It's Called The Forest of Dread

[ShadowsGrnEyes]

I am a relatively new DM and I am running a game known affectionately as "The Forest of Dread". The idea behind FOD was introduced to me by the person who introduced me to gaming and it was introduced to him supposedly by the inventor of this horrificly fantastic game.

The concept behind the forest of dread is that there is the standard haunted/enchanted/magical forest into which the party must venture for one reason or another. Once into the forest there is no escape until you reach the center. Here's the kicker. The forest has a constantly changing landscape which always shifts the moment a character isnt looking at it, and contains pieces of and endless number of worlds within it. The forest could one day be the deepest darkest jungles of the amazon planet and the next moment be a tundra or a desert or have a random ocean just sort of show up.

Random encounter tables are the backbone of a wilderness campaign and to run the forest of dread you need the mother of all random encounter tables. I created my own incorporating Terrain, Weather, Events, and Monsters.

There is a 70% chance that the random tables will role a monster and 10% for terrain, weather, or events respectively.

The Terrain and Weather categories contain all terrains or weather patterns found in the DMG and for certain circumstances I will reffence the appropriate supplement books (ie. sandstorm for desert terrain in a heat wave, frostburn for tundra in a snowstorm.) The rolled terrain will last for 1d12 days or until another terrain is rolled while weather will last for 1d12 hours or until another weather is rolled.

The events category is very important as this is where the plot goes. I had each of my players write 5 plot points for their character and I wrote a number of plotpoints for the actual main story. Interspersed with the plot points are other remarkable events. The epic encounter that the party should avoid and not engage would fall in this category (at least until they're epic level). These "events" are rolled randomly and it's up to me to figure how to put them together in a sensible way. How exactly the Tiefling Archivist's fiendish drow-marelith halfbrother ended up in the middle of a grassy planes with the desire slay said tiefling archivist, for example.

The real joy of the forest of dread and 70% of play time happens with the random monster encounters. Because the forest of dread is a constantly changing landscape connected to hundred or even thousands of planes of existence you can quite literaly roll ANYTHING.

Taking this into account and not wanting to TPK every other night I devised a 3 step system for rolling monsters.

1. Roll realative CR to the party. roll a d10 1=CR-2, 2 or 3=Cr-1, 4through 7= cr+0, 8 or 9 = cr+1, 10 = cr+2

Now I know how hard or easy the encounter is gonna be in realation to my party and hopefully I've limited it so I wont kill them too fast

2. I Roll which book im gonna use with a d%. I have access to dozens of dnd books with monsters in them. I just counted them up and gave them percentages. I give the monsters manuals 1-5 a much higher percentage than the others but really if you only have a few books you could just pick at random.

3. I roll a monster of the appropriate cr. To save myself alot of time I use the monster index on the wizards website to roll my monsters. You can sort by book and cr.

I like this massive random encounter system because it gives you as the Dm a chance to put all those monsters you loved but couldnt figure out how to use. I love this as a player cause you actually get to slay or at least interact with all those cool monsters.


BUT WAIT theres more.
The forest of dread is an inherently evil place. Any creatures spending an extended stay will quickly discover a number of interesting quirks. These are the quirks I use in my game any other Dm's can choose their own as they like.

1. Conjuration(healing) magic doesnt work. at all.
i enjoy this game mechanic because it forces your player to think outside the box and it forces your barbarian fighter to actually care that he just took a greatsword to the stomach, no he wont get healing after he finishes the mosnter off.

2. Taint!!! I love the taint system. the way i work it is that the closer you are to the center of the forest, the higher that chances of taint are. characters get rolls (either phantom rolls you make or actual saves) to keep themselves free of taint.

3. Alignment shift. The closer you are to the center, the more evil things are, even if the rules say somthing is always good. In my game i have it arranged so that at the heart of the forest of dread a LG monster would be CE. treat it like a large bulseye. At each ring push the alignment of all non pc's one step toward CE.

So thats the game. I'm 3 sessions in with my players. I'll post updates and would very much appreciate advice of more experienced DM's as this is only my second ever DM experience (my first with d20)

[Johanas]

I love it. I am lucky enough to be one of those players, and while the Forest of Dread SOUNDS extremely combat heavy (and is can be), it allows for some tremendous roleplaying. It is a great system, it keeps the players on their toes. It forces creative healing...and encourages the use of teamwork. Or die. Loads of fun.

[FoE]

It sounds great, but won't it get boring after a while of being in the same place all the time?

[ShadowsGrnEyes]

Thats the beauty of it. Your never in the same place. You're constantly moving and encountering new enviornments. The "forest" could turn into a tundra, or even an ocean. You could encounter lost civilizations or savage communities. A DM can do quite litteraly ANYTHING to spice up an adventure if things start to get dull.

Also its important to note that FOD is a survival game. It's about surviving the ever changing circumstances of where you are, not the actual locaton.

I can see how it could become boring if the DM doesnt put a good deal of effort into weaving the story. There is a risk of falling into a move-fight-sleep cycle. It's the dm's responsibility to keep that from happening.

[Grazhendul]

To be honest, I'm firmly against the random tables.

Just prepare a series of encounters & environments and use whatever you feel like at the moment. Especially if a certain player has been left out for a few encounters, toss him something up his alley.

You can fake the bloody roll if you’d like, or even do them beforehand, but in the end, why bother? Tell your players it’s all random, and when they set up for the night, do some heavy rolling and describe how they wake up.

But hey, that’s just me.

Encounter ideas:

Swarm forming. After every fight, small critters come out. A lot. You could Easily improvise a huge army of ants. I like ants.

A forest disciple; just slap this special ability on any critter: change environment and let him shape parts of the battleground. Snow, heavy trees, craters, …
I’m thinking Kobolds. Kobolds jumping through rifts in the environment, changing it, covering their tracks.

[Sinfire Titan]

Be very careful with Taint. Undead can abuse it to get infinite Taint scores, and the spellcasting PrC based around that can be used to get nigh unstoppable spells (not to mention a ton of bonus spells/day, effectively doubling their spellcasting abilities).

[ShadowsGrnEyes]

Be very careful with Taint. Undead can abuse it to get infinite Taint scores, and the spellcasting PrC based around that can be used to get nigh unstoppable spells (not to mention a ton of bonus spells/day, effectively doubling their spellcasting abilities).

it's not the true taint system that I use. I've modified it specifically to prevent abuse of the system. Taint is pretty much just a penalty in my game that opens up interesting role play quirks.

[Sinfire Titan]

it's not the true taint system that I use. I've modified it specifically to prevent abuse of the system. Taint is pretty much just a penalty in my game that opens up interesting role play quirks.

...That actually sounds worse than the abuse. Taint in DnD was supposed to be both a boon and a bane. Having it meant bad things, but at the same time the benefits it offered were capable of tempting people to want it.

[Another_Poet]

Interesting. Two comments:

The forest could one day be the deepest darkest jungles of the amazon planet and the next moment be a tundra or a desert or have a random ocean just sort of show up.

I find it hard to see how it is a forest then. I understand switching from jungle to taiga to maple grove to cedar bog, but if there is a desert (that takes 1d12 days to cross??) or an ocean (??) I no longer consider myself to be in the forest. I have left the forest and entered a desert/ocean/etc.

If I cross the desert and find more forest, as far as I'm concerned it is a different forest.

1. Conjuration(healing) magic doesnt work. at all.
i enjoy this game mechanic because it forces your player to think outside the box and it forces your barbarian fighter to actually care that he just took a greatsword to the stomach, no he wont get healing after he finishes the mosnter off.

This will cause problems with your game. Both player gripes, and high player mortality (which isn't always bad but you'll run out of ways to introduce replacement characters in a forest hundreds of miles across where everyone is afraid to go).

More to the point, your cleric will be upset. This really nerfs his/her class.

You might want to consider taking a page from Iron Kingdoms and having a daily limit on healing spells. Say, 14 points of healing per cleric level per day. 18 points if they have the Healing domain. If the cleric goes over that limit, they can try to keep healing but they risk suffering a mishap (which may even include more damage dealt to the patient, possibly killing them). They'll learn to be careful and conserve healing.

Alternately just treat [Healing] spells as dampened. All variable numeric effects are reduced by 50%.

D&D is built on readily available healing. You can tinker with that for flavour but getting rid of healing altogether will cause problems.

[ShadowsGrnEyes]

Interesting. Two comments:



I find it hard to see how it is a forest then. I understand switching from jungle to taiga to maple grove to cedar bog, but if there is a desert (that takes 1d12 days to cross??) or an ocean (??) I no longer consider myself to be in the forest. I have left the forest and entered a desert/ocean/etc.

If I cross the desert and find more forest, as far as I'm concerned it is a different forest..

heh, I understand the confusion. Honestly "Forest Of Dread" is the name coined by the person who introduced me to this style of campaign. It's not very acurate. But meh, it sounds good for a survival based game so why not.

This will cause problems with your game. Both player gripes, and high player mortality (which isn't always bad but you'll run out of ways to introduce replacement characters in a forest hundreds of miles across where everyone is afraid to go).

More to the point, your cleric will be upset. This really nerfs his/her class.

You might want to consider taking a page from Iron Kingdoms and having a daily limit on healing spells. Say, 14 points of healing per cleric level per day. 18 points if they have the Healing domain. If the cleric goes over that limit, they can try to keep healing but they risk suffering a mishap (which may even include more damage dealt to the patient, possibly killing them). They'll learn to be careful and conserve healing.

Alternately just treat [Healing] spells as dampened. All variable numeric effects are reduced by 50%.

D&D is built on readily available healing. You can tinker with that for flavour but getting rid of healing altogether will cause problems.

I did anticipate this would be an dilema for some of my players and I very much expected there to be issues. I warned all my players ahead of time that there would be no healing magic so they knew before they roled their character.

They came up with some nice alternatives, for example we have a Dragon Shaman with the fast healing aura and things like a paladins lay on hands still function normally.

Not wanting my players to die to quickly I did later conceed to ARCANE healing magic working but there is an ambient spellfailure chance. I also added the chance to encounter what I'm calling "sanctuaries" to my encounter tables, where players can heal rapidly and be protected from attacks.

[orchitect]

This is pretty cool. Mind if I convert it for Warhammer Fantasy?

[hewhosaysfish]

Not wanting my players to die to quickly I did later conceed to ARCANE healing magic working but there is an ambient spellfailure chance.

So when you gave healing to the wizards did you also give it back to the clerics? If not, why did you do it that way round? Surely that will just PO the people who want to play clerics even more.

[Another_Poet]

They came up with some nice alternatives, for example we have a Dragon Shaman with the fast healing aura and things like a paladins lay on hands still function normally.

Not wanting my players to die to quickly I did later conceed to ARCANE healing magic working but there is an ambient spellfailure chance. I also added the chance to encounter what I'm calling "sanctuaries" to my encounter tables, where players can heal rapidly and be protected from attacks.

Huh. Awesome!

[Mongoose87]

So when you gave healing to the wizards did you also give it back to the clerics? If not, why did you do it that way round? Surely that will just PO the people who want to play clerics even more.

Personally, if I was playing a cleric, and the Wizards had to be the heal monkeys, I'd be glad, because it leaves me with more time to enjoy my Divine Power.

[Kylarra]

Myself, I'm kind of confused why lay on hands works and healing magic doesn't, since they're pretty much both considered infusions of positive energy.

To be honest, I'm firmly against the random tables.

Just prepare a series of encounters & environments and use whatever you feel like at the moment. Especially if a certain player has been left out for a few encounters, toss him something up his alley.

You can fake the bloody roll if you’d like, or even do them beforehand, but in the end, why bother? Tell your players it’s all random, and when they set up for the night, do some heavy rolling and describe how they wake up.

But hey, that’s just me.

That's what I do a lot actually. Fake rolls for "random" encounters and then do whatever I feel like.

[Alejandro]

Why would any band of adventurers want to go into such a horrific place? You can encounter virtually any monster out there, it's huge, and healing magic doesn't work?

[Drider]

Why would any band of adventurers want to go into such a horrific place? You can encounter virtually any monster out there, it's huge, and healing magic doesn't work?

The presidant was taken by a forest, are you a bad enough dude to rescue the presidant?

[Calmar]

This is pretty useful for me.

I'm (slowly...) planning and preparing an enchanted forest haunted by evil fey. Of course I want it to be confusing. But to arrange the places on a random table didn't occur to me...
Maybe I'll even randomize the order of everything I prepare for this forest to make it as confusing as possible until it's curse is broken.

[orchitect]

Why would any band of adventurers want to go into such a horrific place? You can encounter virtually any monster out there, it's huge, and healing magic doesn't work?

Its like playing Final Fantasy. The rewards for surviving outweigh the risks.

[ShadowsGrnEyes]

First I would like to thank everyone who took the time to Comment. I appreciate all feedback.

This is pretty cool. Mind if I convert it for Warhammer Fantasy?

By all means, go ahead.

So when you gave healing to the wizards did you also give it back to the clerics? If not, why did you do it that way round? Surely that will just PO the people who want to play clerics even more.

By arcane healing, I'm talking about bards who have arcane healing spells. Or the rare arcane wand of healing for the wizards.

Why would any band of adventurers want to go into such a horrific place? You can encounter virtually any monster out there, it's huge, and healing magic doesn't work?

lol. Because I lured them in with promises of "lost items of incredible power" and "because your kidnapped loved one got dragged in there" etc.

This is pretty useful for me.

I'm (slowly...) planning and preparing an enchanted forest haunted by evil fey. Of course I want it to be confusing. But to arrange the places on a random table didn't occur to me...
Maybe I'll even randomize the order of everything I prepare for this forest to make it as confusing as possible until it's curse is broken.

This would save you alot of time and you can just build your tables around your fey theme. I roll a 4 hours session up in about 10 minutes and incorporate story line on the fly. It lets me as the DM have alot of fun. I hope you try it and let me know how it works for you.