RPG a Day #7 Small

 

I’m going to try and take part in the #RPGaDay writing prompts for 2021. The idea is there’s a prompt every day that asks you to write about something in RPG’s you really like. There are a couple of alternate prompts offered but I’m going to try and do the main one every day. If you want to try it yourself, you can head here for the calendar for this year.

For today’s I’m going to talk about the small details that sometimes get overlooked. Those little hints that we miss until we get a chance to look back at the scene and realize what it meant. One of the first times I can think of this being a big deal was in a game of X Crawl.

For those of you who don’t know X Crawl is a fantastic modern day dungeon crawler. It’s an extreme sport show on pay-per-view and sent out to the masses to distract them from what the Emperor of the North American Empire is up to. There’s a lot of wonderful story details and world building that give the world shape but also open up how dungeons are constructed and performed.

Before I go any further, there is going to be a spoiler for a final room in the second Memphis Crawl found in the X Crawl Core Book Color edition. Basically, I’ll be talking about how the room starts and the trap that sets it off. If you think you might play in that crawl maybe skip today and I’ll see you again tomorrow. If not, keep reading and enjoy.

In one particular crawl the team had stumbled across a small detail that I though gave away the trick of the room. The team had arrived in the final room of the level. As they entered down a small set of stairs into a smooth tiled room the sprinkler built into the ceiling came on showering the room in a torrential downpour that was quickly filling the lower portion of the room. The team had been assured by the referees that this wasn’t a trap and they would be fine.

One of the team members was a Gnome named Bubba. His biggest concern was that he wasn’t going to be tall enough to deal with the flooding room so he used his cross bow to fire a line into the center of the ceiling and raise himself up to the top of the room. At this point he hit a small detail. The sprinklers were set in the ceiling at six inch intervals everywhere except a ten foot circle in the middle. The section that Bubba was hanging from.

As I told this to the players I expected that the game was up. They now knew what the trick of the room was. Except, they didn’t. Bubba celebrated his good fortune to no longer be wet and set about securing himself to the dry portion of the ceiling while the rest of the team formed a rough circle in the middle facing the walls in preparation for what was undoubtedly about to attack.

After a minute the water level had risen to two feet and the sprinklers shut off. Everyone finished casting buff spells and readying actions. The last few drops of water fell from the sprinklers and then the ten foot section in the center of the ceiling released and came crashing to the water below. This was accompanied by 600 pounds of monsters that was riding on top of the chunk of ceiling.

It might not have been so bad if Bubba hadn’t secured himself to the bottom of the block or if the party hadn’t immediately surrounded their foes preventing them from getting off of the block. It might have helped if Bubba had gotten a chance to hold his breath. Who can say?

It was because of that room that I have now started putting in small details that give away to secret of the room, trap, enemy, or secret. Those little moments of foreshadowing make the game a little more special. Yes, sometimes my platers figure out what’s coming because of these details and are able to prep a little more for that thing. However, sometimes they miss them entirely and only realize when looking back how important those moments were.

For example, I can’t wait to see how they deal with a sign in an upcoming tavern that reads.

No Fighting

1^st time a warning

2^nd time you get thrown out the front door

3^rd time you get thrown out the back!

Maybe they’ll figure out the trick of the place then. Maybe they won’t. Heck, they may even figure out how dangerous a particular NPC is when they enter through the back door.

I’ll see you all tomorrow when I talk about Stream.

Until next time, stay safe and be well.