Ocean D&D - Session 4 Report (Polpo Rosso)
Players
Polpo Rosso - Yours truly
Davy Crabcakes - Princess Pizzabones
Creel Crusher - Arkbrik
Amby - Kirkatta
Billy the Squid - GB Nilsson
Chilli Con Carnage - Mister Jenx
GM - Spuk
Polpo Rosso's Recap (as expressed by tentacle gestures):
We crawled across the sea floor eastwards, in the direction the pillars were pointing towards. We expected we would find something on the outer edge of the known Ocean. As such we charted and searched the sectors of seabed for 2 days.
We had found a habitable sector of the floor, the collapsed crater of an ancient volcano. The bed was ripe with nutrients for coral and algae to grow and the temperature was pleasant. This could be a good place to settle someday. Pushing east we found a strange stone structure. A rectangular monument whose construction was unnatural. It had visible entrypoints and we decided to explore.
Within it the space was cramped and restrictive. When you spend so long traversing the open sea, caves and tunnels feel like a prison. Whatever this place's purpose once was, it is unknown to us creatures of the reef. It's hallways were occasionally closed off by large slabs which opened through operating a latch. This is a task I and Billy were particularly adept at given the nature of our appendages, which offer superior motor control to that of our crustacean colleagues.
Within one of the hallways we happened upon a statue of a strange creature we did not recognize. On it's head (?) there was a band attached to a metal device. This device had an antennae and was clearly charged with energy that could just as easily discharge. Like an idiot, I touched it and found out the hard way. However, the energy contained within it is now stored in me, so I suppose the act was not without it's merit.
Leaving the statue well alone we further investigated the structure's innards. It is far larger and labyrinthine than we expected. It was also not uninhabited. We encountered 69 small shrimp swimming through its halls. They did not seem to have any connection to the place and seemed to be passing through. In one room we discovered the body of a strange Axolotl. This one was squat, and green. It was covered in warts. The body floated in water of a lighter texture. The water around it glittered, which hinted that it contained Nanites. Amby absorbed the nanites and gained a new power. Chilli swam in the strange water and thankfully was not killed, for it's nature is not amiable to ours.
We gathered what we needed and returned to the Reef after a few days of journeying to relay what we've learned from the outside. The turtles rewarded us well and granted Amby yet another new power. I too feel as though I have benefited from my experience. I am eager to venture out again.
Thoughts:
Ocean D&D (OD&D henceforth) is a trip. This was just my first session but already it may be one of my favorite worlds I've explored in a TTRPG purely based on vibes. I was very lucky that I grew up in a coastal city with access to a beach and the open sea. I got to explore some reefs either through snorkeling or on the rare occasion going scuba. It is a deeply rejuvenating experience and one of the purest forms of escape someone can have. Ever wanted to explore a truly alien society? Go swim in a reef.
All this to say that OD&D really puts me back in that place. I can very easily imagine my underwater surroundings and for one it's a place I actually wouldn't mind being in IRL. Sure beats a dank dungeon, or literal hell for that matter.
Speaking of dungeons, I'm told this is the first session of OD&D that featured one. Underwater dungeons present an interesting design challenge, made more complex by how OD&D handles PC movement. Most classes can swim, which underwater essentially means they can fly. You could go crazy with the verticality of rooms and corridors. I think that standard dungeons still work fine though, and I don't have a clear idea of how you could lean into more complex spaces especially when designing for unrestricted 3 dimensional movement. Mapping would be very complicated.
One thing that did strike me was just how claustrophobic the dungeon felt. Weirdly, I've never felt this with normal D&D dungeons, despite them typically consisting of cramped tunnels and subterranean rooms. In OD&D, the aspect of being surrounded by fluid and stuck inside a box tapped into a very primal claustrophobia I've only experienced underwater. It's a feeling I get when scuba diving, maybe from the weight of the gear, the unnatural body movement, or just the fact that the air I'm breathing comes out of a tank that will run out. I had an echo of that feeling in this game when exploring the dungeon and that really fascinated me. I think it has to do with imagining an unfathomably big space through which my traversal in any direction is virtually unrestricted then going into a space that is confined. It's how a bird must feel indoors.
Outside the dungeon, the game feels far more optimistic. There are certainly threats, this is still D&D. But this is D&D where you get to play as a fish and your sandbox is the ocean. You aren't safe, but it's also not like the world is actively hostile to you at every turn. Player ability to traverse the space also works very differently to your standard elf-game. We are still hex-crawling, but in most hex-crawls (or dungeon crawls fwiw) I never have to ask how far the sky reaches.
I like that you get XP mostly through discovery and I do not miss the inventory and coinage minigame. Sea creatures don't use money and generally don't hoard stuff. This being D&D there are ruins of lost civilizations with secrets and treasures to uncover. Since we are playing fish, we don't know what these structures are, but our irl brains can take a guess. This makes for fun puzzle solving.
I'd love to see more of how the Reef plays into long-form campaign structures. Right now it serves as the homebase but my understanding is that it will evolve over time as we bring back discoveries. This kind of community progression is worth leaning into when the pursuit of player power is disincentivized. Could this be underwater Stonetop? Can't say, never played Stonetop. But the vibes are there.