2 Hazard 2 Die: More About How I Like To Use The Hazard Die In Adventure Writing
Last week I wrote about how I'd adapted the Hazard Die for Mothership. This is a follow-up expounding more on how on how I've used it in different adventures over the past few years. There will be a bit of discussion of why I made particular decisions, but it's more a chance to share examples of how you can use it in different ways. Apart from the results it can produce of a very dynamic adventure, what I really like about it is the ease with which you can slot in adventure-specific results without really messing with anything else, which is what most of these show. I'm not including the encounter tables that go with these, as I think those will be the subject of a different post in the future.
As a reminder up front, the hazard system was developed by Brendan of Necropraxis, and all the original posts about it there are well worth reading. All the tweaks I mention are more or less envisioned in those original posts, with the "Locality" result intended to be something specific to the area the die results table is made for. Some of these also draw specific language from how Yochai implemented the hazard die in the Cairn 2e procedures. I've also written several adventures for Cairn, such as Door Hoard of the Door Lords that just rely on using that procedure unmodified.
Midnight in Bonetown
Midnight in Bonetown, written for the 2023 A Town, A Forest, A Dungeon Jam for Cairn was the first time I tried messing around with the standard hazard die formula. It features two variations, one for a pointcrawl through a mushroom forest and one for a dungeoncrawl through giant worm tunnels.
As I mentioned last week, the biggest change here and in all of the subsequent examples is that I change the "Percept" result to be "Far Encounter," meaning you roll on your encounter table still but then place it in a nearby location with signs of it perceptible to the players. They can choose to investigate it or figure out how to avoid it.
The forest pointcrawl table features two additional results related to the forest and intended to highlight the danger of simply traveling through there, let alone dealing with the creatures that live in the forest. Having playtested this one multiple times, I can confirm as well that it works to do that.
Close Encounter - Roll on the encounter table and place the result immediately in front of the PCs.
Far Encounter - Roll on the encounter table and place the result out of sight of the PCs but detectable via sound, smell, or other means.
Spores - Giant mushrooms click loudly for 10 seconds before releasing a cloud of toxic spores covering a roughly 200 ft. circle. Unless PCs take action to avoid the spores, they must make a WIL save to avoid the effects of the spores. On a failed save, take 1d4 WIL damage and roll on the Spore Hallucinations table. Hallucinations last for 30 minutes.
Fungal Trap - Roll on fungal taps table and place result immediately in front of PCs. Trap will be easily noticeable unless traveling quickly and carelessly. Attempting to travel around the trap takes time and requires an additional forest die roll. Attempting to go through the area of the trap risks triggering it.
Exhaustion - The PCs must rest for at least 10 minutes or gain Fatigue or Deprivation.
Quiet - The PCs are left alone (and safe) for the time being
The table for the worm tunnels, on the other hand, was more traditional, and does a thing I don't really care for now, having an environmental effects result without providing a table of effects, instead relying on the GM to think of something. I'd do that differently if I were to write this today instead of two years ago. But it still worked well in play, with most of the action being driven by giant worms constantly showing up in the tunnels.
Close Encounter - Roll on the encounter table and place the result immediately in front of the PCs. If a Dim is rolled, there is a 1-in-6 chance that Gebert is inside—his muffled screams can be heard faintly.
Far Encounter - Roll on the encounter table and place the result in a location adjacent to the PCs' current location. They can hear, smell, or see clues of the nature of the encounter ahead. If a Dim is rolled, there is a 1-in-6 chance that Gebert is inside—his muffled screams can be heard faintly.
Loss - Torches are blown out, an ongoing spell fizzles, etc. The PCs must resolve this before moving on.
Exhaustion - PCs must rest for at least 10 minutes or gain Fatigue or deprivation.
Environment - Something occurs to block or complicate their path ahead. The roof falls in, the tunnel is flooded, the chamber is full of toxic gas, etc.
Quiet - The PCs are left alone (and safe) for the time being.
Robot Death Ship
Also from 2023, Robot Death Ship was written for the Sci-Fi One Shot Jam 2023. While I playtested this one before publishing, the specific die results in the published work are something I thought up afterward thinking about how to make an escalating scenario, and I haven't seen how they work in play. So, it includes a countdown result that eventually swaps the random encounter table for one full of more dangerous things as the space begins to actively oppose the players. In this case I also did provide a table of environmental effects to go with that result.
Close Encounter: Roll on encounter table and place in sight of players.
Far Encounter: Roll on encounter table and place out of sight but detectable by other senses.
Environment: Roll on environment table.
Loss: Battery failure of a light source or other electronic equipment.
Countdown: Advance the countdown one step.
Quiet: All is quiet, for now.
Hotel Dracula
Hotel Dracula was written for the 2024 Liminal Horror Twisted Classics Jam. It features a "hotelcrawl" procedure for moving around the hotel you're trapped in while investigating some vampires. This is probably the most I've tweaked it in any instance, with most of the results being custom to this adventure. There's always a chance of Dracula himself showing up, along with horrific occurrences and rival investigators moving around the place in addition to the standard encounters. It also relies on the Liminal Horror DOOM mechanic, which in this case is advanced on a real-world timer, to determine which encounter table to roll on.
While it may seem like a lot, I playtested this one as well and it produced exactly the results I wanted. That is, a highly chaotic and bloody sprint through a weird hotel with vampires showing up every 20 minutes or so to pester the players until they finally figured out how to stop it.
1 - Dracula! - Dracula appears nearby. In human form on DOOM 1–3 and in vampire form on DOOM 4–9
2 - Close Encounter - Roll on an encounter table based on DOOM level and place it in the same location as the PCs.
3 - Far Encounter - Roll on an encounter table based on DOOM level and place it in a nearby location either visible or audible to the PCs.
4 - Horror - Roll on the horrors table, all PCs take 1 stress.
5 - Investigators - See Investigators procedure
6 - Quiet - All quiet, for now.
Conclusion
Not much to say here other than to reiterate that the hazard die is really versatile. I know it's not for everyone, and plenty of tables just want a lower encounter frequency and more predictability in things like torch burn out rates. But, if you're like me and you just want more stuff to be happening all the time, it's absolutely perfect.
Also, if you've made it this far, go ahead and send me an email at catshavenolordgames@gmail.com and I'll give you a free copy of Hotel Dracula so you can check it out for yourself. You can grab copies of the other two adventures for free already on Itch.