Wanted to get other thoughts on this. My players, stay out.

[blackshirt5]

OK, I'm gonna start running a dungeon crawl soon, and I wanted to get a quick thought on this(I'll probably ask more stuff later):

What do you think of a castle who's inhabitants have spread to cover an entire plane? Basically, the castle is an artifact from an ancient battle between a pair of planeswalkers(yes, shades of Magic: the Gathering there; it's influenced by the early story and art of Magic) that, after being laid into this plane, spread and now has the entire plane. The castle would be a draw for adventurers and treasure hunters(artifacts? check. Money? check. Thrilling death? check.).

Now, I'm planning on having a mining town that unearths a gate that can connect this plane with the plane on which the mining town is located and, as word spreads(as it always will), various adventurers coming to the town to rest up and use the gate to travel through to the Plane of Castle Zelyon.

Here's where the question comes in:

Which do you think would be better, to have the PCs be one of the first groups(possibly even the first group, and I have an idea for that as well) to explore this castle, or do you think it'd be better to bring them in when the mining/adventurer support town is more well-established, so that they've got more rivals, allies, mercenaries, but a status quo?

 

[Altalazar]

Hmm, that really is just a matter of flavor.

For me, having them be the first allows you to grow your planned enhancements (mining, allies, support structure) organically, as you go along. That can make for a much more interesting setting than if you try to quick-grow it and plop it down.

Then the PCs can blaze new trails, they can be the first customer of the crusty old elf blacksmith who arrives after hearing of their exploits and sets up a shop for adventurers. Who knows what else will get established.

In a way, it is like the difference between starting characters at 1st level and starting them at 10th level. When the characters are low level and have few powers to draw upon, then they rely more on thinking and creative problem solving - they can't brute-force or brute-magic their way through things. And in that, character emerges and interesting characteristics form - the characters grow organically. A 10th level start can have an interesting background and can also be played as well, but sometimes those interesting personality quirks just don't develop because there is less opportunity for them to do so. (In my experience, in general).

So if you made up the blacksmith and the whole community supporting adventurers ahead of time, you could come up with something interesting, I'm sure - but there is also value in having there be nothing, and then as the player's need something, they seek it out, you make something up to satisfy that need (like needing a blacksmith) and then it grows, and before you know it, you have a community there, and it is likely one you didn't quite expect and would never have created if you just sat down and tried to flesh it all out at once.

Just a thought.

 

[blackshirt5]

Hmm, that is a good set of ideas. I think I'm gonna have them be the first ones through the portal(although they'll be coming back through from the Plane of Castle Zelyon; they get dropped into that plane after the wizard Tak shatters a magical item called a Waystone to help them escape a group of bounty hunters.

 

[MarauderX]

I see this moving to the Rat Bastardly Brainstorming section soon. Either way you do it, I like to take the tack of building the fear for a nice horror game. I ran a similar thing with a haunted castle where the PCs thought they were the 1st to enter and later learned that since the castle moved throughout the planes they were just the most recent.

Depending on their level, you could build up the fear some by having them enter after other adventurers have gone and never returned. Or perhaps the only member to make is out is a bard, who of course feels it is his duty to sing laments and warn foolish adventurers of the perils beyond the gate. It all adds to the fear, especially if the group had heard of a few important and/or tough people never coming back.

Once they get there, have a few pieces of torn armor strewn about, and perhaps the bodies of some flesh eating monsters too. Paint the picture of some rough battles that have ensued, and if they follow where the others have gone (make it easy if they don't have a ranger) show them grim deaths of some brave looking adventurers. Let them pick the bodies clean if they wish, as if that will help them.

Even if they don't follow the trail, they should be surprised by a dying guy from one of the last groups to go in. Have him fall on them from 5' above or something else as scary so they think it's a grappling attacker at first. If they kill him, they kill him, it's their fault and one less dude to help them out. If he survives have him skittish and paranoid the entire time they do the crawl.

After a fight or two, have him stab at shadows and disengage from a melee fight to swipe at things behind him that aren't there. Make sure the cleric has to keep burning healing spells on this guy to keep him healthy, and have him tag along and fight just so-so (say only attacking one guy at a time, not using any feats, no special moves like tripping).

Build up some more fear as the party starts hearing things after a fight like this guy does, and make it seem like something is stalking them. Let them keep finding more bodies that look like they have been there for a long time. Just as they think they are going to be attacked by something huge, ugly and tough when they are at their weakest, show them another gate portal which leads to a mountainside with a nearby shack to rest at.

Have other different gates lead to different lands too as you said, and change the timeline on them. Reveal a run-down town brought low by a weak population; a defunct keep where it looks like an entire army was led into the gate; a prosperous town that has profitted from a few lucky adventurers already, that got greedy and went back in never to return...etc.

Sounds fun.

 

[Steverooo]

"Sounds" a lot, to me, like The House of the Master from the novel Godstalk. A place where the living and the dead, the mobile and the immobile interpenetrate. Much of the "furniture" is, in effect, Killer Mimics, the walls can be Wallflowers or Stunjellies, the ceilings Droppers, and the floors Trappers.

Through a "Rule of Similitude", when a portion of The Master's House becomes geographically similar to a portion of the next world up or down the "Chain of Creation", the two regions begin to interpenetrate, and "bleed through" to each other, hence allowing things to pass between...

Lotsa weird stuff going on, in that series...