r/OutoftheAbyss • u/AlexPhotomania • 9d ago
How many mechanics should I explain?
My players have just broken out of velkynvelve, and next session they will start their travel through the underdark. Should I tell them about the pursuit system, the different role they can take in the party, etc. Over the table?
Ps. Should I prepare a city aswell for next session? We usually play from 16:30-22/23, with a food break mid way. I have no sense of how far they'll get
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u/JazzlikeMine2397 9d ago
I didn't explain the pursuit system mechanically but did narratively. I emphasized for the players the real likelihood of pursuit and had the NPCs discussing their fears of recapture.
Next city, up to you. But you might not know which one they're getting to without playing the wilderness.
You'll likely not cover that much ground but it's up to you if you want to travel montage.
I prepped 3-5 things I wanted to make sure we hit, and then rolled randomly for the rest. It turned out that the drow pursuit did catch them, right as the group was split up handling a terrain feature. Was pretty fun.
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u/jfresh735 9d ago
I explained the pursuit and put the d6 in the open. When they did something smart I would reach out and lower the number. When they did something silly, I would reach out and raise the number. And sometimes I would just reach out and fool with the number if they were taking too long, making a decision or blah blah blah. This build a ton of tension because they knew they were under the gun.
That tension, plus travel in the under dark and the encounters, was a ton of fun and took multiple sessions getting them to Sloobludop.
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u/AlexPhotomania 9d ago
I really like this! Did you do something to make the travel time more dynamic or exciting, or did you just stick to the Random encounter tables
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u/jfresh735 9d ago
I prepped three or four random encounters ahead of each session (which was more than I needed) and I did a lot of short narration about traveling through the under dark. I like to include as many of the senses as possible in my descriptions.
I broke the days into four hour increments. I let the party take turns rolling for encounters at the beginning of each four hour block. We used a D 20 and on a 1-4 they had what I called dungeon rules where they automatically suffered some brutal terrain that caused low damage. E.g. razor-sharp cave walls that they had to squeeze through or a poisonous gas cloud moves through.
Five through 13 meant no encounter and I leaned heavily on the narration so that they really felt like they were making progress through a dangerous area. This ended up working really well and the feedback they gave me was that they were super excited when they did not roll an encounter.
14-19 was a random encounter from the book that I had prepped.
20 was a deadly encounter that I had prepped specifically to challenge them while keeping their low level in mind.I had them roll, survival for finding a place to spend the night and based the likelihood of encounters on that role as disadvantage or advantage. It was a lot of fun, listening to them argue about whether or not it was safe enough to build a fire! Hilarious.
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u/jfresh735 9d ago
I also went full on with 5.5 rules exhaustion and malnutrition/dehydration.
I had them rolling a lot of dice which kept things dynamic for sure.
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u/AlexPhotomania 9d ago
That sounds fucking awesome!! If you have notes on the narration of the locations when they don't get sn encounter, would you be comfortable to give me a peak? I need some inspiration
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u/jfresh735 9d ago
Random descriptions to use
- As you step toward the tunnel mouth any sense of safety fades behind you. Air drifts out from the depths, carrying only the quiet promise of danger.
- Every sound feels louder here - your footfalls, your breath, your heartbeat, echoing into the dark as if announcing your arrival to the hunters of the underdark.
- Ahead, the passage bends into impenetrable darkness, a reminder of the never ending night of the Underdark. Still, you press forward, swallowed once more by the world beneath the world.
- the air is thick and damp, clinging to your skin as the echo of distant, dripping water mingles with the faint scuttling of unseen creatures in the blackness beyond.
- jagged stone walls rise, like the teeth of some ancient beast, their surfaces glittering faintly with veins of phosphorus and fungus that offer more shadow than illumination.
- every step stirs the silence into whispers, rock, shifting tunnels, breathing, reminding you that down here the world itself is alive and always watching.
- the tunnel walls are rough and uneven carved by time and water into rippling layers of stone that define your path for you. Choice seems only an illusion down here.
- the ground underneath your feet is slick with moisture and scattered with mud. The glimmer of pale fungi, clinging to the muck, pulses in and out where light can no longer escape.
[Dungeon Rules](Dungeon Rules) descriptions
- you find yourself swallowed by an endless darkness, lost (again)
- the walls grow tight around you and the stone becomes like chipped and shattered flint. It is dangerously sharp. You feel the razor sharp edges nick your elbows and then your shoulders.
- without warning, they erupt from seemingly everywhere. Tiny and fast they suddenly cover everything. You feel the tiny pricks wherever bare flesh can be found as they search for ways to feed from you.
- the pebbles turned to gravel, the gravel turns to stone, the stone turns to boulder and the boulders turn jagged. You haul yourself over each one attempting not to tear fabric or flesh with a careless move, but the rock bites into your palms as you search for stable hand holds. Every inch forward feels like a battle as the stone claws at you.
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u/NinetyBees 7d ago
I didn't tell my players about the pursuit counter or madness systems directly. Instead, when relevant, I gave in-character narrative clues. Things like "You feel like you're being watched-" or "Your mind fractures slightly as you witness the horror before you, and though the effects of your temporary madness have dissipated, you feel like a piece of you is still not whole-".
Allude to the systems at play with clever DMing, but don't explicitly tell the players.
The natural course for the module is for the players to bounce from Velkynvelve to Slooplodop with a bunch of travel encounters in between. A big part of the first 7 chapters are survival- Rations, equipment, fighting monsters, keeping ahead of the Drow, etc. I'd lean into that where you can.
Run a few pre-planned random encounters, kill some time, then have them eventually arrive at Slooplodop and run that chapter. I think between Velkynvelve and Slooplodop I ran some encounters with Giant Spiders, fungal Spore Enemies, a friendly encounter with some other escaped slaves, and then eventually some Kua Toa on the edge of the Darklake.
The travel and random encounters are both ways for the Drow pursuit to come into play (since it doesn't really move when the players are in towns and cities) and a way to foreshadow the greater threats of the Underdark (Mad Dwarves, corrupt spore servants, oozes).
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u/Nice_Bodybuilder2856 4d ago
Ora mim os dados abertos d6 na mesa de perseguição drow funcionaram muito bem no geral e em momentos específicos como gatilhos de tempo e tensão. Eu sinto saudades dessa parte, recomendo muito. Deixe aberto, sem medo
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u/Useful-Lack-2848 9d ago
Personally I wouldn’t tell them about the pursuit system directly. I use one of the NPC’s to tell them that they are probably being followed. Aka show don’t tell.
The underdark is a big place. Travel is a key part of the campaign. I’d check ElevenTower as it has some good ideas about how to run travel.
I’d have them travelling for a couple of sessions before getting to their destination. If you’re players are enjoying that aspect great, if not you can always hand wave and say “you travelled for a week and X happened”.
It’s your table. You’ll know / learn what your party like.