters/animals etc., so running multiple PCs, and deciding on the actions of mounts/animal-monster companions, is good practice. 

5. Open Rolling - I do this for a number of reasons unrelated to teaching the game, but one important reason for open rolling is that it helps the players to see that a referee has to to pivot and interpret rolls. Players often think that the tables and mechanics of D&D are just about making a roll. That’s just the beginning. The sooner they see that the result is interpreted the better. If you roll behind a screen they just hear the result, if you see the result and hear the interpretation, you learn how to do it. It’s also an important lesson in transparency. When you roll in the open your players KNOW you are not fudging the dice, get to see the referee respecting the dice just like the players do.

6. Post Game Review - After the game I check in with the players to find out what they liked and what they didn’t like. To be clear I’m not talking about failure versus success, e.g. “I didn’t like it when the giant beat us”, I’m talking about playstyle choices, the amount of combat and social role play, the amount of travel and resource management, the kinds of adventures/quests the PCs are engaging in, that sort of thing. I find that this is important for two reasons. One, you can’t always tell if your players are enjoying something, on occasion they will keep their negative views private as they don’t want to hurt your feelings or make waves. I once had a conversation with a player who told me that he was uninterested in combat and mostly focused on social RP in the game. If he hadn’t told me I would have had no idea, his body language, tone of voice, in game choices and commentary betrayed no sort of discontent. I even asked if he wanted to talk to the other players about shifting focus away from combat and he said “no”, he was happy with the balance of combat and social role play in the game, he just liked the latter more. People talk a lot about “checking in” about many things, but not enough about checking in on playstyle choices. 

Two, it is good to model the idea that referees respond to player preferences. Being a good ref is not only about being creative, it’s about being adaptive. In one of those after game consults my home D&D group once told me they were getting tired of fantasy games. So we pivoted and played Stars Without Number for a year. At that point they wanted to switch back to D&D, but I likely wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t asked where they were at. Note that this doesn’t mean a ref runs whatever the players ask for, there may be games I’m not ready to run or comfortable running, but it’s good to be as adaptive as possible.

7. Lose your Fear of “Breaking the Game” - I have found that one of the most interesting things about D&D is that it is quite resilient. Every time I have thought that giving the PCs something would “break the game” I have found that the game itself weeds this sort of stuff out naturally. One example of this is flying PCs. I was contemplating aarakocra in my home game several years ago and I was worried about how they might impact the game. Wouldn't PCs be too powerful if they could fly from 1st level? So I reviewed the 1e AD&D rules for flying, and ran through some scenarios, and realized that this was a self-correcting problem. PCs can choose fliers from level 1 in my game, but this isn’t a problem as:

1. When you have sustained more than half your HP in damage you can’t fly, when you have sustained more than 3/4 your HP in damage you suffer an uncontrolled plunge

2. You can’t wear heavy armor so your AC is generally not great

3. Fliers are preferred targets for missiles and spells like wizards, and unlike targets on the ground, they don’t have cover and can’t hide behind the party tanks

4. Unless all of the PCs are fliers, they will be faster than their landlocked brethren, so they either have to slow down to stay with them (which makes their greater speed useless) or they fly ahead and are alone and vulnerable, often encountering danger before the party can catch up

I think it is important to show budding referees that the game is quite robust and that they shouldn’t be afraid of players “breaking the game” and overreact, nerfing their abilities or ideas. Run with them instead and trust the game to handle it. If for some reason it doesn’t work, let the play experience show you that in real time and adapt, showing the PCs that the ref can change their decisions.

8. Let Them Lose, Let them Win - One of the things I dislike the most about a lot of modern gaming discourse is that it assumes that encounters must be “balanced” and that it is the referees job to ensure balanced, “fair” encounters. In my games I model precisely the opposite of this approach. Sometimes the players are outmatched, and only luck and skill save them, sometimes they overmatch their opponents, and it’s a cake walk. Rather than adjust encounters on the fly to ensure the enemies survive, or that they go down, I let it happen on its own. Just this week the PCs in my Friday game were involved in an assault on a castle, and they had made an alliance with a warlock who flew on a black dragon. I could have kept the warlock and dragon “in the background” so the PCs could make the decisive moves in the encounter, but instead I had them attack alongside the PCs. As it happens the dragon used it’s breath weapon on two of the castle’s spellcasters, and they were incinerated instantly. I could have made up a magic item that gave them resistances, or used some other trick to get them out of dying, but instead I let it ride, making the encounter significantly easier (not a cake-walk however, it got hairy later). For the kind of play style that Bhakashal fits, it’s important for players who want to become referees to see that it is part of the ref’s job to ensure that the game world behaves consistently and impartially as possible. NPCs act in a way that fits with what THEY would want, not what the players want.

9. Let the Players roll for Allies and Monsters - One of the goals as a ref is to keep the players engaged, and let’s be honest, there are many times in a standard D&D game when some of the players will not be directly involved in the action. PCs get paralyzed or knocked out, one PC is on a “solo mission” separate from the rest of the party, etc. For large groups you might have to wait for 6 other players to take their action before your turn comes up. In some cases, I get the players to roll for allies (like henchmen) or monsters. This is both good for engagement and a good experience, players get the sense of what it is like to be running more than just their PC. A referee has to run THE WHOLE WORLD other than the PCs, rolling for the monsters when your PC is down gives you a brief glimpse into things from the other side.

10. Let them Explore - If you are going to run a sandbox game, you have to be comfortable with the PCs doing things other than what you have planned. So if this means they want to shop for equipment and mounts for a whole session then so be it. Show the players that ANYTHING in D&D can be an interesting encounter, show them that you can share world lore and build the world around them by allowing the players to do things other than fight. And show them how letting the players explore can lead to all sorts of fun. Some of our most rewarding and interesting encounters in our games have come from unplanned non-combat encounters that grew into something more. My players once encountered a passing caravan on their way to a dungeon. Rather than just passing by, they decided to stop and parley with them, asking questions about what they were transporting, where they were going. I rolled an encounter reaction and it was positive, so the caravan stopped for the day to camp down and asked the PCs to join them. They broke bread, bought some of their wares (I rolled randomly on the spot to see what they were carrying) and made friends with one of the merchants in the caravan, who was returning to the city. That merchant became a NPC contact for the party, and they have worked with him several times since. Every part of the game world can be an adventure, but they have to see that this can happen. Referees who don’t have this experience tend to be train conductors at the table. 

11. Bring on the Side Conversations - This piece of advice is highly contextual, it will vary in it’s application from table to table, but with the right group it is a great way to encourage players to become referees. In one of my Wednesday night games the players showed up and we started, about a half hour in one of the PCs was casting fireball, and I started to do the calculations to determine possible blowback. One of the players asked me to explain how this worked, so I did, explaining the AOE of the spell, and how it would fill the area. Well, this led to more questions from this player and the other players about how AOE’s worked in different situations. This morphed into a conversation about spell ranges versus AOE, and then a discussion about missile ranges indoors and outdoors, and so on. We spent most of that session discussing rules. Normally this would be brushed aside with a “we need to get back to the game”, but they were into it, and all of them learned a ton about adjudicating spells given the encounter environment that day, things that might otherwise be “behind the screen”. 

The goal with all of these practices is to show the PCs the mechanics and the process, to model and reveal practices at the table in a way that is transparent. Some of these are absolute immersion killers. But they are important tools in teaching the game to the players. It is important to show them that you can be adaptive to whatever comes your way, and show them how you take the chaos of the gaming world and translate it through rolls and interpretations.

Again, this is all if you want to have some of your players start to referee their own games, and you have a group that is on board with high referee transparency and diversions for purposes of talking rules. Every group will be a bit different, and some would find all this terribly immersion breaking and unfun.

I have been running after school games for 3 years now. Of the 40 or so players that have played or still play in my game, more than half run their own games at home. Many run 5e as it is the easiest to get and popular, but several run 1e or 2e. When a player tells me they want to run games, I give them a copy of OSRIC, so even if they don’t run 1e, they can raid it for inspiration and house rules for 5e. 

If you prefer to keep the mystery, and maintain more immersion in your game, most of these rules won’t be for you. If you run a more controlled game, for example, you can more fully develop encounters and the game world so they are more immersive. If you restrict the books then the players will know less about what they are encountering. 

The goal for me as a referee is to make myself redundant, get my players to the point where, if they are interested, they could run their own games and build their own worlds. Doing these things makes it possible. 

How I maintain immersion, or more accurately the style of immersion I use in my game, what I call fragmented immersion, will be the topic of another blog post. 

Building Bhakashal - Time

Art by David Bowers

The way you handle time in Bhakashal is absolutely crucial to the immersion and engagement that the setting creates. Today I will talk about time management in Bhakashal. But before I get to that, I want to address one potential time management option that Bhakashal does NOT use.

There has been a lot of talk lately about 1:1 time keeping. The basic idea behind it is taken from AD&D 1e, essentially the time between sessions (say you game once a week) is equivalent to the time that passes in the game. So if you end a session and return to the table a week later, a week of game time has passed as well. This sort of play style leads the players to spend the week in between games in contact with each other and the DM to detail tasks that their PCs will do in this “down time”. This can make for an interactive and immersive game that really draws in the players. 

As interesting as that approach can be, it requires commitments from the players outside of regular gaming time, and it forces the party and the referee to work to ensure that they are at a “safe spot” by the end of the session. I tried 1:1 time gaming with two of my playtest groups and found that these two issues made it such that 1:1 time was not for us. Most of our sessions are 2 hours long, so starting and ending at a “safe spot” is too constraining. The PCs would often rush to get things done faster and either make terrible decisions or ignore interesting aspects of the adventure to meet the “end of session in a safe spot” requirement. Also most of our adventures are not in dungeons or similar “delving” spots, so the short travel, delve, return to town cycle is not a good fit. In particular, there is a LOT of wilderness travel and ocean/river travel in Bhakashal, which means finding a “safe spot” by session’s end is sometimes next to impossible. 

Practically, 1:1 time works best for a traditional dungeon delve game, and Bhakashal is not that game.

However, this doesn’t mean that you can’t use time management to create immersive, engaging game play, you just have to do it elsewhere. The reason 1:1 timekeeping creates immersive and engaging play is that imposing time restrictions on the game makes it feel real. A week passes in the real world and a week passes in the game. But it isn’t the mirroring of real world time that makes it feel real, it’s the imposition of time constraints on the game, whatever their source. 

Time is independent of us, and by placing time restrictions in the game you create a feeling that the game world is independent of the players as well. This feeling of independence is key, in my opinion, to an engaging game. There are many ways to use time to create an immersive, engaging game experience beyond 1:1 time. Let’s take a look at a few.

A. Travel - Perhaps the single most important way that you can use time to impact the game in Bhakashal is travel. 

Movement through space takes time. 

As a lad I recall many games where my DM just hand waved travel “to get us to the dungeon”. As nostalgic as that style of play can be, it takes away from immersion and engagement in the game by “fast forwarding” to the “exciting” parts. 

Travel in Bhakashal is NEVER hand waved. If you are going from one place to another it will take time based on your mode of transportation, as a result Bhakashal has rules for PCs, mounts and ships to determine how long it takes to travel. In addition, each day of travel has four opportunities for encounters through random encounter checks. The day is divided into four segments, morning (6am - noon), afternoon (noon-6pm), evening (6pm to midnight) and night (midnight to 6am). Random encounter checks are made in each segment, and if an encounter is indicated, a d6 is rolled to determine the hour it occurs in the 6 hour span.

Note that encounters can be hostile or non-hostile. The encounter tables are weighted by hex type, in more traveled areas the tables are populated by fewer animals and monsters, in more remote wilderness areas the odds of a monster or animal are greater. 

Using this sort of system, some travel days are entirely uneventful, some have multiple encounters (some of which are hostile, some not), and you can get consecutive days of no encounters and consecutive days of multiple encounters. In short, it mirrors the pulp and fantasy literature, where the hero is often described as spending days traveling through an area without experiencing any sort of encounter at all. “Conan traveled for days along the coast without incident, until he arrived at the river mouth…”

You might say, “well, having no encounter at all doesn’t sound very exciting”, but you would be wrong. Because you roll for encounters at regular junctures, the players know these rolls are coming, and they are rolled in the open, there is an excitement to see if the encounter comes up for this segment of travel. There is also excitement over whether the encounter is with a monster/animal/hostile NPC or perhaps a caravan, a group of pilgrims or a friendly patrol. 

Rolling these things in the open makes them focal points for engagement. 

There is also room for player agency. The PCs can choose to travel on foot, on ship or by mount. The faster they travel the fewer possible encounters they will have. Also, routes matter, choosing more traveled routes will sometimes increase the time of the trip but reduce the possibility of a hostile encounter. 

So player choices are meaningful.

Also, Bhakashal has rules for exhaustion (either for the PCs or mounts) due to extended travel or weather extremes, so travel can have an impact on your PCs or mount’s effectiveness. It also has tables for generating weather, and weather, along with terrain, impacts both travel time and encounters. Fighting a monster during a torrential downpour is very different than doing so on a clear, sunny day. 

Also, refusing to hand-wave travel means that food, water, light sources and encumbrance are important, and must be managed, which is another source of engagement and immersion. Bhakashal has rules for how often PCs and mounts must rest, drink and eat, how much PCs, mounts and ships can carry, and rules for hunting and fishing for times when the party runs out of food. 

Ensuring that travel isn’t hand waved means that things like weather, rest and food actually matter to the game, and thus the environment seems real, and creates the immersion and engagement of interest. These are all really time related concerns, and the rules make time matter by giving it game-mechanical impacts. 

It also means that encounters represent possibilities, not just potential threats. PCs can encounter non-hostile groups that have information they need, they can role-play and socialize with NPCs and create alliances. Indeed, my players across groups have come to realize that a non-combat encounter with NPCs can frequently give them crucial information or alliances that aid them in their tasks. Hand waving travel, and thus time, robs the game of all of these interactions.

Surprise and encounter reaction rules in Bhakashal mean that not all monster/animal/hostile NPC encounters need to turn into combat encounters. Indeed, smart players realize this early and do what they can to avoid combat where possible. This has the effect of making the experience less like a video game and more like a role-playing game. When you don’t hand wave time, travel time leads to encounter rolls, and each combat you participate in makes you potentially more vulnerable for your next encounter. Managing all of this develops player skill, they learn to respect time and its passage, as the passage of time creates potential opportunities and challenges. 

Why would you want to hand wave that?

B. Resource Management and Exploration - I won’t say much about this as it has been covered before elsewhere many, many times, but the basic idea is that while exploring indoor spaces like dungeons and temples, lighting, rest and food are crucial. If you run out of light sources in an unlit dungeon you are increasing your odds of being surprised. If you run out of food you can starve. Also, encounters happen more often in dungeon environments (generally you are required to check for wandering monsters per turn rather than 4x a day). So when the party is exploring a dungeon environment, tracking time is crucial. If they have to “hole up” in the dungeon to heal or to regroup, the passage of time creates the risk associated with staying in one place in a hostile environment.

C. Resource Management and Logistics - BITD when we wanted to buy a horse or purchase weapons we would open the book and choose what we wanted, then deduct gold. Done and done. In Bhakashal you NEVER hand wave resource acquisition for the group, as this is just another form of hand waiving time. If you want to buy a sword, you have to find a blacksmith (which involves travel and potential encounters), interact with the blacksmith (which involves encounter reaction rolls and might necessitate finding a different blacksmith depending on their skills, resources or disposition) and pay the blacksmith.

One of the reasons I dislike 1:1 time gaming is precisely that it takes away these sorts of encounters and assigns them to “between session messaging”. It hand-waves the time you would spend role-playing these sorts of encounters and loses opportunities for world-building, immersion and engagement. 

Let me give a short anecdote. Early on in my first Bhakashal campaign the PCs arrived in the city and the first thing they decided to do was to purchase mounts. Right inside the city gates there is a large market, so this was pretty much the first thing they did as PCs in the campaign. I rolled an encounter reaction to see how the animal breeder would treat the party, this impacts price, what mounts are offered to the party, etc. I rolled a very high reaction, and the party got a very good price. Every roll has to be interpreted, so I had to decide why this particular breeder was willing to give the PCs such a good price. I decided that he had been robbed recently, so he was letting go of good mounts at lower prices as he needed the gold.

The PCs became intrigued, and offered to help find the thieves. And thus our first 4 session adventure was born. This would not have happened if we hand waved the process to “save time”. 

So Bhakashal recommends that you do not hand-wave resource acquisition in order to save time, instead you make it into an encounter of its own.

D. Solo Adventuring - Level Specific Class Roles - Another way time impacts immersion and engagement relates to tasks that the PCs take on as solo adventurers. This can come up for any number of reasons. Take our Wednesday game last week. The party found a Manual of Puissant Skill at Arms. It allows a fighter to level up after a month’s study of the tome. 

So if the PC fighter decides to use the book, what are the other PCs doing?

Bhakashal gives two recommendations in situations like these, one is to run it as an encounter and one is to run it in the background. The background option is there for solo play, as opposed to group play, for purely logistical reasons. If you run large groups as I do, running solo encounter sessions for each player, when players often have multiple PCs, isn’t always feasible. 

The solution to this problem is the patron and class role system. Parties in Bhakashal have patrons, patrons give them jobs to do that are related to faction goals on the part of the patron. But the PCs also have responsibilities outside of their patron’s tasks. Each class in Bhakashal has level specific roles outside of adventuring. Indeed, “adventuring” isn’t their “job”, it’s something they do when they aren’t performing their level specific class roles. 

So for example, a 1st level mercenary (fighter) can join a Noble House, and can sign up for placement as infantry, cavalry or as an archer. When not adventuring, it is assumed that the PC is participating in their level specific class role “off camera”. So a 1st mercenary that signed up as an archer would be on marsh patrol or ward patrol in their “off adventuring time”. 

Say the party warlock was going to spend several weeks researching a magical wand they want to find. While this is happening, the background option would be for the party mercenary to be on regular ward patrols for those weeks. There would be no rolling for encounters for the mercenary during this time, unless the player indicated they were interested in a solo play encounter while the warlock was doing her research.

So when the PC warlock does their research, it is possible for some or all of the other players to opt for background solo play, and they are assumed to be participating in their level specific class roles while the warlock is researching.

However, these same level specific class roles can be used for solo play encounters. If this was done, then the referee would roll for daily encounters while the PC was pursuing their class role. So that mercenary on Ward patrol might have an encounter with an unruly sell-sword who got drunk and started a fight in a tavern. Or the party Seer offering prayer guidance at the Temple might encounter a wealthy merchant that is praying for help as he is being targeted by assassins. 

These level specific class roles can be parlayed into encounters for the whole party, but they can also be used to give solo PCs an adventure all their own. Typically what playtesting has shown is that when a particular PC is occupied for some reason (say that warlock researching a wand), one or two of the other players will ask for solo play encounters while the rest of the party will opt for background solo play for their PCs.  

And of course there is always the case of too few players showing up for a session. Depending on where the party was when we broke last, this is a prime opportunity for solo play by the players that did show up. Or for smaller group play riffing off of a solo level specific class role from one of the PCs.

E. Solo and “Split-Party” Adventuring Outside of Level-Specific Class Roles

In addition to level-specific class role based activities, there are any number of different activities that PCs can engage in, either solo or as a split party, beyond “adventuring”. Some are encounters, some are in the background. 

Obviously the scope of these activities is practically infinite. I have had PCs decide to build tree houses in the forest, gamble at the docks, purchase art supplies to paint, virtually anything is possible. However, there are some relatively common tasks that the PCs can engage in, either singly or as split party groups, that can be pursued either as encounters or in the background. 

Some examples:

1. Information Gathering - Going to the Spider’s (Thieves) guild, meeting with patrons or allies of your patron, consulting sages, etc. are all ways to learn about magic items/creatures they have encountered, want to encounter or know they might encounter. So one solo/split group activity can be consulting with a sage/guild representative, etc., while a single party member is engaged in a particular task. This is an active task as it involves encounter reaction rolls.

2. Purchasing Items - Buying equipment/mounts, sell off items collected during adventuring. As mentioned before, individual party members or split groups can purchase equipment or sell off items they have found and do not need. These activities are role-played as encounters.

3. Create Magic - In Bhakshal PCs can create potions, scrolls or magic items.There are no “magic shops” in Bhakashal, if you want a magic item you have to find it in a treasure hoard, slay someone who has it and take it from them, steal it, or make it yourself. Bhakashal has potion, scroll and magic item creation rules for this very reason. While one party warlock is researching a magic item, another can be using that displacer beast heart they brought back from their last encounter to scribe a Mirror Image spell.  This task is best handled as an encounter, as it involves rolling against PC stats to see if the creation is successful or not, and sometimes involves interaction with patrons to access resources.

4. Learn a Skill - It takes the equivalent of a month of “off time” training (30 6 hour days)  or the equivalent spread out over more time, to gain a new skill or gain a bonus on an existing skill. A trainer must be located to do this, and it will have a time based cost. As there is no roll for this, it can be done in the background, e.g. the party mercenary trains for a week while the party warlock is researching a spell, a month later she trains for two weeks while a lower level henchman in the party does their level training, and two weeks after that she trains for a final week while the party Seer spends a week preaching and healing in the Raosk. At that point the mercenary could either add the new skill or add a point to an existing skill.

5. Learn a Language - The PC will spend [5 - (INT bonus)] months in constant study (4 hours per day - 120 hours/month), or the equivalent spread out over more time to learn to read a new language. To learn to speak, [10-INT bonus] months must be spent. Rather than roll to see if the PC is successful, there is an INT based time associated with the task, so it can be done in the background in a manner similar to skill training above.

6. Weapon Training - PCs can reduce the NPP on a weapon, for every 2 weeks spent in training the NPP for a weapon is reduced by 1. So a mercenary could gain proficiency in a new weapon with a month of training, either continuous or spread out. This is another background activity.

7. Train a Creature - Bhakashal presents many options for animal/creature domestication and training (mounts, guard animals, animal companions, etc.), this is a background activity and takes 4 weeks for animal intelligence creatures, 3 weeks for Semi-intelligent creatures, 2 weeks for Low intelligence creatures, or 1 week for Average intelligence or above creatures. A PC must have animal handling as a skill to do this, otherwise they must find a trainer with that skill and work with them to train the creature. If the creature is fantastic or very aggressive they will need a special trainer. 

8. Learn to Ride a Flying Mount - One month of training is required to learn to ride a flying mount, it requires a trainer, is expensive, and is generally done as a background activity. 

9. Learn to Shoot Missiles from a Mount -  one month of training is required to learn to shoot from a mounted position. Similar restrictions to learning to ride a flying mount, and it is also generally done as a background activity.

10. Level Training - When PCs have completed sufficient tasks and are eligible to level up, they must engage in level training. It is assumed that they are training whenever they are performing their level specific class role, so the training that happens at leveling is not complete, it is the culmination of “on the job” training and the experience gained from adventuring. Level training takes 1 week and costs 500gp per level achieved on training, e.g. a mercenary leveling up from 4th to 5th would pay 2500gp and train for one week to achieve their level based bonuses. it is also generally done as a background activity.

11. Practice PC Skills - all PCs in Bhakashal have skills outside of their class based abilities, for example, navigator, blacksmith, hunter, etc. They can take this time to engage in these skills. This can be done as a background activity or as an encounter as desired by the player. 

12. Note that any background activity can be run as an encounter if desired, e.g. if the party Caveral is engaged in weapon training and wants an encounter, then the referee can create an encounter in the training space with the trainer or another trainee, e.g. maybe a potential rival tries to make the PC look bad during training, or has some important piece of information for the PC. If desired the referee could roll to determine if any given activity of this kind is an encounter or done in the background as well.

F. Seasons and Festivals

Seasons pass in the real world, before we even had calendars people marked the passage of time by the passing of the seasons. Societies celebrate and mark important religious and social events with holidays and festivals. Bringing this to the campaign world creates real depth and engagement. The simple rule I use for seasons in my game is that the game world season matches the real world season, so if it’s winter where I live it is winter in the game world as well. You adjust the weather based on the game world, e.g., winter in Bhakashal doesn’t have snow like winter does in my part of the world. 

Festivals are also an important marker of the passage of time. Bhakashal has 10 regularly occurring festivals that mark seasons and important cultural benchmarks. In addition to giving the game world flavor and depth, they give it a sense of the passing of time and history. 

G. Persistent Encounters

Another way you can use time to impact your game is through encounters with past foes/allies. Invariably when running a long term campaign certain foes/allies escape/leave and are forgotten, but you don’t have to do it that way. Instead, you can have that foe return at a later date. Sometimes you will have a plan for that foe such that you know when they will be coming back, but other times you do not, they are just fleeing and you have no plan. For those occasions, I insert that foe into the random encounter tables in the following way. 

Every time the party rolls a random encounter roll and additional d20. If a 20 comes up, the encounter is with the past foe/ally. If you prefer to make it more likely you can reduce the die to a d12 or lower. I prefer to keep it unlikely so it doesn’t happen right away. Having an old foe return after months of play is a real kick for the players. It also gives the campaign a depth to it. 

In my Wednesday after school game the party allied with a group of mercenaries that decided to betray their employer, but later they decided to betray the party, and took off with their mounts and their loot. I have now made that group of mercenaries into a ship’s crew, and every time we roll an encounter on the high seas there is a chance the party might meet the mercenaries that betrayed them…

H. Time Management Between Multiple Groups 

As it happens I run multiple campaigns for different groups, last year there were 7 groups, this year it’s 4. They are all operating in the same game world, and two of the 4 groups share a patron. Tracking time in game can also create immersion and engagement as it positions these groups with respect to each other. A brief anecdote can show how this works.

My Tuesday group was tasked by their patron, Quin Faal the Iolite, to retrieve a powerful magical artifact that had been stolen from him and hidden in a dungeon complex. They headed in, a party of 6 with 10 henchmen. After losing 3 henchmen and almost losing two PCs they decided they were in over their heads and bailed. They headed back to their patron and told him that they were not ready for this particular job as of yet, they wanted to wait until they were more powerful to complete this task.

In standard campaign play many DM’s would set aside this adventure for them to complete later. But not in Bhakashal! Patrons don’t generally wait for the party to level up before sending them on tasks, if they aren’t up to the job they find a group who is! In this case, Quin Faal sent our Wednesday after school group into the same dungeon and they were successful (sort of, this is the group who were betrayed by mercenaries outside of that dungeon). 

The point is that the game world doesn’t simply “stop” when the party can’t achieve a goal or changes their mind. This is, IMO, one of the most impactful ways to make time matter in your game. It is also one of the ways in which “player focused narrative gaming” differs from what is on offer in Bhakashal. The game does NOT center on the PCs and the players, so the game world doesn’t wait around for them to get their act together. This, I believe, was the heart of what Gygax was getting at with 1:1 time, not the ‘day passes in the real world day passes in the game world’ concept, but the idea that the game world progresses outside of the party’s actions. 

On a similar note, if the party decides to leave a dungeon, temple, fort, etc. after delving in and return at a later date, things happen while they are gone. Factions realign themselves, monsters/animals/NPCs are added, and some new status quo reasserts itself. Things don’t remain hermetically sealed until the party returns.

Conclusion

The point of all of these ideas is to make time matter to the game. It is remarkably tempting to hand wave many things in ongoing campaigns as they don’t seem sexy. Travel from point A to point B for example can seem quite pointless, “just get to the adventure”, they cry. But removing travel from the game takes away from the adventure, and takes away from the immersion and engagement of the game. Making the PCs and players feel the impact of time, whether through resource management, travel, level specific class role activities or otherwise, gives the game world a lived in, organic, real feeling. 

It’s well worth your time.