r/Dolmentown

Quick question, the rulebook says a Hunter has a 3-6 chance of finding the parties path if they get lost. When is this rolled? Is it a fail-safe for if they do get lost? Like would i roll they get lost but then roll a success for the hunter so they actually dont get lost?

Or does the hunter roll it once the party realizes they are lost? If thats the case how does that play out? Would i then reveal to the party where they really on on the map? Ive never played a game where getting lost is a factor so I dont know what info the players get if they get lost.

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.

Not sure if this is allowed, but I was wondering if anyone had any compendiums for use for my game I'll be starting using the in testing Dolmenwood foundry system.

I plan on doing it myself, but I figured if someone else has done all the work and wants to be a homie, would save me some time.

Hi! I'm preparing for a campaign of Dolmenwood with friends. My first foray into OSR games.

I have so many questions, I might make a thread or two more in the coming weeks. But here's a few questions:

1. I'm gonna have three players. I see lots of recommendations for bigger groups. I'm not sure I want them to have two PCs for now (maybe once they get more comfortable with the rules), can that easily be fixed by having them hire retainers? What are your recommendations?

2. I've finished reading the Player Book. I feel that most of what's in there I could share with the players. I'm just a bit unsure about the bits at the start that talk about the factions, their goals, etc. Is that a good thing to share with the players?

3. We'll be playing in person. I want to put a map before them. I have both the Referee and Player map in cloth from the Kickstarter.

The Player map is gorgeous; but it doesn't have hexes and every settlement and some notable locations are pre identified on the map.

The Referee map is not as good looking, but it does have hex. But it also very clear shows the roads and settlements.

I know there's also a black and white hexed map going around that some people print.

What's your recommendation for the map?

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?

I looked but could not find anyone asking this question. It really feels like it should take an action to turn undead. However, in the ability description it specifies that it may only be attempted once per round, which implies to me that it is not.

Hi everybody! I'm thinking about the opening scene for my Dolmenwood campaign. I wanted to start the game in Dreg, but I want the very first scene to be a fight. After that, the characters can get into town, start gathering hooks and informations and they're completely free to choose their own destiny.

So this is what I was thinking: the characters are escorting Keodel, an experienced adventurer who's looking for some treasure in some dungeon around Dreg. They enter Dolmenwood from the South along the Hameth river, and set up camp for the night in a cave in the southern border of hex 1112. During the night they are attacked by some Giant Centipedes (how many?), who live in the cave, that kill Keodel while he's taking his watch. Everyone wakes up, roll initiative: this is the start of the first session.

After this, they can go through Keodel's possessions and find a hint that points to Droomen Knoll (see "The Fairy Chalice" hook). Even if they don't, they will probably keep traveling until they reach Dreg, where they will find more hooks for Droomen Knoll, Winter's Daughter and more.

Do you think this is a good opening? Any advice?

I’m very new to old school styles of play. Seeing that casters only had one first level spell slot and detect medic, how do you play one effectively at first level? I’ve gone over the class options and my players are all avoiding casters because of their lack of options and frailty at level one. Some have brought up that they feel they’d be forced to do nothing except wait to cast their one spell and then hide, and that would be very boring. How do you cross this gulf?

Hey folks! I put together a blog post trying to fit the lore of u/six-sided-gnome's adventures into the Dolmenwood setting. I've been working on this post for a while, but expedited it after this recent post.

I highly recommend all three of these adventures, and hope that this post helps you fit them into the setting! If you have other ideas for incorporating them, or feedback/criticism on what I've outlined in the post, I'd love to hear it.