The pit

You stop suddenly as you realize that there is no longer ground beneath your foot. Looking down, you see an almost
perfectly circular hole in the ground, going straight down. The walls seem hand dug, but you cannot see the bottom. Kneeling closer to it and listening intently, you can almost make out some sort of groaning or moaning. What could be at the bottom of this hole?

The abode

You come across a small valley, barely 400 feet across and maybe 60 feet deep, filled with pines and other northern species of trees. However, among them, you can see the glimmer of polished metal. Coming closer, you can begin to see in the distance a small stone structure, almost perfectly cylindrical and smooth. Above it, at a height of about 10 feet, a dome of polished metal serves as a roof. There are no clear entrance in sight, but someone must have built it. There must be a way to get inside, maybe from underneath?

combat without players

Let's talk about combat, shall we? Combat can be quite easily the most rules-heavy part of the game, no matter the edition involved. Those rules are pretty clear as to what is going on, and work decently well across the board. I am not one to fix what isn't broken, but there are some parts that, to me, are just a glaring omission. LS over at Papers And Pencils touched upon the subject with his fast-playing skirmish. There are no mention of skirmish combat rules. Not quite army against army, but large enough group that rolling dice for each and every combatant is completely out of the question, as it would take 3 hours.

So here's how I do it. This system was designed with GURPS in mind, to be used during a pirate game for boarding action, but it is generic enough that it should be able to be ported over to pretty much any system. It has been divided into two sections, unit vs. unit, and man vs. man. They both use the same basic formula, which is has follows: attackers and defenders both roll a single D6 and add their bonus. The two result and then compared to achieve a result.

Let's start with man vs. man. Obviously this rule would be a bit more rare then the unit vs. unit one, but it is a bit more simple, so i'll start with it. Also, this would only come to play when two NPC fight each other with no intervention from Players.

• First step is determining the toughness of both combatant, or how many hits each of them can take. This is fairly easy in level-based system like D&D, just use the combatant's level.
• Second, determine the modifiers for both combatant. Modifiers are obviously up to the GM, but some  that I found useful are the combat ability (full level for fighter and variant, 3/4 level for cleric and thieves, and 1/2 level for magic-users) and weapon and armor quality. Beside level, each modifiers should only give a +1 bonus or so, as to keep the numbers manageable
• Each side roll a roll a D6 and add their modifier. 
• Substract total from NPC B from the total of NPC A. If the result is positive, NPC A scored a hit and  1 point is deducted from NPC B. If the result is 0, Both NPC strike each other. If the result is negative, NPC B scored a hit. If both NPC roll a 1, neither score a hit.
• Repeat step 4 and 5 until one combatant has been reduced to zero toughness or give up. 

So the whole formula reads like this D6+(mods) - D6+(mods)

Now, unit vs. unit is a bit more complicated, but the basic steps are the same. The modifiers change a bit, such that you could give a +1 if one side is fighting with officers, + 1 if their morale score is over 100 (for AD&D style morale system), -1 if their morale is under 50, +1 if they are outnumbering their opponents, +2 if they outnumber their opponent 2 to 1, etc. Season to taste. The difference is that the final number is multiplied by 3 to achieve the number of casualty suffered by the loser. 

The formula thus read 3((D6+(mods)) - (D6+(mods)) = no. of casualty. 

Some other modifier, if the defenders are unable to strike back or surprised  treat their D6 roll as being equal to zero, but add the modifiers. 

Obviously, only one side will suffer casualty per round. This is okay for me, as the whole thing is abstracted. If this bothers you, you can simply double the rolls, and treat any result of zero or lower as no casualty. 

The iron coast

As the storm finally subside, you find yourself much closer to land then you would have thought. The sand looks odd however, somehow glinting in the sunlight. As you get closer still, you can clearly see that this is no sandy beach. The grains of sands have all be replaced by metal shavings and rusted.flecks of iron. Large block of the same metal pepper the so-called beach. Each of them seem worked, featuring unnatural angles and strange markings. Could this be some sort of ruins, or simply a quirk of nature?

Pressure

I have recently come to the conclusion that of have a fulfilling game, there needs to be pressure. It's relates to what EGG wrote in the ADD DMG, that strict time record need to be kept for a campaign to function properly. But I think it goes a bit further then that. There need to be a reason for time record to be kept.

In the first episode of my SCP game, the players had to find a sentient cat that could control people. If they took too much time, the cat would enact his plan, which would extend his control over the entire town, about 3000 people. But the players never pursued any information that would allow them to know what the cat was planning, and therefor didn't know there was a time limit. Later, the agents accidently burned down a missing person/drug dealer's house, and that brought them to the attention of another group interested in the same cat. That other group brought in reinforcement, and promptly blew up one of the agents cars.

I noticed a huge difference in how they played and how they approached challenges after they knew that someone was after them. They were much more careful, and each decision had a cost associatied to it which made them realize that their choice mattered.

Once that happened, the game was much improved I found. So it's not enough to put pressure on the players, they need to know that it's there. The players being hunted by something works quite well, because there is a large unknown to it. You don't know when and how they will catch up to you. Do you spend time trying to find who they are and risk them catching you unaware, do you stick to the plan and get it done as quickly as possible but risk missing important stuff that could have been useful later on?

Pressure is what forces players to make interesting decisions. Idealy, there should be two sources of pressure at least, one that you are hunting, and one that hunts you. Do you deal with threat B and risk threat A getting away? Or do you go straight for threat A and hope threat B doesn't get to you first.

In my upcomming game, the sources of pressure will be much more clear. They will find a timer early on. They won't know exactly what it is counting down to, but they will probably assume it's not something good. So they will be hunting for that. As for what will be hunting them? Giant spiders. Because this is horror damnit and tarantulas the size of minivans are creepy. Also, I fully expect them to piss off the natives, which means more people after them. Fun times ahead.

Forest of Mushrooms.

Emerging from the cave, you come across a strange sight. Everywhere around you are giant mushrooms, spotted blue and red. After a short walk, you see that there seems to be a whole forest of these, and night is falling. Surely camping beneath a towering mushroom is safe, what are the odds of it's spore affecting you?

Doors

I noticed something interesting the other day. Players don't like doors. Not in the "oh my god this doors is obviously trapped" way, it's much more subtle then that I think. Whenever I confronted the player with a closed door or a hallway, they pretty much always choose the hallways. I'm not sure why that is, and I never noticed anything similar in my own actions as a player.

Perhaps it's fear of the unknown. That it's harder to get info on what's on the other side. Or perhaps the doors is unconsciously perceived as a shield, protecting you from what's on the other side. Open the door and that psychological barrier is gone for good.

I don't know why they go through hallways first, but i'm thinking I could use that to nudge the players in the direction I want them to go without damaging their agency. I'm not stopping them from going throught the door, it's their own psychology that makes them think it's a bigger gamble.