PCs freak when they realize that goblins and kobolds are Easy-Squeezy.
Carlsbad Caverns, Mammoth Cave, Ruby Falls all have a "Fat Man's Squeeze" feature. Go, put your cheek to the wall and close your eyes. Then imagine the hungry thing staring at you from the dark.
"PCs freak when they realize that goblins and kobolds are Easy-Squeezy" is on point. This is all about trying to have cave systems be an environment the PCs are not made for. Having creatures that are made for it makes it even worse!
Subscribed. Elegant cave rules. They could work in any system and literally took 3 mins to learn. Would be super easy to diagram and implement. Will likely use this for one of my next dungeons!
This post and your substack are most welcome finds! I've been pondering cave exploration in several settings, and this gives an immediately accessible approach that captures the important aspects without needing isometric drawing skills or software manipulation. I might even do a crawl in Google Docs/Slides!
Love this, great start, can't wait to see where you take it. As someone else said, Veins of the Earth tried to tackle this, and has beautiful writing around it, but isn't (in my opinion) as elegant and effective as what you've did here in 3% of the word count. Very excited to see what you've got next here.
Lo⁹ve this! A lovely boiled-down version of the Veins of the Earth mapping rules (or maybe the similarity is just a coincidence, check VotE out!). I love how you managed to simplify all the different passage types there could be into "how many people fit inside". Great work, will probably use it!
Thanks for the recommendation! I had the impression what I've got here is heading the direction of that supplement. I love Patrick Stuart's work, but for personal reasons don't purchase from Lamentations of the Flame Princess as a publisher. Glad to hear it's even simpler though, that's the aim with these approaches. If you use it be sure to comment how it went!
PCs freak when they realize that goblins and kobolds are Easy-Squeezy.
Carlsbad Caverns, Mammoth Cave, Ruby Falls all have a "Fat Man's Squeeze" feature. Go, put your cheek to the wall and close your eyes. Then imagine the hungry thing staring at you from the dark.
"PCs freak when they realize that goblins and kobolds are Easy-Squeezy" is on point. This is all about trying to have cave systems be an environment the PCs are not made for. Having creatures that are made for it makes it even worse!
Congrats, you hit one of the recurring themes of my nightmares right on the head xD
I wrote this partly because it’s a nightmare for me too! XD
I looked at your minimalist cave map, thinking I could brave these simple ovals and innocent lines.
Nope. Still felt claustrophobia setting in. Brilliant work.
Approachable diagram, dreadful scenario, that's what we want!
Subscribed. Elegant cave rules. They could work in any system and literally took 3 mins to learn. Would be super easy to diagram and implement. Will likely use this for one of my next dungeons!
Fantastic!
Oh yeah, this going to be fun.
This post and your substack are most welcome finds! I've been pondering cave exploration in several settings, and this gives an immediately accessible approach that captures the important aspects without needing isometric drawing skills or software manipulation. I might even do a crawl in Google Docs/Slides!
Thank you! Google docs/slides are perfectly good for this sort of mapping!
Love this, great start, can't wait to see where you take it. As someone else said, Veins of the Earth tried to tackle this, and has beautiful writing around it, but isn't (in my opinion) as elegant and effective as what you've did here in 3% of the word count. Very excited to see what you've got next here.
Thanks so much! Next week we'll be looking at the flooding scenario, plus a quick aside on rock falls!
Lo⁹ve this! A lovely boiled-down version of the Veins of the Earth mapping rules (or maybe the similarity is just a coincidence, check VotE out!). I love how you managed to simplify all the different passage types there could be into "how many people fit inside". Great work, will probably use it!
Thanks for the recommendation! I had the impression what I've got here is heading the direction of that supplement. I love Patrick Stuart's work, but for personal reasons don't purchase from Lamentations of the Flame Princess as a publisher. Glad to hear it's even simpler though, that's the aim with these approaches. If you use it be sure to comment how it went!