lytokk
2018-05-08, 08:49 PM
Hey playground, been a while since I've been able to be around. I come seeking opinions and a little bit of guidance.
So, recently I was approached with the idea of creating a game that people can just pick up and join in at any time or just drop out when they wanted to. Throughout a bit of thought, I decided to come up with a dungeon that really just doesn't have an end. Let me break it down
1) 400 designed rooms that each have the same general footprint in terms of square by square (thinking something like 15x20). Each one would have at least 2 doors, one on each wall corresponding to the cardinal directions (north south east or west). Only 2 rooms would be able to be active at a time, so the room you are in and the room you came from. Once the characters open another door, the room you came from disappears and the room you are going into re-appears. I would handle room to room travel by means of a percentile roll based upon the door which is being opened. Open the door on the west side of the room and I consult the west entrance book. That's how I arrived at 400 rooms.
2) I would randomly populate each room ahead of time with monsters, traps or other types of encounters
3) All characters would be pre-generated to ensure a type of balance, also so that people would be able to pick up and drop out at any time. Level 6 really seems to be the balancing point I'm going for. There would be no advancement beyond but there would be the possibility of growth depending on factors. Growth being like additional feats, abilities or limited increases in magic abilities. I intend to make a large variety of characters for people to play, as this encourages many different play-styles. Also having a lot of characters means that if one dies the player can just pick up a new one on the spot and get back in if they're so inclined.
These are the simple rules I have been going by, but I've run into a few little problems.
a) I'm a 3.5 player and DM. I have been playing some 5th edition games recently and really enjoy how much simpler it is to pick up and play. My gut feeling would be to make the whole dungeon in 3.5 as that is where the bulk of my experience (both as a DM and player) lies as well as my financial investment in source books. But, with 5th edition being so much simpler, maybe I need to bite the bullet and pick up some of the 5th edition books and go that route. Thoughts?
b) Since the characters will never leave the dungeon, I feel there needs to be shops/magic marts of some kind inside the dungeon. Since the characters will never level up, I feel its best to reward players with the opportunity to make their gear better over time, so long as the play the same character and keep that character alive from room to room. This part does make the whole dungeon design feel a lot more video gamey, which is part of the concept, as a player can jump in or out whenever they would feel the need.
The question is, how often should one of these rooms come up? My initial plan was to have 5 unique shop rooms per each entrance. For example a roll of 85 would get you to the same shop room regardless of whatever door you opened to get there. This also brings in things that some players enjoy having like re-occurring NPCs if they want to haggle/banter with the shop owner. Sometimes this would end up being a full fledged magic mart and sometimes it would just be a tavern. Initially I felt that it happening 5% of the time would be enough, but the more I think about it, the more I feel that one of these rooms should come up more often than a natural 20.
c) Resting. Every once in a while the players are going to need to have their characters rest in order to recover spells, hitpoints or daily abilities. How often should they be in a safe room? I've always liked encouraging players to enforce a watch schedule with midnight attacks, but how often should there be a mid-rest attack in this sort of dungeon. Would having 1/3rd of the rooms be safe work? Numbers wise that means the players would be able to get an uninterrupted rest every 3rd room they cleared. I would also determine which rooms are safe at the planning and populating stage, so that there's no bias in terms of if they are running a gauntlet or walking down easy street.
d) How many of the rooms should be child's play verse how many should be a nearly deadly encounter? Some part of me thought 25% would be simple walk in the park rooms, 50% moderate challenge or CR +/- 1, and 25% of CR + 2-4. Would this be an even spread do you think? I was also planning on having a 100 percentile roll being a straight up boss battle which would be in the deadly territory, basically one that you would almost need to run away from, unless the characters were geared out of their minds and/or had very good tactical skills. In relation to this, how often should it be a combat encounter verse how often should a non-violent option be a possible result?
e) How often should one of the 400 rooms have a secret? Like a little doorway that you may not have normally found with some extra treasure in it? How often should that secret be an easily avoidable but not always detectable trap? like a translucent gelatinous ooze at the bottom of a pit?
f) I'm normally one of the encumbrance enforcing DMs, so my gut feeling is to keep things like that and rations enforced. If I make sure enough of the encounters are edible non-humanoid creatures with plenty of water running through the dungeon, I don't think this would be too much of an issue, right?
That's about where I'm at. the plan to use the same size for each room stems from the idea to keep things moving so I don't have to re-draw the whole thing every time. Also, just because I say a single room does not mean that its always going to be a single room. Sometimes the room could function more like a single floor of a building with multiple rooms, or sometimes the sun could be shining down in a box canyon with no way out except for through the next door. There would be a bit of the honor system involved with players not attempting to climb to the top of the canyon to escape the dungeon, as that breaks with the theme of what I'm planning on going for.
Also, there is no story to the dungeon. It really is what it is.
Based on that does anyone have any feedback they'd be wanting to give? Has anyone who designed something like this have any pointers? Whether this gets played or not is immaterial, its more the act of building the whole thing I'm looking forward to/needing. Thanks.
So, recently I was approached with the idea of creating a game that people can just pick up and join in at any time or just drop out when they wanted to. Throughout a bit of thought, I decided to come up with a dungeon that really just doesn't have an end. Let me break it down
1) 400 designed rooms that each have the same general footprint in terms of square by square (thinking something like 15x20). Each one would have at least 2 doors, one on each wall corresponding to the cardinal directions (north south east or west). Only 2 rooms would be able to be active at a time, so the room you are in and the room you came from. Once the characters open another door, the room you came from disappears and the room you are going into re-appears. I would handle room to room travel by means of a percentile roll based upon the door which is being opened. Open the door on the west side of the room and I consult the west entrance book. That's how I arrived at 400 rooms.
2) I would randomly populate each room ahead of time with monsters, traps or other types of encounters
3) All characters would be pre-generated to ensure a type of balance, also so that people would be able to pick up and drop out at any time. Level 6 really seems to be the balancing point I'm going for. There would be no advancement beyond but there would be the possibility of growth depending on factors. Growth being like additional feats, abilities or limited increases in magic abilities. I intend to make a large variety of characters for people to play, as this encourages many different play-styles. Also having a lot of characters means that if one dies the player can just pick up a new one on the spot and get back in if they're so inclined.
These are the simple rules I have been going by, but I've run into a few little problems.
a) I'm a 3.5 player and DM. I have been playing some 5th edition games recently and really enjoy how much simpler it is to pick up and play. My gut feeling would be to make the whole dungeon in 3.5 as that is where the bulk of my experience (both as a DM and player) lies as well as my financial investment in source books. But, with 5th edition being so much simpler, maybe I need to bite the bullet and pick up some of the 5th edition books and go that route. Thoughts?
b) Since the characters will never leave the dungeon, I feel there needs to be shops/magic marts of some kind inside the dungeon. Since the characters will never level up, I feel its best to reward players with the opportunity to make their gear better over time, so long as the play the same character and keep that character alive from room to room. This part does make the whole dungeon design feel a lot more video gamey, which is part of the concept, as a player can jump in or out whenever they would feel the need.
The question is, how often should one of these rooms come up? My initial plan was to have 5 unique shop rooms per each entrance. For example a roll of 85 would get you to the same shop room regardless of whatever door you opened to get there. This also brings in things that some players enjoy having like re-occurring NPCs if they want to haggle/banter with the shop owner. Sometimes this would end up being a full fledged magic mart and sometimes it would just be a tavern. Initially I felt that it happening 5% of the time would be enough, but the more I think about it, the more I feel that one of these rooms should come up more often than a natural 20.
c) Resting. Every once in a while the players are going to need to have their characters rest in order to recover spells, hitpoints or daily abilities. How often should they be in a safe room? I've always liked encouraging players to enforce a watch schedule with midnight attacks, but how often should there be a mid-rest attack in this sort of dungeon. Would having 1/3rd of the rooms be safe work? Numbers wise that means the players would be able to get an uninterrupted rest every 3rd room they cleared. I would also determine which rooms are safe at the planning and populating stage, so that there's no bias in terms of if they are running a gauntlet or walking down easy street.
d) How many of the rooms should be child's play verse how many should be a nearly deadly encounter? Some part of me thought 25% would be simple walk in the park rooms, 50% moderate challenge or CR +/- 1, and 25% of CR + 2-4. Would this be an even spread do you think? I was also planning on having a 100 percentile roll being a straight up boss battle which would be in the deadly territory, basically one that you would almost need to run away from, unless the characters were geared out of their minds and/or had very good tactical skills. In relation to this, how often should it be a combat encounter verse how often should a non-violent option be a possible result?
e) How often should one of the 400 rooms have a secret? Like a little doorway that you may not have normally found with some extra treasure in it? How often should that secret be an easily avoidable but not always detectable trap? like a translucent gelatinous ooze at the bottom of a pit?
f) I'm normally one of the encumbrance enforcing DMs, so my gut feeling is to keep things like that and rations enforced. If I make sure enough of the encounters are edible non-humanoid creatures with plenty of water running through the dungeon, I don't think this would be too much of an issue, right?
That's about where I'm at. the plan to use the same size for each room stems from the idea to keep things moving so I don't have to re-draw the whole thing every time. Also, just because I say a single room does not mean that its always going to be a single room. Sometimes the room could function more like a single floor of a building with multiple rooms, or sometimes the sun could be shining down in a box canyon with no way out except for through the next door. There would be a bit of the honor system involved with players not attempting to climb to the top of the canyon to escape the dungeon, as that breaks with the theme of what I'm planning on going for.
Also, there is no story to the dungeon. It really is what it is.
Based on that does anyone have any feedback they'd be wanting to give? Has anyone who designed something like this have any pointers? Whether this gets played or not is immaterial, its more the act of building the whole thing I'm looking forward to/needing. Thanks.