Fix this Dish - Post Review Thoughts on UK6 (Part 1)

 This is the first of a group of posts triggered by writing the DriveThruRPG Review of UK6.

So having written a "tenfootpole.org-style" review of UK6 All that Glitters... and pointed out some of it's shortcomings based on my own observations according to Bryce's reviewing principles, I think it's reasonable to make an attempt at what would improve the module as written to a "5-star" rating for me, that is if I believed a star rating or score out of 5 system was of value...

Let's look at where the module seemed to fall down in my review then:

• Lack of terse writing style beloved by the OSR community
• Large amounts of "read aloud" boxed texts
• Linear dungeons and areas without loops or multiple levels / "railroad" sections
• Various monster and opponent issues (see below)
• Lack of unique and weird items with history to interact with

As noted in the review, I believe the first two "meta" issues are related to the early writing of the author and the design sensibility of the early 1980 / UK TSR's style and on reflection they don't seem such a big deal and may present more of an opportunity than a challenge. The boxed text can largely be ignored or used as the basis of the DM's free description readily enough but the writing style negative relates particularly to the story in "Tikul's Saga" which the player's have no way of finding out in game and requires a more overall approach, scattering the clues throughout the module for the player's to deduce as they proceed as I've suggested in an earlier post. 

So let's look at the other 3 issues (Maps, Monsters and Items) section by section...

Weather in the Indicara (the Amedio Jungle)

Rumble in the Rain?

When I think of jungles, the weather is always omnipresent - oppressive humidity, almost constant rainfall, clear days that rapidly become overcast with tropical thunderclouds and massive downpours.

There was no existing weather system for the Indicara in UK6, so rather than design one from scratch, I decided to look at the "Amedio Jungle" section of Sean K. Reynold's The Scarlet Brotherhood supplement for inspiration. This 2E work is itself based off Roger E. Moore's classic article "The Green Nightmare: the Amedio Jungle" from Oerth Journal #6.

I remember the complex weather generation tables from the Glossography booklet from the World of Greyhawk Boxed Set with mixed feelings - evocative but also hideously complex!

So I built a Google Spreadsheet generator, incorporating the relevant descriptor text and mechanical effects that requires only a choice of Season to be entered (0 = Dry/Summer, 1 = Wet/Winter) and is set to update every minute, for ready use at the gaming table.

No dice rolls needed!

Example "Amedio Weather Generator" result

I could probably go back and hide the "Precipitation" row as Cell D13 is just a dependent variable for the "Rainfall" result generated by setting the "Season" variable in Cell B6, but it seems to work well as it is, so I'm inclined to leave it for now.

Although the descriptions are taken from the 2E sources, I've stuck with the 1E source for the mechanical effects summary as it was easier to insert (the 2E source references multiple 2E PHB and 2E DMG tables). Interestingly, the wind effects are calculated to be negligible for all cases except for the strongest thunderstorm as the jungle canopy and foliage provides significant shelter (-10mph wind speed per the 1E source material).

On checking further, the original weather article from DRAGON #68 that the WoH Boxed Set Glossography material is based on included "special weather effects" including volcanoes, earthquakes, quicksand, rainforest downpours, as well as the possibility of generating more intense storms (tropical storm, monsoon, gale, hurricane/typhoon). I could probably use a "triples", "doubles", "sequentials" and "max" approach with the calculations to generate these like the KNeE Table generators, but it gets more complicated than I'd like to go for weather and I believe such extreme weather works better as a scripted story event than just a random event.

Downloadable Amedio Weather Generator & Resources

This embedded spreadsheet below should calculate everything you need for a day in the Indicara:
(This will be replaced once I work out how to embed the spreadsheet properly, it's a placeholder line)

Alternatively, this link will take you to the complete Google Drive version.

I'll export an Excel for Mac version for offline use eventually.

Crossranting: Fire in the Jungle

 

Fire in the Jungle (by Dustin Brandt)

While slashing my way through the jungle that is the internet, I've stumbled across not a lost city but rather an interesting blog full of RPG jungle resources: 

      Fire in the Jungle

Written and maintained by Dustin Brandt from 2011 to 2015 (but now seemingly abandoned), the site covers a wide range of jungle themed RPG ideas and real life topics,providing a rich resource to mine for background and supplementary material.

Not only is it full of interesting and relevant posts for the Indicara section of UK6 such as "Making Jungle Travel It's Own adventure" and the in-character "Jungle Travel Tips from Sir Kaukonen" that Tikul would have been well advised to heed, it also has links to collections of refined posts in the form of three PDFs,  each filled with 16 pages of densely packed inspiration and tools:

1. (Original) Fire in the Jungle Fantasy RPG Supplement (basic jungle material and ideas)
2. Across the Wide Dark Jungle (the "Hungry Jungle" material and expansions) 
3. Jungle Castle Rock Apocalypse (weird, gonzo style jungle)

All are available via Magcloud (and the PDFs are *free*).

There's a review of the first book over at Tenkar's Tavern and another review here, but I can't find any reviews of the other supplements. 

I particularly like the concept behind the "Jungle Event System" of exploration, which has elements more in keeping with the "jungle exploration system" from Shadows of Forgotten Kings than the travel rules from the 5E mega-adventure Tomb of Annihilation.


Addit: there's also a fair bit of material written by Dustin to supplement the 1978 boardgame, The Source of the Nile (see also Aaron Marriner's SoTN PBEM site), including an extensive playlog, several proposed expansions, and links to some articles by Gary Gygax with one of the game's co-creators, David Wesley. Taken together, the game provides an alternative early hexcrawl system and randomised jungle exploration approach for expanded jungle campaigns.