Blog Book Club #45: On Set Design

[Barnum]

Welcome to this week’s blog book club. This week we are discussing “On Set Design” by Courtney Campbell Hack & Slash.

Next week we’ll be reading https://rottenpulp.blogspot.com/2012/06/matt-rundles-anti-hammerspace-item.html by Jack on Rotten Pulp.

You can see a list of previous blog club posts here.

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Today’s post is about dungeon keying!

The post references T1: Village of Homlett but I haven’t had the pleasure of reading it yet. More importantly its about a process of keying information in a dungeon to make it easy for DMs to read at the table.

Some people must love reading long paragraphs and then typing up notes on those paragraphs! That’s good for them! But, it’s not me. I am a sweet summer child grown indolent supping on the terse keys of supplied to me by Necrotic Gnome (and many many others). Looking back 14 years ago this was far from the norm in published modules I was reading at the time. While I am determined to continue on my lazy existence for the time being, the least I can do is examine the struggles of those who came before and appreciate the work that goes into crafting finely tuned dungeon keys.

The post provides some example rooms and then the key is decoded. Then an example of how a DM might interpret that room for their players.

Bolded words! this approach remind me of early text based RPGs. But they are classic for a reason. Expounding on keywords to drill down deeper and get more information is a time honored tradition and if ain’t broke …

I think the hardest part for me was understanding that the items were in a container.

Downside of this approach is I think you need to know the room key if you are new to this. Its not necessarily intuitive, but I don’t think it would take long to adopt either with some practice.

Source ‘Thy Dungeonman’ from Homestarrunner.com

The post references this free resource on stocking empty rooms! (also by Coutney Campbell). While I didn’t get a chance to look at it, it seems like a useful tool to have on hand.

Ultimately, Campbell explains the reason to pursue terse keying is seeking speed, flexibility and creativity. And its undeniable that the room with ghouls, an expensive dwarven chair and a sack containing numerous treasures is highly efficient even though its likely enough to supply full 30 minutes of play on a mere 11 lines of text.

If i had nits to pick here I would question whether the referee not giving any extra words when running the key makes dungeons too spartan. Sometimes I need some inspiration to help me bring dungeons to life. These Key words are peak efficiency. I am just thinking I lack the skill at this point to bring a dungeon to life without including short punchy descriptions in my notes. (but i am not precluding the possibility of having both a dungeon key and supplement it with other types of notes).

How do you key your dungeons?

[pooserville]

I read this as a way for a GM to key rooms for their own use. For publication, you need a lot more, but for a dungeon I wrote I just need to jog my own memory. I know the vibe of the serpentfolk library — fanged rune-scarred skulls chattering in their golden cages with their heavy leaden seals, a faint smell of ozone in the dusty air, black basalt walls carved with spirals. I just need a few notes to remind me which spell each skull conveys and how much psychic damage it inflicts if the spell is outside the caster’s class or skill level, what the effect is of smashing a skull, and what an arcanist can learn from the leaden seals and the runes carved into the ancient bone; those are the details I might forget between writing and running the adventure.

I 100% agree with you that when I’m writing the dungeon for another GM to run, that’s when I need to communicate the inspiration and the details that make the world breathe, and that’s about the short punchy descriptions.

And as always, what needs to be written out vs. what can be stored in bullet points and brain juice will vary from GM to GM (and often from system to system).

[martin]

For the specific examples Courtney is working on:

@Village of Hommlet

16. DESERTED KITCHEN: The remains of moldering foodstuffs and kitchen work tables are visible. A wooden cask near the fireplace on the north wall looks inviting, but if anyone approaches it he or she will be attacked by a GIANT TICK (HP 49): AC 3; HD 3; Move 3”; 4 attack for 1-4 hit points plus 1-6 hit points of blood drain thereafter. This horror came in through the chimney. It has no treasure.

@Courtney Campbell

Kitchen
Tables → Stained, Wooden Cask → Giant Tick!
(AC 16, HD 3, HP 19, Bite +5/1-4/1-6 auto, ML (20) XP 141)

I’m not sure where the second example in the blog post (The “small alcove” with 8 ghouls) is from.

[martin]

I think @pooserville is right that this is a way for a GMs to key rooms for their own use. That being said, on the broader topic of writing for publication / other people to use:

People have said this before^[1] but: RPG writing is this fascinating mix of technical writing and creative writing, that all has to be capable of being absorbed and made use of in real time. Different GMs have different brains and thrive with different verbal architecture. Different modules have different tones that lead to different pacing, vocab choice, etc.

All of which is not to say “well, whatever”. But just that compared to traditional literature and to ordinary technical writing, so few words have been written professionally for RPGs. And so little criticism and deep thought has gone in to it so far.

So as the hobby continues we’re going to have more amazing writers who do new things, and we should be reading modules and blog posts and learning from the best. But also guarding against prescriptivism that says “this is one true way”. I enjoy Necrotic Gnome’s house style too. But I also really dig, say, Ben Laurence’s style in Through Ultan’s Door which is much more discursive and long winded, but really works.

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1. anyone have a good blog post on this topic to link to? ↩︎