Thursday, 16 May 2024

Splitting the Overloaded Encounter Die

This is an idea I want to try next time I run a dungeon crawl. Completely untested, pure theorycraft. 

TL;DR: Combine Encounter Stew from Goblinpunch with Usage Dice from the Black Hack and (as the titel would suggest) the Overloaded Encounter Dice.

What:

For each active time sensitive resource you want to track, give it a Usage Dice and add them to a pool. So for example ongoing magical effects, fatigue, torches and lamps. Give chance for encounter and chance for finding tracks a dice in the pool as well.  

Roll the pool each dungeon turn. Rolling a 1 or 2 triggers the dice. So a 1 or 2 on the encounter dice is an encounter (I would go with a d12 to maintain the 1-in-6), for the tracks dice 1 or 2 results in tracks and for the usage dice for various resources they go down 1 size. Like with the Black Hack, a 1 or 2 on a d4 means the resource has run out (for fatigue, this could mean exhaustion or necessary rest, or whatever fatigue rules you want to use). 

So to clarify: You don't have a Usage Dice amount of torches in your inventory. When you use a torch it will burn for Usage Dice amount of turns.

Each torch would be a Ud6 (will burn on average for 5 turns), filled lamps could be a Ud8 (an average of 9 turns).

Fatigue gets a starting dice based on how rested you are. For playtesting I would go with Ud6 when camped and eating rations. Ud4 when resting suboptimal or having half rations. Ud8 when sleeping indoors or eating a freshly cooked meal. Ud10 for exceptional resting conditions like after a spa day at an elven resort of from gaining a divine blessing. As the dice depleats you can rest in the dungeon to restore it one step towards the starting dice of that day (if you start the day with a d6, resting in the dungeon can't get you to a d8). 

Magical effects can be modelled with a die appropriate to the spell. (Spell effects of an hour could be a d6, scaling spell effects such as GLOG magic could die step up depending on the dice invested in the spell, etc.)

Why:

I like abstract time, as described here on All Dead Generations, for the same reasons described there: Timekeeping is only very recently something everyone does to the minute as accurate timekeeping has become more accesible in current times. The dungeoncrawlers I play tend to not have these timekeeping methods, so why bother using exact time.

The benefit of abstract time, is that it allows you to abstract turnkeeping by using the Overloaded Encounter Dice. I really like the Overloaded Encounter Dice as almost every turn something will happen that will increase pressure on the players. 

However, a downside is that sometimes, a torch will go out immediately after using it, which feels bad. The same for immediately getting fatigued after resting. The orignal article tells the ref to ignore improbable results, but that takes some of the pressure off that I like from the Overloaded Encounter Dice. 

A second downside, to me, is that it only ever allows one thing to happen each turn. You will never run out of a torch just when you are being attacked, never become tired as your magical effect depletes etc. That means that I miss some potential 'of fuck' moments which I think could be fun. 

Finally, sometimes it is hard to fill six positions to make optimal use of the Overloaded Encounter Dice. Depending on your magic system, magical effects don't run out. Maybe you aren't running a dungeon which changes over time. 

I think the above might fix these problems: Torches will always sputter before going out, if you use fatigue levels (like I like doing) rolling fatigue doesn't immediately fuck you over, and there is a chance everything aligns absolutely wrong which I think is fun. 

Of course, you loose out on the 'something happens each turn', and there might be a bunch of other unforseen problems which will crop up as I try this out. But for now, it seems like a potentially fun alternative to the Overloaded Encounter Dice.