D&D CO-OP Game

[Grundgen]

Heh, Im nearing the end of some school papers so free time has been peeking through here and there...yesterday I typed out the DMG's rules for random dungeons, and created a deck of cards for encounters (following their suggestion, and I wrote on a deck of playing cards)...For example: a card might say "Skirmisher: Level + 2" or "Bad Luck: Lose 1 Healing Surge" So the game goes like this...

Lets say you wanted to just hang out and fight stuff together with friends...while vaguely playing D&D. Make up characters (which we will keep using and leveling up as normal). Then collectively come up with a loose theme...ex: "Our party finds itself at the entrance of a evil wizards tomb" (whatever it is). Then come up with a "goal." ex: "Find the Golden Chalice of Moist Dreams" **This is the part I want to brainstorm some mechanic for (which I will come back to)**

Heres where you start the random dungeon rolling using the DMG charts I added some stuff too. I did a quick one here at work, which cracked me up, but was kind of cool...I rolled for the "Corridor" and got a 4...which means "immediately ends in a door" cool, this dungeon is sealed off...Then I rolled for the door type...16, Iron Door, stuck...neat, right off the bat, time to use a skill to open. Next I rolled a 12 to see whats beyond the door...A Chamber...Roll again...11...its an 8 x 8 Octagon with (next rolled a 3) No exits, and (roll again 10) a large fountain...and (rolled 7) no treasure. So, it seems to be more of a sealed Crypt than dungeon...For playing together, I decided that each time you rolled a Chamber, there would be a fight.

On to the Encounter Deck...You draw 1 card for each person in the party and find monsters that fill the role/level of what you draw. Maybe the players take turns running the monsters (however to divide it up) and fight it out. Hopefully win, get xp and keep going! I made a small "Extended Rest Table" as well...to represent wandering monsters and such while trying to rest in the dungeon.

I am wondering if there is a way to create rules for a Major and Minor quest...since the encounter deck is made form playing cards, maybe a "quest" is completed by creating a Full House...or some other hand...ooh, maybe the better the hand, the better the reward...ex: a straight gets everyone a magic item...extra surges whatever...the group could maybe "turn in" a hand at any time...maybe 2 of a kind gets you a healing potion...

Ok, I will stop now...I have no idea if any of this makes sense...Mostly wondering if there are any other great ideas out there to tweak things some. These rules sort of create a more 'boardgame' style...similar to Arkham Horror...I would much rather play as an RPG, but newborns have lessened the time we have together a great deal, so this may be a decent alternative...heh, maybe there is a way to make a 'social encounter' deck as well...

 

[keterys]

Most likely whoever just acted should play the monster, so that other people can figure out their turns.

I suspect it'd work a lot easier to have a program or something to make the map for you - I'm trying to remember how Warhammer Quest worked... dungeon tiles, I think? That was interesting, though 4e needs larger rooms than that one did.

 

[keterys]

Also - I'd suggest just flipping a coin or making the brute/soldier table the same to determine the required brute/soldier pair, then do random for the n-1 other choices.

 

[DanmarLOK]

Just a random thought and very much on impulse without any thinking it through -

Change chamber size and shape to something like -

1d6 for shape
1-4 = regular
5 = circle/oval
6 = irregular

Size is determined by two rolls of 6+2d6 for width and length.

If you can find a copy of the older (pre-3) DMG's they had a lot of charts/tables for adding 'dressings' to areas as well as random dungeon generators.

The cards are a good idea and work well. What has worked well for others is to have themed monster 'decks' of creatures that range from n-2 to n+4. Each encounter you roll a d6-2 to determine the encounter level and then you pull cards from the (shuffled faced down) deck until you have enough a little less than the encounter budget calls for and then you supplement with minion cards to make up the remainder bits and pieces.

Once you're down to the last 2 or 3 cards in your encounter deck add a random draw from your solo deck (3 to 6 solo's of appropriate level) as your final fight.

Grant one magic item for every 3 encounters give or take, News - Asmor.com has a very good magic item randomizer. Sure you won't be 'optimized' but this isn't a campaign per se, it's just having fun in an evening.

For monsters a general battle plan is fine, ranged casters go after healers, casters, warriors in that order, melee's go after the nearest target that kind of thing.

It can work fairly well as a 'board game' rather than a RPG game.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Another way to build encounters would be to generate a random encounter template, Dragon's Lair, Wolf Pack, etc. and then pick monsters to fill it. That might result in slightly more interesting sorts of encounters. At least ones that 'make sense' a bit more and feel a bit designed.

Perhaps terrain could be part of the draw too, or environmental effects, etc. Sort of like the way traps can substitute for monsters there could be other elements. I know there is already a draw for room features, but it would be cool if they could be supplemented or modified with 'extras'.

 

[erf_beto]

Well, this has been a pet project of mine for quite a while. My goal is to have a CO-OP sandbox-like Heroic Tier game that plays like those old Arcade Capcom games, like King of Dragons and D&D Shadow over Mystara. I’ve also taken inspiration from newer games like Etrian Odissey, a couple of MMOs and also, a style of play called “Insert Coin”, that hopes to emulate those games (which I heard from at Wizards and in a Brazilian forum). My version will probably be called “Press Start”, because it will look more like a console, rather than arcade game.


Anyway, here are my musings about co-op play.

Monsters.
The Tactics section in the MM and combat roles gives some pointers as to how they fight. So, you can have all players handle the monsters together each time they come up in the initiative order. If there are a lot of disagreements, elect someone to break the ties. If everyone thinks the orc should jump into the lava pit, well, you better get yourself a regular DM. Or rotate your players – and perhaps gives a bonus to the character of whoever takes the DM seat (like an extra Action Point).

Another idea is in the 3.5 Miniatures Handbook. There were some rules in there about giving monsters some kind of a proxy behavior. Something like “Hates elf” (always attacks the nearest elf), “Distracted” (the party decides who it attacks each round) or “Bloodthirst” (attack the nearest bloodied foe). I don’t remember these very well…

Also, I’m really hoping to use this house rule: half-XP, 2/3 XPl . With more monsters and faster battles, the combats will play a lot more like the beat’em up videogames I hope to emulate. I’ve made a few playtests with Kobold Hall, nothing major, but I think it will work.

As for the monster cards, another option is to use the ones you draw as your “monster palette”: you build the encounter with the monsters you want. No need to have a jelly cube, an orc, an owlbear and a zombie in the same encounter, just because those are the cards you got (an all undead, or some orcs and their owlbear pet or a single cube would make more sense). Just make sure you’re within the encounter XP budget!

Oh, and having traps and terrain cards mixed with the monsters is a must.

Random Dungeons.
The thing about the DMG's charts for random dungeons is that, if you're drawing the thing on the fly, IMO, they're... boring. And if you're not, you could probably have an online mapmaker do the job for you (there's a bunch reviewed here). But then, that’s not really ‘exploring’ is it?

And yes, you should have an encounter every chamber. Or add a monster card that says “Empty room: discard all monsters for this chamber”, for those rare occasions…

Warhammer Quest used a deck of cards instead of charts to draw the map, and that was a lot more fun. The great thing about that is you can shuffle a quest objective card into that deck and keep exploring until you draw it. And if there's a fork in the road, you split the deck, forcing you to backtrack when the road you chose runs out of cards (and you didn’t find what you were looking for).

The thing is, with 4e, I don't think it really matters if it's a 4 or 8 or 12 square long hallway, or a turn left corner or whatever - you gotta fastforward to the action. So a deck of encounter areas would be a better idea. Each card could describe the room (with a picture or a note about general size and stuff like difficult terrain, furniture, hazards, etc), or be a "fork in the road", "cross section" etc to give the option of choosing your path (draw more cards, split the deck, etc), or even a Random Event/Encounter in a corridor (stuff like traps and skill challenges or wandering monsters).

But you don't have to do that, charts are fine, as long as you don't have to roll on a lot of them (I find that boring to do at the table). But IMO you should roll on the chambers table in advance, and shuffle them in a table or index cards before play, to speed things up.


Quests.
Since this is a Co-Op game, with no DM, you can’t have things like murder mystery, because every player knows from the start what they are getting into. So I think it’s best to let them choose their quests among a small group of available ones. Short descriptions each, with really simple development: “go to level 5, kill dude, find item, return”. Think Dungeon Delve, not H1-H3.

Anyway, I’m aiming for a Heroic Tier sandbox feel, so you don’t have to do this, but hear me out. This could require a lot of time to set up, but might be cool to do (if you like world building, for instance).

I've been thinking about a system where characters start as foreigners in a small generic town or village and pick quests from a couple of generic Quest Sources (like the Alchemist, the Blacksmith, the Temple, the Thieves’ Guild, the Nobles, etc): the more quests they complete, the better the relationship between them. This translates into new, more rewarding quests being offered, better services provided and a sense of a growing environment.

Examples: when you start, the Alchemist only sells healing potions, but after taking a few quests and supplying him with magic herbs and dragon’s blood he can sell magic implements and cloth armor. The Temple only offers Cure Disease services at first, but after a few “donations” they might Remove Affliction or even Raise Dead. The Nobles might treat PCs as low-life hired help, being given low payment jobs like delivering a letter, but after completing a few quests for them, the players earned their trust and now are called to protect and escort the baron’s daughter herself or become members of his elite personal guard.

You measure this growing by summing up all XP related to the quests given by that Quest Source. When designing quests, I’d assign them to a particular source and decide the minimum Rank (the level of the source, E, D, C, B, A, and S, the maximum level) the party needs to have in order to take it based on its difficulty. If the Alchemist needs an herb from the creek outside of town that’s a Rank E minor quest, but giving him Dragon’s Blood, might be a Rank A quest.

In fact this is the only time I’d care about XP: IMO, in a Co-Op game, all characters should have the same level, and advance together, even if new characters join the party. (I have some ideas about starting the game with 4 basic classes and then introducing new race/class options through thematic Class Quests. Example. hunt an owlbear in the woods, now you can play a ranger; save the eladrin child that got lost, now you can play an eladrin...)

Anyway, I haven’t given this part much thought but you get the idea. In the end, these ideas might be more troublesome than rewarding.

 

[Grundgen]

Some great points to consider! Erf Beto...a couple things you brought up about Warhammer Quest made me wonder if there would be a way to use the old HeroQuest 'Search' deck...I dont think I've brought that game out in 16 years lol but I think I remember cards for 'hazards' and 'wandering monsters' that could be fun again!

You made a great point about the corridors not really mattering as much...I guess the main reason I left them in the chart, was on that 1/20 chance there was an encounter IN a corridor...but really, theres nothing all that exciting about a corridor fight. I should see if I can find any WQ boxes around somewhere...Drawing rooms sounds fun (though I guess I could just pre make some myself).

I would be interested if anyone has picked up (or played) the Descent expansion with campaign rules...already being a boardgame, it might have quest ideas too. I like the idea of 'unlocking' aid from NPCs...the different quests gaining faction. Maybe having your 4 base classes choosing a starting faction could add some boon to opening up the more advanced classes. (maybe power source) May be a different direction than I am using, but one of my favorite parts from early Everquest 2...haha I actually liked having to quest for advanced classes...ex Fighter -> Crusader -> Paladin

 

[DMINGW00TISAWSOME]

The Chalice of Moist Dreams?