"inverted dungeon" setting / idea

[batiushkov]

Suppose there's a self-sustaining area -- a small and low-tech (degenerate Renaissance, drifting back towards Dark Ages) kingdom or set of petty kingdoms maybe half the size of New Jersey. Suppose that for the last couple hundred years, it's been isolated from the rest of the world -- let's say by nonmagical means for now: the surrounding mountains just became impassable all year although the central area remains temperate. The tech demands and population are low enough that there isn't really a need for resources from outside -- or there was, but the population adapted over the first couple generations.

When the snows melt and there's a reason to try to go beyond the borders of the known world, the PCs find that the surrounding area has collapsed culturally and become a dungeon -- it's not quite wilderness but is largely empty cities and towns. The ruined "wonders" of the world beyond their country are abandoned or otherwise purged of people - and of course dangerous and incomprehensible.

For a campaign or even an adventure, you'd need some MacGuffin at the very least to motivate this dangerous trek. Some sort of substance or metal that's in ever-shorter supply at home, at the very least. Or a cultural / religious crisis that demands input X that cannot be managed at home (something like the Sybilline books?) and these young folk get supplies and support to try to make the passage.

If I were to try this with a D&D-type system, I think it would make sense to have the initial classes limited to Cleric, Fighter, and MU (if not just the first two) and the home kingdom level-capped at 3 or so, where 3rd level is the height of imaginable prowess and mastery. A folk hero that died a hundred years before present might have been level 6, or a 4th-level priest a few generations ago is said to have "spoken with animals" in some useful way before she died.

I think I like the notion that the home base is limited in materials and ability to support the characters, and that they and their culture are contained behind walls, while the 'dungeon' is the rest of the world.

This is the basic idea. Where have you seen this or some variation of it? Has anyone ever played in or run this kind of setup?

Edit: Typo

[MrZJunior]

Sounds cool, like an old school wilderness adventure. The party would need some method of getting resources from their home base year round.

[batiushkov]

That's the sort of thing I'm still thinking about. They start off as equipped as they can reasonably be, but there's heavy pulls on their resources and no easy way back to "town" because of the difficulty of terrain. I wonder if a longer-term adventure in stages where they have to repurpose "resources" they find along the way could ever work.

I think it would take way more skill than I have to run this even tolerably well, but I still like the idea and will keep at it.

Maybe the outside world went through a relatively high tech bubble (not magic if that would have allowed them to rediscover the isolated valley) that collapsed, although that seems too easy.

[jqavins]

Heading out from home into the wide world to find a mcguffin and bring it home is an old reliable trope. This is an intriguing twist on it, with the outside world being deserted; I like it.

One possibility for a mcguffin is new crop seeds, as crops fail back home.

[Aetol]

Isn't this basically the "Points of Light" setting of 4E ?

[batiushkov]

I have no idea, but I believe it. I'm not familiar with any settings or adventures after AD&D. Is "Points of Light" worth a look?

[Ravian]

I have no idea, but I believe it. I'm not familiar with any settings or adventures after AD&D. Is "Points of Light" worth a look?

It's not much of a setting, more like a blank slate to build your own upon. There are a few assumpitions. (Namely the existence of a few empires that have since collapsed, as well as a small area to start things off from.)

Other than that though, it just assumes that the world is a place without large societies, only small scattered settlements of varying sizes surrounded by wildernesses full of ruins and monsters.

[Aergoth]

If you're looking for inspiration, the original Fallout works a little like this.

If I was running the game, your initial quest (from level 1-3 or so) is going to be putting the party over, under or through those mountains somehow. Their task isn't to go into the wider world yet, just to find a route that will allow someone (IC this should not neccessarily be implied to be the PCs, but OOC of course it's the PCs they're the protagonists) to go in search of whatever it is, but obviously risking the resources of a higher level party isn't the first thing they want to do.

[sktarq]

Depending on which system you are using I would still toss the Thief/Rogue as being an available class-people who get by on skills and quick thinking. Possibly ranger for those people who seasonally go into the surrounding hills (shepherds, hunters, etc)

[jqavins]

Depending on which system you are using I would still toss the Thief/Rogue as being an available class-people who get by on skills and quick thinking. Possibly ranger for those people who seasonally go into the surrounding hills (shepherds, hunters, etc)
I would have to agree with this. One class or character build type that gets by on skills and/or stealth, and another that runs on hunting skills and "land smarts" are archetypes that would be missed by quite a few players, and could be strategically or tactically important to the party.

[MrZJunior]

Will there be other expeditions sent out with the same task?

[Everyl]

I just want to say, I think this is an excellent idea, and I may be borrowing some aspects of it.

With a setting like this (also used, as others have observed, in games like Fallout), however, the characters are just as ignorant of what's over the next hill as the players. It may be a lot of work for the GM to prepare a world like this, but the players only need to understand a tiny portion of it before the game begins. It's perfect for players who are new to the game, so they can focus on learning the game rather than learning about a setting. It's also good for busy people, like my current potential player pool, as there's very little about the setting to establish ahead of time.

If I do get a game off the ground in the near future, I'll probably be using something inspired by this. Also, I love the idea of player characters wandering around a nearly-abandoned post-fantasy-apocalyptic wasteland seeking some MacGuffin or another they need to save their people.

Thank you for the inspiration, Batiushkov.

[batiushkov]

Thanks to those who have shared any thoughts here (or who even like the idea). I still like it, but I have probably years to think about it before I have any players, so that's good.

I hadn't thought about other expeditions being sent out, mrzjunior. I suppose you could try that. I was imagining maybe one enclave of the inset-culture trying to send out these people moderately equipped -- as Aergoth suggested, maybe with the in-game purpose of just testing the waters.

I like the apparent plusses to this situation that Everyl brought up. I hadn't thought about that really, but it makes sense.

[Xuc Xac]

I think Earthdawn worked like this too. Many campaigns began with the fantasy equivalent of your Fallout vault opening and the player characters being sent out to see if the plague of demons had ended yet.

[MrZJunior]

I hadn't thought about other expeditions being sent out, mrzjunior. I suppose you could try that. I was imagining maybe one enclave of the inset-culture trying to send out these people moderately equipped -- as Aergoth suggested, maybe with the in-game purpose of just testing the waters.

Another group backed by a different faction within the enclave might be an interesting addition. Or perhaps they are from a different enclave altogether.

[batiushkov]

I see from the various posts that this basic starting point is used pretty often. I guess it's just the barest of twists on the most basic "start in normal-place, go see what's in strange-place" scenarios.

Another group backed by a different faction could be cool. That leans more towards a kind of "space race" reduced to the surface of the earth. I was originally thinking some losers being pushed out the door with full packs but no one really expecting to see them again.

[Thinker]

It would be a lot of work for a GM to plan out something like this so I would recommend not planning it out. Involve the players in your world building by having them taking turns describing scenes. When the party ventures into the mountains, there's an old mountain trail that leads out of town and is known for its treacherous path. This is the setup for the first scene so you turn it over to player A who might say, "The trail goes on for miles into the distance. We can just make out a creaky bridge coming up just ahead." Do plan out some challenges as the GM for the area they're in - monsters, environmental hazards, etc. I'd also recommend using action points for this sort of game, but give them more power like in Fate, allow them to alter the scene in some way - fighting a Gorblax, one of the players spends an action point to make them super-vulnerable to wheat and throws some grains into its face.