u/SirKohle

I'm running my first Dolmenwood campaign and I'm starting to get a better grasp of the wilderness travel and hex exploration procedures.

One thing I'm still not completely sure about is how other referees handle the many locations in the Campaign Book that sound like they could become proper dungeons, but don't have a detailed map or a full room-by-room key.

For example, the party might enter a hex, discover some ruins, a tomb, cave system, hidden lair, etc., and naturally decide:

"We go inside."

Obviously the book can't include a fully mapped dungeon for every location in the setting, so I'm assuming these are intentionally adventure seeds that the referee is expected to develop when they become relevant.

How do you usually handle this in practice?

Do you prepare small 5-10 room dungeons for nearby locations before each session? Improvise them at the table? Use existing OSR dungeons and reskin them? Or treat many of these locations more abstractly unless the description clearly suggests a full dungeon?

I'm especially curious about how people run this while keeping Dolmenwood as an open sandbox. I don't want to prepare dozens of dungeons the players may never visit, but I also don't want to be caught completely unprepared when they suddenly decide to explore one.

Would love to hear how experienced Dolmenwood referees approach this.

First Dolmenwood session ended in a massacre. Did I run this correctly?

Last night we played our first session of Dolmenwood, starting with Pipes on Droomen Knoll.

The party was a Woodgrue Enchanter, Mossling Fighter, Grimalkin Hunter, Grimalkin Thief, and Human Fighter.

They started in Prigwort, picked up the quest, caused some trouble around town, and eventually headed into the woods looking for the missing boy.

We also tried to follow the wilderness travel and hex exploration rules properly. They travelled northeast from Prigwort into the hex where Droomen Knoll is located. While exploring the area, they passed through open beech woods and discovered a strange abundance of tiny red worms crawling on the ground. We really enjoyed this part, as it immediately made travelling through Dolmenwood feel like actual exploration rather than just moving from Prigwort to the adventure location.

Eventually they discovered Droomen Knoll and started scouting around the ruined keep. Near a collapsed tower they found a narrow, dark hole. It smelled strongly of guano and there were black feathers around it.

The Woodgrue Enchanter, for reasons still unknown to everyone at the table, decided to just jump in without checking how deep it was.

It was 15 feet deep.

I rolled 1d6 falling damage and got a 5. He had 5 HP, so he died instantly.

The others tied themselves to a rope and climbed down to investigate. There were five stirges down there.

It was a massacre.

The Mossling Fighter and Grimalkin Hunter were killed as the stirges latched onto them and drained their blood. The Human Fighter, Cedric Tolmen, somehow survived, killed three stirges, drove off the remaining two, and managed to climb back out.

The Grimalkin Thief also survived, but only because her player had to leave early, so we had the character turn into a domestic cat and stay out of the rest of the session.

So Cedric is now heading back to Prigwort after his first expedition, having lost three companions and still not found the missing boy. Next session the players will roll up some new adventurers and the expedition will continue.

Everyone had a lot of fun and we were laughing about the whole disaster, but this was our first time actually playing Dolmenwood and I'm curious:

Did I handle this correctly?

I didn't fudge anything or try to balance the situation once things started going badly. The Woodgrue jumped into an unknown hole, so I rolled the falling damage. They chose to go down, encountered the stirges, and I ran them as written.

Three dead PCs in the first session felt brutal, but at the same time it felt very appropriate for an old-school game.

Would you have handled any of this differently?

Hey everyone!

In a couple of weeks I'll be starting my first Dolmenwood campaign, and I honestly can't wait. The setting completely won me over and my players are already excited.

After character creation, this is the party we ended up with:

Mossling Fighter

Human Fighter

Grimalkin Hunter

Grimalkin Thief

Woodgrue Enchanter

I really like how the group turned out, even though we don't have a cleric or friar.

I'm mainly looking for advice from people who've actually run Dolmenwood. What do you wish you knew before your first campaign? Any tips for getting the right atmosphere across? Things to avoid? Common mistakes?

I'm especially interested in how you handle the early sessions. Do you lean into the weird fairy-tale side right away, or let it build up slowly? Any tricks for making exploration and the factions feel alive?

And if you have any advice specific to this party composition, I'd love to hear it.

Please keep it as spoiler-free as possible, I want to discover the setting together with my players.

Thanks! I'm really looking forward to hearing your experiences.