Satyrn
First Post
Oh, yes. Skyrim's Dwarven ruins are populated with ancient, left-over automatons. My Dwarven ruins are, too.
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Video Game Dungeons
- Thread starter Fauchard1520
- Start date
Ralif Redhammer
Legend
Satyrn
First Post
I've been tempted to arm them with guns and a shield (spell) and call them Droidekas.
Li Shenron
Legend
Not specifically a dungeon, but as a DM I have myself often stolen stuff from very old video games...
One of my first homewbrew adventures (3.0 edition) featured the "Pyramid of the Forbidden Lies", a pun on my own misunderstanding of a level's name in a Commander Keen DOS game.
The current adventure I am running, which is an adaptation/conversion of the old "Horror on the Hill" module, is set near a town called Dun Darach, the map of which is taken directly from the old ZX Spectrum game.
So yes, I pretty much do that kind of stuff all the time without shame
I sent my party up against the two Orc Bros., Murthon and Luthon. Murthon wore red. He was strong and tough and was wielding the hammer of smash, a maul +1 that would send an enemy flying when you rolled a natural 20 or reduced them to 0 hit points. He was also part demon and could hurl fire bolts. The younger brother, Luthon wore green, and was nimble and stealthy and could jump higher than Murthon. The party fought them on a narrow, irregular natural stone bridge with lots of platforms, in a cavern with abundant fungi.
My party killed them, looted the corpses, and dumped the bodies in the river.
My party killed them, looted the corpses, and dumped the bodies in the river.
There are a few games specifically designed for that. For instance, EverQuest introduced a d20-compatible RPG set in its world, dungeons included.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest_Role-Playing_Game
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EverQuest_Role-Playing_Game
Rod Staffwand
aka Ermlaspur Flormbator
I steal (uh...find inspiration) from everything, including video games. I don't port whole dungeons, but I'll grab puzzles, tricks, tropes and encounters galore to fill out my own dungeons. I keep a notepad of such ideas when I come across them and just refer to that if I need some sort of gag or dungeon feature and nothing comes to mind. It's really useful since I only allow about 1 hour of game prep per 4 hours of play.
A few favorites:
*The petrified monsters from Dark Souls 2 that block progress or heavy treasures or key items requiring you to turn them to flesh (and fight them!) to proceed.
*Invisible platforms and even treasure chests.
*Battle rooms wherein the PCs have to defeat all of the monsters (or a few waves of monsters) in order to proceed or get the treasure.
*Simple combination lock, pattern or multiple choice option puzzles with the answer found elsewhere in the dungeon, by looking for clues, or simply trial and error.
*Medusa-head type rooms from Castlevania with endlessly respawning threats that wear down the party the longer they stay in the zone.
The designers for these games were often inspired by D&D. It's only fitting that things come full circle.
A few favorites:
*The petrified monsters from Dark Souls 2 that block progress or heavy treasures or key items requiring you to turn them to flesh (and fight them!) to proceed.
*Invisible platforms and even treasure chests.
*Battle rooms wherein the PCs have to defeat all of the monsters (or a few waves of monsters) in order to proceed or get the treasure.
*Simple combination lock, pattern or multiple choice option puzzles with the answer found elsewhere in the dungeon, by looking for clues, or simply trial and error.
*Medusa-head type rooms from Castlevania with endlessly respawning threats that wear down the party the longer they stay in the zone.
The designers for these games were often inspired by D&D. It's only fitting that things come full circle.
Laurefindel
Legend
While not stealing per se, The Elder Scrolls series (especially Oblivion ans Skyrim) made me a lot more conscious of the height and depth dimensions when designing caves or dungeons, with multiple levels in the same “map”, uneven grounds, water/flooded sections etc.
I also shamelessly stole from Skyrim in my Illuskan vs Tethyrians “brith of the Silver Marches” game in FR. Seeing that, one player made a barbarian character with magic initiate - thunderwave to get a shout.
I also shamelessly stole from Skyrim in my Illuskan vs Tethyrians “brith of the Silver Marches” game in FR. Seeing that, one player made a barbarian character with magic initiate - thunderwave to get a shout.
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I
Immortal Sun
Guest
I do it all the time, I think the people who find it silly are themselves silly because it is video games who stole their dungeon design from classic tabletop dungeons.
"Trash" wandering monsters that drop little loot and you mostly just have to slog through.
"Traps" that you learn to look for signs of and avoid, or trigger to get situationally useful effects, like avoiding a pit trap only to set it off against the bad-guys chasing you.
And the fundamental "boss" encounter at the end.
I have stolen specific dungeon elements, though I generally keep it tied to "special abilities" or "mid-fight events".
It's a lot easier to manage a bad guy who does a handful of interesting things than one with a complete spell list.
One of my favorite ones to use is "the teleporting blaster" Basically they do two things of note: cast different spells based on which corner of the room they're in, and teleport away from melee combat after taking 20 points of damage. Each spell took two turns to cast, and it was a big deal if you let him cast it. Basically:
Fireball: room-wide AOE.
Cone of Cold: Frontal cone AOE with difficult terrain effects.
Self-heal effect (put himself in a bubble and summoned minions while healing).
Negative energy line: -50% HP, divided between targets so, two people -25, three -~16, four -12, etc... always targets furthest enemy.
Chain lightning: more damage the more targets it hit, always targets closest enemy.
It was all randomly rolled, the room had 5 corners each with a preset energy and I rolled 1d4 to determine which corner he teleported to after being damaged.
Rinse and repeat until defeated. Moderately unpredictable but players were able to get the hang of things after a couple rounds. It's always a fun fight to pull out on new groups or mix up with new effects. It's pretty simple to manage and always seems to provide a challenge of being more than a punching bag.
"Trash" wandering monsters that drop little loot and you mostly just have to slog through.
"Traps" that you learn to look for signs of and avoid, or trigger to get situationally useful effects, like avoiding a pit trap only to set it off against the bad-guys chasing you.
And the fundamental "boss" encounter at the end.
I have stolen specific dungeon elements, though I generally keep it tied to "special abilities" or "mid-fight events".
It's a lot easier to manage a bad guy who does a handful of interesting things than one with a complete spell list.
One of my favorite ones to use is "the teleporting blaster" Basically they do two things of note: cast different spells based on which corner of the room they're in, and teleport away from melee combat after taking 20 points of damage. Each spell took two turns to cast, and it was a big deal if you let him cast it. Basically:
Fireball: room-wide AOE.
Cone of Cold: Frontal cone AOE with difficult terrain effects.
Self-heal effect (put himself in a bubble and summoned minions while healing).
Negative energy line: -50% HP, divided between targets so, two people -25, three -~16, four -12, etc... always targets furthest enemy.
Chain lightning: more damage the more targets it hit, always targets closest enemy.
It was all randomly rolled, the room had 5 corners each with a preset energy and I rolled 1d4 to determine which corner he teleported to after being damaged.
Rinse and repeat until defeated. Moderately unpredictable but players were able to get the hang of things after a couple rounds. It's always a fun fight to pull out on new groups or mix up with new effects. It's pretty simple to manage and always seems to provide a challenge of being more than a punching bag.
