Session 7 Report Hole in the Oak

Previous session report can be found here. First session report can be found here. Next session report is here.

Overall

On Friday, October 24^th, I ran the seventh session of my Hole in the Oak game for OSE via FoundryVTT.

RPGaDay 2025 31: Reward

Wow, I can’t believe I’m actually at August 31st right now. I took on this challenge because I wanted to see if I could put something up every day in August. It didn’t all have to be great—in fact, I was sure it wouldn’t have been—but I wanted to post something every day. Taking part in #Dungeon23 taught me that it is more important to put something up than it being good. There’s always time to edit afterwards. So, I’m very proud of myself for having posted every day. I did notice that as time went on, it got easier to fill out a random table. Simply making a few of them does give you the experience to create more. I hope that this will help me make solid tables in the future.

RPGaDay 2025 30: Experience

There are multiple ways to understand an experience from the past. Historical events are transmitted in one way or another. Sometimes it’s reconstructing events from relics by considering their location and distribution. Sometimes it’s decoding how people wrote about the things happening around them. So, for today, here’s a d8 table of various ways of understanding an experience from the past.

RPGaDay 2025 29: Connect

“Common” as a shared language in fantasy games has always felt like an odd compromise to me. On the one hand, it’s odd to have a singular language that everybody speaks to communicate with everybody else. On top of that, where is “common” from? What giant empire gathered such power that everybody uses that language as a baseline? There’s not even a real analogue of a language like that on earth. Sure, English may have the most total speakers (though Mandarin Chinese has the most first-language speakers) but by no means could we argue that every human being on earth is fully fluent in English as a shared language. On the other hand, at what point do you draw the arbitrary line of having separate languages? Will each species have its own language? Each kingdom? Each province? At some point, you also just want people to connect so they can get to the interesting bits.

RPGaDay 2025 28: Suspense

I once read about Hitchcock movies and the difference between fear and suspense. Fear being an immediate response to an immediate stressor. Suspense, on the other hand, is a response to an imagined negative future. When I think of this in the context of the OSR, Mothership immediately springs to mind. I dislike jumpscare horror but I really enjoy horror that creates a sense of unease. So, in that light, here’s a d8 table of elements to add a sense of unease to your suspenseful Mothership games:

RPGaDay 2025 27: Tactic

At some point, I would like to try my hand at making a flowchart for monster tactics. Today’s not that day, but it’s a thing that’s been on my mind. For now, a random table of chosen actions might see me through as well. So, here’s d8 approach to combat for a monster to take:

RPGaDay 2025 26: Nemesis

Today’s d8 table is for a set of motivations for a nemesis NPC character. To me, a nemesis isn’t always a grand vizier, super evil kind of person. In fact, more often than not they aren’t. I prefer bad guys to be just regular people, perhaps with different ideas on how to solve the same problems. So, here’s a small table to inspire some NPC motivations.

RPGaDay 2025 25: Challenge

Today’s entry is a d8 table of type of challenges NPCs and PCs could get into. After all, not every contest has to be a fight to the death. A one-on-one could also be resolved in the field of public spectacle! What do you think? Is this a handy table?

RPGaDay 2025 24: Reveal

Today’s random table is a d8 of ways that a secret door reveals the next area. Let me know what you think!

Look forward to more RPGaDAY posts throughout the month!