Play Report/Review: On the Hill

When one or two of my weekly sessions get cancelled (usually for attendance reasons) I get antsy, and I like to run (or join) a one-shot. In my experience, most "one"-shots are instead short-shots, so it's difficult to find a satisfying module to fill one evening, but no more, since open-table two- or three-shots scattered over weeks, if not months, is just not something I want to try. After purchasing a couple duds, I found the much more appealing (from a reading standpoint) "On the Hill." The adventure is a modern "twisted" re-imagining of B5 ("Horror on the Hill") deploying the Liminal Horror rules. Importantly, the module seemed finishable in three hours. Reader, it was (two-and-a-half, actually).

Liminal Horror (a Mark of the Odd type) is really good for these sorts of things, since the only explanations needed to TTRPG-familiars are roll-under, "hit protection" vs. hit points, slot dynamics and fallout, damage-only rolls, and ability score damage, a five-minute explanation tops. I used Cairn-style initiative and Critical Damage rather than Wounds because I forgot the Liminal Horror rules were different. I also forgot the best-damage-die-of-multi-attack rule during the boss fights (this really only mattered twice). The "Voidcrawl" procedure at the center of the adventure will be familiar to any GM that haunts the OSRsphere. (I don't love the neologism "Voidcrawl," but the module's usage makes more sense than the original game's.) Each exploration turn consumed by the players requires a d20 roll, which mostly then requires a subsequent roll if the result is Omen, Monster, Horror, or Clue. The "plot" is there's a haunted state park, and once the PCs enter, they must perform some tasks and defeat a pair of monsters to escape.

Preparation

Since I play online, the game had to be set up on the Roll20 platform that I use. The module as written would be very easy to play theater-of-the-mind on top of the player's map (a map of the park), and perhaps I should have done that, but I made a page for each of the eleven sites in the crawl, plus an "interstitial" page, for when encounters happened along a path. I added the rolling tables and monster statblock pages beyond the edge of some of the maps (out of player sight). The individual site pages were found-for-free or previously-purchased battlemaps that more or less fit the territory. I also made and uploaded tokens for the PCs, NPCs, and monsters. I filled in backgrounds and equipment for five character sheets; the players would get to roll their three stats and hp. I wrote a three-sentence explanation of character motivation.

Play Report

Generally speaking, a nice success. Two players showed, but two 'maybes' did not. I reduced monster damage by a die on the fly and made monster morale matter (B/X triggers plus CTRL check). The players were very suspicious of the opening NPC encounter (for good, but also for meta-reasoning), but plunged into the haunted park, anyway (also for meta-reasons), now with a secondary objective (rescue). 

The players, when informed of the Voidcrawl procedure (each action--move, search, interactions--will trigger the clock roll) decided to head straight for the monastery along the most direct path to spend the night (the PCs' initial goal). The first roll on moving down the path was a monster event. In fact, about half the Voidcrawl rolls were Monster events (20% chance on each roll). The first attacking creatures--fairyland sprites, essentially--proved very unexpected to the players. They debated briefly about trying to leave the park, which was impossible at this point in the adventure.

The second Voidcrawl roll triggered the first Doom event, which is just meant to be spooky, and doesn't provide any foreshadowing. The players met an NPC and got information (some dubious, some good) in the third area they entered, their interactions leading her to leave. They searched the area and received an Omen roll, which was both nice foreshadowing, and probably my best improvisation of the night. 

The attempt to reach the fourth area resulted in the "Twisted Forest" result, where the PCs make no progress. The next Voidcrawl roll resulted in another Monster, which I held off until a slightly more dramatic moment, rather than just meeting on the path. The party met their third NPC, a man in need of rescue, and were deeply suspicious of him, especially when the monster attacked during the rescue. They gained a little more information, including vaguely about a secret area not on the park map, received a magic item, and lost time (a second Doom advancement roll, also just spooky). The following transit involved another Monster roll and other actions added three different Horrors. The characters deployed their magic item, but didn't fully understand how it worked (mostly beneficial), and wouldn't use it again. The next roll brought forth the realization of the Omen, so one of the PCs grew antlers from her own head.

The next area achieved was the place where they would combat the first NPC they had met outside the park, the "sub-boss." With some luck, and the new Fallout from the Omen (antler weapon) the PCs defeated the evil man, and the subsequent Monsters that showed when they searched the area. They moved on to the final space, and in a very quick battle versus the module boss (antler vs. antler), who forced two critical damage saves (failed and success with only 25% chance) and got his head blown off by a maximum damage roll to almost certainly avoid a TPK. The rifle-user had a 50% chance of being killed outright during the next turn, or a 20% or less odds critical damage save to win. One of the players commented: "Wildly cinematic. My heart was actually racing." 

The Great

The park map for the players is pretty much the ideal player handout, and the digital handout comes with the purchase. The partial information therein helps speed along choices. Nearly all of the Clues, Monsters, Horrors, and Omens/Fallout are eerie and overlap in interesting ways to get the players' minds agitated with the horror. Some of them are good foreshadowing, too. Each area is written up concisely and clearly, the information matching the players' possible choices of action, making each location very easy to run.

Adjustments I'd Make

The players' map and the GM's map both look very much alike, so it might be easy to accidentally give the players the wrong one (which basically has two secret areas on it, is all). I might add the player map to the module pdf itself, too. The legend "party area" (on the players' map) doesn't make sense in the context of the recently-claimed-by-the-state park, since it's become a swamp. I realize why the starting creek route doesn't have path from the road (to preserve the bubble that traps the players), but it doesn't make a lot of sense from a realism perspective. This is the one instance where playing from the map might be less useful--undermining the confusion of the players if they take the stream back south from the orange trailhead and end up at the blue trailhead. 

The map's structure is also not quite conducive to players exploring it all, if they don't attempt to leave early. Why visit the western-most areas of the Lowland Loop, if the destination is the monastery, which it almost certainly is? If I run it again, the Old Timer at the beginning will be certain to claim "Sophia" was lost near the pond. I might also set up rumor tables, with vague implications about the potential monsters, as well as reasons to take each of the trails.

The opening encounter (which takes place prior to the map numbers) is a bit buried in the text. It's also set up in a way that might derail entering the park: the players might volunteer to help drive the injured woman to the hospital, or call an ambulance. I don't think the Old Timer should call himself that if the players know about the backstory on page three "At the center of these [indescribably horrible] stories [about the park] was a man, now called only the Old Timer." The centerpiece of the adventure--an abandoned monastery in the wilderness--doesn't quite seem to fit the American state park system; I presume it is a holdover from the original B5 module. "Ending the Adventure" is on page 3 with the beginning, which partly makes sense, but was a less helpful location in the text after the ultimate encounter (page fourteen). The Flail of the Penitent seems unlikely to be found/used unless this is an ongoing campaign session.

For all the good parts of the Voidcrawl, getting to the end of the Doom clock seems very unlikely. It seems like sessions might average around twenty rolls, and it is only a 1 in 20 chance, with 5 steps. My session which had 15 rolls (one every 10 minutes) produced 2 Dooms (5% chance each), 2 Omens (5%), 3 Twisted Forest [15%], 4 Monsters [20%], 3 Horrors [20%], 0 Clues [15%], 1 Free [15%], and 0 Reprieves [5%]. I think if (when) I run the scenario again, I might expand chances for Doom, Omen, and Clues, at the expense of Twisted Forest (the most boring/frustrating result after the first time), Monsters, and Free.

I'm excited to see how different a second session with different players might turn out.