Tuesday, November 29, 2022

What next in Felltower?

Sunday was a disappointing TPK. I'd thought the PCs would have gotten out of the predicament they were in, but here we are.

What now?

I agree with my player's assessment that there isn't a lot to do in Felltower that a group of 250s can do. I don't think it's nothing, but I agree that the pickings have gotten very thin. That's especially so given some limitations, such as:

- equipment lost in the depths (although it's likely keys, etc. were left behind in someone's posession.*)

- PCs design choices (places have been limited by people's character personalities)

- contraints of previous exploration (some options have been closed off by previous actions.)

Farming orcs for weapons with Galen in tow is boring to GM, as well, so hopefully it won't come to that.

I'm not enthused by the idea of a new area, either. I might need to do it, but every new area has ended up the same way:

- it's designed for X delves turning out Y loot.

- PCs go for 2-3X delves and over time earn about 2/3Y loot. Many delves are not particularly fruitful.

- It becomes a default area to drop in on when people can't think of what else to do, essentially draining game sessions and in-game resources from Felltower itself, to the detriment of play overall.

If getting to the Lost City wasn't unreliable, and if I didn't just say no to the Caves of Chaos, we'd be back at those again, too. The Cold Fens were explored over and over in fruitless exploration in the face of little else, hoping to blunder into an encounter with loot-carrying trolls or humanoid foes with valuable swords to sell in town. I'd like to avoid that.

But I may need to do something like that again.

I asked my players to opine in before I list some ideas that I have. People are welcome to suggest some here. I'm sure it would be a spur to my player's ideas as well. The only things really off the table are allowing people to start above 250 (a flat, hard no) or play multiple 250s so they can "level up" a few people at once for backups.

Tomorrow or Thursday I'll take a crack at listing what's been lost in the depths - there is a lot of amazing loot down there waiting to be reclaimed.




* I don't know who, which is an issue. I don't really allow for a "party loot pile" in town. Someone has to own any given item. Items that fall off of everyone's equipment lists just fall out of play. But keys and other unique items do tend to migrate in mysterious ways despite this. I'm not really complaining, but insert raised eyebrows here.

28 comments:

  1. I'd like to repeat couple of my earlier suggestions. They may change the theme of your game a bit, but that may be beneficial (at least from my point of view as a reader :) )
    1. The crusade against orcs. Not PCs "farming" them for weapons, but a full-scale military expedition. Now, after the TPK, you can even suggest to your players to make new PCs as leaders of this expedition. If this expediton would be successful, then the conqered orcish fort may become new base of operations both into Felltower and into surrounding wilderlands.
    2. Dwarven mining camp in the upper (empty) levels of Felltower. It also can become new base of operations and dwarves may create new tonnels, leding deeper. Again, new PCs can be created as leaders of this camp.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. #1 is at least possible . . . but the players would need to be willing to play as military leaders and deal with military issues.
      #2 just needs way too much work - I'd need to both design a dwarven camp, explain the campaign whys and hows and what's different, and then make up new areas full of monsters and treasures for them to connect up to that weren't there already. And explain away the orcs, or merge it with #1. That's a campaign in and of itself, I think, rather than a means to get back to killing monsters in Felltower.

      Delete
  2. Fast-forward a significant amount of time, eg a decade or more, to allow for a complete restock.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Restocking seems to be a good option, if it can be made to work. I'm curious if a demon or other extra-dimensional invasion on the lower levels could work within the constrains of the story and setting. Another option could be a faction pushing up from within the depths of Felltower to take back vacated territory and maybe even attack the town.

      I'm sad to hear that multiple 250's are off the table. My initial thought was using a bigger party with the knowledge that some are going to die. Are 125's at all useful at these levels?

      Delete
    2. Have you been following Peter's campaign? He can have 10 or more players if everyone shows up. He doesn't need a bigger party. I would think the answer to "are 125s useful" is at least somewhat because players choose to hire 65 point and 125 point help sometimes, and bought (with CPs) henchmen are pegged at half the PC's points so start at 125 also. But I doubt anyone wants 3x as many hirelings as players so there is a limited amount that can be done with them. Mainly they fill in where the party is weak. Can't find a person wanting to play a healer or a wizard, then hire a dedicated 125 point healer or wizard.

      Delete
    3. The issue with fast-forwarding time is that it causes a few issues, which I'd need to handwave away . . . and it much with a "game date = real date, days pass in the game at a 1:1 with real dates." I fear all I'd get out of it was the ability to stick more monsters in, and watch the players try to re-loot the top levels down to the last coin again. Why not? It's been X years and maybe that room has more loot now! Maybe the dragon died of old age, let's check! Maybe the orcs restocked the statue puzzle treasury, let's check! It would take a while before people really felt like they should go deeper, when, after all, they can keep looting the easier pickings above. Until they get 125+ points under them I bet they wouldn't willingly go deeper than the gate level unless there wasn't anything in the upper levels left to loot.

      So that's a concern.

      And yeah, Alex nails it. Last game was a light session for players - only six people. We have 2-3 others who drop in, and a few who may or may not come back. It's not a lack of PCs that is the issue as far as I can see. I actually think the number of PCs has diluted the relative wealth and power of the delvers, making for a lot of PCs with less mundane and magic gear than they'd have had 1/2 to 2/3 of the number delved all along.

      Delete
  3. A rival party of roughly the same level might come a cropper within Felltower. If the party have their eyes on a specific piece of equipment the rival party has that might be of interest or perhaps a rescue mission. Also a rival party might report on a sighting of some of the lost loot.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'm not following. Do you mean an NPC group gets mauled, and the survivors either tell the PCs where their friends died and left stuff to loot, or ask them to help find the bodies?

      If so, yeah, interesting idea. I think possible, but it's probably easier to just have a monster with a lot of loot move in than explain some others died in an easy to access area. The hard to access areas are pretty stocked - there is a rich beholder out there for sure, right?

      Delete
    2. Yep. Rereading what I wrote, I wasn't too clear. Rival party gets mauled is the hook for a new monster moving into an easy to access area.

      As regards the Beholder, if I was a player I'd steer well clear. It's really run up a forbidding PC bodycount.

      Delete
  4. My first thought was to allow for enough of a time skip that some of the things that seemed "about to happen" so far end up happening.

    The orcs were entrenching themselves with a goal in mind, so they might have some adventurer-free time to begin acting towards that goal and affect the world outside the dungeon.

    Or maybe the cultists advance whatever sinister plans they might have had, since their home base spends a while without getting regularly robbed.

    A huge time skip, like the 10 years suggested above, would let that and more happen, and yeah, would allow for a complete restocking of Felltower. Maybe Stericksburg is now Orctown or Githville, and the dynamics of dealing with the authorities change accordingly.

    A smaller time skip might allow you to focus on one of those factions as a bigger current threat, and for a partial restocking of the upper levels.

    If the "too many delves into empty places" thing is a problem, it might perhaps be useful to have a way for you to tell the players a place is cleared of loot and it's no longer fun for you to keep going there. Maybe you just tell them ("your extensive experience as a delver tells you this level is pretty much picked clean"), or maybe there's a variant of Intuition that lets them know that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. As I mentioned elsewhere, a time skip chips at a basic conceit of the game. Plus, you know, there are as many living PCs out there as there were PCs last. Maybe more - Galen, Hayden, Quenton, Kayla, Sir Bunny, Ahenobarbus, Dryst, Desmond, Durin, and a few others I'm forgetting. So that's a lot of people to just handwave sitting around for 1d10 years.

      But I might need to take an active hand in saying, "this area is done." I hate to, because it might not be 100% looted, or have some little thing they'd missed that is important later. But it might be necessary. I'm not sure, yet, even after all of my moaning about repeated looting.

      Delete
    2. I do not think you need any time skip. It was almost two months since anyone returned from Felltower. Isn't that enough time for almost anything to happen inside the dungeon? And the last interaction with the orcs was about eleven months back, if my research is correct.

      Also, I think that adding dwarven miners to the area surely says "this area is done". If there was some missed loot, then dwarves found it already. They may even sell some of it to PCs or give to them for some quests, if it is important. Of cource, not all areas are safe for dwarven miners (or have safe access to them), but at least some have (and dwarves are probably strong enough to drove avay weaker monsters like stirges, rats and other nuisance).

      Delete
  5. I've always worried about such things as when the players completely drain all the accessible areas that could be defeated by novice adventurers but then TPK in a deeper area against tougher opponents. There is nothing left for new characters to do to get up to a level that can risk going where the veterans were killed. I think the solution I prefer (if creating a new area is off the table) is advancing a decade. Others suggested the same.

    Moving forward a significant time would allow you to make large changes to the contents: monsters, traps, treasure. You could even fill in and excavate new areas to disrupt the maps. Naturally you should ask that the players turn in or never reference past records, but it sounds like that doesn't work in your game, so a few changes like walling up passages, installing doors where there were not, and breaking down connecting walls might dissuade them enough when their maps are just wrong enough to get them lost or trapped.

    It does require significant effort on your part, but much less than abandoning your dungeon and starting a new one. It gives the novice explorers both new things to deal with and a reset on exploration-based-XP (though you could penalize this if they are referencing their old maps and notes that should have been lost with the dead PCs). It does have the down side of penalizing the characters that didn't come along since they are now out of time and can't use their knowledge, but it wouldn't be fun for a 500 point hero to slum with 250 point novices anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Here's a novel idea I'd consider for my own use if I was so deeply committed to a single site I spent years developing. If you are won't let the players start with stronger characters, make the monsters weaker!

    A mysterious plague strikes Felltower but is completely limited to the dungeon and does not spread to Sterricksburg. The effect of this plague is that monsters in the dungeon are significantly weakened (out of game this can be with the addition of disads or the reduction of stats to the order of 100-200 points or what you think will be the equivalent if they were given point values, which apparently they aren't). This has a large number of plusses!
    + novice characters can face all new interesting kinds of monsters without being outright slaughtered (scale back so the monsters are still dangerous, not pushovers)
    + novice characters can explore deeper into the dungeon and get exploration XP, find new treasure, etc
    + this only affect monsters so traps will remain deadly!
    + the players now have an interesting new quest to learn about the cause and limitations of the plague, and maybe how to keep it going or even help it further weaken certain monsters
    + the plague can be removed gradually or just as fast as its onset when the new characters are starting to get powerful enough to face un-crippled foes of that caliber
    + it takes 0 additional effort to restock or alter the dungeon, doesn't require massive time jumps that exclude characters left behind
    + you can continue to use unweakened monsters as the word spreads quickly that Felltower's defenders are weakened, monsters from all over will beeline to the dungeon to restock the upper levels in hopes of taking some territory and treasure from the tougher monsters, and these newcomers aren't subject to the plague
    * depending on the disads available to you or how much you have to manipulate stats, the re-stating of tough monsters could be quick and easy or a lot of work...only an expert GURPS GM could judge what is necessary and how much work it is

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Note "plague" and "curse" are interchangeable terms here. Decide what it is but don't necessarily tell the players. It's fun to have a mystery to solve.

      Delete
    2. That's pretty interesting, but honestly, puts a lot of work on me. I'd need to systematically change a lot of stats to make that happen. It's probably easier in a less-stat-diverse game system (in AD&D, I could just halve HP or reduce HD by some fraction, say) but seems like a lot of overhead in GURPS. Using a plague or curse can have some interesting effects, though, and I may hold onto that idea . . .

      Delete
    3. Forgive my naivete but aren't you running via Virtual now and the VTT understands GURPS? Can't you just create an effect called "THE CURSE" which applies -5 ST, -5 DX, -5 HT (or Easy to kill 5 plus Low pain threshold and Tunnel vision) and add that effect to creatures as you drop them into the map? Your VTT should recalculate derived stats and everything you need in combat. As long as the system works as advertised instead of having to roll dice and manually compare to the stats to see if the roll succeeds it should be much easier than in person with no computer assistance.

      Delete
    4. I am, but creating an effect, making sure it's an effect that doesn't have wonky effects on creatures or the game module, and doesn't cause compatibility options is beyond me right now. And I'm not sure what level of a curse I'd think was appropriate.

      That and it smacks of putting the difficulty level down on my games, which I never do. I take a warped but real pride in Felltower being "DF on Hard Mode."

      Delete
    5. I get that you are proud of your play style but this seems like one of those times where you have to make a tough decision between cheat to boost the PCs, cheat to hamper the monsters, or let your game die because new PCs have no chance at deeper dungeon levels and there is nothing to explore and recover at higher dungeon levels. I look forward to hearing what you do and sincerely hope it isn't give up on the mega-dungeon style rather than compromise for a bit.

      Delete
    6. I think we can come up with another option that isn't any of those, though. We're not abandoning Felltower, but we might have to section off the PCs for a little bit to get them up to speed. I have an idea but I want to see what my players think first.

      Delete
  7. Maybe the new characters could benefit from an initial advantage that would let them explore the deeper levels, in a continuity effort. Like a reserve of one-use magic items, potions & scrolls & such, something that would inevitably deplete over time but that would offset their underpowered start. A reserve that would be provided by a sponsor. A difficult sponsor...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I'd rather not get them too tied up with a sponsor, as it becomes a different sort of game once that is how quests and goods are received. Not a bad sort of game, but sufficiently different that I'd want to run the whole game around that and not combine it with Felltower.

      Delete
  8. A change might do you good. Give the PCs an actual quest deep into Felltower. Loan them an artifact that lets them over achieve for . That should leave a (mostly) cleared path usable for future, weaker PCs to reach untapped areas. Render DF1: "A party won’t live long without one thief, and may consist entirely of thieves" less of a joke as the PCs tip-toe through the dangerous new areas. Eventually they grow in power and murder everything, take their stuff, clear the level, and we're back here again in a few years.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Eventually they grow in power and murder everything, take their stuff, clear the level, and we're back here again in a few years."

      Hahah!

      Delete
  9. Maybe some of the techniques above could be used for a "newbie-friendly" area that's sectioned-off from the main Felltower dungeon in such a way to prevent the veterans from robbing the place themselves, and the PCs in general from returning there uselessly once it has been cleared.

    If could be a "flashback" zone where the events played out actually happened a nebulous amount of time ago, or it could be a far-off place connected to Felltower through a one-way portal. It would be the "starting place" for the crop of PCs that replaces the ones who died, and it would be easier than the deep levels of Felltower. Once the PCs decide they've sufficiently cleaned the place out and/or that they're strong enough to join the main event, they can leave the place but can't return to it.

    The portal doesn't require time manipulation and will provide the PCs with an interesting challenge when they first cross it - getting from wherever the heck they are inside Felltower up to the surface.

    The flashback can still work if the amount of "time ago" is nebulous and the physical area is a good distance away from Sterricksburg. Greedy veterans who want to go there to loot the "present version" of the place will find dwarven miners beat them to it :).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A one-way gate was one of Wyatt's player's suggestions. It's on the short list, because there are a number of gate locations that would be possible. It's the "place to rest and for delvers to join and leave" that's tricky, but I have some vague ideas on how to deal with that.

      Delete
  10. You could easily have had a shantytown full off all kinds of dregs set up on the way to the tower, along with say, a carnival of madness....
    or someone coukd demolish the bridge/ cause an avalanche so that the players need to tske "the long way" to Felltower, with whatever Hazardous encouters you can build, say maybe an area inhabited by megafauna...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There actually is a shantytown on the way to the tower. It's rumored there is an entrance to Felltower there to a deeper level, but no PC has ever had the skills to find out.

      The long way is tough . . . it's just more walking around the mountain. I didn't really design it in a way that supports that. But I have a somewhat related idea.

      Delete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...