D&D 5E How to GM a huge ruin?

[Oofta]

Anecdotal as it is, my experiences with skill challenges in 4E is that they played infinitely better when kept behind the screen and playing them 'above board' sucked the life out of them by turning them into a series of dice rolls and spoiled invest in the narrative.

I agree, but that doesn't mean you can't steal the mechanics. Set up obstacles then describe them as the PCs would see them. So the shaky bridge, the collapsing ceiling, the door that is stuck closed while the room floods ... all part of a skill challenge described from the perspective of the PCS while the DM takes note on their score.

 

[Wednesday Boy]

I agree, but that doesn't mean you can't steal the mechanics. Set up obstacles then describe them as the PCs would see them. So the shaky bridge, the collapsing ceiling, the door that is stuck closed while the room floods ... all part of a skill challenge described from the perspective of the PCS while the DM takes note on their score.

Absolutely! I would readily put a skill challenge into a 5th Edition game.

 

[Tony Vargas]

playing them 'above board' sucked the life out of them by turning them into a series of dice rolls and spoiled invest in the narrative.

Reducing anything to a series of rolls instead of a series of actions, resolutions, & descriptions is going to suck the life out of it, yeah. It's why combats can so easily go from fast to boring, and why diplomancers were such a pain in 3e.

I agree, but that doesn't mean you can't steal the mechanics. Set up obstacles then describe them as the PCs would see them. So the shaky bridge, the collapsing ceiling, the door that is stuck closed while the room floods ... all part of a skill challenge described from the perspective of the PCS while the DM takes note on their score.

There was actually quite a bit to SC. It's easy enough to lift n success before 3 failures. Just let players declare actions and call for checks until either three have failed or enough have succeeded. It's a little arbitrary and disjointed compared to just setting up the situation and playing through it in detail, and it really requires you to abdicate 2/3rds of the resolution process by always calling for a check, but you can do it.

I'm just not sure there's anything to be gained by it. Skill Challenges were much like encounter design guidelines & combat rules (just a whole lot less to them than the latter), they gave you a gauge of difficulty and a structure for resolution. The former was a major part of the appeal, you got guidelines for difficulty, depth, and exp awards - very paint-by-numbers, really, unless you embellished the heck out of it - but you could use it as a tool to build up a challenge. A challenge might seem like an exciting scene, but when you play through it, you find that the party can't make the right checks at the right time to complete it, or that everyone lacks a critical skill. The SC structure avoided issues like that, it was just another way that DMing was excessively easy in that brief period of the game's history. But, if you don't share that structure with the players, it could turn into a sort of pixel-bitching or skill-check pinata bashing, they just keep trying checks until at some point they had enough - or they could declare the 'wrong' skills too often, and fail too easily - so it was, as was generally the case, better to bring it out in the open, like a mini-game-within-a-game.

5e has no such guidelines, you can impose the structure, but with BA and DCs varying relatively little, there's no depth to the exercise played 'above-board,' and, taking it behind the screen runs into the same problems.

The traditional D&D way of handling a big ol' dungeon, OTOH, is right up 5e's alley, er, 10x10 corridor. You map out the complex, the party explores it. They declare their way through, picking directions, chosing when & where to search and what to try, you call for checks only as needed and each check determines that isolated success/failure, by itself, not contributing to anything abstract.

It might require more prep but it plays to the strengths of 5e's resolution.

If you don't want to go through the whole thing in detail, you can just narrate large portions of it with a single check here or there, until you get to something 'interesting.' You lose some old-school immersion/player-skill feel in hand-waving portions of it, but if the backdrop is just too big to go through in detail, it's an acceptable sacrifice.

 

[Jacob Lewis]

I did this once for a 4e PbP game I ran years ago, using skill challenges to simulate highlights of a long journey through twisting catacombs. One of my favorite parts about 4th Edition. No reason you can't adapt similar ideas for this version of the game. You may read the archives of my old game if you like, maybe see some ideas that could help you. Click the Link.

 

[RangerWickett]

I design settings like these in a similar fashion to standard dungeons. However, rather than dungeon rooms you design dungeon 'areas' that cover dozens or even hundreds of smaller locations. For a dwarven city you can divide it in the Merchant's Ward, the Strong Gates, the Deep Mines, the High Pastures, the District of Ales and Lagers, the Temple of Stone, etc. For large or complex or interesting locations you can further subdivide them such as a Citadel's Outer Bailey, Inner Bailey, Keep, Dungeons, and so on.

I love your suggested philosophy. I've decided the antipaladin is Thurok Foulfist, a former son of the ruined city, which still has a few hundred dwarves living there. Decades ago when he was a young man, he got into an argument with his sister and in a fit of anger shoved her into a crevasse, which killed her. He tried to burn her body to hide his crime, but his father - Tharik Hallowfist - found him in the act and drove him from the city in fury. Now Thurok has returned, a worshiper of a god of destruction who wants access to the dimension of dreams. An unstable portal to that plane lies hidden in the depths of the ruined city, sealed off thousands of years ago. Thurok wants to find it, and once he's done he intends to kill everyone in the city.



I'm starting with a fan map of Moria, filing off some serial numbers, making the size much smaller (only a couple miles across), and marking a variety of sections as flooded. Also, mine only has an eastern entrance, since the western one collapsed long ago.

So the locations I'm going with are:

• East Gate. The party will find the city's champion - Tharik Hallowfist - hanging from columns just outside the entrance, his feet burnt off by his own son Thurok. Thurok's gnoll allies lurk in ambush while the antipaladin addresses the PCs from an arrow slit above the gate. He offers to let his other hostages go if the party helps him find the portal he seeks. (He's lying of course.) There's a fight to get into the fortress, but he doesn't participate.
• Outer Fortress. These defenses straddle a bridge over a chasm, which is suffused with earth elemental magic so strong that flight here is impossible. The fortress is held by Thurok's gnoll allies. Thurok has placed a special glyph of destruction on the bridge over the chasm so that if anyone who isn't one of his allies passes without his approval, a pulse of destructive energy from his god will shatter the bridge and collapse the gates, sealing the city inside the mountain. (However, there are other exits.)
• Eastern Residences. Just west of the eastern rift, once there was a thriving city, but now only a handful of buildings are occupied. The noncombatant dwarves are kept here under watch by gnolls, who have orders to kill these hostages at any sign of rebellion. I probably need a couple buildings of note here, each of which could have its own back entrance or basement tunnel, so it's possible to rescue dwarves out from under the gnolls' noses. The gnolls also need some nasty monster to prowl the streets.
• The Chamber of Repose. (On the map where Mazarbul's coffin is.) Here are where the dwarven dead lay. Texts in a library here mention four Stewards of the Sky. When the dwarves were first excavating the city, they discovered a window that looked into an endless sky. It was beautiful and enigmatic, so the king had it sealed away. Four stewards held keys, which if placed in locks at a location called The Crossroads, would reveal the portal. This is what Thurok seeks. The keys are scattered - one in a tomb, one in the mithril forge, one claimed by an orc chief in the orc caves, and one in the shadowed cave.
  [*]Forges. Southwest of the residences, the massive forges overlook the Great Southern Abyss, where their smoke once billowed and blackened the walls. Now the forges are long-cold. A pair of dwarf children managed to hide out here when the gnolls attacked -- Eldran and Ulmeg Wyvernshoulder. They could be guides, and know a few secret routes.
  [*]Rusted Mines. Northwest of the residences, these old iron mines have flooded waist-deep and turned red and toxic with rust. Thurok has gnolls send groups of dwarves who are of fighting age into these mines to look for the rift. After a few days he'll send them farther west to the other mines by the northern fissure.
  [*]Mithril Forge. This temple is sealed by magic, but could contain magic. (I'm looking for some interesting way to open it.)
  [*]The Great Southern Abyss. A shortcut of sorts, but with a steady crumble of stone falling from overhead.
  [*]The Shadowed Cave. This was once the lair of a silver dragon who served the king of the ruined city. Of the various holes the Tarrasque tore to try to reach the city, here is the only one large enough to allow exit to the surface.
  [*]The Grand Road. (Durin's Way on the map.) This main thoroughfare is a hundred feet wide and partially flooded, and the dwarves had small boats, which the gnolls now patrol from. They keep their stronger prisoners chained here.
  [*]The Crossroads. Several paths meet here. If keys of the stewards are used in the right locks, a passage in the floor opens, but it's flooded. You need to drain the passage.
  [*]The Orc Tunnels. Inhabited by orcs who are territorial, but could be willing to help the dwarves by driving off the gnolls. Their leader has one of the keys. The entrances of the various tunnels have submerged sections with large bladed traps under floorboards that cannot support people's weight.
  [*]Western Residences. Probably just uninhabited, but maybe I could put something else here. I dunno, dwarf farms? A spirit that roams here with a lantern, which keeps the orcs at bay. It patrols near a dry fountain, and if befriended it can explain the water system here which can drain the flooded areas. If the fountain is reactivated, it is a limitless source of healing (1d6 apiece), though only if you drink directly from it, and no more than four times per hour.
  [*]Iron Pits. Empty, maybe with a red herring myth about an iron golem that kidnaps naughty children and buries them here. Not true. However, it's a back way to the troll caves if you don't solve the puzzle of the four keys.
  [*]Troll Caves. Location of the portal. Also flooded with trolls, which are actually manifestations of the realm of dreams . . . so they should behave oddly. Maybe they can just manifest impossible things while in sight of the portal.
  [*]The Endless Stair. Mostly shattered and perilous. Once led to a surface exit. Still leads down to the Foundations of Stone.
  [*]The Foundations of Stone. Ringed levels of a strip mine, going down to an underground lake, which has sluice gate that could drain the flooded areas, but it's damaged. (I need some interesting way to open it. Mini-puzzle?)

I think I'll have Thurok fight them at the Crossroads. Or perhaps get them to find the portal for him, and then when they meet him in the Eastern Residences, they'll fight amid the townsfolk.

I need three townsfolk he might murder, so the party can get attached first. Monmike Morestone, an exuberant miner (personality like my friend Jason). Jaton Burrowbird, artist who breeds the pale axebeaks (like my coworker Ray). Lexi Bricklot, stonemason and the representative between the hostages and the gnolls (like my friend Joy, tough enough to stand up to the slavers and make them afraid of being too cruel). Also aged priest Kaja Orim, who rambles near death about the crossroads having five paths.

Timeline. Day one the gnolls hang a dwarf named Ven in the central square as a warning. Day two they cook and eat him.

Hrm. I need to do a lot more planning. Like tactics for fights.

 

[Coroc]

[MENTION=63]RangerWickett[/MENTION] If it is, for RL time reasons or whatever, hard for you to create a big dungeon Scene with all Details then do a quasi sandbox trick.

Create modules with areas of interest and apply them in an order that serves the over all adventure best. E.G. the temple hidden within the ruins does not have to be in an exact location. Asuming the temle houses the end boss and players approach this area of the ruins first and ruin all your careful preparation, just place another encounter there and introduce the temple at another location within the dungeon.

Use some generic structures for the access routes, be a bit creative on that and it is easyer than you think. do not Forget to add dead ends pit falls and cave ins to get the authentic ruins feeling.

 

[Nebulous]

This weekend my party of four paladins is going to ride to a Mines of Moria-esque ruined dwarven city. It once sprawled for miles and had a population of tens of thousands, but long ago the Tarrasque rampaged above it, collapsing sections and leaving rent open areas where rain could fall in and start to flood the tunnels. Now less than a thousand dwarves remain, and other creatures have inhabited the outskirts of the ruin.

Do you have any kind of DM map that gives YOU yourself a rough idea of the layout? I think that would be immensely useful for storytelling purposes, and to keep it straight in your head, at least so you can relate details to the party.

In this situation, how would you handle the party navigating the ruin? Actually having the players map it would be a massive pain, though having a few checks to represent the PCs trying to make an accurate map would be interesting, I think. Maybe give the PCs a choice of how much the party explores (and the likelihood of them running into a random encounter or deadly part of a crumbling ruin), which gets them bonuses on mapping (which helps them locate treasures and find the villain they're pursuing).

I know you said it would be a pain, but I used to have this thing where I'd buy these BIG sheets of grid board at the grocery story, it's like $2, a pack of them about 3 feet by 2 feet, with small squares overlaid for like architecture drawing, and I really would have a player MAP out their progress. Now granted this was a dungeon, not a wide open sprawling complex of miles, but I still think you could do it from a macroview, not microview. Hell, it could even spread to different sheets, and it would be a new experience for the group probably. The dedicated "mapper" in my group loved it, it was her job and she did it well.

What I'd like the adventure to involve is getting to the ruin, seeing clues the antipaladin and his gnolls have arrived first, and then deciding how to move through the huge Moria-style tunnels and chambers. Do you sneak and avoid the enemies, since you don't know if they might call overwhelming reinforcements? Do you boldly challenge the gnolls? When they find out that the gnolls have taken hostages from among the dwarves and are threatening to kill them unless the other dwarves act as their slaves, how will they address that? Do they focus on finding the antipaladin in charge, and hope that once he's dead the cowardly gnolls will surrender their hostages in exchange for a chance to flee? Or do the PCs attack directly, and probably watch in horror as several dwarves have their throats slit?

Sounds like you got that part figured out. You don't know WHAT the players will do, so you got to plan for everything and be ready to roll with their actions.

How many different locations of interest do you think I need for the ruins to feel vast and a little daunting, but not so big that exploring them gets boring?

I think this will be the most challenging part for you and the one that will take the biggest chunk of your notebook, just brainstorming stuff to happen. You could also dive into rich history of D&D modules and just steal encounters and transplant them. Dig into Undermountain, or World's Biggest Dungeon, or Rappan Athuk, or steal scenes from movies, like the bridge crumbling under the Balrog, or trapped in a room with a cave troll and goblins....

Ultimately, I'd like a big open chamber with some unusual terrain as the spot where the PCs (all of whom are mounted) can battle the antipaladin (who's also mounted) and his gnoll back-up. What the antipaladin is looking for is a small portal that recently opened to dimension where the Tarrasque was trapped. He wants to widen the portal and then go on a quest to awaken the Tarrasque. Maybe the fight could happen in a chamber with uneven stone floors - some areas flooded, some areas where it's safe to ride - and the ceiling is torn open hundreds of feet overhead from when the Tarrasque attacked long ago.

I do wonder how hard it will be to navigate horses through a crumbling ruined city? Of course, as DM you can make paths navigable, but I still keep envisioning steep precipices that even people can barely traverse.

And I'd love it if somehow the PCs could interact with the antipaladin -- either talking to him directly or exchanging communication through a third party (maybe a dwarf slave courier?) -- so that they have a little more emotional weight when they finally get around to smiting him. Perhaps I have him in command of gnolls who are watching a bunch of hostages, and so the party is incentivized to talk, but once combat starts, he'll use some item to teleport away and withdraw to where the rift is?

Speaking of steep precipices, how about having the bad guys and good guys on opposite sides of a particular wide chasm, where a combat challenge is not ideal, but they can still shout and talk and communicate back and forth?

Mostly, though, my challenge is figuring out how to present the ruin so that the party feels challenged by it, but also has the option to scout it and use that knowledge to outmaneuver the villain and save innocent lives.

Ideas?

Sounds to me like you already have some solid ideas, a mix of combat and non-combat. As I said before, and I think you know, this is going to take a good amount of work on your behalf to round the place out and make it feel alive.

EDIT - Just saw your post of Moria map, that is perfect!!!

 

[Coroc]

[MENTION=63]RangerWickett[/MENTION] ah i just saw your latest posting with that fixed diverss big map. The biggest problem for you is: What if the PCs run astray? Do you have creative sideroutes then? Endless winged random Encounters can get quite boring in such a case.

Concerning my previous post, there is a second solution whic basically does the same:
This works best if your planned encounters are not to much dependant on battlefield geomtrics or surroundings, namely just plan for different Locations for them to be possible and wedge them in no matter what route the Party takes.

 

[Zippee]

I agree, but that doesn't mean you can't steal the mechanics. Set up obstacles then describe them as the PCs would see them. So the shaky bridge, the collapsing ceiling, the door that is stuck closed while the room floods ... all part of a skill challenge described from the perspective of the PCS while the DM takes note on their score.

The important thing about Skill Challenges wasn't the mechanic or method, it was the fact that it required forward planning to design a challenge. So instead of improvising and fumbling through how to escape the crumbling ruins, the DM actually had a plan and a series of events already mapped out. This was very helpful for those DMs who struggled with improvisation.

But an incentive to forward plan a bit is never a bad thing - whether you execute that plan through dice rolling or narrative is just a table choice.

 

[Eltab]

Make a Dungeoneering Check to stay on the anti-paladin's trail.
Success: "You hear the roar of water ahead. You come out into a chasm with a stream from the surface falling into it." (Show a picture of a Yucatan tourist cave.) You can find ways to climb up or down about 5 levels in either direction, and get around to the other side."
Failure: "You follow the old carven road into a residential area. It passes through a courtyard and down a flight of wide broad stairs to get under a house. The lower part of the stairs are flooded." (If the group tries to swim a little way farther, they come back into air but meet a dead-end in another courtyard surrounded by houses. At least they have found a safe (?) place to hide and regroup - but not the anti-paladin.)