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Path: utzoo!watmath!jagardner
From: jagardner@watmath.UUCP (jagardner)
Newsgroups: net.games.frp
Subject: Re: How do you write a dungeon?
Message-ID: <10945@watmath.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 16-Jan-85 09:58:54 EST
Article-I.D.: watmath.10945
Posted: Wed Jan 16 09:58:54 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 16-Jan-85 15:41:40 EST
Reply-To: jagardner@watmath.UUCP ()
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 118

[A line heroically throwing itself in the path of a ravenous line-eater!]

I have never DMed D&D, but have been GMing a Champions campaign for
about two years and can add my two cents worth to the proceedings,
simply because Champions has a number of features that help to break
some D&D traditions.

Champions is a superhero game.  It doesn't make sense to send superheroes
out after gold and riches, so a Champions GM is forced to make up real
stories: rescuing hostages, figuring out fiendish mysteries, and busting
up villainous strongholds.  I would recommend the same to D&D DMs -- grabbing
up gold and goodies just isn't enough to sustain someone's interest in a
campaign.  The players also have to accomplish some goal that isn't measured
in GP (or experience points).

This means that the DM has to set up a scenario that has a beginning, a
middle, and an ending.  The beginning is what hooks the players: a rumour,
a commission from the king, an attractive young woman found beaten half to
death in an alley.  You have to set up a situation that the players WANT to
follow up.  I've been in D&D scenarios where the DM says, "There's a cave
in front of you; do you want to go in?"  The players look at each other and
shrug -- if you don't go in, it's going to be a pretty boring session, but
why should the characters go in?

In hooking the players, I have found that it is better to PULL the players
rather than push them.  As a simple example, a princess has been kidnapped
and the players (being heroes, or perhaps trying to clear themselves as
suspects) find themselves obliged to rescue her.  The princess is a continual
pull -- the characters have to keep going, deeper and deeper into a dungeon
if need be, until they've rescued her.  This is much different from a push.
A simple example of a push would be stepping through the door of a haunted
house and having it slam behind you.  That's an indication that the GM is
going to force the players to do things against their will, and is going to
push them through a dungeon.  The players have no sense of working toward
some desirable goal (yes, getting out alive is a good thing, but it's not
as satisfying as accomplishing a real mission).

Most DMs and GMs skimp on the beginning of an adventure.  They want to get
down to the traps and monsters in the dungeon, the things that seem to be
the real fun.  However, the fun in the dungeon can be amplified if there's
a reason for it.  Moreover, the dungeon is easier to write.  Suppose you're
writing a dungeon where the kidnapped princess is being held.  Ask yourself
what kind of a place that would be. Of course, this mostly depends on the
people who have kidnapped the princess.  Why do they want her?  To force
the king to do something?  To spill royal blood in some demonic ceremony?
To wed an ugly wizard who can't get women any other way?  If you know
this, you'll be able to figure out the nature of the dungeon: who's running
it, what they use the place for, what sort of defenses they'll have, and
so on.

If you set up the beginning right, the dungeon (which is the middle) will
fall out fairly easily.  The ending will also take care of itself.  When
the players save the princess, they will get a feeling of accomplishment.
That's what counts.  DON'T force the players to go through every room of
your carefully constructed dungeon.  They're trying to fulfill a mission,
not win brownie points for completeness.

In Champions, characters are set up with various disadvantages borrowed
from the superhero genre.  For the purposes of D&D, the most important
sort of disadvantage is called a "Hunted".  This means that a particular
character is being hunted by another person or group, usually for revenge.
I think this sort of thing can be very successful in D&D.  Suppose your
party (or one character in the party) has incurred the wrath of a cult
somehow.  Then this cult will continue to make attacks on the group,
or try some nasty tricks to get the group in trouble.  This is a nice
justification for, say, being blamed for a crime and having to clear
yourself; or being sent on a (supposedly) suicide mission to clean out
a haunted tomb; or anything else.  Of course, this kind of stuff shouldn't
be overdone, but it can add some underlying structure to an extended
campaign.  It can also add some twists to plots that seem cut and dried.
For example:
   
   Your archenemies are the Snake Cult.  You have been sent by the king
   to a particular town that has been having trouble with bandits.  You
   find the bandit hide-out in the hills, hack up a few people, collect
   some gold, and have done with it.  You go back to the town where the
   grateful townspeople throw a big celebration for you.  In the midst
   of the festivities, a sharp-eyed elf in the party notices that every
   person in town has a snake tattooed on their bicep.  All of a sudden,
   you wonder if you should have drunk the wine so freely...

The thrill of recognition is a wonderful thing to foist on a party.
If they confront the Snake Cult every time they step out the front door,
they'll get bored with the thing fairly soon.  If, however, the Snakies
show up now and then unexpectedly and give everyone a run for their money,
you'll have good material to fall back on.

To sum up, every adventure goes better if it makes sense.  It should make
sense for the characters to get involved.  It should also make sense for
the villains to be doing what they're doing.  Villains are always working
towards some end.  The DM should know what that end is, and should exploit
it.  Final example, again somewhat superheroish in nature: an evil cleric
is seeking to summon an archdemon to this plane to go on a rampage.  In
order to do this, he needs a lot of blood for the ceremony.  He has sent
zombies out to mug people in alleyways and bring their bodies back.  One
member of your party is attacked by these zombies, but survives when the
others come to bail him out.  If the group is keen, they'll try to track
the zombies back to their lair and the fun begins.  If not, perhaps the
cleric is worried about his secret getting out, so he sends a more powerful
party of evil things out to get rid of witnesses.  This keeps on happening
until the characters finally decide to cut off the attacks at the source.
Throughout the cleric's lair, they find indications that he has been doing
some high-powered summoning: various beasties from the evil planes.
They also find indications of how he is doing the summoning, what sort of
materials he uses, how the ceremony goes, and so on.  The final
confrontation is with the cleric, of course.  If they've read the clues
right, they know how to disrupt things before the archdemon shows up.
If they just hack and slay, the odds are good they'll be facing some really
gross evil that's going to fry them.

(Of course, the archdemon doesn't fry them.  He has a little quest he
wants the party to perform, and if they're good, he'll let them live.
Something about kidnapping a princess and delivering her to the Snake
Cult...)

				Jim Gardner, University of Waterloo