I have a group of gamers that dosen't care a jot for the "Fluff" that surrounds a dungeon. Likewise I've created dozens of unique environs for them and am in the process of making one more; a "dungeon" in the form of a ruined town.
My discussion is around creating a purely present tense dungeon. By that I mean I want to see what it looks like to make a site with NO history or backstory and NO plans for the future; an adventure completely in a vacuum.
For my own part what I did in my ruined town is started gathering ideas for what would likely be in said ruin, then thought about the characters' strengths and weaknesses and begun imagining encounters based around 1. what I've previously said would be the monster types of my campaign and 2. the party's capabilities.
I found though that the GM in me kept wanting to say: "Ok, so there's a bog nixie, and she is at the heart of a festering swamp. She's served by mites that over time have become amphibious. Together they use their powers to keep themselves and their giant vermin fed. And the nixie intends to..." and then I have to stop myself 'cause that suggests a possible story and future.
Could any of you pull this off? Is it worthwhile?
I think I would just be up front with them and by pass thiis problem completely. Let them know your jut doing a random vanilla dungeon.
My group and I like to have a campaign with a good story that links everything together, but if you're all into, well, basically hack&slay and don't need anything else... sure, why not.
I wouldn't really have that much fun DMing (or playing) h&s only, but for a one-off, a break between campaigns or even as a part of an overarching campaign, I'd be up for it.
Maybe change the ordinary dungeon into something else once in a while. Like an arena where the PCs can fight against various monsters for money (and the amusement of some outsiders).
Have you played "the worlds largest dungeon" with them yet? That (and other similar stuff) should keep them busy for a while.
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Back in the day, most of my groups could care less. I could (and did, on occasion) generate random dungeons out of the old DMG. 'Okay, you open the door.' <Roll dice> 'You see more corridor and a door on the right.'
I most definitely prefer a well-plotted out backstory, and some logical reason for things to be where they are, but that's all just for my own enjoyment as a creator-of-things and placer-of-things-just-so. The players never ask, and so I don't tell.
As a DM, it's just part of the enjoyment for me, to craft the encounter areas as lovingly as I can, often including little in-jokes that nobody but myself will ever notice. (Although it's a rare treat when a player does!)
But if they never do, that's no biggie.
I didn't make it for them.
:)
In 1st edition this is what the random dungeon generation tables were for!
Actually, I think it would make a fine set of Gamemastery Cards (unless they exist already...?)
My group does "test kitchen" scenarios occasionally, whether to test some kind of insane, overpowered or complex encounter (hey, lets have a fight in an infinite web of tightwires), or to try out builds or team compositions (like a "superteam" of all half-orc sorcerers who spam darkness and fire spells, or whatever).
It's a good "break" in between regular campaign game chapters, between campaigns, when friends are in town, etc.
Doesn't "ruined town" imply a history in and of itself? Won't each building you design have its own original purpose, suggesting what treasure might be left behind, what creatures might have moved in, and so forth?
Unless you are literally generating rooms and encounters at random, I don't see how you can avoid past and future in your design.
Wow. Amazingly you all feel the way I do. Yes, it's not challenging, yes I've been up front w/my players and yes, I've got the old 1e DMG open to random dungeon creation tables.
My players are all very tactical boardgamers who like to think they're into RPGing. In the last few sessions they've really tried to roleplay but in a frank and honest discussion of our gaming styles and such I finally had the come-to-Jesus moment w/all of them and explained that I enjoy story, they don't, plain and simple. Then I went out and got a new gaming group together.
Turns out my old group still wants to game w/me and I like them as friends so I said sure. What I'm putting on the table is basically a 1e style megadungeon. The game starts with exploring some ruins that are currently a fey playground. There will be little vignettes here and there; stand alones where the fey act out a variety of dark fairy tales. I've got a bog nixie/frog prince rip off, a red riding hood haunting and a knock off of a couple others planned. Basically each is designed to get them into a ruined building.
All the buildings are then connected by tunnels and worse horrors await them below. At the urging of my players there's no real plot at this point; just a matter of survival and looting. If for some reason a plot develops I'll just wing it and go from there.
I have to admit that I'm finding it REALLY hard to come up with dungeon w/no story. If I were 9 there'd be no problem but as long as I've been running games I've lost that sort of "present tense" gaming edge.
My dungeon right now looks like a collection of stat blocks. I have a few set piece rooms I want to get it; a library, torture chamber, the Terrible Machine kind of thing. But overall I don't even have that many room descriptions.
To put my players' style in perspective: we've played Descent a couple times together. In that game you have objectives you have to accomplish and there's a bit of fluff that goes with them. String together a few of them and you begin building a campaign. Well my players, while playing Descent, kept forgetting to read the fluff with the objectives and after a few of them I asked how we knew what was going on in the game to which they replied just follow the next set of objectives and that the fluff was boring. Folks I'm talking a PARAGRAPH of fluff here and it was too much for them to care about.
Anyway, I'm going to run this session like a one shot and try to leave my best encounters on the table. If they like it and I find a way to have some fun w/it maybe I'll run another session. They're already talking campaign and I have to admit; I haven't fessed up to my making this a one shot. Other than that we're going to just see where this goes...
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There's a product for 3.5 your players may enjoy: The World's Largest Dungeon. Takes characters from level 1-21 (3.5 track). There are a lot of great set piece encounters and the biggest complaint is the lack of RP opportunities. So no complaint at all for your players.
If you don't want to go that route then I recommend each session choose a set-piece. The Drowning Room, The Harlot Queen's Bedchamber, The Hall of Magnets, then design around the set-piece.
Choose a Main Foe type: Half the monsters will be of this type. (Drow)
Choose a sub-Foe type: A quarter of the monsters will be of this type.(Spiders)
Choose the rest from thematically appropriate bad guys.
Let's say you're putting together 8 encounters:
Entrance: 4x Drow Guards
Webway Halls: Giant Spider + Spider Swarms
Altar of the Demon Spider: Drow Cleric + Driders
Barracks: Drow Sergeant + Drow Guards
Transformation Pit: Variant Spider Swarm (Poison turns victim into a Drider)
Summoning Chamber: Demon
False Treasure Chamber: Trap (Web based)
Throne Room of the Spider-Princess; Drow Sorcerer, Fiendish Spiders throne is suspended by webs. Unless a PC can fly or spider-climb PCs are going to have a tough time.
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There's more than one way to sneak a story into a session.
Often times it is delivered through journal fragments, villainous monologues and ancient friezes. There's some players who hate/ignore such things.
Themed dungeons on the other hand suggest a story, without hitting the PCs over the head with it. These Drow are up to no good, they love spiders and demons. Go and murder them, steal their treasure before they can make trouble.
Ok Dudemeister, I'll bite. My first set piece is a dungeon where mites kidnap victims using their Doom power to keep them perpetually afraid. After a while when the victims are fully broken they are poisoned by dream spider venom; the combination of madness and the venom turns them into mites. I'm planning a 12 room dungeon; 10 potential encounter areas and 2 potential rest stops.
With the game being so heavy on combat I am instituting Evil Lincon's Strain/Injury HP Variant rule. Also there will be traps; not just cause I like peppering them in but because my players actually said they want one story element which is that they are adventurous archaeologists a la Indiana Jones (the rogue even went so far as to take a proficency in whip.)
Our "session 0" saw a foray into the trope: a 5 room dungeon exploring a burial vault hidden beneath a mausoleum. It had a trap, a chase scene, 2 encounters and a final "F-u" style vault-destroying flood puzzle. It was all a test by the Archivist's Guild of Izmok (an Abadaran funded guild of adventuring archaeologists) to ensure they were ready for guild membership.
Now they're on their way to the megadungeon: the Ruins of Falkiveg. I like your idea and will bag my original fairy tale vignette intro for something more to the point.
The first place they come to will be a crumbling bridge with 2 towers; one on the near end which is nothing more than a few barely standing walls of rubble and the other at the far end is more or less intact. On their way to the far end I'll have a trap; the mites bypass it by riding giant vermin. Some of said vermin will have a nest in the tower.
Exploring the rooms in the tower they find signs of humanoids in the area and find a basement with a secret entrance. I will have to resist the urge to add a puzzle here; no reason to bottleneck the PC's.
Once past the secret door they find a spiral stair leading into the bowels of the dungeon beneath the tower. There will be a constant wailing, moaning and absolute feeling of dread (environmental hazard perhaps?) that is piped through the place through the air vents in the walls. Bear in mind the party is first level consisting of a monk, a fighter, an alchemist, a cleric, and a rogue.
Encounter areas:
Guard chamber - x3 mites/CR 1/2
Nightmare Sanctum - burning dream spider web trap/CR 1
Mites' Delights - torture room x3 mites/CR 1/2
Dire Alchemy - mite alchemist 2, false spider, pedipalp (the "experiment")/CR 3
Hydrotherapy - pool of fear trap/CR 1
False Treasure Chamber - poisoned dart trap w/dream spider venom/CR 1
Holding Cells - melancholic ooze swarm/CR 1
Barraks - x4 mites, 1 mite warrior 1 mounted on giant centipedes/CR 2
Dream Spider Nest - spider swarm reskinned w/dream spider venom/CR 1
Hall of Shivers and Screams - x2 dream spiders, 1 mite witch 2, x4 mites/CR 3
The set piece is of course the Hall of Shivers and Screams; a vaulted hall where victims are brought after their minds are thoroughly broken. They are bound in place and forcibly injected with Shiver while simultaneously being hit one final time by the mites' Doom ability and an augmented Scars hex by the witch. The resulting confluence of effects mingles with the poisons and toxins in the victims' bodies to transform them into mites.
What say you DM?
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Sounds like a lot of fun. I wish I could play it :-)
A couple of cool things: Illusiory encounters these monsters only appear to PCs who have taken Wis damage from the Dream Spiders. Hilarious as some of your party fights imaginary things with teeth. The story is still told but the PCs aren't being smacked with it, plus it'll be a hilarious tale.
I'm totally stealing the "ruined/ghost town as a dungeon" idea in the future. Sorry.
Steal away old bean; that's why I'm posting in a public forum. If not for you guys I wouldn't 1. have a solid formula for making the different forays into the ruin (thanks DM!), have Ol Pogolo Peeps from another thread or have a good method for running traps from yet ANOTHER thread.
If there's anything else we can do together you just let me know CB.
Since people are being turned into mites in the dungeon, and the party is encountering mites, should I have the mites revert to people when they die?
Also: IF (and that's a big if there) my players decide to get into roleplaying like they say I may have a spinoff from this dungeon; anyone they save is addicited to/replaying the trauma of their fear and a fear-cult begins in town.