Now, I've really never been one to piss in the cereal of those who's primary motivation for playing is to kill things and take their stuff*, but around my parts, that's never really flown. Both my players and I have traditionally favored a combat light and slightly handwave-y interpretation of everything from D&D 3.X to OMage, to Exalted, and to tell the truth, it's always served us well.

But I kinda wanna do a dungeon crawl. Because as much fun as I've had doin' my thang, there's another part of my heart that craves deadly, slightly psychotic environs where a false step is fatal and you have to be on your toes all the time while, at the same time the place fills you with a sense of wonder (alongside filling your pockets with phat lewts). A cold, dark place in my heart. It's probably underground in a dungeon.

It's a hard sell. Fer real. I know of one or two people in my gaming circle(s) that would bite. Three tops. But I want them to, at least occasionally (maybe once every month or two) share my vision. And besides, I know that even though this is cool, I can't do it without adding depth and internal consistancy. No huge dragons in rooms they'd never be able to access or dungeons for no reason. I have to design a setting, and I want your opinions. I know they won't all be forgiving, but what the hell, right?

First, I'm playing D&D 3.5. I'd consider True20 or something, and enjoy it, but it's just not as finicky. I loved the flavor of the old systems, but 1 - I don't wanna track down the books, and I'd want them in paper and 2 - nostalgia aside, I don't like the systems much. So... I need a reason for dungeons, and towns in the middle of nowhere, and bizarre economies that let PCs buy and sell in the rediculous quantities and types they do.

So, the world I got is... the ruins of the future of my current campaign setting. It evolved a sort of magi-tech future, before a giant war complete with the imploding of civilization brought the planet to a long, long dark age. One it may never begin to crawl out of. Civilization is having a hard time taking hold, with many stronghold of the past shadow-towns of their former glory. Many are nestled in the stony towering ruins of large cities and buildings.
Around the world linger dozens, if not hundreds of derilect airships of titanic proportions, ruined fortresses, abandoned bunkers built into cliffs, and crashsites so massive that they've created new and fantastic delves. Magical radiation has mutated horrific beasts that never would have been created; many that exist in no other place besides their unique ecologies.

Wherever these places are found, tiny boom towns sprout up filled with the most oppertunistic gold-rushers. More then any known remaining natural resources, these deserted dungeons represent the most concentrated riches and resources available. No mine competes.
Adventurers belong to the rare breed who are brave, desperate, and fucking dumb enough to brave these places and scrap them. Tear the adamantium doors from the hinges, unravel the gold wires from the engine, pull the ceramic tiles off the blast-doors... pillage forgotten magic devices and weapons and claim them for their own.

Much of the treasure is frightingly conventional. Why is there so much gold in that storeroom? Who cares? Just take it. Their wealth makes them natural political targets. They have to take care in boom-towns, renegotiate their licences before beuracrats, and in the dangerous post-apocalyptic D&D, the only dangers arn't the relics of a destroyed past.

You know, I think I should have submitted this to the True20 setting thing, after fleshing it out. It sounds more fun to me then Borrowed Time, or whatever the fuck.

Liquid oxygen enemas sound more fun than Borrowed Time, for what it's worth.

This sounds awesome.

Sounds awesome. I would play that in a heartbeat. Do tell more.

Thanks
Frank

Gotta add a "me, too" and say that your idea is way cool.  Run with it!

Dungeon crawls offer a way to present some unique dilemmas to your players: how do they move that massive treasure hoard (not to mention the priceless giant statue of Shakatak!) to the surface?  They can't carry it all, so they'll have to hire someone and purchase horses, mules and wagons.  Should they leave someone to guard the wealth when they go back to town for supplies?  Can they trust the guard?  Can they trust the people they're hiring to keep their mouths shut about the nature of their work?  And what happens to their lives when they come back laden with all this wealth?  Etc.

A suggestion on dungeon crawls (or anything else) in general: if you really want to run it and several people in your group are on board, but the rest are ambivalent, try pitching it as a one-shot.  It will be easier to get them on board that way.

Maybe the one-shot will scratch your itch.  If it is a disaster, then at least you weren't planning to make it into a campaign.  And if it is a big success, then maybe your players will want you to keep running it as a campagin.

Don't forget puzzles. Everyone always does, but they're the best parts of dungeons.

And are you gonna use SRD monsters and treasure or what?

Puzzles are going to be more along the lines of how to get from point A to point B, or something. They're mostly going to be able to be solved by clever allocations of resources. I've long been tired of my solutions being discounted by DMs who don't want to accept anything that isn't already written down in the module or whatever.

I expect that the SRD'll be the best place for me to find monsters, maybe with a paintjob and a tweak, to keep players on their toes.

You're not in Kansas anymore. Tekumel (Empire of the Petal Throne) began as a post-end of an alien world dungeoncrawl with a purpose variant of D&D. Start not long after the stars go out with the world just beginning to recover from the world about ripping apart.

Magic and psionics are discovered, techno-magic items are invented, gravcars and lasers are still working (along with the weather control/orbital defense satellites), and the starport's buried under who knows how much earth and lava now. Out on the plains starships stand with nowhere to go to. Aliens answer arcane summons from other dimensions now that the barrier between space and time is thin.

D&D3E conversion & a sample adventure.

Empire of the Petal Throne is the original game and still great, it's also based on OD&D. T:EPT is a better intro to the main part of the setting and the culture, unfortunately the d20 version has yet to be released. Both are available in print or on PDF. Even if the setting isn't used wholesale, it's still very plunderable IMO.

Thanks, that's pretty interesting. I keep hearing people bring up Tekumel. I don't think it's for me in this case, though.

Quote from: Thanatos02Puzzles are going to be more along the lines of how to get from point A to point B, or something. They're mostly going to be able to be solved by clever allocations of resources. I've long been tired of my solutions being discounted by DMs who don't want to accept anything that isn't already written down in the module or whatever.

I expect that the SRD'll be the best place for me to find monsters, maybe with a paintjob and a tweak, to keep players on their toes.

Cool stuff. Please keep posting about your thoughts on this. What you planning on doing with it once you have something pulled together? I'd buy this as a PDF or something.

Thanks
Frank

I'll tell you what - I'll do my best to put something together and I think I've got pdf software somewhere around here. (I work with computers and stuff a lot, so I've accumulated a good amount of relevant software after a while.) If, when I've gotten pretty far, I've made something I really want to play, then I'll figure out a way to release it.

My ideas for technological advancement in the game were never really hyper-advanced. In the game world I'm working with, scientific advancement stalled for a few reasons; one, there was a dark age following the collapse of a shadowy empire. Two, the science of the time simply wasn't worth advancing to the people in power who, being highly educated, had magic to work with. Magic was a lot easier to keep in the hands of the wealthy, and proved more then sufficient to live a happy and comfortable life. Three, the long-lived life span of certain populations of established cultures which acted as an influence on others acted as an active check against advancement.

So, what I'm looking at is kind of diesal-magi-tech. Punk. Ahem. So, I've worked up some rules for revolvers and rifles which I expect to be rare. Certain inventors are working on re-inventing firearms, but they're neither reliable nor particularly worthwhile yet. I'd expect about one player to tote a gun he can use reliably by the end of a campaign.

Well... you know I'm always up for whatever, so you can count me in.  I have to stress that new mechanical stuff to play with, rather than plausible explanations for everything, would be the biggest draw to me, hands-down.  Something other than the psuedo-vancian standard magic system, specifically.  Not that I'd be out if you just went with the RAW, or that post-apocalyptic Ehlon doesn't sound entirely too sweet for words (and more than a little influenced by Virconium, unless I miss my guess?) but I figured since you were in the market for suggestions I'd throw that out there.

Quote from: Thanatos02So, the world I got is... the ruins of the future of my current campaign setting. It evolved a sort of magi-tech future, before a giant war complete with the imploding of civilization brought the planet to a long, long dark age. One it may never begin to crawl out of. Civilization is having a hard time taking hold, with many stronghold of the past shadow-towns of their former glory. Many are nestled in the stony towering ruins of large cities and buildings.

Around the world linger dozens, if not hundreds of derilect airships of titanic proportions, ruined fortresses, abandoned bunkers built into cliffs, and crashsites so massive that they've created new and fantastic delves. Magical radiation has mutated horrific beasts that never would have been created; many that exist in no other place besides their unique ecologies.

I think you should have a look at the World of Synnibar to help you flesh out some more of the background.

Quote from: BrantaiWell... you know I'm always up for whatever, so you can count me in.  I have to stress that new mechanical stuff to play with, rather than plausible explanations for everything, would be the biggest draw to me, hands-down.  Something other than the psuedo-vancian standard magic system, specifically.  Not that I'd be out if you just went with the RAW, or that post-apocalyptic Ehlon doesn't sound entirely too sweet for words (and more than a little influenced by Virconium, unless I miss my guess?) but I figured since you were in the market for suggestions I'd throw that out there.

How do you feel about True20 magic? I was gonna run it straight by the book, but I don't have any problems switching books. Mostly, I don't like Vancian magic either, and I thought about that when I was working on my concept, but I decided if I was going to go 80-90% RAW, I'd just go 100% this time and just roll with what I didn't like so much. What's your suggestion, though? I know you've got a good alternative somewhere. ^^ (You and your clever RPG knowledge, you.)

And, yeah. Virconium and what I've heard about Vance's (ironically, considering the magic) Dying Earth. But it started out as an excercise in "Where did all these abandoned wrecks and dungeons come from?"

Hey Lev. ^^ Isn't Synnabar the game with the laser-eye bears? That is awesome. I've got a real extensive background (I'm sure I'll post or link it sometime) already, but I'll try and see if I can find a copy real cheap. I'm broke, after all, but I can do ok for myself. (But now I've got a list of books - Tekumel, Synnabar, does anyone else have a favorite? I've already got Exalted, and Brenti over there has Burning Wheel. No Dogs in the Vineyard for this one, thanks...)

Something from you description made me think of this:

Dungeon as a skyscraper that sunk straight down, completely. Maybe the access door on top stayed up. As you go deeper you find nastier nasties and stranger strangies.  Perfect excuse (barring the problem of 'how do you sink a skyscraper straight down?') for a level based dungeon...

Works even better if you don't tell the players what they are actually exploring and let them figure it out on their own...