The Marbled Wizard’s Four Books / One Page Dungeon Contest

This is my entry for the One Page Dungeon Contest 2024. Gilbert Heckmann drew the picture of the goblin.

1 You stepped into a magical trap and were teleported into a circular room with a diameter of 5 meters. There are paintings on the walls with references to water, fire, earth and air. The door to room 8 is locked.

In the centre stands a marble statue of a wizard. At its feet it says (written backwards and in Greek): Bring me 4 books, one for each element, to convert stone to gold. Set me free.

If you put the books into his hands there will be a flash and a loud noise and the statue and the books will be turned to gold. The golden statue can be moved easily, revealing a hole in the floor which leads to an underground dungeon.

Prior to that every 5 minutes 1 D6 giant rats crawl out of the mouth of the statue.

2 A bath with a 3×3 m pool. The walls have beautiful mosaics of nereids and hippocampi. There are 3 goblins in swimming trunks in the pool tossing a bunch of keys at each other. These are the keys to all rooms of the dungeon. The goblins left their clothes and weapons outside the water. The door to room 4 is locked.

3 A small room with a divan bed. On the table next to it you find the book "Rivers of Glitter & Gold", one of the books you need to bring to room 1.

4 The music library. Papyrus rolls with notated music, ancient wind instruments, a bouzouki, a trumpet all the way up on a shelf but no ladder and one of the books you are looking for: "Cradle Songs for Dragons. Soothing the beast with the trumpet’s call."

5 The alchemist’s laboratory. Various objects on a large table, in dusty cupboards and on the floor between shattered glass and turned over chairs, most of them broken, useless. Alembic, crucible, mortar and pestle, a pair of tongs, bottles and vials. Rats are nibbling at old papyrus rolls, destroying texts as old as the Eastern Roman Empire.

6 The room looks like an archeological burial site. Bones, weapons and armours are scattered all over the floor. A giant skeleton sits in one corner, bent over, holding the book "The Good Earth" by Pearl S. Buck in its hands. It wakes up to defend his possession, if you fail your pickpocketing roll.

7 The door to this room is locked. It smells like incense. A little red dragon is smoking a water pipe. She is stoned, in a funny mode, unpredictable. She is curious why you entered the room. The dragon is guarding a pile of old coins, the relics of St. Georg, the dragon slayer, and the book „The Eternal Fire of Knowledge“. Playing a song on the trumpet from room 4 can put her asleep. The dragon is a deadly opponent if angered and she possesses a distinct aesthetic sensitivity.

8 A 3×3 m room. A human sized bug sits on a pile of corroded metal.

To your surprise it starts to talk, quoting Greek philosophers and making jokes about his exoskeleton and your armour. You cannot be sure if it understands what it is saying or is randomly reciting texts like a parrot or ChatGPT.

All it is really interested in is to devour all the metal parts you carry with you. It is quite a beast.

Try to negotiate.

Working on a Dungeon for the One Page Dungeon Contest

I’m currently working on a dungeon adventure for the One Page Dungeon Contest. Deadline is end of July.

I tested the adventure last weekend with two groups of kids. I think I made the giant mouse in room 1 a bit too strong. It almost killed the adventurers. Both groups didn’t have much trouble stealing a book from a dragon in room 7, though.

I first thought about using Das Schwarze Auge for play testing the adventure, the ruleset which got me into roleplaying, but then decided to give GURPS another try.

It took me a couple of days to re-read the rules.

I really like the game, it gives you a lot of creative freedom and the core rules are clear and simple.

The risk with GURPS is, of course, to get lost in the vast amount of information offered. Something which can also happen in real life. 😂

So last weekend I managed to run two role playing games with GURPS Lite without getting lost and we had lots of fun.

The Shadow in the Sun / One Page Dungeon Contest

Lina (15), Hendrik (13) and Joaquín (11) wrote a dungeon for the One Page Dungeon Contest.

You suddenly wake up in a huge, pretentious hall filled with diamonds and furniture that was all colored in bright yellowy gold. A being, which you can't recognize because it's shining so bright, sitting on a throne starts talking:

“You have been chosen to save the sun from the shadow trying to take us over! The shadow beings have been waiting a long time to defeat the light beings, which make the sunshine, so the sun is forever dark. They are in the center of the sun, waiting until tonight, so they can eliminate us, leading to the sun never rising again. Will you help us?”

You agree to help them.

The sun ruler explains to you what awaits you in the dungeon:

The first step is to go to the weapon dealer to get weapons for the mission. The difficulty is that the dealer is very sketchy, and because you don’t come from the sun, he’ll try to scam you to get more money or give you weapons that don’t work. If you try to defend yourself, he might end up killing you, so what you need to do is be as careful as possible. From him, you'll need to buy Darkvision and the weapons or enchantments of your choice but be careful; shadow beings are immune to weapons using fire. The most effective weapons are metal, wood, or light-related weapons.

The second step is finding the secret passageway inside the weapon shop to the inside of the sun. There, you’ll find a room (1) full of traps designed to kill you. You’ll need to find the traps and then find a way to get around them. The traps are not only on the floor tiles but on the walls too. The traps include the floor disappearing, the walls crumbling, or highly venomous lizards being thrown at you. All the traps could instantly kill you, but luckily the room isn’t that big.

Once you’ve escaped, the next room (2) awaits you. There, you’ll have to fight your first group of three shadow beings, which will protect the next rooms at all costs, even at the cost of death. The downside for you is that the room is incredibly dark, so you’ll need to have Darkvision to even have a chance of making it out. The shadow beings have very powerful weapons, which can each kill you with three hits. Their problem is that the sun beings have gifted you very powerful shields, so not every attack reaches you, but you’ll still need to be careful and kill them as fast as you can.

In the next room (3), there’s venomous fog, which can kill you fast, but the door to the next room is closed, so you have to find a key for the door. The difficulty is that the room is filled with a lot of things, ranging from antique teacups to fluffy pillows, making it hard to find the right key. The time until the rise of the shadow beings to the surface of the planet is getting shorter every minute, and once they’ve gotten to the surface, nothing can stop them.

In the penultimate room (4), a huge shadow beast is waiting to kill you. It could devour you instantly, but it has one weakness: it is deadly allergic to bread and salt. You can buy bread in the weapon shop, but salt can only be found in the fourth room, so you should not only look for a key but also salt to defeat the monster.

The last room (5) is filled with shadow beings, which you’ll have to kill as fast as possible because there’s only half an hour remaining until their rise. With the right weapons, it’s easier to kill them, so choose wisely.

If all goes well, the sun shall rise; if not, we're doomed, because with the sun, all of our solar system goes down.

Are you up for the challenge?

The Eternal Necropolis

On Sunday I had a conversation with ChatGPT about the One Page Dungeon Contest.

Me: 

I need an idea for a dungeon for the One Page Dungeon Contest. This year the subject is "And Still They Rise". I just need a couple of sentences please.

ChatGPT:

The Eternal Necropolis

In the desolate wasteland, a hidden necropolis emerges from the shifting sands. Despite countless attempts to destroy it, the undead within this cursed dungeon continue to rise, defying death itself. Brave adventurers must navigate treacherous traps, battle hordes of relentless undead, and uncover the source of this perpetual resurrection to put an end to the eternal nightmare.

Me: 

Can you shortly describe 5 rooms?

ChatGPT:

Certainly! Here are short descriptions of five rooms within "The Eternal Necropolis":

1 Hall of Resurrection: A vast chamber lined with rows of sarcophagi, each containing ancient mummies. As intruders enter, the mummies rise from their slumber, their decaying bodies reanimating to defend their resting place. The room echoes with the eerie chants of necromantic rituals.

2 Chamber of Reflection: A serene room adorned with mirrored walls and a still, reflective pool at its center. However, the mirrors hide malevolent spirits that attack anyone who gazes upon them. To progress, the adventurers must navigate the room blindfolded or find a way to dispel the vengeful apparitions.

3 Maze of Wandering Souls: A twisting labyrinth where lost souls endlessly roam. Phantoms whisper distorted truths and half-truths, attempting to mislead those who dare to enter. The walls shift and change, forcing the adventurers to rely on their wits and intuition to navigate the maze and avoid being trapped forever.

4 Chamber of Eternal Flames: A scorching-hot room engulfed in perpetual flames. The air crackles with intense heat, and the floor is covered in molten lava. To progress, the adventurers must locate hidden platforms or activate ancient mechanisms that temporarily extinguish the flames, providing brief respite to cross the room unscathed.

5 Crypt of the Undying King: A grand sepulcher that houses the remains of a long-forgotten ruler. The room is guarded by spectral knights and shadowy guardians who fiercely protect their fallen monarch. To proceed, the adventurers must uncover the secret burial rites that bind the Undying King's spirit and perform a ritual to finally put his restless soul to rest.

Me:

Thank you.

ChatGPT:

You're welcome! If you have any more questions or need further assistance, feel free to ask. Good luck with your One Page Dungeon contest!

Honor Among Thieves

I watched "Honor Among Thieves", the D&D movie, with my family. Then I asked my daughter what she thought about it.

"Although the plot of the movie was predictable, the movie was entertaining. There were various funny jokes and I found the characters to be quite well written. All of the characters had thought out back stories which the audience got to see through their storytelling. The stories also influenced and explained the choices they made. Overall I would recommend the movie."

Squirrel Planet / Entry for the One Page Dungeon Contest 2022

Once upon a time a group of friends came across a black squirrel. Since they had nothing else to do, they decided to follow it. After 20 minutes the squirrel disappeared. The group witnessed it going into a tree and because they were curious, they tried entering the tree, which surprisingly worked.

When they opened their eyes, they found themselves on a weird planet, ruled by squirrels. They were soon noticed and brought to the king of the planet. He explained to them that they had to go into a dungeon to either stay on the planet as squirrels or go back to earth with no memory of the planet, if they managed to get out. Otherwise they would all die.

Space Chicken Fighter (1) In this room the group encounters a space chicken fighter whose special weapon is his dangerous lightsaber which can easily be deadly.

Roboteeth Pony (2) In this room the friends encounter a pony whose roboteeth can do a lot of damage, but the pony can only use them every third round.

Turkey-Platypus (3) A turkey-platypus with dangerously long nails awaits the group in this room. One scratch robs you of half your health points, but the turkey-platypus cannot scratch that easily, because his nails are really slim.

Mutant Space Squirrel (4) This three headed space squirrel is the end boss. It has the ability to teleportate itself, read and control minds and control hair. It’s weakness is that it can’t breath without its helmet.

If you finish the dungeon every character who died will be resurrected and you have the choice between going back to earth without memories of this planet or live on the squirrel planet as a squirrel.

[Note] This is a dungeon written by Lina (14), Hendrik (12) and Joaquín (10) for the One Page Dungeon Contest 2022. After reading it, I told them that I thought it was too linear, not giving the players too many options. That it felt more like a film, not like a game.

I suggested a room, room 0, with a large machine looking like a retro arcade, that would show low resolution pictures of the four monsters and had four buttons and could teleport the adventure party to the four rooms. And maybe there could be some spray cans lying around.

My daughter got angry and screamed that they had put a lot of work into this and didn’t want to change anything. I repeated that the jury might find the dungeon too linear. She replied that she didn’t even care about the prizes. Well, I said, but maybe you want to play it with your D&D group and make the dungeon more interesting. Ok, then add a room, if you must, she said.

Picture and Hashtags

I’m currently reading one of the classic OSR texts, "Google+ for Dummies" by Jesse Stay.

It has an interesting chapter about trolls.

#osr #rpg #dnd #dsa1 #1pdc #dungeonsanddragons #oldhammer #googleplus #google #fordummies #familienfotos #madefordocumentary #dokumentarischefamilienfotografie #my_magical_moments #echtundungestellt #unseralltagistihrekindheit #fortheloveofthephotograph #documentyourdays #familyphotojournalism #thisdetailedlife #madefordocumentary #streetphotography #soulportraits #thebeautifulreal #reflectivemoments #tropicalsunset #people #powermorning #instapic #hereandnow #simplepleasures #goodbye2022 #welcomeapril #nice #moments #memories #wunderbar #sylt

...

If you like this sort of thing, hashtags and pictures, I mean, you can find me on Instagram, under the username zinnling.

The Goblin Thief / One Page Dungeon Contest

This is my entry for the One Page Dungeon Contest 2021.

It's a simple adventure I wrote for my kids during the winter lockdown when we played a lot of RPGs using an old German ruleset called Das Schwarze Auge. (In my blog post Playing Das Schwarze Auge after 37 years I wrote about how we played the adventure.)

My daughter drew the goblin. She says he looks like me, but more evil ...

You walk through a street at night which is deserted apart from a creature the size of a child, which crosses your path, bumps into you, steals the most valuable thing you have, runs away and disappears in a cellar beneath a worn down building.

1 Stairs go down to a room, 5 m × 2 m. There is an old sofa opposite the entrance and a chest full of fancy clothes and moths in one corner of the room. An unlocked door leads to room 2. A glass cabinet hides the way to a corridor (3).

2 A room, 3 m × 3 m. Three drunk pirates, equipped with sables and knives, sleep on a bed frame or lie on the floor. One of them sings: "Wir lagen vor Madagaskar und hatten die Pest an Bord." (Really no need waking these up.) There are other things in the room, in various states of decomposition: a chair, a turned over table, a barrel, partly filled with cheap rum, a viola bastarda, missing some strings, a bucket full of crabs. The miserable scene is lit by a small lantern, standing on the floor.

3 A small corridor, 1 m wide and 7 m long. There are two doors on the left side, which are unlocked, and one door on the right side, which is locked.

4 A room, 6 m × 3 m, that is used for storing wood. Planks, full of wormholes and covered with spiderwebs, are piled up to the ceiling. There is so much wood in the room you can hardly enter it, and that’s not all: a knight’s armour, a bastard sword (two useful items, but difficult to handle or even carry for flimsy adventurers), human bones, fish bones and rags are scattered on the floor. Beneath the rubble lives a family of large rats.

5 A room, 3 m × 3 m, with two small beds inside. A beautiful lamp stands on a chest beside one of the beds. There are a couple of animal bones inside the chest, potsherds, pieces of floor tiles and a little rusty iron stick.

6 The door to this room is locked. There are two small beds inside. The goblin thief is hiding beneath one of the beds. When discovered he will try to defend himself with a kitchen knife or negotiate.

Around this time, two goblins carrying a spear and a bow return home from the street.

Playing Das Schwarze Auge after 37 Years

For some time I have been locking for a set of RPG rules to play with my children and simple enough, so they could play it by themselves.

I prepared a GURPS adventure for them during our last vacation in Greece, but got lost in the complexity of the rule system. I still have a notebook filled with monster stats and stains of Greek coffee. Who else would sit next to a swimming pool writing down advantages, disadvantages, skills and attributes for a troll and a slime monster? Nevertheless GURPS is still my favourite system and I hope to play the adventure one day.

My daughter started to play D&D with her friends at school, the 5th edition, but their GM disappeared and she can’t be bothered to read the basic rules (180 pages).

So I remembered Das Schwarze Auge, the first German role playing game, published in 1984. It is also the first RPG I ever played. DSA1 is similar to Tunnels & Trolls and basic D&D (the red box).

The rules and some adventures have been re-released recently, both as printed versions and PDFs available through DriveThroughRPG.

The game is well written and has a lot of charm. It has the level of complexity I was looking for. It is a great game to play with children and I think my children would also be able to play it on their own.

I was looking for a simple dungeon to do a test run, but finally decided to write one myself as I couldn’t find anything simple enough.

We played our first game on a Sunday morning during the second Covid-19 lockdown while it was snowing outside. It was a beautiful bright day.

Character creation in DSA1 is random. Lina, Hendrik and Joaquín ended up with two adventurers and an elf. Spells have funny names like BALSAMSALBUNDE-Heile, Wunde! and FLIM-FLAM-FUNKEL-Bring Licht ins Dunkel! and elves are magical creatures who know seven spells from the start.

I told the adventure party that they were walking around the streets of Havena, the classic DSA city, when a pickpocket the size of a child stole their money and ran away. They followed him down a cellar.

To my great surprise they attacked three sleeping pirates in room 2, wanted to talk to a rat in room 4 and when they finally found the goblin thief under a bed in room 6, who tried to defend himself with a kitchen knife, they negotiated with him, so that he could keep their money and they could leave the dungeon unharmed.

This was my best role playing session ever. I haven’t had so much fun in a long time.

Mountain Dungeon / One Page Dungeon Contest

Lina, Hendrik and Joaquín wrote a dungeon for the One Page Dungeon Contest. It's called Mountain Dungeon and it's probably influenced by our corona lockdown which lasted two months.

Please keep in mind that they are 12, 10 and 8 years old and that English isn't their native language.

Once upon a time there was a family lost in the woods. This family found a haunted mountain and after they entered no one found them. Then some explorers went to the mountain. The explorers are you. Try to get out of the mountain dungeon.

1 If you stand on one of the traps the wall will go away and the arrows will shoot at you.

2 You come in and have to go on the rotating plate where you have to fight with the chicken monster.

3 In this room you have to fight with a big slime monster.

4 You have to try to escape of this room fast because the walls slide together.

5 There are traps with portals where you disappear. There is a giant monster too.

6 There are fireblasters that shoot at you.

7 This room has a pool full of piranhas and you have to cross it on a rope.

8 There are monster plants that would love to eat you.

9 The witch tells you to go into a door, you don't know which is the right one.

Some help needed writing an RPG adventure for 3 kids

I'm on a small island in the Aegean sea. It's a volcano and looks like this cookie. We are here for three weeks because of my wife's work. She is teaching screenwriters how to pitch their scripts.

Between 1 PM and 5 PM it's so hot, you shouldn't go outside. After that I go to a pool with the kids. It's next to a cliff, ten meters above the sea. There's not much there to protect you from falling down, besides a cable and a rusty shower. On the other side: a wall, a fence, some beautiful flowers, red and pink. Behind that: the noisy street and a hotel.

The water is heated by the volcano and leaves thick orange stains on clothes and googles. The music is loud and cheap, but somehow relaxing. While my children are swimming in the pool or floating around in safety buoys, I'm drinking some kind of mocha - έναν ελληνικό γλυκό παρακαλώ - which the waiter prepares with great care, and look at another island which is slowly but entirely being removed with excavators, trucks and ships. This fills me with melancholy because I’m conservative at heart.

I'm sitting next to the pool and read Principia Apocrypha and Gurps Light. (I forgot how complicated role playing games are, if you are out of practice.) I want to write a simple cavern adventure, taking place in ancient Greece, so we have something to do while we hide from the sun.

Maybe you have some ideas?

(For encounters, treasures, traps, etc.)

I will post the adventure later on this blog.

I can also send a bottle of Soumada or a little minotaur from the tourist shop to the first person who figures out which island we are on.

To make it easier for you: Here is a model of the island which I found on a cupboard in the local primary school.

Pentomino Dungeon / One Page Dungeon Contest

Last year my daughter participated in a math competition at school, the Kangaroo Contest, and brought home a colorful Pentomino game and a book with math problems for children.

When I asked Lina (10), Hendrik (8) and Joaquín (6) to draw a dungeon for the One Page Dungeon Contest this year, they made a dungeon out of 12 Pentomino shapes instead, which I turned into a map.

Hendrik had the idea that adventurers entering the dungeon should have to solve math problems, but are distracted all the time. (Maybe he came up with this, because he has a little brother who is full of energy and always wants his attention to play with him.)

Joaquín made several drawings of the big monster in room 4 and described it vividly.

The riddles are from the book Lina got at the Kangaroo Contest. I changed them a bit to avoid copyright issues and to adapt them to the stories, the children came up with.

For a year, Joaquín has been carrying little pieces of paper with German words in his school bag to learn the letters ä, ö and ü. Those are the items in room 5.

Now my introduction to our entry is already as long as the entry itself ...

1 In the first room there is a wizard. He is wearing a colourful crown, blue gloves and only has one tooth. He says: 

"This is what we are going to do. If you make it out of my dungeon, I will grant you a wish. Each room has a riddle written on the floor. You need the solution to unlock the doors. The riddles are not too difficult, but don’t be fooled. There are things in the rooms to distract you from thinking. I will stay here and also start sending things after you. The first problem is easy. I am 80 years old. My brother is 20 years younger than me. My sister, the witch, is 20 years older than me. How old are we all together? Good luck."

random monsters, summoned by the wizard in room 1:

1. a funny man with an axe and a shield
2. a very sharp triangle ruler
3. a man made of fire
4. a man who looks at you so sweet, it is hypnotizing
5. a ball with arms and legs that explodes when it gets too loud

2 Five Goblins, three with knives, two with spears.

There is a riddle written on the floor: The goblin king has 5 sons, every son has two sisters. How many children does the goblin king have?

3 A man who says blablabla.

The riddle is: How many numbers, bigger than 10 and smaller than 60, can be built, combining two different digits, using 0, 1, 2, 5 and 7?

4 A naked giant with green skin, wearing a baseball cap, a bow in one hand, an arrow in the other hand. The monster has spiky feet and leaves violet marks on the floor when moving. It can spit poison. Flames come out of his eyes and little creatures crawl out of his hair. It makes a noise like hhhhh …

The riddle is: Which is the biggest?
2+0+1+3 or 2×0×1×3 or 2×0+1×3 or 20+13 or 20×13? 

5 A goose, four hats, nine glasses, sixteen cooks. How many books?

Lina (9), Hendrik (7) and Joaquín (5) Wrote Another Dungeon for the One Page Dungeon Contest

1 You fall through a hole into this room. For example, if you go for a walk in Berlin and don’t respect certain signposts around construction sites or while watering flowers in your garden.

2 Eerie black and white photographs hang on the walls. A man with a hat. Four children. A doll. When it is dark, the pictures look like ghosts. In a corner of the room is a rocking chair.

3 An empty room with trap doors.

4 A window is painted on the wall. You can see a street and a field. If you stand there and look out of the window, it gives you the creeps. Because of the street. And the noises.

5 A monster with two heads. It destroys everything that comes close. Stones are scattered on the floor. The monster throws them at you.

6 A little animal with green fur. It looks harmless, but if you try to feed it, it bites and you might catch the rabies and die a couple of months later.

7 A mirror maze. It’s hard to get out without banging against the glass. If you take the wrong door, you return to room 1.

8 There are goblins and ghosts in this room who destroy furniture with knives and try to summon a giant by piling up the pieces. You have to prevent this.

9 Schleimi is evil. He can turn you into slime. Because he has slime powers.

10 There is a hole in the ceiling. A rope lies on the floor. A book shelf stands next to the wall.

Puschel Wuschel / Monster Man Contest / Gurps Stats

Lina (9), my daughter, wrote and drew a monster for the first Monster Man contest.

Puschel Wuschel

They live in a land made of cloth. Everything is made of cloth: houses, streets, trees, even the cemetery.

If you annoy them, attack them or offend them, they become very large and eat you.

If you protect them, they come and live with you. But remember to always treat them well or they will eat you.

They defend themselves without weapons, only with monster powers. 

They glow in the dark, learn very fast and everything they have is soft and cuddly.

Stats for Gurps:

ST: 5 / 15   DX: 12   IQ: 12   HT: 9

HP: 5 / 15   Will: 12   Per: 12   FP: 9

Speed: 5.25   Move: 5

Dodge: 8      DR: 2

SM: -4 / +1

Bite (14): 1d-5 cutting / 1d cutting

Claws (14): 1d-4 crushing / 1d+1 crushing 

Traits: Blunt Claws; Constriction Attack; Eidetic Memory; Growth 5 (Maximum Size Only, Trigger, Unconscious, Uncontrollable); Language Talent; No Fine Manipulators; Sharp Teeth; Stress Atavism (Severe).  

Skills: Brawling-14

Notes: Glows in the dark.

Bubble Guble Super Raum / One Page Dungeon Contest

Lina (8), Hendrik (6) and Joaquín (4) wrote a dungeon adventure. This is our entry for the ONE PAGE DUNGEON CONTEST 2017. I hope it is useful or playable or whatever …

1 In the middle of the room you see a commode in Louis XIV style. If you open one of the drawers, you find two purses. Inside of them are three coins, two chicken wings and two lives. If you don’t watch out, a troll with a chainsaw and chainsaw teeth will kill you.

2 A dead camel.

3 There are a lot of keys scattered on the floor and beetles crawling around. Room 3 is full of treasures. Some treasures have beetles inside and some beetles have treasures inside.

4 Room 4 is called Bubble Guble Super Raum. Pink bubbles are floating in the air. If they burst, you die. You meet Sofie, the elf. She says: Warzenschwein führt dich heim, nach vorne, dann links und rechts. (Wart-hog takes you home, go straight ahead, turn left, then right.)

There is an invisible secret passage with a trap between room 4 and room 5. If you fall into the trap, you will never get out again.

5 There is a giant wart-hog. It’s called Hulk Schweinekotz. It has attackers on its back. One of them has three eyes and no mouth. Another one has a long neck and feet, a muzzle and two eyes. And a funny nose. I can tell you that. On the floor there is a bowl of muesli. If you eat the muesli, you will become a super hero and you can fly through the whole world in three seconds. You will develop a lot of muscles and you can knock off ten thousand attackers with one finger. And shoot red bolts out of your eyes.

Humboldt and the Lost Treasure

It was Trinka’s birthday and she invited us to Humboldt and the Lost Treasure, an escape room in Berlin Lichtenberg. (Attention! Spoilers!) I had never been to an escape room before. We had to solve all kinds of riddles, so doors and chests would open. Like putting four items in a certain order to get a number combination for a lock.

What I found interesting was how we acted as a group. "Humboldt and the lost Treasure“ has a central room with hints and instructions. It’s probably best if one person stays behind and tells the others what to do through walkie talkies. We didn’t do that. First we couldn’t figure out how to work the walkie talkies. Then we had so much fun looking at all the objects in the rooms, we didn’t even bother to read the instructions. Maybe we are too curious and playful to act efficiently. I was good at seeing how the riddles worked, but too lazy or laid back to actually solve them.

We went through the first riddles quickly. Then we were lost. I had dropped a flashlight and it didn’t work anymore. Marjorie was worried that we had to pay for it later - the game master had said something about very expensive new equipment - and everybody thought we needed the light to solve the riddles. Florian and I were starring at a box with a large wooden centipede for ten minutes. We thought of very complicated things that could be done with the thing, until the game master got impatient and gave us a clue.

Apart from this we were doing fine as a group. We only needed five minutes extended playtime to solve the room.

Now I’m thinking how this experience relates to RPGs. I have never played a role-playing game that was all about solving riddles.

How about you?

My Entry for the First Round of the Thought Eater Essay Contest

I like talking to a friend, my son calls Kügel, because he can’t pronounce his name well. He is a long-term philosophy student, gamer and avid reader of cheap fantasy novels. Today I talk to Kügel about “Evocation vs Imitation vs Emulation in adapting literary source material to RPGs“, my topic for the first round of the Thought Eater essay contest.

We have some difficulties defining the three terms, maybe because English isn’t our native language, maybe because we are not that smart. “To emulate“ seems to have two meanings.

1. imitate with effort to equal or surpass

If this essay is supposed to find out which of the three forms of adaptation is the best, emulation automatically beats imitation. Per definitionem, says Kügel.

2. The other meaning of “emulate“ is more interesting. A program can be emulated on a computer, it wasn’t originally written for. What the original program and the new program do looks very similar to the user, but the programs are actually different. Emulation in this sense works best when a text is adapted from one system to a similar system. The fairy tale “Hänsel und Gretel“ can be translated from German to English, for example. German and English are both languages. But can the story be emulated as a film? Or as an RPG?

At first, we understand the difference between evocation and imitation, but talking about it for a while, we get lost. To imitate means to copy superficial elements, all the details of a text. To evoke means to create a similar atmosphere, to write in a similar style, to copy essential elements only, like the more important parts of the plot or the structure.

“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre“ is a clever adaptation of “Hänsel und Gretel“. You have a group of young people getting lost in the wilderness. You don’t have two children abandoned by their parents. You have cannibalism, but no witch. You have an isolated house, but it’s not decorated with ginger bread. Both stories create a scary atmosphere.

Thinking a bit more about evocation, imitation and emulation, the lines get more blurry. Most texts which “evoke“ other texts also copy some superficial elements and emulation just seems to be a more accurate or better form of imitation, depending on how you define it. Kügel says the topic is unclear, because the terms we deal with are too similar. “And what is literary source material anyway?“, he adds. “The plot? The characters? The style of writing? The world the story creates?“

I propose to work with this: Playing an RPG, you can refer to a text in different ways. One extreme way is trying to imitate as many elements of the text as closely as possible. MERP springs to my mind. The other extreme way is to refer loosely to the text, in an abstract way, and only copy elements you find essential. “A Red & Pleasant Land“ does this. You could call both forms of adaptation “imitation“, the first one “emulation“, the second one “evocation“.

Kügel says: “Your essay will be disqualified. Let’s think about this in a different way. Try to be original. What works best for a GM?“ Kügel doesn’t like to work if he can avoid it. He says: “Which way needs less preparation?“

Well, if you are good at seeing the structure of a text, picking up elements that interest you, changing them, combining them with other elements and filling the gaps, a concept like “evocation“ works for you. If you are good at memorizing lots of information and reproducing it, a concept like “emulation“ works for you.

Kügel says: “Remember. ‘Opinions differ round-up‘, and ‘Well it’s a balance‘-style essays will be disqualified.“

Ok. Here’s another, more personal way to look at it. As an experiment, I wouldn’t mind adapting “Hänsel und Gretel“ as an RPG and stick to the original as closely as possible. Of course, the first thing that would get lost in the process is the plot of the fairy tale and with the plot a lot of other elements would transform. Being an improvisational effort of a group of people, RPGs open up texts anyway. Because of this, one could argue, when adapting a text, a concept like “evocation“ works best with Role Playing Games. It gives enough space to improvise.

But there is something else. I usually don’t feel too comfortable with people who stick to all the details of a given game world and obsess about it. I live in Germany, a country populated by square headed people.

“You said, we were playing ‘Hänsel und Gretel‘, so why did we encounter a wolf on the way through the forest? This is not ‘Little Red Riding Hood‘, is it?“

“It was just a wolf, an animal. It didn’t say anything. It ran away.“

“Why do we keep finding little bones and wooden objects where we left the breadcrumbs? Where is the gingerbread house? And why did Hänsel just disappear? That wasn’t supposed to happen. Where is the witch? I don’t like this.“

74,54 m² / One Page Dungeon Contest

This is my entry for the ONE PAGE DUNGEON CONTEST 2016.

1 To enter this dungeon you need to open a heavy wooden door guarded with two locks and a chain, either forcefully or using your mad lock-picking skills. There are a lot of shoes on the floor. Don’t trip. Coats and bags hang on the walls. It’s a mess. You see a vacuum cleaner and a washing machine.

2 A room cramped with pots, dishes, spices, rice and noodles, flour and tea. There is an oven, a large blue fridge and an old table with five chairs. The fridge is filled with milk, cheese and eggs, carrots, zucchinis and apples.

3 A very small bathroom with a bathtub and a shower. According to Phil Barker the Sumerians believed that Mukil-resh-lemutti, winged demons with the head of a lion, preyed on humans in washrooms, hiding in the latrine. The demons of headaches. Here you will only encounter some silverfish, fleeing to holes in the wall.

4 There are three small beds in this room. Cupboards and colorful boxes are filled with clothes and toys, part of the stuff made its way to the floor. A large pink plush dog with purple stars on its paws looks at you with googly eyes.

5 A large bed, an old fashioned closet, a clothes horse, more toys. Newspapers pile up on a piano.

You are attacked by a man wearing a green T-shirt and orange boxer shorts. He woke up by the noise you made breaking into his house and uses a Japanese kitchen knife and the lid of a pot to defend himself.

6 Two desks, several shelves, framed pictures of a Greek port, a lot of books, board games, CDs, envelopes and cartons, a wet towel hanging over a conga, a red locker filled with 263 painted and 321 unpainted miniatures, a Commodore video monitor (model 1701), photography equipment, an orchid, a plywood double bass and several computers.

7 There is a creature hiding in this room, smoking an electric cigarette. "Well. The One Page Dungeon Contest? What is this all about?", it says. "I like the idea of the man with the kitchen knife. But that’s the only original, entertaining idea I find here. How about including some classic D&D monsters? Like an owl bear, a carrion crawler or a thought eater?  What is this anyway? An instruction to break into a house? Well. Go back to room 6 and steal some things or to room 2 if you are out of food. And stop bothering me."

Rainbow Crawler / Gurps Stats

The rainbow crawler is a colorful eight-legged creature, about 13 inches long. It’s a scavenger, feeding on dead animal and plant material. Its bite causes paralysis.

ST: 4   DX: 12   IQ: 4   HT: 12

HP: 4   Will: 10   Per: 12   FP: 12

Speed: 6   Move: 6

Dodge: 9   DR: 1

SM: -4

Bite (12): 1d-5 crushing + follow-up paralysis

Traits: Acute Taste & Smell 2; Acute Vision 1; Attractive (Universal); Bad Smell; Clinging; Damage Resistance 1 (pelt); Discriminatory Smell; Extra Legs; Innate Attack (Follow-Up Poison, Contact Agent, Affliction, Paralysis, 10 Minutes, Resistible, HT-3); Night Vision 5; No Fine Manipulators; Blunt Teeth; Wild Animal

Skills: Brawling 13; Climbing 12; Tracking 13; Stealth 10

Dungeon for Lina and Hendrik / Level 2

This is my entry for the ONE PAGE DUNGEON CONTEST 2015.

1 You went down a ladder to level 2 of the cellar beneath the royal kitchen. The cook sent you to look for Alex, the kitchen boy. In another room somebody is playing „Soura ke mastoura“ on a bouzouki.

2 This room is filled with amphorae in all sizes. Some carry a sweet strong wine. A strange animal is crawling on the floor. It is yellow, green, blue, pink and red, about 13 inch long and has eight legs. Although it looks a bit like a carrion crawler, it’s harmless. It even smiles at you. If you are easily scared, you need to make a fright check now.

3 The door to this room is locked. Alex, the kitchen boy, practices playing bouzouki, a Greek guitar. He tells you that two large mouse-like creatures locked him in and ran away with the keys. If you find the keys in level 3 of the dungeon and free Alex, he will tell you that the cook is beating him regularly. He will try to persuade you to flee with him in a small boat. He will invent a treasure island to persuade you.

4 The door to this room is locked but not too difficult to open. There are many amphorae scattered on the floor, most of them broken. Three skeletons equipped with swords and shields will attack you. They have been waiting to do so for 100 years.

5 random monsters:

1 A giant olive on legs, wearing sneakers.
2 A couple of bugs that glow in the dark.
3 A group of goblins. They say your grandmother is fat and poor. They can count up to 100 and will ridicule you in every possible way, otherwise they are harmless.
4-6 Nothing.

6 A 3m x 3m room with a hole in the floor. A ladder leads to level 3 of the dungeon. In level 3 you encounter two dire mice with the keys to room 3. You also find a boat.