In the Wake of the Murderhobos

So on reading through the introductory and history sections of the various "Return to the..." revisits of classic modules, there's the clear issue of how to deal with whether the module has previously been played through by the players and how to deal with such meta-game prior knowledge and potential mechanics and setting changes over the intervening years.

Even if the module is known only by its reputation as a classic, several of the revisit products imply that a similar adventuring party has completed the original module, changing not only the inhabitants / defeating the bosses but also affecting the physical environment for those that follow after. This not only gives a sense of history and nostalgia to the revisit but allows a refresh.

But how to reflect the consequences of a prior playthrough for UK6 I wondered?

The Tag System?

The best system I've seen for dealing with the effects of a previous party in the recent (or distant) past is the "Tag" system used in the LotFP module Thulian Echoes, where the historical group of pre-generated characters is played by the current players and generates changes their actual contemporary play through, with the first group's story physically represented in-game through a journal that acts as the MacGuffin for the latter group. As summarised in this review or this other review, it's in an intriguing nod to the possibility of player meta-game knowledge that in turn generates multiple variations of the base play-through. There's a similar but simpler device used in Monte Cook's excellent Dead Gods Planescape adventure in the "Ruins of Pelion" section (pages 88-100) where the current day characters can become for a time characters in the distant past in order to assist them in the future.

Coincidentally, UK6, while not beginning with a journal as the hook, uses a less detailed map as the trigger for adventure instead. Unfortunately, despite being included as background fiction, the accompanying "Tikul's Saga" detailing the preceding party's journey is not available to the players and is for the DM's eyes only. This seems a bit of a missed opportunity to me as I think a journal would have been a useful narrative device, although snippets of the story of Tikul's party are scattered throughout the descriptive text (the female thief's body, the burial mound containing the party's cleric slain by the skeleton warrior).

I suppose I could rework the base adventure with a similar "Tag" system, but despite its high concept components in some ways, UK6 is actually a quite linear, "railroad" adventure for the most part - this is not necessarily a bad thing, however (particularly when revisiting the areas "already visited" in the module as I'll explain in a later post). Apart from some random encounters in the jungle, the 1st section set in the Indicara leads almost inevitably through a sequence of encounters to the set-piece battle at the shrine with the Atem. The passages themselves have some variation, as does the final temple section, but there's a definite linearity. The potential sandbox section, the Ash Mire with the untrustworthy Hek, is presented as a sequence of events, likely due to space limitations to be fair, but similarly, there are only a handful of likely variations that could be generated, particularly with a "murderhobo" playstyle.

So I've decided to set a default premise to determine the effect of the "prior party" on the parts of the setting detailed in the module that I'll refer to as the "Murderhobo Playthrough", although I think building in some "Tag" options to provide variation may be interesting.

The Murderhobo Playthrough Premise (aka "the MHPP")

"So, What exactly is a murder hobo? The label comes from the fact that player characters are homeless & nameless strangers that travel from town to town, living out of their backpacks. And their default solution to any problem that they may encounter is to kill everything and collect the treasure. They just kill everything!" - Michael Long (Tribality, May 2017) 

I'm going to work from the default that the original party behaved like classic murderhobos throughout the original adventure as published and detail the consequences that follow on from that. 

In addition, I'm going to make the following specific mechanics assumptions:

• The pre-rolled 1E characters from page 32 were used for this "first playthrough"
• The party was predominantly neutral in alignment, with *no* evil characters
• Their background is non-Suloise, but any other Greyhawk ethnicity is fine except Olman
• The party have ventured into the Indicara region from Sasserine (or Cauldron)
• Six characters made up the party, each level 6 or 4/4 (if multi-classed)
• Sir Palimor the paladin was not in the original party (see below for rationale)
• Delana Redblade, the single-classed thief was not in the original party 
• There are only 2 clerics in the original party; the human cleric Cascus worships Fharlanghn 
• At least two of the characters died during the westward journey
• The adventure occurred before the events of The Shackled City Adventure Path 

There are a couple of flavour reasons for these assumptions, but the justification for the main premise is to simplify things so that for each relevant decision node or encounter I can ask "What would a murderhobo do?" and adjust the section accordingly to reflect the mayhem...

Note: it's clear from the outset that an OSR-style paladin just won't work for this style of a playthrough, which let's be honest really doesn't fit with the non-kit/variant traditional LG outlook. Technically in RAW, a paladin can't "associate with any character of non-Good alignment". Plus a warhorse makes very little sense in the jungle and even less in the Ash Mire. So no paladin. Fair?

Murderhobo Flowchart

The diagram to the left is a comical (but probably accurate) depiction of default murderhobo responses to basic challenges likely encountered in a standard module so if I need to I may refer to this from time to time if unsure of how to make a call. 

Honestly, it's likely to be pretty straightforward.

They explore, they kill, and they loot. 

Anything stronger than them they run away from if possible. Add on some aggressive "colonial" attitudes towards the native races where necessary eg. attacking the Atem shrine, robbing the Hek even if they don't try and kidnap or press-gang the clerics, murdering Kegen's mutant family, and the playthrough pretty much writes itself.

Note: although the "original party" is assumed to have behaved like murderhobos, I'm aiming to design a more nuanced adventure with some modern design sensibilities, yet an OSR feel to encourage a more "enlightened" playthrough. Of course, people will play however they want.

But Maybe a Journal or perhaps Time Travel?

So I really like these concepts from Thulian Echoes and Dead Gods, but maybe even without the "Tag" system, I'll try and work in some playthrough of past events that have effects on the present-day party of adventurers. Some way of indicating the narrative of the original murderhobo exploration and Tikul's expedition to the contemporary adventurers through a journal may be an option as a hook or as a resource. Perhaps it's the journal itself that triggers the past sequences?