Bilingual Bonus Review - Cruce de Río

I only have a few more reviews to hit my goal of 52 for 2021. A few weeks ago a reader gave me a whole set of e5 books. So, e5 it is. One of the best ways to learn a ruleset is actual gameplay. 

Cruce de Río by Sebastián Pérez is a great introductory scenario for D&D e5. 

Title: Cruce de Río 
Rule Set: D&D e5
Year: 2018
Author: Sebastián Pérez
Pages: 10 pages
Rating: 5 of 5 stars

Ok, right out of the gate, it's a little much to call this a "module". It's 10 pages. However, Cruce de Río is a gem of a product. The format of this booklet is scaleable, it works for characters between 1st and 6th levels. It verges on being ruleset agnostic because the scenarios spelled out in this book have crystal clear mechanics for several common events that take place in a fantasy setting. 

The gist of it is, the party needs to cross a river. Three possibilities exist: find a ford, find a bridge or make a dangerous attempt at crossing someplace else. Cruce de Río spells out each of these possibilities with great detail and excellent mechanics. These events can be sequential or run as individual events. There is a challenge for each choice and that challenge scales to suit the DM's need. Any one of them could be deadly, but Sr. Pérez spelled out the possible dangers and their outcomes so that each event need not be lethal. That purposeful planning allows a DM to pick which challenge to present meaning you could get several uses out of each. 

Sr. Pérez gives a couple of reasons for a river crossing, all of which are great. But river crossings should be commonplace for your band of plucky adventures. This is straight-up plug-and-play worldbuilding. This could happen in almost any campaign which makes this title so useful. 

There are bits of details and lore buried in the book that can enrich your campaign. For example, the ogre is motivated to take gems over gold because the government doesn't tax them. He is also not terribly inclined to kill the party as he is just doing his job of collecting a toll. 

I love details like this because these are far-reaching for a campaign setting. It says so much with so little. The kingdom has toll roads, the kingdom has the infrastructure, the kingdom employs non-humans, the tax system is a bit exploitable, etc. If you wanted to jump your 6th level party to hexcrawling, this is your entry point. 

Sr. Pérez has also kindly bolded keywords for quick rule lookup. There is also a reference sheet of Monster Manual pages for easy access. When events call for advantage or disadvantage, those are clearly spelled out with good reasons for each. Based on this, I suspect Sr. Pérez is a hiker with actual experience fording rivers. 

All and all, I enjoyed this book greatly, even though I struggle with Spanish. This book is a part of the Before 2020 Bundle over on DriveThruRPG. 

Party of 6 for the Castle - Experience

In my last post, I ran a series of characters through the Ghost of Lion Castle using the Basic and Expert D&D and Rules Cyclopedia sets. This was a solo run so I totally determined the outcome of adventure. The party crossed a half dozen challenges in the form of traps. Ultimately, they found the main entrance and two dead bodies loaded with loot. 

Thematically, this fits in with the character's backgrounds. The young characters want adventure while the two older characters want to safeguard them, but Nicholas and the Dwarf are also treasure and relic hunters. The younger characters did find some relics in the form of two magic journals and two maps. 

This is a case of character backgrounds and details meshing with the shared campaign world. 

What did not come to pass was the distribution of treasure and experience. I skipped the first due to lack of time, that will be the first thing I do in the next session. Experience is a tougher judgement call. Under B/X and Rules Cyclopedia, experience is awarded in a 1:1 ratio to gold plus whatever experience a monster would provide. 

In the last session, the characters encountered only traps and treasure, some of it magical. I can easily map out found items to coin value excepting magic items and weapons. They don't have clear price in these rules. It seems the intent was to have the object be the reward. I'm of two minds on that as it makes perfect sense. But there is the kid of the 70's who used to make wish lists from the Brand Names Catalog that wants everything to have a value.  

What I came up with was a value of about 250 experience points divided among four characters. (Two characters are sitting at a base camp.) 

This has happened because I should read the rules of this module strictly for solo play. The party has no thief and even if they did. the traps they encountered are not the sort a thief can disarm. No experience for them.  

If I had a "live" party, I could see many opportunities for the party to gain experience off of the traps. The traps in this section of the module was the very reason I selected the front door as the party's destination. In solo play with a single character, any of these traps could be deadly. The traps the party encountered would be unpassable to a single magic user with max hit points. However, 4 characters can eat up that damage. I did it because I've always wanted to do it in solo play but couldn't with an individual character. 

The traps are a series of obstacles, two magic missile attacks, a molten metal trap, two sets of murder holes and several slamming doors and dropping portcullis's (portculli?) to force the characters forward. 

As described, the magic missile attacks and slamming doors are unavoidable, the molten metal trap plus the dropping portcullis's both requires a save, and the murder hole attack requires judgement. 

Were I DM'ing this with real characters, the potential to judge situations allows for experience awards for these traps. For the doors, murder holes and portcullis traps, the simply decision to act as one and move forward or back allows for roleplay. Tricky PC's could fill sacks with dirt to prop the doors or prevent the portcullis from closing. The magic missile and murder holes are interesting traps for the PC's because there is that small chance of evading them through trickery but then wandering back into them by poor choices. 

Ah, let me tell you about parties and poor choices... 

But all of that implies thinking through an immediate problem and receiving experience for it. 

This Friday, I am looking forward to reading some materials I received plus another session in Lion Castle. 

Party of 6 for the Castle

Over a week ago, I described a series of characters in less than two pages. They have histories and places in the sandbox. Well, it's not really a sandbox because I intend to shove these characters through a classic module before I let them run in the sandbox. 

I gotta a couple of reasons for this. First, I want to make sure I have the right rulesets. Second, characters with no adventures are no fun. Third, I plan on reading through Into the Wild and using the survivors from this module run to learn how to hexcrawl. 

Here is the recap: a young mage named Charles should be on his way to the big city to learn magic. He has his two friends Alice and Avfin (Elf and Cleric) in tow and watching over them are 3 higher-level characters, Wralin the Dwarf, Nicholas the Cleric plus their bodyguard Gaelin. 

They are hopping from town to town as they make their way to the big unnamed city, which is a good reason not to use Into the Wild. It's known territory. But here comes the hook to the classic module. At an inn, young Charles hears the story of Sargon and his haunted Lion Castle. 

Nicholas and Wralin, like responsible adults they are, put the kibosh on this irrational side quest. Charles objects by truthful stating that Nicholas promised to keep an eye on Charles and his friends on this adventure. No one said which adventure this was. This charms Wralin, who loves this sort of thing. Nicholas soon realizes that Lion Castle could present an opportunity for not only youthful adventures but uncover rare relics and artifacts. 

The deal is, Nicholas and Wralin will stay at a base camp near the outer wall, while Avfin, Charles, Alice, and Gaelin the bodyguard enter the castle. Should the party get into trouble, the Dwarf and Cleric will hear their screams and come running. 

Right...

So there is your hook. I've used Ghost of Lion Castle as a regular module for group play with a couple of adaptions. 

The adaptions come from actual solo gameplay. The monsters are all well designed for what they are supposed to do, push the player around without killing the conservative and well-fed. Aggressive characters will be eaten. The limits are food and torches. The killers are the traps. 

Knowing those facts, you can provision a whole party of actual player characters appropriately. 

The first thing to handle is how to deal with the traps. They do more than enough damage to wipe out a single character, on average. In solo play, each one comes down to luck or cheating. A party has a great chance of getting through simply because they have more hit points. 

If a trap is labeled as "one x", one arrow, one stone, etc. then use a table. Write down each character's name and label them one to whatever. If you have 4 characters like I do, then you roll a 1d4 to see which one is subject to the trap. If you have 3 characters, then use the same 1d4. There is a 1 in four chance that it misses all of them. The same goes for 5, 7, 9, etc. Merely adjust what type of die is used to be equal to or larger than the number of characters in the party. 

Some traps are clearly meant to be area of effect traps. This is going to hit the whole party, no die roll needed. Simply play through as written in the BSolo. 

The most unpleasing type of trap in BSolo is the portcullis traps that drop on people. They have a saving throw roll to avoid them, which for solo play makes perfect sense. With a party, this saving throw is an awkward mechanic. What exactly is happening? Is the gate chomping up and down until the whole party passes through? No. 

The way to play this type of trap is to have the party move through in a specific order. As the save is made as each player passes under the trap. As soon as one player fails his or her save, the party as a whole must declare "forward" or "back". Once this declaration is made, you know what rolls to make. 

If the party goes forward, the player that failed their roll is hit. Everyone behind him is forced to make a save or also take damage. Everyone ends up on the same side of the portcullis. If the party retreats, the person who failed the save takes damage and everyone who has already passed the portcullis is forced to make a second save to leap backward before the gate slams closed, possibly taking damage. 

With an actual DM, you can have a lot more creativity in addressing this one trap. But in cases where there is no judge, this simplistic scenario works best. 

I have one other modification. In places where traps occur, there is a 1 in 20 chance of finding a body, the body of one of the pre-generated characters. The weakest traps do 1d4 while stronger traps do more. Basically, they do 2.5, 3.5 hp, or worse. Even though the pre-generated characters have more hit points than average, it's tough to survive some of those traps. 

Just like the dropping portcullis trap, make a list. Roll a die equal to higher than the number of characters available. This mod is done for expedience's sake. The party can acquire the gear they need, torches and food, as they go. The other gear is good, but not really necessary to progress as food and torches are. 

So where is the party now? Nicholas and Wralin are camped out about 100 feet from the outer gatehouse with the horses. The horses don't really have a part in this adventure, except to express utter defeat. If the Dwarf and Cleric have to run into save the youngins, then the animals will wander off except for Wralin's mule. 

Having given the outer gatehouse the once over, no expects for it to be trapped. Alice is hit by an arrow. The kiddos do nothing to alert their backup of the trouble and proceed to the front gate. Things go wrong here. They are rough 300 feet away from their backup, who does hear something but doesn't hear screams for help or sounds of combat. They ignore the crashes and bangs, figuring the younglings are looting. 

In reality, the party has explored 8 areas and encountered 1 arrow trap before having a lot of trouble. They make it to the paws of the castle before the traps come on fast and furious. Arrows, molten metal, and several crashing gates doors beat them to with an inch of their lives. They decide to stop and rest in the stables, the first room inside the castle proper.  

At the moment, Alice and Charles are down to 2 and 1 hp respectively and Gaelin is down to 4. Somehow, Avfin escaped all damage. As a first-level cleric, he is pretty useless for healing. But during this horrible beating, they manage to find two bodies. 

They found the final resting places of Cortayo and Leesmith, which provides them with some much-needed supplies. They now have a +1 sword, +1 dagger, two potions of gaseous form, two points of healing potions, a +1 ring of protection, and a ring of invisibility. They also have a lot of mundane stuff. 

I decided to call a break here as they rest up. They will not encounter a wandering monster this evening. 

As a nod to how deadly this journey is, I decided to modify the healing potion rules. They contain two doses that restore 1d4 hp, instead of the module's 1d6+1. The issue is with normal first-level characters, they need less healing more often. One to 4 hp is more than enough. 

If I were DM'ing this rather than soloing the module, I would have replaced some traps with combat. Real players would not find this session amusing. It would probably piss them off. Even if they had a thief in the group, there are no real mechanics to avoid a magic missile to the face.

The Curio Post

I have a lot on my mind and more on my plate. I don't get to post as often as I like, but today I'd like to share a series of pictures. Think of them as writing prompts. 

All of my prior goals for 2021 have gone out the window, save one. I have only 14 more reviews to do to complete my goal of 52 reviews a week. What used to be on my goal list was scrapped and replaced with a few more manageable ideas. 

In the coming posts, you'll see some reviews, some new thoughts on gaming, and some solo gaming sessions.  

Now, let's have those pictures. 

What's in the bag?

First up is an item from Dragon Snack Games. Dragon Snack is a local game shop and is my most frequently visited shop. I even did a semi-review of it. 

They have easily thousands of gaming titles (my description, not theirs so don't hold them to that). These bright orange sacks are reusable. One of them was given to me by a local gamer, Blackrazor. The second was in the trunk of my car for months. It contained three pristine games which are going to be reviewed soonish. 

The kitten is for scale. As near as I can tell, Dragon Snack Games does not give away free kittens. As least, they haven't ever offered me one. 

They recently announced a brief closure on Facebook for some updates to the store. I'm so busy, I didn't even have to be upset about the closure, as they reopened before I could complain. 

If you're in the Buffalo area, it's a great place to check out. 

Dice and Dice and More Dice

One more image which reminds me of Dragon Snack Games. The last time I was in the shop, I found these giant dice with 3 tiny six siders inside. 

They are awesome! You can use one giant die for each character stat. I just need 3 more. It's a new quest to stop into Dragon Snack until I find more. 

The blue die is for scale. They are giant, but not that "giant". 

Dice and Dice and More Good Dice

This set of dice is from a local reader, Blackrazor. He personally took the time to reach out and gift me with more gaming materials than one game has any business having. While a dice review is silly, I will be looking at all of the books he gave me to fuel many of the last 14 reviews this year. 

Thank you again, Team 716. 

The World in Your Hands:  

I found this mini-globe at a great shop called Rustic Buffalo Artisan Market. You can shop online, here. 

 

I don't know anything about it except I like it. Apparently, it was made back in the early 2000s and usually retailed for $100. I paid a tiny fraction of that. 

I will definitely do a review of them on the 716exchange.com soon. 

Blast Off into Adventure! 

This one is an odd one. All throughout 2020 and part of 2021, I was big into retro artwork. I did a series of rockets based on it's a small world at the Magic Kingdom. 

The result was rather striking when printed on a journal. The black one has a wrap-around cover with a mirror image of the front cover on the back. The white one is printed only on the front cover. However, the price is like a nuclear air-burst. $21.00 dollars or so before shipping for a single palm-sized journal. I'm going to find a better source for cool items like this. 

The Heart

Kingdom Hearts is my children's Basic D&D. They have played this game since the day I discovered it. Somehow, the discs we have survived the fires of hell. 

Back in 2018-19, we had the magical experience of getting to play Kingdom Hearts III in Disney Springs. We, of course, pre-ordered it. 

We did not spring for the $1000 Keyblade. 

These 9 images will spark more than a few upcoming posts. Stay tuned. 

Ode-No! to the 10 Page Character Background

A picture shares 1000 words. 

Everyone has had that 10-page character background story show up at the table. I don’t mind, but there are limits. When I go into a campaign, I have less than a 10-page setting outline and there is an excellent chance that I can tag off of a player’s writings and interject some of those things into the game. 

So, I am looking at this whole process of ideation for a completely different reason. At the moment, I have limited access to rule sets and want to make sure I have everything I need to play a campaign. This is a solo venture, I have no players because I don’t know if I have items I need. 

Funny that I don’t know what items I need. 

One of my anonymous readers, whom I shall call “Blackrazor” because his mom did not name him that, gave me a boatload of stuff to get started. The Basic and Expert rule set and dice. Technically, that’s all I need. The links will take you to DriveThruRPG.

Last year, I backed Todd Leback’s Into the Wild. I really want to use that book, too. 

Just before this adventure began, I ordered a hard copy of Rules Cyclopedia, which strongly mirrors what I was trying to do with e1 back in 1980. Between the stuff from Blackrazor, my luck, and ordering habits, I think I have all I need. But I will test that by engaging in some solo play. 

I want 6 adventurers. That gives me an Elf, a Dwarf, a Magic User, a Fighter, and two Clerics. I feel pretty good with this creeping capitalization. Today is a new start, and I am not sure how I was blogging class titles before. So, caps for classes. 

Now, who is the “hero” of this story? The party, all 6 of them. So they need a reason to be together or character background. How many pages does that take? I don't know. Let us see. 

When I rolled these characters, I threw an additional 1d6 for level:

1-3 is first level, 

4-5 is second, and

6 is 3rd level. 

So I have a first-level Elf, Magic-User and Cleric. I have a 2nd level elf and fighter and a 3rd level cleric. I’ve decided that no one has magical equipment at this point, but they do have transportation, which is sometimes better than magical items. 

Why are they together and where?

Let’s start with the young Magic-User. He is really smart and very young, say 16 years old. He is the 9th child of a well-to-do stationer. 

What’s a stationer? It used to be that people came to town on market day and threw their wares out and had people buy off a blanket, wagon, cart, etc. A stationer was a person who sold goods that were not easily transportable or too fragile to handle the weather, therefore they needed an actual shop. Back in the day, the first of these were scribes, they provided goods and were “stationary” by definition. Think of them as the mall’s anchor stores. That definition solidified into the definition of their trade goods, “stationary”. 

As the 9th child of this stationer, I need to tell you a bit about this family. The Magic-User is named Charles, whom everyone calls “Chuckie”. Charles Sr. hates this and wants his son to leave home and name “Chuckie” behind to get a proper education. 

So, we have a bit of the story. Young Chuck is going places. Let’s circle back to Charles Sr. for a moment. He didn’t start out as a bookseller, he was conscripted into the army. After a single campaign, he lucked out and was granted a small but rich plot of land. He got married and had 2 boys with his first wife. His first wife died of the plague. 

When he remarried, he granted his oldest boys the farm while Dad started milling. One of the boys enjoyed farming, while the other was interested in seed stock and seedlings. They tagged off of each other’s skills to become successful. Dad was still doing good work of the land as a miller, which allows his boys to capitalize off of super cheap milling prices. 

Charles Senior’s second wife produced a trio of girls, plus one more son. The son got into cattle ranching, while 2 of the two of the girls married well and the third daughter became a priestess. 

Unfortunately, the second wife died giving birth and poor Charles senior had to remarry again. This time it worked out fine. Chuckie is the youngest of the children, he has two older sisters plus the brood of much older siblings.  

Charles Sr.'s current wife is an illuminator, an artist specializing in books. This was Charles Sr.'s final career change, to stationer. He buys skins and papyrus from his children’s farms or ranches and provides these materials to his daughter’s convent. It's a good deal for all.

Chuckie has a best friend in similar shoes. His name is Avfin, and he aspires to be a Bishop. His dad works for Charles Sr. The two young men will be traveling to a larger town for schooling. 

I am nowhere near 10 pages at this point, so let’s throw Alice into the mix. Alice is an elf who lives at the edge of town. She is friends with Avfin and Chuckie despite being wildly older than them. As if being an elf in a human town isn’t odd enough, she is a free spirit who runs wild all over the surrounding countryside, much to the consternation of her family. Think hippy-chick. 

Her parents have done backflips to make sure she gets in with Avfin and/or Chuckie in the hopes that she will learn to read and wear shoes. When they heard that Avfin and Chuckie were leaving, they encouraged Alice to tag along, as the boys will need someone with animal and wilderness knowledge with them. Hopefully, she’ll grow up on this adventure. Surprisingly, she threw herself into the adventure with gusto despite her parent’s blessing. Alice also stole her mother’s boots and sword, plus her dad’s chainmail suit. 

This is just one page, and I still have 3 more characters to describe: 

Nicholas, a 3rd level cleric,
his second-level fighter bodyguard, Gaelin, 

and a second-level dwarf named Wralin. 

Nicholas is one of Charles Sr.’s war buddies. Army life wasn’t for either of them, but Nick has made his way as a chaplain and researcher for the army. He is currently transporting religious relics and magical writings to a large monastery. Since he was passing through anyway, he agreed to keep an eye on Chuck and his friends on their journey. 

Gaelin, Nick’s bodyguard, doesn't like his job. It takes him away from the glorious, but also a non-existent battlefield. He is thankful to have Chuck, Alice, and Avfin along as the kiddos are happy to gather firewood, start fires and take care of the animals. 

Wralin the Dwarf is unusual. Like all dwarves, he has an eye for construction and mining. But he has a greater passion, horses. He can assess an equine just as well as other dwarves can spot a good diamond. Oddly, he rides a mule named Sneer instead of a horse. Sneer thinks she is a warhorse. She is very comfortable on the battlefield and when dealing with monsters.  

At this point, I have roughly covered more than a dozen different characters. Their backgrounds are pretty cool, and if I went 1 by 1, each character could have one handwritten index card of biographical information. 

So in getting these 6 characters ready, I have a lot of campaign information at my fingertips. 

The kingdom is at peace, but there was a war in the recent past. There are many villages and cities to see, some of which have schools and monasteries. A network of roads and probably caravans exists. The army is forced to do non-combat tasks because the Lord or Lady of the land is doing some sort of recon and resource exploitation. In peacetime, the leadership is getting ready to engage in warfare or negotiate a peace. Humans and demi-humans work together. We’ve mentioned that monsters roam and some characters have encountered them. 

Rather than a 10-page character background, I have a 2-page campaign primer, which includes much of the character backgrounds that I would need as a DM. The players could refine these starting points to make the characters their own. 

So much for the 10-page background. Two is more than sufficient.