9 Player DCC with Player Roles

9 Player DCC with Player Roles: Caller, Mapper, Quartermaster, Time-tracker

I recently ran a 5-hour session of Operation Unfathomable with 9 players, and one of the key things that helped everyone at the table – especially me – stay engaged and organized was that I had four players help me run the game. Before the game I identified four sets of information and decisions that I wanted to offboard from me, and then I asked folks ahead of time who could help me. It was easy to setup and once everyone was engaged it worked like a charm.

I’ll describe each of these roles, and will finish by talking through what it means to have responsible players that you can trust.

Caller

Back in the early days of OD&D/AD&D, having a party of 6+ players was the norm. The legends speak of 8, 10, 12 or more players around the table for the early games, and I’ve certainly played in larger games back in the early ‘80s. There just weren’t enough DMs (still a problem today, though not as severe) and getting invited to sit at a game – any game – was a thrill, no matter the party size.

In order to maintain the chaos of decision-making during non-combat turns (the 10 minute long ones, more on that below), one player is designated the Caller. I’m still digging through the AD&D books to find a citation, but the Caller is the player responsible for holding the party’s collective decision making process for the DM. This is the first time I’ve ever run a game with a Caller, and while I only needed it a few times, when I did it was beautiful.

The Caller’s job is to hold the answer to the question “what are you doing now?” for the entire party, gaining consensus (or not) and anointed by the DM as the single point for an answer. My friend Dan is a Sr Director at a large tech company and so he was an easy pick for this role.

I only used him a few times – a key example is when the party emerged from the entry side tunnel (we’re underground) and I asked “do you go left or right?” The group took a good five minutes to discuss, and then slowly waded into a confused back and forth that these large group decisions often go. So then I pointed to Dan and said, “Well?”

He stopped the discussion, made a decision, and checked back in with the group (“everybody okay if we go right?”), got a collective shrug of acceptance, then told me, “we go right.” And that was it.

There is an important psychological moment with agency and decision consensus that the group went through, but it took Dan’s energy and focus to hold the group in that moment, and I didn’t have to do anything. Furthermore, it wasn’t me as the DM holding the decision, it was the party who did it, which also builds a greater sense of buy-in and agency. We didn’t need it often – most of the turns I gave people the opportunity to do their own thing – but when we did, it worked extremely well. I’m all in with the Caller.

Mapper

There was a mix-up at the start when I asked the second Dan to bring a battle mat and he only brought smaller folio-sized combat maps. I had envisioned mapping the tunnels in a large-scale – not necessarily to scale, with one square equaling 20 feet – but putting the large map out in front so everyone could see it. But it all worked out in the end.

Rob heartily volunteered for the role of Mapper, and his job was to draw a map that showed the dungeon with any notes of encounters. This was particularly important because we are only playing once a year, so there needs to be continuity for the group to pick up in 2025. Rob did great.

We agreed on a few key ideas as we started:

20 foot squares
There are no cardinal directions (as we’re underground) but for the sake of simplicity, the top of the map is north
If Rob needed clarification, he could hold up the map and ask “like this?” and that while I would not correct every single detail, I would make sure he has the overall structure correct.

And that’s how it worked. Like the Caller, we didn’t need it until we needed it. He checked in a few times, but for most of the game he was sitting at the end of the table, creating a map of the dungeon and quite enjoying himself. A few times he helped steer the group back on course, a few times he asked if he had it right, and now there’s a map of what they’ve explored so far. Absolutely easier than what I had in my head when I started.

Quartermaster

Again, I was thinking about getting decisions and tracking off my plate and onto a player’s, I asked Dan2 (not the Caller) to manage the group’s inventory. I did this for three reasons:

The campaign starts with the PCs getting a bunch of magic items that I didn’t want to manage myself.
I wanted someone to track food and ammunition (more on this below).
And there would be treasure and other items the group came across to track.

Moving the consensus building from me to a player was again so helpful. When the party arrived at the start of the dungeon, I gave Dan2 an index card with a list of 10+ magic items, and then he went around the table and figured out who got what. While he did this I continued to prep and think about where the first encounter would be.

Also, I don’t really like tracking individual rations and ammunition, and like to use the One Year Engine’s resource-tracking die mechanic (they didn’t need torches because the dungeon is lit by phosphorescent fungi). Basically, your resource (eg rations) start at a d20 value. Then, whenever you eat (let’s say daily) you roll that resource die, and if you get a 1 or 2, it drops down to the next die in the chain (usually d12 down from d20 but we’re playing DCC and I haven’t decided where the d14 and d16 fit it, lol). Then you repeat until you reach d4, when if you roll a 1/2 you are out of that resource.

We did it for ammunition for the one crossbow in the group (no bows strangely) so it wasn’t used a lot, but Dan2 just rolled a couple times and didn’t get a 1 or 2, so ammunition stayed at the d20. Much easier than tracking individual shots, and really great to have this all managed by someone not me.

Time-tracker

This final piece was the one I wasn’t sure about, and I waffled up until that morning, then just decided to go for it. I’ve not run a large scale dungeon crawl in a while, and 9 players or not, I don’t have a go-to framework for managing the action economy while exploring. After some research and discussions with a friend, I just went simple and built the following rules:

It takes 10 minutes to explore a 20’ square and gain the core information.
Any other exploring or resting will take another 10 minutes.
60 minutes to an hour, etc.

The key for tracking time is used for:

Tracking daily rations usage
Tracking spell and other underworld and Chaos effects
Understanding overall time spent for in-game context

It was fascinating to discover at the end of five-hours in actual time that we had spent five hours in-game. The ebb and flow of 10 minute exploration rounds versus the few intense encounters centered on the large combat (which only took 30 minutes in game but a whole hour in real time) still ended up with a very similar time-frame.

Glenn gladly took up this role, and he pressed me a couple times to be clear in how much time had passed. The first few times I had to think about it, but we got into a groove and by the end, I was comfortable judging whether or not to tick off another 10 minutes. He created his own tracker on a piece of graph paper, and again, was happy ticking time away with almost no inputs or management from me. So good.

On Players

The key thread through all of these roles is that I had players who easily jumped into their responsibilities with almost no prodding or management by me. These are all good friends of mine, and I’ve known most of them for decades, so there’s a level of trust and communication that already exists. I’m thankful for their help, and I recognize that a less mature table (maybe comprised of strangers at con) may not be as easy and effective as mine was.

One would hope that sitting down with a larger group at a convention, or even at an annual gaming weekend of friends like mine, would naturally bring the engagement needed to pull this off. I could write a whole blog post on managing people’s expectations and what communication skills are needed to pull this off, but that will be for another day.

For now I’ll leave saying that these roles not only helped the party function and gave the players more agency – they made the game more fun for me as the DM. It’s a lot of work managing a dungeon crawl, never mind one with 9 players only run once a year. Getting help in this way significantly improved my enjoyment of the game, took many decisions burdens off my mind, and let me focus on the story and encounter flow.

I heartily recommend these roles for larger groups, and feel like the whole thing is possible with these shared responsibilities. I hope you get a chance to try them some day.

DCC and Operation Unfathomable Session Report – Summer 2024

DCC and Operation Unfathomable

SPOILERS ABOUND!

Every summer I get together with a group of long time friends for a gaming weekend. We mostly play board games, but for a few years I was able to run a DCC game with the same PCs.

I started with the Hubris! campaign setting and ran the funnel and L1 scenarios there, and then had a great time playing Fever Swamp. However I really struggled trying to tie the sessions together and then Covid came and ended it anyway.

This year I ran the DCC version of Operation Unfathomable (OU) with a full table of 9 players and it. Was. Awesome.

We had a mix of L1 and L2 PCs plus one player ran a coterie of 0L. But more importantly I had the players help me run the game in a very AD&D way.

One player served as Caller, another as Mapper, then one each for Time Tracker and Quartermaster. It was so much fun to have all the assistance at the table and just be able to have everything tracked without my effort. (I will do another blog post on this shortly.)

Crazy thing is that it took us five hours in real time to play five hours in game time. We didn’t get very far into the dungeon but now we are well into it. And we can pick up right where we left off…

Session Record – Episode 1 – Summer 2024

We had 4 L2, 4 L1, and 4 L0 PCs, so 12 PCs for 9 players in all.

Prologue – We read the player introduction and then I brought the party to the 1000’ ladder to begin their descent. We then went around the table and each player introduced their PC (or PCs for one player) and then they got to either ask a question or roll on the rumor chart. Most rolled on the chart, but a couple asked questions, specifically around visions and the chaos. I tried to give as many clues as possible, including showing the cleric Ned a vision of Shaggath-Ka lying injured in his cave (and I showed him the picture).

We also had a great moment when the Chaos Cleric tried to contact his deity for help, but rolled a 1, and ended up interacting with Ned’s Law deity instead. Laughs ensued.

Room 1 – The players then arrived at the first cave from the climb and set about getting organized. I asked the Quartermaster to hand out the magic items, and then asked the Caller to organize the marching order. I wasn’t super concerned about the exact order, just more looking for who was in the front, middle, and rear.

The Mapper immediately realized that the player map is wrong and great gnashing of player teeth followed. With inventory managed, mapping ready, but without searching the first room, they set off into the dungeon. We weren’t sure this was actually going to happen.

Room 2 – They fell right into proper paranoid dungeon crawlers and spent a lot of time moving through the pill bug husks, but of course the mind bats attacked! They were actually hard to hit, but the mind bats rolled poorly and did no damage. Eventually the party was able to kill them with no damage to themselves. It was good to get some dice rolled and have everyone figure out how to work together a bit.

Hell’s Back Road & Room 3a – The party moves into the large tunnel and spent some time interacting with the giant skeleton. They eventually cast a spell and drove off the flying prawns and were a little disappointed to find nothing of value on the giant, but they spent the time and collected the 200 gp worth of miscellaneous coin and headed “east.”

About 120’ Later – Despite GMing for almost 45 years, I don’t have a lot of experience with “proper” dungeon crawling, with time tracking, random encounters, etc (at least not as an adult), so to alleviate the pressure I rolled up just a few encounters to help me focus ahead of time. I’m all for letting the dice do the talking but I need something to sink my teeth into until I’m comfortable with the dungeon itself.

The first encounter I rolled up, which ended up being the centerpiece encounter for the whole session, was a combination of Merchant Riding Glutton-Newt and Bewildered Martian Ape. I had given all the warnings to the players that – a) not every encounter is combat-focused, and b) there is no balance and some encounters are very dangerous. Great example for both of these.

They hid out and waited until the newt-riding merchant and his guardian had passed, then came out to raise a hand in peace. The merchant stopped and they spent a long moment beginning negotiations for possible potion purchase. They had literally just collected 200 gp in loose coin and were glad to make a trade.

However, suddenly this terrible and furious sound came barreling down the hallway and everyone turned to find this giant four-armed white ape barreling down toward the group. We cleared the middle of the table, set up minis, and rolled initiative.

There were a lot of great moments that I won’t be able to describe in detail, but I’ll cover a few key actions:

In the first round, the Merchant’s Guardian fumbled and ended up hurting the newt!
Both wizards cast Spider Climb and got up onto the walls – and since one of the 0L had identified as “wizard’s apprentice” their player asked if they could try to mimic the other wizards and try the same spell. I said yes but with a d16 – they still rolled 14 total and everyone cheered as the apprentice got their first whiff of magic.
Everyone lined up to take swings at the Ape, and it was taking and giving some damage, but then Rob said, “I thought you said it had four arms – why is it only attacking once?” Of course everyone booed at Rob but I thanked him and discovered that yes, the Ape had 4d20 action dice, not just 1d20 as I’d been rolling. I didn’t retcon all the of the attacks, but suddenly the panicked Ape became much more dangerous. (Good learning moment for me and honestly if I had been swinging that much damage up front many PCs would have died. I’m fine with how it went.)
Ned the cleric used his healing powers successfully on the glutton-newt, and that was key in later negotiations. Nice move, Ned.
The group finally got organized enough to kill the Ape. Everyone worried about what it was running from. (Nothing but they didn’t know that.)

Once combat was over, negotiations began once again, and this time, between the guardian fumbling and Ned’s healing powers, the players had a lot of leverage. After some back and forth, the PCs were able to get 5 potions basically for the price of 3. It seemed fair.

Fungal Bloom + Beetle Ghosts – They spent a long time navigating these relatively harmless encounters and were weirded out by ghost beetles watching a be(etle)-heading.

Lava Demi-Gods – The party had just passed the fungal blooms when they heard the lava beings Hrrk & Krrgh coming toward them. They pulled into a full retreat back to a side passage and were able to escape any damage with some deft hiding. They saw the encounter for what it was and acted appropriately, I thought.

Detritus – After the party passed the third pile of Dungeon Detritus, and I asked for the third time if they wanted to examine it, they decided, “Well, the DM keeps asking us about it so we might as well look into it.” They spent the time and found some fire beetle bombs. They reluctantly thanked me.

Bottomless Pit – Turns out, after some nice die rolling, Reggie the Rag (L2 Thief) can read Ancient Beetle, so he was able to figure out what all the signs surrounding this deep black pit were about. They threw in some coin and carried on. They all agreed, better safe than sorry.

Room 3b – They found the scarred remains of black oozes, tested them, determined they were dangerous, and so just moved around them.

60’ Later – At this point, we’d been playing for about 5 hours, both in real-time and in-game, and a couple people had to take care of stuff, so I needed to find a good place to finish up. I looked through the encounters – I didn’t have time for another combat – and so thought Cave Lightning would be fun and distinct enough to end on until 2025.

So I set the scene, the smell of ozone, and here comes the lighting – everyone make a Reflex check… then I look down to see it’s a DC 2. Ugh, so look, “just don’t roll a 1.” Everyone rolls, I check around the table and see just thumbs up. No 1s…

Except Dan AKA Ned the L1 Cleric AKA Dan the Caller, sitting right across from me, is staring down at the 1 in front of him. “You told me not to roll a 1 so I rolled a 1.” I laugh. “Well, okay – roll again for saving throw…” He rolls… a 1. Okay then. I rolled 17 damage which is way more than he has as L1 Cleric.

So the Cave Lighting (Erol the Wizard says, “Why the hell is cave lighting a thing?”) comes and goes, everyone sounds off, except there, where Ned was just a minute ago, is just a pair of smoking boots.