Well of the Worm [Knave]

Maynard

*eyeroll*
Played through Well of the Worm as a 1 shot today using Knave. We had never played Knave before, but caught up to it really quickly. Really well designed system. Because there were only 3 of them I had them start at level 2. I used the home village // veteran hook as Bryce suggested. My players got down the well ok and found the dagger but opted not to venture into the water to get it. I totally understand their caution but was a bit disappointed. One of my players brought a dog with him in his backpack, which yelped the whole way through the dungeon. They got EXTREMELY lucky because wanderers never got triggered until the very end even with all the noise.

Quick note, this module is excellent at describing body horror and keeping things creepy the whole way through with all the claustrophobic slime on the walls. Really brings out the "You've entered a fantastic and dangerous world" feel.

They fought their way to the shrine (never finding the storeroom) and blocked up the mouth of it with some rubble. They got ambushed by the dwarf wizard and held their own, they couldn't follow him after he fled because of the collapsible hallways here. After that they almost left, but decided to move the boulder blocking the entrance to where the villager jail is before they did. I had all these mad people inside being from their home village, so they were able to recognize and reach three of them (one of my players rolled extremely well on his charisma, and had a maxed reaction roll or I wouldn't have allowed this since they were supposed to be mad). They killed one of the others, and knocked out the other two. They decided to call that a day, bring these guys home and nope out of there.

Here's where things got messy, they were lifting all the compliant villagers out of the hole near the entrance when their luck ran out. Wandering spiders showed up and ambushed the two of my players at the top of the hole. They got bit, but it wasn't the end of the world until the player at the bottom of the hole tried to take a potshot at the spiders hanging on the backs of the players at the top. It's already a pretty difficult shot (the spiders are the size of a fist) but the proximity to the other players was a big risk (I told the player this before he fired). He rolled a 1 and I gave both my players up top a dex save to avoid the crossbow bolt. One of them failed and took it straight in the neck.

After everyone came out the shooter was trying to play it like he was going to hide the evidence of what he did, which pissed off the other player who just stabbed him. But hey, that guy went back to the village having saved some villagers and with tons of loot all to himself!

It was a super fun session, the first we had in person since the pandemic. Time just flew by! I'd really recommend Well of the Worm if not for the ambiance for the exc
 

Commodore

*eyeroll*
Knave is great but it does tend to push players towards not venturing into the water, metaphorically and in your case literally. This is your one-shot club? Are you and your GMs going to review all these things?
 

Maynard

*eyeroll*
This was for my one shot club. I'll definitely be doing write ups if we end up running one of the adventures I found through Bryces blog.

My group of 30ish people is completely new to OSR so I'm using Knave right now to get them acquainted. I have the OSE ruleset printed out for people too if they want to use it. Referees are chosen randomly and its completely up to them what system they want to use and whether they want to use their own adventures or one of the published ones I've printed out.
 
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