I have a problem, Space Pilgrims. I have a tendency to dive into crowdfunding without even really prioritizing products like I should.1 Yesterday, I had a bit of a wake-up call for this. I got my copy of Advanced Fighting Fantasy: Dwarven Halls Campaign in the mail, and realized I had only the faintest idea of what it even was. I saw the campaign, Graham Bottley's name, and just clicked "Pledge." It's a strategy that has rarely failed me.

Flipping through it, I was immediately glad that I did back it. It is the exact sort of game material I needed in the moment.

Returning, sort of, to Ick + Humb

The single greatest failure of this blog has been a lack of Ick + Humb. It's one of the four pillars of my solo play and yet all of the play has been a few years ago back before I started the blog. I keep finding new things to dive into and have gotten very rusty on the Advanced Fighting Fantasy ruleset, the characters, and all that.

Now, Dwarven Halls would not really qualify for a proper I+H campaign. It's set in the more traditional AFF world. It has a slightly unique character creation close, but not exactly, to starting off with a gauntlet. It's a bit of an all in one (or, as they say in Grimbergen, alles in een). However, it can work as a gateway to returning to sheer joy that playing AFF brings me.

My idea is simple enough: start with the classic quartet. Fighting-type, Mage-type, Cleric-type, Rogue-type. These are not so hard-and-fast in AFF. Just broadly broaching it. A couple of them, a brother-and-sister pair, might be related to the Bakersfields. Offshoots. Distant cousins. If characters die, bring in new. Progress through to the end. Then go from there. Possibly folding these new heroes into Phillia. Maybe just treating as an extended side story.

Longer [pre-built] Campaign

The other half of the wishlist this satisfies is a desire for a long-form campaign that was more auto-pilot. Using pre-existing materials. I do lot of "gamemaster" solo play and that's fine, but I've kind of wanted that sense of a campaign where I had less control. Even in the auspices of using a crap-ton of random rolls, oracles, and other tools to play.

The closest idea I've had to this concept would have essentially involved ripping off someone else's idea [LGT: Youtube]. Though I would have probably used Basic Fantasy. Which I might still do, eventually.

Dwarven Halls fits not only the general gist but the format I in which I tend to play. It's a great fit for this blog.

It also allows me to dust off my John Kapsalis paper minis [at least their digital counterparts].

I am getting stoked just thinking about it.

Keeping the Toolkit Simple

Besides, Dwarven Halls and the central Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2e book, I'm thinking to keep things pretty danged simple. Perhaps bringing in the Hero-, Magic-, Priest-, and Combat Companions. Then maybe Treasures. Though treating all the expanded rules books as gentle options to keep them in mind.

With the general assumption that I'll need some oracle, I will just dust off Gamemaster Apprentice Deck: Fantasy. I have my super-simple HTML/Javascript tool to randomly pull a card along with descriptions of the elements. That should work just fine.

Besides those two, the potential back-ups [as needed] might be:

  • AFF Adventure Creation System [which gets referenced in Dwarven Halls]
  • (maybe) Dicegeek's Great Book of Random Tables just for flavor bits.

The plan is to keep it as simple per session to make it work. This means I might be making more judgement calls over having a precise tool.

[Potentially] Simpler Notation

I have been wanting to play with a simpler notation that neither 1) crimps my playstyle nor 2) requires quite as much write-up. This has been a topic/issue brought up several times. I naturally gravitate to semi-short-story-style with lots of session-design, mechanical, and meta-table notes. These can take a lot of time but attempting to cut into them too hard leaves me feeling like I am not really playing the game.

I'd like to keep most of that in play but tone them down to basics (thanks, in part, to inspiration from Solo TTRPG Notation).

The parts I am thinking of keeping would be...

Short Preparation and "Gamemaster" style notes

These would largely be to quickly summarize upcoming content just so the reader [and future Doug, looking back] isn't completely lost. These would use standard notations of DH, AFF, GMAF, etc to reference pages and cards in [square brackets].

[DH15] says the water of this well is poisoned and people who drink it will need to make a Luck roll to avoid falling asleep for 2d6 hours.

Dialogue (stage directions in parentheses)

NPC: Would you like a drink of water?
PC #1: We are thirsty.
PC #2 (aside): Why is a man just holding a gourd full of water in a dark cave, I say nay.
PC #3: Please, I am too thirsty, I will risk it.

Mechanics Roll [with notations]

Just a pretty standard set of quick mechanics roll, again with standard notation.

PC#3 Luck → 6 vs 7 → -1 Luck, but pass.

All the standard Exposition (aka, the narrative)

After PC#3 drinks it without problem, the rest of the heroes take a sip of water.

Meta-Table type notes if ever necessary

These will probably be quick little summations of things kind of about the campaign or just in general.

Though there is only one more room in the dungeon, the fact that two heroes are now asleep feels like a good stopping spot.

Other rare bits, including pictures as needed

There might some "raw play" type sections if ever needed. Time keeping. Pictures. Song cues. Other ephemera.

Session #0 Starting Sunday

This next Sunday, I'll plan on a session 0 to figure out the first four characters and what not. Will go from there.

I guess prior to that I will try and figure out a good way to keep track of the character sheets. I'm not sure if form fillable versions have ever shown up or not.

  1. It's bad enough that one of my primary resolutions for 2026 will be to cut out most crowdfunding with few exceptions. Since one of those exceptions might be Arion Games, it might not have helped in this case. ↩︎