This started as a response to Erik Tenkar's post on the subject, but it got big.
In my elementary school D&D/AD&D days, dead was dead. No one had a character high enough level for Raise Dead so that was that - there was no such thing as NPCs except the ones in the adventures. Heh. Okay, there were, but no one allowed this.
In my junior high school and then high school AD&D days, it was possible but rare. We finally read the right section of the DMG, I guess. I can't tell you now why it was rare - probably cost and availability - but it did happen. I don't remember anyone losing a mid to high level character permanently. I'm not even sure if anyone died temporarily.
In my Rolemaster games and early GURPS games, you were out of luck. No one came back from anything. The spells just weren't available. The last 1st edition GURPS game I ran back in the day featured PCs getting resurrected, but man, it cost them long-term servitude to a powerful wizard.
In my previous GURPS game, Resurrection and Elixirs of Life were expensive and rare. Couple that with GURPS's aging rules meaning it wasn't a useful long-term cure for infirmity, just violence, and that took care of the larger world. The King gets resurrected from assassination and such but he's doomed in the long run anyway barring longevity magic, and that's a different issue. "Won't Die of Old Age" is nice, but it's not the most useful advantage for an adventurer with treasure to get or bad guys to deal with right now. Even with it available, it wasn't without issues (the cascading penalties per day for being dead for one, cost for another.) A few characters died and came back - off hand I think of three who each died once (one may have died twice, I'll ask his player when I get a chance.) Only one came back without permanent harm, and she had some temporary harm for a while (migraines from the head injury that killed her.) No one saw it as a non-issue; dying was huge and costly and possibly forever even with access to lots of money and world-class magic. Even then, the purveyors of such spells knew they had you over a barrel and bargains almost unfairly.
In my DF game, you can just go and pay $15K to be Resurrected at the local church. We even have a posted price list! As Mike aka Galen Longtread says, it's a paper Roguelike. If you want to spend in-game resources to keep playing your guy once he blows a Death Check, it's fine. GURPS has pretty strict rules on how much damage you can suffer and still come back, too - no bone fragments turning into a fully-healed character here. You die automatically at -5xHP and above -10xHP you're not coming back. Even our toughest PC in this over-the-top game has only 25 HP, which means 275 damage (high but not crazy given fire, lava, acid, hungry trolls, etc.) and you have to make a new PC no matter what. Even so, my players keep talking about a party Resurrection fund and wondering if you can pre-pay for one. It's that kind of game.
(One tiny addendum - in my GURPS games, it's a spell and a roll - and it's a one-shot roll-in-front-of-everyone one-try spell. An elixir is more sure - no roll - but more expensive and takes too long to prepare so you need to have one ready to go. No one has had that usually 15 or 16 or less on 3d fail, but it's possible, and I don't allow you to use Luck . . . )
So that's death and resurrection in my games. How about yours? Share here or at Tenkar's Tavern (or both!)
Monday, February 3, 2014
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Even More Roll20
Doug and I messed around on Roll20 this morning, trying things out.
Move To Front - I've gotten a lot better with swapping around characters in the inevitable dogpile. But still, it's hard to see who is there.
Standing, Kneeling, Prone - I need to make some statuses that show the posture of standing folks, and have a way to quickly swap a one-hex standing icon for a two-hex prone icon (which we could mark face up or face down.)
Hex Facing - It's hard to see where folks are facing. One idea Doug said he stole from someone else was color-coded facing. Green for front hexsides, yellow for side (-2 defenses), and red for back (no defenses.)
Copying Monsters - Is there an easy way to copy monsters and then change the token? I can't seem to. I dropped down two identical monsters (same stats) but I wanted to then give them different tokens. How, I don't know yet. Seems like the "easy" way is to put down a new token, and then cut-and-paste details, then add in the various statuses, auras, HP, etc. Which isn't really faster to me.
Turn Order - I'd love it if I could click on someone in the turn order, and then, if it's a piece I control, that I select the figure. I'd also like to right-click on a piece I control in the turn order, than I get the right-click character details. In a messy fight, it would be nice to have a combined turn order and pick list.
I'd throw Roll20 some money if it was more natively GURPS supportive, but I can't justify spending money to then spend time making it more GURPS supportive. My gaming budget - in money and time - simply isn't that big. Heh.
And not really Roll20 related, but worth saying:
Stupid Ideas Are Worth Investigating - Doug and I are trying a rules variation out that we sort of like and are trying to turn into publishable material. One thing that happened with it, though, was an odd breakpoint issue. I put out what seemed like a bad idea - rescaling everything to make that breakpoint go away. Basically, what if we did this whole thing differently? Turns out that it might not be a bad way to go, and in fact smooth out other issues with this idea we're having.
Which just goes to show that, there are no truly stupid questions if they're on-topic. It's worth investigating even what seems at first blush to be a bad way to go in a game. Try it, look into it, and if it's truly bad, it will turn out badly. But it might emerge as a better choice, or at least reinforce the knowledge that the way you took was really a better choice.
Live Playtest Beats All - Doug and I would never, never, never have caught so many errors, odd behaviors, issues, places for improvement, and places to add cool stuff without trying this all out "face to face" in actual play. A couple hours on Skype or Google Hangouts with an open combat map in front of us vastly improved our "product" in less time than a hundred emails would have taken.
Move To Front - I've gotten a lot better with swapping around characters in the inevitable dogpile. But still, it's hard to see who is there.
Standing, Kneeling, Prone - I need to make some statuses that show the posture of standing folks, and have a way to quickly swap a one-hex standing icon for a two-hex prone icon (which we could mark face up or face down.)
Hex Facing - It's hard to see where folks are facing. One idea Doug said he stole from someone else was color-coded facing. Green for front hexsides, yellow for side (-2 defenses), and red for back (no defenses.)
Copying Monsters - Is there an easy way to copy monsters and then change the token? I can't seem to. I dropped down two identical monsters (same stats) but I wanted to then give them different tokens. How, I don't know yet. Seems like the "easy" way is to put down a new token, and then cut-and-paste details, then add in the various statuses, auras, HP, etc. Which isn't really faster to me.
Turn Order - I'd love it if I could click on someone in the turn order, and then, if it's a piece I control, that I select the figure. I'd also like to right-click on a piece I control in the turn order, than I get the right-click character details. In a messy fight, it would be nice to have a combined turn order and pick list.
I'd throw Roll20 some money if it was more natively GURPS supportive, but I can't justify spending money to then spend time making it more GURPS supportive. My gaming budget - in money and time - simply isn't that big. Heh.
And not really Roll20 related, but worth saying:
Stupid Ideas Are Worth Investigating - Doug and I are trying a rules variation out that we sort of like and are trying to turn into publishable material. One thing that happened with it, though, was an odd breakpoint issue. I put out what seemed like a bad idea - rescaling everything to make that breakpoint go away. Basically, what if we did this whole thing differently? Turns out that it might not be a bad way to go, and in fact smooth out other issues with this idea we're having.
Which just goes to show that, there are no truly stupid questions if they're on-topic. It's worth investigating even what seems at first blush to be a bad way to go in a game. Try it, look into it, and if it's truly bad, it will turn out badly. But it might emerge as a better choice, or at least reinforce the knowledge that the way you took was really a better choice.
Live Playtest Beats All - Doug and I would never, never, never have caught so many errors, odd behaviors, issues, places for improvement, and places to add cool stuff without trying this all out "face to face" in actual play. A couple hours on Skype or Google Hangouts with an open combat map in front of us vastly improved our "product" in less time than a hundred emails would have taken.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
Improving Power Items in DF
I've told my players I'm going to allow them to stick piecemeal additions onto an item to make it a better power item. Here are the simple rules I came up with for cost.
Improving Power Items - You can pay to improve a Power Item by having it gilded, gems mounted, improvements put on it, etc. The cost is 150% of the improvement in the value of the final item. If you have materials on hand (say, you have a $1000 gem), the cost is 50% of the added value. For example, you have a $1000 gem in hand and want to mount it on your Power Item staff. You pay $500 and the gem is mounted, improving the value of the item by $1000. If you lacked the gem, you could simply pay $1500 and have the item improved by $1000 in value.
Simple although really expensive. It makes adding on possible, but finding stuff to add on in more attractive, and finding a bigger item as-is is the best.
How has this worked in actual play?
It hasn't, yet, as it has only been on the books since December and we haven't played much in the interim. Needless to say, I don't think the wizard players in my group like this. It's kind of unreasonable that it's a sliding scale - that the value of the improvement determines the cost of making it (it's much more expensive to mount an emerald than an agate, or gold than silver.)
But on the other hand, money is directly turning into power.
Further, this is basically allowing piecemeal improvements. Add another piece of bling to your staff or amulet or whatever, and it's more powerful. You don't need to save up to go from Ornate +2 to Ornate +3, or worry about getting rid of this $12,000 power item and getting a $12,001 one to hit the breakpoint and get more power. You can simply add a tiny bit more to it.
I figured there were three ways I could rule:
No Improvement - sorry, you need to entirely replace the item.
Improvement, with a high cost - you can improve it, but with a steep markup. This is the above.
Improvement, with a low cost - you can improve it, with a nominal cost.
With one option to modify it:
Improvement By Level Only - you have to do it in a big jump, either by adding a prefix (Ornate, Fine, Balanced, etc.) or by making a full jump from a specific Power Item level to another.
I feel like the 50% approach is the middle road - it's still generally better to find a new item and keep it instead of improving your current one. But you can mill your coins into power. It's still pretty unrealistic - modifying jewelry can be a fraction of the cost of the item or more than the item is worth; modifying something so it's more valuable and not just a bling-studded piece of gaudy crap (which could reduce its value by making it less artistically valuable) isn't trivial. But it's DF and I'd like simple but costly.
Originally, I was thinking 100% of the cost if you lacked the item ($2000 to add $1000 to the value of the item) and 50% if you had it ($1500 to add a $1000 gem, say, to the item). But I realized that encourage the odd behavior of buying gems with your cash and and then bringing them to get mounted. So I went with the cheaper cost. You can still walk into the dungeon and score a sweet $15,000 pile of loot and turn it into $10,000 worth of improvements on your power item. Or just buy a $15,000 power item, if that's better.
So that's how I'm giving this a try. We'll see if people bite, or declare it's too much and just replace items entirely. If so, that's really okay with me - this is just giving wizards an option to turn money into power without sacrificing the sunk cost of the item they already invested in. I have some ideas on improving existing weapons, too, but I'll save them for when I have time to fully write them out.
Improving Power Items - You can pay to improve a Power Item by having it gilded, gems mounted, improvements put on it, etc. The cost is 150% of the improvement in the value of the final item. If you have materials on hand (say, you have a $1000 gem), the cost is 50% of the added value. For example, you have a $1000 gem in hand and want to mount it on your Power Item staff. You pay $500 and the gem is mounted, improving the value of the item by $1000. If you lacked the gem, you could simply pay $1500 and have the item improved by $1000 in value.
Simple although really expensive. It makes adding on possible, but finding stuff to add on in more attractive, and finding a bigger item as-is is the best.
How has this worked in actual play?
It hasn't, yet, as it has only been on the books since December and we haven't played much in the interim. Needless to say, I don't think the wizard players in my group like this. It's kind of unreasonable that it's a sliding scale - that the value of the improvement determines the cost of making it (it's much more expensive to mount an emerald than an agate, or gold than silver.)
But on the other hand, money is directly turning into power.
Further, this is basically allowing piecemeal improvements. Add another piece of bling to your staff or amulet or whatever, and it's more powerful. You don't need to save up to go from Ornate +2 to Ornate +3, or worry about getting rid of this $12,000 power item and getting a $12,001 one to hit the breakpoint and get more power. You can simply add a tiny bit more to it.
I figured there were three ways I could rule:
No Improvement - sorry, you need to entirely replace the item.
Improvement, with a high cost - you can improve it, but with a steep markup. This is the above.
Improvement, with a low cost - you can improve it, with a nominal cost.
With one option to modify it:
Improvement By Level Only - you have to do it in a big jump, either by adding a prefix (Ornate, Fine, Balanced, etc.) or by making a full jump from a specific Power Item level to another.
I feel like the 50% approach is the middle road - it's still generally better to find a new item and keep it instead of improving your current one. But you can mill your coins into power. It's still pretty unrealistic - modifying jewelry can be a fraction of the cost of the item or more than the item is worth; modifying something so it's more valuable and not just a bling-studded piece of gaudy crap (which could reduce its value by making it less artistically valuable) isn't trivial. But it's DF and I'd like simple but costly.
Originally, I was thinking 100% of the cost if you lacked the item ($2000 to add $1000 to the value of the item) and 50% if you had it ($1500 to add a $1000 gem, say, to the item). But I realized that encourage the odd behavior of buying gems with your cash and and then bringing them to get mounted. So I went with the cheaper cost. You can still walk into the dungeon and score a sweet $15,000 pile of loot and turn it into $10,000 worth of improvements on your power item. Or just buy a $15,000 power item, if that's better.
So that's how I'm giving this a try. We'll see if people bite, or declare it's too much and just replace items entirely. If so, that's really okay with me - this is just giving wizards an option to turn money into power without sacrificing the sunk cost of the item they already invested in. I have some ideas on improving existing weapons, too, but I'll save them for when I have time to fully write them out.
Friday, January 31, 2014
Megadungeon Reflections: GURPS rules & Play Issues
The other day I reflected on what I'd change in my megadungeon, or consider changing, if I re-did it with what I know now after running 30 sessions in it.
Here are things I'd do differently from a rules/play perspective. Some of these I've discussed before, but this is the latest-and-greatest and tries to pull them together. I didn't list things that I changed along the way, because you can always assume that I'd have changed it earlier (such as how some spells work, say, or the duration on Shape Stone) if I could. These are things I don't think I can just go back and change without some grave damage to the game as currently going.
Definitely Change
Uniform Enchantment Costs
I'd set all enchantments to a uniform cost. No more smoothed casting costs for Quick & Dirty enchantments at $1/point, Slow & Sure at $20. I'd just set all of it to $20/point. Even a lowly Fortify +1 spell would cost $1000 on a full suit of armor.
This would make the better non-magical armor and weapon enhancements a much better deal.
Gameworld Coupled Enchantment Maxima
I'd couple armor and weapon enchantments to the value of the underlying weapon in some way. Probably the "one enchantment or enchantment level per prefix" approach.
More Loot From Day One
I'd have put in more money from day one, since for a while delving was like a minimum wage job - you could get by on it, if someone else paid your bills for you. Not good for delving. I fixed this later, but it really was a mistake I should have fixed way earlier than I did.
Heavier Money
I like my 250 coins to the pound game, but man, it would have been fun to have 50 coins to the pound for the same value, so big hauls of treasure were a serious weight consideration.
Technical Grappling
I'd have incorporated at least parts of TG from the start, so we could have learned its ins and outs by grappling with monsters.
Now, admittedly, it came out well after my game launched, but I did have my playtester copy and access to Doug, who'd certainly have been happy to have an ongoing playtest the whole time he was finishing the book up. Still, some of the way this was meant to be a game we played for a while until we got bored meant we tossed a lot of stuff to the curb. It's only now it's clear how useful this would be as a basis of grappling in a game where the monsters are ridiculously strong and the heroes very powerful.
Maybe
Revised Talent Costs
I would use the talent costs from Power-Ups 3 instead of the costs from Basic Set. For the Barbarian and Scout, especially, this saves some real points.
Wildcard Skills
I'd give these a harder look, although I might make them a bit narrower. Not "Knight" or "Barbarian" but "Melee Weapons" and "Missile Weapons" or things like that. Ones that made broadly skilled (but not crazily broadly skilled) guys a little easier to do and hold their ground a bit better against specialists. And if not Wildcard skills, I'd look at Talents to cover these.
More Characters Per Player
It would have been really interesting to have required people to make up both a 250-point and a 125-point character, and either play one or the other each session. Build in a backup, so to speak. DF15 wasn't quite ready to go during the planning stages of the game, though, but it would have been nice to start the idea of a pool of characters off as a standard, with differently ranked guys so we could mix in power levels. I'm not sure how this would have worked, but at least half of my group has played in my old pirate game where we had multiple PCs per player and different point levels for each of them. I'd also let them make up some hirelings themselves and throw them in as findable NPCs (and I may still do that.) It would have been fun to try!
I'd also consider Vryce's player's argument that Sacrificial Parry is way too good regardless of cost, and either ban it outright or more strongly limit it - perhaps say it counts as more than one parry for multiple parry purposes.
To be honest, there are a couple more things I'd do but that I'm in the process of addressing (and hope to get into Pyramid Magazine) so I can't write them out here. But they have to do a bit with combat and loot, if that helps any.
Here are things I'd do differently from a rules/play perspective. Some of these I've discussed before, but this is the latest-and-greatest and tries to pull them together. I didn't list things that I changed along the way, because you can always assume that I'd have changed it earlier (such as how some spells work, say, or the duration on Shape Stone) if I could. These are things I don't think I can just go back and change without some grave damage to the game as currently going.
Definitely Change
Uniform Enchantment Costs
I'd set all enchantments to a uniform cost. No more smoothed casting costs for Quick & Dirty enchantments at $1/point, Slow & Sure at $20. I'd just set all of it to $20/point. Even a lowly Fortify +1 spell would cost $1000 on a full suit of armor.
This would make the better non-magical armor and weapon enhancements a much better deal.
Gameworld Coupled Enchantment Maxima
I'd couple armor and weapon enchantments to the value of the underlying weapon in some way. Probably the "one enchantment or enchantment level per prefix" approach.
More Loot From Day One
I'd have put in more money from day one, since for a while delving was like a minimum wage job - you could get by on it, if someone else paid your bills for you. Not good for delving. I fixed this later, but it really was a mistake I should have fixed way earlier than I did.
Heavier Money
I like my 250 coins to the pound game, but man, it would have been fun to have 50 coins to the pound for the same value, so big hauls of treasure were a serious weight consideration.
Technical Grappling
I'd have incorporated at least parts of TG from the start, so we could have learned its ins and outs by grappling with monsters.
Now, admittedly, it came out well after my game launched, but I did have my playtester copy and access to Doug, who'd certainly have been happy to have an ongoing playtest the whole time he was finishing the book up. Still, some of the way this was meant to be a game we played for a while until we got bored meant we tossed a lot of stuff to the curb. It's only now it's clear how useful this would be as a basis of grappling in a game where the monsters are ridiculously strong and the heroes very powerful.
Maybe
Revised Talent Costs
I would use the talent costs from Power-Ups 3 instead of the costs from Basic Set. For the Barbarian and Scout, especially, this saves some real points.
Wildcard Skills
I'd give these a harder look, although I might make them a bit narrower. Not "Knight" or "Barbarian" but "Melee Weapons" and "Missile Weapons" or things like that. Ones that made broadly skilled (but not crazily broadly skilled) guys a little easier to do and hold their ground a bit better against specialists. And if not Wildcard skills, I'd look at Talents to cover these.
More Characters Per Player
It would have been really interesting to have required people to make up both a 250-point and a 125-point character, and either play one or the other each session. Build in a backup, so to speak. DF15 wasn't quite ready to go during the planning stages of the game, though, but it would have been nice to start the idea of a pool of characters off as a standard, with differently ranked guys so we could mix in power levels. I'm not sure how this would have worked, but at least half of my group has played in my old pirate game where we had multiple PCs per player and different point levels for each of them. I'd also let them make up some hirelings themselves and throw them in as findable NPCs (and I may still do that.) It would have been fun to try!
I'd also consider Vryce's player's argument that Sacrificial Parry is way too good regardless of cost, and either ban it outright or more strongly limit it - perhaps say it counts as more than one parry for multiple parry purposes.
To be honest, there are a couple more things I'd do but that I'm in the process of addressing (and hope to get into Pyramid Magazine) so I can't write them out here. But they have to do a bit with combat and loot, if that helps any.
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Striking ST (Surprise Attacks Only) ruling
This one is for reference by my players, since at least one has access to Striking ST (Surprise Attacks Only).
Short version - it only works when the target is both surprised and unable to defend. If either is not true, sorry, it has no effect. That's why it has a (steep) discount of -60%.
The whole thread is here (and dates back originally to 2009!)
The (most relevant) post is this one by Kromm.
Short version - it only works when the target is both surprised and unable to defend. If either is not true, sorry, it has no effect. That's why it has a (steep) discount of -60%.
The whole thread is here (and dates back originally to 2009!)
The (most relevant) post is this one by Kromm.
Q&D DF Shields and Bucklers
(Admin Note: Tomorrow I'll follow up on yesterday's post.)
GURPS has a lot of optional detail. One detail that's not especially optional is shields vs. bucklers. But for my own games, I don't split Shield into Shield (Shield) and Shield (Buckler). I find that too fiddly and nitpicky.
Instead, here is how I split it up for my DF game. Some of this is the actual RAW (rules as written) but some of it is a bit of a simplification.
Shield - a shield has straps, and is used by strapping it to the arm.
Ready Time - A shield takes 1 second to ready per (base, non-magically modified) DB.
Dropping the shield - Dropping a shield takes 1 second per (base) DB of the shield. This can be done with one arm, because I'm generous. In the meantime you get the DB but cannot Block as it is no longer ready. If you change your mind you can use one Ready action to get it fully back into action.
Critical Failures - On a critically failed Block, the shield becomes Unready. It cannot be used to Block, but the DB still applies normally. It can be re-readied in one second with a Ready action.
Buckler - a shield is held by a handle.
Ready Time - A buckler takes 1 second to ready, regardless of size.
Dropping A Buckler - Dropping a buckler is a free action.
Critical Failures - On a critically failed Block, a buckler is dropped. It is on the ground, and takes the normal amount of time to re-ready like any other weapon on the ground. Optionally, roll to see if it is face up or face down. Face down bucklers can be readied in 1 second with Quick Ready, or 2 seconds with a normal Ready. Face up bucklers take 3 seconds to ready, including 1 second to flip it over.
How does this work in play? - Very well. I don't, by the way, use the face up/face down rules. But otherwise, it's as written here. It works very well, and it's very fast. All you need is one skill (Shield, no specialties) and to know what the shield is and how it is held. Done and done. People choose shields, generally, because the extra time to get one ready is generally out of combat. But bucklers are faster in return for a risk of dropping it.
GURPS has a lot of optional detail. One detail that's not especially optional is shields vs. bucklers. But for my own games, I don't split Shield into Shield (Shield) and Shield (Buckler). I find that too fiddly and nitpicky.
Instead, here is how I split it up for my DF game. Some of this is the actual RAW (rules as written) but some of it is a bit of a simplification.
Shield - a shield has straps, and is used by strapping it to the arm.
Ready Time - A shield takes 1 second to ready per (base, non-magically modified) DB.
Dropping the shield - Dropping a shield takes 1 second per (base) DB of the shield. This can be done with one arm, because I'm generous. In the meantime you get the DB but cannot Block as it is no longer ready. If you change your mind you can use one Ready action to get it fully back into action.
Critical Failures - On a critically failed Block, the shield becomes Unready. It cannot be used to Block, but the DB still applies normally. It can be re-readied in one second with a Ready action.
Buckler - a shield is held by a handle.
Ready Time - A buckler takes 1 second to ready, regardless of size.
Dropping A Buckler - Dropping a buckler is a free action.
Critical Failures - On a critically failed Block, a buckler is dropped. It is on the ground, and takes the normal amount of time to re-ready like any other weapon on the ground. Optionally, roll to see if it is face up or face down. Face down bucklers can be readied in 1 second with Quick Ready, or 2 seconds with a normal Ready. Face up bucklers take 3 seconds to ready, including 1 second to flip it over.
How does this work in play? - Very well. I don't, by the way, use the face up/face down rules. But otherwise, it's as written here. It works very well, and it's very fast. All you need is one skill (Shield, no specialties) and to know what the shield is and how it is held. Done and done. People choose shields, generally, because the extra time to get one ready is generally out of combat. But bucklers are faster in return for a risk of dropping it.
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
Megadungeon Reflection: What I'd do differently in my megadungeon
A discussion by email with Douglas Pearson led me to this. I mentioned that I'd apply some of what I learned by doing my megadungeon differently, if I could do it again. So what would I do?
If I could do it again . . . let's break this up into "definitely do differently" and "might do differently."
Definitely Do Differently
More Notes On The Maps
I've done this subsequently, but not initially. My maps were direct copies of the style I used when I was mapping dungeons back in elementary school. As such, they depended heavily on map keys. It's better to make the maps visually communicative than visually impressive. It's a tool, not a piece of art, even if some people's maps are art as well (cough, cough, Matt Jackson, Dyson Logos).
Easier to Explain Rooms
Honestly, the crazy room shapes and double-L rooms and 40x50 rooms with a 10x10 block covered up and an attached triangle-shaped room were fun to draw. But they take freaking forever to explain to people. My vocabulary has not been up to the task. Next time, none of that crap. A bunch of easy to explain room shapes 90% of the time would be better. Sure, have some weird ones. But make them exceptional and interesting (even if just visually). But the easier they are to explain to mapping players, the better. The fun is exploration and fighting stuff and taking their treasures, not trying to explain how that room is shaped because you used a 25 degree angle wall to slightly open out to the left before it jughandles around into an L-shaped connecting corridor. Gah.
Mark How Doors Open
I remember how they open, which direction, etc. from repeated play and notes. But damn, I wish I'd just used proper marks for doors. I've marked the newer maps this way.
More Stairs/Chutes/Elevators/Etc.
I think both I and my players would be happier if I had more ways to easily change levels in my megadungeon. I mentioned this before. I have some places with very easy multi-level access. But allowing easier transit would make for, in my opinion, a dungeon experience that provides more choices and yet easier choices for the PCs. They'd be confronted with "go back, stay here, or go further?" much more often. It would also make it much more difficult to fully clear your six, making for more risk at the some time as giving more potential reward (and making it possible to vary your path on the way back to avoid ambushes, too.)
More level changes possible right away, that's what I would do differently.
Not A Mountain
A mountain seemed like a good idea. It isn't, because all too often I've had to think "Well, wouldn't this level extend off the side of the mountain?" Yes, and I've had to re-orient too often. A low hill with extensive tunnels under it would have been fine, because I wouldn't have to consider height and all of that stuff.
Easier Access Into The Dungeon.
I love my megadungeon. I especially like, conceptually, the idea of the fortified entrance. I haven't seen one that quite did what I made. But I was tempted when I wrote it to make a big central room with lots of staircases and choices. Hallways in all sorts of directions, a big damn staircase down connecting a few levels together immediately, and plenty of choices. I didn't for a few reasons.
One is that I wrote my megadungeon for immediate play. I was still writing when the players arrived, and still writing as they explored it (and I'm still writing now). So "you have free access to all of 4 levels" means "I have to have 4 levels completely stocked up, along with all places you can get from them, right now." That wasn't possible. So I had to make at least the upper levels restrictive.
I also had a story - the dungeon was built as an underground fortress, which was connected (either deliberately or not . . . ) with deeper levels. It was stormed and looted. Later folks built a castle on top, and that was sacked as well. So the entrance would naturally be fortified, and choices limited to restrict where successful attackers could get for at least a short distance past the fortifications. So I came up with this:
Pit, pillboxes accessible only from the second level, anti-magical surfaces, multiple choices all fortified heavily, smoothed-over metal doors, and no cover once you start coming down the stairs. It's cool and fairly unusual in a megadungeon entrance.
But it does restrict options. It means you need more access points into the dungeon, that make sense to be open despite being part of a fortification, and the players are much more limited in where they can go.
Easier access would make it easier to explain all sorts of folks in the dungeon, too.
Having a multiple choices (which of the staircases down into the dungeon do you take?) right from the get-go would been nice.
I don't regret my choice, and the reality of needing to limit movement to limit the amount of prep I needed before we could play made this approach make sense. Plus it makes for some unique issues (the way the players have interacted with the orcs in order to ensure easier access to the dungeon but also conceal their activities has been fun.)
Might Do Differently
Even Bigger
It would be tempting to do the megadungeon as a super-dungeon, much like Beedo's Black City. That would make it easier to put very disparate groups down in the dungeon, because they could be very seriously separate.
Wizard Did It
My life would be much easier if I had a Zagyg or Hallaster or W*E*R*D*N*A who'd set the whole damn dungeon up as a test. That lets you explain anything, from crazy puzzles to ridiculous traps. I may do this in miniature but it's too late to do the whole dungeon that way. I could spare myself a lot of headache with a Megawizard in my Megadungeon.
A Bit Of A Trek
Putting the castle a half-day's walk away was fine, and made perfect sense in the game world. But instead of "camp at night and enter in the morning" all it did was have people get up pre-dawn and leave the moment the gates open and explore in the afternoon. Forcing people to deal with the surface at night would have been a nice feature.
The other option would be no trek at all - the dungeon is downstairs, like Undermountain or anything in Petal Throne.
All are good, though, and I don't regret my choice. I would just consider a different one. I kind of liked the walks back and forth to the Caves of Chaos.
Next time (maybe tomorrow, we'll see) I'll take about how I'd run my game differently - different rules options, different game world decisions, etc. Today, it's just how I'd make the maps and labels different in my dungeon.
If I could do it again . . . let's break this up into "definitely do differently" and "might do differently."
Definitely Do Differently
More Notes On The Maps
I've done this subsequently, but not initially. My maps were direct copies of the style I used when I was mapping dungeons back in elementary school. As such, they depended heavily on map keys. It's better to make the maps visually communicative than visually impressive. It's a tool, not a piece of art, even if some people's maps are art as well (cough, cough, Matt Jackson, Dyson Logos).
Easier to Explain Rooms
Honestly, the crazy room shapes and double-L rooms and 40x50 rooms with a 10x10 block covered up and an attached triangle-shaped room were fun to draw. But they take freaking forever to explain to people. My vocabulary has not been up to the task. Next time, none of that crap. A bunch of easy to explain room shapes 90% of the time would be better. Sure, have some weird ones. But make them exceptional and interesting (even if just visually). But the easier they are to explain to mapping players, the better. The fun is exploration and fighting stuff and taking their treasures, not trying to explain how that room is shaped because you used a 25 degree angle wall to slightly open out to the left before it jughandles around into an L-shaped connecting corridor. Gah.
Mark How Doors Open
I remember how they open, which direction, etc. from repeated play and notes. But damn, I wish I'd just used proper marks for doors. I've marked the newer maps this way.
More Stairs/Chutes/Elevators/Etc.
I think both I and my players would be happier if I had more ways to easily change levels in my megadungeon. I mentioned this before. I have some places with very easy multi-level access. But allowing easier transit would make for, in my opinion, a dungeon experience that provides more choices and yet easier choices for the PCs. They'd be confronted with "go back, stay here, or go further?" much more often. It would also make it much more difficult to fully clear your six, making for more risk at the some time as giving more potential reward (and making it possible to vary your path on the way back to avoid ambushes, too.)
More level changes possible right away, that's what I would do differently.
Not A Mountain
A mountain seemed like a good idea. It isn't, because all too often I've had to think "Well, wouldn't this level extend off the side of the mountain?" Yes, and I've had to re-orient too often. A low hill with extensive tunnels under it would have been fine, because I wouldn't have to consider height and all of that stuff.
Easier Access Into The Dungeon.
I love my megadungeon. I especially like, conceptually, the idea of the fortified entrance. I haven't seen one that quite did what I made. But I was tempted when I wrote it to make a big central room with lots of staircases and choices. Hallways in all sorts of directions, a big damn staircase down connecting a few levels together immediately, and plenty of choices. I didn't for a few reasons.
One is that I wrote my megadungeon for immediate play. I was still writing when the players arrived, and still writing as they explored it (and I'm still writing now). So "you have free access to all of 4 levels" means "I have to have 4 levels completely stocked up, along with all places you can get from them, right now." That wasn't possible. So I had to make at least the upper levels restrictive.
I also had a story - the dungeon was built as an underground fortress, which was connected (either deliberately or not . . . ) with deeper levels. It was stormed and looted. Later folks built a castle on top, and that was sacked as well. So the entrance would naturally be fortified, and choices limited to restrict where successful attackers could get for at least a short distance past the fortifications. So I came up with this:
Pit, pillboxes accessible only from the second level, anti-magical surfaces, multiple choices all fortified heavily, smoothed-over metal doors, and no cover once you start coming down the stairs. It's cool and fairly unusual in a megadungeon entrance.
But it does restrict options. It means you need more access points into the dungeon, that make sense to be open despite being part of a fortification, and the players are much more limited in where they can go.
Easier access would make it easier to explain all sorts of folks in the dungeon, too.
Having a multiple choices (which of the staircases down into the dungeon do you take?) right from the get-go would been nice.
I don't regret my choice, and the reality of needing to limit movement to limit the amount of prep I needed before we could play made this approach make sense. Plus it makes for some unique issues (the way the players have interacted with the orcs in order to ensure easier access to the dungeon but also conceal their activities has been fun.)
Might Do Differently
Even Bigger
It would be tempting to do the megadungeon as a super-dungeon, much like Beedo's Black City. That would make it easier to put very disparate groups down in the dungeon, because they could be very seriously separate.
Wizard Did It
My life would be much easier if I had a Zagyg or Hallaster or W*E*R*D*N*A who'd set the whole damn dungeon up as a test. That lets you explain anything, from crazy puzzles to ridiculous traps. I may do this in miniature but it's too late to do the whole dungeon that way. I could spare myself a lot of headache with a Megawizard in my Megadungeon.
A Bit Of A Trek
Putting the castle a half-day's walk away was fine, and made perfect sense in the game world. But instead of "camp at night and enter in the morning" all it did was have people get up pre-dawn and leave the moment the gates open and explore in the afternoon. Forcing people to deal with the surface at night would have been a nice feature.
The other option would be no trek at all - the dungeon is downstairs, like Undermountain or anything in Petal Throne.
All are good, though, and I don't regret my choice. I would just consider a different one. I kind of liked the walks back and forth to the Caves of Chaos.
Next time (maybe tomorrow, we'll see) I'll take about how I'd run my game differently - different rules options, different game world decisions, etc. Today, it's just how I'd make the maps and labels different in my dungeon.
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