Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watmath.UUCP 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