Changing Power Levels of my Megadungeon

The power level of my megadungeon has changed over time.

The Original Power Level

From the start, my megadungeon was aimed a bit higher than a starting power level. For one thing, the original concept of my game was just play some DF, and it was only after the process started to get rolling that I decided I wanted to try my first-ever megadungeon. So naturally, I had the opportunity to build a dungeon that wasn't just rats and goblins on level one, aimed at hapless starting would-be heroes.

I put in some tough fights right away, and made sure there were legitimate reasons why lesser adventurers hadn't plundered the hell out of it. Basically, I used a mix of:

- difficult entry points
- a ghost-haunted ruins
- a murderous stalker that emerged from the dungeons to hunt
- lethal monsters near the entrances
- rumors that it was a dry hole, treasure wise

The idea was to explain why others hadn't been trucking in and out.

Some of the things I added were straight-up homages. There is a pool room on level one full of magical pools (a B1 reference). There were trolls, because I'd heard it said that Greyhawk had a nest of trolls on level one (plus, I love trolls and I own a bunch of troll minis). There was an evil temple with smoky demons waiting to kill all who entered (a "Treasure of Tranicos" Howard/de Camp reference*).

But other stuff was there directly to challenge experienced DF guys, and GURPS Dungeon Fantasy guys start out quite powerful compared to normal adventurers, nevermind the usual types you'd get in old-style D&D games. Gargoyles immune to most of the attacks of normal adventurers. Unavoidable traps. Lethal double encounters. A mass of wights, capable of committing a casual total party kill. Hobgoblins in pillboxes accessible only from the level below using poisoned arrows and harassing fire. Stuff of that sort.

In other words, the dungeon's power level even on level 1 was enough that it took fairly tough adventurers some effort to crack the level and move on further in the dungeon.

It didn't stay that way, though.

Diminished Power

The second stage was of diminished power. The trolls were killed. The gargoyles subdued. The wights destroyed. And so on. Even the barriers to entry had been dealt with. By a dozen sessions in, most of the issues that would keep people out were gone, and treasure started to flow from the hidden spots in the dungeon.

For a while, the upper levels were freely accessible to the party, and even a lesser group of adventurers could mess around there without big problems (albeit, without big payoffs, too).

So the next part was a dip in power.

Again, this didn't last.

Barriers to Entry

The current state of the dungeon is one of much danger. Even though the party has killed a plethora of monsters, more have appeared. Some things from below have moved up. Some things from outside have moved in.

Not only that, but a plan by the players to keep out interlopers (NPC ones) has clearly backfired. They armed, paid, and encouraged some orcs they encountered to expand their control and hunt their enemies. To a degree, this has worked (the cultists they wanted dealt with haven't made an appearance since) but it has also meant the dungeon is less accessible.

The formally chaotically occupied upper levels became sparsely occupied and mostly looted, and now to occupied and patrolled by orcs (at least, the areas the PCs can access.) A dragon was slain for access to the lower reaches, but even as the PCs smooth out their own path into the depths of the dungeon the orcs have attempted to follow. It's gone from raiding a set of tunnels full of monsters for their stuff into that plus evading and outsmarting an intelligent body of foes.

As such, entry into the dungeon by a beginning group of adventurers is pretty much impossible. You'd need a substantial force to get past the fortified orc-held entry points, and the other entry points are known to the orcs (and thus untrustworthy), or known to the orcs but lead straight into very dangerous areas.

So oddly, even as major groups of foes have been wiped out, monsters slain, and traps dealt with, Felltower has steadily gotten more dangerous to less experienced adventurers.

In other words, level one has gotten more dangerous the more play has gone on, not that play in the dungeon has moved to deeper or more lethal levels and left an empty level one behind.

Interesting - it's not what I would have expected.




* Yes, I know the original story is "The Black Stranger." I know even the idea of reading the de Camp revisions makes some people so angry they'll foam at the mouth. But TBS doesn't have the exact bit I thought was so cool and lifted, and ToT does.

Everything in character? Ouch.

From the Mike Mornard question thread over on ODD74, I saw this:

"It was relaxed until it was "GAME ON," then it was VERY tense! Gary took EVERYTHING in character, so if you were running your mouth, your characters were standing in the middle of a monster-laden dungeon running their mouths!"

That's from this post: http://odd74.proboards.com/post/131927/thread

I'm sure I could play this way these days. Sounds intense and fun but not terribly relaxing!

Review: How to Be A GURPS GM

How to be a GURPS GM



by Warren Wilson (better known as Mook)
73 pages
$9.99 in PDF

One thing about GURPS is that it is a toolkit game. You are given the pieces to make almost anything (although not everything equally well, admittedly) and are expected to pick and choose from those pieces to make your specific campaign work. Out of the box, you need to make a lot of decisions as a GM before you can run the game smoothly. While GURPS has always had some generic GMing advice, it really hasn't had a very specific look at how to run the game as a GM. This book fills that niche. It's written by a long-time noted GURPS player and website maintainer, with lots of comments by the Line Editor.

The book seems aimed at someone who is both a) new to GMing (if not roleplaying) and new to GURPS. If you are an experienced GM but not familiar with GURPS, or an experienced GURPS player but as yet hadn't GMed, much of the book will feel a bit old hat.

The book takes the form of a mix of explanations by the author of the various rules and their impacts on play, and lots and lots of excerpts from comments written in forums and elsewhere by the GURPS Line Editor, Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch. You gets this back-and-forth style of a paragraph written by Mook, offset comments by Kromm, and more discussion by Mook.

The books goes through basic rules, character generation, combat, and actual play. It backs up general discussions of mechanics with specific examples and explanations, and doesn't stint on the details where they are needed. Rules that get discussed get page number references so you don't have to check the index or TOC to find the original rule to check. It covers a lot of ground that might not be obvious to a new GM opening up GURPS Basic Set for the first time. It also deals with some of the basic assumptions of GURPS and point-buy systems. A good example of that is the explanation of why combat skills and non-combat skills are costed the same - it's about screen time/utility in gaming, not ranking the combat effectiveness of a character.

My personal favorite is chapter six - combat. Lots of the combat advice is excellent, all of it is accurate, and includes specific looks at commonly built and run characters with examples. Want to know for Telekinesis affects combat? It's there. Dual-Wielding characters? How to build them and run them is covered. What to do to overcome defenses? There is a whole section. It pulls together the disparate parts of the combat system into topical areas, which makes it easier to see the whole for someone unfamiliar with the system. The combat chapter is excellent, and take that from someone who thinks about combat in GURPS pretty often. It makes some things that, despite careful wording in Basic Set, are not terribly clear in practice much more clear. It gives considered advice on map vs. mapless combat, detailed vs. less detailed combat, and what rules only seem to add complexity but rather speed up play considerably.

Where the book falls a little flat is in the generic "how to GM" advice. Because it necessarily shows a single way to GM, it missed a lot of "What if?" advice valid for different approaches. Much of the generic advice is just that - it's not GURPS specific, and changes the focus from things you need to know to run GURPS to things you need to know to GM. I think the intent is to make it a one-stop shop for learning to GM. But in my opinion it is the weakest part of the book. You end up getting a specific vision of one way to run games in general with GURPS as the rule set, instead of how to do things with GURPS. Once it gets into areas any "How to GM" discussion covers it loses something compared to the "How to GM GURPS" portions.

How is it for experienced GURPS GMs?

The price point is a bit high for a book that's aimed at less experienced GMs, but the odds are very high you'll get some utility out of the book. Just having handy lists of things to think about, options to consider for various levels of detail, and rules impacts to be cognizant of is pretty valuable. You wouldn't regret reading this book before setting up a new campaign, even if you've done it all before. But for the price, you're getting a lot less than a new GM would be.

Overall, I like this book. I'm glad I got it, and I'm glad I read it. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it to a person new to GURPS and/or new to GMing GURPS. For an experienced GM, it's handy but not essential. It's well written and easy to refer back to once read (critical in a GM reference!), and sort of fills a "DM's Guide" niche in GURPS.

For more reviews, please see my Reviews page.

Revised GURPS Magic: Paralyze Limb and Total Paralysis

This is a quick and simple one:

Total Paralysis normally requires you to strike the head (-5) of the target. This means it's only useful for casters with a solid DX or Brawling, or a very good Staff skill, vs. a poorly-skilled defender they really want as a prisoner. It's not particularly useful. It also mean's it's useless against creatures with Injury Tolerance (No Head), which isn't such a small group in fantasy games or when you're playing Ultima.

Instead, for my game, I'm removing the need to touch the head. Anywhere on the target is fine. Otherwise, the spell is as-written.

It would be amusing to make touching the head of the target even more useful - perhaps a penalty to resist. But generally location isn't worth including for all-or-nothing spells.

Additionally, Paralyze Limb works on the limb and extremities off of that limb, and works if you either hit the limb or the extremity.

Unkillable and Death Spells

Just in case you were wondering, Kromm posted about how Unkillable interacts with Death Spells.

Unkillable & Death Spells

Good stuff, for you guys lucky enough to be Unkillable.

LEGO Ogre?

So I was just catching up on Ogre stuff and found this.

So if 10,000 people like this, does this mean we'd be able to buy LEGO Ogre sets at WalMart?

LEGO Ogre

I could get behind a LEGO Ogre!

Review: GURPS Magic: Death Spells

I finally get around to doing a formal review of the book I've been talking about for a couple days now. Full disclosure, as always - the author is my line editor, my frequent co-author, and my friend. I don't pretend to be unbiased, but I also want to be fair. This one is an easy review, because it took one read-through and I was already folding elements of it into my current game.



by Sean Punch
23 pages
$5.99 in PDF

This book is the a support book for the line of GURPS Magic. Like it says in the title, it's death magic. Not spells that can kill, or inflict damage in the hopes of killing, or can be misused to kill. They aren't mere fight-enders like Flesh to Stone or Total Paralysis. These are spells that have as their core purpose killing the target outright. Stuff like the bone-softening spell from Glen Cook's Black Company series:

"Bomanz used the word of power. Again a man's bones turned to jelly. Then again and again as [the officer's] troopers tried to avenge him."
- Glen Cook, The White Rose

That kind of stuff.

The book contains 48 death spells, covering every college in the GURPS Magic canon, even healing. Yes, healing - there is a death spell counter called Resuscitate which is really nasty if cast on someone who doesn't need their heart restarted.

It also has a death spell design system - the raw bits of the spells within, so you can make your own and properly cost them out. Since the main brakes on magical power in GURPS are effective skill vs. resistance, time to cast, and cost to cast, that's where the main elements of the system concentrate. Death spells are all Very Hard (which is admittedly only a -1 to skill relative to other spells), not too quick to cast (or too slow, either, so they have some utility vs. direct damage or fight-ender spells), and expensive. 10+ points per casting, with more cost for difficulty to halt, lack of counters, time to kill, and so on. This plus a solid, conversational-but-clear section of advice on death magic effects (in game terms and practical meaning of those game terms) means you really could add whatever nefarious spells you want.

This kind of thing can be tricky to balance - spells that make you roll or die, especially if its roll-or-die-irrevocably - can be a hard thing to have in a game. This book does a good job of that without undermining the idea of having spells that do that in the first place. The spell effects vary, including:

- ones that do damage, which, if it exceeds your HP or a multiple of your HP, you just die.
- ones that force a resistance roll, and if you fail, you die (or kill yourself, or fade out of reality, etc.)
- ones that do the above, plus make it hard to rejuvenate/resurrect you.
- ones that do the above, but which have a simple counter.
- ones that do the above stuff, but which have nasty effects beyond the above (like Destabilization, which can take some of your neighbors with you as you go!)
- ones which, if the caster fails, does really horrible stuff to the caster (sometimes with the vindictive connivance of the universe or the gods, other types with the vindictive connivance of the victim.)

All of them have evocative but accurate names (Annihilation, Doomtouch, Telepathic Overload) and effects that match the general approach of the college and the aim of killing the target quickly. Oddly, there are some that effectively wipe you out entirely, but at least one comes with an escape clause (Underworld Imprisonment) rather than killing you, which seems odd for death magic. Still fits in the "go get a new character" effect of most of the spells. There is even a spell to kill yourself, for those suicidal cultist types.

Many of the spells in this book remind me - very positively - of the nasty cursed runes from Rolemaster's Creatures & Treasures and the ultra-high level spells in the Rolemaster Companion. Things like the "Rune of Stone Lungs" ("Reader's lungs turn to stone, he dies instantly") or spells like Fatal Inversion ("The target's body is turned entirely inside out"). Some of those spells, and the cursed items in that game, had very thematically similar effects to the ones in GURPS Magic: Death Spells. Utterly horrid ways to die, sometimes more complex than merely killing you, and all seemed like almost too much to do the job . . . which in a way is why death magic is especially scary. It's beyond "make this roll or die" and all the way to "make this roll or make a new character after this one dies horribly."

How is it for a GURPS game?

It really depends - do you want people to wave a hand, spend 15 FP, and wipe out a target forever (barring resistance rolls, etc.)? If so, this is the book for you. Cringe at that kind of power? Avoid this one.

As for me, I'm sticking some of this directly into my Dungeon Fantasy game, because it sure fits. Other types of campaigns might do very well with it. A horror game, say, or a gritty dark fantasy game. Coupled with the Black Magic rules to get some "free" power from the nether pits of hell, you can easily get the kind of dark temptation to power that results in a stack of corpses and damned but dangerous wizard that needs putting down . . . if you can survive the death magic he's sure to use against you.

How is it for non-GURPS games?

It can be inspirational, for sure, for death magic effects. But it's very solidly a crunchy, rules-centered supplement rather than a more setting or genre based book. If you use a lot of horrid black magic in your games, it might be worth the $6 to get some more inspiration.

Overall

This is a very good book. If you need death magic, it's instantly useful. It's game-changing, potentially, but it's not hard to add it into an existing game. This is because there are so many options and a system for adding it in, plus Sean Punch's usual thoroughness in examining and organzing the options for you. The book is well written, inexpensive, well-organized, thorough, and entertaining to read. If you use GURPS Magic, this is an excellent addition to the list of spells in the game.