Building Bhakashal – The Quantum Bandit

The concept of a “quantum ogre” in a TTRPG is an encounter that will happen no matter which of two paths the PCs pick. The DM doesn’t decide which side the ogre will be on, if the players go down the right side, the ogre is there, if they go down the left side, the ogre is there.

The idea is that the PCs picking a path creates the encounter, sort of like observing a particle collapses the wave form and kills the cat in Schrodinger’s famous experiment.

Bhakashal has it’s own version of this; I’ll call it the quantum bandit after the event’s of today’s game. It is a crucial part of sandbox play.

In AD&D1e there are encounter reaction rolls. They are to be made when two potentially hostile parties approach each other. So, for example, think of a group of PCs marching through the forest when they come upon a bandit camp. In AD&D if the party engages in parley with the bandits then the referee has to roll an encounter reaction roll.

If the PCs did not engage in parley, the bandits could just attack or not attack at the DMs preference. But if they do, if they communicate and the bandits can understand them, you roll to see how they react, anything from immediate violence to extremely friendly.

Bhakashal generalizes this to ANY encounter between two groups, whether they can speak and communicate or not. It also includes monsters and animals. Monsters and animals have some heavy negative modifiers to encourage violence. But regular NPCs have more modest modifiers.

In my experience, many DMs decide what NPCs do to react to the party’s actions or appearance. They don’t let the dice decide, as this may produce an anomalous result that “doesn’t fit”.

The thing is, the result only “doesn’t fit” because the referee has a story to tell, an expectation about what will happen based on what they want the party to achieve in the session. When the referee chooses the result all the time, they get predictable, and the players start to be able to guess how NPCs will react. The referee will often make similar decisions to keep consistent, or to avoid being “too easy” on the players, or whatever.

Everyone thinks they are spontaneous and creative, but the reality is that many refs fall into patterns that make the game dull and predictable, and thus much easier. Sometimes, when you know what’s going to happen, it’s less of a challenge.

When the roll is made in Bhakashal the referees job is to interpret it, embodying the principle of RRTEI, Roll Randomly Then Explain It. Of course, the referee can add modifiers of their own based on context.

There are several advantages to rolling encounter reactions rather than deciding:

1.        It surprises the referee too. Since the reaction is rolled in play, the referee will be surprised by the results too, which really adds to immersion, its like the game world is a separate entity from the referee and the players, making it feel more real.

2.        It makes NPCs tactically opaque; it is harder to predict what they will do. Rather than NPCs being automatically hostile or friendly, each situation is different.

3.        For a significant portion of NPCs in the game, there is no extensive backstory or context for them. In a sandbox game where you pivot a lot, you don’t always have NPCs fully fleshed out. As a result, PCs regularly run into NPCs whose sum total information is, “Bandit, 0-level, broadsword and mace, AC 7”. Some will just be “bandit”. When the referee practices RRTEI, they immediately populate the NPCs background and create their context when explaining the result.

Sandbox games do not do as much prep for the general denizens of the game world as there are too many of them. Big NPCs sure, but there are so many more NPCs that are not part of the main focus of the party’s activities that they nonetheless encounter. By leaving this to a dice roll and encounter reaction table, the referee is doing the work on the spot. This works perfectly for a sandbox ref.

And it ends up adding immensely to the game.

Take an example from today’s game.

The party were on the hunt for the hideout of the Slave Lords. They found the town of Suderham, and were in a tavern asking around to find out more about the Slave Lords. Nothing specific, just general gossip and basic information. Suderham in Bhakashal is a hidden city where ne’r do well’s gather and hide from the law.

I told them the tavern was filled with sailors, fishermen and bandits/mercenaries. I added that there were probably a few adventurers around in the mix as well, and of course likely some thieves.

Now, one particular PC is a human fighter (in Bhakashal he is referred to as an Emberi Mercenary), and he’s very big and very strong. He looks like a tank. He’s been with the party for 3 years now, the PC is 8^th level and has a lot of scars. He carries himself like a seasoned fighter.

He saunters over to a table of bandits and announces that he wants to sell his sword arm.

Plausible, simple and direct.

How do the bandits react?

Bhakashal’s encounter reaction system kicks in. The PCs are not in Bhakashal, so many of the modifiers don’t work here, no one in the Inn knows these chuckleheads are Bhakashal lords. They just see a tough looking warrior.

The roll can lead to a number of reactions:

Violence

Hostility

Unfriendly Indifference

Indifference

Friendly Indifference

Friendly

Friendly and curious

Friendly and helpful

Friendly and very helpful

Today I rolled “friendly and helpful”

So why would a group of bandits/mercenaries be friendly and helpful with an outsider who is looking to make some coin?

My job as a referee is to interpret this result.

What I know is that this is a hidden city where bad people go to hide, do nefarious business, trade contraband, buy and sell slaves, and recruit malcontents.

A low roll could have meant they saw him as competition and wanted to take him out, or that one of them had recently been beaten badly and wanted to take out some random guy to show they still had the juice.

But this was a high, positive roll.

I decided that these bandits/mercenaries worked in a group and sold their services to various employers, and they spent a lot of time in Suderham. There are three powerful warlock’s that live in the city and rotate duty on city watch along with a patrol of soldiers and some Yeth hounds.

There’s Hephonal the Ghanite, a 7^th level Yalan (snake folk) Warlock who travels with a pair of charmed wererats, Seu Yirra, a Chitin  (insect folk) Thaumaturge (thief/magic-user) who uses poison and has a Ring of Reptilian Regeneration, and Bowbrak Wikal the Shunned, a 8^th level Togmu (frog folk) Theurgist (fighter/illusionist) with a pet Maroon Dragon.

They are all on call if a serious strike force ever showed up at the city.

One of them, Hephonal the Ghanite, doesn’t like the mercenaries and has hassled them consistently when they are in the city. The bandits see this as the perfect opportunity to either have Hephonal killed without having to do it themselves or at least give him a bloody nose. They can’t confront him directly as he has the authority of the Slave Lords behind him and knows the bandits and their proxies well.

But the PC is a perfect tool.

This one roll has led to:

1.        A new task for the party to fulfill, if they are successful the NPC bandits will share information about the Slave Lords, specifically a secret entrance to their estate that goes underground (essentially A4)

2.        A background for these NPCs, they are sell-swords that run afoul of the city authorities regularly

3.        The party now knows that there are people in the city who are not aligned with the Slave Lords, so they have potential allies they can find and recruit or pump for information.

4.        They have formed an alliance, thus thrusting them into the middle of a factionalized environment and given them new enemies and new allies instantly.

5.        The environment becomes more layered and real, and because this encounter wasn’t planned or forced, they feel like they are discovering something about the game world, rather than being railroaded into finding the Slave Lords and fighting them.

I find this immensely fun, and here’s the best part. When they set out I had NO IDEA how they were going to find and slay the Slave Lords, they planned to find a pirate ship and follow it back to the aerie of the Slave Lords and go from there. Because I didn’t know (and they didn’t know) how they were going to proceed, we discovered it together, in an emergent way.

It didn’t feel like a story being told, it felt like a world being explored.

Using encounter reaction tables and RRTEI, the referee, the dice and the players co-create the game world as they play. Every time this happens I feel a frisson of excitement, it’s an act of spontaneous creation, it feels visceral.

This is the heady wine of table top role playing, it’s exciting, it’s spontaneous, it’s unpredictable, and its immersive.

It’s also adaptive and allows the referee to move forward with minimal prep, building the environment as play occurs.

Bloody awesome.

 

Building Bhakashal – To Sea!

My Thursday group have become Bhakashal nobility, and the task they took on to achieve noble status was to unite the fractured thieves guilds, which they did at the end of last year’s game. This year they have been dealing with the challenges of being in charge of the guild.

They don’t direct day to day things, that’s the responsibility of the Red Arachne, the leader of the newly united guilds. They work at a higher level, and their first few tasks were putting out fires. There were competing factions within the newly united guild that weren’t happy about the change, those loyal to the old Red Arachne. The party rallied those loyal to the new Red Arachne and dealt with the dissenters.

In order to get the votes to give them control over the united guilds, they took on tasks for other nobles to ingratiate themselves. They had to slay two dragon turtles that had been harassing the shipping lanes to return a favor to Umani the Onyx (an 8th lv. Kutya Chimerist), leader of another faction at House Quannar who had helped them with the guild vote.

After that they took on direct guild business, a group of guild bandits had been frustrated by House Tairn marshland patrols. They were sent to put an end to that and failed. And a gyre (raw magic caster, like elemental benders) named Ghanglor Terrik summoned an air elemental and attacked the party with a warning to back off the guilds. While doing that, two NPCs have added themselves to the party through a “chance” encounter, they are spies posing as thankful adventurers the party rescued.

They were next formally challenged in the arena by Riyan The Raze, an 11th Level Emberi Jantu Magus Warlock at House Quannar. Emberi are humans, Jantu Warlocks create magical creatures (like owlbears), “Magus” means she is high level. Bhakashal nobility conflict within and between Noble Houses, and Riyan was unhappy as she used to control the city branch of the thieves guild when it was separate from the Raosk branch. She lost that control to the party. She sent Ghanglor to send a message, and she and Ghanglor fought two of the PCs in the arena. They lost that fight to Riyan’s Rod of Beguiling.

They gave up control of the unite guilds to Riyan to spare their lives in the arena.

There was much discussion as to what to do next. They decided that Riyan would start making demands of them as she had defeated them in the arena, which gave her status that the other nobles would likely reward. So, they decided that it was time to find another task to engage them. They went to Umani, as he was the only other factional leader at House Quannar who had been willing to work directly with the party and support them

They essentially asked Umani what they could do to help him, as they had earned the enmity of Riyan, who had clashed with Umani in the past. When this happens in Bhakashal there are tables to roll on to help to create tasks for the party. In this case it was pirates who were harassing merchant ships. I decided to use A3 and A4, modules in the classic Slavers series, for this. The pirates were slavers and they were raiding in territories where the guild did business. Rather than run the PCs through the whole series of modules, they would travel directly to Suderham and take out the Slave Lords, cut the head off the snake.

They are a high level party, they are more than capable. And that way I get to add some original old-school flavor to the game.

Bhakashal is located in the Pelissio Swamp of Greyhawk. But it is a Greyhawk that would be unrecognizable to most, as there are no dwarves, elves or halflings, no orcs or any of the standard Tolkien creatures. I essentially just use the map, everything else is modified.

The party was travelling to the Pomarj, that meant an ocean voyage.

The House owns several galleys, they were given the Fair Wind:

Fair Wind

Captain Asan Tillmok, Fighter, Saan (lizard folk) Level 6, AC 5 (chain), HP 32, Broadsword (+8/+6), Bardiche (+3/+2), Crossbow (+3/+3)

Magic Items

+1 broadsword, +3 vs large creatures, Wand of Magic Missiles (25)

 (25) Saan crew (AC6, Cutlass [+3/+1], crossbow {+2/+2]) 

 (2) Ballistae – 2 round weapon speed, damage 3d6/3d6, (S300,M750,L600)

 

Ship Warlock: Thila the Reed

AC:6,7th level Cavaral, HP:25,11 spells per day, 

Spells: 

1st level –  Hagellan's Thunderous Staff, Magic Missile, Mar Kassan’s Awesome Armadillo, Shield

2nd level - Control Gasses, Moonsal’s Ichorous Syphon, Stinking Cloud

3rd level - Ammon Marr’s Wall of Talons, Majnar's Metallic Sympathy, The Black Mist of Jax

Magic Items: Wand of Conjuration (6), + 1 Dagger, Broach of the Wolf (transform into Werewolf at night, SD: +1 or better weapon to hit)

Scroll: Feeblemind, Contact Other Plane

Thila is a Cavaral, they specialize in evocation magic and cast their spells with somatic components only, so motions of the body in some combination.

Day 1 they set out to sea I roll for weather, three d20, a blue one for precipitation/cloud cover, a yellow one for wind and a red one for temperature. Bhakashal offers more granular and more simplified travel systems, we decided on the simplified version, if the wind roll is high they move 5 hexes a day, if it is moderate they move 4, if it is low they move 3. They can use rowers or raiks (raiks are creatures that pull the ship), rowers add 1 hex to the day’s travel raiks add 2, but they cannot work two days in a row.

Day 1 the winds were good and they covered 5 hexes, no encounters were rolled.

Day 2 the winds were good again, and they covered 5 hexes, an encounter was rolled but it was with a merchant ship, so they passed without incident. On day 2 they strategized with the captain regarding what to do if they encountered slavers on the water, and where they were going to go when they got to the Pomarj (the slavers were rumored to have a concealed port city they operated out of, but they were uncertain as to exactly where it was, they knew a few possible locations).  The party mercenary (now a Bhakashal Lord) sparred with the sailors and instructed them in the finer points of melee swordfighting.

Day 3 – Low wind day and only 3 hexes covered. The party decided they wanted to take their mounts along on the trip, most ride giant lizards. They keep them in the holds below, but they must make land every 3-4 days and let them out to graze, hunt and stretch their legs or they will start to become agitated and difficult to control. They made land and let the mounts out for a few hours. One of them has a Kestram (a giant bird) as a mount, the Kestram flies ahead, sometimes lands and sits on the back of the ship, and at other times rests on nearby land.

No encounters.

Day 4 – In the Tilva Strait they rolled an encounter, in this case with a giant squid. The PCs were gambling with the crew when the ship suddenly rocked and heaved and tentacles appeared on the side. The squid wrapped it’s tentacles around the ship and began to attack sailors. Fortunately, the attack came during the evening when the party was all awake and no surprise was rolled, so they managed to hack and blast at the tentacles that came over the side and the creature fled.

Day 5 – A huge storm hit, propelling the ship 5 hexes but damaging their rigging and sails. The party warlock had a Fabricate spell that made the repairs fast. No encounters.

Day 6 – A low wind day so they landed to let the mounts roam. No encounters.

Day 7 – The party dined at the captain’s table then discussed tactics with Thila the Reed, they have had some problems coordinating spell casting and melee, and they didn’t want to get mixed up in combat, also, they wanted to know what she could do in a fight. Thila was a House warlock, so she was willing to share the majority of her spells with the party. No encounters.

Day 8 – High wind day, party rolled an encounter with a large whale, there was no surprise so it was spotted a good distance away, whales generally don’t harass a ship unless it pursues them, and they decided to steer clear.

Day 9 – A moderate wind day so the captain put the rowers to work to get them a full 5 hexes on, they made land for a stop in for the mounts. An encounter was rolled, they were on land and it was with a group of hunters. They saw the ship in the water and the large group on the shore with giant lizard mounts and decided to approach cautiously. The party invited them over to join them in a meal (they had taken the opportunity to hunt while their mounts were grazing). The party asked about slaver activities in the area and were told that slavers were quite active across the gulf, and were actively raiding on the coast. They had fought off a slaver party themselves a few weeks ago.

Day 10 – A moderate wind day but captain Tilmok decided to save the rowers in case they ended up encountering any slavers or pirates while crossing the gulf. They can’t cross the ocean directly as this would have them off land for too long, so they had to cross the gulf and get to the coast then move up the coast. This put them in slaver’s territory, so they were going to be cautious! No encounter.

Day 11 – It was windy and stormy; they travelled 5 hexes but rolled an encounter with sahuagin! Fortunately, there was no surprise, but they rolled 80 sahuagin approaching. If they made it to the ship that would be a bloodbath, Sahuagin are 2HD to the 0HD of the sailors, and in large numbers they are deadly. Captain Tilmok had the entire crew fire crossbows and the ballistae fired to try and discourage the sea-devils. He also has a Wand of Magic Missiles, and he targeted what appeared to be leaders from a great distance, hoping to dissuade them. Unfortunately, all of the party spell casters were sleeping at this time, a mistake they won’t repeat, so there was no spell casting at them when they were at a distance.

The sahuagin reached the ship quickly and began to climb up the sides. By this time everyone was on deck, and this gave the party one more shot at reacting to the creatures before they were on deck.

The party warlock angled a Lightning Bolt spell and took out 4. The party conjuror cast an Emyar the Ashen’s Ebony Coils spell and summoned 10 tentacles from another world, they wreaked havoc with the sea-devils, crushing many, damaging others and sending them back to the ocean. Thila the Reed cast Stinking Cloud and took out 5 more. The sailors were ready when the sea-devils came up over the sides, as were the party tanks, who managed multiple attacks on the beasts slaying many.

At this point I rolled for morale, as they had slain a number of the creatures, and they failed morale, fleeing back into the ocean.

Disaster averted.

Day 12 – Moderate wind and a storm, no encounters, no damage to ship. Several rounds of Onitawa (a chess variant) with the ship’s captain and the party warlock made for good RP fun.

Day 13 -  An encounter is rolled with a pirate ship, an additional roll determines this is a slaver ship. The party spots the ship and gains surprise, so the ship doesn’t spot them. They decide they are probably pirates but they aren’t sure if they are slavers, and they decide to follow at a discrete distance using the Kestram as a scout to keep track of the ship. They deliberately lay anchor and wait for the ship to gain distance so they don’t get spotted.

Day 14 – They set in to land to feed the mounts so they can sustain a pursuit of the slavers, no encounter.

We stopped there.

Ocean travel is one of my player’s favorite pastimes. While things cool off back home, they get to explore a bit and see the game world. They enjoy the role play interactions with the ship’s crew, and over time they become protective of the sailors and friends with the captain and the ship spell caster. They like to gamble, gain information and otherwise engage with the crew. The weather effects travel times and can even damage the ship.

If they follow this slaver ship at a distance they can go directly to Suderham to confront the Slave Lords, but they may decide to peel off at some point if they aren’t convinced these are slavers.

Adventure awaits!

 

 

Building Bhakashal – Letting it Ride – Spell Casting Edition

Something happened in our Thursday game that got me thinking. We had a new player start three sessions ago. He created a spellcaster (a conjuror) and was stoked to use his new powers. 

In the first session he played in, he decided to cast a summoning spell. Now, these spells are his bread and butter, his primary class ability, like illusions are for illusionists and fireballs are for regular magic-users. Unfortunately, the action ended before the monsters showed up. In the second session, he tried casting a long casting time spell in melee and was struck by a crossbow bolt, disrupting the spell.  By the time he figured out what to cast next the fight had ended. 

Last session he and the party were on a ship (I will be typing up a session report soon), and they encountered a horde of 80 sahuagin. The sea-devils were approaching their ship, and everyone knew that if they got on board it would be a bloodbath

Missile fire (crossbows and ballistae) met the approaching creatures and took out a few, but not many. The new PC decided to cast Emyar the Ashen’s Ebony Coils, Bhakashal’s version of Evard’s Black Tentacles. It took a while to cast, so he had his henchmen shield him

The sahuagin started climbing the sides of the ship, and the black tentacles of the spell emerged from the water and started to strike/coil around the sea-devils. Some were crushed to death, some were damaged. An 8^th level conjuror casts all conjuration spells as if 10^th level

So, there were 10 tentacles, and the saving throws of the sahuagin were high enough that many failed and were coiled up and crushed. A lightning bolt from the party warlock took out a few, as did a stinking cloud from the ships caster (a Cavaral, specialist in evocation magic)

When the sahuagin came up over the sides the crew were ready and managed to take out a few, the party tanks got multiple attacks and took out a few each. Even the crew got lucky, I rolled well and they slayed a number of the attackers

But he writhing tendrils of the Emyar’s spell were the most effective, and our new player was a badass.

Now, here’s the thing.

It took 3 sessions until he got to “shine” and really show off at the table.

I regularly see advice on socials that suggests that each character should get a chance to shine in each session, that the referee should be tweaking things, so change a roll to ensure that the new player’s PC casts their spell, or that their monsters arrive sooner. And this was a new player, wasn’t I risking their interest in the game if their PC struck out several times in their first few gaming sessions? "No one wants to be useless in the game, particularly a new player", I see advice like this all the time, bemoaning sleep and paralyzation effects as they take out PCs, or complaining about the spell casting rules as they allow interruption. 

I also see lots of advice about retaining player interest and giving them “wins”, particularly for new players. Why would I let him fail so often when he was just starting to play the game?

Thing is, I know a secret. In AD&D 1e things are swingy. Yes, he missed the mark a few times, but he also learned from his mistakes. Between sessions he read his spells, he figured out that long casting time spells were a problem.

He realized that AOE mattered to the spell (a Fireball in the situation where he used Emyar’s would have been disastrous), and so did range. He had his henchmen protect him so he would improve his odds of casting. In short, he learned from his failures. So, by session 4, he could move all the pieces together to pull off a badass spell casting win. I could have given him that win in his first session, and the temptation is always there, particularly with new players. But instead, I didn't interfere and eventually he pulled it off WITHOUT MY HELP.

And that, dear readers, is the difference. 

He struggled for several sessions but eventually figured out the system well enough to pull of a spectacular win. And he felt both the struggle and the win. The win felt significant as he knew how hard it was to pull it off. 

He EARNED it, and he KNEW that he earned it, without any help from me.

When we were wrapping up, I asked him how it felt to have kicked some ass, and he didn’t hesitate, he told me that it was sweet, he had struggled for a few sessions, but finally he figured it out, and it felt amazing. He admitted he was worried about 1e AD&D as opposed to 5e (he had played a few sessions of 5e), and that AD&D would be harder, but he preferred the old-school experience, as it felt like an achievement to pull it off.

Never cheapen victory by tweaking results.

Let them fail, let them struggle, because this will make their successes so much sweeter. The new player was over the moon when he left yesterday, and the party did a lot of back-slapping and hooting and hollering about it. He was the big shot that day, and it felt amazing. I heard them talking as they left, he asked one of the other players if he thought I had “helped” him to succeed with the spell, they pointed out that all rolls were in public and the fight was outlined on the map so I couldn't tweak things, and they added that, "Ian NEVER helps us to win, we win on our own."

That’s the stuff.

Full session report to follow.