The Grey Brotherhood Battles On...
Two video updates and a MAJOR behind-the-scenes look at how I prep
Last week’s episode of Arbiter of Worlds explained how to schedule for success to make a long-term campaign work. This week’s episode - the 14th - discusses one of the major pitfalls you’ll encounter in any long-term campaign. Problems with your players!
Some of you might have noticed that this video was originally titled “Arbiter of Worlds Episode 14 - Final.” That wasn’t in any way meant to happen, and this isn’t the Final Episode. I simply forgot to update the title. Then we had a Spectrum Internet Outage and I was offline for 12 hours… That’s also why this email is going out today rather than Monday. Monday was dead internet day for me.
In happier news, Episode 5 of the Grey Brotherhood, my actual play series for ACKS II, is now available on YouTube. Since this series is presenting actual play in a real campaign, not every session is jam-packed with epic battle and dramatic plot twists. It would be an utter falsehood to claim that every session of a long-term game is dynamite. Sometimes a session just involves trudging safety when you’ve got wounded comrades and a lot of loot, and hungry bears want to eat you.
On that note, I wanted to talk a little bit about how I prepare for these sessions. “How do I run hexcrawls” is one of the most commonly-asked questions on the ACKS Discord, and few published sources really explain how to do it. Here’s my actual preparations for Session 5. I’ve added footnotes throughout to help you understand what I’ve done.
Session 5 Pre-Planning1
4th Pendaelen - Heading to Türos Tem2
Forest Hex– Monster Encounter – Grizzly Bear
5th Pendaelen - Heading to Türos Tem
Clear Hex– No Encounter.
Clear Hex - No Encounter.
6th Pendaelen - At Türos Tem
Clear Hex - No Encounter
7th Pendaelen - Heading to Siadanos3
With a cart on road the party can move (12 x 2) = 24 miles = 4 hexes per day.
Road Hex 1 – Small Roc, not in lair; presumably lives in the forest to the southeast of Türos Tem across Krysivor
Road Hex 2 – No Encounter
Road Hex 3 – No Encounter
Road Hex 4 – Dangerous Terrain – Awful Despoiling of Useful Herbs. 103lbs of Aloe. A large patch of succulent plants, about 2’ to 3’ tall, with fleshy leaves, long, thin, arched, in an organized rosette pattern with tall flower spikes - but the flowers and leaves are blackened and dead as if from disease or blight. This hex is near the Lusaun Forest, so we’ll assume they have rotted and died due to the effect of the Sinkhole of Evil.4
8th Pendaelen - Heading to Siadanos
With a cart on road the party can move (12 x 2) = 24 miles = 4 hexes per day.
Hex 5 – Valuable Terrain – Useful Herb – Woundwort, 93lbs of herbs. Harvesting takes 3 hours (3 ancillary activities). A patch of 30” tall nettles with hairy stems have flowered to produce beautiful pink and purple blooms.5
Woundwart, also known as heal-all or lamb’s ear, is a herbal medicine with curative properties. An adventurer with Healing proficiency can use a woundwart tincture to treat injured characters. Used in this manner, it provides a +2 bonus on proficiency throws to cure light wounds and cure serious wounds. Worth 930gp.
Hex 6 – No Encounter
Hex 7 – Valuable Terrain – Monster Carcass, 32 hours old, a Lion. Has a punctured ear with a tag reading “Omnus Plurus, Lanista”6
Hex 8 - No Encounter
9th Pendaelen
And that’s it! I do this any time the adventurers will be traveling and it keeps things flowing without requiring on-the-spot procedural rolls. Now, the obvious question is: “What do you do if the players don’t do what you expect?” And the answer is: “Roll with it.” You’re never worse off from planning.
For instance, if the players had decided to head back to the forest instead of to Siadanos, I’d simply have used the procedural rules to determine their encounters on the way in real-time. Real-time procedural play works just fine, it’s just a little bit slower at the table. Perhaps some of what I’d prepped could be used, perhaps not — if not, it’ll be useful eventually when the party one day travels to Siadanos.
What if the players had “doubled back” on the road, such that they went from Hex 1 to Hex 2, but then back to Hex 1? In that case, the return to Hex would be Hex 3 in the list of random encounters, and then wherever they go after that would be Hex 4. The encounters are not pre-assigned to a particular hex! They are chronological, not geographical.
There is a caveat to that. Sometimes, if the players surprise you, they might abandon a river journey midway for a forest trek. When that occurs, you cannot use your chronological list of river encounters, obviously; you revert to procedural generation in real-time while they’re in the forest. If they return to the river, you simply pick up where you left off. If they don’t return to the river, no problem — now you have some pre-generated river encounters for future use.
Before I sign off, I want to reach out to my fellow Substackers, YouTubers, Game Reviewers, and other associated influencers. (Apparently the successful game designers do this sort of thing, called “marketing”?) If you are interested in doing a preview of ACKS II, please let me know! You can comment, email, or find me on Discord or Twitter.
If you haven’t already, 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!
Autarch Reddit with a sub-set of the aforementioned smartest, nicest gamers
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
At the end of session 4, I asked the players what they intended to do in the upcoming session. Such decisions are not irrevocable - the players can and sometimes do change their minds when actual play begins. Nevertheless, they are useful aids for GM planning. In this case, the party said that it intended to travel to Türos Tem, buy a cart, and then head to Siadanos to seek divine healing for its wounded party members.
In ACKS II, when traveling in outlands or wilderness territory, there is a chance for an encounter each time the party enters a hex. Since I knew that the party would be traveling to Türos Tem, I rolled the wandering encounters for that trek in advance. This technique greatly speeds up actual play.
As with the trek from the Buried Temple to Türos Tem, I rolled the random encounters for the expedition to Siadanos in advance. In ACKS II, we have formalized and expanded the rules for encounters found in Matt Jarmak’s Axioms article “Stocking the Wilderness.” Each time the adventurers enter a hex, there is a chance they will have a monster encounter or a terrain encounter. Monster encounters vary by creature, of course. Terrain encounters can be valuable, dangerous, or unusual terrain; each category has a number of sub-categories. Since I know the party can travel 4 hexes per day on the road, I’ve rolled those encounters in advance.
For this hex, the encounter I rolled was “Dangerous Terrain.” That lead to the sub-table to determine type of Dangerous Terrain and the result was “Awful Despoiling.” That lead to the sub-table to determine what had been despoiled and the result was “Useful Herbs.” That lead to the final sub-table to determine the herbs, with “Aloe” as the result. I then used ChatGPT to tell me what Aloe plants looked like. However, that wasn’t sufficient for gameplay. I needed to know why there was Awful Despoiling. This is where the Secret Art of Abduction enters in. In the setting gazetteer Capitol of the Borderlands, there’s a point of interest in the Lusaun Forest which is a terrible sinkhole of evil that is spawning undead. I decided to hook the despoliation to that. Now if the players follow up on the despoliation, they can find a trail of dead flora that leads them to the source of the evil.
I’m continuing to roll random encounters in advance. In this hex, the encounter I rolled was “Valuable Terrain” - “Useful Herbs” - “Woundwort.” I then used ChatGPT to find out what Woundwort looked like in nature, and quickly jotted down the effect and value of Woundwort so I wouldn’t have to flip through the book when the players asked.
For this hex, I rolled “Valuable Terrain” - “Monster Carcass.” That in turn directed me to roll a monster encounter to determine what type of carcass was discovered. The dice turned up “Cat, Lion.” But this now called for the Secret Art of Abduction to deployed again. Why is there a dead lion lying in the road? In Capital of the Borderlands, the city of Cyfaraun has a number of gladiatorial schools, one of whose lanista (owners) is constantly getting into trouble trying to buy wild animals and exotic creatures to fight in the arena. I decided to hook the monster carcass to that. Now the heroes have a lead to get involved with the gladiatorial bouts in Cyfaraun.
Since I know that the party intends to seek out magical healing, I’ve already checked the ACKS II Spellcasting Availability by Market Class table to determine how many spells are available and at what cost. With 1d4 4th level divine spells available per day, I rolled a “2”, so both Tirenius and Hyglak could get healed that day.
At this point we’ve switched from Wilderness Encounters to Settlement Encounters. Settlement Encounters can occur as infrequently as once every few days to as frequently as every hour, depending on whether the adventurers are avoiding trouble or seeking it out. The tables themselves are adapted from those originally found in Capital of the Borderlands.