John Wick - The Dirty Dungeon

[Hussar]

I just found this one. I know it's a couple of years old, but, seeing as a 20 second Google search didn't turn up any threads on EN World about this, I thought others might like to share. It's a very interesting idea on dungeon design:

http://youtu.be/dsnvANYBRWo

tl&dr version:

Each player adds elements to the dungeon by describing how they learned about this element - dungeon survivors, old maps, books, whatever. Each time they add something to the dungeon, a d4 is added to the pot. In the dungeon, players may take out a d4 whenever and add it to a die roll.

While the players are adding to the dungeon, the DM gets a bead every 10 minutes (or whatever time period you like).

Everything the players state is true.

The DM may spend a bead during play to make any player statement false.

So, basically, the players build the dungeon from the ground up, and then adventure through it. However, because the DM can change elements at any point in time, their plans are not foolproof.

This, to me, is a really, really cool idea.

 

[Hussar]

BTW, how the heck do I embed youtube videos here?

 

[the Jester]

That's a very interesting approach. I wouldn't use it in my campaign, but it would be fun to play a no-dm, collaborative game using this system as a framework.

 

[JamesonCourage]

John Wick is pretty interesting to listen to. His style is very, very much opposed to mine when it comes to fantasy gaming (very narrative), but all the same, I've linked his stuff on EN World, and watched most of his videos (not the food stuff, for example). It could be a really cool way to play if it's your thing, though. Might be fun to try it with a group of experienced players who also GM.

 

[Wik]

My favourite quote: "The players create the adventure.... and the gamemaster mucks it up."

Thanks for posting the link. This is the sort of thing that really interests me, and I think I'm gonna mention it tonight to my gaming group, see what they think. I'm not going to tell them about complication points, though, because the way that mechanic is set up, it encourages players to not contribute - or rather, to say "okay, we've got nine minutes to plan a dungeon!".

The other thing that potentially worries me is players "gaming the system". In other words, filling the dungeon with low-level monsters guarding big treasures.

 

[darjr]

You want to use the 'long' link.



[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsnvANYBRWo[/ame]

 

[Hussar]

My favourite quote: "The players create the adventure.... and the gamemaster mucks it up."

Thanks for posting the link. This is the sort of thing that really interests me, and I think I'm gonna mention it tonight to my gaming group, see what they think. I'm not going to tell them about complication points, though, because the way that mechanic is set up, it encourages players to not contribute - or rather, to say "okay, we've got nine minutes to plan a dungeon!".

The other thing that potentially worries me is players "gaming the system". In other words, filling the dungeon with low-level monsters guarding big treasures.

Yeah, this won't work if your players are not on board.

Then again, it's not in their interests to do this because the adventure would be boring. Making the players responsible for their own fun, I think, would bring out the evil bastards in all of them.

From my own perspective, it might be a bit tricky, simply because I play online. Creating minis tokens can be a bit time consuming and 4e design uses a lot of monsters in single encounters. It's not really enough to drop half a dozen orcs in a room - again, really boring encounter. You want to mix it up a lot, which can be time consuming.

Hrm....

 

[Mark CMG]

Thanks for the link, Hussar!

 

[Michael Silverbane]

I think that this could be something that you could introduce slowly into a more traditional campaign. I think that I'm going to give this a shot in my 'mythic underworld' campaign, once I get it going again.

I'm going to set the basic premise of the dungeon, but occasionally allow the players to interject 'true facts' about it, which they can then run into...

 

[Hussar]

Y'know, in 4e, you could set this as a skill challenge. Each time they are right, they get to add details to the dungeon. Every failed skill check gives the DM a complication.

Would be good for quick and easy dungeons. More like a large lair, rather than a large dungeon crawl.