What is this?
A voice-based open table campaign running through the Barrowmaze module by Greg Gillespie, with a pool of players signing up to play whichever sessions they can. It’s a dangerous adventure played in a light-hearted manner. Death can come easily and quickly if you’re not careful - characters are adventurers, not superheroes. Tonally, think of a cross between Monty Python’s Holy Grail and Terry Pratchett’s Discworld.
What is the Barrowmaze?
It’s a megadungeon, but an atypical one. Rather than multiple layers upon layers, there is a surface level populated with numerous small, independent barrows, and some of them lead down into the much, much larger megadungeon, which is all on one level. There is a starting town - Helix - where the adventurers will be primarily based, and a few other settlements. There are also some other points of interest - both discovered and undiscovered - dotted around the region should players be in the mood for a different adventure.
But I can’t commit to an evening every week…
No worries at all - that’s why it’s an open table. Life can be busy, and not everyone has a weekly routine-friendly lifestyle. Sessions are intended to each represent an expedition into or around the Barrowmaze, and the party must be back in Helix before the close of play, so there is no significant narrative dissonance if people can’t make consecutive sessions. There is a rotating cast of players and characters.
Priority for who plays a session is given to those who haven’t played for a little while so that players with more time available for gaming don’t shoulder out those who can’t make it as regularly. I usually alert everyone a day or two in advance of when I expect to be able to run a session.
What are the sessions like?
Usually between two and a half to three hours long, we usually spend a bit of time in Helix gathering equipment and hirelings, and generally discussing the course of action for the expedition. Light roleplay is encouraged, but we try not to have it dominate the whole session - a good balance of roleplay and exploration is preferred.
From Helix the party generally travels to the Barrowmaze and looks for untouched barrows to plunder, dodging or dealing with random encounters as and when they come.
When we enter into the last half hour or 45 minutes of a session, the narrative fog starts to close in, and players are encouraged to start considering how they might get themselves back to Helix before the end of play. If a party through carelessness fail to return to Helix in time, we roll to see who - if any - of the party manages to get stumble back in the thick, terror-ridden fog.
What on earth is Off-White Cube?
A hack of a hack of a hack of OD&D. It’s a d6-based game intended to allow for very easy conversion of OSR-friendly modules. Here is the PDF and here is a recent blog post detailing the thought process behind the rules.
Time: Weekday evenings, usually 7 - 9.30pm UTC+1 / BST
Place: There Could Have Been Snakes discord server (get in touch - I’ll happily send an invite)
Format: Discord audio, Roll20 maps, Google Slide character sheets
For more info, check out our wiki.