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Rogue_Joker_23
2011-01-14, 06:16 AM
So, I'm thinking of starting up a new campaign with my friends. However, I'm tired of the standard "total strangers meet in a tavern over ale when incident X occurs and they decide to work together to overcome obstacle Y."

So, instead, I'm dictating that the characters are going to meet each other as they're all waking up in the middle pseudo-labyrinthine dungeon crawl and are therefore forced to work together for mutual survival, and thereafter trying to figure out why they were there to begin with.

Only problem is, I'M having problems coming up with a reason for them to be in the middle of the dungeon and making it sound at least halfway plausible.

Any suggestions?

TheCountAlucard
2011-01-14, 06:29 AM
Any suggestions?Well, first of all, what level game is it?

As for a suggestion for why they're there, can you provide a little more information on what you have prepared?

For instance, perhaps the dungeon itself is a pseudo-living entity that emits a psychic call to lure in those that it might devour.

Dsurion
2011-01-14, 06:36 AM
Any suggestions?

My suggestion? Don't bother. Let THEM come up with a reason for being there. It may even be more interesting than anything you might have thought of on your own. Players surprise us DMs like that sometimes :smallsmile:

My DM's first session had us in a lord's manor, invited due to "your reputable skills", with further explanation and terms of payment to be discussed once we all arrived. Except that when we did, the the lord had already vanished, and we all had to figure out why were there. (We were then attacked by assassins and a rival lord, who had the wrong targets, but it was interesting!)

rakkoon
2011-01-14, 06:39 AM
They were teleported there by touching similar objects?
I like the idea that they don't remember how they got there and they will find out in the course of the campain

Rogue_Joker_23
2011-01-14, 06:43 AM
Well, first of all, what level game is it?

As for a suggestion for why they're there, can you provide a little more information on what you have prepared?

I'm starting off with level 1 characters. As for the dungeon layout, picture a 25-foot by 25-foot room, with a door leading out on each of the four walls in the dead center of the wall. Each door leads into a 5 foot corridor with another door at the other side, which in turn leads to another 25-foot by 25-foot room, and the pattern continues. Each door is marked somehow, and if the players can figure out the code described to them via a riddle in the first room, they can simply follow the pattern until they find the way out. If they stray from the pattern, they risk running into rooms with low-CR traps or low-CR monsters that take little maintenance (mindless undead, dire rats, shrieker fungi, etc.)

Earthwalker
2011-01-14, 06:53 AM
A wizard did it....

Well two wizards in fact.

They have minions that search the surrounding area for likly targets. Knowck them out, and erase thier memorys and dump them in thier laugth a minuet dungeon.

One wizard chooses a team (this time the PCs) while the other builds the traps and dungeon. They then bet if thier champions can survive. Maybe have other betting action on who dies first. What will happen next.

While the players are exploring scrying devices watch the action and reports back to a control room.

Once they live through the dungeon (if they do) then servants of the wizards are sent to kill them so no one knows about the game.

This time how ever the servant will give a big reveal as to what was happening and ask the players for help defeating his masters so he can get away.

Cue then next action to take the control room and dump the wizards back into the dungeon so the players can watch. (If wizards are too tough to fight then make them Aristocrates so thier main edge is money)

Ytaker
2011-01-14, 07:02 AM
You could make it a saw style dungeon. Start by having them waking up with pounding hangovers in a strange room and then have see a man in a slightly strange outfit (spell, sending) tell one of them that he wants to play a game, they've been all been very bad people, and live or die they has to make a choice.

You can let them chose whether they did it.

Presumably, this wizard drugged the drinks of the party members last night when they were at a traditional tavern in an effort to put them in a death situation and punish them for their crimes. This could actually be mistaken identity if none of them fess up, and they could later meet the actual people who were supposed to be captured.

Gahrer
2011-01-14, 07:41 AM
Ever watched the "cube" trilogy Rouge_Joker? You are more or less describing the premise of thoose movies exactly.

Anyway, they migt be worth checking out for ideas. (They are great sci-fi thrillers in themselves so watch them in any case :smallwink:.)

Rogue_Joker_23
2011-01-14, 07:49 AM
Ever watched the "cube" trilogy Rouge_Joker? You are more or less describing the premise of thoose movies exactly.

I actually got the design concept from those movies. lol I found the first film incredibly enjoyable, and thought it'd be fun to make a mini-Cube as an introductory dungeon. I'm actually glad someone caught on to that. :D

Only problem is that they never really discussed what the purpose of the Cube was, and therefore I'm not entirely sure how to base the purpose of this dungeon as.

What's really fun, though, is I recently discovered that the Dragon Magazine compendium has rules for creating tessaract dungeons. XD Talk about messing with people.

I think I'm going with something along the lines of "adventurers have royally pissed of leader of thief's guild in major city, and are consequently thrown into subterranean dungeon beneath city sewers."

Gahrer
2011-01-14, 08:17 AM
They reveal a little about the purpuse in the third movie Cube Zero but mostly they let you guess. :smallfrown:

One idea might be to have it all be a huge experiment. Perhaps to test the effects of some mysterious and ancient Mac Guffin hidden in the center of the dungeon. Maybe the Mac Guffin causes strange things to happen around it - like people becoming mad or turning into monsters or time and space twisting mysteriosly - and someone wants to study the process closley on (unwilling) test subjects?

Rogue_Joker_23
2011-01-14, 08:31 AM
That's kind of a nifty idea. I've also considered that the whole thing is a test of sorts devised by some primary antagonist who will appear later in the campaign, and when they manage to get out of the dungeon alive, the villain is drawn to them for some future purpose.

Jay R
2011-01-14, 09:38 AM
I favor a background that's good for low-level characters, but becomes bad for them later when they are ready for bigger challenges.

The Nasty Evil Wizard Storyarc recently cast a Legend Lore or consulted a kobold oracle or something, to find out how to recover the fabled lost Enchanted Ruby of Plotpoint. He learned that it can only be recovered by a party of these five people, if they meet in the Dungeon of Adventurestart.

So they have a high-level evil wizard who has plans for them, but he wants them to survive when they are at low levels; only when they are high level and find the Plotpoint Ruby will he become their enemy.

Later on, others might try to stop them, based on learning in similar ways that these five are crucial to Nasty Evil Wizard Storyarc's plan to take over the world. So they have no idea why the Miko-equivalent paladin starts hunting them.

*.*.*.*
2011-01-14, 09:52 AM
The dungeon is a jail and they must escape(TES style)

Sipex
2011-01-14, 09:58 AM
Try a multi levelled dungeon.

Each of the PCs has been hired by seperate factions to retrieve an artifact from some nearby ruins.

Each faction (be it town, business, individual, organisation) gives vague differing descriptions of the artifact (ie: One PC has to find something which 'Glows like the sun while submerged in the dark' and another has to find an artifact which 'Is gilded with gold in the design of the great dragon bahamut'. In reality each PC is looking for the same artifact, when they combine their descriptions it's the exact description of the artifact.

Now, each PC also enters a seperate dungeon in search of this, the dungeons are in close proximity to each other (ie: within a days walk) and the campaign picks up when all the PCs enter the same area but are cut off from one another in some fashion (but can still communicate). They realise they have to work together (while seperated) to proceed (ie: one PC throws a switch to open the door for another who goes on to further another PC. Several PCs have to work on one thing together to get it working while still seperated).

edit: I just realised you posted a rough description of you want.

Still an interesting idea for later though.

Kyouhen
2011-01-14, 12:05 PM
I set something like this up for World's Largest Dungeon. I didn't really want to have to figure out why the PCs were being sent into this ancient dungeon that had just been discovered (my logic was that it was too big for them to just be sent to explore it without the people who sent them on the quest deciding they must have died and sending in a new party). My explanation was that they had been captured by some slavers who got lost on their way to the city where they would sell the PCs and stumbled on the entrance to the dungeon. They figured for a bit of fun they'd give the PCs some basic equipment and toss them into the dungeon, with the promise that each of them could buy their freedom for 10,000gp worth of valuables from the dungeon.

Being the World's Largest Dungeon though the slavers obviously decided the PCs had died after a few days and left. :smalltongue:

hydraa
2011-01-14, 12:16 PM
Somewhat rough outline

Somehow each character was recurited by a high level wizard (approriate to them, tavern board request for rogue, invite by a fellow wizard to learn the powers of the universe).
The wizard used astral projection on the party.
The wizard's bard cohort used modify memory on the subjects or the wizard mindrapes the subjects To erase the memory of them arriving at the wizard's chamber (they may each remember something that when combined leads them back to the wizard later for revenge or congratulations)
Something happens to the wizard and leaves the characters stranded in the cube.

Balain
2011-01-14, 12:45 PM
If I remember the cube right, none of them knew how they got there. So the players just wake up in the room no need to tell them what, why, when, where, who or how they just need to find a way out if they want to live.