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Rutibex
Sep 9, 2001

by Fluffdaddy

Tosk posted:

Does anyone have any particular advice, or favorite suggestions for sources to read, on how to design dungeons?

My dungeon-crawls have always been narrative driven and I'm interested in at least attempting to run something a little more like the dungeons included in modules.

I find the best way is to simply run a lot of dungeons from modules. It's like reading a lot to become a good writter. Once you run a whole pile of great dungeons you will have some ideas about how it all goes togeather. You will also be able to ruthlessly steal ideas. Once you see a particularly interesting trick or trap in a pre written module it's now part of your dungeon alphabet. You can put that trap into another dungeon with just a minor twist.

I like to randomly generate dungeon maps with Donjon. Then I steal my favourate room descriptions from a few different dungeons and throw them in when I write up the room key. I also use Tome of Adventure Design and Grimtooths Traps to make more original rooms.

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sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









Run tomb of horrors and hidden shrine of tamoachan. And white plume mountain.

Just finished the entire slaver series in 1e and I think that will do me, but it was p fun.

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry

Tosk posted:

Does anyone have any particular advice, or favorite suggestions for sources to read, on how to design dungeons?

My dungeon-crawls have always been narrative driven and I'm interested in at least attempting to run something a little more like the dungeons included in modules.

Take your narratively constructed dungeon.

Decide why it will be abandoned.

Start then and wait some length of time. At least two generations.

Decide who's taken up residence in the meantime and what they've done with the place.

If you're feeling particularly saucy, decide why it will be abandoned this time and repeat the process.

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Tosk posted:

Does anyone have any particular advice, or favorite suggestions for sources to read, on how to design dungeons?

My dungeon-crawls have always been narrative driven and I'm interested in at least attempting to run something a little more like the dungeons included in modules.

for what game, because good answers to this question won't even necessarily involve the same subject matter

e: like just between editions of D&D alone there's a significant difference between games where the dungeon map is also the layer that combat happens on vs. ones that are built on the assumption that you'll have a series of discrete, heavily siloed encounters

Dareon
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

for what game, because good answers to this question won't even necessarily involve the same subject matter

e: like just between editions of D&D alone there's a significant difference between games where the dungeon map is also the layer that combat happens on vs. ones that are built on the assumption that you'll have a series of discrete, heavily siloed encounters

To expand, if a fight breaks out, who, if anyone, hears about it? Will the sounds of combat draw more enemies, opportunistic scavengers, or just a downstairs neighbor pounding on the ceiling with a broom and yelling to keep it down, some of us are trying to sleep? Set your combat difficulty as if everyone with the potential to show up could show up, and if your party can take some out through stealth or diplomacy, that makes later fights easier for them and they might feel clever.

Phrosphor
Feb 25, 2007

Urbanisation

So about 7 sessions ago, the party had a run in with the BBEG. It was just supposed to be a discussion, but the rogue decided to try and backstab them during the chat and things went badly very quickly.

(Lesson learned, even if the party are hanging on by a thread after fighting a huge battle, they will still try and merk anyone rude to them).

In desperation to get out of the mess they made. The Fighter, who is a hobbyist alchemist, threw a potion at the BBEG which shattered and soaked him in the liquid and caused him to disappear.

When they worked out what this potion had done, they realised they had teleported him back to the colony they are supposed to be protecting. They are currently, quite far away.

So we have a situation where the BBEG has been in the colony full of all the NPC's they have saved/partied with for awhile. They had been treating the colony as a safe place for resting and downtime. Returning after every adventure to relax and recuperate and for shenanigans.

The people of the Colony will know who the BBEG is if they see them, though just as a high up member of the empire they are a colony of.

The party are finally heading back to this colony, and expect to arrive next session.

I am unsure as to what has happened in the meantime. How mean should I be? Should I do something weird.

I am toying with the ability that this incredibly powerful lich may have done some mass domination on the town and made them forget who the party are, for a fun bit of roleplay and to teach them a lesson. Is that too mean? Not mean enough?

Would love some ideas if you have anything to share.

Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Jun 6, 2022

Glazius
Jul 22, 2007

Hail all those who are able,
any mouse can,
any mouse will,
but the Guard prevail.

Clapping Larry
The lich has the place set up to get wrecked on groundhog day rules. Everything seems normal at first, but memories from earlier loops start to break through as the time of destruction gets nearer and nearer, and everyone dies in despair, over and over again.

In the means of destruction is the means to break the loop, but it's all keepsies from then on. The PCs can learn enough to save everyone, but are they willing to take the chance?

My Lovely Horse
Aug 21, 2010

Phrosphor posted:

Should I do something weird.
Always. And I like the mass domination idea already, but I'm not sure about "teaching them a lesson". If I was a player I'd expect to be able to restore my home base in fairly short order, probably with a boss fight right on site after figuring out what's going on (if you don't want to have the endgame boss fight just yet, maybe that lich has left something behind).

Phrosphor
Feb 25, 2007

Urbanisation

My Lovely Horse posted:

Always. And I like the mass domination idea already, but I'm not sure about "teaching them a lesson". If I was a player I'd expect to be able to restore my home base in fairly short order, probably with a boss fight right on site after figuring out what's going on (if you don't want to have the endgame boss fight just yet, maybe that lich has left something behind).

Oh they have way bigger things going on, they can get back to where they need to once they have done whatever it is they want to do

Harold Fjord
Jan 3, 2004
Depending on how the boss is it might be fun to plant all sorts of seeds of a doubt or manipulation within the populace. Attacked by a friend without warning type stuff. They leave horses with the stable boy he poisons them and has no memory of why.

Maybe introduce a new character in the village that they are of course going to suspect is the lich himself.

Dameius
Apr 3, 2006
Every single person in the village is now happy and thriving. They all seem to go about their days with a smile fixed to their faces, though to be honest it seems too perfect and thus slightly off. On a successful skill check of your choice they notice the thing bothering them. Its the eyes you see. The eyes of the villagers seem to have a desperateness to them. A pleading. A scream with no voice.

If the party plays their cards right then they can resolve this however you want to work in the BBEG and they get their homebase back. Otherwise after some internal clock runs out the whole village population just vanishes, leaving everything behind in mid motion for the day and the BBEG just got that much more complex to deal with.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Tosk posted:

Does anyone have any particular advice, or favorite suggestions for sources to read, on how to design dungeons?

My dungeon-crawls have always been narrative driven and I'm interested in at least attempting to run something a little more like the dungeons included in modules.

For a short, quick first principle, remember the dungeon was built for a reason, which probably is different from how its being used today. Moving through an exhausted mine will tell a different story from a ruined temple or an abandoned city block ("dungeons" can be open air!). Make sure that the pieces are there to tell that story if the players look for it.

Pickled Tink
Apr 28, 2012

Have you heard about First Dog? It's a very good comic I just love.

Also, wear your bike helmets kids. I copped several blows to the head but my helmet left me totally unscathed.



Finally you should check out First Dog as it's a good comic I like it very much.
Fun Shoe

Phrosphor posted:

So about 7 sessions ago, the party had a run in with the BBEG. It was just supposed to be a discussion, but the rogue decided to try and backstab them during the chat and things went badly very quickly.

(Lesson learned, even if the party are hanging on by a thread after fighting a huge battle, they will still try and merk anyone rude to them).

In desperation to get out of the mess they made. The Fighter, who is a hobbyist alchemist, threw a potion at the BBEG which shattered and soaked him in the liquid and caused him to disappear.

When they worked out what this potion had done, they realised they had teleported him back to the colony they are supposed to be protecting. They are currently, quite far away.

So we have a situation where the BBEG has been in the colony full of all the NPC's they have saved/partied with for awhile. They had been treating the colony as a safe place for resting and downtime. Returning after every adventure to relax and recuperate and for shenanigans.

The people of the Colony will know who the BBEG is if they see them, though just as a high up member of the empire they are a colony of.

The party are finally heading back to this colony, and expect to arrive next session.

I am unsure as to what has happened in the meantime. How mean should I be? Should I do something weird.

I am toying with the ability that this incredibly powerful lich may have done some mass domination on the town and made them forget who the party are, for a fun bit of roleplay and to teach them a lesson. Is that too mean? Not mean enough?

Would love some ideas if you have anything to share.
Would the BBEG realise what the place is? If not, then don't do anything.

If the BBEG doesn't know it is the players base, but recognises a bunch of wanted fugitives there, have them arrested and taken away with them as they leave.

If the BBEG realises that this is the players base but is not yet openly antagonistic towards them, have them leave a note saying that further illegal actions will have... consequences. Also, the whole "Go to jail you escaped criminal scum" thing.

If you are at the stage where the BBEG is genuinely displeased with them, and knows that this is where they live, then things get... nasty. Every object in the area is distorted, as though they were made of putty, grabbed, stretched, and twisted. All the NPC's that the players know that were in town at the time lay there, appearing unharmed, but bereft of their souls, tended by the people who were out of town at the time.

Now the players need to find the gem/gems containing the souls of their friends before the BBEG does something truly nefarious with them, like sell them to a demon or a traveler, or make a truly awful necklace out of them. No need for a serious time limit in this scenario because it would be a more spur of the moment thing. Hells, the villain could use them as bait to draw your players into traps.

Phrosphor
Feb 25, 2007

Urbanisation

Dameius posted:

Every single person in the village is now happy and thriving. They all seem to go about their days with a smile fixed to their faces, though to be honest it seems too perfect and thus slightly off. On a successful skill check of your choice they notice the thing bothering them. Its the eyes you see. The eyes of the villagers seem to have a desperateness to them. A pleading. A scream with no voice.

If the party plays their cards right then they can resolve this however you want to work in the BBEG and they get their homebase back. Otherwise after some internal clock runs out the whole village population just vanishes, leaving everything behind in mid motion for the day and the BBEG just got that much more complex to deal with.

I like this a lot. Everyone at this colony was actually sent here by this character in their role as 'Imperial Chamberlain'. It's a very remote colony. He is using them for his own ends, so he isn't really antagonistic to them. In fact the whole encounter was a blatant use of reverse psychology on the party (which has worked a charm, teehee).

My current theory -

When the party finally land back at the colony, they find that nobody knows who they are. All the feats they have completed, all of the little friendships they have gained, all of them are now attributed/attached to the BBEG. He saved them from the Lizardfolk attack. He rescued the halfling baby from the burning village. He braved the depths of the flooded dwarven mountainhome and returned to them the secrets of runeforging.

In the center of the town is a huge bronze statue of him with a cheeky note to the party.

Either this wears off after a little time or the party need to do something to break the spell. Haven't gotten that far yet.

I know this group and they baby this town something rotten. They love the NPC's here and they have a lot of really tight relationships with them. Losing that connection will be devastating. They have a friendly ogre and if he has forgotten them they will be so sad.

Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Jun 7, 2022

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company
Have the spell effect tied to the statue - if the statue is toppled, the magic fades and everyone remembers the PCs again. Complication - the statue is also protected by wards so that the PCs cannot actually touch or affect it. If they want to break the spell, they have to find a way to convince the villagers - who no longer fully trust or love the PCs but love the BBEG - to topple it themselves. In effect, they have to foment a rebellion.

Because this is a pretty tall order, give them little hints that the villagers' true loyalties have been suppressed but not erased. The friendly ogre doesn't remember them, but it does act vaguely friendly, in that "I like you but I can't remember why" sort of way. The town sheriff should lock up these 'strangers,' but keeps finding excuses to let them go with a warning. The adorable halfling family might not remember any of the PCs' names, but they're happy to share food with them, because "well they just seem like our kind of people."

Peanut Butler
Jul 25, 2003



I'm looking for a quick and dirty mechanic to weld onto a 5e dnd game to make up for yet another of its inadequacies-

I'd like to model dramatic amnesia, fake TV show stuff, where the PCs can't remember their old lives except as dreams and little thoughts which are terminated by rationalization. I'm thinking something sort of like a Sanity system would do well here, as there are a few things that can happen if the PCs are reminded of their actual lives:
-bounces off: complete placidity, 'that doesn't look like anything to me'
-cognitive dissonance, the external wins: causes an outburst or breakdown that introduces a (solvable) problem to the scene
-cognitive dissonance, the internal wins: causes a quiet obsession with some aspect of the former life
-restoration: a piece of the puzzle snaps into place and the character is starting to realize something's up

my players are always super stoked when I present these limitations, and they all very much enjoy having their characters make mistakes because they don't have all of the information the player does

I don't think I want to base this on any existing stats or skills- I'd like every PC to be as susceptible and resistant as the others, and the key to solving it is using their skills/abilities (doesn't matter which) to help one another overcome fear by relying on the bonds they have with one another- complications come in the form of the kind of paranoia that can shatter an organized group into scared individuals, never to solve the plane-hopping Grell infestation that seems to have been organizing into a more sapient collective in their world

admanb
Jun 18, 2014

It sounds like you're handling it fine purely narratively. What do you want out of a mechanic?

sebmojo
Oct 23, 2010


Legit Cyberpunk









admanb posted:

It sounds like you're handling it fine purely narratively. What do you want out of a mechanic?

i'd look for another game and steal something from there if you had to, I'm sure there's some indie heartbreaker that's all about wrestling with mutual trauma that has something you can repurpose. idk if I'd call that an inadequacy, really, more horses for courses

Rutibex
Sep 9, 2001

by Fluffdaddy
When I'm looking for a mechanic it's because as the GM I want to be surprised by the outcome as much as my players. Rolling on a table vs making it up yourself isn't really a substantionally different experiance for players, but it's vastly different for the GM.

The Slack Lagoon
Jun 17, 2008



Anyone have advice for a "merchant tycoon" minigame? One of my players paid to have an NPC educated on how to make potions, and another player is really into trying to turn it into a revenue generating business.

Russad
Feb 19, 2011
I'd like to get a sanity check on something I'm toying with.

I have some experience DMing (just finished a ~45 session Curse of Strahd campaign, played over about a year and a half in roughly 2.5 hour chunks), but still learning a lot as I go. Now that our Strahd campaign has wrapped, the players are looking to jump into the next thing and I'm planning to start them up in Rime of the Frostmaiden (spoilers for RotF below, FYI).

My problem is that my brain is severely broken, and I have this tendency to kickstart interesting TTRPG things, and pick up random bits and pieces from DMs guild or whatever. I have a ton of stuff I realistically will never get to but picked up because I looked at it and went "oh, I think I could use something like that." Cue a third party ruleset for "Airship Campaigns". I was thinking it might be interesting to have this campaign start with them securing passage to Icewind Dale via an airship - it would be powered by the Arcane Brotherhood, exposing them to the faction early, and it would be intercepted by the Chardalyn dragon. The end result would be that they cause some amount of injury to the dragon (requiring more Chardalyn to fix, thus preserving the dragon narrative in the story), and a crash-landing of the airship. Depending on how well they manage the combat, some or all of the AB mages would survive and they could potentially meet up later in the hunt for the Netherese ruins. These will also be brand new characters, so I was hoping it would also give them a chance to get into their skins a little bit.

The thing is - is this something that would actually be interesting for the players? Or is this just something completely uninteresting that I'm doing because I have all of this excess material stashed away? I would obviously need to provide them with information and rules on the airship and combat, and it's something they'd basically have to learn for 1 session and then not use again. I feel like as a player that might be cool to me? But I just wanted to get some additional opinions.

Whybird
Aug 2, 2009

Phaiston have long avoided the tightly competetive defence sector, but the IRDA Act 2052 has given us the freedom we need to bring out something really special.

https://team-robostar.itch.io/robostar


Nap Ghost

The Slack Lagoon posted:

Anyone have advice for a "merchant tycoon" minigame? One of my players paid to have an NPC educated on how to make potions, and another player is really into trying to turn it into a revenue generating business.

My feeling is that having a business works best when it's a source of plot hooks. Whenever they're on a mission you can just dangle in a thing or two like 'oh wait, isn't that the noble who keeps blocking your business expanding because he doesn't like the fumes?' or 'hey, that bush on the far side of the dryad's grove is fresh buttwort, do you have any idea how much better that is than the dried crap you've been using?'

Dareon
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin
Yeah, the best way to make merchant tycoon work in tabletop that's not explicitly geared toward it is make it adventure hooks, and pay out occasionally as part of wealth by level.

You could even fake rolling for it behind the screen, and completely ignore the dice result. Gave out plenty of treasure and the party managed to steal an architectural fixture you weren't planning on? Sorry, boss, had a rough week, we're a bit in the red, care to top us up? Party spent the entire session getting dunked on by sewer rats and came up with nothing but a bunch of five-copper-apiece tails? Great news, boss, we got a new market open and the first profits are in, they'll probably drop off in a week but for now it's gravy.

Zonko_T.M.
Jul 1, 2007

I'm not here to fuck spiders!

Russad posted:

I'd like to get a sanity check on something I'm toying with.

I have some experience DMing (just finished a ~45 session Curse of Strahd campaign, played over about a year and a half in roughly 2.5 hour chunks), but still learning a lot as I go. Now that our Strahd campaign has wrapped, the players are looking to jump into the next thing and I'm planning to start them up in Rime of the Frostmaiden (spoilers for RotF below, FYI).

My problem is that my brain is severely broken, and I have this tendency to kickstart interesting TTRPG things, and pick up random bits and pieces from DMs guild or whatever. I have a ton of stuff I realistically will never get to but picked up because I looked at it and went "oh, I think I could use something like that." Cue a third party ruleset for "Airship Campaigns". I was thinking it might be interesting to have this campaign start with them securing passage to Icewind Dale via an airship - it would be powered by the Arcane Brotherhood, exposing them to the faction early, and it would be intercepted by the Chardalyn dragon. The end result would be that they cause some amount of injury to the dragon (requiring more Chardalyn to fix, thus preserving the dragon narrative in the story), and a crash-landing of the airship. Depending on how well they manage the combat, some or all of the AB mages would survive and they could potentially meet up later in the hunt for the Netherese ruins. These will also be brand new characters, so I was hoping it would also give them a chance to get into their skins a little bit.

The thing is - is this something that would actually be interesting for the players? Or is this just something completely uninteresting that I'm doing because I have all of this excess material stashed away? I would obviously need to provide them with information and rules on the airship and combat, and it's something they'd basically have to learn for 1 session and then not use again. I feel like as a player that might be cool to me? But I just wanted to get some additional opinions.

Depends on how complex the rules for airship combat are here. If this were an ongoing thing, and the players could expect more airship combat in the future, then adding on fully fleshed out rules makes sense, but if it's just going to be in this one section, I'd simplify it or you'll end up spending a whole session just explaining these one off rules.

Rutibex
Sep 9, 2001

by Fluffdaddy

Dareon posted:

Yeah, the best way to make merchant tycoon work in tabletop that's not explicitly geared toward it is make it adventure hooks, and pay out occasionally as part of wealth by level.

You could even fake rolling for it behind the screen, and completely ignore the dice result. Gave out plenty of treasure and the party managed to steal an architectural fixture you weren't planning on? Sorry, boss, had a rough week, we're a bit in the red, care to top us up? Party spent the entire session getting dunked on by sewer rats and came up with nothing but a bunch of five-copper-apiece tails? Great news, boss, we got a new market open and the first profits are in, they'll probably drop off in a week but for now it's gravy.

This is the way to do it typically. If you want an in-game business to have more complex rules than "you'll get some adventure hooks in town" you need to keep Gygaxian time records. You need to know exactly how long it takes to travel everywhere and how much time between adventure etc. This is fun if you like calendars but a lot of work if the only thing your gonna hang on it is a player business.

Tosk
Feb 22, 2013

I am sorry. I have no vices for you to exploit.

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

for what game, because good answers to this question won't even necessarily involve the same subject matter

e: like just between editions of D&D alone there's a significant difference between games where the dungeon map is also the layer that combat happens on vs. ones that are built on the assumption that you'll have a series of discrete, heavily siloed encounters

I usually GM 5e nowadays.

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

For a short, quick first principle, remember the dungeon was built for a reason, which probably is different from how its being used today. Moving through an exhausted mine will tell a different story from a ruined temple or an abandoned city block ("dungeons" can be open air!). Make sure that the pieces are there to tell that story if the players look for it.

Right, what I meant is that the conceptual design of a dungeon isn't my issue. I've just never run a mechanically intensive dungeon - walk in, describe a room, engage with whatever's there (encounter/combat/trap/whatever), continue through a mapped out area that I've pre-designed with set encounters in each room. As far as materials, for example, I usually use a Go or chess board with pieces as a battlemap and pretty much just supplement that with a lot of concept art that I harvest online to convey whatever I'm describing visually.

The first few posters to respond to me suggested running some classic, more dungeoncrawly modules, and Tomb of Annihilation for 5e looks interesting. I'm going to have a couple complete newbies in my group this time around though and I think I'd rather throw that at them after they've learned to play and I'm not as rusty. (I haven't played since the very early days of the pandemic)

How common is the use of actual battlemaps and miniatures? What kind of props do you all use?

I need to read through this thread at some point, I'm sure there's been a lot of discussion about stuff like this throughout it.

Tosk fucked around with this message at 23:45 on Jun 14, 2022

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

Tosk posted:

I usually GM 5e nowadays.

Right, what I meant is that the conceptual design of a dungeon isn't my issue. I've just never run a mechanically intensive dungeon - walk in, describe a room, engage with whatever's there (encounter/combat/trap/whatever), continue through a mapped out area that I've pre-designed with set encounters in each room. As far as materials, for example, I usually use a Go or chess board with pieces as a battlemap and pretty much just supplement that with a lot of concept art that I harvest online to convey whatever I'm describing visually.

The first few posters to respond to me suggested running some classic, more dungeoncrawly modules, and Tomb of Annihilation for 5e looks interesting. I'm going to have a couple complete newbies in my group this time around though and I think I'd rather throw that at them after they've learned to play and I'm not as rusty. (I haven't played since the very early days of the pandemic)

How common is the use of actual battlemaps and miniatures? What kind of props do you all use?

I need to read through this thread at some point, I'm sure there's been a lot of discussion about stuff like this throughout it.

ooooooh ok the exact opposite problem from what I thought you were asking

Honestly just using a go board is a pretty great solution except you can't really draw on it.

Predesigned modules have a lot more detail in their dungeons than most player-written dungeons I've run have had, mostly because they have to account for everything any potential player might do -- a DM with no rogues in the party isn't going to spend as much time describing the exact light levels in each room, a DM for a party with no ranged archers or warlocks isn't going to describe the available cover as precisely, etc.

A lot of the older modules really clash with the way people tend to play today though -- e.g., Tomb of Horrors is designed to kill players in swarms because you're running this as a one shot at a convention and so are twenty other dudes and the "winner" is whoever lives the longest.

The single module I see most often recommended to people is A Wild Sheep Chase.https://winghornpress.com/adventures/a-wild-sheep-chase/

In high school I'd just map poo poo out on graph paper and we'd use pennies as markers or carve "minis" out of erasers or soap.
pre-pandemic my current group used a dry erase battlemap with some stand in miniatures. Eventually I bought everyone a heroforge mini of their character as a gift.
Now we're playing online and using fantasygrounds and the DM can just call up a map image from a prewritten adventure and use that.

If we were playing in person and I were the regular DM instead of just doing the occasional one shot, i'd probably invest in one of those frames you can buy on etsy, this type thing:

https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/111...ref=sold_out-20

Hieronymous Alloy fucked around with this message at 01:57 on Jun 15, 2022

Phrosphor
Feb 25, 2007

Urbanisation

Just to follow up on my request for ideas. I had the party arrive at the colony and find that the BBEG they had sent here had dominated the colony and replaced himself with the party in the peoples memories of every major event since it's founding. It was him that saved the colony ship from the crocodilefolk who had boarded it, it was he who had made landfall and battled the mephits and flying snakes! He had cleared the lizardfolk camp and ancient temple, he who had made allies of the 'surfer' dwarves and ventured into their drowned underground city to find it's secrets - etc.

The enchantment was sustained by a fountain in the town center which produced an endless stream of pure, chilled crystal clear water. Atop the fountain was an incredibly gaudy gold statue of the 'Pathfinder' - a younger version of the BBEG with aspects from all of the party on show (the party are colloquially referred to as The Pathfinders usually'. As well a cheeky memorial inscription to the characters placed there by him.

Initially the party were very weirded out by the locals not knowing who they were, in character they didn't know where they had sent their enemy. They worked it out pretty quickly and went into full investigation mode.

A big theme in the campaign has been the use of gigantic crystals as mana focus and storing apparatus for a massive continent wide storm, and they are a little obsessed with them, so they started looking around the fountain for crystals. I had a brainwave at this point and told them they could see, in the spouts from the fountain, crystals that the water was running over before coming out - these were the source of the enchantment.

After many shenanigans they got their hands on shards of an old crystal they had previously destroyed and discovered that crystals were the only things that could destroy/damage other crystals. Their Creation Bard was able to fashion a tool to slip into the fountain spouts and smash the crystals.

I decided to roll on a random potion table to find out what happens to the enchantment/liquid from each spout and ended up in a situation where one spout makes the drinker grow 1d4 feet for 1d4 hours, one makes the drinker forget the last 24 hours, one makes the drinker glow as a bright light source for a distance of 25 feet and one makes the drinker jump an extra 1d4 feet.

Of course 3 of the party drank the... soup and now have all 4 effects active on them right now. Then in a panic the bard sealed the spouts that each had a different magical solution pouring out of them. This caused the statue to fill with gunk and eventually explode from overpressure. The Warlock stole vials of the liquid and vanished into their genie lamp just as this happened.

Now the town are coming out to find out why their free source of clean water just exploded, there is magical liquid overflowing from the basin and there are 3 10-11 ft tall glowing figures with no memory standing in the town square.

Thats where I ended the session.

Phrosphor fucked around with this message at 02:18 on Jun 15, 2022

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

ooooooh ok the exact opposite problem from what I thought you were asking

Honestly just using a go board is a pretty great solution except you can't really draw on it.

Predesigned modules have a lot more detail in their dungeons than most player-written dungeons I've run have had, mostly because they have to account for everything any potential player might do -- a DM with no rogues in the party isn't going to spend as much time describing the exact light levels in each room, a DM for a party with no ranged archers or warlocks isn't going to describe the available cover as precisely, etc.

A lot of the older modules really clash with the way people tend to play today though -- e.g., Tomb of Horrors is designed to kill players in swarms because you're running this as a one shot at a convention and so are twenty other dudes and the "winner" is whoever lives the longest.

The single module I see most often recommended to people is A Wild Sheep Chase.https://winghornpress.com/adventures/a-wild-sheep-chase/

In high school I'd just map poo poo out on graph paper and we'd use pennies as markers or carve "minis" out of erasers or soap.
pre-pandemic my current group used a dry erase battlemap with some stand in miniatures. Eventually I bought everyone a heroforge mini of their character as a gift.
Now we're playing online and using fantasygrounds and the DM can just call up a map image from a prewritten adventure and use that.

If we were playing in person and I were the regular DM instead of just doing the occasional one shot, i'd probably invest in one of those frames you can buy on etsy, this type thing:

https://www.etsy.com/au/listing/111...ref=sold_out-20

Should point out that Tomb of Annihilation is not the same as the Tomb of Horrors.

Hieronymous Alloy
Jan 30, 2009


Why! Why!! Why must you refuse to accept that Dr. Hieronymous Alloy's Genetically Enhanced Cream Corn Is Superior to the Leading Brand on the Market!?!




Morbid Hound

MonsterEnvy posted:

Should point out that Tomb of Annihilation is not the same as the Tomb of Horrors.

Right right, it just reminded me of it, sorry

MonsterEnvy
Feb 4, 2012

Shocked I tell you

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Right right, it just reminded me of it, sorry

Oh it’s supposed to, In universe they were made by the same person.

Dameius
Apr 3, 2006

Phrosphor posted:

Thats where I ended the session.

:allears:

Please do another follow up on how your players handle that one.

Phrosphor
Feb 25, 2007

Urbanisation

Dameius posted:

:allears:

Please do another follow up on how your players handle that one.

I will! I also forgot that the warlock dipped their finger in the gloop. So it is now glowing and 3 foot long.

Dienes
Nov 4, 2009

dee
doot doot dee
doot doot doot
doot doot dee
dee doot doot
doot doot dee
dee doot doot


College Slice

Phrosphor posted:

I will! I also forgot that the warlock dipped their finger in the gloop. So it is now glowing and 3 foot long.

Maybe they're just happy to see you

Morpheus
Apr 18, 2008

My favourite little monsters

Phrosphor posted:

I will! I also forgot that the warlock dipped their finger in the gloop. So it is now glowing and 3 foot long.

Your players are far more mature than mine

DivineCoffeeBinge
Mar 3, 2011

Spider-Man's Amazing Construction Company

Morpheus posted:

Your players are far more mature than mine

Exactly my thought

Pretty sure the response of "I pour the goop down my pants" would have come from at least three different people simultaneously

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.

Tosk posted:

I usually GM 5e nowadays.

for 3/4/5e i usually design my dungeons basically like the room layout of Slay the Spire -- a series of events, obstacles, or opportunities that lead into each other in a restricted fashion but almost always offering some choice, with as much information available to the players about what they're walking into as possible without outright giving the plot away.

don't necessarily bother mapping out the dungeon in real space, what you're looking for is a certain set of "core" combat encounters that will always happen and then some traps, puzzles, treasure rooms, diplomatic interactions, story interludes, moral dilemmas, etc. that the players can opt into or out of along the way, arranged in a forking, one-way flowchart so they can see what the long-term costs and consequences of taking a certain branch will be and which ones are exclusive with each other.

these optional / side encounters shouldn't result in wildly different rewards as far as things that directly affect player power go, but it's a great place to put goofy treasure, hints towards future plot lines, or opportunities to gain or lose consumable items. another option is to put "real" treasure in the side rooms but make it stuff the players can use right away; if they skip the side rooms, then just put that treasure after the boss instead, but key word "after" -- they won't have it already in hand to make the final fight easier

e: this is also WILDLY different than how most old-school D&D adventures are set up, but frankly, like two thirds of the people writing those adventures think they're still writing for B/X or AD&D and that tracking the players position on a yard-by-yard basis as they tap the ground for lurkers and mimics is still a thing. if your players really enjoy that sort of play there are ways to kind of crowbar it into contemporary editions, but it's much better suited to the games where XP primarily comes from loot + playing to your character archetype (and where combat is, thus, a failure state / something you avoid or trivialize whenever possible) instead of running on the assumption that you will fight a specific number of fights and the entire XP / reward structure is based on what you kill

e2: a lot of good old-school content is also designed the way i'm describing here or close to it, and then... de-abstracted? into a yard-by-yard dungeon map. this is great and all but having read many, many editions' worth of DMGs, they also frequently fail to explain how to do it from first principles, so if you try to imitate published adventures -- even the good ones -- you end up cargo-culting what a dungeon looks like at a glance without any idea of the rules that go into it being engaging to explore and contain meaningful decisions

Tuxedo Catfish fucked around with this message at 03:08 on Jun 16, 2022

Rutibex
Sep 9, 2001

by Fluffdaddy

Tuxedo Catfish posted:

e2: a lot of good old-school content is also designed the way i'm describing here or close to it, and then... de-abstracted? into a yard-by-yard dungeon map. this is great and all but having read many, many editions' worth of DMGs, they also frequently fail to explain how to do it from first principles, so if you try to imitate published adventures -- even the good ones -- you end up cargo-culting what a dungeon looks like at a glance without any idea of the rules that go into it being engaging to explore and contain meaningful decisions

I think it's worth mentioning that there is "old school" dungeons like tomb of horrors or white plume mountain which follow this design principal, but there is also a more "ancient school" of dungeons. The original sort of dungeons were sprawling mega mazes and not nearly as linear as the best published BX and AD&D modules.

Most of the dungeon building tools given out by TSR were geared to this type of sprawling themeless mega-dungeon. These tools (like the dungeon generator in the 1e dmg) will not help you make your own White Plume Mountain. You need to run those types of modules to absorb the design principals, TSR never gave out the secret sauce.

Tuxedo Catfish
Mar 17, 2007

You've got guts! Come to my village, I'll buy you lunch.
yeah i'm being very general and a little flippant here, more just trying to emphasize that there's a lot of unspoken relationships between system-level mechanics, GM content design, and then the actual gameplay loop. an accurate and comprehensive history of this stuff could be its own entire thread

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Dareon
Apr 6, 2009

by vyelkin

Rutibex posted:

Most of the dungeon building tools given out by TSR were geared to this type of sprawling themeless mega-dungeon. These tools (like the dungeon generator in the 1e dmg) will not help you make your own White Plume Mountain. You need to run those types of modules to absorb the design principals, TSR never gave out the secret sauce.

"This room contains... A red dragon, four beds, and three elaborate sarcophagi. There are no other exits than the one you entered by."
"...The way we entered involved crawling for 200 feet and encountering a single porcupine, how did any of that get in here?"

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