Roleplay Dungeon

[Aegis013]

Greetings Playgrounders!

I'm trying to set up an adventure for a one-shot adventure in which the dungeon/adventure contains all encounters which could be either fought or role-played through, but I'm having some trouble coming up with a good idea or theme for this event to get the ball rolling.

If it's any help the characters are level 8 (however they're readily able to defeat CR 13s), we have a monk/barbarian theme bruiser, a gun toting minionmancer (with a healer class cohort), and an extremely stealthy precision damage guy. And these characters will be used again, so I certainly don't want to do anything crazy like deck them out in artifact level items or anything.

Any help/suggestions or ideas would be great.

[OldTrees1]

Throw in a Goblinoid tribe living in a section of the dungeon.

Diverse npcs (small to large, various classes)
Depending on PC action they could be allies, enemies or neither

[Falcon X]

First off, I like to draw a lot from old video games I've played. Some of the old Sierra adventure games (Quest for Glory, Kings Quest) were awesome for ideas. Same goes for D&D based games (Planescape: Torment, Balder's Gate, etc.)
I've put lots of roleplaying ideas from these.
You could also use some classic D&D adventures and update them. Like Castle Ravenloft, Temple of Elemental Evil, or Die Vecna Die.

Part of it depends on the feel of your party. Some like it gritty, others like it playful, some just want to roll dice. Here's a few ideas I've used:

Illusion: As soon as they walk in, they see a bright light, and don't realize that they have been enchanted. They then walk through an extremely dangerous illusory dungeon that has five rooms. If they die, they just wake up at the beginning and start again. If anyone realizes they need to make a will save, they wake up in the first room.
They players were extremely frustrated with this. But then I didn't follow through with it that well.


Small-Town Set-up: For one game, I set up a very small town in the frozen north. Things were instantly more role-playable because the missions were event based. For example:
- While the fishermen were out killing whales, they were attacked by an Aboleth. They beat back the Aboleth, but it left with the threat to come to their town and kill their children. The town stood at guard, ready for a direct attack, while they didn't realize that people were being mind-controlled, and traps were set.
- A group of merchants were captured by Uldras. They wake up in a dungeon, and it turns out one of their sons is about to be sacrificed to a dark god. Excape the dungeon and save the kid. The father ended up sacrificing himself.
- An army of orks and automatons came to destroy the city. The inn we were at had a domovoi (or house elf) that gave hints to a devil in the basement. When we went downstairs to defeat the Imp, we found an underground tunnel that the villagers could use to escape.
- The village had underground tunnels for growing food. A pool was corrupted by a hag who lived underneath it. The corrupted pool had driven a man crazy, as well as a group of Shocker Lizards who defended the pool relentlessly.

- We came upon a recently destroyed village of Grippli by spiders and a "Dark Man". As we went, there were letters left behind as groups of villagers made their last stands.
- In a large city, we ran into a little girl who had a strange aura about her. We realized that she couldn't leave her locality. We would walk and walk and realize we hadn't gone anywhere unless we left her behind. After digging through geneological records, talking to people about past events, and trial and error into her nature, we found that she was a ghost who needed to know the truth about her death and be reunited to her also dead mother.

[HammeredWharf]

The Lost Treasure of Captain Pirateyname!

It turns out the caverns beneath Adventureville were once a hideout of the merciless pirate captain Pirateyname! Now, a hundred years after his death, a wide variety of groups of adventurers, ranging from bloodthirsty gnomish pirates to snobby elven monks to annoyingly optimized anthropomorphic bat druids, are exploring the caverns in hopes of finding his lost treasure! Bypass the devious traps Pirateyname set up (tip: Dungeonscape's trap encounters are fun)! Save the cute, peaceful kobold inhabitants of these caverns from murderhobos or destroy them! Combat Pirateyname's now-undead crew! Fight or RP past the other groups seeking his treasure!

...or something like that. Competing adventurers are fun.

[Telonius]

For an encounter idea: Sphinxes are practically made for this sort of thing.

[Mighty_Chicken]

The PCs spend about a week in a prison. Now the opportunity to scape appears. Will they go straight into the perils of the tunnels, or will they try to recover their items? Will they try to bring someone with them? What about the corrupt guards that can be talked or bribed into not fighting them - but can they be trusted? What about the corrupt prisioners who might betray them to the guards?

There might be different factions in the prison - some are desperate to scape. the players could offer a price to help them, or the opposite, try to stop them from scaping too. Maybe, if they help a particular group, those will help to get rid of the rest?

What about evil cults and criminal lords who are based inside the walls of the prison, and don't care about who come or go away, as long as their businesses are untouched? What about Good or Lawful spies trying to fight these factions' activities - will those well intented characters help the PCs, or make their lifes tougher?

What about the magic properties of other prisioners... maybe a Gather Information check can help them find out what are the most valuable properties, and maybe even where those properties are! But it could be a trap...

Talking about traps, maybe the prison is what Alcatraz would be if its architect was a D&D player, full of mechanical traps. A guard only knows how to avoid the traps of his own area.

I think I just figured what I want to DM for my next session :D

[danzibr]

The PCs spend about a week in a prison. Now the opportunity to scape appears. Will they go straight into the perils of the tunnels, or will they try to recover their items? Will they try to bring someone with them? What about the corrupt guards that can be talked or bribed into not fighting them - but can they be trusted? What about the corrupt prisioners who might betray them to the guards?

There might be different factions in the prison - some are desperate to scape. the players could offer a price to help them, or the opposite, try to stop them from scaping too. Maybe, if they help a particular group, those will help to get rid of the rest?

What about evil cults and criminal lords who are based inside the walls of the prison, and don't care about who come or go away, as long as their businesses are untouched? What about Good or Lawful spies trying to fight these factions' activities - will those well intented characters help the PCs, or make their lifes tougher?

What about the magic properties of other prisioners... maybe a Gather Information check can help them find out what are the most valuable properties, and maybe even where those properties are! But it could be a trap...

Talking about traps, maybe the prison is what Alcatraz would be if its architect was a D&D player, full of mechanical traps. A guard only knows how to avoid the traps of his own area.

I think I just figured what I want to DM for my next session :D
... me too.

Oh, as for stuff to roleplay through, I find a sandbox city is good for this. The occasional roll for Gather Information and stuff like that, but between dungeons crawl or whatever, it's good for them to venture into bars/slums/wherever to find info, talk to the nobles, etc. etc.

[Aegis013]

Thank you for all your ideas gentlemen, they will be a great help!

[Gnome Alone]

So I read the thread title and what flitted through my mind of course ended up not having anything to do with the actual content, but for one glorious half-second there I thought someone wanted to roleplay as a dungeon and I just had to put that out there because it's the most gloriously insane thing I ever thought of.

[Aegis013]

So I read the thread title and what flitted through my mind of course ended up not having anything to do with the actual content, but for one glorious half-second there I thought someone wanted to roleplay as a dungeon and I just had to put that out there because it's the most gloriously insane thing I ever thought of.

I'm not opposed to a thread derailment of that nature. At all.

I think it would be possible using the same method Tippy used to become an obdurium planetoid, if you just make your planetoid have convoluted tunnels inside it and then cast things like summon monster and build traps into yourself.