Ask the Dragonslayer: Open Table Solutions

Question from a reader today! Edited for brevity, though I appreciate the extra context:

Hey,

I’ve been really inspired by your open table posts, specifically the ones on charhallow [here and here] and the Isle Rats modifications. I run weekly games at my FLGS. I started trying to run OSE games… but I felt that the amount of time I was putting into them was near or less than 1:1 the time at the table, and it felt a bit decadent.

I switched over to just doing one-shots of various things, mostly horror games [but] quickly got bored of the rigid structure that those adventures entailed…

Your blog really seems to be the only place I’ve found where a DM discusses running Open Table games in the style I am, so I was hoping to get some insight on how it runs week to week for you… The two things I’m really stumped on from the get go are the system to use and how to approach building the woods. I like your idea of using Wyrd and Wild, (which I probably will use in addition to the Cairn 2e rules) to build out a sort of autumn forest megadungeon.

Systems – I think its a draw between Cairn (with some tweaks), Freebooters on the Frontier 2, or OSE…

For the World – I was thinking I should just approach it as a megadungeon that happens over the land, but also adding another dungeon close to the start where players can get into normal delves. I wanted to have 2-3 sub goals for the players beyond gold and radiance as well.

Anyway, just curious to hear about your experiences running this style of game… In an open table setting, return players aren’t guaranteed, but I’d like to have leverages built in to encourage return players.

Thanks

John

The open table game is one I found myself attracted to because I had a decent pool of people (12-is) with varying levels of interest and availability (never played before all the way to running campaigns of their own, all with different workloads and homework due dates). I witnessed many a game crumble after one or two sessions with one motivated GM and an inconsistent group of players who would then wail nostagically over not getting to play again when the inconsistency with lead to campaign collapse. So I wanted a game that could allow anyone on that player experience spectrum to play in a two hour window and go home satisfied, but hungry for more. Games that took one hour to generate characters and sessions that bloated to four hours leaving everyone with a gaming hangover where not options.

These wishes informed my system and world decisions, with the best design choices being a blurring of the two. If the woods give a mutation or insanity after a real-world timer declares the session over, that is both system and world working in tandem. The fiction and rules are informing each other. I would encourage every design solution to a problem to come from this marriage of two halves.

PROBLEM: Because players drop in and out of play, their characters need to start and finish in the same location each session.
SOLUTION: There’s a town central to the game on the edge of the wilderness. There’s no reason to stay in town the whole session and there’s a punishment for staying out of town too long.

PROBLEM: Players are either tired or have other things to get to by the two hour mark. They neither want to understay or overstay their welcome.
SOLUTION: Have an actual timer at the table, the session lasts two hours. Timer keeps going when “in town” to promote speedy preparations (buying provisions, learning skills, having an audience with NPCs). Have a risk/reward for staying in the woods longer so that sessions drive towards higher tensions and leaves off on a climax!

PROBLEM: When a PC dies, their player has all this knowledge about the world that they “can’t” act on. That’s metagaming!
SOLUTION: The PCs are actually immortal souls that inhabit new bodies upon death. New characters have old character’s memories and skills. Knowledge is something shared between players and the players are the keepers of knowledge, not their characters.

PROBLEM: The campaign doesn’t drive towards a finale or climax. (Maybe this isn’t a problem for you).
SOLUTION: Put a timer on the campaign. Real-world event X will happen when Y mechanical trigger occurs. “The apocalypse dragon will awaken in 12 days (12 sessions) time!” “The heroes of the town will be no more when 20 heroes have perished!” Add events along the way to signpost this.

PROBLEM: Magic exists!
SOLUTION: Figure out why/how and what the consequences are. Cairn suggests the magic of the world comes from spellbooks. Okay, where did the spellbooks come from? How do PCs obtain one? How do they work? Are they unpredictable? Do they attract evil or greedy eyes?

PROBLEM: PC advancement should drive off of player engagement with the world and be a natural consequence of playing the game, both to encourage players to continue to play and explore while also inviting new players and not make them feel “behind”. What system should I have that supports this?
SOLUTION: One that allows for acquisition and worldly ambition without just dangling XP for attendance. Fictional advancement! Have the reward for obtaining treasure, allies, information be to get that treasure, ally, or information. (XP for gold works here too if that’s what you’re driving for, but as I’ve whined about before, 400 gp per person vs 350 gp per person feels arbitrary.)

PROBLEM: Buying items is a slog. Players have to ask me about the world instead of searching themselves: “Does the shopkeeper have any _____?”
SOLUTION: List merchants wares and prices ahead of time on a handout accessible to players. Strike bought items from the list. Replenish between sessions only if it makes sense and you care to do so. Just like real merchants.

PROBLEM: How should the wilderness be generated while also giving players a chance to find what they seek and not just stumble around? Connected to this, how do PCs find their way back to town?
SOLUTION: Have a generator to make the woods feel as though you could get lost in them. When you enter the woods through the Gates of Saint Hestia, tie a string to her ankle and whisper the name of your quarry. This quarry may be a dungeon you’ve heard of, a person you must find, a treasure you seek. The GM selects a difficulty for finding this quarry: Very Easy = d4, Easy = d6, Medium = d8, Hard = d10, Very Hard = d12
When the players enter a new area of the woods, the GM rolls the difficulty die. If that number is equal to or lower than the number of areas the PCs have moved through this session, their quarry is here, though it might not be immediately obvious. Whenever the PCs wish to return to town, provided they are not in a hostile encounter or otherwise hindered, they follow the string back to town immediately. Because who wants to spend time backtracking? Not this guy.
Here’s also where you put your dungeons. Have a dungeon be an easy quarry after getting a rumor about them, a very easy quarry after finding it. That gives them more time to explore the dungeon while still making it a challenge to find.

Anyway, I hope you see the “fishing” lesson rather than the “fish”. You can copy and paste my solutions to your campaign, no problem, but I would encourage this approach of uniting the world and system to solve design problems.