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flare X2
2011-01-20, 12:53 PM
Hi, i'm designing a dungeon for a group of lv 2/3 players and need some help(one of my first dungeons). The basic idea is that the players ambushed by a hord of hobgoblins. After an epic showdown all the players are nocked-out. They wake up to find themselves in cells (the rouge can etempt to hide his thieve tools on his person). The players are being sold by slaver's so... what now?
any/all idea's needed!

Sipex
2011-01-20, 12:57 PM
Well, your first bit, how sure are you that they'll lose/get knocked out? You need a contingency plan there which is compeltely viable in case they run away or something else unexpected.

Next, your rogue, if he's knocked out, will not be able to hide his tools unless he has some prior warning that he'll need to (or unless he's really careful from the get-go).

Your players main goal will be to escape, possibly wreak some havoc and continue doing whatever they were doing before so anything you add in should help lead them to this goal.

flare X2
2011-01-20, 01:04 PM
Thanks. The player's will have to fight of wave by wave of monsters with the ocasional fighter/wizard charecter, im sure they won't survive (mwahahaha)! not sure what to do with the rouge though.

Sipex
2011-01-20, 01:12 PM
You have a lot of things to watch though and answers that will need to be present to keep the players happy. If you try to hard to enforce this you'll be accused of railroading and probably upset your players.

For questions:
Why are waves and waves of hobgoblins trying to capture a small group of (currently unknown) heroes as slaves? Assuming the PCs get far enough you need a feasable explanation to why the goblins don't just give up since it's not worth the loss. Is there someone who hired the goblins to capture your PCs? Have the PCs stumbled upon the goblin village and they see the PCs as intruders?

Also, if the PCs are ambushed, how do you explain how waves upon waves of goblins just happened to be hiding nearby without the PCs noticing?

magellan
2011-01-20, 01:22 PM
Yep: try to avoid the railroading when it's avoidable.
Make it a tough fight, with Hobgoblin slavers.
When the players get caught -> proceed as planned
When the players prevail let them enjoy their new mission: Free the area of the Hobgoblin slavers & liberate their wares.
Twist: the hobgoblins sell their slaves mainly to a "good" community nearby, who has mainly been just too busy with stuff to ask too many questions on the origin of the merchandise.

flare X2
2011-01-20, 02:02 PM
How about the town that the players are going to is effectivly being sieged by the raiders by inslaving all the merchants/mercinary's that go in their general direction?

Cyrion
2011-01-20, 02:09 PM
At that level, your best bet for setting up a jailbreak scheme might be to have a hobgoblin wizard with several sleep spells prepared. Give any party members who don't fail their saves the chance to get away and have the opportunity to smuggle tools, plan the escape, etc. Just don't leave the party divided for too long- the imprisoned players will get bored, and the character survival rate in a divided party can drop quite rapidly for a low-level party.

flare X2
2011-01-20, 03:11 PM
Well I was looking for a break out from the inside idea but i'll take it into acount. Also, in the dungeon layout should i base it on function or old school fun?

Dreadn4ught
2011-01-20, 03:27 PM
At that level, your best bet for setting up a jailbreak scheme might be to have a hobgoblin wizard with several sleep spells prepared. Give any party members who don't fail their saves the chance to get away and have the opportunity to smuggle tools, plan the escape, etc.

This is probably the best way. Also give the PCs in the prison a chance to escape. Hilarity can ensue if the players that escaped in the first place meet up with the players they were attempting to rescue in the act of escaping!

If that made any sort of sense.:smallbiggrin:

Sipex
2011-01-20, 03:47 PM
It makes sense, I've had that happen before.

Rogue is captured so the rest of the party formulates a plan to break him out.

Party comes up with an elaborate plan, sneaks into the prison and runs smack into the rogue who's leading a full out prison riot.

flare X2
2011-01-22, 07:13 AM
Thanks for all the previous help but could you plese note that i'm a new DM and need to get started, so some general tips/stratigies on the basics of dungeon making would be apreciated (but please no cliche's or random dungeon maker's).

LansXero
2011-01-22, 07:23 AM
Also, in the dungeon layout should i base it on function or old school fun?

If you know your group already, set the length / depth to as much as it can go without boring them (My group, for example, despises dungeon crawls, so most 'dungeons' are rather short, but other groups are different). Once thats done, start with the concept of what this place is, and what does it serve for. If its a building there is not much reason for long winding tunnels, but in a cave they would make more sense than tightly packed rooms. Try to make the whole thing make sense, to appeal to some sense of verosimilitude. Then once thats done, imagine how the people in it go about their lives, and how whatever the PCs may do will affect that.

Thats how I do it, at least.

Autolykos
2011-01-22, 08:40 AM
Usually the first thing when designing a dungeon is to sketch its history (Who built it, and for what purpose? Did someone else occupy the dungeon after that, and did he make any changes or additions to this design? How are the current owners using the rooms?)
Only then you get a pencil and a piece of paper (or your computer) and basically recreate the dungeon's history (depending on how many changes and additions were made, you might have to erase and redraw a lot).
Say, for example, your dungeon was a natural cave with some mineral deposits. Then some dwarves started to mine the minerals and dig lots of deep tunnels into the mountain, hitting other cave systems and building some facilites (sleeping rooms, forges, etc) right in the caves. They might have found hostile inhabitants in some caves and fortified the entrances to those caves instead of clearing them out completely (they might also fortify the main entrance to protect against bandit raids or whatever). Later, the minerals were depleted, but the interior facilites had already quite a large and famous temple (loot!), so it was not just abandoned, but transformed and expanded to a small underground "town". The dwarves might have been driven out by monsters (or changes in politics and economics), and later your hobgoblins occupied those caves.
So, for designing this dungeon, you'd start by sketching some natural caves, and add the mining tunnels (they should not be perfectly straight, because they followed the mineral deposit). Then you add some rooms, and gradually expand those rooms to the small dwarven "town". After that, even the hobgoblins may have made some changes (like walling of some passages or building barricades), to adjust the dungeons to their needs. For example, one of the inner caves might make a great prison, with the dwarven fortifications at the entrance used as a guardpost.
(Of course, you can choose whatever history you like. This is just a quick and dirty example to illustrate the method).

Talyn
2011-01-22, 08:57 AM
Autolykos' approach is good, but remember that historical consistency should take a back seat to good gameplay. Be sure to have varied encounter areas - a bunch of equally sized rooms filled with similar enemies gets boring pretty quickly. Also, there should be a good reason WHY the hobgoblins want to capture the PCs, instead of killing them when they are unconcious - especially if the PCs have slain a couple of hobgoblins during the fight, and they therefore have comrades to avenge.

Also, have at least two different ways for PCs to escape - three, if you count killing everything and leaving by the front door. If you only have one way, and the PCs don't find it, that can lead to a lot of frustration. The two classic prison break scenarios are: smuggle yourselves out as something innocuous (like, say, in the laundry!) and find a geological weakness in the otherwise formidable prison defenses (like an air shaft you could squeeze through or an underground river).

It might also be useful to create a contingency flowchart, to ensure that you always have a backup plan. It might look something like this.

Part 1: Hobs try to capture PCs.
Success: PCs wake up in a cell in hob fortress. Go to 2a.
Failure: PCs should track down hob fortress to find out WHY hobs wanted to capture them. Go to 2b.

Part 2a: PCs need to break out of cell.
Success: PCs escape from cell, find themselves in an extensive prison complex.
Failure: Hobs do whatever it was they needed the PCs alive for.

Part 2b: PCs need to enter Hob fortress without raising an alarm.
Success: PCs make it in without too much of a fuss, and can track down hob leader.
Failure: The alarm is raised, and the PCs must choose between trying to fight lengthwise through the fortress or making a run for it.

At every place there is a chance for failure, be sure to have something sketched out so that the adventure can continue.

flare X2
2011-01-23, 02:26 PM
Im sorry, but im a new DM so all this detail is probably being wasted on me, so can you please tone down and suggest genral ideas, broader concepts.

penbed400
2011-01-23, 03:33 PM
I would recommend just taking some time on the dungeon. Build for practicality, not for old-school fun. Old-school fun has its places but if you charge into a hobgoblin fortress there shouldn't just be traps in the middle, otherwise they would trip it themselves all the time. Have things make sense, and depending on whether your party is hack-slash or loves roleplaying, have a good story. In my experience:

Good story + roleplaying > intricately written dungeon

I would recommend the steps of:

writing the story
drawing up a dungeon that fits the story
finding appropriate and interesting things to fill your dungeon with
planning side things in case the story doesnt go to plan

One of the things that is most difficult as a DM isn't the actual story writing but rather dealing with what happens when your story goes off track, which it will at some points. Players have a knack for staring at the railroad tracks placed in front of them and jumping off and running away to who knows where. Just don't focus too much on the detail of things that might happen if it goes off track, but give some thought to it for in case it does happen. Become a good improv DM, improv is necessary.

Aidan305
2011-01-23, 03:33 PM
In essence, what it boils down to is try to keep things simple. Have a reason for everything you do because you can be certain that the players will want one.

Try to keep options open for the PCs. If they feel like they're being forced to do something they'll try harder not to do it. Lead them gently, but don't let them realise that you're doing it.

Above all, you're main goal here is for everyone to have fun. All else is secondary. Don't be afraid to sacrifice a few rules/monsters/players if necessary. If you're players enjoy something put more in, if they don't, then leave it out.

erikun
2011-01-23, 05:37 PM
I would also recommend planning for things not going according to plan. Perhaps the party wins. Perhaps the rogue in the party runs away and doesn't feel like getting into range of another sleep spell. Perhaps the ranger would like to have his wolf companion on hand, and handcuffing one in a cell with the rest of the party would feel rather silly. Perhaps the party elf remembers that he's immune to sleep.

I would recommend several different methods of getting into the "dungeon", so that it wouldn't matter as much if the party wakes up in holding cells or waltzs through the front door. Here are my ideas (and poorly drawn floor plans).

http://img441.imageshack.us/img441/8097/0001aai.jpg

This is supposed to be a former guardhouse, set along a no-longer-used road which I forgot to draw. The main floor is a courtyard with a two-story building in the northeast section. The main opening to the roadway is in the southern section (undrawn, oops). The courtyard itself is littered with broken carts, enough to provide cover in a firefight but not enough to reroute movement. The hashmarks seperating the southern section from the northern section is an intentionally-build barricade, with the northern section holding a firepit for some outdoor cooking when the Hobgoblins are in the mood.

The stairs lead up to a battlement that runs all the way around the structure, ending at the walls of the building. (It doesn't go to the northwestern section.)

The first floor of the building itself has enough room for a large room, and a spiral staircase leading both upstairs and downstairs.

The basement holds a guard room (where the stairs come out), a storage room (the other room) and holding cells. The cells are rusted and haven't been cared for in a long time, so the party may be able to brute-force the bars out of the ground along with picking locks. Equipment from the party would be stored in the storage room. The hobgoblins have knocked out a section of wall between guard room and storage room for easy access, which is the smaller hole.

The second floor would hold the leader of the hobgoblins, whatever boss fight you have planned, and the best treasure. The staircase continues to the roof of the 2nd story building.

The hobgoblins will be, for the most part, milling about the courtyard or in the first floor room. There will probably be two guards in the basement if there are any captives. The hobgoblins will station two guards on the southern battlement if they suspect the party is still in the area (meaning if the party won and let a hobgoblin get away, or they lost but a party member escaped). Walking in the front door gets immediate notice. Climbing up to and walking along the battlements would probably not attract notice - or require a high spot check to notice - as long as characters don't make noice, and as long as there aren't guards up there. Climbing up the back (north) wall and sneaking in the back way will probably not attract anyone either. Climbing up the building and entering the 2nd story from the roof would keep the party hidden from anyone on guard, but may alert the "boss" - and even if not, the party would need to deal with a building full of hobgoblins coming up the stairs if they starting fighting.

Feel free to steal as much or as little as you like. You can certainly make the building larger to accomidate more rooms, make is smaller (somehow), or even include a tunnel for smuggling out the slaves in the basement - which may lead to the "dungeon proper". What town the forgotten road leads to may be an interesting point of adventure, if the party cares to explore it.

flare X2
2011-01-27, 04:03 PM
I have already begun dungeon "design" but am finding that in order to accomidate the intended populace I am having to place rediculace amounts of living quarters/baracks.

Aidan305
2011-01-27, 04:43 PM
A problem that's surprisingly easily solved.

Don't try to fit them all in. It's that simple. Your villains here are an army. Have them encamped around the dungeon, with only the higher-ranking officers and perhaps their personal guards stationed in the dungeon itself. This gives you the opportunity to get one over on the players as they escape the dungeon in the middle of the night and see the the huge amounts of campfires surrounding them, far more than they can possibly fight their way past but scattered enough that they could sneak through. With good description and the right tone of voice you can make the scene truly amazing.

It also gives you reason to have the hobs go after the players at a later point once their re-organisation has been complete, and for others to hire the PCs for the success ini decapitating the hob army.

Pressure at a point, you're sticking the party at the point without them knowing it.