The GM is Satan!
But He's also God...
We’re back this week with another episode of Arbiter of Worlds. This time we tackle a problem of Biblical proportions — the challenge of being both God and Satan in your game world.
Can I get an Amen?
If you’re enjoying these YouTube videos, I have a book available on Amazon that covers similar topics. It’s even got the same name as the channel — Arbiter of Worlds. It’s a great gift if you have friends who are story gamers who need to be brought to the light.
Also, my upcoming ACKS Imperial Imprint (ACKS II) is being re-designed to make full use of the techniques for agency-focused sandbox gaming that I describe in Arbiter of Worlds. The Judge’s Journal (our equivalent of the DMG) expands and extrapolates on the instructions in AoW with very specific instructions for adventurer-to-king campaigns. Here’s the table of contents for Chapter 5:
Here’s a sample from the ACKS Judges Journal that’ll give you some insight into the level of care we’re giving to helping Judges build better sandboxes.
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C. Place Points of Interest – Dungeons, Lairs, and Landmarks
Now it’s time to focus on adding some dungeons, lairs, and landmarks to your sandbox. But how much should you add? In 10 years of ACKS playtesting, we have found it takes about 16 hours of play to advance for each level from 1st – 3rd, about 24 hours of play to advance for each level 4th – 9th, and about 32 hours of play to advance for each level 10th to – 14th level. Assuming 4-hour sessions, that works out to 4, 6, and 8 sessions per level.
To have enough content for your party to reliably advance from 1st to 14th level, you therefore need [(16 x 3) + (24 x 6) + (32 x 5)] = 352 hours or about 90 sessions worth of content. Put another way, we need 12 sessions of low-level play, 36 sessions of mid-level play, and 20 sessions of high-level play. Playtesting has shown that the average party of adventurers will explore about 2 dungeon rooms per hour of gameplay. Therefore for a party of adventurers to go from level 1 to 14, you need to have the equivalent of about 700 rooms for them to explore.
Sizes of Dungeons, Lairs, and Landmarks
How many rooms does a typical dungeon have? How long does it take to clear? In general:
A megadungeon has hundreds of rooms spread across a number of levels. A single megadungeon will take 40 - 80 sessions or more to complete. Some megadungeons are ever-expanding and cannot be completed.
A large dungeon has 60 to 120 rooms spread across one to three levels. A large dungeon will take about 8 to 15 sessions.
A standard dungeon has 15 to 25 rooms spread across one or two levels. A standard dungeon will take about 3 sessions.
A small dungeon has 2 to 10 rooms, usually on one level. A small dungeon will take 1 session or less to complete
A lair might range from a den in a tree to a village but it is characterized by featuring one type of monster in its native habitat. Most lairs take 1 session or even just 1 encounter to handle.
A landmark might be a place of power, a hidden mountain pass, a buried treasure trove, a grove of rare woods, or other interesting feature of the region. Most landmarks are explored quickly; finding and getting to them is the adventure.
Obviously there are dungeons that fall outside of these ranges – there’s nothing preventing you from creating a 150-room, 40-room, or 12-room dungeon – but these sizes are similar to those found in many published books, including Autarch’s AX series and its Lairs & Encounters guide.
Distribution of Dungeons, Lairs, and Landmarks
The easiest way to get 90 sessions of content is just to use a commercial megadungeon. A single megadungeon such as Dwimmermount can fill up an entire campaign. However, megadungeon campaigns often keep the players so tightly focused on the dungeon that they don’t take advantage of the full scope of ACKS. If you want to offer your players the sweeping adventurer to king arc, you’ll want to distribute the adventure all across the sandbox.
I recommend placing a total of 25 – 30 points of interest with sufficient size to provide 90 sessions of play, as follows:
1 large low-level dungeon offering 12 to 15 sessions of play.
2 to 4 standard low-level dungeons offering 6 to 12 sessions of play total.
1 large mid-level dungeon offering 12 to 15 sessions of play.
6 to 8 standard mid-level dungeons offering 18 to 24 sessions of play total.
6 to 8 small mid-level dungeons or lairs offering 6 to 8 sessions of play total.
1 large high-level dungeon offering 12 to 15 sessions of play.
4 to 6 standard high-level dungeons offering 12 to 18 sessions of play total.
3 to 5 small high-level dungeons or lairs offering 3 to 5 sessions of play total.
Any number of landmarks.
This will yield about 18 to 27 sessions of low-level play; 36 to 47 sessions of mid-level play; and 27 to 38 sessions of high-level play. It’s slightly more material than you need for the PCs to advance through the levels (12, 36, and 20 sessions respectively). That’s the desired outcome. If the PCs have to visit every point on your map, you haven’t really offered them any freedom. You need to put more than enough points of interests on the map so that they can make choices about what to do!
As you place the dungeons, lairs, and landmarks, all you need to do at this step is just draw a symbol on your regional map and then write a brief entry that describes the dungeon, lair, or landmark. If you’re basing the point of interest on something you assembled earlier, be sure make note of that in parenthesis so you remember later. But you do not need to adapt or develop the points of interest in any great detail at this time.
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My hope is that if you’re a GM who has found Arbiter of Worlds useful, you’re going to find ACKS II to be your taste. ACKS II will be crowdfunding this summer, with sneak previews on my Patreon including complete drafts for King-tier and above.
That’s all for now — I’m off to go play Ascendant in my weekly house game. Don’t forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel, then head over to the links below for others ways to get involved in my recently-declared Simulationist culture movement. If you’re already a fan, be kind and spread the word!
ACKS Patreon with a new article from our Axioms ezine every month
Ascendant Patreon with a new character and story hook every month
Autarch Facebook page with news and updates about our projects
Autarch Twitter channel with brief comments and witty quirks
Ascendant Comics Facebook page with sneak previews of the upcoming comics
Ascendant Comics Instagram page with tons of art and cosplay
Ascendant Comics Twitter channel with short messages and quirky wit
Thanks for reading Arbiter of Worlds!
Despite their best efforts to be otherwise.
An excellent explanation!