Open table premised on short dungeon delves questions

Play
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I run an open table once a week for my coworkers during our lunch hour. Since May I’ve been running Hole in the Oak using OSE, and we’ve gone from 2 to 3 people playing per week to 8 people at our last session. Everyone seems to be having a good time, and overall I’m pretty happy with how its gone so far.

A few questions:

  1. I’ve been reading Gus L.'s blog, and something he emphasizes is the importance of resource management to classic dungeon delving. I feel like this plays a bigger role in sessions that last for hours rather than an hour, but does anyone have thoughts on how I can bring this resource pressure into my lunch time game?

  2. I am always look for ways to maximize “in dungeon” time at the table. I have a discord server set up for the group where I post up session reports, an updated map showing what was uncovered at the last session, a XP leaderboard, roster of current characters, and a graveyard for the folks that didn’t make it. In the future I’ll be encouraging people who play regularly to tell me via discord what their plans are for the next session and (if possible) lock down marching order and who will be carrying the torches/lanterns before getting to the table. Is there anything else that could be done pre-session to maximize time in dungeon finding treasure and getting eaten by monsters?

  3. Any other dungeon recommendations for an open table premised on repeated, short delves? I have Incandescent Grottoes, but looking for some other options in case folks want something that is more thematically consistent from room to room.

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Trilemma has many one-page adventures that aren’t your usual D&D fare.

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on the subject of resource management…

I think your intuition is correct: the resource management game is best played over many sessions, and with specific play styles: the classic town, wilderness dungeon play loop for example.

For 1 hour sessions, where getting into FUN MODE quickly is important, I don’t think that the resource management styles would work well. After 5 minutes of chit chat, 30 minutes of “shopping”, there isn’t much left for fun. Even during the exciting dungeony bits, it slows the game down when every body is looted for resources, every river fished in, every water skin is filled at the fountain.

However, I do like mixing dangers and conflicts, so I would just switch to using resources as a bespoke problem solving puzzle. So, for example, when using a random encounter die: have rats try to eat all the rations, and put a starving condition on the players after a bit. have a room where torches, oil lamps, and other open flames are a problem (grain silo). just re-skin the classic resources as an encounter/trap/puzzle instead of an accounting problem.