D&D Survivor???

[darklight]

I was watching the Danish version of Survivor (aka Robinson Ekspeditionen) with my friend Niels, and we both agreed it would be fun to be a part of it. We started talking, since we aren't part of it, how about doing a one-shot Survivor 'adventure'?

I was thinking each player builds a pc on perhaps 10.000 xp, and the appropriate money, and then run the scenario. There would be different tests, lack of food and perhaps some wandering monsters. I could imagine it being set up by a powerful wizard guild, and they might teleport in a monster every 24 hours, to spice things up. It would include the inevitable voting, to kick one at a time off the island.

I realize this type of game would be more competitive, less cooperative than the usual sessions, but it would probably be a break from the normal campaign. It might be fun for the more tactical players. It could, possibly, be played with the regular pc's as an in-campaign break, but I guess you would have to be careful not to ruin the campaigns atmosphere.

So, what do you think, could this be fun? Or would it be better to just play RISK?

I'd love to hear your opinion.

darklight

 

[Teflon Billy]

I think this sounds lik it has a lot of promise. Maybe more as a convention event than a weekly game mind you.

But it certainly sounds like it would spice things up a bit

 

[Crothian]

I think it does sound like a great Convention type game.

 

[darklight]

A convention game, yes that would be probably be the best way to play it. Incidentally, just after discussing this (briefly) we talked about holding a local RISK tournament. These two types of games might form the basis for a convention with a tactical focus.

At a convention I would probably play with two groups of 5-6 people. The two groups would then take on eachother, in tests of wit, strength etc. with the losing team voting one pc out. Once they got down to 4-6 pc's total, it would be a more individual game.

Any ideas on how to set it up? I guess it wouldn't be that hard.
How about ideas on different tests?

darklight

 

[Crothian]

Tests would be tough. You'd want things that any class could do. For instance you could set up something as simple a retrieving an item in a water cave. Such a simple obsticle would be tough for characters without swim or without the proper itemss or spells.

However, I think the real question is how mmuch prep time do you give the players. With a day to get the correct spells it really gives spellcasters a huge advantage.

 

[darklight]

I don't think they should know what the test is beforehand, so no prep time. Would that make it disadvantageous to be a spellcaster?

In the group stage, I think it would be a big advantage to have a well rounded party, with good specialists, but in the later, individual stages, being a jack-of-all-trades might prove to be better (essentially being a one man, well rounded 'party').
Some of the tests in the group vs group stage, might be between each groups chosen 'champion', so it would be important to have skilled specialists in each field.

darklight

 

[JoeBlank]

Check out EN World's own Tournaments, Fairs & Taverns for some excellent "challenge" ideas.

I would be concerned about boredom for those whose characters were voted off. Perhaps have each player play 2 or 3 characters, but then you could run into trouble if there are only 4 characters left on the island and one player controls a majority of them. Maybe rule there can be no "block voting" somehow.

Let us know how this works out, sounds like a fun idea.

 

[Paragon Badger]

Another way to keep voted out players' interest may be "reincarnation". The voted out PC is given control of a wandering monster of the DMs choice and is encouraged to cause as much havoc as possible. Adds a new twist because if you are mean in voting someone out they get a chance to get revenge. I think a PC controling a Filcher from CC2 would have a ball swiping his ex-foes stuff!

 

[darklight]

Tournaments, Fairs and Taverns! Doh, that was pretty obvious, and I actually have it Definitely a good source for challenges.

I agree that the players who are voted off, might get bored if there was nothing else to do, so letting them play opponents would be really cool. Makes me think: what would happen if one player is known to be an expert tactician, would you vote him off to get rid of a tough rival, only to risk being beaten by him as a monster? Could create interesting choices, I think.

I'll work a bit more on this, and propose it to my gaming group. It might take a while though, since I'm pretty slumped (Edit: Shouldn't this be "swamped"?) by exams, until january 24. If someone else try this out, I would certainly like to hear how it went.

darklight

 

[Jondor_Battlehammer]

Sounds perfect for X-Crawl.