I’ve been working on a new Delving Deeper [Rules Links, Hypertext, Lulu] campaign that will use Roll20. It’s first session will be Thursday, September 12, 2019.

I discussed it in my last podcast episode, Episode 152 – Thursday Thoughts – Arneson, Feedback, & New Campaign.

Background

I’ve liked Delving Deeper ever since I encountered it on G+ in 2015 or so. It makes for a good system for convention games for quick at the table character generation. I like it so much that when there is free shipping at Lulu, I buy 5 or 6 copies at once to take to conventions to sell at cost. Every con game I use Delving Deeper, every player eagerly grabs a copy.

Adam Muszkiewicz of Dispatches From Kickassistan and I gushed about it when we met at Marmalade Dog in 2015. Here’s my write up of that con.

The Campaign

My desire to run a sandbox hexcrawl & dungeon crawl with procedural generation for prep and at the table has finally borne fruit. I’m pulling out all the stops and using all the tables from RPG books (DMG, Dungeon Alphabet, d30 Sandbox & GM Companions, my own PDFs, Table Fables & Table Fables II, etc.) [Affiliate Links] and PDFs for as many ideas as possible. I have several card decks for wilderness generation, dungeon generation, Game Masters Apprentice, and many more. I’ll use my Inkwell Ideas Dungeon Dice and Village Dice, and Rory’s Story Cubes, etc. Plus I’ll toss in all the cool ideas I’ve always wanted to put in a game. Nothing is held back. It only remains for the characters to find them. Any new idea I have will be put closer to the starting point.

It is also a drop-in/drop out game so while many can only commit to bi-weekly, I have a weekly schedule for the first few sessions.

Danger abounds. Combat is deadly and encounters are not leveled. Awesome magic and powerful beings may be encountered at low level. Mucking about in the ruins of an ancient civilization can lead to discovering powerful items that are dangerous to all concerned.

Preparation

To prepare for the game I am focusing on building an organized framework to help me find information and various tables for ad hoc generation. I’ve put in 50 or so hours, mostly populating GM tools in Roll20, typing up ideas, and organizing various PDFs. (My PDFs are organized, but I made new shortcuts for the PDFs I most want to reference and put in a new folder on my desktop.)

I’m using a simple character sheet in Roll20. I made handouts with links to Delving Deeper information, and my YouTube series, Roll20 for the Absolute Beginner. Other handouts allow the players to keep notes about people and places, party loot, etc. I have created folders for any eventual maps, books, documents, or other things they might acquire.

For the GM I copied all the most relevant tables from Delving Deeper with a page number reference. I used a spreadsheet someone made. I lost the reference to who, but here’s the link. I much prefer copy & paste to typing something that exists in electronic form. In addition, all the player tables that are needed in play I put in the player section of handouts. I didn’t include all the ability related tables, as one doesn’t usually need them after character creation is finished.

I created a Campaign wiki at https://campaignwiki.org/. I offered players 100 XP per page of useful information they add.

I also made a spreadsheet to help calculate encumbrance and remaining gold from starting gold. I built it when I played in Cody Mazza’s Barromaze [Affiliate Link] game that uses Delving Deeper.

For campaign scheduling I made a Google Calendar with all of the dates the initial players indicated would work.

The first level of the dungeon starts with an interesting idea I had while working on the campaign. I used the Delorfano Protocols to generate some of the early rooms which had a fortuitous room generation that guided the bulk of the level. The 1e DMG random dungeon generation tables added some cool stuff too. Plus I let my imagination loose. I then used Delving Deeper to populate rooms/areas.

Currently I’m working on a carousing table and avoiding all the sexual innuendo and blatant sexual topics of so many tables I have found online. A discussion on the Audio Dungeon Discord, home to many RPG/OSR Anchor Podcasters, suggested downtime activities instead. That is, activities adventurers can pursue when they are in town instead of in the wilderness or dungeon. The general consensus was spending gp on a one for one basis for XP. I will keep the carousing table and add tables for warriors, wizards, and priests to do their non-carousing activities. I’m working out boons and detriments, I guess banes and boons is more alliterative, for the downtime tables.

I like the idea from Cody Mazza’s Barromaze [Affiliate Link] game where you don’t roll on the table if you save vs. poison. Fail your save and risk something on the table. Ray Otus’s elf got cursed and turned into a goblin. He is stuck until the curse is removed.

Elevator Pitch

Delvers’ Deep is a large complex of dungeons, tombs, ruins, pits, caverns, shafts, tunnels, and more.

Most just call it The Deep. It gets it’s name from the many deep natural and manufactured pits and shafts. 

Some are claimed to be bottomless, or to go to the end of the world.

The Deep lies several days west the town of Crossway. Crossway lies at the crossroads of The King’s Way and the ancient Dwarf Road. Both Crossway and Delvington are an eclectic mix of races as it is near a crossroads leading to a hilly and mountainous region that borders The Deep. There is a forested area nearby where lumber for the “mining” and other work of Delvers intent on finding the riches of The Deep. Lumberton is the lumber camp/town.

Near a relatively safe entrance to the dungeon is a small village with the feel of a boom town called Delvington.

East Gate Tavern is the last safe building inside the walls on the Eastern edge of Delvington. East Gate Tavern is a hangout for adventurers, commonly called Delvers. Delvington has walls, towers, gates, and guards. 

To the west are hills and mountains. The deep lies largely in the hills between Delvington and the mountains of the Dwarven Kingdom. The ancient Dwarf Road comes from the North Pass of the mountains and through The Deep. 

To the south is the great forest. The King’s Way passes through the forest, home of the elves, Verdant Vale, and it crosses the mountains at South Pass.

Glory and riches at the risk of life and limb await.

Conclusion

I’m so pumped about running a regular game, I haven’t run or played in a regular game in nearly a year. Life and work stuff derailed it. I can’t make my Wednesday night group for the foreseeable future.

I will do my best to document and share things.

I want to share many things about the campaign, but I don’t want to spoil anything for the players. I’ll share things as they encounter them. I’ll either talk about it on Saturday episodes of the podcast, or blog about it. One thing’s for sure, I’ll have to either record Thursday’s podcast episode the day before, or rapidly between the end of work and start of the game.