Hacking How To host a Dungeon

I got notified that there's a Itch.io Game Jam where you basically have a year to make/design a Megadungeon. And dang it, is my brain not tickled by that!

I had a few ideas floating around but then a game project with some kids in school fell flat and they want to keep playing a kind of rpg-type game at the end of class like we used to. I was thinking of playing Do: Pilgrims of the flying temple, but then with this Jam in mind I'm also thinking of playing Tony Dowler's How To Host a Dungeon. I'm almost done translating it to Dutch, and hacking it in the process to make it suitable for my classes. Can't play religion class and let them play demons and devils and stuff. Making things all d6 based because, especially with Corona, they will all need to have their own dice, and I'm not planning on buying a bunch of new dice sets. I've got a lot of d6 though, and it's the die they know best too.

As said I've been hacking it along the way, basing it on the original (not the v2 that's in playtest now, since that's a bit too involved for what I'm planning, with all the cards and the shuffling.) and making it less based on pre-existing knowledge of DnD and it's races and monsters and tropes. Once I finished a first draft I'm planning on putting that on my Itch.io in Dutch and once we ran it I plan on making a megadungeon out of that. But who knows if we ever get that far.

So far I'm not deviating from the format all that much, but I might post some things on here as I come up with things. I've been thinking about how to do monsters. I'm thinking of having them create/invent their own, possibly with prompts or random dice rolls. I'm thinking it might be a bit like Trent from Miscast's Monsterbash ideas.

Kids of/in Bastion: Electric Bastionland for kids?

I've used Chris McDowall's Electric Bastionland game system to run a Christmass game for kids before. I learned a few things from that. For one, it's fast and easy enough to play with kids, and secondly that it's easy enough to adapt for play with kids. So I've been thinking on what I could do to use it with kids and make it a kids game. Since I now have a blog, I could start brainstorming live and maybe get some feedback from people reading, or not.

Goal of the game
Since I'm not going to use this for teaching I can just set the goal of the game to be fun. As I'm playing with kids I'd like it to be wholesome fun though. I would like adventure stories like kids movies and stories. Think Huckleberry Finn, think Karl May, think Tintin. But also E.T., The Goonies, Despicable Me, The Three Ninjas, The Little Rascals...
Uncovering mysteries, helping people out, being curious and getting into trouble, getting out of trouble again.
That kind of stuff.

Violence and Lethality
One of the things I only noticed later after playing the Christmas game is that I didn't use HP. There was never any chance of dying. The excitement came from a different source than "Will my PC survive?". Combat wouldn't be a big thing either. Rather than having it be central part of the game with turns etc, it would just be a save. If not succesful you get wounded or captured or whatever. To quote the FATE rpg (I think) "you are at their mercy". They (the victors) decide what to do with the defeated. Something like that. I also like the conditions tracker from Lady Blackbird and might use that. It would create situations the PC's might try to solve.

Adventure and problem solving
I like the problem solving shenaniganery of Electric Bastionland. So problem solving would still be a thing I think. I'd have a borough with some interresting locations and problems to solve by the player characters. Several seeds and hooks for curious players to pursue. Interesting NPC's, curious situations, safe spaces between those, a clubhouse or secret hide-out. Welcome to my neighborhood! Let's find something to do.

These are my thoughts on it for the moment. It's just a brainstorm really. Let's see if I can get it somewhere.

Starting at the Keep: Part Two

straight from the module

The module gives only a very limited or broad reason on why the player characters are there. Basically for Fame, Glory and Riches. Of all these only the glory part seems to fall under Law to me, and even then only with some big if’s attached. But again, alignment is another post.

It also just kind of has the players “show up” at the keep. This means that you’ve just spent some time making characters together (preferably together, right?) and now you’re going to go into a Keep and have a lot of social interactions that might go on and on. There are a few big NPC’s to meet. There’s a sort of trigger to be made aware of (the inner Bailey will open up to you if you do any of these three things) and a Wandering Priest that might join you. I guess if you’ve still got enough money saved over from character creation you might hire some mercenaries or something? The adventure also states that the NPC’s met here during the first scene might prove to be trusting of the party or suspicious, depending on how it plays out, which is pretty nice.

So these are kind of the reasons for this first scene, right? But there’s a big, glaring problem in my opinion. You’ve come together to play a game about fighting monsters and taking their loot, right? The characters have been made and equipped to do this. Classes have been chosen, stats written down. No explicit attention is given to having the player characters and them having a reason to be at the keep together as a group, even though they are. And then the first thing is a social encounter that will likely, after making the characters in the same session, take up the rest of the evening play. No monsters will be fought. No wilderness explored. This does not sit right with me. Can we streamline this? How can we make this better?

Idea 1: Start in the Keep, with all the information about important NPC’s and their offers on a handout. Another handout could be made with who is available for hire and at what place. Other services could also be listed (like the banking service). Maybe have a summary of all the quests, like the trapper that will buy furs, the requirements for entry to the inner keep, etc. Ideally I’d rather show then tell though, so perhaps show someone be allowed into the inner Keep for a Banquet as a way to show this information rather than to write it down. I think that would be cooler. The characters could possible roll a charisma save or something to see wether or not their first impression to the guards was a good one or not. This way they can immediately start exploring the wilderness. It's not perfect, but I think it might be better. It would be more fun if they discovered all the little quests themselves at one point though, so maybe just let them interact with the keep and it's inhabitants after the first foray into the chaos infested wilderness of the borderlands?

Valkyria Chronicles

Idea 2: With the focus on the Keep I think it would be fun to start as people already part of the Keep. This makes it more of a military campaign and more of a railroaded experience rather than the complete sandbox experience. But on the other hand, they have a reason to care about the Keep and its NPC’s. The characters would be commanders with a troupe of soldiers under their command that is somehow linked to their followers stat or something. This would also be a good idea if there’s only one or two players. It also reminds me of some computer games I like. I’m thinking about Final Fantasy Tactics, Tactics Ogre, Fire Emblem and Valkyria Chronicles. These would also improve more if all the NPC’s, even the 0 LVL men at arms have a name and quirk of some kind.

Tactics Ogre Unit Selection Screen

Idea 3: As above, but you are not a commander. You are the grunts. You could start out with multiple 0 LVL characters under an NPC commander, and have it be a “meat grinder” or “Character Funnel” as popularized by DCC. This would mean that it would be more of a mission based game where each session could be a mission. It also lets relations between characters emerge from play rather than rolling on random tables.

Final Fantasy Tactics Unit Selection Screen

Idea 4: Start in the wilderness. Discover the Keep, or know of it. Alternatively, start at the caves, ready to explore.

Idea 5: Start in the caves. You are prisoners breaking free. But I don’t like taking the player’s stuff from them in the beginning. I’d make it a character funnel as well. Start as LVL 0 peasants that have been captured and are being kept as some kind of cattle or slaves. Those who make it out alive become adventurers. These people know about the Keep and that is somewhere in the wilderness to find once they escape.

Idea 2 and 3 speak most to me. I also like the idea that Sean McCoy had and posted about on his blog that makes it a siege. The Keep is being assaulted by the powers of Chaos. Will you survive? Do you escape and abandon the keep? Do you defend it? etc, etc. That is a fun way to start things off strong.

Starting at the Keep: Part One

I keep starting "Starting at the Keep", but then I didn't save my text or my computer starts to reboot out of the blue, so let's see how far I can get before I hit "Publish".

This is part of my more in depth look at adventure module B2: The Keep on the Borderlands. This module was meant as an introductory adventure for the First Edition Dungeons and Dragons Basic set, with some reference to being able to find even more fun in the Expert set (together known as B/X or even BECMI if you're ambitions for years and years of play). As such it might teach us something of how the game was supposed to be played as it's written as somewhat of a Dungeon Master Tutorial with hints, tips and tricks (and some incentives to buy the Expert set) thrown in between the actual meat and potatoes of the module.

One of the most remarkable things to me is that everything is unnamed. None of the NPC's have names, the land doesn't have a name and neither does the Keep. It really is just a framework for you as a dungeon master to build upon. Think of it as how a colouring page might be coloured in a lot of different ways. The text also encourages even adapting things in the module to fit your own views of the game, which is a bit odd in an introductory module. I'd be more expecting to be thaught how to crawl before I can run as a babbie-DM. But then again this might mean that the "make it your own" philosophy is a vital part of running the game. Still being thaught how to make things your own would have been great I think.

There are some things that the module seems to be putting forth as important though. Things that are backed by rules or mechanics. The first is alignment, on which more in a later post. But the main thing to take away from that is that there's a big struggle going on in which the game takes place. The forces of Law and Chaos are in a constant state of war. What exactly this means I think might even be interpreted differently by different people, but more on that later.

Another thing is that it's in a fantastical version of the medieval times. Wether it's just fantasy or more mythological or fairy-tale like is kind of left up to interpretation. This module in general has a chivalric fairy tale feel to me. It has knights and soldiers and creatures from fairy-tales (elves, dwarves, goblins, hunters, bugbears ...) But then on the other hand it has some more straight up fantasy elements such as orcs and these fairy creatures having structures and families etc. There is definitely more of a militaristic feel to it. And while some fairy tales have Soldier protagonists, these are mostly solitary people having strange encounters. It's not particularly focusing on the militairy part of being a soldier but on a soldier's bravery or courage, not quite his might. But more often than not it's not about soldiers in fairy tales, but about children, or simple or unfortunate folk. The chivalric part is more militant in nature, but even there, while they are a group of knights questing for the grail or whatever, the focus is on character and virtue, not on might. That part resonates more with Greek Myths to me, where what made you heroic was how strong you were, not quite how strong your moral character was. Anyway, I'm going to end up involuntarily writing about alignment anyway if I continue on this tangent. So yeah, a muddled "Fantasy Medieval Setting" loosely based on mainly European folklore and mythology with some modern fantasy flung in for good measure. This echoes the "Make it your own" philosophy again.

And I think those are the only real things that stand out. It's basically a sandbox for you to create stuff in and your players to discover things. Just some of the things are already partly built. For my tastes I like to flavour things in a more Mainland Western Europe Fairy Tale flavour. Some of the Chivalric stuff definitely ruffles the hairs of my five year old self. Being a knight of some type of King Arthur would be great! Having anachronistic Gaul running around like Asterix and Obelix also does something to me. This is probably because when Belgium became a country and they needed some Heritage to fall back on and inspire Patriotism in the people they took hold of the Gauls, especially the Belgica whoem Ceasar himself claimed were the bravest of all the Gauls. I sure know that I heard that line a lot during history class in primary school! That Ceasar wrote that after subjugating them and assimilating them completey in the Roman Empire to the point that little of their history and culture is known today I had to find out later by myself though. But yeah, making the Halfling class into a Gaul class or miniature Gaul class of savage people living in the woods who generally have a good heart but are rough and tumble is a fantasy I like. More on them later as well, as I cant seem to stop daydreaming about these little troublemakers.

I had planned to write about actually starting your players here, but have been typing for way too long while I still have lessons to prep and domestic stuff to handle, like assaulting the Dishes of Chaos in the Sink of Despair. So, next time (probably) a post about how to start your players in this adventure, since the way it's handled in this module seems ... weird to me. Anyway, What Ho and such, 'till next we meet again fair readers.
Also, I have not proofread this post, so feel free to point out any spelling errors you find, I do not mind. I'd rather amend them than letting future readers suffer through them.

The Keep on the Borderlands

The Keep on the Borderlands. For some this will immediately ring a bell, for others nothing at all. It is a classic Dungeons and Dragons adventure for starting players. And I'm currently going through it and seeing how I would run it. I've been thinking about this on the Gauntlet Forums for a bit at the moment.

I'm not gearing it specifically to kids, but on the other hand I do like to keep things "clean" in my games. With this I mean no gratuitous, descriptive, gore-filled violence and no sexual content of the same explicit kind. I'd like to fade to black where possible when these things need to happen. Same with cussing. I don't like hearing the crude language, but I do like the creative versions, like the faux-cussing in Firefly or the creative ones that captain Haddock manages to churn out. Some good Shakespearian ones are fine by me as well. Not sure why I went this elaborate on this to start with, but meh. It's here. It will influence the way I look at the game.

The adventure is light on actual story, leaving much to the interpretation of the dungeon master. The basic gist is that there are forces of Law and forces of Chaos and that they are in conflict. The module hints that the forces of chaos have large sway over the land but that here and there there are bastions of civilization that withstand the chaos. Law seems to stand for good and chaos for evil, unlike later editions of the game, but more on that in a later post on alignment.

The knights and the keep with the strange and unnerving wilds full of goblins and stuff make it sound very Arthurian to me. Very Chivalric, where knights have codes of honor and quests are being made. Which fits well with a more fairy tale approach which doesn't seem that popular these days. I like fairy tales. I grew up on them. For this reason I'm going to try and re-interpret this game-module, this adventure, in a chivalric fairy tale like manner. I also want to veer away from the often used English view and more to the (for me) closer at home Western European brand. I'm thinking France and Spain. Maybe the Netherlands, Germany, Switserland and Austria. These are the influences I'm going to try and go for.

I'm planning to set it in a version of our real world medieval times. Anachronisms are fine, as I don't want to have to study up on my history all that much. So far I'm having Gauls run around in medieval times. This should not be iirc. But I like it. So yes, I'm probably starting it off in north-western France, in Bretange. I'll have to reïnterpret a few things as I set it there I think, but we'll get there when we get there. So far I've mostly been focussing on The Keep itself and what I can learn from it and how I can use, reformat the information in it and rework that. There's a surprising amount of things you can do with it.

So yes, expect some rambling, at least half formed thoughts and a willingness to be schooled where needed.
Next up: "Starting the Adventure" or "Alignment". I'm not sure yet.