World's Largest Dungeon in actual play [Spoilers!]

[Hussar]

Heh, speaking of killing PC's, I just whacked the third PC in as many sessions... all by the same player. I actually feel bad about this. I mean, come on, sure death is a constant companion in the Dungeon, but the dice just REALLY hate this guy. The last one wasn't even really his fault. They are in Region B going through the Abandoned Halls of the Celestials. After finding the flooded room with the gem, they decide to rest and get some spells back. Instead of sending the trapfinder forward, because he's too chicken, they decide to send the half orc fighter into the icy water with a resistance to cold spell on him. Fine, he swims to the other side, grabs the gem and ZOT! 40 points of damage from the lightning bolt and a failed saving throw and it was one crispy character. They disposed of the body by taking it to the nearby hot room with the fireball trap and, while standing far back, tripping the fireball trap six or seven times until the corpse was cremated. Effective I suppose.

Am I a bad DM for giggling the entire time this was happening?

On another note, my World's Largest Adventuring Group has gotten off the ground. Besides my group, there are two others running adventures. We've been sharing resources, so, now, the entire of Region A is completely noded for OpenRPG, including room descriptions. Any new DM will only have to cut and paste his way through the entire region, no prep work required. Region B is mostly done, with a few tidbits to clear up. I'm also working on a DM's master map of Region B which includes all the mobs, regions, traps and encounter conditions, all on one jpeg. I'll send it to the repository when I'm finished. We've also started giving out some map treasures for the party. We figured that the creatures in the WLD would be making maps of the area fairly frequently, so, dropping annotated maps here and there would make things more realistic. Here's an example of my very poor artistic skills:

http://shadowdragon.kelticmoose.com/WLD-DMPics/pics/Maps/BBearMap.jpg

If anyone is interested in running a game over OpenRPG, we're always looking for more DM's. Getting players is easy. Getting DM's is a trick.

 

[Traevanon]

The last three sessions have been a combat filled riot. As you might recall at the end of last month the group had taken the task of killing Baltezzar the "troll" in trade for treasure from the giant queen.

In the following session they encountered Baltezzar, who is just across the way, and defeated him in a massive battle taking most of the entire night. The next week they returned to the Giant Queen to claim their reward, but unable to produce the head of Baltezzar (he dissipated of course) the Queen accused the party of trying to cheat her and attacked along with most of the remaining Fire Giants. Another mighty battle was joined and the party eventually slew the Queen and her escort.

They proceeded deeper into the Rings of the Pyrefaust, slew an Elder Fire Elemental who was killing Wyverns, and eventually freed an Ice Demon who after a short battle retreated via teleportation chaining out of reach of the party. They camped at this point.

Last session when they returned to the Pyrefaust they found the rock face surrounding Tyrus' prison had collapsed revealing the sleeping dragon in his prison within a prison. Invesigating slightly to the north in that area they saw the tower Sub-Dungeon that I had placed above N-1. They slaughtered the devourer before hearing the information he had to trade. The entire party has taken a Lawful Good turn now and prefers to slay evil rather than talk to it.

Then they proceeded up to the tower, which was guarded by two Iron Golems, then some traps, which werent meant to be encountered both at one time, but that's what happened. This medium difficulty battle took quite some time due to the Iron Golem's resistances but eventually the PCs destroyed them. Inside, in the first room a pack of Erinyes (fallen angels) normally lounge around, unable to leave the tower, but because of all the battle noise were prepared for the party when they broke down the door.

Battle was joined, quickly turned dire when the party's AoE spells failed to penetrate the devil's spell resistance, then eventually turned around as the Astral Deva that's walking around with the party could barely be hit by any of the devil's arrows. The Cleric of the party is a Thaumaturgist and has been waiting for the ability to summon something better than a Hound Archon for quite some time.

One character, the party's lockpicker and trap monkey died tonight to a repeated barrage of Unholy Blights. He has been replaced by another rogue type who is a little more combat oriented. Hopefully the player will stick with this one, he's known to swap characters quite often.

Anyhow the party camped in the tower's first room, fearing to set off the traps again on their way out. The first night should be an interesting one, I'll let you know how it went in the next update in about another month.

 

[Hussar]

Been doing a bit of work on Region B and I've made a jpeg with all the areas, creatures, conditions and doors (locked/open) on it. I've sent it off to the Downloads site, so hopefully it will be up there soon. If not, here's a peak:



Hope this helps people.

 

[DaveMage]

Nice!

 

[Jim Hague]

Jim, for what it's worth, the reason I even acquired the GM's Survival Guide (which took some doing, given how long it's been out of print!) was because when I asked, several groups of people affirmed that it was the single most useful and informative book in all of the L5R sourcebooks, period. Now that I've read it, I have no argument with this whatsoever.

For the WLD, I can't imagine what sort of work must be involved in order to put together a project of that magnitude - believe me, when you think about it in perspective, the few clerical errors are largely forgivable.

In short, your work has been consistently awesome, from what I've seen of it, and that coupled with your willingness and enthusiasm about providing support for the product, even when it's more than a year old and you've since left the gaming industry, makes a great experience for anyone who's interested in partaking of your work.

Sorry for the extensive back-patting, but good show, Jim.

Now let's get back to killin' those PC's, eh?

Along with Jim as contributing writer and project coordinator/line developer, there were a ton of folks working on the WLD. We all hate pinto, 'cause he got his name on the cover. (Kidding, of course). If it'd been one person writing...yeesh. Scary thought.

 

[JamesL85]

Hussar's stuff is now posted.....

The stuff looks good, and is a welcome addition to the page....Thanks.

James

 

[rvalle]

Wow, thats nicer then the one I made. Very well done. I like the conditions at the bottom and the way the sections are colored.

Think you can have the rest of the regions done by this weekend?



Thanks,

rv

 

[Hussar]

^ smacks rvalle with a dead fish.

Heh. Figure the boys (and girl!) will be heading into region C after this. I'll get that one done when they start getting a little closer. They've decided that they want to clear out every room and they started in the Celestial Halls. I've already killed one PC and one NPC and given them lots of warnings, but, no, they feel that nothing should be left behind. Sigh. I wonder how many PC's I'm going to have to kill to get them to get going? They must really enjoy making new characters.

 

[rvalle]

Drat. I'm pretty sure my group will be heading to E as they have already found an entrance to that region. Though after their first run in with the Shadows there they may turn back. One of the players HATES anything that messes with his stats or gives him any sort of minus. He's going to be SO unhappy.

Oh well, I guess I'll just have to use my barely adequate maps.

BTW, I just wanted to take a moment to add some praise to the book's layout. I love the fact that each encounter gives the full listing for each critter encountered, the conditions, tactics used, how to scale up or down, ect. The book is fantastic in this regard.

rv

 

[JamesL85]

Hussar sent me another image of his map. It's bigger (around 1 meg) because he didn't like the way the text pixellated when he shrunk it. If there's a public outcry for it, I can create a pdf of that image....

Let me know....

James