So You Want to Run OSR: Part 2 - Running Your First Dungeon

This is the third in a series of articles dedicated to helping new OSR referees. You can read from the beginning here.

Last week, I went over preparing your first dungeon. This week, I'll cover running it, including tracking resources, tracking time, taking notes, mapping, exploring the dungeon, adventure hooks, and preparing for further sessions.

This advice will not cover what is typically already given in your ruleset of choice, to avoid redundancy.

The sheer volume of information may seem daunting, but remember that I am trying to be as thorough as possible to eliminate ambiguity. It is not complicated in practice. I have also attempted to outline the information in such a way as to respect the readers' time.

IMPORTANT: Please remember to use reaction rolls and morale checks during your first session. It is the most common mistake I see new referees make, to forget these rolls. Combat is very deadly, and when these rules are ignored, the dungeon becomes a tedious meat-grinder.

RESOURCES

Tracking resources and time is crucial to old-school style play, but new players are often suspicious of the task, if not outright averse to it. I recommend handing players a piece of scratch paper on which to track arrows, hit points, rations, and other consumables. It is easier to add a tally mark than it is to erase and re-write numbers on the character sheet. I recommend players write the resource they are tracking as well as the maximum number they can afford to expend, and using tally marks to indicate resources used. For example, Caliban the Fighter has six HP, four torches, and twenty arrows. On his scratch paper, he writes "HP [6], TORCHES [4], ARROWS [20]," with space for tally marks near each category. When he takes damage, uses an arrow, or spends time in the dungeon with his torch burning, he will make a mark on the paper. Since these resources don't affect his encumbrance enough to matter, he only needs to update his character sheet upon running out of the resource, returning to town, or ending the session. This will keep your character sheets cleaner for longer, save on erasing and re-writing, and generally make resource management less daunting. I know it sounds like a small change but in my experience it makes a difference, and I wouldn't be recommending it if it didn't.

 A simple resource tracking sheet.

NB: Typically, each "group" of tallies holds five tally marks, but since a torch lasts six turns, they are more likely to be counted off in groups of six. To remind yourself of this, you might want to put them on a separate line, or draw six-pointed stars with one stroke per turn rather than tally groups.

TIME TRACKING

As a referee, time tracking should be kept at scales of turns (within the dungeon), hours (small-scale overland travel), days (overland ("hexmap") travel), and even weeks, months, and years (downtime and tracking world events). Since this is our first session, we won't worry too much about keeping an entire world running in the background, and instead focus on a period of a few weeks while we get our bearings. Keep in mind, though, as your campaign expands, it will become necessary to track dates and events in order to create a more truthful world for your players to inhabit.

Find a clean sheet of paper and number it 1-30 for the days down each line (or however many days are in a month in your world), which is an appropriate time span for your first couple of sessions. Use this to keep track of events. For example, if I told my players (as outlined in last week's article,) that they were trying to haul as much treasure out of the dungeon in two weeks so that they could spend it on the Feast Day of St. Drotte, I would write "St. Drotte Feast Day" on line 14. As days pass, I will check off calendar days and resolve events as they pass. You may also add events to this calendar as your players explore the dungeon. Presume they find a wounded adventurer deep in the dungeon; you privately decide that if they don't bring him aid, he will die in two more days. Therefore, on the date two days from now, you write "adventurer dies if no aid brought," and if the players bring him aid before then, cross off or erase that note.

A month-long calendar. Click to enlarge.

I track my hours on a scratch sheet of paper, since they are simple tally marks and rarely have events attached to them that I cannot keep track of in my head, especially since the time frame is much shorter. I call this a Master Scratch Sheet, and I prepare one before every session.

NOTE TAKING

On the head of the sheet, I write "SESSION NOTES [real-life date]". Under that, I write the ingame date. The left side of the page, I jot laconic notes of what happens in-game. "Met kobolds in (3)," "Caliban steals guard's key in (5)." I circle room numbers so they stand out. If something happens that I need to remember for next session, for example, a character puts on a cursed ring, I will put a ">" in the margins in front of that entry. That way, when I review my notes as I prepare for the next session, I can scan down the margin of the page and have every important event that I need to remember stand out for me. Things that must be remembered for sessions further in the future are marked with a ">>" and added to my calendar.

On the top right side of the page, I write "MARCHING ORDER" and then the characters in their marching order (generally two-by-two, and if I quickly need them in one-by-one, I read left-to-right, top-to-bottom). This also lets me remember who is playing in which session, since I run an open table. Under this, I write TIME.

I assume the adventuring day begins at sunrise and ends at sunset (NB: I use a harsher wandering monster table for overland travel when the sun sets! Beware the bogeymen!). This will depend on your milieu (season, axial tilt, distance from equator) but typically I assume sunrise at 0600 and will begin the adventuring day at 0700, assuming that characters take about an hour to wake, eat, prepare spells, et c. To simplify travel time between civilization and adventuring site, instead of using wilderness travel rules, you might want to decide on some quick rules of thumb for encumbered/unencumbered and mounted/unmounted. For example, say it takes two hours on foot (three if carrying treasure or a heavy load), and one hour mounted (one and a half if mounted and carrying treasure or a heavy load). You may eschew rolling for encounters with the rationale that the lands are close enough to civilization that roving monsters are scarce, or you may decide to roll for encounters once on per trip on a one-in-twenty chance rather than a one-in-six. It is up to your discretion.

I write "0700" under TIME to remind myself the beginning of the adventuring day. Let's say my players walk to the dungeon without incident; I will write "0900" under that to note to myself that they arrived at the dungeon at 9 A.M. I will then begin to track turns using tally marks in groups of six. Every time I make a tally mark, I announce "time" to my players so that whoever is tracking torch usage can make another tally. I will also remind my players every hour, "You have spent X hours in the dungeon," as a courtesy. Since traveling overland in the dark is dangerous, sometimes players will elect to hole up in a deserted and defensible room in the dungeon and rest until the next morning.

In the space beneath the TIME section, I write MONSTERS and TREASURE, and keep track of monsters they have defeated and treasure they have recovered. This makes awarding XP at the end of the session simple. I do not bother with appraising treasure; otherwise, when a player asks me five sessions from now how much their bracelet is worth, I will not remember. I simply tell my players, "You find a bracelet worth about 100 silver" and they write it on their character sheets. Have your players keep track of their own treasure! I guarantee they will not slack on that front. I also have my players look after their mounts and hirelings, as well. Keep a shared "master list" of treasure they have stashed in their lodgings, as well, and periodically make a copy of it (I simply take a picture of it on my phone in case the sheet gets lost), or have your players keep a digital copy.

Session notes on a Master Scratch Sheet. Click to enlarge.

Keep your notes on what happened during the session simple and direct, and after the session, you may type them up in a more long-form manner. Remember to highlight anything that impacts your session prep for the next session, and add anything that must be remembered for a far-future session to your calendar.

MAPPING

Understanding how to give short, useful mapping instructions is crucial. Know what your mapper needs to know. Mapping can be divided generally into two major sections: rooms and hallways. Rooms are generally more complicated. These instructions will work for most roughly rectangular rooms and eliminate ambiguity. Odd room shapes will of course be more complicated. We will be describing the following room in this example:

Mapping a simple room. Click to enlarge.

1. First describe where players enter from, and the length of the wall to either side of them. "(A) You enter from the west. (B) To your left, the wall runs north for twenty feet. (C) To the right, the wall runs south for ten feet."
2. Then, give the overall dimensions. "The room is thirty feet west-east by forty feet north-south." If you establish with your players that you will always give W-E dimensions before N-S dimensions, you can shorten this - "The room is 30'x40'." 
3. Then, give them exits they see. "(A) On the north wall, there is a door on the eastmost side. (B) On the east wall there is a door 20' south." (NB that "20' south" means there is 10 feet of wall between the door and the north wall, i.e. the door is "at" the 20' mark, not after it. This will keep things consistent with our hallway mapping instructions (cf.))
4. Tell them where large items of interest are, if they care to place it on their map (e.g. statues, altars). "There is an altar in the southeast corner of the room."

In an oddly-shaped room, it may be more efficient to simply "walk" the player around the perimeter, like so:

"You enter from the west. Draw a wall that goes N 10', E 30', SE 20', S 10', W 20', S 10', W 20', N 10', W 10', and finally N 10'"

A rather oddly shaped room.

Players rarely care about the aesthetics of your map, and oddly-shaped rooms can bog down gameplay as first timers get comfortable giving and receiving mapping instructions, therefore use them sparingly.

Hallways are somewhat easier, but require you and your players agree on a convention. Hallways will generally have four major features: TURNS, BRANCHES, TEES, and CROSSES. Briefly go over this with your mapper and make sure they understand what is meant. When giving instructions from a junction, make sure your mapper understands that the instructions assume players are standing in the center of the junction (even if they are not, it is for the sake of consistency).

Mapping hallways. Click to enlarge. Note that turns and branches "take up" 10ft. while tees and crosses do not (as they terminate the hallway).

EXPLORING THE DUNGEON

As players explore your dungeon, put little check marks next to the rooms they explore and cross off enemies defeated or treasure taken. If you are using a PDF or a pre-written adventure you'd rather not mark up, use scratch paper instead. At the end of the session, place an indicator like a tally mark or star in the margin by each cleared room. Certain rooms will accumulate tally marks as they remain undisturbed, and once a room has three or four tally marks, you may decide to re-stock the room (which I will detail in a future article).

ADVENTURE HOOKS

As players explore the world, they will develop their own goals organically. Mages will seek powerful spells, fighters will gather retinues and conquer sites, and clerics will uncover holy artefacts. However, when presented with a truly open world, choices can be paralyzing for new players, especially those not used to "sandbox"-style games. Therefore, adventure hooks can be useful for signalling to players where fun, loot, and danger can be found.

Adventure hooks are an opportunity for you to get creative. Not every adventure hook needs to be an NPC sending the party on a "quest." Rumors about armies gathering, bandit raids on the town, treasure maps, a campsite with every inhabitant slaughtered and a mysterious symbol drawn in blood... these are just a few examples that will beckon your players. Don't worry about throwing too many at your players, if you follow the Golden Rule of Sandbox Refereeing, you will have time between sessions to prepare the adventure for them. For your first session, two or three adventure hooks will suffice. Perhaps a rumor in town, one in the dungeon, and one if players venture "off the beaten path." I would recommend tying your first adventure hooks to the dungeon, until you have fleshed out your milieu a little (detailed in future article "creating a hexmap").

PREPARING FOR YOUR NEXT SESSION

As your first session draws to a close, ask your players what their intentions are for the next session. Most likely, they will want to continue to explore the dungeon, although if you've thrown an interesting enough adventure hook at them, they may opt to pursue that instead. If your dungeon has distinct branches and wings, see if your players can decide on a specific area of the dungeon they are interested in exploring. In the intervening week, prepare what your players have indicated they will be doing, as well as fleshing out their home town a little more, should they decide to spend more time in it.

After everyone heads home, take a look at your session notes. I prefer to type up a slightly more in-depth session report while it is still fresh in my mind. Trust me, you will want to remember these sessions years down the line! One of my fondest moments was finding a folder full of old material while cleaning up.

I like to let time elapse in real-time between sessions, but I run weekly sessions, so if your sessions are less frequent, you may opt to only let a few days pass. Regardless, I like giving players some "offscreen" downtime to rest and heal up. Remember to check these days off on your calendar!

As you prepare your next session, refer to your session notes to see anything that you have indicated will be important for your next session. As I said, I like to mark anything that must be remembered for the next session with a ">" in the margins, and anything that should be added to the calendar with a ">>". Write down anything that you must remember to do in your next session at the top of a piece of paper and review it before sitting down for your next session. See the "month long calendar" and compare it to "session notes on a master scratch sheet."

Remember that the dungeon is not an entity frozen in time, waiting for the PCs to explore it. It is an ecosystem. Monsters will loot the corpses of their fallen comrades (and their fallen enemies). Factions' machinations will advance - the tension between two rival orc factions may boil over while PCs are resting in town, and they might be greeted by a room full of orc corpses upon their return after a particularly nasty argument comes to a head. Survivors of the PC's attacks will pack their belongings and flee the dungeon, or try to gather greater numbers to be ready for them next time. Gary Gygax famously "leveled-up" a group of Kobolds in Castle Greyhawk whenever they TPK'ed a convention group.

This sounds like a lot to keep track of, and it can be, which is why your calendar is invaluable. For example, in my first session, a pair of Kobolds fled from the PCs and scampered off into the woods. I noted on my calendar that after two weeks, they would return with the rest of their tribe for revenge. The surprise and delight on my players' faces when they recognized the two from earlier stands as a stark reminder of why I love this game. A living, breathing milieu is made of moments like these. Be attentive and arduous with your notes and time-tracking, and you will be rewarded with an experience that no other hobby can capture.

Do not allow yourself to become overwhelmed. Keep things simple and manageable, especially for your first few sessions. As you become more comfortable keeping track of this information, you will be able to add more.

In the next article, I will cover fleshing out your starting town.