Reverse dungeon, YOU are the monsters!

[Arravis]

So for an upcoming local gaming-fest, I have plans on running a "reverse dungeon" wherein the players play monsters, instead of heroes. It'll be a sort of "horde" mode for an RPG. It's a 3-4 hour game, one night only and I expect 6-8 players at most. I'll be using an obscene amount of Dwarven Forge dungeon tiles, so the whole thing will be nicely laid out. I'm hoping to give the whole night a light-hearted slightly comical feel.
Anyway, I'm looking for any suggestions or ideas as to what I might add to this quick "adventure".

My current concept is that the dungeon, below a large town, was once ruled by your classic evil wizard that united several tribes of goblins. Recently, the evil wizard went into town to try out some new spells on the commoners and got himself killed, leaving the goblin tribes to fend for themselves. Each PC will be the leader of his own tribe... tribes here being defined by the room they control in the dungeon. There might be the "kitchen" tribe, the "broom closet" tribe, etc. Each will have a few tribe members, a chieftain, traps, and perhaps their own trained monster (gelatinous cube, owl bear, etc). Each PC-goblin-chieftain can use their tribal resources as desired, so they can throw all they have at one group or spread it out evenly, or however they want.

The first wave of "opponents" will be pitch-fork and torch wielding villagers looking to root-out the remaining evil under the town. After that, it'll be the town watch, then groups of soldiers, before the apex of actual dudley-do-right adventurers show up.

Anyway, I'm looking for suggestions or ideas to improving this general scenario. Thanks for all the help guys!

-Arravis

 

[Dioltach]

Begin by reading Goblin Quest by Jim C. Hines: a great read about a dungeon crawl seen from the perspective of one of the denizens.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Sounds like fun!

My only thought is that maybe each player should control one of the goblins in each tribe, that way they'll all have something to do when the invaders are in each of the rooms.

 

[Arravis]

I'll check out the book, but I won't be able to read it in time before the game.

As far as Matthew's question, all the players will have direct control of any goblins or monsters in their tribe.

 

[gamerprinter]

Steerpike, one of the members of The Campaign Builders Guild created a Goblin Campaign back in June 2009, that is exactly what you're describing. Here's a link to his post adventure thread. While the front of the campaign was escaping a underdark goblin camp as a child while his parents were killed by a party of adventurers, then his escape across the underdark. Eventually he reaches a dungeon from beneath, which is owned by some illithidae (mindflayers) at the lowest level, but a monster dungeon management company has leased the upper floors of the dungeon and the hero goblin gets employment resetting traps in the dungeon. It's kind of gonzo, unfortunately many of the awesome and comical illustrations have disappeared, but its worth the read.

 

[delericho]

TSR did the very thing, in 2000. Unfortunately, it's one of the few things that isn't yet available on DND Classics.

Still, if you can scare up a copy from somewhere, that might well be of some help.

 

[Arravis]

Mostly, I'm just looking for any suggestions ENWorld'ers might have for a game like this.
Thanks!

 

[Tonguez]

Traps and Monster upgrades is what I wondering about - how do you intend to rule on the ability of your goblins to build and use traps to protect themselves from PCs and is there an ability to recruit bigger badder monsters to their cause?

 

[gamerprinter]

Traps and Monster upgrades is what I wondering about - how do you intend to rule on the ability of your goblins to build and use traps to protect themselves from PCs and is there an ability to recruit bigger badder monsters to their cause?

Well in the link I posted, the goblin in question was a new recruit for an existing dungeon management company operated by an orge magi (as boss), with a full staff including a vampiress second in command, a priest necromancer, a master trapsmith, even some fighters and spellcasters to serve as intelligent dungeon encounters. The setup was this was a deep dungeon with a dozen or more levels claimed by a group of powerful mindflayers (who operated the five lowest levels of the dungeon), these mind-flayers lease the upper 4 levels to the dungeon management company. Part of that company's required initial investment was to possess a certain amount of gold and magic item treasure that is used seed the dungeon with booty. The hope is less successful adventure parties use the facilities, but are killed by monsters, traps, magic, and their existing carried magic items and wealth becomes the profit revenue stream for the dungeon management company. As stated the concept was very gonzo and tongue and cheek, but it was a fun way to handle this concept.