Caves of Chaos (no edition wars) - Discussion

[HolyMan]

The Caves of Chaos is an old concept (but a great one). I remember running it back when I had my BEMCI boxes and not quite the understanding of role-playing as I do today.

CoC (already taken I think) if anything was the hack and slashers dream. Pick a cave and go in and kill the monsters and take their treasure. Then rest and repeat. A novel idea for a dungeon crawl if ever there was one.

And me being who I am I think I would like to reminisce (and make new gaming memories) with all of you.

Reminisce:

Please tell me any stories you have from when you got a chance to play or run Caves of Chaos. Making memories and sharing them is a big part of the gaming experience.

New memories:

I have decide to run a few quick adventures within the Caves of Chaos. And as the title suggests it will be without edition wars. I will run any group of players using whatever system they wish through the dangerous and perils that lie behind those dark openings.

But these games will have rules (as all games do).

1. Groups will be of 4-5 players and we will run using the Iron Man rules. No raising. No replacing characters.
2. Each player can be in more than one group only after all other interested parties are in a game. Now unless we have one person out there that wants to play some totally crazy system and no one else does I see little trouble with everyone getting a game.
3. Starting at level 1 and will be advancing as caves are cleared. This may result in a faster progress than normal but I don't think we want to play the game at the same level all the way through.
4. Each game will have an "End Goal Item". This item will be randomly placed in a cave and once you find this you can say you've "beaten" the game. But you may still adventure if you wish.
5. As this will lead to the possibility of a great many games starting and planning for each would be difficult I will be relying a lot of random rolling and character suggestions. I'll use whatever random room generator I can find. Whatever monster and treasure tables suit the game. And asking PCs what they want in the way of treasure for their characters to help improve their fun. Let's just say I'm putting the chaos in The Caves of Chaos.
6. Generating characters can't be laid out as I'm not sure what systems we will be using. I can say that since we will be doing Iron Man rules I will allow for max HP (Health) per level.
7. I can tell you there will be no house rules, crazy third party stuff, or monster PCs. I don't own everything but I can find it and/or you can link/explain it to me.
8. Sources from the systems will not be up to me but up to the players. I'll leave it up to you to decide how crazy you wish your party to be.

With all this in mind I hope to get a few groups together and have some fun.

HM



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[HolyMan]

Reminisce:

Rust monsters. As a DM you have to love them right?

I had an idea that some Bugbears living on the second level of the caves would have a rust monster they feed scrapes to living below them. The rust monster already lived in the cave and the bugbears though tot keep him there to relieve pesky adventures of their weapons so they could get their gold.

Well the group (think we were playing 2e at the time) was thinking there may be magic in the pile of scrap near the base of the hill. The fighter's player was excited and went digging in almost automatically.

I remember this encounter so vividly because it was one of those if it could go wrong than it did, for the PCs. Missed swings, minimum damage for magic missile rolls (twice - Ray's eyes bulged as two ones came up a second time), weapons and armor being made useless left and right.

In the end they fled back to town. I couldn't believe after one encounter they needed to rest for spells. I think that there was like 40+ encounters I had made and much deadlier than that.

HM

 

[rbingham2000]

New memories:

I recently downloaded the 5E playtest materials, including the Caves of Chaos module. There's so much potential for adventure in that particular module in the hands of a good GM. The sample scenarios included (Under Evil's Thumb, Drawn to Power, and Looming War in particular) sound like they would be pretty awesome. I wouldn't mind being a player in this for any edition (Swords and Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, the Rules Cyclopedia, OSRIC, AD&D 2E, D&D 3E and 3.5 and D&D 4E are the games that I have, apart from those playtest materials).

EDIT: Recently learned that PBPing of D&D Next playtest material is not allowed by WOTC. Have requested a lock of the recruitment thread by the RPG.Net mods.

 

[HolyMan]

Right about not being able to run whatever it is they came up with at WotC, but I have a copy of the old caves and plan to fill it in myself.

Nothing these games are about will have anything to do with D&D Next.

I just know there is great gaming potential in the CoC idea.

HM

 

[rangerjohn]

Memories: I think COC with the basic rules, was the first game I ran. Way back in the eighties. All I knew of rpgs back then, was what was in the basic rule book and the module. Which turned out to be iron man by default and a TPK.

Now: here's my vote for PF.

 

[HolyMan]

I'm sure COC has caused many a TPK - let's hope that doesn't happen with the playtest though.

One vote PF noted. I'll get to use my GameMastery Guide.

Let me try it out now.

<Not bad... party finds a masterwork longbow>

HM

 

[renau1g]

My first adventure, the DM wanted to get us greenhorns used to the rules, as I was the most "experienced" of any of the players having played the hell out of Baldur's Gate II (still probably my favourite RPG). We had two guys who loved video games and just wanted to kill stuff (one ended up being the fighter and the other was...wait for it... another human fighter (although he had some kit... maybe Berserker or something?) when we played 2e.

We played this adventure and I remember that I lost my half-elf ranger not long after I found my blue glowing longsword that I never got a chance to identify (the party later found it was a +1 longsword that shed light like a torch) ..... I remember it being a blast. That was a while ago though....

As much as i prefer 4e, it would be way too grind-y with the hp levels of PC's/monsters. I'd love to try 5e, but alas that's not an option. PF is probably a good choice. I may even be interested.......how's the gunslinger class? Any good?

 

[Rhydius]

I've not had the chance to play through COC before, and this sounds like it would be a lot of fun, though I'm not particularly familiar with it. Most of the games I've been part of in my 10 or so years of gaming have been some sort of homebrew of one flavor or another.

If no-one's opposed to it, I'll throw in a vote for Pathfinder as well.

 

[Disposable Hero]

Like Rhydius, I've never had the chance to play through the COC module before either. So I would love to play.

My vote like others goes for Pathfinder. Also with the epic sounding epicness that this sounds like it has potential for I would suggest 25 point buy.

 

[HolyMan]

And the first game has a thread...

http://www.enworld.org/forum/talking-talk/324287-caves-chaos-1st-group-pf-recruitment.html

See those of you interested there.

HM