A Dungeon-centric Setting Idea: Help me flesh it out

[Reynard]

Idea: As dungeon exploration is a key component of old school play, I want to create a setting in which dungeon exploration is fundamental and is internally consistent. i do not want to deal with mega-dungeons, however, so I will focus on a setting in which there are numerous small dungeons to be explored.

Concept: A new large island (I'll be using New Zealand as a model) is discovered during the early days of the world's Age of Exploration (sans cannons). This island was once the hub of a great civilization, but which long ago disappeared (a cataclysm? a fading? unknown). Whatever beings built this civilization were apparently partially subterranean, as they left hundreds, perhaps thousands, of underground temples, vaults, laboratories and homes all over the island, often found beneath the almost-gone ruins of above ground structures. The first explorers to find these ruins discovered them to be filled with coins and gems and other treasure, as well as magical items from the civilization long extinct. Very shortly afterward, a "gold rush" began, with explorers from all nations, races and walks of life converging on the island to stake claims on the dungeons or serve those that do. The PCs are among such characters.

Play: While dungeon exploration is obviously a major part of the setting, I want to make sure that other playstyle elements are present. Chief among these is exploration -- not in a room by room sense, but in a broader sense. I want the players to have the opportunity to head out into the wilds to discover the lost secrets of this ancient civilization. I also want to enable "greater ambitions" among the players. I want to support the ability to stake claims and reap the rewards while dealing with the difficulties. i want them to be able to take positions of influence among the many factions working to take control of the island. i want them to be able to carve out domains in this contested New World. In other words, in addition to dungeon delving, I want to give players something worthwhile and challenging to do outside of the dungeon (but not necessarily instead of). To this end, I will develop a "claims system" as well as rules and guidelines for outfitting and mounting expeditions. Major power groups and individuals will be identified, from the thieves' guild trying to get a toehold in the rough and tumble port city to righteous temples looking to convert the heathen populace (humanoids, perhaps degenerate descendants of the original civilization or its slaves?) to evil wizards looking for a quiet place to summon elder evils in exchange for power.

Rules: The real question is AD&D (perhaps Hackmaster) or 3.x? Eah has its advantages and disadvantages, and I can't quite decide.

Fun for me: One of the nice things for me is that this setting gives me an opportunity to really work out the "One Million Mini-Dungeons" idea I have had, including layout, treasure, traps, guardians and the whole shebang. It is a major undertaking to make it something more than another "random dungeon generator" but I feel up to the challenge.

 

[weem]

Cool idea, sounds fun for sure

I'm reminded of the colonization of America and the image of settlers coming over and slowly spreading across one side (east coast) and making their move deeper and deeper in over time. Lots of ancient ruins, dungeons, temples - yea, much fun.

Claiming land would a cool aspect as well, especially as they progress in levels (and assets).

Were you looking for ideas regarding a certain aspect, or are you just sharing?

 

[Reynard]

Were you looking for ideas regarding a certain aspect, or are you just sharing?

Anything goes. At this point, it's a loose outline of an idea and I'd like to nail down the specifics.

 

[Reynard]

The way I see it, there are a number of areas that need development before the setting is playable:

1) Climate, terrain and geography: Since I have decided to base the island off New Zealand (the southern island in particular) a lot of this work is "done" for me, I just need to do some research. i like NZ because it is the right size and has a nice mix of terrain types -- not to mention it is just gorgeous in photographs.

2) History part 1 -- the Ancients: I haven't even really thought about who or what they were. I need to nail this down, even if the PCs were to never find out the details, just to have a consistent point from which to design ruin architecture and so on. I am leaning toward making the island the original home of the Gith and their civilization's collapse being the catalyst for their exodus to the Astral Plane and Limbo.

3) Flora, Fauna and Indigenous Peoples: I need to describe what kinds of creatures, from mundane to monstrous, and what kinds of peoples live on the island and in which terrains and environments. This will be combination of prose description and random encounter charts, probably one feeding the other. Are there dragons? How common are they? What sorts of people -- I am leaning toward monstrous humanoids as the descendants of the Gith's slaves -- live there? Where? How do they interact with the new arrivals? Like that.

4) History part 2 -- the New World: Of more immediate concern is a general outline of the discovery and initial exploration of the island that led directly to the "gold rush".

5) Politics: Part of this is at least vaguely sketching out the larger world and its powers -- political, military and economic. With so much wealth, mundane and magical, to be had on the island, everyone with ocean going vessels is going to be interested. i don't want to overdo it, though, so I may go with archetypical powers cribbed from history and literature. The most important part is to cover a lot of bases so PCs can be whatever the players want, from samurai to swashbucklers to middle eastern pirate sorcerers.

6) Power Groups: In addition to larger world politics, there's local powers to worry abou -- thieves guilds, cults and religions, mercantile guilds, adventuring companies that have already staked big claims and the like. If the "Politics" category is background, this category is the stuff of actual play.

7) Exploration and Claim Staking 101: I really do want to put together a system designed specifically for allowing PCs to engage in an economic and political interaction with the setting in addition to the dungeon delving part. Even if the players don't bother with doing it, having the system in place will be good for determining how NPC "prospectors" operate.

8) Random Dungeon Generator: Mmm... random dungeons. But with consistency and "setting appropriate" elements. I want the PCs to wander into any given "hex" and find a dungeon. It might be a tomb or a vault or a summer house. I don't necessarily want it to be used on the fly, but should produce a detailed mini-dungeon in anywhere from 15 minutes to and hour. The DM should be able to use it when the guys go out for a smoke break or run to get pizza and be able to run a krawl with little effort. I kind of see it as my "One Million" opus.

9) A Name: The island needs a name.

10) System: Which edition?

 

[Ydars]

Hi Reynard,

A nice set of ideas for a campaign I would be very interested in playing in were time and distance no object. Here are some comments that may or may not help you.

If you are really after old-school feel you should use AD&D since the other systems have problems of how XP are given out etc that change the playstyle quite a lot. AD&D is also more compatible with quick generation of randomish dungeons and is generally much less prep work. Having said this, I think, with a few mods, that 3.5 would do very well as well, but it would limit how much of your vision you could actually realise.

As for the history, well the cataclysm is going to have to be something that happened instantly; after all, leaving all your treasure behind is a sort of Marie Celeste type situation and I would play up the eerieness of this point as a sort of campaign theme.

One possible cataclysm is to use the idea of empowered psionics mixed with the themes of forbidden planet; the race, perhaps the Gith, that once lived here developed powerful artifacts that responded to their psionic powers and made them virtual gods. But by night, once they slept, these devices were still engaged by their unconscious minds and ended up destroying their whole civilisation in a single night. Once the Gith became afraid, all the terrors of their unconscious became real in their dreams and then came to kill them. But once they were gone, all the "monster" ceased to exist. Except that the artifacts still exist on the island, waiting for reactivation................

A few other random thoughts; organisations.

I would have a powerful military power on the island who have made it illegal for anyone else to remove anything, as they want all the treasure for themselves. They are the ones organising the claims otherwise it would be a free-for all. If you want a free for all, ignore this idea.

The subculture of rag-tag low-lives that illegally plunder the tombs have to do so very carefully and live in underground or carefully hidden settlements, sometimes former dungeons.

All for now

 

[Wednesday Boy]

That's a pretty nifty idea. I like its potential to mix a dungeoncrawling game with a social/political/intrigue game.

When you say that you want to develop a "claims system" what did you have in mind? Do you mean mechanics connected to character level and such to determine how the characters stake claims? If so, why not just roleplay it out? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean but I think creating mechanics for something that is basically an economical issue would take the panache out of a fun roleplaying opportunity.

As for a system, what about 7th Sea? It seems like it would fit everything pretty well: the political/social aspects of the "gold rush", the exploration aspect and the ancient civilization aspect. And it would help fill your history, politics and power groups needs. Or if you wanted it to be a fantasy world you could take aspects from 7th Sea and reskin them to the D&D World and let 7th Sea do the work for you.

 

[Reynard]

When you say that you want to develop a "claims system" what did you have in mind? Do you mean mechanics connected to character level and such to determine how the characters stake claims? If so, why not just roleplay it out? Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you mean but I think creating mechanics for something that is basically an economical issue would take the panache out of a fun roleplaying opportunity.

I mean an actual economics system, governing laws, logistics issues for mounting and funding explorations, as well as a few games mechanics subsystems analogous to PC run guilds and "membership benefits". I'm of the school of thought that having solid systems behind certain aspects of play you intend to make important is a benefit.

As for a system, what about 7th Sea?

I want to stick with D&D (BECM, AD&D or 3.x) or one of its close cousins (C&C, Hackmaster, PF, etc...).

 

[Philotomy Jurament]

I think this sounds very cool -- just the kind of thing I would love to play. (I really like that you're playing up the exploration aspect; I think that "search into the unknown" is a very cool aspect of classic D&D play.)

If it were me, I'd also inject some weirdness into the dungeon. Not only for the sake of the weirdness (which I like), but also because when you have really big dungeon environments, ecology and purpose get hard to "make work" after a certain point. The weirdness will help keep the environment viable, interesting, and fun. Done with care, it needn't destroy the verisimilitude. Perhaps the upper levels or areas are mostly "built with a purpose/ecology sound" areas, but somewhere deeper are connections to a more chaotic and mythic/supernatural underworld environment. That could be tied in to the fall of the former civilization, too.

As far as system, I think you're on the right track, sticking with D&D. If it were me, I'd run original D&D or AD&D (1e). I might also consider B/X. I think any of those would be a perfect fit for the tone and feel of the campaign of you're describing.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I mean an actual economics system, governing laws, logistics issues for mounting and funding explorations, as well as a few games mechanics subsystems analogous to PC run guilds and "membership benefits". I'm of the school of thought that having solid systems behind certain aspects of play you intend to make important is a benefit.

I get what you mean. I agree, I think that sort of established system would make that whole process work smoothly. I thought maybe you were going to make it more crunchy and connected to the characters' level, sort of how in AD&D 2nd. Ed. you Fighters became Lords at 10th level or something. I think that sort of system is more apt to stifle creativity. I think if players are saavy enough, they should be able to stake a claim as early as they want, not dictated by level and crunchy mechanics. (But it sounds like you're not doing that, so I'm just rambling now...)

I want to stick with D&D (BECM, AD&D or 3.x) or one of its close cousins (C&C, Hackmaster, PF, etc...).

True, D&D seems like a more natural fit for a dungeon exploration game.

Maybe it's the gold rush vibe talking but have you ever watched Deadwood? A George Hearst type of character would make for a great villain in this game.

 

[Reynard]

System Options:

1E: It's *is* D&D to me. AT the same time, though, it takes more effort to wrangle players for AD&D. I do think it fits the setting well enough and it can accommodate tacked on subsystems pretty well.

Hackmaster: Like 1E, it's got a 1E feel with some modern design sensibilities. It can be a bear to run, though, if you use all the rules.

3.x: The people I generally game with like it, it still "feels" like D&D to me, especially if it's core plus carefully chosen 3rd party and/or official supplments. The steeper level curve conserns me, though, as I want to incorporate a sandbox feel and a degree of randomness.

Pathfinder: I could be wrong but it seems to me that Pathfinder is to 3.x as Hackmaster is to 1E.

C&C: I always want to try this game but every time I think about it I wonder what it offers that 1E doesn't.

A Retro-Clone: Could OD&D (Swords and Wizardry) or B/X (Labrynth Lord) handle this game? Would it be more fun?

The RC/BECM: This is the game I "grew up on" and holds a lot of nostalgia for me. But is it a good fit? And, I think it would be even harder to "sell" to players for than 1E. On the upside, I own the RC.