Zarban

When I wrote about the four pillars of fantasy adventuring, I mentioned that exploration is different from predicaments in that it allows the heroes to play with things without them being specifically a trick, trap, or puzzle. Think of this as a bit like playground equipment or the interactive elements at a museum.

Such things aren’t designed to be dangerous or tricky, just fun and interesting (altho–let’s be honest–playground equipment can be a bit dangerous…). Low lethality sets such things apart from a lot of Gygaxian funhouse dungeon rooms, where a bold choice and a bad die roll could easily mean death.

So, just as I wrote about varieties of puzzles and predicaments, I’ve decided to present examples of things that are all fun and interesting to explore and play with without explicitly being a trap or puzzle or a treasure (also–let’s be honest–they’ll all have a bit of that in them).

The Abandoned Tower

The heroes find themselves exploring a mysterious abandoned tower that was once the home of an alchemist. Apart from any monsters, tricks, or traps they might encounter initially, they eventually find the neglected workshop, which contains three bare tables and two chairs, as well as a cabinet and bookcase (both empty). There are various pieces of parchment scattered around and leaves and twigs blown in thru a broken window. There is an old, rotten rug tossed over something next to the cabinet.

The Alchemist’s Trunk

Under the rug is a locked trunk. This contains some of the alchemist’s experiment equipment: glass and pewter flasks, tubes, and an oil burner for heating. At the bottom are some materials in ceramic jars: powders of various colors, a few nuggets of material, and some unidentifiable animal parts. If the heroes try to mix these together with water and/or heat or burn them, the materials will produce a small reaction affecting only the character performing the action (unless others deliberately gather very close); roll on the table below.

Reagent Reactions

1d20	Reaction
1	A major wild magic effect
2-5	A minor wild magic effect
6-7	Smoke and stink; save vs poison or fall unconscious for 1d4 rounds
8-11	Smoke and stink
12-13	Smoke with a pleasant odor; save vs poison or fall unconscious for 1d4 rounds
14-16	A personal pleasant magic effect
17-18	A vision pleasant magic effect
19-20	An insight pleasant magic effect

Note that they can try to do the same thing up to two more times before running out of one material or another. It will be as if they got the same d20 roll, but the wild magic or pleasant magic effect will still be random, because some aspect (temperature, amounts mixed, etc.) will not be identical without following a specific recipe.

Variations

If you want to give the players some encouragement to play, you might include some old notes that, if followed carefully, guarantee a couple of 1d8+12 results.