D&D Reversal: The players Control the Dungeon

[Sporemine]

As the battered kobold leader begins crawling towards a small door, his minions lying dead around him, a grey mist envelopes the room. A tall grey skinned figure steps out of the haze. Glaring at the kobold he says, "You have failed me." Then with a flick of this hand, the kobold bursts into flames, quickly being consumed until he is no more than a blackened mark on the ground. The figure soundlessly turns to the stunned party of adventurers and says, "I have a proposition for you."

Hi people, im back

This is one of my newer ideas

I have always found that one of my favourite parts of DMing is the creation of the dungeons.

In this campagain, after killing the kobold leader (or at least beating him up) the master offers you the kobolds job, master of the dungeon.

For this job the following things may be needed:

Recovery:

What!? The cube ate a person with some sort of potion?! It climbed the wall?! Where is it?! What do you mean you don't know?! Well dont just stand there, Go find it and put it back in it's pit!

The good old go find it and i'll pay you.
This one promises to be fun.

Capture:

Something ate something else, was killed by adventurers of died on its own. That or the master made a new room.

Whatever the reason, a specific monster is needed. The adventurers need to go and incapacitate or buy it and bring it to it's area. But how to get a 1000 pound acidic cube into a dungeon room?

Trapmaking:

Take a kobold trapsmith to somebody else's dungeon and protect him while he draws up schematics for the traps. For this he needs to be defended, also the trap(s) need to be set off or disabled for this to work.

Creation:

An empty room needs to be filled, enough said.


I need feedback or suggestions on my idea, any criticisim is also welcome.

-Sporemine

 

[fissionessence]

The PCs overcome traps and dungeon monsters in order to reach the MacGuffin. When they get it, the keeper tells them that not only should this item never be removed from the dungeon [for the safety of the world], but there is currently a band of ogres/orcs/goblins/ratfolk/kobolds/etc. coming to retrieve it for their own nefarious purposes. In order to protect the item against the overwhelming numbers of the invaders, their only hope is to reset all of the traps they've overcome. In addition, there are some traps that only function with a person there to operate it.

When the horde arrives, the PCs are spread out across the dungeon, each operating some kind of trap, the effectiveness of which is based on that PC's skill checks (the fighter operates the trap that requires Strength; the wizard operates the one that requires Arcana; etc.)

The PCs defeat many invaders this way, but must eventually have an actual combat encounter with some of the more powerful of the group. Once they've won, the invaders are all dead/defeated/pushed back, and the MacGuffin is safe. The keeper will watch it forevermore. (And hopefully no more bands of adventurers will come break in!)

When preparing the traps for the invaders, the PCs not only just had to fix or reset the ones they broke, but they could also place traps of their own wherever they feel it would work best. In fact, the keeper has a storage room of old traps for the PCs to pick from. Essentially, they get to make their own setup of Mouse Trap for the invading horde to have to fight through, then the PCs get to watch it all happen from their hiding spots in the walls. Perhaps the keeper is also imbued with the power to conjure certain dungeon monsters (oozes, zombies, etc.) that the PCs can also pick from when 'building' their ideal dungeon. Of course, when resolving dungeon monster vs. invading horde, the monsters should probably be treated as hazards and simplified checks/rolls for the most part (unless you wanted to spend hours 'watching' and rolling for the kobolds to get through the dungeon). Actually, you could even let the PCs play the monsters for an encounter, while you run the kobolds. This should probably for a key encounter, and probably for monsters that have some sort of sentience and interesting abilities.

~ fissionessence

 

[EP]

Pure. Awesome.

 

[Sporemine]

Thanks for the feedback.

The general idea is fitting together nicely now and the first quest involves bringing a gelatinous cube back to a pit, using ten foot poles and acid neutralizer. This needs to be done while causing as little harm possible to the cube (safe cube = $$$)

Any additional ideas for quests, traps or even onsters are welcome

Thanks again

-Sporemine

 

[Sporemine]

Thanks for the feedback.

The general idea is fitting together nicely now and the first quest involves bringing a gelatinous cube back to a pit, using ten foot poles and acid neutralizer. This needs to be done while causing as little harm possible to the cube (safe cube = $$$)

Any additional ideas for quests, traps or even monsters are welcome

Thanks again

-Sporemine

 

[EP]

Any additional ideas for quests, traps or even monsters are welcome

Demons are the first to mind. Reckless with a huge swarm of them clearly up to no good. It would be a quick, easy sell to the players without any need for a huge backstory. If they're epic level (or paragon for that matter), toss in a name like Graz'zt and they'll have two hammers in each hand by the end of the next round.