Ship of Fools -- "Ghult: The Treasure Fleet"

The finale of our middle school Adventure Games Enrichment Camp tournament took us outside of the classroom and down to the school cafeteria, where the students piloted their treasure-laden sailing ships across the floor, unleashing barrages of marshmallow cannonballs at one another.

Bosch of course!

Before jumping into the action, however, there were ample opportunities for kids to use their brains and flex their strategic muscles.

Throughout the prior week, each of our four-student teams had earned up to 6000 points through victories in the roughly sixty individual game sessions run by myself and my high school volunteers.

  

Between each event, the teams would huddle and decide among themselves where each team member should compete next, taking into account individual player skill, likely competition faced, number of points up for grabs in a match, and personal interest in a particular game.

  

In some cases the kids made some pretty cagey moves: the Red "Bhatvian" Team threw a match at one point in exchange for the Blue Team doing the same in a different event; two Yellow Team "Marklanders" each paid the entry fee in points to compete in Robo Rally, thinking to assure themselves a win by locking most the other competition out of the table.

Far from discouraging this kind of meta-game thinking, we carefully announced stakes, payouts, and displayed the up-to-date team rankings on our classroom's front board, tossing the students as much data as possible to help them make informed decisions. Of course sometimes fun won out over all other considerations and Dagger for Kids and Wiz-War both played to full tables even when the potential winnings were a long shot.

I knew that I wanted to use an extensive space outside of the classroom for my latest homebrew game Ghult: The Treasure Fleet, which would simulate the departure from the monster-haunted isle of Ghult and the progress made by the four teams as they sailed back homeward with holds full of plunder.

 

At first I intended to use the lengthy figure-eight of hallways around the school to represent sea lanes, but it turned out that high school summer-school students were taking end-of-course standardized tests that day and having a bunch of middle schoolers dashing through the hallways, shouting and throwing marshmallows probably wouldn't be well received.  

The redoubtable Walvian crew

Instead, and ultimately for the better, we ended up in the cafeteria, which was quite large and broken up by 18 separate columns.

I knew heading into the week that I planned to use the 12"x12" floor tiles lining the floor of every school I've ever visited to give us standard units of measurement for movement ... but of course the cafeteria had none ... it was a poured and coated in sections about 20' to a side.

Hmm ... how to make this work?  

Okay, I'd have the kids use sticks to measure movement instead of tiles. A quick survey of the garage revealed a couple dowels, an inch-and-a-half cut of lumber, and a cardboard wrapping paper tube, no two the same length.

Then it hit me, the funky lengths weren't a problem, they were a feature.

"Okay, take the index card your team has been given and write down how many total points you want to spend on your team's choice of measuring sticks. The team with the highest bid gets the longest stick."

A helmsman puts the stick to work.

After purchasing their movement increments, the teams were able to buy upgrades for their ships (extra cannon, additional hull points, more maneuverability) using their remaining gold point total from the week. Some teams spent liberally, figuring that a tricked out vessel would win them the game, while other teams shepherded their points carefully, taking a conservative approach toward trying to get the win.

Finally, the members of each team were given one of four separate positions:

• Captain: you have final say in group decisions, your vote breaks any ties, and you are in charge of deciding on the team's strategy
• First Mate: you are in charge of firing the "cannons"; any time a marshmallow touches a ship (even if by accident) it counts as a hit

  

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• Helmsman: you are in charge of using the stick and moving the ship; nobody else can turn or move the ship
• Lieutenant: you are in charge of signaling and communications with other vessels and referees

"Get to the Island of Paak, loot the ancient temple, and sail away with the treasure.  The team who leaves the play area with the highest total in gold points wins both the game and the tournament!"

Cafeteria tables and trashcans provided some unforeseen terrain.
Here a Plukish ship takes advantage of "a low fog bank".

In both matches we played across the two weeks of camp, Ghult: The Treasure Fleet came down to a bloody tangle right at the threshold that marked the finishing space and crews neither ran away with an easy win, nor were left utterly outclassed in the wake of their opponents.  Thanks to the creativity and zeal of my high school volunteers, we were also able to add aggro NPC pirate ships and The Great Yarn-o-pus, a knitted Kraken horror from the deeps.  

A grand time was had by all.

The Forbidden City: An Adventure Log - Part III

After a brief rest at The Century Tree, Hale the Elf was joined by two dwarves and a wizard.  The group headed for The Plaza of the Sun to investigate the shimmering magical effect that had been spotted there prior, but not long after setting out they encountered several giant bees.  One huge bee alighted upon a dwarf's helm.  The expressions and voices at the table couldn't possibly have been much different if the bee was real and not just imaginary:

photo from this site

"We should run!"

"Hit it!"

"No!  No, hold still ... don't move."

"Just. Don't. Panic."

"Okay, I stand still."

GM: "The bee probes the edge of your helm, its wings still beating.  You can hear its chitinous legs scratching against the steel."

"I just stand there."

"Cast a Sleep Spell!"

"Yeah, okay.  I cast Sleep."

As the wizard invoked his spell, the bees quieted and grew still and the dwarf slumped to the ground.  The explorers flirted with the idea of trying to dispatch the giant insects, but in the end decided that the risk of waking them was too great and so collected the recumbent dwarf and made a hasty retreat.

pic from JuJuBeeHoney.com

At The Plaza of the Sun the group's wizard was partially roasted after investigating a huge mosaic sigil, but gained a new spell in the balance, so despite the blisters and lack of eyebrows he considered it a gain.

After a brief round of hide-and-seek with some well-camouflaged mongrelmen, the group made their way to the massive bronze sandals of The Fallen Colossus.  This location has attracted more attention from my student players that most features of Bawal Bayan.  Perhaps it is because the massive feet pose unspoken questions: What did the Colossus look like before it fell?  What did it signify that was worth such a massive undertaking?  Was the metal giant of any practical use, or did it just stand there?  

about 100% chance that I was influenced by this ...

Tapping revealed that each huge foot made a slightly different tone.  The dwarves were hoisted up for a look, and sure enough, one disembodied foot was filled with jade-green water whereas the other was both hollow and empty, drained by a silt-clogged grating beneath the giant heel.  After some rearranging, the dwarves set to work dredging the water-filled foot with a grappling hook, hoping to snare something shiny.  Meanwhile Hale and the wizard dropped down into the other foot to investigate.

"No!  Okay now you guys are stuck and if you need help we can't reach you -- we're both dwarves."

"Oh well."

"Can't you just climb up a rope or something and help us?"

"Yeah, just use your grappling hook."

"Well, we're busy over here."

Ducking low to explore the shadowy recesses of the Colossus's toes, Hale made a discovery: a little, wrinkled man sat cross-legged upon the sand, his long earlobes almost touching the tops of his skinny shoulders.  To either side of him sat a small, wooden box.

"Hello?"

GM: "Onlee-wun."

"What?"

GM: "Onlee-wun."

"Oh!  You have to pick one of the boxes."

"You should just stab him and take them both."

"No, I bet he'll go all ninja-master on you if you do.  He'll run along the wall and be like, 'Waaaa!' and chop your head off."

"Okay.  Which one should I pick?"

"Pick the left one -- always pick the left one."

Hale smiled nervously as he stepped forward and selected the left-hand box.  It opened to reveal a fist-sized glass globe in which a silvery-green leaf was suspended.

"Cool."

Having searched a bit more, the wizard called for the dwarves to help him out of the huge bronze foot.  Meanwhile the pair had gotten into a tussle with a green slime, but had resolved things and cast their still-dripping hook across to the neighboring foot.  A quick swing later and they adjusted their hook before dangling the rope down for Hale and the wizard to climb.  The wizard clambered up but, even as he tried to follow, Hale found himself shrinking -- his hands growing so small that he couldn't easily grasp the rope.

"Dude, you are shrinking!"

"I know, help me up!"

[GM whispers something to Hale's player]

"Only one."

"What?"

"He's turning into the little man!"

"Only one."

"Your stuck in there forever man."

"Only one. Only one."

"I'm not going back in there."

"Only one."

With a sigh, Hale soon resigned himself to a life spent squatting within the dim confines of the huge, hollow foot and he went to sit in the shade.  Then one of the dwarves spoke up ...

.

"Wait, I haven't picked one yet and I didn't come in with you guys."

"Only one."

"I'm going to climb down and go pick the right one this time."

As Hale looked on, the dwarf flipped open the right-hand box and plucked out the small, crystalline spider nestled inside.  He admired it briefly before stashing it in his pack and climbing back out of the foot.

"Only one."

The wizard was suddenly uncertain.

"I haven't picked one yet either ..."

"Only one."

"Yeah, you should go."

"Um ... okay."

"Only one! Only one!"

He returned to the toes where Hale sat and, after repeated urgings, chose the left-hand box, which again contained the silvery-green leaf suspended in glass.  Hale disappeared in a wink and found himself lying on the stony ground between the feet of the Colossus.  Inside the foot, the wizard had already begun to shrink, his features shifting.

"Are you guys going to ... I mean ... Only one?  Guys?  Guys?"

"I'm not going back in there."

"Nope, not me."

With little more than a shrug, the remaining explorers retreated, climbing out of the crater and leaving the wizard to contemplate his fate.

photo access at cultured.com

As our week drew to a close, Hale would return to The Forbidden City one more time with several other companions, this time making for the cobra-hooded Sphinx that dominated the southeastern corner of the crater.  He kept a diligent lookout during the difficult fording of stream in which one dwarf was nearly swept away, and led the way as the group skirted The Temple Plaza (where earlier explorers had interrupted a dreadful Yuan-Ti ritual).

  

Following the edge of some ancient, half-clogged canals, blind luck brought Hale and the others to precisely the same crumbling house where Victoria the Dwarf finally brought the rogue wizard to bay and slew the blackguard months before.  Poking around, the dwarf and a knight found the wizard's old escape tunnel ... a mere earthen crawlspace and started to scout it, but Hale and the other elf who had joined them were eager to arrive at the Sphinx and so, once the knight was tugged free from where he had gotten stuck, the group pressed onward.  Had they but known, another couple yards along the crawlspace they would have come across a lumpish obstruction ... an entire sack of treasure that Victoria had been forced to leave behind before making her daring, solo escape from the ruined city.

Hale and the others arrived at the Sphinx and, thanks to the help of the astute dwarf, found the secret door that let them descend into the chambers below.  Those halls contained a weird, fun house dungeon of the classic style, complete with revolving corridors, talking stone faces, gruesome traps, and giant swinging platforms.  

After another elf fell to a trap, the three survivors realized that it was time to have a serious conversation about whether to head back across the ruined city and the safety of camp or explore still deeper ... with the week of camp wrapping up, if they wanted any chance of being able to make it out of the jungle and back to their waiting ships [where the gold they had won in their adventures would be added to their team totals to determine the winning team of the week-long tournament] they would have to depart right at that moment.

They put it to a vote ... and all three voted to stay in the dungeon beneath The Forbidden City, sacrificing their chances of escape and their chances to influence the outcome of the broader competition, just in order to explore just a few more rooms ... to look behind one more door ... to navigate past one more trap ...

And there you have.  These last three posts make up the entire known adventuring career of Hale the Elf and represent one young person's introduction to that weird, fringe hobby that is tabletop role-playing.  Though I sent him home with his first d20, a miniature, and a copy of Dagger for Kids, I don't know if Hale's player or any of his 15 peers will ever choose to play tabletop games again, or if this week will quickly be buried under other interests and opportunities.  

Still, it was a privilege and a joy to get to see faces light up each time they solved a puzzle and hear the collective groans from the table when each new challenge was presented ... really, it was the closest I think you can get to recapturing the wonder and thrill of opening those old boxed sets for the very first time, or marveling over the strange dice ("How many sides does it have?").

Who knows, maybe lightning will strike twice and, though I only had them for a week, one of these students will make a deeper connection with this odd little hobby that has done so much to shape the way that I think, learn, and communicate.

The Forbidden City: An Adventure Log - Part II

Hale the Elf and his three companions returned to the jungle, determined now to reach The Century Tree and the floor of the crater to begin their hunt for treasure in earnest.

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GM: "You come back to the place where you slew the ape.  Flies are swarming around it now."

"Hey, I'm going to get some meat from it."

"Yeah, can I get some meat too?"

"If we eat meat does it heal us?  Can you like, get life back?"

GM: "Yes, you can take some meat from the ape, but it leaves you sticky and smelling of blood.  Are you sure that's what you want to do?  And no, eating doesn't magically heal you from injuries.  This is more like real life."

"Yeah, I take two pieces."

"Me too."

"If I drop my torch, can I take more meat?"

The Butcher's Shop 
Bartolomeo Passarotti

GM: "The trail leads onward toward The Century Tree.  Following it, you notice that many of the trees in this area have been stripped of all of their leaves. Ahead you see some regular-shaped mounds of reddish earth.  Each about seven or eight feet tall."

Soon giant ants, the size of mastiffs, were spied up ahead.  After a short huddle it was decided that the group would proceed between the ant mounds, despite the danger.  Whenever a roving ant drew too near, one of the explorers would drop a hunk of meat in its path, causing the creature to pause.  This worked quite well until the supply of ape meat began to run low, the ants closed from several directions, and the dwarf lost his nerve.

"I'm going to swing my axe at it."

"No!  I think maybe we've made friends with them."

GM: "When your axe strikes the ant's shell it just glances off, but the creature gives off this sharp smell -- as soon as the other ants catch a whiff of it they burst into action, suddenly moving twice as fast as they did before!"

One of the huge insects abruptly clamped its jaws shut upon the dwarf's legs, lifted him bodily, and began to trundle away with him.

.

"Yeah, we should go with them."

"No, we should run."

"I run."

"Hey, this could help us get underground.  I'm going to let it take me."

While Hale and the knight ran for it, the wizard was also grappled and dragged to the lip of ant hole.

"I'm going to let it pull me down, and then I'll put my staff across the hole and hold on really tight and ..."

Arriving at last at the tree, Hale and the knight went to work securing a grappling hook among the vines entwining the massive trunk and began to descend.  Before long, however, they had attracted the attention of the tasloi tribe that lived on a series of camouflaged bamboo platforms scattered around the circumference of the tree.

"Ewoks!"

"Are they ewoks?"

"Dude, if there are ewoks I'm going to keep one."

Luck was with Hale and his companion and, when I rolled for a reaction from the arboreal tasloi (which students would inevitably dub "gremlins"), the result was that, at least for today, the normally cruel and xenophobic creatures were content to watch from cover and merely cut through the climbers' rope when the opportunity presented itself.  Some lucky saving throws and the presence of many sturdy vines ensured that the adventurers survived, and Hale was the very first explorer to set foot inside the crater this summer.

The Avenue of the Gods, lined with massive statues and crumbling plinths, lay not far to the west so the partners set out for it at once.  Diligent searching allowed Hale to spot something reflective, an emerald eye, set in the face of a thirty-foot statue.  While Hale stood watch, the knight removed his armor ("So I won't be so heavy and can move around better") and, in classic dungeoneering style, set about climbing the massive, stone idol.

I knew the value of the eye would be considerable and, if recovered, this would be the first major treasure brought out of Bawal Bayan in some time, so I insisted on no less that three saving throws as we measured the knight's progress up the statue and his efforts to hold himself with one hand while prying their prize free -- he cooly nailed every check in succession and Hale caught the tumbling gem with a roll of 19 when it popped free.

With considerable swagger, the pair geared back up and continued to explore the area, spotting a nest of leaves in the broad mouth of another huge, bat-faced statue.

"Let's set it on fire."

"Yeah, okay."

A flaming arrow was prepared, but went out when it struck the stone.  Another was prepared, but missed.  Then another.

"You are the worst shot of any elf ever."

As the knight and elf became increasingly obsessed and vocal about their efforts to burn the nest, I noted that they hadn't paused to search, listen, or set a lookout.  Deep in the territory of the white ape troop that dwelled in the crater-proper (and trying to torch one of their nests), I made a check for an encounter.  Two apes.  I rolled again for encounter distance ... very close.

by D.A. Trampier from the AD&D Monster Manual

DM: "The ground trembles slightly and you hear the rattle of pebbles and broken shards of pottery from behind you!"

"We look behind us."

DM: "A pair of huge, pale apes with matted and dusty hair bear down on you [rolling dice to determine their targets -- both go for the knight]. The bigger one, the male, pounds at the knight with its fists [rolling dice] ... and he raises his shield to block, but feels something crack in his shoulder and his left arm goes numb."

[rolling dice] "I shoot!"

[rolling dice] "I swing at it!"

Another round or two of brutal combat and the knight was down.  Hale ran for it, pelting back for The Century Tree as fast as he could go, one ape still in pursuit.

"Aren't you going to use your healing spell on me?"

"I already cast my spell!"

"Are you going to come back for me?"

"You're dead -- I'm getting out of there."

"They are going to catch you -- apes can climb!"

"I just keep going."

The white apes were content to drive the surviving intruder away and, shaken but considerably richer, Hale arrived back at the massive tree where he ascended to join the remnant of another band of explorers.