Dungeons as economic lynch pins

[jdrakeh]

I'm very close to finishing up my first draft of Old School (a d20-ish Basic D&D adaptation), and am adding a small sample setting near the end of the PDF in the form of a village.

The village is built on top of a dungeon complex, and issues 'entry passes' in exchange for 10% of all treasure recovered from the dungeon by the pass holder. Additionally, there are a number of specialized shops in town that sell items of use to adventurers delving the dungeon, as well as items retrieved from the dungeon by past adventurers.

The temple will heal or raise you, but you'll have to pay a hefty fee. The inns (there are two of them) will gladly feed you and pour your ale, but at inflated prices. The magic shop (filled with items retrieved from the dungeon by adventurers past) will hook you up with a magical doohickey, but you'd better be ready to saw off a leg in order to pay for it. The local undertaker will even bury your dead buddy, but like everything else in town, it'll cost you.

The bottom line is, as long as adventurers have money, they'll be welcome in the village - but when their fortunes run low, so does the hospitality of the locals. Basically, the village is set up as a jumping-off point for new characters. Here's what I need suggestions for:

I need more 'quirky' stuff like the dungeon passes to give the village an identity of its own and firmly establish it as a community that relies entirely on adventurers and the dungeon for income. In short, I need other ways to make old school RPG conventions make sense in terms of setting.

I'm toying with the idea that they (the villagers) have some kind of arrangement with a nearby Orc tribe that 'stocks' the dungeon with captured creatures (via a hidden entrance) in exchange for part of the spoils. That said, nothing is set in stone.

I need all of the suggestions that I can get. Feel free to get really weird.

 

[FATDRAGONGAMES]

That sounds really interesting!

 

[Bront]

Well, the inherant problem is that eventualy the dungeon will run dry, unless they restock it themselves.

 

[diaglo]

That sounds really interesting!

this sounds like Diablo I or II.

 

[jdrakeh]

That sounds really interesting!

Thanks. Old School is kind of a less involved FRUP, although it's still plenty satirical in places (the aforementioned village, for example). Mainly though, it's an excuse to play characters with very protected, stereotypical, niches in the vein of Basic D&D with a few twists (there are also a few options such as rules for creating your own classes and races, porting in spell lists from other games, introducing mook-style wuxia combat, etc). The only things that I really have left to do are:

• Write the section detailing magic items (which in and of itself ends the section on 'stuff' that characters might find creatures carrying).
  
  
• Flesh out the village setting.
  
  
• Mock up a clever knock-off of the original Basic D&D landscape character sheet.

So, I'm awfully close to uploading a playable version of the rules. I figure... eh... maybe two weeks at the most (I finally finished up the bestiary which, given mechanical conversions from Basic D&D and D&D 3x, took a while).

 

[jdrakeh]

Well, the inherant problem is that eventualy the dungeon will run dry, unless they restock it themselves.

Like I said, I've thought about this. I'm considering the Orc angle, although the dungeon may just as easily serve as a kind of 'trash bin' for a wizard who reside nearby, as well. The deal is that the main entrance is smack in the middle of the village, but it's been secured (it's a big pit with an iron grate over it's mouth) to stop things from escaping. Who knows about other, distant, entrances though?

Assuming that there are other entrances, the Orc restocking scenario becomes viable, as does the magical 'wastebin' approach - and, of course, there may simply be an entire monstrous civilization of nasties who live in the lower reaches of the dungeon... and run the same kind of racket for visitors from the depths as the village does for traveling adventurers

 

[Pinotage]

You could always opt for the planar approach. Some instability between the planes has created a weak barrier through which the occasional fiendish creature stumbles, or perhaps there are weakly connected regions of your world that transport creature to the dungeon. That means it'll always have something interesting and new, and be a constant developing region that will be different every time adventures go there. Perhaps one time an owlbear will end up killing everything or some goblins are stuck fighting against a ravaging dire boar. How do you intend to avoid the creatures inside from getting out again and slaughtering the villagers?

Pinotage

 

[jdrakeh]

How do you intend to avoid the creatures inside from getting out again and slaughtering the villagers?

What I should say is that this is an old-school adventure seed, and that most-old-school adventures didn't bother with little details like that (or, for that matter, why dungeons existed to begin with)... but instead, I'll direct you to the above post mentioning a giant pit secured with a heavy iron gate (like the 'zombie pit' in the Army of Darkness).

I don't want to get too caught up in logic - after all, this is suppsoed to capture the feel of games like The Fantasy Trip, Basic D&D, and the original Tunnels & Trolls (i.e., games more concerned with what sounded neat or looked like fun, as opposed to what made sense). Some logic is required, naturally, but don't get too carried away with the making sense

 

[jdrakeh]

this sounds like Diablo I or II.

That reminds me, would you mind if I made a reference to 'Diaglo the Wise' in an example of action in the rules?

 

[diaglo]

go the Kung Fu Hustle route...

the NPC villagers are secretly, The Landlady and Landlord

and the Haberdasher, the Porter and the Butcher...

etc...