Forbidden Jungle
Got in more hours of gaming on Friday and Saturday than I’d managed in the previous six months, I think. The first session with my son on Friday night was one of the most enjoyable I’ve ever played, and we followed it up on Saturday morning with another (shorter) successful session.
His ranger was dismayed to discover that the trolls are keeping a closer eye on their hoard now that he’s stolen some of it while they were away from their lair, but was excited to check out a little more of the tower he’s been exploring and managed to get back to town with another ivory tusk. Another NPC bit the dust, this time a thief who fell victim to the undead monkeys within the tower when the characters failed to take sufficient precautions.
That evening my wife and daughter rolled up PCs and we had our third-ever whole-family game. The two new PCs joined my son’s ranger and yet another NPC and headed into the wild. After some tense moments when they became disoriented in the trackless jungle, they managed to find their way back toward town and drove off some jungle goblin raiders near town. Unfortunately, the next morning they ran into more goblins and were wiped out.
The first time we all played together, the party was captured out by goblins. The second session we all played together was a successful rescue mission with new PCs. And now the third time was a TPK. Though I want the threat of danger to be very real and want 1st-level characters to be justifiably frail, the death rate is discouraging. My son, in particular, was pretty upset about losing the ranger that had done so well in the first two sessions.
He and I have discussed this extensively and we are going to be making a few tweaks to improve the survivability of PCs. I’m going to up the binding of wounds from 1d4-1 hit points per battle to 1d6, and the overnight healing is going to be upped to 1d6 hit points as well. I think this is in keeping with the sword & sorcery vibe I’m going for. Battles are savage and death is not uncommon, but soon the characters are back into the thick of it. So we’re going to give it a try.
I’ve got another change, much more significant, in mind as well, but I want to think on it a bit. The goal is to increase survivability at the first couple levels without altering game balance or making mid-level characters TOO powerful. I also want the risk of PC death to remain significant, and even a threat to well-played characters. It’s a fine line and one that I think a lot of people have trouble with.
Tags: Forbidden Jungle, session
Well, it is with a heavy heart that I’ve finally decided to shelve my Forbidden Jungle campaign indefinitely.
My design never really progressed very far, and I fear that most of the potential players would rather adventure in a more “standard” fantasy world than the lethal Lost World sword & sorcery environment I was planning for Forbidden Jungle. Rather than water it down with high fantasy, I’ve shifted gears and am starting to work on a new, more traditional campaign setting.
Though I am disappointed that Forbidden Jungle won’t see the light of day, at least for the time being, I am actually quite excited about the new world. Like Forbidden Jungle, it’s something that I’ve wanted to do for a long, long time. Hopefully I’ll be able to make some real headway in the next few days and will unveil things shortly.
Now that I’ve made the decision, it feels like a weight has been lifted and I am ready to charge in on the new project.
I know that a number of readers have expressed a great deal of interest in Forbidden Jungle, and I’m sorry if you’re disappointed. I am quite disappointed, myself. Hopefully, the new campaign will take shape as I intend and it will be a worthy substitute.
UPDATE: Now that I’ve started on the new setting, a brainstorm has led me to wonder if many elements from Forbidden Jungle can’t be worked into this new world. Much of it would fit very nicely, and doing this would eliminate the risk of the Forbidden Jungle becoming stale after a while, something I’ve felt was a bit of a risk.
At the same time, I don’t want to sell any of the Forbidden Jungle ideas short by editing them down to fit within another environment. This new campaign is going to be intentionally smaller-scaled, and I don’t want the Forbidden Jungle to just become a single encounter area. A couple of the ideas I was working on simply won’t fit within the space I’ve allotted for the new setting, so they’d have to be trimmed way back or ditched entirely. I’m not sure if I want to do that, but I also know that it might be the only way Forbidden Jungle sees the light of day for years. Or for ever.
Tags: Forbidden Jungle
Labyrinth Lord comb-bound full-size and digest
For some time now, my plan has been a two-pronged approach to fantasy gaming. Labyrinth Lord by the book with only a few house rules would be one side of the coin while a totally customized Swords & Wizardry White Box system would provide an outlet for for all sorts of ideas in a game with a simpler foundation and a lower power curve.
However, I’ve been struggling to find any time to spend on the White Box side of things. Heck, I’ve been struggling to find time to spend on any gaming lately. I made the decision some time back to put my Forbidden Jungle sandbox campaign into White Box, but as my work on that has languished Forbidden Jungle has ground to a halt. Looking into my immediate future, I don’t see much realistic chance to spend any amount of time on S&W in the coming two or three months. Considering that I had wanted to have kicked off Forbidden Jungle already, this is not acceptable.
Of late, I’ve been pondering the switch to All Labyrinth Lord All The Time. Despite a lot of coolness in the S&W White Box system and an awesome S&W community online, I’m having trouble justifying splitting my time and effort between two systems, particularly when one of them is going to require a significant amount of work before it’s what I want it to be, and the other is already up, running, and going great.
Since I’m pretty limited for time these days, there’s no real rush to make a final decision on anything immediately.
I’m also wondering how many people actually play multiple systems. Is it uncommon? With so many retro-clones, spin-offs of retro-clones, and new games out there now, not to mention the originals, do many players utilize several of them? Or do most pick a single system and stick with it?
Telecanter recently posted on One Sentence Monsters, so here’s the write-up of a monster I’m planning to include in the Forbidden Jungle:
Spider monkeys with the feathered wings of large birds, winged monkeys can be cowed into servitude by powerful wizards or witches.
Winged Monkey
No. Enc.: 1d6 (4d8)
Alignment: Neutral
Movement: 90 (30)
Flying: 150 (50)
Armor Class: 5 [14]
Hit Dice: 1+1
Attacks: 1 (bite)
Damage: 1d6
Save: F2
Morale: 7 (but see below)
Hoard Class: XX
XP: 21Winged monkeys are normal-sized monkeys with feathered wings. They generally live in large groups and favor jungles and ruined cities. Clans will be led by a 2 HD winged monkey or perhaps a flying ape.
Winged monkeys have a great fear of magic, suffering a -2 penalty on morale checks when spectacular displays of sorcery, such as lightning bolt or fireball, are involved. This fear leads many of these creatures to become enslaved by powerful wizards and witches out of fear.
Though timid and easily frightened off, they gain a +2 modifier to morale checks when carrying out the orders of a leader because they fear angering their lord.
One winged monkey can carry about 75 pounds, but two or three of them can work together to carry more.
(White Box) Winged Monkey: HD: 1+1; AC 5 [14]; Atk 1 bite (1d6); Move 9 (Fly 15); Save 13; XP 30
Tags: Forbidden Jungle
That is an ape, but it is not THE ape
I picked this module up shortly after it was published and thoroughly enjoyed reading it. I loved the idea of such a powerful and dangerous environment, and (being a King Kong fan) loved the specifics of the setting.
However, we never played it. We only ever had couple of PCs within light-years of 18th level, let alone at the power needed to survive the Isle.
It seems that I generated some new characters of appropriate level and started them through this all on my own as a sort of test run, but I don’t think I got very far. (I used to do that sometimes as a way to play when no one else was interested. Sad and lonely, I know, but I never had problems with it.)
Anyway, it occurs to me that a lot of what I liked about this module is finding its way into my Forbidden Jungle setting, and I wasn’t even aware of it. As James says, it’s very much in the mold of Lost World pulp adventure, and that is exactly the vibe I’m going for in Forbidden Jungle. With that in mind, I’m going to have to dig my copy of WG6 out and go through it. I’m pretty sure I still have it.
Tags: Forbidden Jungle
Things have been progressing very slowly on my Forbidden Jungle campaign setting, but that’s okay because a lot of the time has been spent actually playing (a couple of Labyrinth Lord campaigns) instead of designing this. I’m still real excited about giving Swords & Wizardry White Box a shot, and I’m still real excited about this campaign, but when opportunities to play with the family arise, they take top priority.
Here’s the map of the city I’m working with.
Dwellers of the Forbidden City
(click for bigger version)
I’ve left the original encounter area letters in for the time being and I’ve basically numbered every building. I’ve got 165 of them so far, though more may turn up as I dig into detailing them. My plan is to use an index card for every building and encounter area, which will allow me to make all sorts of changes as the PCs alter things.
I also plan to create maps for some of the major buildings depending on who is where and what is going on. I expect that this will evolve over time depending on character actions. In addition, I do not plan to be limited to the surface. There will likely be entrances to extensive subterranean areas, and I don’t mean just the ancient sewer system.
Tags: Forbidden Jungle
I’ve got some more done on my wilderness map for the Forbidden Jungle sandbox:
Click for full PDF
The yellowish terrain is a huge plateau thrust above the level of the jungle canopy. The sickly greenish terrain is swampy territory.
I also moved the settlement that the PCs will start in a bit farther back down the river.
Characters will arrive in the outpost town via boat from the coastal area (off map).
I think I’ve got this map far enough along for now. I’m going to start working on more detailed info regarding the background and setting and beginning to detail the area around the town.
Tags: Forbidden Jungle, maps
As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been playing with Inkscape a bit in hopes of putting together a decent wilderness map for my Forbidden Jungle sandbox campaign. Though not a work of art, I think this is not half bad:
Forbidden Jungle: Click for a full-sized PDF
Can you say “green hell”?
The red star beside the river near the center of the map is the trading post where the PCs will start. That point on the river is the farthest foothold that civilization had been able to establish in the region, and that foothold is tenuous at best.
The green mountains and hills are jungle-covered. The brown mountains and hills are some sort of a horseshoe-shaped plateau that is above the canopy and relatively tree-free. I’m not exactly sure how to show that yet. I’ll continue working on this as things develop but it’s probably as nice of a wilderness map as I’ve ever made.
UPDATE: Updated version is HERE.
Tags: Forbidden Jungle, maps
