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You can make a dungeon-delving adventure for tabletop games using simplified procedural generation techniques, but how do you make a system that’s repeatable, fun, and might help solve the GM shortage?
Borrow the core gameplay loop from the wildly popular, and procedurally generated, Deep Rock Galactic video game.
Deep Rock has a simple premise: be dwarves, fight bugs, and dig for treasure; but it never gets stale. By adopting its challenge and reward structures, and accepting a narrow thematic scope, PF2 can introduce a fast-paced, fun, repeatable game mode that doesn’t require prep-time and shares the GM workload between players.
I was noodling around with a way to get my players to dip their toes into GMing (and let me actually play for once) and stumbled across an idea that might not be too original, but just might be worth it for Paizo to consider. At first I was angling for an official Deep Rock Galactic partnership product, but decided there's too much potential for showcasing parts of Golarion using this game mode.
I've posed this as a proposal for Paizo, and I've bulleted why I think that's a good route (and why this is in General instead of Homebrew), but in the end I'm an amateur and could just be taking my spot in a long line of backseat Paizo designers.
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the concept, since I'm planning on continuing to develop a playable version to test out the concept and maybe actually play instead of GM for 10 gosh darn minutes. However, I'd also love to hear if anyone else agrees that this would be a good idea for an official Paizo product.
Cheers!
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I'd love to hear your thoughts on the concept
I'd be happy to test it. That's my first thought.
And if you want to form a think tank around the concept, I'd love to be part of it (without necessarily participating, just to see where you are heading).However, I'd also love to hear if anyone else agrees that this would be a good idea for an official Paizo product.
I think it's too early to state that. You need quite some testing beforehand to determine if it's valid or if it's flawed.
since I'm planning on continuing to develop a playable version to test out the concept and maybe actually play instead of GM for 10 gosh darn minutes.
Well, if you build a playable version you'll certainly be the first one to GM it. So... I'm not sure it solves your issue specifically!
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I'm definitely going to give updates when I can, but I'm an astoundingly slow worker on this type of thing. I get distracted easily!
I think it's too early to state that. You need quite some testing beforehand to determine if it's valid or if it's flawed.
Yeah, but projects have been launched with less, and a more experienced designer might see the gaps and potential better. I wanted to put this out there because timing might be a critical issue. With One D&D around the corner, a practical limit to PF2's lifespan, and a rising popularity of TTRPGs, I think a method to school new GMs fast is a very timely concern.
And articles like this spurred me to ask the question "Does my idea have legs and if so, maybe we should do something about it sooner rather than later". I'm super biased, though, so...
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As a DRG player and backer of the board game Kickstarter I think this is super cool. However, like the decision you've already arrived at, I'd strongly prefer it entirely divorced from the DRG Universe and fully embedded in Golarion. Randomly generating dungeons has been a concept for a while but I like the way you've put the pieces together and arrived at a board game feel. I have friends that I don't think would be interested in Pathfinder but they'll play Descent and similar games so would probably love your idea. In the same vein I don't think any of the current PF board game products capture the flavor of an actual PF game so that may be a gap in the market. Not sure any of this is helpful but I think your idea is awesome and look forward to seeing more.
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Uh, I wasn't expecting power point presentation.
Do these kind of fan pitches ever work btw? I'm under impression there is some sort of legal issues regarding public pitches. Also it would require the license and licensing deals and other shenanigans. Assuming there is overlap in player bases in first place
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Uh, I wasn't expecting power point presentation.
Do these kind of fan pitches ever work btw?
In my experience, no they never work. What's different here (I hope) is that when you get right down to it, it's not that big of a leap.
I'm under impression there is some sort of legal issues regarding public pitches. Also it would require the license and licensing deals and other shenanigans. Assuming there is overlap in player bases in first place
Well, first there's no Deep Rock licensing required which allows Paizo to use the approach to showcase some really cool settings. Second, nothing I've proposed is novel, so I don't see much of what could be a barrier there.
What it boils down to is: "Hey, you could leverage some of the many procedural generation methods out there to make a new mode of play that targets some big pain points, and if you're afraid of it being repetitive, look to successful games to see how they've mastered replayability and core gameplay loops (here's an example). Also, if you do it right, the base concept won't cost all that much to develop, and has a huge growth potential."
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Who are the potential customers ?
Let's see... I'll group the main ones I can think of like this:
1. "PF2 Board Gamers" - Any PF2 table that wants to have a game mode that requires no prep and lets them jump into combat, while retaining important RPG character mechanical growth. It's like a board game that uses almost the same rules as regular PF2, letting you experiment with builds and items.
2. "Forever GMs" - Any GM who is burnt out and wants to play, but whose table doesn't want to learn a new system and whose players aren't currently capable of GMing. Not only does it get the GM a break, it lets them at least play some combat-heavy sessions, and forces the other players to gain experience in the hot-seat without having any real pressure.
3. "Newbies" - Potential PF2 players who are unsure if they want to take the dive into TTRPGs, and unsure of who should GM, or how to go about it. Very much a GM-training-course option. Consider it an even less intimidating alternative to the beginner box.
4. "Playtesters/Theorycrafters" - The game mode has a lot of potential for rigor in testing new classes and concepts against various situations. Would be a good comparative, gray-room game mode.
5. "Deep Rock Galactic Players" - Some fraction of the playerbase of Deep Rock surely would be interested in a game with a shared premise. Even non-ttrpg-players have been able to get into a roleplaying spirit with a sufficiently charming and succinct setting and concept. Be dwarf miners? For rock and stone!
6. "GM In Betweeners" - Any PF2 group who doesn't have a GM, or anyone willing to take on the full burden, but still wants to play as they look for a new one. Don't take for granted that people can easily find a GM or group that matches their tastes.
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@Water’sLethe: Can’t access the slides link. Can you present the info here, however condensed?
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I'm definitely interested, as I've been thinking about stuff like this since forever.
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@Water’sLethe: Can’t access the slides link. Can you present the info here, however condensed?
Sure, let me see if I can pick out the key bits and paste it here. Missing are the illustrative pictures of the node maps and room cards.
So What's the Proposal?
*Borrow the theme of Deep Rock Galactic, and play as PF2 characters, the legendary miners of old, in a dangerous dwarven exploratory mining team
*Select a GM to control monsters and randomly generate maps to explore and goals to achieve, getting bonus rewards for taking on the role
*Fight families of monsters that span the 1-20 level range with simple adjustments to reach target numerical balance at each level
*Implement minimally intrusive rules adjustments inspired by Deep Rock Galactic’s gameplay loop to support this new gameplay mode
*Use experience and gold rewards to level and purchase equipment, giving ample opportunity to explore the player content throughout PF2
What is the Basic Gameplay Structure?
The party starts in town, does purchasing and NPCs unlocks, elects a GM and decides on a mission type. The GM procedurally generates a map and goal locations (a bit more detail later), the players then explore the map using Mining Lore to traverse between nodes until they've completed the goal and don't feel the need to search for any more minerals, then they go back to town to start over.
Making It Work Using Deep Rock Principles
Several key modifications to the default PF2 rules are required.
*Loadout - Players can purchase unlimited items, but can only bring a certain number on a mission
*Purchase Only - Items can only be bought between missions, not found, except some consumables. Gold will be used in conjunction with other currencies for different item types to encourage mission variety.
*Level Caps - At certain intervals, players will not be able to advance to higher levels until some criterion is met
*Mining - Bonus gold and minerals can be obtained by spending time mining, which comes at the cost of rolling for random encounters
*Resupply - During a mission, 10 minute or 8 hour rests can only be bought if the party has collected enough of a mineral resource that you find in the mine
*Mission Failure - If the team fails during a mission, they wake up at the field hospital with only some pity gold to show for it
Where's the Roleplay?
Unlike Deep Rock Galactic, social encounter systems exist in PF2, and shouldn’t be neglected. Here are two methods:
Town NPCs gating equipment purchases
*Armorsmith, Weaponsmith, and Trinket-maker each have attitudes that unlock ranges of item levels
*Improve attitudes by spending a currency obtained on missions and making a social skill roll
*Purchases and unlocks tracked on special sheet
Optional Extra GM Work
*A GM can volunteer to run social encounters in the town or mines and in doing so, earn more GM perks
*GMs can use this as an opportunity to explore different aspects of GMing a PF2 game
The Town is an Opportunity
Deep Rock uses the Station as a critical part of the gameplay loop, pacing, and reward structure. This PF2 game mode can do it even better, and showcase parts of Golarion in a unique way.
*Track what the players have done in the mines (number of missions, total NPC interactions, gold total) to unlock the town’s story of growth
**Think: Hades video game storytelling
*Introduce new NPCs and new locations in town to vary options and services over the level range
*Provide pre-written optional town encounters and social situations for bonus GM and player rewards
**Can be an additional deck of event cards that the party can decide to draw from as as a special type of challenge
*Future expansions can be set in different parts of the world, exploring different randomized challenges
**Drow town delving into the Darklands
**Fey-themed town delving into the First World
**Wizard School town delving into elemental planes
How Does GMing Work?
Not everyone wants to GM, and it might be easy for a group to fall back on old patterns, letting only one person take the burden. That’s where GM perks come in.
*Makeup Loot - GM gets the same rewards as the players so that their own character stays on par
*Level Gate Unlocks - PCs can only progress to the next level range after running one or more sessions as GM, meaning the whole party has to have GM’d at least once before anyone can level past a gate.
*Character Option and Item Rarity Unlocks - As the cherry on the cake, GMing gives you a currency you can spend on Uncommon and Rare character options and item purchases
*Alt Character Advancement - If a player wants to have a second character they can unlock one with a number of GM perk currency, and it will level along with the other PCs. A player can only use one character at a time.
*Bonus Gold for Downing PCs - To encourage GMs to put up a fight, each time they manage to down a player they get a small gold bonus, but only get paid if the party completes the mission
Is it Really Easier to GM?
There are several reasons this approach should be easier to GM.
*Optional Dialogue - Speaking as an NPC is one of the most intimidating parts of ordinary GMing, and this system makes it entirely opt-in.
*Unintelligent Enemies - Part of the charm of Deep Rock is fighting vicious but mindless swarms of enemies, which are much easier to grasp tactically and have fewer moral quandaries
*Enemy Families - Limited enemy types means the GM doesn’t need to learn a new monster moveset every session
*Prescribed Loot - Deciding on how to generate and distribute loot can be daunting, which is solved with set, predictable reward schemes
*Mechanized Rests - By locking access to rests behind a defined mechanic, GM doesn’t need to have the burden of controlling pacing
*Episodic - If a session goes really bad, the worst outcome is a clean slate next time and a wasted hour, relieving the anxiety of providing a great session every time
Is Map Randomization Actually Feasible?
One of the boons of using the dwarf miner theme is that the players are making their own paths, so rooms and chambers don’t need to logically connect.
Here is a potential method:
1. Goal - Before mission, choose goal type as group (e.g. one high value gem vs several ore deposits)
2. Node Layout - Roll die to pick how the rooms are spatially related from a list of node maps
3. Room Deck - Pull a room card for each node that gives basic details like size and shape
The room deck would have cards that describe the rough shape of the room, the size in feet, default points to link tunnels to other rooms, and event, enemy, and mineral spawn locations.
4. Goal Tokens - Distribute enough tokens to achieve current goal, with rules to encourage near-complete map exploration
5. Upon party entering a room, roll or draw for:
*Enemy encounter type and difficulty
*Minerals present
*Room bonuses (skill challenges, treasure chests, etc)
After entering the room, the GM would draw from an enemy deck (e.g. Severe 3 Infantry (APL-2) 1 "Miniboss" APL+1) and a bonus or event deck (e.g. There's a pool of water here with gold at the bottom, perception check to notice). They would also roll on a table to determine the amount of Recovery mineral present (used to buy 10 minute or 8 hour rests) and how much gold or bonus trade minerals are present.
What Does Paizo Stand to Gain?
There are a many benefits of this endeavor, besides the sales potential.
*Incentivise more players to dip a toe into GMing, which should lead to an increased supply of GMs
**GMs buy more products than players
**The size of the TTPG market is correlated with the number of available GMs
*Teach GMs the fundamentals, including reading statblocks and encounter budgets
*Reduce burnout of existing GMs by giving “Forever GMs” an option to play
**Burnt-out GMs reduce player satisfaction because they don’t perform as well, which can cause collateral damage to PF2’s reputation
*More exposure to player content in PF2, increasing appetite for new options and books
*Potential inroads with Deep Rock Galactic playerbase who haven’t played TTRPGs
*New “Organized-Play-Lite” or alternative Beginner Box format
*Robust framework for future playtests, increasing confidence in combat design
*Improved player familiarity with combat, making combat in full games more snappy
*Experience in designing formulaic, ultra-repeatable content that could easily be translated to a digital platform to better respond to future digital trends
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Also missing from above is one of the key bits of why it should work:
It works for Deep Rock Galactic, which has been a masterclass in purposeful game design and pacing, and has accepted a narrow, yet charming, thematic scope and made sure that the core gameplay loop and reward structure is locked in tight within that scope.
If Paizo does the same, they can focus on one town in Golarion and one semi-plausible location to delve, heap charm and polish on the locale, premise, and randomization, and rely on their fantastic combat, progression, and equipment engines to keep it interesting and rewarding.
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A thought just occurred to me, this isn't so different from what Owlcat did with the first Pathfinder video game for their "Beneath the Stolen Lands" game mode. It's a procedural generated dungeon.
I didn't read through the whole presentation (and I read it yesterday instead of today) but the lingering impression reminds of that game mode, but instituted in table top format rather than in a video game.
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I have nothing of value to contribute other than to chime in with the following obligatory retort given that it was uttered by OP above and shocking NOBODY was polite enough to reply as is befitting the DRG culture which has me both disgusted and disappointed, so if nobody else is going to do it, I might as well just do it myself:
Contributor
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So Organized Play in PF1 had two 'make your own dungeon' scenarios that were awesome repeatable scenarios. You take two sides of a flip mat, and then have a ton of linked encounters and adventure seeds to choose from.
One was Tomb of Righteous Repose, and the other was Beyond the Halflight Path.
I loved it.
In Halflight Path, there were 9 story seeds, and I turned them into totally different stories for my players with weird challenging combats.
But from what I understand, there were some problems with these adventures.
1) They were complicated and super daunting for new GMs because there were so many choices. So they had the opposite effect of what the O.P. wants.
2) If you weren't the kind of GM that loved to craft stories, they could feel lacking in plot, because the PCs would only experience the incomplete plot seed that was included in the scenario -- and those didn't have neat endings or villain monologues.
3) For an experienced GM, who knew the weaknesses of player PCs, it was too easy to build a dungeon that would be 'over-tuned' and deadly, targetting all your player's weaknesses. There were a lot of high-powered options in these adventures, and instead of building a place for players to be heroes, some GMs really wanted to make ultimate death dungeons.
(Don't get me wrong. There are some players that delight in death dungeons and hard mode. But in Organized Play, you should know that was what you signed up for in advance.)
That said... The board game 'Betrayal on the House on the Hill' kind of hits what you are looking for, in that it has a randomized room tiles and monsters and a whole bunch of different plots in an adventure that the players build together. I've always thought that it would be interesting to see a dungeon story set in PF2 with similar mechanics, but you'd need to have a different suite of monsters and challenges for every level, and always going random dungeon crawling would get stale after a while.
Hmm
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Who are the potential customers ?Let's see... I'll group the main ones I can think of like this:
1. "PF2 Board Gamers" - Any PF2 table that wants to have a game mode that requires no prep and lets them jump into combat, while retaining important RPG character mechanical growth. It's like a board game that uses almost the same rules as regular PF2, letting you experiment with builds and items.
2. "Forever GMs" - Any GM who is burnt out and wants to play, but whose table doesn't want to learn a new system and whose players aren't currently capable of GMing. Not only does it get the GM a break, it lets them at least play some combat-heavy sessions, and forces the other players to gain experience in the hot-seat without having any real pressure.
3. "Newbies" - Potential PF2 players who are unsure if they want to take the dive into TTRPGs, and unsure of who should GM, or how to go about it. Very much a GM-training-course option. Consider it an even less intimidating alternative to the beginner box.
4. "Playtesters/Theorycrafters" - The game mode has a lot of potential for rigor in testing new classes and concepts against various situations. Would be a good comparative, gray-room game mode.
5. "Deep Rock Galactic Players" - Some fraction of the playerbase of Deep Rock surely would be interested in a game with a shared premise. Even non-ttrpg-players have been able to get into a roleplaying spirit with a sufficiently charming and succinct setting and concept. Be dwarf miners? For rock and stone!
6. "GM In Betweeners" - Any PF2 group who doesn't have a GM, or anyone willing to take on the full burden, but still wants to play as they look for a new one. Don't take for granted that people can easily find a GM or group that matches their tastes.
The question then becomes for each of these : what are the alternatives and how is this the best / simplest / easiest answer to their needs ?
Interesting exercice.
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A thought just occurred to me, this isn't so different from what Owlcat did with the first Pathfinder video game for their "Beneath the Stolen Lands" game mode. It's a procedural generated dungeon.
I didn't read through the whole presentation (and I read it yesterday instead of today) but the lingering impression reminds of that game mode, but instituted in table top format rather than in a video game.
Yes! This was one of my inspirations. I noted that skill challenges like those in that game should be included, to give some boons to actually care about skills.
I had a lot of fun with that game mode, but it fell flat on charm and having a compelling "town" experience. I think Deep Rock Galactic showcases how important the station is to pacing and feel. It's pretty shocking how fun the Owlcat version was though, given the general jankness of PF1.
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Actually the part about skills is exactly what made me think about Pathfinder Kingmaker video game.
And I agree that the in "city" experience was boring and that is definitely something that could be expanded upon, especially in a table top version.
Honestly the "city" in Beneath the Stolen lands was just a place to sell loot and very occasionally buy items.
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Huh. My son plays DRG. I personally don’t get it, but love a good randomly generated dungeon. Interesting idea.
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Since a couple of you were interested, I pulled together a rough and ready, proof of concept prototype that I'm going to be testing out with my group tomorrow.
My goal with this is to:
1) Find out if my never-GM'd-before-and-is-super-intimidated-by-the-idea player can set up and run a mission
2) Check how the nitra-esque subsystem feels
3) See how the players react to the concept going in mostly blind
4) See how long it takes to set things up, and what the GM and players stumble on
5) See how far off the mark the randomization numbers are
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I really like your ideas and I don't even know what to offer you. If you can create a playable version, that would be very cool and many gamers would love it. I'm sure I'll want to test your project and I'd love to do it. Currently, I have found another project that I really like. However, I don't always have time to pump up my character as I work a lot. It's great to know that the gaming platform provides a service to get through boring levels and you can see for yourself if you check over here. Now I have more time to enjoy the game.
Good to have some free deep rock stuff out there for PF2e, WatersLethe. ;)
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Thanks for the comments! I guess it'd be a good idea to note outcomes from the first playtest (which was super short).
1. I thought it'd be good to generate as much as possible right at the start, so that gameplay could be smooth between rooms, but what that ended up doing was having us elect the GM then wait around twiddling our thumbs for 10-15 minutes, then we died in the first room so all the prep was wasted. Definitely going to change it to generate more on a room by room basis.
2. I thought having a starting room with no encounters in it would be a good staging area, but it ended up just being a little boring. Strongly considering adding an "appetizer" encounter in the starting room to get the juices flowing instead of being slightly awkward as-is.
3. I tilted the game toward having more extreme encounters in the deck at the start because the outcomes of failure are low, and it can be exciting to actually have to run from fights or have PCs drop. However, there needs to be firmer guidance on when a fight is extreme and what that means. Our team of two drew the first encounter at extreme, were told it was extreme, and decided "what the heck" and dove in. Died quickly because it was a 50:50 chance of death. If we had really thought it through we would have gone back to the first room, utilized the trap there, or got clever with the tunnel bottleneck. It would also benefit from tweaking encounter table at lower levels where our options were limited.
4. New GM was surprisingly comfortable after describing the first room and moving onto the next, but was worried about how to describe the later rooms that had more complex geometry. I think an example to reference would be helpful to calibrate their expecations.
5. The new GM was easily able to reference the stats for the enemies in the booklet I printed, despite having never used a statblock before. They ran the encounter just fine, using scratch paper to track initiative and HP.
6. The flavor, as expected, does facilitate getting into the swing of it quickly. Despite having just explored one room, and tunneling to the next, we were already getting into character which contributed to our bravado in attacking the Extreme encounter.
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Wow, an amazing amount of work and shows a fine command of both PF2 mechanics and DRG lore and tropes. I don’t really have the time this deserves to fully read through it all and can only say I think you are doing something great here.
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This is a fascinating concept. Deep Rock Galactic's design is great for replayability. I can't try this out right now, but I'm interested to see how this will turn out.