In which we finally get around to enumerating our House Rules

 Not our mechanics, mind you.  Don't want you to see EVERYTHING behind the curtain.  But I'll be adding a hint or two to this list every month or so.

1. Starting characters roll 4d6 and choose the 3 highest dice for statistics. Players choose where to allocate the final six numbers. Further character stats are generated according to my own systems. Must have at least one 15 AND one 16 OR one 17.
   
   2) Classes are restricted. No monks or artificers. Some sublasses might also be discouraged. Ask during creation.
   
   3) Races available to players are restricted to dwarves, halflings, elves, half-elves, half-orcs and humans.
   
   4) No class/race restrictions
   
   5) Any race and any class may be multi-classed.
   
   6) There are no race/ability score minimums or maximums.
   
   7) There is no such thing as “alignment.” Paladins may be jerks if they wish.

   8)  Material components replaced with Spell Focus Homebrew
   
   9) Only trained fighter types (including paladins and rangers) may fight from horseback. Only fighter types may successfully ride warhorses while armed.
   
   10) Backstabbing and assassination may only be accomplished against surprised or stupefied creatures. Neither may be accomplished in combat against an opponent who is aware of the thief’s or assassin’s presence.
   
   11) Some spells have been rewritten and are periodically subject to review. Goodberry and Mend are two examples.*
   
   12) At present I use a money system in which a gold coin (weighing 4 grams or 1/6 of an ounce) is equal to 10 silver pieces. One silver piece = 10 copper coins. Typically 80 coins will fit into a small belt pouch and 300 into a large belt pouch.
   
   13) Long bows cause 1-8 damage. Short bows still cause 1-6 damage and may be used from horseback. Either may be fired every other round normally, but a -4 penalty may be accepted if a player wishes to fire a bow every round.
   
   14) Light crossbows cause 2-12 damage, but may be fired only once every 3 rounds. Heavy crossbows cause 4-14 damage, but may be fired only once every 4 rounds. These damage changes were made to give players a reason to pause when facing a group of town guardsmen.
   
   15) There is no difference between outdoor ranges and indoor ranges. One foot is one foot, always.
   
   16) Psionics do not exist.
   
   17) All players begin at first level, regardless of the present level of the party. Low level characters associated with high level party members who SURVIVE tend to go up levels very quickly.
   
   18) Experience points are awarded for using the UA Three Pillar System.

19) Initiative System Homebrew

20) Death & Dying Homebrew

Goodberry: invests ordinary berries with the power to restore lost hit points (1 per berry) or provide nourishment equal to one pound of food each, in persons who have no damage to heal. The berry always heals before it can nourish.

Mending:as written but may only cast once per long rest, plus once per level

In which we consider what, if anything, is character creation

 

What are we playing? Is the idea to be given a set of stats and traits and play them in a game setting to the best of your ability? Or are you creating a game-piece customized within a set of rules in order to play in a game setting to the best of your ability?

In Monopoly you may chose to be the dog, the battleship, the iron or the race car (although why anyone would NOT chose to be the race car is beyond me) and the only differentiation is the shape. But imagine they had different traits. The car gets to move one extra property per turn. The boat may move an extra property IF the dice indicates it lands on a property NOT named after a body of water. The dog prevents any other player from landing on either side of it. And so on. Are we still playing Monopoly? Probably not but there are a TON of house rules to the game so work with me here.

In version one you still get to pick which token you use, and you select the one that fits your game style the most (?.) In version two there's a blind draw to see which token each player gets. In version three you may select the token you get BUT the “trait” is then modified by the roll of a d6. Are these three games THAT different? Which would you prefer?

It seems that being handed character sheets that only differ in the picture of the character is the base game. Everybody is the same class/race with the same Big Six. Might be interesting but not gonna fly long-term. Each of the proposed versions above seems to be (loosely) correlated to various character creation methods.

Over time the methods for creating a character have stayed more or less the same, but the ORDER of creation (and locus of control) has changed. DM's initially controlled generating the Big Six with the player making subsequent decisions. 3D6 in order WAS a thing! Minimum requirements had to be met. Wanna play a Paladin? Probably not gonna happen. You're out of luck. Here's your Big Six in order. NOW pick a race (and get some modifiers) then a class (more modifiers) and you're done. Didn't qualify for the race/class you wanted? Suicide by monster and start over. NOT good game play. Good game play would be taking taking the character you got and adventuring to the best of your ability.

At one point different dice were rolled for different skills based on character/class. And it's looking like ONE is turning classes and races into a gray mass of differences without distinctions. Dogs and irons and race cars. Ah … but then you choose your BACKGROUND! And stuff gets “different.” Like in the second 'graph above. Perhaps version three in 'graph three.

LONG post to get to a different question: is your “goal” playing D&D to explore the world and see what happens? OR is it to create the coolest half-gnome half-orc multi-class artificer monk and see how they interact with the world? And this is where I get kinda harsh perhaps. If you're looking to play the second type of character then a series of disconnected one-shots will meet your needs. But if you're looking fro the first you need a more complex interconnected world. The second type of player will love the ONE method of character creation. Type one would be happy (and challenged) with a strict 3d6 in order, give me a race, a class, and a name and I'll give you the rest kinda game.

Perhaps another way of asking is: Do you consider D&D to be a game about PLAYER skill or CHARACTER skill? 

note: after I wrote this I had a LONG tm exchange with two other DM's about this topic.  Disagreement brought me no closer to a viable understanding. 

Edit to add:  Alexis over at the Tao of D&D has a running series on this topic that started my trip down this rabbit hole

In which we begin to encounter THE ONE

If you're reading this you're probably aware that WotC and all the other corporate kraken that IS D&D these days is coming out with something new.  Not 6e.  Not 5.5.  ONE.  There's some play testing out there.  We know a little about what's coming.  Some of it's good.  Some of it isn't.

Here's my take.  D&D is now poker.  There's a world of difference between five-card draw and Spit in the ocean.  Play of Texas Hold Em is different than Big O high/low split.  But it's all poker.  And then layer in House Rules and it becomes unplayable.  Except it doesn't.  You learn the basics.   You ask the game.  You touch on house rules and you play.  Every table is different but but every table has the same elements.  

So I'm thinking when ONE (I forget: is this Coke or Pepsi?) hits tables will adopt some and reject some and we'll move on.  This is my initial impression of what we know. 

1.  Critical hits.  No crits for monsters.  No crits for magic.  Change of the damage calculation.  Pretty much what we've BEEN playing so not really a change for us.  Just kinda incorporates our house rule into canon.  There's a bit more there but that's the meat of it.

2.  Rolling a 20.  20 always succeeds.  1 always fails.  Not a fan.  By this rule a 90-year-old commoner has  5% chance to throw an aircraft carrier to the moon.  Additionally the ONE calls for a character gaining inspiration if they roll a 20.  No.  Just no.  IF we incorporate it it will be for rolling a 1.  "You failed miserable but realized you could succeed by ..."   

3.  Ability score bonuses.  Since first edition AD&D, each race has gained ability score modifiers that match the fantasy archetypes of robust dwarves, agile elves, and so on. This started back when everyone rolled characters at random and when good play meant making the most of whatever the dice gave you.  I HATE this equity crap.  I'll probably skip this modification completely and stick with old school/home brew character generation so the stereotypes will endure.  

4.  Feats.  I've been trending away from feat for some time.  MUCH better to get a 5-10% bonus in a skill.  But players don't see it that way.  They wanna be able to do cool stuff.  And eventually they will.  But at the start you get six ability scores, a race and a class.  GO!  But now we take AWAY the distinguishing features of race and instead add options via background" and feats.  Don't like it.  I'll probably continue to improve and implement Alexis' sage knowledge system.  The one GOOD thing it appears the ONE does is to break feats down by level.  Kinda like Alexis has been doing for years.

5.  Grapple.  Doesn't happen often enough to matter.

6.  Spells.  Three types.  Arcane, Divine, and Primal.  COULD really clean up quite a few things.  I like the IDEA.  We'll see how the implementation goes.

So there you have it.  I'm thinking my table will stick with what we like from 5e, incorporate the "good" from ONE and continue to implement our house rules as needed.

In which we harvest

 

A few months ago I stumbled across this website and began incorporating it in my sessions. Was kinda neat but needed soe work to be fully actualized and then I found out the guy had a book. Actually THREE books.

So I read the books and I did some tinkering and here's how I'm going to complete the integration …. and how you can too!

Step 1. Appraising. What can the party do with that carcass before it? Somebody makes a a check against 8 + the critters CR. The skill used is determined by the type of creature. Success means the character has knowledge of what they can get and how hard it will be, along with risks and how long it will maintain efficacy.

Step 2. Harvest. Make a DEX check with the same skill used above. The higher the roll the more items may be harvested. It will take the DC/5 minutes to harvest.

Step 3: Buying and selling. And out comes the spreadsheet. Long version. Using my economics spreadsheet I give every city, based on its infrastructure, its appropriate terrain. This provides supply/demand prices for critters. Spreadsheet has a drop down for terrains and pulls cities valuation based on that. Also a field for DC of production. Dropdown based on occurrence, based on this site. Then a bunch of math based on that and I get how much an apothecary would would charge for the item and how much the party can get for selling it.

If an item isn't listed and the party wants to harvest it anyway, use the following table:

Material	DC
Blood and fluids	5
Soft Tissue (tongues, ears, genitals, etc.)	5
Hard Tissue (claws, teeth, spikes, horns)	5
Bones	10
Eyes	10
Internal Organs (heart, stomach)	10
Limb (leg, arm, tail)	15
Hide (fur, plating, scales)	15
Complicated lim (wing, tentacle)	20
Brain	20

In which we try to figure out what a hit point is

 Had a situation last session.  Character fell 60' and took enough damage for death.  Prior to "expiration" cleric wanted to know why he couldn't just "Cure Light Wounds" until he was back above 0 HP.  I had no answer, but it didn't FEEL right.  Didn't even feel right to the party.  But in the intervening time I've done some thinking.

The DM’s Guide defines hit points as “The number of points of damage a creature can sustain before death (or optionally, coma), reflecting the character’s physical endurance, fighting experience, skill or luck.”  But that causes all KINDS of problems. My conclusion? Hit points are an indication of how near a being is to death. Magical/spiritual …. even sexual …. healing only increases the distance between life and death. Once a character has gone below 0 HP only  application of medical skill or a successful Spare the Dying can help. Revivify can return a “dead” character to 1 HP whereupon healing can then be used to “increase the distance between the character and death.” Damage, injury, effects resulting from the damage taking the character below 0 still exists, but life has been restored.

The Drive

 In a well-constructed world the stories write themselves.  Party has been traveling up and down the Great Northern Road pursuing leads but a recent vow of vengeance took them off the road and into the woods to the east - toward the mountains.  There's another small village a week away.  No trail connects them bacause south flowing rivers provided better passage.  Snowtall.  It's existence had been plotted and it's economy created but I needed to flesh it out.  Nothing fancy.  Nickel mining with an occasional peridot.  Sable habitat nearby suitable for trapping.  And goats.  As the party approached the village the biome changed.  More pine forest.  And they climbed about 1,000 feet.  Colder.  Just enough different from where they've been to make it interesting.  And goats.  Chevon to the French.  And all the differences it makes.  Goat milk.  Cheese.  

Goat meat replaces pork on the menu.  Cabbage and onions.  Carrots when you can find them.  Beer and vodka.  Kefir for ceremonies.  And then there's the neighboring town of Lireverc.  It's a 9-10 day journey.  But it sits in the lowlands.  And they raise pigs.  So over the years a trade has developed.  In the fall the goat herders and the swineherds cull their animals and begin driving toward each other.  Many a peasant and workman make the trip as well.  For the boys it is a rite of passage, for they carry the heavy packs of salt and provisions.  The drovers meet at a halfway point and the slaughter commences.  Huge bonfires are lit with hogs and goats roasting for three days.  The animals are skinned: the goats more carefully as their hide is more valuable.  Amateur tanners set about their task.  Then the butchers.  Entire carcasses are prepared as are specific cuts.  The salters prepare the meats for shipping.  And after three days of slaughter, hard work, story-telling and passing the news each side packs up and heads home to prepare for the winter.

Our party missed this years slaughter by about three weeks.  But they'll hear about it.  Probably eventually pass the site of this years event.  Might lead to an adventure.  But regardless it makes the world real.  And it wasn't some fanciful die-roll on a pre-generated "festival" table.  It was what the world gave them. 

In which we ask "why?"

“Why?” should be the D&D version of “yes, and ….” It can move the action further and it can gt you to the place where you can say “yes, and.”

A few examples from recent play sessions.

Our half-orc barbarian asks, as they're preparing to leave town for an overland journey, “can I buy a bird?” The easy answer was “yes.” The town is big enough to support a stock yard. Heavily agrarian. At worst inquiries could be made and some opportunistic townie would go TRAP something for him. Why he didn't catch his own, or ask the party ranger to do so was beyond me, but so what? Table discussion then devolved into a discussion of Ogar owning a vulture. Or perhaps a falcon, but no sleeve. At THIS point I began imagining all manner of unintended consequences. So I asked why? He has several control/speak with animal spells and has been unable to use them. This would allow him to do that. So – a birdbrained scout. Not a familiar. Not a beast companion. Just extended scouting ability. So I said yes, but …. no birds of prey. A pidgeon. A dove. Maybe even a crow. I offered a chicken but was soundly rejected. And a duck or goose would be eaten too soon! But I already have PRICES for those three. He's flush with cash so that's not a problem. We agreed in principle to a non-stat-block bird (thus eliminating the temptation to use offensively) of yet-to be-determined provenance. Some quick research yielded the Red-billed Quelea. And everybody's happy.

The party has taken on a “Magnificent Seven” type task to protect a small village. Quite admirable. In prepping the defense the rogue asked to “walk the perimeter. Why? He explained his idea for locating the highest traffic means of ingress in order to narrow down what needed to be defensed AND to set up opportunities for enfilading fire. I could then provide him with the exact info he was looking for instead of waxing poetic about “the beautiful countryside lightly frosted with rime.” He didn't USE the enfilade opportunities, but that's beside the point. The question “why?” saved time and enabled the player to do what he wanted to do succinctly. Several other similar plans were attempted by other party members along the same track. Can I X? Is there any Y laying around? Why? Once I know why I can better answer the question and the players can actualize their plans. Everybody's happy.

Side note: Two new flavor mechanics got expanded this session. It's winter. Temps dropping. Party made sure to purchase winter clothes when the opportunity presented. Weather report is simply three words: one for precipitation, one for wind and one for temp based on the 10 degree range the wind chill presents (pleasant, cool, brisk, chilly, etc.) As conditions worsened the party realized their winter clothes wouldn't protect against ALL cold. A couple frosty nights threw the party into disadvantage. Staying close to the fire and within a windbreak were helpful but they know their movement is now limited by conditions.

In which we design "an encounter"

 

First – What IS an encounter? Encounters aren't just “band of orcs attacks.” I've started using “Environmental Encounters” from the good folks over at Infinium Game Studio. It provides randomized encounter suggestions for two DOZEN kinds of terrain. I've only used a few of them (grassland, marsh, deciduous forest.) The party may soon have me using farmland, hills, mountains or even snow. Encounters include events, combat, quirks and No results" which still impact game play. Each terrain presents four contexts: a) default, b) emphasis on combat, c) emphasis on “event”, and d) emphasis on safe travel. If the party's traveling on a road or path and in a “civilized” area we go with D.  Otherwise I tend to look at all three other options (based on a 1d20) and pick the one that fits the current situation well.  That way if I have a "railroad" encounter I can drop it where it fits best and the players aren't as likely to recognize it as RR since if fits the same play-flow as everything else.

Second - WHEN do we need an encounter? I roll 3-5 times a day depending on player choices. Where are they? Where are they headed? How fast are the traveling? I've been using a d6 but have been getting “too many” so may switch this up to a d8, regardless of all the above. Something ALWAYS happens on a “1.”

Third – and the meat of this article – how much is enough? I rely on the work of Sly Flourish and his Lazy Encounter Benchmark. And y'know I love my spreadsheets. So I have a section which lists each character in the party, along with their level. Not everybody plays every session so I can select JUST those characters who are along for the ride on a given evening. Step one: total the levels. Step two: determine tier. Step three:apply Lazy Encounter math. So there's one column. Done. My next party will likely comprise seven characters totaling 33 levels. So a deadly encounter would be 16 1/2 CR's. Hard: 8 1/4, medium 4 1/8 and easy 2 1/16. Done? Hardly!

Y'see I quickly learned that just throwing a nice big juicy 17CR beast at the party wouldn't work. Action economy dontcha know. So the CURRENT experiment adds two more columns. I assign half the CR to the BBG. In the example above it'd be a 8 or 9 CR critter. The rest of the CR are divided by the number of characters -1. In the case above this means that the 8 or 9 CR critter will be accompanied by six or seven CR 1 critters. NOW we have a suitable BBG and enough side-kicks to deal with the action economy.  Done? Not quite.

What if your BBG is a player class? In other words, how does CR relate to class level? After doing a TON or reading, it seems the agreed upon number is 2/3. A 12^th level Barbarian is (roughly) a CR 8. So I've added one more column that does THAT math on the fly as well. In the case above I'd throw a 12^th lvl BBG with 6 2^nd level minions.

So four rows (deadly, hard, medium, easy) and four columns (general CR, BBG, minions, class-level conversion.) Member of the party can't make it one night? Just take their level off the sheet. Example …. Ogar the Barbarian can't make it. Takes 10 seconds to drop his “6” and reduce the party size to 6. The columns automagically change. CR 13.5, BBG of 6 or 7, 5 or 6 sidekicks of CR 2 ….. and if they're facing a character class it should be 10^th level.Keep in mind this takes a LOT longer to explain than to implement.

Now lets go back to our IGS table. There are several types of encounters. Here's how I incorporate them. If a combat encounter is called for they're labeled hard, medium or easy.  I use the tables found at Chaos Generators for additional suggestions based on ALL of the above. And if the encounter is obstacle related? it's back to Sly Flourish and his cheat sheet for guidance. 

Complex? Seems that way. But MOST of the math is done before the session commences. Players know “something always happens on a 1” and they're usually excited to see what it's going to be – cultists? A dragon? A tree trunk in the road? A magic spring? I can usually generate an encounter and thread it into the story line in less than a minute. My players expect it to be coherent and they expect their decisions to impact the outcome.

And the road goes ever onward.

In which we discover a LOT of scarcity

 

Scarcity creates conflict. Conflict creates adventure. And there you have it.

And so we're ready to implement NTME2022. A FEW things still need a tune up. Carpenter, Cartwright, Mason and Alchemist all need work. Kinda saving them until needed. When the party decides they need to buy a wagon, or build a fence, or an eye of newt I'll start fleshing those out, and the tools will be in place for that to happen. Distiller, Brewer, Furrier, Metalsmiths, Outfitter and “Inns and Taverns” all need some touch-up work to be done. Example? Since sugar is rare I haven't set up rums yet.

To catch up, the resources of my world are loosely based on reality. They're placed according to geology, climate, long & lat, altitude, etc. Many are dependent on other resources. About a month ago I placed all of my precious metals and stones. This weekend I set up my lapidary store based on size, rarity, location, etc. Which brings me to aquamarine. Emeralds are currently the most expensive stones. There are seven known sources in the world, based on the presence of tin and granite. Diamonds SHOULD probably be next, found only deep in dwarven mines and occasionally those of Orcs. But the second most valuable stone in MY world happens to be the lowly Aquamarine. Found where the geology has conspired to place but tin and copper. Which just so happens to be ONE place: the neutral berg of Baram, in the rough lands bordering on Dunnir, the land of the hill dwarfs. This town of 4,000 souls is cut off from most of the world. Pirates, sea monsters, brigands and the lawless wilderness make any journey there treacherous.

Stones occasionally make it out via the black market but let me give you some idea of value. An almond sized emerald would cost about 1 million gp here in Crysrift. A plum sized diamond would got for about 1.5 million gp. That same million would get you an almond-sized aquamarine – IF you could find one. There's a campaign story arc all on it's own. As currently constituted it would take over two DECADES to get there from Crysrift. Opening up the trade route ALONE might take years and earn millions.

Think anybody will?  Maybe.  Once they figure it out.

In which we generate a character

 

I have a player at my table I really enjoy. But when he creates a character he insists on writing a six-page backstory. Even when I ask him not to. IMHO it complicates things. Creating a new character is MUCH simpler than that. Here's how you do it …. in keeping with the Angry GM's advice.

I ask my players for four things. Race, Class, Background and Motivation

As always I tend to limit them because there are some races/classes I just don't like (shakes fist at the clouds.) So Race. You can be Human, Elf, Dwarf, Halfling, Half Elf, Half Orc and that's IT! Which is basic … and plenty. Everything else is just commercialized drek to sell splat books. No gnomes. No dragon/turtle/crow people.

Class. No Monks or Artificers. No Blood Hunter or Sorcerer as your FIRST character. Simple. Subclasses? Ask me. Probably gonna be OK with it.

Background. Not keen on Knight. How about Squire? Noble? Doubt it. Let's talk. Pirate & Sailor might be useless so probably not. So far, so good.

Motivation: three words. Amass wealth. Help others. Mete out Justice. Spread the faith.  List of suggestions provided upon request.

I'll apply the standard array. Use my magic spreadsheet for physical description, familial attachments and a few other little odds and ends. I'll buy your initial equipment based on all of that stuff above.

And there you are. A PC, complete with ready to go quirks and whatever weird ideas you wanna throw in. Believe your bard was an enslaved minstrel in the Court of the Fairie Queen? Your fighter was a hero in the Great Goblin War of '76? You're the Rightful heir to the throne? Fine. You'll be playing a character one bad event removed from the residentially challenged person wandering down High Street yelling to passers by that they're the REAL MAYOR!

About that player in the first 'graph above?  I DO enjoy his writing. They're readable. Could be a Hallmark Christmas movie with a few small adjustments. But I do NOT need them for the game,

In which we finally get back to it

 Two sessions ago the party set out on the Great North Road into the Sea of Grass.  Objective:  Zerstortia, to find clues to the cure of the plague.  First day?  A small abandoned village with intersections barricaded.  Went around.  Second day? A troop of cultists who were allowed to pass undisturbed on the road.  Third day?  A refugee camp of hundreds of victims. Avoided.  Fourth day?  Interrupted a cultist human sacrifice of five humanoids to summon a demon from the Gaping Maw of the Abyss.  Opted to not interfere.  Sixth day?  A tower in the distance .... and Zerstortia.  

Entire session.  Five encounter opportunities presented. NO railroad.  None taken.  

Next session - exploration of the dead city of Zerstortia.  A LONG fight with a horde of dretch led by the previously summoned Vrock.  Lesson learned? We shall see.

In which we watch old movies

 Took the opportunity to watch two old movies I've always enjoyed.  Errol Flynn in The Sea Hawks and Captain Blood.  But it was different this time.  THIS time as these two large 16th Century ships began firing broadsides at one another, splintering wood everywhere I heard (?) Alexis' voice describe the following:  timber cut down in the forests of England and Spain, transported, converted to lumber and probably transported again to a location specially designed for the purpose of ship-building.  Hemp, cotton and flax grown, harvested, spun into thread, woven into cloth or twisted into rope.  Iron ore dug from the ground, transported to puddlers, converted to pig iron then cast iron.  Transported again to be formed into cannon, balls, and fitting.  Brass and bronze going through the same transformation.  

And all of the work of all of those people over all of those months and years being sent to the bottom of the ocean in a matter of minutes.

Dan Carlin (Hardcore History) touches on a modern version of this when discussing WW II at sea with the massive expenditure of time and treasure to build battleships, destroyers and carriers.  And for my money Leonard Read kicked it all off with I, Pencil

Should players care about ANY of this?  Probably.  Do they?  Maybe.  Should we MAKE them?  Slowly, my friends.  Slowly.

In which we learn more about failing forward

 Was running a published adventure - attempting to end a plague.  In order to do so the party was to slay the BBG, then dissect her corpse to find the 300 (!) words of the needed ritual, then assemble the pieces, then read the ritual 24 hours a day for 10 days at the site where the BBG was slain.  As you can imagine this would NOT lend itself to exciting table play.  So I consulted with my DM mentors and game-ified the ending a bit.

1.  Reduced the words to 30.  Once the BBG was slain they party searched for the pieces.  Each made an Investigation check at CR 0 to find a piece.  If they rolled 20 or more they found two.  If more than three pieces were found the CR went up 5.  If fewer than three were found there was an attack.  The attacks started at CR 1 and went up one each time.  This further reduced the party after slaying the BBG.

2.  Once all pieces were found three of the members of the party (The Chosen) were able to assemble it (via magic hand-waving.)  Reduced the ritual to just 24 hours.  One member of the party at a time could read using Arcana, Religion or History.  The CR started at 0 and went up 1 every hour.  Successful roll meant no attack.  Failure meant more monsters, starting where they left off.  Character could only read 4 hours at a time, then needed 4 hours rest.  As you can guess the first ten hours went pretty well, then the wheels fell off.  The encounters soon hit deadly.  

EDIT TO ADD:  I told the party of these rules.  Shouldn't have.  Shoulda just given a level of exhaustion after four hours and let them figure it out.

3.  We knocked off after 18 hours.  Six to go.  And I realized I probably escalated too quickly.The BETTER "fail forward" option would have been to make the encounter CR equal to the amount of failure.  So instead of CR 10 when they failed at hour 16 by only rolling a 14 it SHOULDA been a CR2.  Party is near death.  Gonna implement the above for the final six hours and hope they a) roll better and b) avoid the TPK.

If you find ANY of this useful do me a favor and drop me a note in the comments.

In which one of the party dies

 Death needs to be an almost constant threat, to make taking risks actual risk-taking.  And so I provide opportunities.  Every third or fourth encounter is strong enough to be deadly, and about one out of every eight or nine is over-kill and should be avoided.  

The party is lost in the wilderness.  One way teleporting gates have a way of doing that.  They've cleared a dilapidated tower to provide shelter and a temporary base of operations.  They trekked west a couple days, rolled well, encountered a pack of death dogs, triumphed and back-tracked.  Then they opted to scout to the north.  After two days of a steady rain the going was slow.  Another moderately difficult encounter.  Another success.  Camp.  During second watch they spotted a fire a mile or so away.  The ranger opted to go explore - ALONE - and the party opted to LET HER GO!  She got within about 60' of what appeared to be a cult ritual (complete with robed figures chanting in ancient Sanskrit) and failed her stealth check.  Stepped on a twig?  Kicked a rock?  Flushed wildlife?  The ritual goes full stop and the cult leader orders their guard dogs to attack.   

And that's where we left it.  So the ranger has a week to reason her way out of this and the rest of the party has a week to reason out a rescue plan.  They're a mile away.  The death dogs are 55' away and slavering at a dead run.  And it's dark (a waxing crescent moon.)  

Meta:  The ranger is 5th level.  The DD's are CR1, so five would be a deadly challenge.  I COULD greatly reduce the number of DDs to make it survivable.  The rest of the party is, at best 8 (?) minutes away.  Ranger has a companion so a balance in the action economy would be two or three DDs.  Think I'll throw five at her and see what happens.

To paraphrase Ivan Drago: "If she dies, she dies."

(posted a month late so as not to spoil)

In which we walk the borders

 Scarcity creates conflict.  LOTS of things create scarcity.  Piracy.  Monsters.  Landslides.  Border disputes.  Also plague, production shifts and ... well ... you name it!

So every game-month I "walk the borders."  OK, not that complex, but I DO use Azgaar to reconfigure events on the planet.  This generates all KINDS of fun stuff around the planet.  The current map highlights a handful of light houses and bridges, the destruction of any of which might results in calamity.  The Coclinalian River flooded - lets reduce food production there.  The southern boarder of Invarel is suffering from Bloody Fever and boarder skirmishes have erupted as internal squabbles.  A volcano 200 miles north of Kunduz erupted.  Copper and salt production is increased in multiple wilderness locations between Invarel and Kinduz.  Avalanches have rocked the region west of the high elf homeland and there have been rumblings along the Numundunese fault line, endangering the mountain dwarves.  

Every ONE of those events creates plot hooks.  The news of these events may or may not reach the parties ears and they may or may not choose to investigate.  If/when they do I'll flesh out the nature of the problem and away we'll go.  And NEXT game-month (about three game-weeks away) and I'll let Azgaar create another set.  And I'll figure out how long it'll take word to reach the party, and I'll plant the events in the "rumors" list and the world will wash over them.

And when the year changes?  States, provinces, armies, cultures and diplomacy changes, cities grow (and shrink) and some production is shifted, and the cycle starts anew giving not just the illusion of a living, breathing world, but an ACTUAL living, breathing world.  IF this campaign ends or IF the current players decide to place their secondary characters in a new location or IF a new party wants to play in my world ... I can give them choices.  Wanna be thrust into the middle of the eons long struggle between dwarves, elves and orcs?  Maybe the viking-like culture beset by sea monsters.  Or negotiating trade deals between two countries who recently discovered a mountain pass that could connect them.  It's ALL already there and has been all along.

In which we get three dimensional

 Got my work incentive bonus (although I always think of my salary as a work incentive bonus!) right around Christmas time and have decided to indulge myself.  I'm buying a 3D printer!  Filament.  Three extruders.  Ran it by my tech advisor (The Boy) and he gave an enthusiastic two thumbs up.  

Have been having issues with the seller.  Not sure if it's supply chain or bad faith.  For the time being I'm assuming it's the former.  Got a Geeetech A30T.  Also picked up a bunch of spools (RGYBKW, silver and gray.)  Will add purple, orange, wood and gold next time around.  At around $20 a pop these might make nice Birthday/Christmas list items.

Have also been spending a crap-ton of time online trying to learn what mistakes not to make and how to "slice."  Also how to "color" or "paint." To my dismay it is NOT as easy as I thought it would be - and I was expecting it to be kinda difficult!  But the search continues for the perfect software to ease the task.  A Canadian kickstarter from 2016 looked promising but after it went live the producers walked away.  Hopefully I'll stumble across the right youtube video to penetrate my thick skull and help me unlearn all my priors.

"What are you going to DO with it?" my friends and family ask.  After rattling off a dozen silly pieces I COULD make (personalized chip clips, book marks, tools) I mention D&D.  A family brainstorming session yesterday yielded a handful of ideas as well.  And my niece who I dearly love rolled her eyes and obeserved "now we know what to expect NEXT Christmas."  

The Boy and his sidekick are ecstatic.  Only reason they haven't bought there OWN is because they're afraid it'll swallow their lives whole.  So they'll come over once it's assembled and once I've worked through an hour or so of slicer setup and watch my first prints. And they also know that I'll take their requests.  

So where do I start and where do I go?  I'm thinking I'll start off with a swarm of rats.   One color.  No support needed.  And who DOESN'T need a swarm of rats to throw on their battlemap?  After that?  Once I'm up and running I figure I'll know what creatures I might need for upcoming sessions so I can run a bunch of those.  Currently gnolls, bandits, dretch, quasit ... maybe a vrock or a chasme with night hag's and hezrou right around the corner.  Terrain set pieces?  Haven't really USED terrain but I might run off a throne or a well or a fountain as needed.  Custom weapons!  One of my characters has a sword she's named "Spine Ripper."  Would love to find an interesting model and make her a small version of it.  Cleric has a Mace of Disruption.  A small model would be nice.  So would a token-ized version to use as a spiritual weapon.  Periapt of wound closure?  Spell focus?  Sure.  And minis for NPC or secondary characters.

Side note - I've run a fantasy football league for over 35 years.  We've NEVER had a trophy.  Found a model of the Lombardi Trophy.  Think I can modify the "engraving."  Current league members could be given one for each year they've won - with Stanley Cup style additions over time of the name and franchise of all prior winners.  That'd be fourteen of 'em.  Might be a fun long-term project.