D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

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LAYF
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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by LAYF » Sat Mar 16, 2013 9:14 am

Okay :)

That its off scale is important to note, i think I'd put in a mesureing stock or line somewhere around the compas... but thats just me...

Nice to see its dueable in PS two...

And nothing wrong with deltas... i made them in all my original maps, befeor i was arrested by the riverpolice (yea.. thats a thing from the cartographers guield....) and learned how to place my rivers proberly :) now i only make them now and then,,,,
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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by thinkslogically » Sat Mar 16, 2013 9:35 am

:lol: Really? River police? That's awesome!

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by LAYF » Sat Mar 16, 2013 9:52 am

Yep realy :ugeek:
-Best regards LAYF

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by M0rtimer » Sat Mar 16, 2013 11:07 am

"Halt criminal scum! Take a look at this- Do you see this? A river does NOT flow that way! May you spend two weeks in the corner of shame and learn from your mistakes!" :P

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by LAYF » Sat Mar 16, 2013 11:11 am

Well... a bit more polite... but something like that :P
-Best regards LAYF

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by thinkslogically » Sat Mar 16, 2013 11:26 am

Do you think we should implement a Corner of Shame in the god school? For excessive imagination perhaps :lol:

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by LAYF » Sat Mar 16, 2013 11:33 am

Son.. Dads not mad... Dads dissapointed

Image


Hehe....
-Best regards LAYF

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by thinkslogically » Sat Mar 16, 2013 11:41 am

;)

I'm only messing :)

Though I do think that placing too much value on what is correct in a real world setting could stymie some of the more bizarre creations that people could come up with. I guess you really need to know the rules before you can break them though huh?

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by LAYF » Sat Mar 16, 2013 12:08 pm

I know :)

Yea... thats true...


Any ways... back on track.. still need help with anything?
-Best regards LAYF

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by thinkslogically » Sat Mar 16, 2013 12:12 pm

Nah I think I'm good thanks :) Just working out the actual mechanics now like what loot goes where and a template for the NPC guys mostly. I've got a lot of resources which I've dug off the interwebs over the last year or so, so it's just a case now of pulling it all together into something that fits the ruleset.

I'll post tomorrow and let you all know how it goes :) Wish me luck!

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by thinkslogically » Sun Mar 17, 2013 3:14 pm

Just back, and as man was that a lot of fun! Will write it up tomorrow for you guys but it went really well (and yes, the players threw all my plans out the window and surprised me with some cool stuff) so it was fun :lol: totally exhausted now tho!

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by LAYF » Mon Mar 18, 2013 5:54 pm

So... What happened?
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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by thinkslogically » Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:35 am

OK, so if you've been reading this topic so far, you'll probably know that I wrote and ran a mini-adventure on Saturday for a few friends which worked out pretty well, in large part due to the cool ideas and advice you guys have given in this thread :) Now before I explain how the adventure went down, bear in mind that we are all a bunch of total newbies. Three of us had a go at running Kobald Hall for some combat practice about a month ago but for various reasons it just wasn't that much fun (the combat felt slow and grindy, there was no real story because it was really just a pre-made tutorial and there were only 3 of us so there was a LOT of rule-checking and the two players each had to deal with 2 pre-made PCs because no-one else showed up :grumble: Still, we learned a pile of things and for this time round I wanted to try building my own adventure so we could have a bit more story and RPing while also bringing in the majority of the mechanics. But this was pretty much do-or-die for whether we wanted to keep playing D&D or not.

Fast forward to yesterday's session. This time around, we have me DMing and 5 players, 3 of whom are totally new to the game. We've got a basic square battle grid for any combat (with coins for tokens) and a couple of sets of dice. That's about it.

So, first off we spent about an hour building the guys' characters using the Wizard's of the Coast Character Generator via my D&DI subscription. It's got some quirks (like it seems impossible to build a character using the Players Handbooks as the only source), but it's otherwise awesome and sped things up massively for us. It's also how I was able to make the monsters I wanted really easily and pick a reasonable selection of treasures. So, character sheets printed and we're ready to go. The party consists of:

Human wizard
Halfling rogue
Elf Ranger
Dwarf fighter &
Drow cleric

Part One: Waking Up (spoilered for size)
► Show Spoiler
[We're about 2 hours through now so we break for pizza]

Part Two: The Village
► Show Spoiler
Part Three: In which my plans go out the window
► Show Spoiler
So that's how it went down really. There were probably a bunch of dodgy rules-calls made but we had a LOT of fun, and I'm more interested in that really than in adhering perfectly to the rules. The players were all involved in agreeing what checks should apply to each skill as well, so it all felt very fair and I think they've had a decent taste of most aspects of the game now. Except combat, but whatever :)

I've also learned a lot about that style of game too and actually really enjoyed winging it. The players really got into it which was a huge help and it was great fun having everyone break in and out of character without feeling weird about it. Not that there was much characterisation going on, but I think that'll come as they get to know their own PCs.

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by LAYF » Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:52 am

Sounds like it went wat better than the small kobold fight then :)

So its safe to asume you'll be keep playing this?
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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by Wolfie » Tue Mar 19, 2013 5:57 am

DM plan ... DM plan... DM plan.... Curve ball!

Yep, that's usually how my D&D adventures go. :D

Sounds like you had fun. Great job!
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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by thinkslogically » Tue Mar 19, 2013 6:02 am

If we can keep playing games like that where it's more about skill checks and fast battles than massive amounts of combat then I think we will aye :) We're just getting into figuring it all out (as you know) so we're still working out what aspects we most enjoy playing as a group but yeah, I think we'll stick at it for a while longer :D

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by BadgeAddict » Tue Mar 19, 2013 6:10 am

It sounds like you all had fun...does anything else really matter. There aren't that many Dnd games that i hear about where people are standing at the table and yelling.

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by GathersIngredients » Tue Mar 19, 2013 8:53 am

► Show Spoiler
Krulle wrote:My bad memory allows me to enjoy positive news far more often!
Excited for the Dungeon Eyes, Ricki and Lara kissing!
► Show Spoiler

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by thinkslogically » Mon Jul 15, 2013 5:22 am

Afternoon all! So, this D&D (4e) thing has been trundling along with our group now for a while, with each of us having a shot at DMing over the last few weeks in order to get a better feel for the rules etc. However, we're now at the point where we'll probably start thinking of doing a longer campaign (not necessarily a L1-30 deal, but certainly a series of multi-session adventures) and I'm looking for a few ideas for the campaign-plots if you don't mind helping. Tropes, cliches and tongue-in-cheek are absolutely fine (we've got 3 media-studies / film critic / producers on the team and there's nothing that's going to be particularly new anyway, and I might as well acknowledge it) and will likely comprise a bunch of lighter-themed side-quests, but it would be nice to have a larger storyline to fit into as well. Actually, it would be nice to have 2-3 larger story options available so that they can choose between them, and to make the world feel more realistic if things trundle along even without their intervention (and forces them to choose between who to help since they can't help everyone).

Anyway, at the moment the plan for the first tier L1-10 (ish) would be to have the PCs recruited by a guy who wants them to recover / steal various artefacts which he needs to fulfil some purpose. As far as the PCs know, he's a legit victim of banditry or whatever and just wants his stuff back, but there will be subtle clues along the way that his motivations are not what he says they are. Anyway, it will eventually turn out that the guy is attempting to open a rift between the mortal plane and the Underdark (or whatever D&D planes are called) in an attempt to free someone he cares about from the service of a demon / devil following a deal-with-the-devil gone bad. The idea being to force the PCs to show up at the final ritual summoning so they can destroy the devil / demon / whatever on the guy's behalf and free whoever it was who was taken in the first place. Maybe it's a tiefling trying to kill the demon that his ancestors sold their souls to and he wants to end the contract? Or maybe their being manipulated by some larger BBEG (layers of puppetry!). Depending on what happens, the PCs then either have to spend their higher levels fighting their way into the Abyss (to undo / stop some catastrophe they have inadvertently been dragged into) or fighting their way out of it if they end up in servitude / killed themselves during the battle. If the PCs don't get involved, then the guy will find another group of adventurers to help him out (who the PCs may or may not bump into along the way), but the Bad Thing will happen anyway and might force them to pay attention then.

Another idea was to have some guy who wants to allow mortals to design their own fate and free themselves from the influence of gods / devils by cutting off the mortal realm from the rest of the planes and / or restarting the first war between chaos and the gods in the hope that they will destroy themselves (think someone like Lord Asriel from His Dark Materials trilogy). Problem is I've got no idea how this would work in a D&D setting, but would set up fairly easily for a battle between chaos / law rather than the usual good / evil divide.

Something else could link more to the mechanics of the game itself, by having e.g. magic is draining / losing potency across the realms and no-one knows why. The PCs are then enlisted to go and discover why. Maybe linked to the deaths of e.g. dragons in the world because of too many heroes killing them for gold. This could potentially be a nightmare re. game balance, but you guys might have suggestions?

Finally, there's always the option of just running a sandbox world with a bunch of not-very-connected dungeon crawls (for Glory and Fame!!) which does exactly what it says on the tin. Pretty boring though.

A couple of issues / caveats:
  • I kind of want to make use of the other planes available in D&D, but I don't like the idea that PCs can ever be powerful enough to directly challenge the gods themselves. Maybe act as significant players in a diving game, but gods who can create the fabric of existence should not (IMO) ever be challenged by individual mortals. So god-fighting is out for my game.
  • A 'modular' campaign would be preferable in case RL takes over before we can conclude the entire story, so a series of mini-mysteries / mini-bosses en route to the final BBEG woudl be good I think and means no-one will feel like we didn't achieve anything on the offchance that we can't finish the whole story and allows for other GMs to slot in and out at the end of each section if RL happens.
  • I fully expect the players will go off the track as soon as is humanly possible, so having a self-sustaining campaign happen in the background is pretty much what I'm going for. If the PCs don't participate then a certain sequence of events will continue to unfold anyway until they are forced to pay attention and either do something about it or allow events to unfold and for bad shit to go down.
-----------------------

One last thing - I will be speaking to the players next time around about the kind of game they want to play, but I'd like to have a few options to suggest to them too based on what could be done.

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by BadgeAddict » Mon Jul 15, 2013 5:32 am

One of the best ways to keeps people from becoming too overly-powerful too quickly is by limiting their ability to spend the gold they find. Allow me to explain. Im in a pathfinder game currently, on the edges of the known world, although we make sizable amounts of gold now and then, and my character is a profiteer of sorts (loot makes him happy) there is nowhere to actually spend the money, no shops, no nothing. This forces us to rely on the GM giving us magical items (which he can control what we get) instead of us simply "Buying" whatever it is that we want.

As for an ever-expanding idea/main theme.

I nearly joined a game recently, the GM gave up because he could never find enough people to play.

The Odyssey

Simply take this classic tale, already filled with monsters and beasts and challenges and gods and islands, etc and recreate it in a playable D&D game fashion. It was glorious while it lasted in the one I was in.

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Re: D&D Mini-Dungeon help needed

Post by thinkslogically » Mon Jul 15, 2013 5:54 am

heh! Yeah, in the 5-6 sessions we've had so far, I'm the only one of the DMs who gave out any loot beyond a bunch of gold, and aside from a couple of bars there has been NOTHING to buy except beer and goats (don't ask). I quite like the idea of having 'adventurer prices' in shops where the prices basically go up exponentially for anything sold to an adventurer because they are pretty well going to be richer than kings after a few dungeons. In a world economy as weird as that in D&D, I would think there are more than a few jokes to be made.

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