[Gen Con 04] The Insane Game - Updated 8/15/03!

[Dire Wolf]

Well this sounds too interesting for me to sit by here idly. Count me in. If you need another DM I will try my best. Looking forward to Gencon '04 already!

 

[blackshirt5]

OK, I had the idea for this, just bear with me.

Warriors of the Worlds
In each world, evil will rise. In each world, heroes will appear to try to vanquish that evil.

Now, the gods want to know which is the stronger. And they want a darn fine cross-section.

Drawing from each world(Greyhawk, FR, Dragonlance, any worlds we can think of from D&D or D20, really), heroes and villains find themselves drawn to dungeons by tales of powerful artifacts and treasures. Upon entering, they find a hideously deadly ordeal in place for them. Old enemies might set aside grudges for the sake of survival. And the worst is yet to come.

If they can survive their ways through these mazes, they will find a tunnel with a pinprick of light at the other end. If they follow the pinprick, they emerge...into sunlight. The gods have weeded out the losers, and now they want to find the ultimate winner, be they good or evil, Faerunian or Krynnish or Oerthling.

OK, so basically it's Game of Death, but with characters drawn from different worlds. If you want to include other books besides the 3 core books(such as Book of the Righteous and the Unholy Warrior's Handbook, for example) I could work on typing up a document featuring the OGC material for distribution via email. I think it'd be a really good game, provides plenty of opportunity for dungeon crawling AND roleplaying(although of course the second will be up to the individual DMs and players), and just in general sounds very much fun; you'd have tables grouped by world of origin during the dungeons, but then later on you'd have a free-for-all in a wild arena hosted by the gods themselves. I'd even volunteer to make a dungeon and DM. I'd also suggest making the starting characters somewhere between 10th and 12th level since they are supposed to be powerful heroes and villains.

It also helps out that in the beginning the tables don't have to stay in sync for the game to work properly, and by the time they reach the arena we could push some tables together and reform the groups for the free-for-all(since by then they'll have been through the meatgrinder's of the dungeon and probably be down a few people, ya know?).

So, wadaya think?

EDIT: Also, I can provide(if it's in hardcopy by then) free copies of my monster book for the other DMs, since I'm hoping to have it done and to the printers by next Gencon, I want to premiere it then.

P.P.S Yes I know it draws heavily on Game of Death; I really liked the idea behind GoD and thought it'd be godly to play like that live; the real innovation I added was that they're all from different established D&D worlds; maybe you could also have some of the gods subtly(or not so subtly) pushing for their world's heroes(or villains) to win? i.e., Lolth 'accidentally' leaves a powerful magic item in one of the dungeons that leads from the Forgotten Realms where she's sure a drow PC will find it, that sort of thing? It'd be another great RP idea. Another one I had was that as players fall, when the rest get to the arena of the gods, the fallen players can play and interact as various gods, figuring out what effects to bring down on the field each round, RPing amongst themselves, and things like that. A good way to keep people involved(although obviously the DMs, especially the head DM, would have final say in god effects).

 

[Enkhidu]

Pkitty - sounds cool - can I put you down as Master DM?

Fett - sounds great, just let me know what you guys want to do!

Hey Ashy!

I've got some pretty good plot editing skills, if you're looking for someone who can help with sub-plot continuity - and, hoo-boy are you going to need sub-plot continuity if you take this idea and run with it.

I'd definitely be more interested in writing the scenarios than in DMing - and I'd be open to serving as "writer on the fly" for things we have to deal with that will effect everyone (for example, if we have a dam that holds back a raging river and one of the groups breaks the dam, we're going to have to make sure the fallout from the event is commnicated properly to the DMs at the tables). I can forsee this being a problem if we don't plan for it in advance...

 

[Storminator]

Is it time to start developing more of an infrastructure than simply a message board thread? Do we want to set up a mailing list and start tasking developers?

PS

 

[Ashy]

Enk, you can consider yourself hired! (with no pay, of course - the standard of gaming everywhere!)

Stormy, yea, I am kinda waiting to pin someone down (Piratecat) for Master DM (MDM) and then we can proceed in earnest. I have a primary idea and then a fallback idea that I think will work really well and once we get a MDM in place, I'll create a yahoogroup. I envision a mailing list for the DMs/Developers and one for the Volunteers, players will get their info through this thread.

Also, I am kinda hoping (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) that Eric or Russ will poke their heads in and give this a much needed nod of "Officiality" - that would help a TON!

More as I hear from the folks in power!

 

[der_kluge]

I think these ideas are cool, but I think they're going to break down with 40+ people. We need to keep it simple.

Like, my original suggestion of just a big orc battle.

Essentially, a village is attacked by orcs, so the king organizes all those who are willing to fight to engage the orcs. This group (comprised of all 5th or 6th, or whatever level we decide) of PCs group up into squads of 8, with a balance of healers, fighters, and casters. Each squad sits at a specific table, and each DM draws out the battlemat for that section of the battlefield. Each section represents about an acre of the battlefield. After each squad has dealt with their group of orcs (or dies trying) they group up to storm the walls of the orcs keep.

Then the squads regroup, heal, whatever is necessary before moving into the walls. Inside the walls, ogres and other tougher opponents await behind the walls. The PCs fight a fierce battle, suffering many losses, and then eventually move into the inner sanctum where the orc leader, and his powerful advisers await them.

Simple.

 

[blackshirt5]

Ashy, definitely sign me up as a DM, if you trust me to run. I'm especially good at dungeons, BTW.

 

[PowerWordDumb]

I was probably unclear - I posted excitedly and in a hurry which is a bad combination - I'm not suggesting this become nothing but a huge smackdown. Just that it should be nudged somewhat firmly toward action and "doing stuff" versus endless talking and the more extreme extents of roleplaying. All that is tremendous fun in a game with less pressure on it, but it's hard enough to swallow keeping a huge game running without some sort of limitations on how it can be done. I'd hate to see this collapse under its own weight because it was allowed to go too freeform.

I'd love to see the ability for real roleplaying in spots, but if it turned into a huge dinner party where we chatted up the king's wenches all night it would be kind of pointless. Providing more of an action-based scenario on the whole gives you the chance to better structure the event.

So put me in the "a lot from the smackdown column and a little from the RP column" group. I think it would be fun however it gets done though, so I'm not militaristic about it one way or the other.

 

[apocalypstick]

Wow.

Put me down for a DM; I'd love to be involved in something this mad.

Once we've got a decision on the scenario, I can put in some design time as well, if needed.

 

[Storminator]

I think these ideas are cool, but I think they're going to break down with 40+ people. We need to keep it simple.

Like, my original suggestion of just a big orc battle.
<SNIP>
Simple.

Personally, I think it's going to be a huge debacle, but fun never the less.

But at GenCon 05, it'll rock! We'll be experienced, we'll have a huge list of things that went wrong , and we'll do a much better job.

PS