Design Notes: On The Hill
for the Liminal Horror Twisted Classics Jam
Another month, another jam. Well, another month, 2 more jams this time. Since the last Ink & Dice, where I talked about the One-Page RPG Jam, I finished my 1-page mech war-game, Auctōrātus, moved on to another jam, and wrote and submitted a new horror module to that, On The Hill. Today, I’m going to be talking about my process for putting that module together.
Inside
Auctōrātus
On The Hill
August Production Update
Auctōrātus
I talked a bit about the central mechanism of Auctōrātus last time, but the short version is that this is a 1- or 2- player tabletop war game where players take on the role of mech-piloting gladiators in an arena-based tournament fighting monsters of increasing power. After each round, the player gains money to be used for repairing and upgrading their mech for the next battle. The battles are built around the following mechanisms:
hex-grid movement
diceless, zero-luck combat
rondel-based resource management
All together, the reception has been tremendous, which means this game is going back into the Work In Progress folder so that one day it might be turned into a complete game.
You know why you are here. You are not a criminal. You are not a slave. You are an auctōrātus, a volunteer, and you will be paid well for your performance. Make sure your mech is ready. Select your components. Charge your batteries. Be prepared for the fight of your life
What’s a complete game? I can’t say for sure yet, but I expect it will involve:
More mech components!
More enemies!
More battlefields!
Real, actual mech art!!
Expanded theming! (More than just a gladiator in an arena, players will probably be some sort of military unit. I’m not sure yet. I should probably read some other mech games.)
A new name! (One that people can pronounce confidently the first time they see it. I still don’t know how to say Auctōrātus.)
In any event, if you haven’t checked it out yet, the game is free on itch. I’d love to hear what you think.
On The Hill
To celebrate the release of their new adventure, The Parthenogenesis of Hungry Hollow,
is hosting the Liminal Horror Twisted Classics Jam. The theme for the jam is to take an idea from an older module and twist it into a modern horror adventure.I’ll admit that as a relative newcomer to the hobby, I am not immediately familiar with “classic” adventures (There’s one about borderlands right?). So, I did what I do best: went to Wikipedia, the Wikipedia entry titled “List of Dungeons & Dragons modules” to be specific. Scrolling through the lists of coded adventures, one word grabbed my eye: horror. As in, B5: Horror on the Hill. If I was going to twist an old adventure into a modern horror, this was as good a place as any to start.
Step 1: The Story
I opened up the B5 PDF and I was…horrified. I read through the 38-page adventure, and my immediate reaction was that this would not be fun to run or to play. The massive, maze-like dungeon. The entirely unhelpful surface map. The illogical NPC placement. The complete lack of Horror™️. How could I turn this into something fun?
That’s where the twist came in. In B5, the rumor-giver that kicks off the adventure is a man called only the “Old Timer.” The rumors he gives the PCs lead them to The Hill to confront the monsters there. What if the “Old Timer” was not just a local gossip that spent too much time at the tavern? What if the “Old Timer” was the enemy, and he was only enticing people to The Hill so that he could bury them in it? THAT could be a horror story.
Step 2: The Setting
We have an overarching plot now (The Old Timer is luring people to The Hill). Next, let’s drill down on some of the details. Back to B5 we go. In that module, the adventurers arrive in a town called Guido’s Fort. This town was built on the bank of a river, the only thing separating the town from annihilation by the denizens of The Hill.
The Hill, which sits on the other side of the river, is a bit of stereotypical D&D wilderness, full of monsters, ruins, caves, and dungeons. B5 is broken down into an aboveground exploration of The Hill, which includes 19 landmarks, that culminates at The Ruined Monastery. From the monastery, the PCs enter a 61-room, 3-level dungeon where they may eventually find the boss monster, a Red Dragon.
I don’t know about you, but to me, this was A LOT. Thinking about the theming of modern horror, I decided to mostly ditch the dungeons and focus on the aboveground part. 19 locations culminating in a ruined monastery? I could certainly build a point crawl out of that.
And what do point crawls have? Paths.
What kinds of forests have ruins and paths? In the US, probably a state/national park.
Boom. Now we’ve got a setting. A state park created on The Hill to preserve a ruined monastery. Now we have in-world reasons for there to be paths through the forest near some ruins. I took a few of those 19 locations in B5 and tweaked them to create Gareth Pines State Park:
Step 3: Exploration Mechanism
Deciding on a point crawl was fine, but that isn’t a complete set of mechanisms. A point crawl needs rules for travel between points, and it needs things that can happen between the points at at the points.
This was when I discovered the Voidcrawl.
This was perfect, a system designed specifically for Liminal Horror that could be applied to this point crawl. (The system also reminds me of the Dynamic Table that we talked about last month.) Instead of a point crawl with a system like “each time the PCs travel there is a 1-in-6 chance of a random encounter” (a system that I have used in the past), the Voidcrawl uses a single roll to determine what kind of encounter occurs (Monster, Horror, Clue, Omen, etc.). It brings back the old-school “dungeon turn,” and then it breaks down the PCs’ options for what they can do each turn. I chose the following options for On The Hill:
Move to another location
Search or Interact with a location
Overcome an obstacle
Rest to recover HP
Each turn, the PCs must choose one of these options, and then the Facilitator will roll a die to determine what else happens during this turn:
Step 4: The Plot
Now, an adventure isn’t a story; it provides the framework with which to tell a story. However, it is helpful to add in a few plot points to get things started (the hook) and keep momentum moving forward (the clock).
We already established the set-up for the plot when we decided that the Old Timer was luring people to the park to do something horrible to them. To round this idea out, I added an opening scene where the Old Timer waves down the PCs as they travel on the road near The Hill. He asks for their help rescuing his missing granddaughter, which should be enough to convince the PCs (or at least players that know that this is how the adventure is supposed to start) to enter the forest.
While the PCs explore the forest, they will interact with other NPCs and find clues that reveal the Old Timer’s deception.
The clock (called a Doom Clock in Liminal Horror) allowed me to introduce an entirely new idea to this story: the Not Deer. The Not Deer is a cryptid from the Appalachian region of the US, and is usually described as an animal that looks like a deer, but walks on its hind legs and has long claws on its forelimbs. With each tick of the Doom Clock (as determined by the Voidcrawl die rolls), the Not Deer gets closer to finding the PCs, triggering a boss-level confrontation necessary to be free of the forest.
I added in a few other NPCs, some Resonant Artifacts, and a couple of minor plot lines to fill out the module, and On The Hill was complete.
If you are looking for an adventure to try out Liminal Horror (the rules are free), On The Hill is free on itch. You should check it out.
August Production Update
Here we are again with the monthly M. Allen Hall production update. Since last month, the Foul release has been completed! Everything has been shipped and delivered electronically. If you backed the campaign and still do not have your rewards, please contact me (through Kickstarter is best).
I finished up the writing on V.G.S., and I’ll be sure to include links to that once it releases. One Night on Rose Hill is coming in October for the Lost Bay digital convention, and I might even sort out running that game for an actual play video for the con if schedules line up.
New additions to the grid are Auctōrātus and On The Hill, both of which are already released! I’m going to be diving back into DKTM in preparation for a fall Kickstarter, so hopefully that ON HOLD arrow will get an update next month.
Thank you!
As always, thanks for reading! Next time will 100% definitely (maybe) be another solo actual play report. Sigh.
—MAH
Thanks for sharing the thought process behind On The Hill. I love getting to hear about folks’ design and development choices!
I like the mech game title. Don’t change it!