Back down the Hole in the Oak (OSE)

Back down the Hole in the Oak.

Last week we had our second taster session for Old-School Essentials, with the characters returning back into the dungeon which had claimed the lives of two of their retainers and nearly killed two more. We agreed that they'd managed to escape the hole and make it back to town overnight, where they'd had a slap-up meal and recovered. They decided to head back into the Hole to 'deal with the Ogre'. Obviously, the snoring offended them. This time they added some useful items like iron spikes and a crowbar to their equipment.

Blurring the edges between fog of war and VTT mapping

Role worked well, once again, and the only thing that I was really missing was 'fog of war' for the map. I know that this is coming, but it's important for games like this, where exploration is an important part of the experience. I created a copy of the map and painted a white layer over what they hadn't seen last time, then we blended on-screen mapping with the main map, as shown above. It seemed to work, but would have been better if I'd had a graphics tablet or stylus to draw better. However, I'd happily use this again.

The characters made a good haul this time, with plenty of gold and treasures. Having been drugged and subsequently defeating the enemy who knocked them out, they then cleverly used the spare herbs to do the same to the 'ogre', having dropped off the remains of a previous victim which they'd found in the pantry and laced with the sleeping draught. It all worked swimmingly.

They were lucky at points; the thief backstabbed one of the enemy leaders, which took magic out of the battle, but overall they worked together much better. I do think that First Age's character was a little out of it, but that's what a single spell and huge vulnerability do to you. It pays off once you hit higher levels, but the life of a low-level magic-user is a life of fear until then. 

In honesty, I'd forgotten how fun it is to run a game like this. As a DM, you don't have to worry about complex plots and moving parts, nor manage how you respond to avoid killing the characters in quite the same way you do in more modern games. There's a different feel; this is the world of bumbling novices, trying to make a living and become heroes. Most modern games - including D&D5e - start with characters who are competent and well on that path. OSE captures that feel from the early days that RuneQuest and other games shared, a feeling of vulnerability and danger, a feeling of the unknown and a chance to explore and the ever-present likelihood of dying in some dark hole you're trying to pillage for loot.

This was the last of the taster sessions; we only played for around 2 hours because we'd had two significant encounters and the next likely one would easily have taken us past the 10:30pm cut off that had been requested by the players. I'll admit that I'll happily run this again if they want to do another session, but the rest of August is out as it gets complicated with holidays.

Running 'The Hole in the Oak' definitely made me want to run more of this style of game, some kind of less serious drop-in session with a large dungeon. In my mind, there'd be a way for players to leave messages or reports on what they found so future adventurers had hints and tips beyond the basic rumour table. I'm torn between continuing to build 'Castle Xyntillan' on Roll20 or waiting until Role gets fog of war.

OSE nails its objective of emulating B/X level D&D near perfectly. It's not a style of play that I want to dip into often, but it was more fun than I had hoped.

16 August 2021