Designing for the Cauldron
WHATS GOING ON HERE
I have been invited to a Con in Germany called 'Cauldron'
https://cauldron.pesa-nexus.de/en/home/
and my mum said I should go so I am going. I will be picked up in Frankfurt and driven to a castle in the middle of Bavaria.... For several days.. I am sure everything will be fine...
Anyway they asked me to run something;
"the general idea is to play mostly FLAILSNAILS compatible sessions, so that a player can play his character across the convention. .... The minimum requirement for any game system during the weekend is to award gold & treasure in the adventure commensurate with the challenges & dangers, i. e. an "XP for gold"-standard, roughly following B/X, 1e or OD&D tables in value."
So, now I must dig through my mental 'bits box' to put together... something. A four-hour FLAILSNAILS session at least..
Lets think about some possible concepts;
1. GIANTS IN THE ACID SEA
A dungeon, or a series of dungeons, set 'on' the bodies of some enormous stony giants who are wading across a sea of acid. (So you can't just jump off).
Though, the problem of what to do if or when someone fals off a giant, and if or how they might get back on, would be tricky.
Mapping would also be tricky; the backs and top of the heads would be relatively easy but climbing around the torsos and faces and under the chins would be hard to depictand YES its just 'Shadow of the Colossus' or whatever was going on with those Zelda dungeons.
If its for a Con, the time factor of the giants wading the acid sea could be a neat limit. Say you leap onto a Giant as they enter the Acid Sea and have until they wade across to complete your mission. We could just say there is a real-time time limit.
Maybe they are gradually wading so deep that only the tops of their heads are exposed and you need to jump back on the airship before they go completely underwater, or they reach the deep part of the sea precisely half-way through the session, with parts of the giants becoming un-navigable up to that point, with all the surviving creatures on the giants gradually forced up to the crown of their giant heads, then after the middle of the session the 'maps' slowly open up again until they reach the shore, then you can climb down a leg and exit via the heel.
You can jump from giant to giant. They have treasure on them, like earrings or crumbs of gold in their hair. Or you have a mission of some kind to find something.
Probably they have small temples or castles on the tops of each head and you can fire catapults or cannons from crown to crown.
For some reason I was imagining this as a knock-out 'vs' game with rival teams of adventurers clambering over the giants and trying to take each other out. Or maybe a rival tomb, or crown-robbing expedition where you leap onto the giants feet right at the start and everyone is racing to make it to the top, but also you can 'board' or jump onto other giants who are also stumbling along.
2. THE ROPE BRIDGE BROKE
An adventure starts mis-en scene with the party in the middle of a rope bridge, they are in the middle of a fight or adventure, the bridge snaps and two half's of the group are flung to either side of the ravine.
Its entirely random who ends up on which side of the ravine. Though the groups are relatively equal in number.
From that point on its a journey up along the river/ravine. The aim of the party is to get back together (maybe each half of the party has half of a magical McGuffin
There is a group of bad guys, a specific group, with their own identity and rituals. Presumably they also want the McGuffin (both halves).
Probably the cliffs to both sides have various tombs, statues and complexes worked into the stone, so you can run along the cliff top, or if threatened, or that becomes impassable, climb across the statues and run through the tunnels of the cliffside.
(Maybe there are giants or trolls up there throwing boulders for fun so you don't want to skyline).
The main challenge in this case is not getting past any particular problem but getting past it *quickly* and without burning a lot of resources.
Probably the enemy group is pursuing you and, since the terrain on each side of the ravine is very lumpy, the PCs on the *opposite* side can see the people pursuing you, and even shoot at them, while you can't see them yourself, and visa-versa. So part of the game might be combining your efforts to aid each other.
The end-game is you need to get to the stone bridge further upstream, but when you get there there is a big monster or something waiting and you will need to work together and hopefully use the stuff you grabbed as you ran through the tombs to fight it.
3. A RACING GAME....
this is kind of blissfully dumb but could stripmine Gaslands for rules, instead of cars, use magic animals. Players can pick toys to choose which animal their PC is riding. All PCs retain their powers and skills.
Now their job is to win a race. Maybe they are racing for the hand of the Infinite Princess. But its an apocalyptic deathrace 2000 pod race kind of thing, with lots of encounters and strange terrain, treasure and tools hanging around plus problems its really hard to overcome without teaming up with other players, plus orc racer gang on pigs.
Will the PCs work together or try to beat each other to the finish line? Coolness of prizes goes in order of finishing so being ahead of someone might get you more XP or fun magical stuff for the next adventure.
4. LOOT THE SINKING SHIP
A ship is a nice, contained and explicable shape. A sinking ship having four real-time hours before it fully sinks and you need to get away from it to escape being dragged down. Advancing fish-creatures or mer-people. Interesting time-sensitive choices between things i.e. do you release prisoners or search for treasure.
You might have to fight the crew, or choose between fighting or saving the crew.
5. STOP THE MEMETIC PLAGUE
This is one, really designed specifically to be a nightmare for EVERY OTHER DM AT THE CON.
I don't know exactly how it works but there is some kind of memetic plague, maybe something that trades power for slow degradation and transmittabillaty. Like Vampirism except faster and more fun, like Fireball Vamparism where someone gets the ability to cast 'Fireball' but its transmissible and wants to keep being cast. (Also its slowly killing you).
Maybe the fire itself is the medium of transmission.
But if the PCs screw up and the 'infection' gets out of this particular game (like the Zombie survivor who gets bitten but doesn't tell anyone), then it can 'infect' every other game at the CON that those survivors get to, and then pass on, and on, absolutely destroying Germanies FLAILSNAILS scene, if such a think exists.
I suppose a good basis for this would be the 'Fire at the Laboratory' adventure. Maybe a wizards black tower, or worse, an interdimensional TARDIS-like lair, but its burning down. (A fire burning in an interdimensional place might be fascinating). The PCs have to make choices about fighting the fire, looting the place, not getting infected by the Fireball plague, (or 'getting' infected if they are sneaky).
The Wizards wierd mutant experiments getting out, or maybe you want to let them out, they are just experimental animals after all, its not their fault they are locked in a burning TARDIS.
The interdimensional nature of the space makes incorporation into a FLAILSNAILS setting pretty simple since PCs could easily be vomited out wherever. It also means creatures and NPCs could 'escape' into other games, or that people or things from other games could show up in this one, having accidentally wandered in, or having been captured or whatever.
6 - One of these OLD POSTS turned into an adventure somehow;
THE WATCHMAKERS WIFE
WHO CAN STOP THE WORLDS MOST EVIL DOG?
AN ADVENTURE IN XOPHT
THE STOLEN SKIN OF SUN
YOU MAY VOTE OR COMMENT IF YOU WISH
I have been invited to a Con in Germany called 'Cauldron'
https://cauldron.pesa-nexus.de/en/home/
and my mum said I should go so I am going. I will be picked up in Frankfurt and driven to a castle in the middle of Bavaria.... For several days.. I am sure everything will be fine...
Anyway they asked me to run something;
"the general idea is to play mostly FLAILSNAILS compatible sessions, so that a player can play his character across the convention. .... The minimum requirement for any game system during the weekend is to award gold & treasure in the adventure commensurate with the challenges & dangers, i. e. an "XP for gold"-standard, roughly following B/X, 1e or OD&D tables in value."
So, now I must dig through my mental 'bits box' to put together... something. A four-hour FLAILSNAILS session at least..
Lets think about some possible concepts;
1. GIANTS IN THE ACID SEA
A dungeon, or a series of dungeons, set 'on' the bodies of some enormous stony giants who are wading across a sea of acid. (So you can't just jump off).
Though, the problem of what to do if or when someone fals off a giant, and if or how they might get back on, would be tricky.
Mapping would also be tricky; the backs and top of the heads would be relatively easy but climbing around the torsos and faces and under the chins would be hard to depictand YES its just 'Shadow of the Colossus' or whatever was going on with those Zelda dungeons.
If its for a Con, the time factor of the giants wading the acid sea could be a neat limit. Say you leap onto a Giant as they enter the Acid Sea and have until they wade across to complete your mission. We could just say there is a real-time time limit.
Maybe they are gradually wading so deep that only the tops of their heads are exposed and you need to jump back on the airship before they go completely underwater, or they reach the deep part of the sea precisely half-way through the session, with parts of the giants becoming un-navigable up to that point, with all the surviving creatures on the giants gradually forced up to the crown of their giant heads, then after the middle of the session the 'maps' slowly open up again until they reach the shore, then you can climb down a leg and exit via the heel.
You can jump from giant to giant. They have treasure on them, like earrings or crumbs of gold in their hair. Or you have a mission of some kind to find something.
Probably they have small temples or castles on the tops of each head and you can fire catapults or cannons from crown to crown.
For some reason I was imagining this as a knock-out 'vs' game with rival teams of adventurers clambering over the giants and trying to take each other out. Or maybe a rival tomb, or crown-robbing expedition where you leap onto the giants feet right at the start and everyone is racing to make it to the top, but also you can 'board' or jump onto other giants who are also stumbling along.
2. THE ROPE BRIDGE BROKE
An adventure starts mis-en scene with the party in the middle of a rope bridge, they are in the middle of a fight or adventure, the bridge snaps and two half's of the group are flung to either side of the ravine.
Its entirely random who ends up on which side of the ravine. Though the groups are relatively equal in number.
From that point on its a journey up along the river/ravine. The aim of the party is to get back together (maybe each half of the party has half of a magical McGuffin
There is a group of bad guys, a specific group, with their own identity and rituals. Presumably they also want the McGuffin (both halves).
Probably the cliffs to both sides have various tombs, statues and complexes worked into the stone, so you can run along the cliff top, or if threatened, or that becomes impassable, climb across the statues and run through the tunnels of the cliffside.
(Maybe there are giants or trolls up there throwing boulders for fun so you don't want to skyline).
The main challenge in this case is not getting past any particular problem but getting past it *quickly* and without burning a lot of resources.
Probably the enemy group is pursuing you and, since the terrain on each side of the ravine is very lumpy, the PCs on the *opposite* side can see the people pursuing you, and even shoot at them, while you can't see them yourself, and visa-versa. So part of the game might be combining your efforts to aid each other.
The end-game is you need to get to the stone bridge further upstream, but when you get there there is a big monster or something waiting and you will need to work together and hopefully use the stuff you grabbed as you ran through the tombs to fight it.
3. A RACING GAME....
this is kind of blissfully dumb but could stripmine Gaslands for rules, instead of cars, use magic animals. Players can pick toys to choose which animal their PC is riding. All PCs retain their powers and skills.
Now their job is to win a race. Maybe they are racing for the hand of the Infinite Princess. But its an apocalyptic deathrace 2000 pod race kind of thing, with lots of encounters and strange terrain, treasure and tools hanging around plus problems its really hard to overcome without teaming up with other players, plus orc racer gang on pigs.
Will the PCs work together or try to beat each other to the finish line? Coolness of prizes goes in order of finishing so being ahead of someone might get you more XP or fun magical stuff for the next adventure.
4. LOOT THE SINKING SHIP
A ship is a nice, contained and explicable shape. A sinking ship having four real-time hours before it fully sinks and you need to get away from it to escape being dragged down. Advancing fish-creatures or mer-people. Interesting time-sensitive choices between things i.e. do you release prisoners or search for treasure.
You might have to fight the crew, or choose between fighting or saving the crew.
5. STOP THE MEMETIC PLAGUE
This is one, really designed specifically to be a nightmare for EVERY OTHER DM AT THE CON.
I don't know exactly how it works but there is some kind of memetic plague, maybe something that trades power for slow degradation and transmittabillaty. Like Vampirism except faster and more fun, like Fireball Vamparism where someone gets the ability to cast 'Fireball' but its transmissible and wants to keep being cast. (Also its slowly killing you).
Maybe the fire itself is the medium of transmission.
But if the PCs screw up and the 'infection' gets out of this particular game (like the Zombie survivor who gets bitten but doesn't tell anyone), then it can 'infect' every other game at the CON that those survivors get to, and then pass on, and on, absolutely destroying Germanies FLAILSNAILS scene, if such a think exists.
I suppose a good basis for this would be the 'Fire at the Laboratory' adventure. Maybe a wizards black tower, or worse, an interdimensional TARDIS-like lair, but its burning down. (A fire burning in an interdimensional place might be fascinating). The PCs have to make choices about fighting the fire, looting the place, not getting infected by the Fireball plague, (or 'getting' infected if they are sneaky).
The Wizards wierd mutant experiments getting out, or maybe you want to let them out, they are just experimental animals after all, its not their fault they are locked in a burning TARDIS.
The interdimensional nature of the space makes incorporation into a FLAILSNAILS setting pretty simple since PCs could easily be vomited out wherever. It also means creatures and NPCs could 'escape' into other games, or that people or things from other games could show up in this one, having accidentally wandered in, or having been captured or whatever.
6 - One of these OLD POSTS turned into an adventure somehow;
THE WATCHMAKERS WIFE
WHO CAN STOP THE WORLDS MOST EVIL DOG?
AN ADVENTURE IN XOPHT
THE STOLEN SKIN OF SUN
YOU MAY VOTE OR COMMENT IF YOU WISH
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