Over in a blah blah blah thread about Ron Edwards or The Pundit or Clint Howard  or somebody, Aos interjected the following:

Quote from: AosI think we have enough threads about all of this; therefore, I suggest that this thread be about space dungeons.
That's right: space dungeons.
what elements can you transport from traditional FRPGs into a site based SF adventure, and how do you justify them in said terms?
discuss:

Since this is what get out of this forum, and not the incessant blah blah blah about some dude who said somethin' or what-the-fuck-ever, I'm taking the initiative and choosing to talk about THIS, instead.

Traps, Aos.  You can bring in traps, but they'll look different: malfunctioning airlock controls, countdown timers to explosive decompression/vacuum/chemical fire retardant sprays/etc, broken catwalks, hazardous materials left sitting around where any motard can play with 'em, etc.  Hell, even a pissed-off computer can be a 'trap', if what you do with traps in FRPGs is disable 'em or lose HP to 'em -- you gotta reprogram the mofo or turn it off or activate its "Daisy, Daiiiissssyyyy..." circuits or whatever or else DOOM.  Find/Remove Virus, 45%.  

Seriously, stick the "War" up your ass and tango down Main Street, I wanna talk about space dungeons and how to think about hit points and what cool game you just bought.  This war shit is pissing me off royal, with bells and lights on it.  

Wandering monsters, too.  You can put wandering monsters in a space station.  You saw Aliens, right?  There you go.  1d6 alienses, roll initiative!

"War", my ass.

I'm making one right now. It is located on the world of Sarahl  in the Zimby system.
So far I know some stuff:

The Primals (an ancient star spanning civilization that vanished from the galaxy over a million years ago) made an attempt to terraform Sarhal- they either stopped halfway or had something go terribly wrong in the process.  the planet is a swampy mess with hardly any solid land mass, and  has a corrosive atmosphere.

Archaeology is illegal on Sarhal because the Primals left nasty shit lying around when they vanished. therefore Archaeologists are willing to pay top dollar for any items recovered from sites on Sarahl.

There is a nameless, half sunken city in the northern hemisphere.

Ruins on Sarahl are haunted by Mutars- remamnents of a failed eugenics program attempted by an early group of human settlers.

There is a room somewhere in the lost city, known only as the Chamber of Thought- it is occupied by 100's of disembodied brains floating in a tank of fluid. Together these brains have immense psionic power.

I'm doing random encounter tables, sub levels and all the other megadungeon  stuff- but I already know what I'm thinking- what are your thoughts on space/SF dungeons?
What tropes/monsters can be converted from FRPG games?
What is your rational?

Right on Doc- We're going to need a merge, though!

Are space dungeons on planets or can they be in space ships as well or derelict space stations?  I like the idea of crazy ecologies developing in self-sustaining life-support systems, so you have a mix of biological and machine problems for the party.

Quote from: walkerpAre space dungeons on planets or can they be in space ships as well or derelict space stations? .

Yes, yes and yes!

We were running a Rifts/Phase World game once where the party ended up in the stomach of some horrid space Beastie, which was progressively going about eating up interstellar shipping.  The result played out quite like a dungeon crawl, but quite unlike as well (players could make/blast their own doors inside, but this would create an "aftershock effect").  We had giant space parasites attacking the party, immune systems attempting "horde" attacks on these "foreign bodies", rival parties attempting to find their way out, and enough stomach acid, dead ends, and involuntary muscle movement to give you all the traps & tricks you'd ever need.

So we have two space dungeon threads within 10 minutes of one another.  That, my friends, is a sign of True Badassery for this forum. :highfive:

Here is one I've started running people through... even have maps of a large ship as the 'dungeon' all made up in AutoRealms (note: I'm not very happy with AutoRealms, I'm going to add a hex fill to shapes in the dia drawing tool to make up for it).

The heroes need to infiltrate the ship, find their way to the officers entertainment comp, break into the computers, either get a copy of the ships travel log or setup a tracking device, all without being noticed.

btw as a distraction the ship is under attack and invasion from a whole nother section to draw off the bad guys. The invading marines don't know squat about the mission, so the heroes need to avoid them too.

They can't get caught or leave any witnesses cause the bad guys will change their plans, scrap their ship, pull it apart looking for the tracking device, essentially make the heroes mission a bust.

The bad guys are 'Giant Lobsters'. One of the heroes is a small cat like race (yes I know, I didn't argue and went with it, it just might work anyway). Somebody wanted to play a ball of tentacles in a skull wrapped up in cabbage leaves.... still working on that one.

There are a few surprises in store that I can't give away.

I needed to give the heroes a chance to really go off in any direction on the ship, and it needed to be really big, so it is a kind of multilevel dungeon in space. Gots me some wandering monster tables and everything.

They get their by being fired in a small ship electronically disguised as a malfunctioning missile. They have vague, stolen, and incorrect maps of the ship, and the course changes as the ship gets damaged both from the internal struggle and the bombardment from other ships.

Classic!

Sounds like a good excuse to use the DWARVEN FORGE Sci-Fi corridors for minis that I bought years ago.

 I can see it now: A DOOM-like game , but in the TRAVELLER universe and using the GURPS rules mechanics - but LOTS of miniatures in play.  Plus, lots of combat and mega-violence.


 Hard part is deciding if I should work this into my campoaign or do it as a one-shot.

- Ed C.

In one of the original prequel Han Solo Trilogy novels there was a bank vault containing a blaster defense system that activated without warning if someone walked through carrying a weapon.

The space hulk idea is basically that of a space dungeon. Limited visibility and mobility, beasties everywhere, and tactical exploitation of the environment are the basic elements.

The best space dungeon-like I ever ran was in an Alternity game. A massive cargo ship was making semi-random jumps between a small number of systems, as if the hypersace autopilot wasn't working properly. The characters, basically Space Adventurers, took a mission to go check it out. The way hyperdrive worked in baseline alternity was that you entered hyperspace for five days, and then exited X number of light years away, then made another jump. The PCs managed to board just before one jump, planning to rendezvous with their ship at the predicted exit point.

The reason the ship was malfunctioning was that alien monsters, like jacked up xenomorphs (my 14 year old self gave them acid blood that burst into flame, and four arms and the ability to spit poison) from the Aliens movie, had killed the crew and damaged the internal systems. The characters battled internal defense systems, xenomorphs, and the general poor condition of the ship. One of the coolest moments was when the PCs needed to find a shaft where the gravity plates had failed so they could ascend levels more quickly. It involved climbing through a part of the ship that had been blown open and was exposed to hyperspace. They had this exciting climb as the "currents" threatened to blow them off and drop them into normal space light years from help.

The climax was the party plus their NPC captain confronting the last of the xenomorphs in a zero-G shaft with rocket launchers and lightsabers in this wicked 3-D fight.

The idea of a space dungeon gives me the thought of an abandoned space station or giant ship left to the void. The shit you'd find in there would be terrific.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!"War", my ass.

Chill out, my friend. I'm dedicated to talking about gaming. Maybe that thread'll end up lots of fun!

Robots:

Security droids.

A crazed robot bent upon some twisted and demented purpose- like Box in Logan's Run.

A friendly helpful robot with a voice like Slim Pickens.

100's of tiny maintanence droids, capable of cleaning up (devouring) anything (including people), rushing around, like a swarm of mechnaicle cock roaches.