If someone made annotated maps for Arden Vul it would be godsend. The type of the area (Heqeti, Rudishva etc.) could perhaps be some kind of texture? Ideally it would differentiate between different Rudishva areas as well (white marble, black marble, plasteel) since that can be very important. All Rudishva doors could be marked with the colors that open them. Some very important special doors that break the normal rules (e.g. 5-95A) should visually distinct. Rooms with light should be highlighted somehow. Faction borders could also be annotated. Both the 3D6 DTL and the Eric Vulgaris Ardun Vul campaigns mess up these details occasionally, sometimes with pretty big consequences.
A useful but less extensive exercise for someone who preps is to take the side view map and add the titles of all the levels in addition to the numbers. So instead of "Sub-level 2", it should say "SL2 Hall of Shrines": much more useful.
The Rodley scripts is great. I would also recommend prospective GMs to the Survivors of Arden Vul Facebook group (where Barton sometimes is active). It has some more resources, including a very useful map of the Rudishva teleportation network (that also can be found here: https://www.lookwhattheshoggothdraggedin.com/post/arden-vul-rudishva-domain.html)
Completely agree with you on the formatting. I love the depth, flavor and mystery of Arden Vul. It's incredible. That said, it feels almost impossible to prep while also being hugely difficult to run directly out of the book. I ran it for about 10 sessions, and told my players at the start that I might need time to read every single room they go into before detailing what was going on within. I'm not sure how, in a work this size, you also effectively remember the faction relationships and other deep aspects of the module.
I actually had to keep two copies of the PDF and a separate map JPG open. One PDF for the monsters/items and one for the current room the party was in. If I ever revisit it again, I'm sure the hyperlinking would help, but I'm really not sure how you can make a book this size, which is this dense and interconnected, into something more effective at the table. Arden Vul is so large it almost makes me wish there was a companion website or app to help keep me sane.
> love the depth, flavor and mystery of Arden Vul. It's incredible. That said, it feels almost impossible to prep while also being hugely difficult to run directly out of the book. [...] but I'm really not sure how you can make a book this size, which is this dense and interconnected, into something more effective at the table.
Yeah, it's been a struggle for sure. If I wanted to create a physical book for this, I would want to see...
- More informative maps. I'd want random encounter information, iconic areas, and important NPCs on the maps.
- Better room keys like what I wrote in the original post, so that I can run a room without pre-reading it.
- page number references. "Other items include: a rudishva useful palm (palm of the cleansing wind - see new magic items)" is less useful than "Other items include: a rudishva useful palm (palm of the cleansing wind - V4p102)"
- physical, correctly sized maps (both player and GM)
- handouts
But, and I've had this opinion for a long time, books are not an efficient way to convey such interlinked information. PDFs are slightly better, but still not it. I think the best format I've seen for an adventure would be something like andy's notes: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/. Deeply linked information with previews, backlinks, etc. You can do it in https://obsidian.md/ but I still think andy's notes feels better.
Finally, I'll get into it when I do the individual level reviews, but there are some patterns that Barton uses that confuse the daylights out of me. For example, here's this bit about the goblin king:
> Weskenim will be found in his throne room 25% of the time; otherwise he will be visiting his harem in SL4-20 (20%), mingling with the courtiers in SL4-23 (25%), visiting the clans in the Great Hall at SL4-40 (25%), or occupied with some secret business (5%).
How do I use this? Like, I understand that this lays out probabilities of him being in particular places, but there aren't clear instruction about when to roll and now I'm also doing cumulative density function math to figure out where he is. I pick up a d100 and roll a 47 - where is he? Best I can tell, 01-25 is the throne room, 26-45 is the harem, 46-70 is the courtiers, 71-95 is the great hall, and 96-00 is secret business, so with the courtiers? But we just passed through the court room and that room didn't reference the same probabilities, so we didn't describe the king as being there and now stuff is weird.
Agree with a lot of your thoughts. Do you have any examples of dungeon maps that do it right, in this regard (more informative maps, architecture and random encounter areas specified)?
Finally, I'll do a conversion for level 3 as an example for how I think the arden vul maps *could have been* and then I'll post it in the resources section and reply again once I have it
> But we just passed through the court room and that room didn't reference the same probabilities
From what I read, rooms in fact have references to that probabilities. They are included in Inhabitants section, after the names.
It is of course extremely confusing, I found out that these 'civilized' places in the dungeon required serious prep - so many moving parts and random tables.
I think intended way to work with this percentage probabilities is to choose from two variants: either plan where that person located beforehand, rolling dice at the begining of the chapter; or determine that on the fly, rolling on Inhabitants section just as players walk in the room.
Considering the volume of text in these rooms, I'm leaning towards the first option. In my game, I literally rewrote the entire goblin market into my notes to understand what was going on there.
Please excuse me for my language, English isn't my native. Hope I did okay :)
Quite exited to test my skills playing this monstrous campaign, and your extensive analysis is such a treat as well. Thank you for your work, will be waiting to read more of your thoughts.
Hey Glogathor, thanks for stopping by! Your english is great; indistinguishable from a native speaker.
> From what I read, rooms in fact have references to that probabilities. They are included in Inhabitants section, after the names.
They *usually* are, but not always! For instance, in Level 1, Lankios has his location spread out in a few rooms (66% of 1-6, 15% of 1-7, 10% of 1-12, it's not clear where he is the other 9% of the time; maybe 1-21?).
But sometimes, the location information is in *one* room (like for goblin king Weskenim), and the relevant rooms don't have the same information. For example, SL4-22 says that there's a 25% chance that he's in SL4-23, but SL4-23 does not say that, and this information is also not in the overview, so I would have had to read SL4-22 ahead of time and then determine that he's in SL4-23 *before* the PCs get to SL4-23, which is awkward because SL4-23 is *on the path* to SL4-22.
> I think intended way to work with this percentage probabilities is to choose from two variants: either plan where that person located beforehand, rolling dice at the begining of the chapter; or determine that on the fly, rolling on Inhabitants section just as players walk in the room.
I think it's way easier for running the prep to determine it on a per-delve basis. That said, I think it would be useful to have a summary of this information that I can reference. In fact, I'll create such a document when I put the resources guide together.
> Quite exited to test my skills playing this monstrous campaign, and your extensive analysis is such a treat as well. Thank you for your work, will be waiting to read more of your thoughts.
Thanks so much for the kind words. Arden Vul is special, and I intend to do it justice. Hopefully this series (espcially the summarized recommendations and suggestions) becomes the premier "how do i run arden vul" resource.
If someone made annotated maps for Arden Vul it would be godsend. The type of the area (Heqeti, Rudishva etc.) could perhaps be some kind of texture? Ideally it would differentiate between different Rudishva areas as well (white marble, black marble, plasteel) since that can be very important. All Rudishva doors could be marked with the colors that open them. Some very important special doors that break the normal rules (e.g. 5-95A) should visually distinct. Rooms with light should be highlighted somehow. Faction borders could also be annotated. Both the 3D6 DTL and the Eric Vulgaris Ardun Vul campaigns mess up these details occasionally, sometimes with pretty big consequences.
A useful but less extensive exercise for someone who preps is to take the side view map and add the titles of all the levels in addition to the numbers. So instead of "Sub-level 2", it should say "SL2 Hall of Shrines": much more useful.
The Rodley scripts is great. I would also recommend prospective GMs to the Survivors of Arden Vul Facebook group (where Barton sometimes is active). It has some more resources, including a very useful map of the Rudishva teleportation network (that also can be found here: https://www.lookwhattheshoggothdraggedin.com/post/arden-vul-rudishva-domain.html)
Well heck. Facebook did not like my anon account. Would you be willing to extract the valuable resources for me? I'll host them
Totally and fully agree. Thanks for shouting out the facebook group; I might make a burner account to join that (man I wish it wasn't on facebook).
I'll edit in the eric vulgaris AP into the list; I forgot!
Completely agree with you on the formatting. I love the depth, flavor and mystery of Arden Vul. It's incredible. That said, it feels almost impossible to prep while also being hugely difficult to run directly out of the book. I ran it for about 10 sessions, and told my players at the start that I might need time to read every single room they go into before detailing what was going on within. I'm not sure how, in a work this size, you also effectively remember the faction relationships and other deep aspects of the module.
I actually had to keep two copies of the PDF and a separate map JPG open. One PDF for the monsters/items and one for the current room the party was in. If I ever revisit it again, I'm sure the hyperlinking would help, but I'm really not sure how you can make a book this size, which is this dense and interconnected, into something more effective at the table. Arden Vul is so large it almost makes me wish there was a companion website or app to help keep me sane.
> love the depth, flavor and mystery of Arden Vul. It's incredible. That said, it feels almost impossible to prep while also being hugely difficult to run directly out of the book. [...] but I'm really not sure how you can make a book this size, which is this dense and interconnected, into something more effective at the table.
Yeah, it's been a struggle for sure. If I wanted to create a physical book for this, I would want to see...
- More informative maps. I'd want random encounter information, iconic areas, and important NPCs on the maps.
- Better room keys like what I wrote in the original post, so that I can run a room without pre-reading it.
- page number references. "Other items include: a rudishva useful palm (palm of the cleansing wind - see new magic items)" is less useful than "Other items include: a rudishva useful palm (palm of the cleansing wind - V4p102)"
- physical, correctly sized maps (both player and GM)
- handouts
But, and I've had this opinion for a long time, books are not an efficient way to convey such interlinked information. PDFs are slightly better, but still not it. I think the best format I've seen for an adventure would be something like andy's notes: https://notes.andymatuschak.org/. Deeply linked information with previews, backlinks, etc. You can do it in https://obsidian.md/ but I still think andy's notes feels better.
Finally, I'll get into it when I do the individual level reviews, but there are some patterns that Barton uses that confuse the daylights out of me. For example, here's this bit about the goblin king:
> Weskenim will be found in his throne room 25% of the time; otherwise he will be visiting his harem in SL4-20 (20%), mingling with the courtiers in SL4-23 (25%), visiting the clans in the Great Hall at SL4-40 (25%), or occupied with some secret business (5%).
How do I use this? Like, I understand that this lays out probabilities of him being in particular places, but there aren't clear instruction about when to roll and now I'm also doing cumulative density function math to figure out where he is. I pick up a d100 and roll a 47 - where is he? Best I can tell, 01-25 is the throne room, 26-45 is the harem, 46-70 is the courtiers, 71-95 is the great hall, and 96-00 is secret business, so with the courtiers? But we just passed through the court room and that room didn't reference the same probabilities, so we didn't describe the king as being there and now stuff is weird.
Agree with a lot of your thoughts. Do you have any examples of dungeon maps that do it right, in this regard (more informative maps, architecture and random encounter areas specified)?
Yup! I have some (good) theoretical examples from the alexandrian and some good actual examples.
Here's the alexandrian's theory post on dungeon maps: https://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/4811/roleplaying-games/better-dungeon-maps-part-1-opening-doors
Here's an example with monster information: https://www.thealexandrian.net/images/20110421c-large.jpg
and another example with light information: https://www.thealexandrian.net/images/20110413c.jpg
The map from Hole in the Oak is also one of the best I've seen: https://rancourt.substack.com/i/137128119/the-map; clear labels with information about monsters and terrain features.
Finally, I'll do a conversion for level 3 as an example for how I think the arden vul maps *could have been* and then I'll post it in the resources section and reply again once I have it
> But we just passed through the court room and that room didn't reference the same probabilities
From what I read, rooms in fact have references to that probabilities. They are included in Inhabitants section, after the names.
It is of course extremely confusing, I found out that these 'civilized' places in the dungeon required serious prep - so many moving parts and random tables.
I think intended way to work with this percentage probabilities is to choose from two variants: either plan where that person located beforehand, rolling dice at the begining of the chapter; or determine that on the fly, rolling on Inhabitants section just as players walk in the room.
Considering the volume of text in these rooms, I'm leaning towards the first option. In my game, I literally rewrote the entire goblin market into my notes to understand what was going on there.
Please excuse me for my language, English isn't my native. Hope I did okay :)
Quite exited to test my skills playing this monstrous campaign, and your extensive analysis is such a treat as well. Thank you for your work, will be waiting to read more of your thoughts.
Hey Glogathor, thanks for stopping by! Your english is great; indistinguishable from a native speaker.
> From what I read, rooms in fact have references to that probabilities. They are included in Inhabitants section, after the names.
They *usually* are, but not always! For instance, in Level 1, Lankios has his location spread out in a few rooms (66% of 1-6, 15% of 1-7, 10% of 1-12, it's not clear where he is the other 9% of the time; maybe 1-21?).
But sometimes, the location information is in *one* room (like for goblin king Weskenim), and the relevant rooms don't have the same information. For example, SL4-22 says that there's a 25% chance that he's in SL4-23, but SL4-23 does not say that, and this information is also not in the overview, so I would have had to read SL4-22 ahead of time and then determine that he's in SL4-23 *before* the PCs get to SL4-23, which is awkward because SL4-23 is *on the path* to SL4-22.
> I think intended way to work with this percentage probabilities is to choose from two variants: either plan where that person located beforehand, rolling dice at the begining of the chapter; or determine that on the fly, rolling on Inhabitants section just as players walk in the room.
I think it's way easier for running the prep to determine it on a per-delve basis. That said, I think it would be useful to have a summary of this information that I can reference. In fact, I'll create such a document when I put the resources guide together.
> Quite exited to test my skills playing this monstrous campaign, and your extensive analysis is such a treat as well. Thank you for your work, will be waiting to read more of your thoughts.
Thanks so much for the kind words. Arden Vul is special, and I intend to do it justice. Hopefully this series (espcially the summarized recommendations and suggestions) becomes the premier "how do i run arden vul" resource.
As a heads up, this sounds like it was written by a bot
What book?