the Dungeon Cliche

[Munin]

Hello friends and fellow enworlders!

My local con is coming up, which means I'll be running a game.

This year, I want to do a throwback game, back to the basics, if you will. I want to appeal to newcomers and to those who have been away for awhile. Something light-hearted and fun.

The theme, I've decided, will be the Cliche. That warm fuzzy thing that fills our collective souls with nostalgia.

I want to pack as many d&d cliches as I possibly can into 4 hours of gaming bliss, and you guys are gonna help me do it, at least I hope you are.

So I'll start it off, and we'll see where it takes us....

As the adventure starts, our intrepid adventurers are sitting at a round table in a smoke filled tavern, trying to catch the eye of the buxom bar wench, when in walks a mysterious stranger....and.....

 

[RangerWickett]

. . . and the guy pulls out a rolled up piece of parchment, unfurls it, and announces that the king's daughter has been abducted by evil clerics, and is being held in a dangerous nearby dungeon.

 

[Henry]

...announces to the group that he is looking for a party of hearty adventurers to retreive an artifact of great worth. He wishes to possess it, and will pay handsomely for it (say, 1000gp per level of the party or some such).

---Don't forget to include a wandering monster or two (say a catoblepas or a manticore, one of those things you rarely ever run into these days, and which has no ecological business being there).

---Don't forget a GynoSphinx with some riddles. Make every damn one of them something the party has heard before:

walks on 4 legs in the morning, 2 in the afternoon, 3 in the evening;
or the one about the coffin where the one who buys it doesn't need it, etc.

Then have the sphinx keep asking them riddles until they get tired of it and leave, or fight her. If they leave, she just curses them out.

---This one might be too new, but be sure somewhere in the dungeon is an orc guarding an Apple Pie in a 10' x 10' room.

---Don't forget about statues with jewels in the eyes that come to life when you take the jewels out.

---And you'll shoot yourself if you don't have a princess in the dungeon, guarded by a dragon, and she needs rescuing.

 

[Munin]

...guy with parchment, check
...princess kidnapped by evil clerics...like it would be any other way?
...but she is also held by an evil (aren't they all) dragon. Doesn't really matter if it's working with the clerics or not.
...gynosphinx with lame riddles...
...wandering monsters totally out of place...

check,
check,
check and uh,
check.

Great stuff, keep it coming.

Oh, and forgot about the pie, got that one too.

 

[Imperialus]

and don't forget that at some point you should work in the line
"The thief blackleaf failed to notice the poison needle, I delcare her dead!"

 

[Cthulhu's Librarian]

A pit trap that opens into a trash pit with an otyugh

Green slime dripping from the cealing in a narrow passageway

A gelatinous cube

Some sort of huge monster in a room with doors that are too small for it to have gotten in through or for it to leave

Several rooms with some sort of goblinoids in them, but the goblins don't hear fighting in the rooms next to them, and never help each other out

A door with a magic mouth on it

A room full of mummies (which are actually zombies made to look like mummies). Next to it, a room that actually has a mummy in it, as well as a few more zombies.

A captive (a rogue) who is chained up in a room with no guards, and is very grateful to be rescued. At the first opportunity, he will attempt to pick the pockets of the party member most likely to notice him doing so.

 

[Dark Jezter]

You might also want to ask the PCs to play as extremely stereotypical characters, some examples being an axe-wielding dwarf fighter who loves to drink ale, a Legolas-like elf ranger who uses a longbow, a klepto halfling rogue, an old wizard with a long beard, etc.

 

[Henry]

CL just reminded me - if it ain't got a gelatinous cube, it AIN'T a dungeon!

 

[Utrecht]

Pit Traps located 10 feet inside the dungeon - even though there are enough tracks for an army of orcs

Skeletons and Giant Rats

A "Chess Room" where the PCs take the place of various pieces

A reverse gravity area

 

[Munin]

Ok, so here's what we have so far:

The stereotypical party is sitting around a sterotypical table in a stereotypical tavern.
In walks a mysterious stranger who informs the party that the princess has been kidnapped by evil clerics and taken to a nearby dungeon, and hands them a large sum of gold to rescue her.

Along the way, the party runs into a group of monsters that are totally out of context with the environment, before arriving at the dungeon, which is conveniently located nearby, as mentioned earlier.
They also meet a gynospinx, who tries to riddle them, but in the end just proves to be mildly annoying.

Once inside the dungeon the party discovers:
A gelatinous cube,
Monsters who don't seem to notice combat *right* next door.
An orc guarding a pie.
Green slime dripping from a narrow passage.
That the princess is actually being held prisoner by a dragon.
A monster that is way to big to fit thru the only door to the room.
A statue with gem eyes that comes to life if the gems are removed
A pit trap with an otyugh.
Zombies. Zombies are a must, and a mummy for good measure.
A prisoner, who proceeds to backstab them in some way.

I'm thinking about adding a duck as well. This will be the most potent creature in the dungeon, causing any sensible adventurer to flee in terror.

Anything else?

Oh, and unless otherwise noted, all rooms will be 10x10' squares.