Defend the Dungeon

[Limiate]

Hello all,

Thanks for taking a minute to read my thread.

A number of my players have expressed an interest in playing D&D Dungeon Keeper Style. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_KeeperDungeon Keeper - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediahttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Keeper)

I'm trying to answer their request by designing an expansion for 4e that will allow them to play multiple monsters while still keeping a hold on their own sense of player-character self. I also want to take this chance to tell the narrative of the dungeon - why are dungeons the way they are - why are there mess halls and pools of acid, why do undead creatures have treasure, why are there multiple kinds of monsters in one place? Those are the two themes of the game.

I'm thinking:
50% in the lair doing monster things – running a simple macro, die roll based economy - gathering, crafting
25% defending the lair from other monsters, dealing with problems and NPC adventuring parties/assaults from the nearby town
25% monster PC adventure - banditry, raiding the town and even adventuring

I’ve been thinking about a number of ways to do this and I think I’ve come up with a solid plot. I’ll have the players roll up normal characters for a normal, level 1 dungeon delve that is going to go horribly wrong. In the end they’ll be captured by goblins and sacrificed on an altar to an evil god, the "Dungeon Master."

This god will accept the sacrifice and decide to use their heroic souls for his own devices… namely making each of the PCs into proxies and using them to expand his evil interests - namely the dungeon.

So the PCs are re-incarnated as ethereal spirits influenced by the god with the mission of building and growing a dungeon.

I’m starting an outline of what I need to make this a fun game system for the PCs and so far my thoughts are to combine PC games/Survival Genre/D&D together to do it.

Anyone care to give feedback/ideas?

Thanks for your comments and time!

-Limiate

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't know that I'd be really excited about playing a spirit. Why not just reincarnate the characters as members of different humanoid tribes or even just start them that way to begin with? They could be working together -- and trying to get the rest of their tribes to work together -- because their Evil Overlord will take it out on them if they don't.

It'd be easier for you -- less design work required, just have them roll up kobolds, goblins, orcs, hobgoblins, etc. -- and it'd allow the players to bond to their characters, and have more of a stake in their successes, that way.

Otherwise, I like the idea, and it's the kind of game I'd want to play in, if I lived in the area.

 

[Limiate]

The big split here is that I do not want the players playing adventuring classes. If they have Fighter powers, they're going to be a challenge for the adventuring group invading their turf - that's not the direction I want this game to go.

A goblin fighter is just a fighter who went with a unique race, not a normal goblin in a dungeon. What I'm looking for is an "authentic" dungeon.

I gave it thought, having them learn powers, even choosing between "evolving" into tougher monsters or gaining PC levels but I decided that it doesn't fit into the game. The players will play monsters, straight out of the Monster's Manual (or suppliment).

When a DM controlled adventuring party enters the dungeon - its going to raise hell and monsters are going to die. Some of those monsters will be PC controlled, so I need a mechanic that explains how/why they can move on to the next monster and possession seemed the right way to do it.

I still want there to be a sense of "self" so I'm working on what abilities possesion will instill... There will be no classes for the PCs but I'd like to still use the level system. So far I'm thinking:

Feats

Level bonus that applies per day you've possessed a monster (IE 1 day = +.5 or 0, 2 days = +1) which encourages keeping a monster possessed and gives the players an identity - "I'm the Orc Chief", "I'm the Troll"

Ability Increase

Action Points

Is that enough? I mean your monster will have "powers" of their own, so the PC doesnt really have to grant any...

 

[Limiate]

One thing I haven't mentioned above, I'm going to replace XP with treasure. I haven't decided if that's per person or a group treasure... I'm leaning toward group.

For an insight to the rest of the game I see it breaking down into this:

50% in the lair doing monster things

I've started to flesh these out and I think it will be four different types of activities with subcategories of one action per ability score.

Gathering

Str - Lumberjack
Dex - Hunting
Con - Mining
Int - Learning/Research
Wis - Foraging
Cha - Recruiting

Building

Str - Construction
Dex - Traps
Con - Cleaning/Labor
Int - Rituals (casting)
Wis - Divination (shaman)
Cha - Overseeing (buff to others)

Crafting

Str - Metal
Dex - Wood
Con - Stone
Int - Potions/Scrolls/Alchemy
Wis - Cooking/Herbs/Natural Poisons
Cha - Breed/Growth (Generates L0 NPCs)

Encounters

Str - Training (L0 NPCs move up 1CR)
Dex - Scouting/Exploring World Map
Con - Guarding
Int - Increasing/Lowering Reputation (Rep affects adventurers coming to dungeon)
Wis - Healing, Cure disease, triage
Cha - Lead Encounter (Raid, Ambush, Trade)


25% defending the lair from other monsters, dealing with problems and NPC adventuring parties/assaults from the nearby town

I'm working on an excel tool that will have a compounding counter that will generate the NPC, DM controlled adventuring group that will attack the dungeon. The counter will slowly increase and as it does so, it adds party members and magic items... so the players understand the mechanic of the longer it is till they come, the harder they will be.

In the mean time, the players will have time to refill the dungeons, set traps and build a few new rooms.

When the players do come, the DM is blind to what the players have been doing and goes in using the party to kill and loot. I've been planning on adding a random feature generator to the excel sheet that will make behaviors for the adventurers.

Something like:

1st, roll one of these:

25% Always
50% Sometimes
25% Never

2nd Role one of these:

Kicks in doors, checks for traps, heals to full, uses stealth, checks for traps, checks for secret doors, turns left, turns right, scouts ahead, etc


25% monster PC adventure - banditry, raiding the town and even adventuring

This will be a normal "adventure" except that it's done as evil characters... and with monsters instead of PCs.

I'll have several scenarios generated from raiding a farmer's barn to attacking the merchant's wagon on the road; even trading with a neighboring tribe of hobgoblins. I think I'll throw in a dungeon or two as well to give the PCs a chance to try their hand at monsterish diplomacy to recruit for their dungeon or hacking and slashing to get their own loot.

 

[Limiate]

So I've been hammering out a few ideas to make this work.

The first thing I went with is that tasks are going to either be PC controlled or NPC. The differences:

PC
Can react/control NPCs (if goblins foraging get attacked, they can react)
Ability modifier is applied to the task


NPC
Cannot react to situations, behavior/tactics per monster description
No ability modifier bonus, straight die rolls


The second thing I decided is that each "task" is going to be tied to its own mechanic.

Gathering

Gathering is going to be a normal skill check. 1d20 and set results. Something similar to:

For every 5, you gather 1 food. So if a player rolls a 18, that’s 3 food. If you had 11 goblins foraging, that’s 33 food.

If the player was controlling a goblin in the gathering group and granted a +2, that’s 20, so 44 food.

Building

Building will be automatic successes. One task can be completed per group plus an additional task per ability modifier if a PC is leading.

For example, 9 goblins build a 3x3 room. They succeed automatically.

With a player in the group who has +3 STR mod, they build a 6x6 room (3x3, 4 times)

Crafting

Crating is a tally system. I haven’t figured out what the measure will be for cost but I may go with weight. A 1lb steel dagger takes 1 metal. I also want to tie in a time cost. Materials + Time = Product

Time being a tally system. If goblins are forging a suit of chain mail, lets say it costs “10” time. Then to forge that chain mail, first they get the resources, then they need to sink 10 STR into the item. If the goblin smiths have a +1 STR, then you need 10 goblins building the chain mail to get it done in one cycle.

I think PCs here will count their ability modifier twice? Haven’t quite figured out to avoid a crazy dynamic here that can be exploited.

Encounters

Encounters will be just that – adventures all to themselves. They won’t be based on any skill roll but they need a mechanic and I’m tossing around a few ideas.

I need to figure out some sort of success/fail formula for a non-PC controlled encounter as well. If you send all NPC goblins to raid a chicken coop – pretty good chance. If you send them to waylay a merchant caravan, they’re probably going to fail.

I’m thinking that when PCs lead encounters, they’ll be able to take their CHA bonus in minions with them. The minions make all their skill checks equal to the PC, so that you can set up a pretty cool ambush or sneak into a town with your minions in tow.

 

[Limiate]

In helping to tell the dungeon narriative, I’ve come up with a couple simple rules/mechanics.

First, all monsters must have a nest. This doesn’t mean that a evil necromancer is going to curl up every night in a pile of old cloth on the floor, it simply means that each and every creature must have a place to call their own.

The next, all nests must be in a lair. Simple enough. If there are 14 goblins, all of them have to have a nest. Those nests can be in one lair or three – just as long as there are designated lairs.

That got me thinking that one of the parts of the narriatives needs to be rooms. I want to tell the story of WHY we see rooms in dungeons: Workshops, Labratorys, Librarys, Kitchens, Mess Halls, Storage Rooms – classic dungeon rooms. I’ll come back to this later.


Second, all monsters must have treasure. I’ll balance the amount of treasure needed by their CR, so players have to balance the amount of treasure for monsters vs what is kept for their xp levels. If monsters don’t have treasure, they’ll attack other monsters that do or they’ll leave the dungeon – maybe both.

Third, monsters need to eat. This will be an easy mechanic, size = amount of food needed per day. The one thing I look at here – is it too much to separate food into Veg/Carnivore? Dragons aren’t going to want to eat berries. It may be a mechanic that’s too micro and making it just “food” and macro seems to fix that. Food for thought… /groan

 

[Limiate]

Sigh, formatting didnt work.

 

[Kingreaper]

The one thing I look at here – is it too much to separate food into Veg/Carnivore? Dragons aren’t going to want to eat berries. It may be a mechanic that’s too micro and making it just “food” and macro seems to fix that. Food for thought… /groan

If you're going for a Dungeon Keeper feel, well, Dungeon Keeper didn't have any vegetarian beasties. And I think that worked fine.


My tendency would be to let the players play a whole bunch of monsters each. Ie. one player might play Bugs, controlling all the bugs in the combats, while another plays Goblins, and a third plays Kobolds etc.

 

[Limiate]

My tendency would be to let the players play a whole bunch of monsters each. Ie. one player might play Bugs, controlling all the bugs in the combats, while another plays Goblins, and a third plays Kobolds etc.

I was thinking a good mechanic for this would be to have one PC lead a group and the rest serve as that PC's minions for battles.

So, in game, one player has the orc chief possessed and another has the gnoll chief, while a third has the blade spiders.

When the NPC adventurers wander into the dungeon, they go into the orc den first. The orc chief is going to control the chief and two minions and gives the shaman and a lurker over to another player. The NPCs kill the orcs and move deeper into the dungeon.

Now the gnoll chief gives out his minions for control, the PCs all get to participate in combat and sadly, the NPCs win again.

Finally, the blade spiders are up. Since there are only two, the player keeps his spider and gives the other one up while someone else goes for a beer/bio break, whatever.

In game, after the PCs "die" while possessing a monster, they can move on and possess something else. So if the game has 3 PCs but 6 rooms of monsters, the players can participate in all 6 battles while only having to be in 2 rooms each.

 

[knightofround]

How attached are you to the idea of the PCs being humanoid?

One way to get around the reincarnation problem is to make all of them insectoids. Each player represents a different hive mind. Losing a single member of the hive would be like clipping a fingernail. The hives would be differentiated depending upon what role the PC tries to fill (Defender/striker/controller/leader).