As cool as Arden Vul is, I found the Long Stair very frustrating. It creates this weird barrier to even getting started that I didn't find fun or engaging. While it does do a great job of setting the scene, it also presents an oddly annoying and illogical start to the entire thing. A few things I noted on my first reading that baffled me, which you also noted:
1. Arden has to be spoken in Mithric? Is this a Heracles vs Hercules kind of thing? That's a pretty picky magic statue.
2.Speaking of the statue, if it's a magic elevator, why the hell is the hand stopping 100' off the valley floor? I feel like either there should have been a broken stair leading to the hand, or some kind of reason given why it's in such a weird position beyond making it a hassle for the players to get to.
3. Since this is the very first thing you're going to run in this entire module, besides the town if you want to actually start there instead of in media res, I feel like these 5 pages should have been polished to a mirror shine. The fact that the daytime table was split across two pages that require a page turn is such a basic layout sin that could have easily been correct with some more aggressive editing.
Totally agree about the lack of polish. The approach is basically you're sure that every table is going to do, and they're going to do it first, so I think you really want to make sure that this shows your best work.
1. Yeah it's bizarre. I noticed that in the 3d6dtl playthrough, Jon also didn't bother with the Mithric requirement.
2. I'll edit the post to include this, but if you check the map, the long stair is ~100ft above the level of the valley when it is under Arden's hand in the image. So, if Arden's hand is actually 100ft above the valley in the down position, then they should be walking *right under* the hand as they climb the long stair.
In either case, it would be very helpful for Barton to mechanically describe the cliff face if he expects folks are going to rock climb. The 1e DMG has a wall climbing table on p19. It asks the GM to determine if the surface is "non-slippery", "slightly slippery" or "slippery", and if the wall is "very smooth", "smooth", "fairly rough" or "rough", and then you look up the feet per round of moment, and the thief needs to roll their climb check each round. For example, fairly rough+slippery is 6' of movement per round whereas rough and slightly slippery is 12' of movement per round. If the hand is ~400ft above the long stair, that's the difference between 67 checks (0.002% success chance) and 33 checks (0.5% success chance).
Your work here actually inspired me to redo pages 75-79 in a more usable style just as a challenge. I'll post it to the /r/osr reddit (probably later today). When I do I'll edit this comment and throw a link for any future visitors, if they are interested in a revised version. I'm going to do my best to organize and keep changes to a minimum.
--Updated Edit--
At the request of the publishers of Arden Vul, I removed my post. I apologize to anyone who might have wanted to see it at some future date. Copyright law is prickly. While I feel what I posted constitutes fair use, I do not wish to get into a fight over a reformat.
For people who might find or revisit this blog post in the future, At the request of Joseph Browning, publisher of Arden Vul, I’ve taken down the reddit post. While I respectfully disagree, I fully acknowledge his rights as the publisher and am not going to contest his objection.
Another quick thing for prospective AV GMs: Barton later clarified there is supposed to be a bridge crossing the river near the Tower of Madness. This enables access to the west side of the falls.
I refuse to use Facebook, which is where I think Barton does most of his communication, so having folks let me know of stuff that happens there is really helpful
Interestingly enough, when I discovered that there's no adequate path to the west side in the book, I decided against putting bridge near the Tower of Madness and placed it in Gosterwick.
Imagining that water mist should cover what lies across the river, so in my mind, options for players to go on much dangerous route with all of risky climbing, lion and lizardmen with cultists shouldn't be so obvious right at the start.
But for players that put additional effort asking about rumours, discovering it could be a reward by itself. Or they could hear about it on top from Kronos and be kinda familiar with their surroundings at that time.
Is it just me, or does it seem like nobody in the OSR scene is revisiting the rules for sages? They could be very useful in a sandbox game, and they open up some great opportunities for treasure, problem-solving, player-driven content, and stronghold building.
First, I'd dispense with the location and class restrictions. Finding a Sage could be an adventure all its own, instead of just going to the library. Seeking out the mystical woodland hermit or the reclusive oracle of the mountain is just cooler than visiting a local library. Sages might also be found in dungeons as captives, servants of evil beings, frozen in stasis, as wandering NPCs studying the dungeon, and so on.
Second, narrow the list of specialties down to the most game-able stuff. Boil it down to History, Religion, Magic/Arcana, Beasts & Monsters, Plants, and a few subspecialties within each. History subspecialties might be the history of a given region or demihuman race, for example.
Third, simplify the system a bit. Each Sage has a Specialty and a Subspecialty, and a Knowledge stat which is represented by %. Roll 10d10 to determine their base Knowledge; this is their chance of knowing the answer to a General question. Specific questions have half this chance, and Exacting questions one quarter this chance. Double the chance for questions in the sage's subspecialty, and half it for questions outside the Sage's specialty.
The Sage's Knowledge can be improved by giving them new reading material, facilities, etc: for every 5,000 GP worth of new equipment directly related to their Specialty (books, lab equipment, specimens, facilities, etc) roll d100. If the equipment is not related to their specialty (say you looted a general-purpose library, or a laboratory of equipment not belonging to that sage's specialty), roll twice and take the lower. If the material is definitely new to the sage, such as a one-of-a-kind text or artifact, don't bother rolling. If you roll over the Sage's Knowledge, add 1d10 to their Knowledge stat.
General questions take 1 week to answer, Specific questions 2 weeks, and Exacting questions 4 weeks. Reduce this by 1 week if the question is in the Sage's specialty. Reduce it by 2 weeks if the question is in the Sage's subspecialty. 0 Weeks or less implies the sage can immediately recall the information.
I still think that's all way too heavy still (though definitely lighter than the DMG).
At the end of the day, the players want the answer to some question they have, and we just need to decide whether or not the person they're asking knows, how much money it they charge (if any), and how long it takes for them to get back with the answer.
My favorite version (and what I use in my home games) comes from OED-Expanded
- For a general topic that the GM knows the answer to already, it takes d6 hours
- For a general topic that the GM needs to invent the answer to, it takes d6 days
- For a specific topic that the GM knows the answer to already, it takes d6 days
- For a specific topic that the GM needs to invent the answer to, it takes d6 weeks
And then use whatever the daily wage for sages is. For example, if the party hands the the sage a magic sword and asks "what are the magic properties of this sword", that's a specific topic that I already know the answer to, so it takes d6 days.
I would not use sages for magic item identification. I agree that it makes more sense to just tell the players what the thing does, assuming they discover its features through experimentation.
I am personally rather attached to the idea of building out a hired sage's library, so I like the idea of sages having a stat that can be improved with investment. I think it's a potentially fun creative exercise and a great money-sink. In fact, I'd be open to allowing players to become sages themselves with an investment of downtime and building a nice library. It reminds me of Gus L's Crystal Frontier rules for spell research and library benefits for magic users (buried somewhere in the bowels of his blog). Perhaps I just like the idea of all those ancient tablets and musty tomes we find in dungeon libraries being put to good use.
Just a big old list of words which, if immediately preceding or following what looks like a room reference, mean that it isn't actually one. A few like "damage" and "gp" do a lot of heavy lifting, but I got pretty heavily into diminishing returns by the end of the list.
As cool as Arden Vul is, I found the Long Stair very frustrating. It creates this weird barrier to even getting started that I didn't find fun or engaging. While it does do a great job of setting the scene, it also presents an oddly annoying and illogical start to the entire thing. A few things I noted on my first reading that baffled me, which you also noted:
1. Arden has to be spoken in Mithric? Is this a Heracles vs Hercules kind of thing? That's a pretty picky magic statue.
2.Speaking of the statue, if it's a magic elevator, why the hell is the hand stopping 100' off the valley floor? I feel like either there should have been a broken stair leading to the hand, or some kind of reason given why it's in such a weird position beyond making it a hassle for the players to get to.
3. Since this is the very first thing you're going to run in this entire module, besides the town if you want to actually start there instead of in media res, I feel like these 5 pages should have been polished to a mirror shine. The fact that the daytime table was split across two pages that require a page turn is such a basic layout sin that could have easily been correct with some more aggressive editing.
Great read as always Beau!
Howdy Michael, welcome back!
Totally agree about the lack of polish. The approach is basically you're sure that every table is going to do, and they're going to do it first, so I think you really want to make sure that this shows your best work.
1. Yeah it's bizarre. I noticed that in the 3d6dtl playthrough, Jon also didn't bother with the Mithric requirement.
2. I'll edit the post to include this, but if you check the map, the long stair is ~100ft above the level of the valley when it is under Arden's hand in the image. So, if Arden's hand is actually 100ft above the valley in the down position, then they should be walking *right under* the hand as they climb the long stair.
In either case, it would be very helpful for Barton to mechanically describe the cliff face if he expects folks are going to rock climb. The 1e DMG has a wall climbing table on p19. It asks the GM to determine if the surface is "non-slippery", "slightly slippery" or "slippery", and if the wall is "very smooth", "smooth", "fairly rough" or "rough", and then you look up the feet per round of moment, and the thief needs to roll their climb check each round. For example, fairly rough+slippery is 6' of movement per round whereas rough and slightly slippery is 12' of movement per round. If the hand is ~400ft above the long stair, that's the difference between 67 checks (0.002% success chance) and 33 checks (0.5% success chance).
Your work here actually inspired me to redo pages 75-79 in a more usable style just as a challenge. I'll post it to the /r/osr reddit (probably later today). When I do I'll edit this comment and throw a link for any future visitors, if they are interested in a revised version. I'm going to do my best to organize and keep changes to a minimum.
--Updated Edit--
At the request of the publishers of Arden Vul, I removed my post. I apologize to anyone who might have wanted to see it at some future date. Copyright law is prickly. While I feel what I posted constitutes fair use, I do not wish to get into a fight over a reformat.
The madman actually did it
this is fantastic
For people who might find or revisit this blog post in the future, At the request of Joseph Browning, publisher of Arden Vul, I’ve taken down the reddit post. While I respectfully disagree, I fully acknowledge his rights as the publisher and am not going to contest his objection.
Another quick thing for prospective AV GMs: Barton later clarified there is supposed to be a bridge crossing the river near the Tower of Madness. This enables access to the west side of the falls.
That's helpful! Thanks David. Also, shout out to your youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HugsuRSRZpc); really solid adventure reviews.
I refuse to use Facebook, which is where I think Barton does most of his communication, so having folks let me know of stuff that happens there is really helpful
Interestingly enough, when I discovered that there's no adequate path to the west side in the book, I decided against putting bridge near the Tower of Madness and placed it in Gosterwick.
Imagining that water mist should cover what lies across the river, so in my mind, options for players to go on much dangerous route with all of risky climbing, lion and lizardmen with cultists shouldn't be so obvious right at the start.
But for players that put additional effort asking about rumours, discovering it could be a reward by itself. Or they could hear about it on top from Kronos and be kinda familiar with their surroundings at that time.
Is it just me, or does it seem like nobody in the OSR scene is revisiting the rules for sages? They could be very useful in a sandbox game, and they open up some great opportunities for treasure, problem-solving, player-driven content, and stronghold building.
First, I'd dispense with the location and class restrictions. Finding a Sage could be an adventure all its own, instead of just going to the library. Seeking out the mystical woodland hermit or the reclusive oracle of the mountain is just cooler than visiting a local library. Sages might also be found in dungeons as captives, servants of evil beings, frozen in stasis, as wandering NPCs studying the dungeon, and so on.
Second, narrow the list of specialties down to the most game-able stuff. Boil it down to History, Religion, Magic/Arcana, Beasts & Monsters, Plants, and a few subspecialties within each. History subspecialties might be the history of a given region or demihuman race, for example.
Third, simplify the system a bit. Each Sage has a Specialty and a Subspecialty, and a Knowledge stat which is represented by %. Roll 10d10 to determine their base Knowledge; this is their chance of knowing the answer to a General question. Specific questions have half this chance, and Exacting questions one quarter this chance. Double the chance for questions in the sage's subspecialty, and half it for questions outside the Sage's specialty.
The Sage's Knowledge can be improved by giving them new reading material, facilities, etc: for every 5,000 GP worth of new equipment directly related to their Specialty (books, lab equipment, specimens, facilities, etc) roll d100. If the equipment is not related to their specialty (say you looted a general-purpose library, or a laboratory of equipment not belonging to that sage's specialty), roll twice and take the lower. If the material is definitely new to the sage, such as a one-of-a-kind text or artifact, don't bother rolling. If you roll over the Sage's Knowledge, add 1d10 to their Knowledge stat.
General questions take 1 week to answer, Specific questions 2 weeks, and Exacting questions 4 weeks. Reduce this by 1 week if the question is in the Sage's specialty. Reduce it by 2 weeks if the question is in the Sage's subspecialty. 0 Weeks or less implies the sage can immediately recall the information.
Howdy Aiden, thanks for dropping by :D
I still think that's all way too heavy still (though definitely lighter than the DMG).
At the end of the day, the players want the answer to some question they have, and we just need to decide whether or not the person they're asking knows, how much money it they charge (if any), and how long it takes for them to get back with the answer.
My favorite version (and what I use in my home games) comes from OED-Expanded
https://github.com/danielrcollins1/OED-Expanded/blob/main/npcs.md#sage
- For a general topic that the GM knows the answer to already, it takes d6 hours
- For a general topic that the GM needs to invent the answer to, it takes d6 days
- For a specific topic that the GM knows the answer to already, it takes d6 days
- For a specific topic that the GM needs to invent the answer to, it takes d6 weeks
And then use whatever the daily wage for sages is. For example, if the party hands the the sage a magic sword and asks "what are the magic properties of this sword", that's a specific topic that I already know the answer to, so it takes d6 days.
In the context of Arden Vul, Barton just... doesn't include sages in any of his town writeups. See https://old.reddit.com/r/osr/comments/1lfnm69/review_arden_vul_exterior/myut7co/ so I'm totally down to keep the whole sage bit abstract.
I would not use sages for magic item identification. I agree that it makes more sense to just tell the players what the thing does, assuming they discover its features through experimentation.
I am personally rather attached to the idea of building out a hired sage's library, so I like the idea of sages having a stat that can be improved with investment. I think it's a potentially fun creative exercise and a great money-sink. In fact, I'd be open to allowing players to become sages themselves with an investment of downtime and building a nice library. It reminds me of Gus L's Crystal Frontier rules for spell research and library benefits for magic users (buried somewhere in the bowels of his blog). Perhaps I just like the idea of all those ancient tablets and musty tomes we find in dungeon libraries being put to good use.
You might also be amused by this part of avlink: https://github.com/orodley/avlink/blob/735f2109e6b511bc85626f1304b76f4a97924559/avlink.py#L412
Just a big old list of words which, if immediately preceding or following what looks like a room reference, mean that it isn't actually one. A few like "damage" and "gp" do a lot of heavy lifting, but I got pretty heavily into diminishing returns by the end of the list.
Yeah! I think it's a solid if brute approach. Just a little sad that it could have been entirely avoided by using dice notation
I'll take a look and see if i can find any more decent patterns