The Gem & The Staff Session Summary

"I am not Eric the Bold for nothing!"

Continuing on from my review of this module, available HERE.

The Gem & The Staff is available on DriveThruRPG, or you can borrow a copy on the Internet Archive.

My revised version is available HERE. You’ll want to read this first to make sense of the commentary that follows.

My friend Alex and I played through part 1 (The Gem) of my revised version of The Gem And The Staff. In both versions of the module Eric the Bold is hired to steal a gem from an archmage (Tormaq in the original, Abracadazzar in mine). While in the original the client is unnamed and claims to have access to the only witness to one of Eric’s prior thefts, I gave this person a name (Warren the Warlock, a rival and occasional ally of Eric’s) and said that the witness was one of Warren’s imps. Eric is given a rod that will allegedly teleport him to safety when touched to the correct gem and the adventure begins.

We played over the phone: I put the character sheet for the module’s pregenerated character, Eric the Bold, on a shared Google Doc and texted Alex numbered photos of the dungeon map. This jury-rigged setup worked a lot better than I had expected – Alex seemed to have no trouble telling where he was, and we were able to move along at a good clip. We explained the player-facing map by saying that a master thief like Eric the Bold would have done his research before attempting such a dangerous heist.

(The original module has the DM hand out illustrated maps of individual rooms as the player comes to them. Not having time to draw nice room layouts before our game, my implementation of the player-facing map was inspired by the procedure that Josh lays out HERE)

Apart from that one bit of bad puzzle design on my end, Alex took the place apart with remarkable precision.

Alex didn’t quite catch the incantation that Apprentice Wit spoke before crossing the bridge (I think largely due to my funny voice) and seemed to think that it wouldn’t be kosher to ask me to repeat it. Uncertain if the incantation was necessary to cross the bridge safely or if just holding the ring would do it, he decided to rob Wit at knifepoint rather than pick his pocket. Wit’s glum disloyalty to his master endeared him to Alex, so he took Wit’s ring and sent him on his way.

Crossing the bridge without alerting the sleeping hydra, Alex drank the shrinking potion and climbed the wall to enter the castle through the arrow slit to the Landing. Afraid to face the sleeping firedrake while tiny, he crept along the wall to the Dining Room and took the dumbwaiter to the Kitchen. A failed stealth roll alerted the animated knives, but he won initiative and was able to scramble back up the wall and into the dumbwaiter again before being skewered. Once back in the Dining Room he decided to wait out the potion’s duration inside the dumbwaiter. After an awkward squeeze to get out, he carefully explored the rest of the first tower.

"Take care, you dunghill cocks!"

The peanut-gallery fire snakes were a big hit, but the door golem proved to be the first serious check. After retreating to search the apprentice’s room for clues (I ad-libbed a bit here about the solution being “so simple that I feel stupid for forgetting it” which in retrospect was not the most useful of clues) Alex decided to spend a “Backstory Point” to say that he and the giant doorkeeper knew each other from a previous job. Backstory points are a mechanic I added to solve problems like this – the world operates on Tintin logic, where Eric is famous enough that almost anyone could suddenly go “well well well, if it isn’t Eric the Bold!” or “Ah, Eric! Why, I didn’t recognize you!” and carry on from there. 

We decided that Rumblebelly the Giant and Eric had once worked a job where Rumblebelly attacked the front gate of a castle to distract the guards while Eric climbed the tower to steal something, and established that the giant was cheerful, dumb, and trustworthy. He wouldn’t break his contract for Eric but was well-disposed towards him. Alex claimed that he had been hired to stress-test the tower’s defense and there seemed to be something wrong with the golem. It wasn’t operating correctly – did the giant know how it usually worked? Pleased to see his old pal Eric, the giant told the thief how the wizard’s apprentice is always complaining about how scary it is needing to walk up to the golem and knock on its door.

Shaking his head at the wizard’s sense of humor, Eric headed back upstairs, waking the firedrake and escaping across the bridge with his cloak lightly singed by fire breath. Once in the Lounge he read the letter and conversed with Morphyrion for a while, then snuck into Dringo’s Room and casually lifted the Amulet from the sleeping troll’s neck, intending to make a gift of it to Sandra the Sorceress. Heading through the mirror he immediately crossed to the stairs without bothering the sprites or investigating the magical flowers, and was able to take his time amusing the invisible servant with his art criticism in the gallery.

Walking into the wizard’s workroom while wearing the Amulet of Gosky, he saw the sleeping wizard and held a brief negotiation with Morphyrion. The invisible servant was bound to warn Abracadazzar if anyone tried to take the gem out of the room, but was very much a “letter of the law” kind of guy. Alex then walked over to the sleeping wizard, pinched his nose shut, and poured the sleeping potion down his throat. I called for a Strength check, figuring that Abracadazzar would wake up at least briefly once he started choking, but that he’d be unable to cast any spells. Eric won the roll and the wizard fell into an enchanted sleep from which Morphyrion – who couldn’t strike his master – was therefore unable to rouse him. 

Thinking that Warren the Warlock was attempting to trick him with the teleport rod, Alex then stole every jewel in the room and walked out whistling. Behind him he heard the doleful voice of Morphyrion shouting the alarm

"All is as before. I have taken council with myself"

Roses

• The Mission: framing the adventure around a specific goal was a lot of fun and a driver for good gameplay. I think Alex would have played very differently in the same module if the goal was a more standard “explore this space, collect treasure”. Alex stepped right into the role of a professional thief: he didn’t steal anything he wasn’t being paid to, didn’t waste time messing around with stuff just because it looked interesting, and never even drew his sword. I think the only reason he stepped aside from his goal to grab the amulet was because he assumed that Sandra the Sorceress had to be a pretty good friend to Eric since she’d given him such a valuable magic item in the ring of spell storing and he wanted to do her a good turn.

• High Information Environment: because we were dealing with puzzles and were talking over the phone, I tried to give Alex as much information as possible. I think this kept the game moving at a good pace. I don’t think of myself as a particularly good improviser and usually try to avoid having many NPCs who can talk, but filling the dungeon with guys who had useful information, were happy to chat at the drop of a hat, and all had one big personality trait was a lot of fun.

• The Art Gallery: despite Alex’s trivializing this whole section through good judgement and smart play earlier in the dungeon, I think we both had a great time. He seemed to pick up on how silly the gallery could have been as an encounter if he hadn’t avoided some earlier dangers, and got to laugh at the trap as he walked past. I had hoped that the art criticism bit would be a fun open invitation for some improv comedy, and was not disappointed. My lesson here I think is to not be afraid of celebrating your players’ victories.

"Still, imperfections exist. Wizardry is rife, and justice is not invariable"

Thorns

• Lack of Tension: I forgot about the real-world time limit you’re supposed to use to keep things moving, which given the lack of wandering monsters allowed for more leisurely exploration. This lack of tension did come up while playing a couple of times while playing, but I don’t think Alex noticed it as a problem.

• The Bridge Golem: as originally written, lacked clues or alternate solutions. Alex chose not to use the basket-and-pulley to bypass it (I can’t remember how clear this option was to him) and didn’t want to risk using the knock spell from his ring, which I would certainly have allowed, as this seemed like a long shot given the risk of being stabbed to death by a stone golem and/or knocked into a pit of fiery snakes.

• My Boxed Text: It was simply too long. The original module uses quite dry and economical boxed text for the most part, and I tried to jazz this up by injecting a lot of sensory details to make the tower feel lived-in. Towards the end of the adventure I started summarizing it like a normal person, which benefited pace. It didn’t matter that the bathtub had an octopus-pattern mosaic with a sludge of sodden herbs at the bottom, or that the wizard’s bed was carved with moons, because there was no reason to interact with either. Frankly I probably could’ve cut most of the rooms that I added for verisimilitude without damaging the adventure.

• Treasure: we hadn’t decided on how to assign XP until after this game was over, so I made a half-hearted attempt to add ancillary treasures. These are mostly pretty weak, and on a revision should be replaced with things that either have more immediate impact (like clues or a way to bypass some of the more powerful guardians), or if using gold-for-XP then are at least valuable enough to tempt a player into acting sub-optimally.