5/17/2022
Welcome Back, Adventurers!
Hey Adventurers, this is our next installment of Rulesday Tuesday! This time, instead of a specific set of rules, it’s going to be a general set of tips for setting up higher-level adventure.
Let’s Be Honest, It’s Mostly Level One Adventures
For a lot of people (including myself), the majority of their playtime comes from the beginning parts of any TTRPG (not just Crowns).
So, I’m writing up this post to help enable people to not get stuck in the mindset of writing “Level One Adventures” for Crowns. This is important because Level Two and beyond characters, are exponentially more competent than they were before.
They have:
- Massive raises in average player resolve while monster damage remains roughly the same
- Earned Feats allow for players to have more special powers than before, and are allowing them to specialize
- If they are new, after the first Level or so they will begin to get a grasp of the weapon/armor Overuse system
Because of this, creating an adventure that actually presents a challenge becomes more difficult. If this is a struggle you have, head the following advice:
Writing Good Adventures
Before we discuss what should be added/taken away for writing higher-level Crowns Adventures, we need to make a baseline of what’s “good.”
There is nigh-infinite good help online for writing dungeons. Even advice given for other games will still apply to Crowns.
See Mathew Colville, Steven Lumpkin, Bandits Keep, etc etc
Good adventures in Crowns have all of the following:
- A puzzle that spans more than one room
- A trap or ambush that is obviously telegraphed but encouraged anyway
- Places to hide, sneak around, and (if there are guards) set patrols.
- At least one secret door that isn’t puzzle related
- A point of no return
A puzzle that spans more than one room. If a puzzle includes hints, switches, or pieces that require greater exploration of the dungeon, it can act as a red thread throughout the dungeon. This helps the players connect the dungeon mentally into one cohesive space with a single theme. It also rewards careful note-taking and exploration, as the players won’t know which rooms are important to solving the puzzle.
A trap or ambush that is obviously telegraphed but encouraged
anyway. By encouraged I mean that the players should be tempted to initiate the trap/ambush, because of a potential reward. Maybe at the center of a room that obviously has a death pendulum or two in it, there is a big bundle of treasure. Or, beneath the water of an underground lake, littered with bloated corpses beneath the surface (resting zombies of course), is the glittering of jewels and gemstones. If they outsmart the situation, good for them, that’s what they were supposed to do.
Places to hide, sneak around, and (if there are guards) set patrols. Players need to have opportunities to avoid combats, because (especially at earlier levels and in smaller parties), they are dangerous! For this reason include cupboards, hiding places, and alternate routes so the players can sneak around/outmaneuver the bad guys. If the bad guys do have guards, create a patrol schedule. Remember, even ants and wolves have guards, but their schedules are a little less fixed than a human’s.
At least one secret door that isn’t puzzle-related. In the case that your players either don’t like or are not good at puzzles, adding a secret door that can only be found through mechanical means (i.e. successfully searching the room) still allows them to interact with that side of the game. The side that involves discovery, exploration, and problem-solving. This secret door could be a bricked-over room and require WORK to actually open, it doesn’t have to be a “giveaway” secret door.
A point of no return. At a certain point in the dungeon, the only way out is to keep going. This puts the players into a whole different mindset, whereas before they had the option to leave at any time, now they are in survival mode, rationing supplies, and searching for escape.
This could be a steep drop downwards, a horde of enemies gathering outside the dungeon, or a timer on how long the dungeon will be open, encouraging them to get as much out as they possibly can right now instead of waiting for later.
Past the point of no return, there should be a new class of enemies, traps, and treasure. This is the meat of the dungeon, whereas the previous section was merely the introduction.
Before the point of no return, treasure should be easy to grab, small things like rings, necklaces, gemstones, etc. After the point of no return, it should be clumsy things, ceremonial armor/weapons, tapestries, statuettes/idols. These should be more valuable things, but take up more inventory space (one slot each or more).
If your dungeon was mostly-linear so far, it needs to be much more open and sandboxy after the point of no return. If it’s linear after this point, it will feel less like they have finally hit the meat of the dungeon, and more like they’ve been given the big boss warning siren, which is not at all what the point of no return is supposed to represent.
Considerations for Level One Adventures
For Level Ones, most encounters are scary, and that should be made obvious to them. They are not heroes, they are just troublefinders.
My encouragement is that their first dungeon has a point of no return very early on, perhaps even as its entrance.
This is because the first dungeon should roughly level them up (or at least give them enough treasure to buy the level up by spending it selfishly or selflessly afterwards). However, as stated in the Crowns Core Rules, the loot distribution should not just have all the treasure lying around, they gotta work for it.
Forcing the players to outsmart, outmaneuver, and out-plan the enemies in the dungeon instead of allowing them to escape (when they probably will want to as Level Ones) will put them in the furnace.
Equating this to a funnel adventure would not be entirely accurate, however, it should feel like it’s out of their league and means to get all the treasure out of this dungeon on the first try. Much less kill all the monsters. Surviving with enough treasure to level up should be reward enough.
Considerations for Adventures Beyond Level One
Okay, now things are about to get complicated. This will be split into three sections:
- Higher-level monsters
- Higher-level saves
- Higher-level rewards
Higher-level monsters. A common trope in OSR adventures to make an area “higher level” is to just raise the monster’s hit-dice and have them hit like mac-trucks. That doesn’t super apply to Crowns.
Player characters in Crowns have the ability to overuse some items (like armor and shields) to reduce incoming physical damage. Often veteran players will carry multiple shields on them for this reason. There are also feats that assist with this style of play (Juggernaut, Shield Bearer, etc.)
However, not all player characters are built this way. Some dual-wield, some use two-handed weapons, some use ranged weapons. This means that if you have monsters throwing around 1d10+2 punches, people will die, and fast, unless they are loaded with armor, which some will be, and they suffer no damage at all.
Instead, trying dealing damage/effects that do not involve physical damage. Things like fire damage that ignores armor/shields (but not defense rolls) or psychic or fear abilities that inflict WIL saves or just cause conditions on the character, like Panic or Terror (basically Panic, that clears on a Long Rest instead of a Short Rest).
Big monsters, instead of attacking, could cause a VIT save on a target, if they fail they are grappled and take 1d6 damage that ignores shields but not armor. Plague zombies could release noxious gasses when damaged in melee, dealing 1d4 damage that ignores armor/shields and causes a VIT save to defend against instead of a SEN save.
The point here is to be creative. Don’t completely remove the basic damage types, because then players who specialized in armor/weapons will feel betrayed, but just throw in a wrench to every combat encounter to keep it exciting.
Higher-level saves. In higher-level dungeons there should be saves with known penalties. Instead of doors being made of fragile wood, they are heavy wooden doors (-2 to VIT saves to kick down), or stone (-5 to VIT saves to kick down). There might even be metal doors that can’t be kicked down.
In very large rooms or very cluttered rooms it could take hours to search it fully. Have a set number of SEN saves it will take to search the room, and let the players know how many after they attempt (succeed or fail) their first save in that room.
Let’s say a room requires 10 SEN saves to be considered fully searched. That does not mean we have to reward them big for every successful search, but do try to give them something for their efforts. Make a few big rewards (grimoires, secret doors, precious treasures) that can be found every 2-4 successful searches of this room, with minor ones in-between (3d6 crowns, minor treasures, a puzzle clue, a key to a different room).
Enforce bad rolls with conditions (such as Panic or Exhaustion), and let the players know they will receive this condition if they fail before they roll. Alternatively, you could use additional wandering monsters rolls, damage that can’t wound (only reduce Resolve), or equipment usage to encourage hard/fun decision-making.
Higher-level rewards. Magic items, grimoires, and potions should never be commonplace. However, potions have limited uses and can thus be given out more liberally than the other two. These things should be the big rewards of a dungeon, protected behind traps, secret doors, and monster guardians. They may even be rumored to exist in the dungeon, leading to the players to explore the dungeon proper.
Something I do in my games is to give players experience for removing these kinds of treasure items from the dungeon, even if they never intend to sell them. Treasure that works like that, such as books of ancient lore the players will use for research or items the players will use in the “main questline”, are more useful at higher levels, as players will have less uses for crowns.
There are also non-fungible rewards. Land rights on which to build fortresses, knighthoods, mantles of authority (on which to legally raise troops), appointed leadership positions, etc. It is recommended that these are rewarded for players doing something specific, often as a favor.
Perhaps the lord’s daughter is missing and needs to be returned alive (and only alive) for the players to be knighted, given land, and allowed to collect tax revenue. Maybe they rescue the ancient deed to some land from an ancient collapsed fortress now infested with orcs.
The Big Picture
If you want to run adventures for higher-level parties in Crowns, you’ll need to be more creative in order for them to be fuctional. While low-level adventures can be quick and dirty write-ups, the higher the level the more you have to think outside the box to challenge/reward the players, so don’t get complacent!
Thank you so much, everyone!
Until we meet again,
GOOD LUCK ON YOUR ADVENTURES
Ward Against Evil 
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