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

[twofalls]

How are people handling the passage of time?

Insofar as how long a day is, I just wing it. When the group is tired enough that they need to rest, a day passes. I've also made them feel like there is a
time limit to finishing the Dungeon (though I haven't really decided there is one) by making them track the number of days they have been in the dungeon and making the whole place experience small tremors. That has added a bit of spice to the game. So far they have been in the dungeon 13 days, and they haven't completed Region A yet.

 

[Soul]

My group after about 10 hours, of real time have passed about 4 days in the dungeon. Hacing completed a 4th of region A. So, I'm trying to take more pretime as i have a few more days until next session, to try and get everything figured out on how I want to handle the details. Thanks for the reply, as thats pretty much what I've been doing now.

 

[twofalls]

Have you added much of anything of your own to region A Soul? My group spent one game session (about 6 hours for us) and our entire game weekend (at least 28 hours of actual play time) and have completed about 2/3 of A. I've heavily modified the entire area however, adding in some roleplaying encouters as it was almost all combat prior to that.

 

[BlueBlackRed]

For me, I'll be letting one of the players handle the passage of time.
I'll use Excel or something to setup a sheet with checkboxes and notes. Nothing too exact or detailed, just enough to get a rough idea of time gone by and food/water usage.

Really? Man, I must be living under a rock. I've been running games for 26 years and my campiagns always last for at least a year. I've run a lot of individual games, one nighters that kind of thing, but campaigns always last. My current group the Sanguine Sentinels have played three campaigns, Earthdawn (3.5 year game), GRIFTS (homespun Rifts with the GURPS engine 2 yrs), and now 3.0 (2 years). I'm still running our 3.0 game and am using the WLD to play as I work on it. I have guys in my group that I've been gaming with since I first started playing all those years ago.

Well in previous groups I've been in, especially early on, they've had the attention span of a hummingbird. Games would last up until someone felt like they wanted to run something. At one point a group I knew had 8 players and 7 different games.
In our current group I've more or less been a big bully when it comes to playing D&D. "On Fridays we play D&D. If you want to run a game of [enter game here], there are 6 other days of the week to choose from." It's a jerk thing to do, but it helps keep us focused on just one game at a time. But since I've been playing with this group (for around 7 years now), it's had its fair share of nice & long games lasting over a year.

Oh and to bring us back to the general topic; I think it would be cheaper for me to buy a new scanner than to have the maps color copied. And it will hopefully allow me to show the group's progess in our WLD blog.

 

[Soul]

No, I havn't really changed much ahead of time yet... just stuff on the fly. Primarily I'm just letting them get the feel for things, not throwing tons of traps or random encounters in. I think there is a good deal of roleplay oppertunity in there as is, though I may add more. The scenes with the orcs in the begining and later the orger have given me a great deal of fun in that regard. I only wish they would have let the orger live, but he did drop one of their party in negatives on his initial suprise attack.

 

[Leopold]

<shaking head>

oh leopold. and here i thought your campaign would be different

pwhwhahahahahhahahah! My PC's are diehard power gamers. All of them are Warhammer/D20 Mini's gamers. They thrive on combat and once I told them that they have the potential to kill every monster from Aboleth to Zombie including the Tarrasque they started salivating.

I already dished out the following info to them per the books request:

1. No spells that cause entaglement: web, black tentacles, etc.
2. No druids or wizards: They get screwed.
3. When they die, they can't play the same race or PC that they had before. Creates variety.


Now when reading the book I came up with a BRILLIANT! idea. At the beginning of the book I saw mention of the Lantern Archons. They are supposed to be at the beginning and end of the regions. I thought "Hmm how can I use these things." and came up with my idea after watching Tron on DVD!

The Lantern Archons are recorders of all that has gone on in the WLD. They are the security cameras that were asigned to monitor and report back what happens to their superiors. Since the WLD has been 'broken' per se, they have had their 'programming' change to record all those who enter each area and their success and failure on what they accomplish. They can and do follow around the PC's and provide basic light source, so that solves the lighting problem, and can answer basic questions on the area as the PC's explore and provide a holographic map for the area. This solves both light problems and mapping problems.

Furthermore, since I am counting on PC's dying. I can have the Lantern go retrieve the new PC's that are created and bring them back to the party. This solves why new PC's appear and how to integrate them. The celestials are counting on keeping the parties as cohesive as possible to rid themselves of the rampaging demons.

They are also pretty damn weak so I figure allot of them would die keeping track of things as they follow each party around.

So I named them: <type> <number of current unit> <region>

Ex: L129A
Lantern Archon 129th one that has existed for Region A

Now I use a laptop in my game, it makes keeping track of things easier, while watching Tron I saw the Bit program that talks to the guy trapped in the game. I immediately thought of the Lantern Archons as those same lil programs and how they talk. I downloaded a Text To Speech program that will speak what I type on the computer so it will sound like a neutral tone voice similar to a computer, which is what these things are.

Example:

Pc's enter the WLD.

PC: Where the @!%#@!%! are we?
Lantern Archon: <synthesized voice> Welcome to Demonium Carcer (latin for Demon prison), This unit is desginated L481A and will be your guide while you are in Region A subsection A1.
PC: What the @%#@% are you?
LA: I am L481A.
PC: USELESS!!! <attacks thing>
LA dies
LA: <new one appears> Welcome to the Demonium Carcer. This unit is L482A and will be your guide while you are in Region A subsection A1.
PC: Well, ok.

All the voices will be done by me typing and having the computer say it. I'm not going to give these things much more than the basic information on the Region that they are supposed to know.

Example:

PC: What's ahead?
LA: Unknown
PC: I thought you know this place?
LA: This unit does not know what is behind every door.
PC: What use are you?
LA: This unit provides light source for you to see. Do you wish to deactivate the light source?
PC: <looking for torches> guess not.

Also, with the light source being shown all the time, suprise will be on the enemies which works well for me. I wonder how long it will be before the PC's figure that out.

 

[jim pinto]

tron

you know the lantern archons in the book are based on the little guy from HALO, right? the fact that you derived them from Tron is awesome.

perfect use of the lantern archons.

btw... i'm not sure if this is clear in the product or not, but the cornerstone philosophical tenet of the dungeon is that evil cannot be destroyed. good can. but evil cannot.

hence the prison.

that means, if lantern archons keep dying and showing up again and again, cyrlebrai (room G5) is going to get weaker and weaker.

just a head's up

 

[twofalls]

btw... i'm not sure if this is clear in the product or not, but the cornerstone philosophical tenet of the dungeon is that evil cannot be destroyed. good can. but evil cannot.

Hmm, I didn't really get this from the dungeon... but then I've only read A,B,and E.

I think that Lantern Archons as Bits are a neat idea, and I think I will borrow it from you on a scaled down level. I want to maintian the flavor of a fantasy world so when they meet a Lantern I think I will give it more of a personality. Yet, I like your idea... so yeah, I'm going to borrow it.

My group has stuggled with light ever since entering the dungeon. One Ever Burning Torch was brought along (20 feet of light, 20 feet of shadow), as well as a few torches, scattering of sunrods, and two lanterns that soon expired thier fuel oil. Its been a great theme that has really streched thier nerves, particuarly with the darkness generating Darkmantles. However that theme can get old after a while and a Lantern Archon might be just the thing to end it.

 

[jim pinto]

Region E, alternatives

First off, if i were running this region, I would get rid of the Barghests (and just keep the greater barghests as roaming scrounger/predators. Second, for every three days the PCs spent in Region A, i would remove one Inevitable and one Celestial from Region E. Having died in a major invasion from Region I.

The wards to the north would be down.

The shadows and shadow mastiffs would be all OVER the region, adding in whatever shadow creatures you like from your favorite 3rd party books.

In fighting would be rampant among the Redeemed and perhaps Ackersan would have been murdered about the time the PCs reach Room E61.

Because of the number of "empty" rooms, there's all kinds of places for inexplicable ooze and walls of flesh-type horror like in Region I. In fact, I would just start bringing them both together into on massive playground of carnage. The PCs should feel as though they've stepped into something very wrong.

Surviving inevitables would have a hard time parsing all of this, of course. And the Redeemed would receive conflicting orders all the time.

And, of course, all the bugs in the Region become fiendish. Duh.

The escape routes into Region F and J would be sealed by the creatures within those Regions, making advancement more difficult.

***

However, i've also included a few things that don't require so much rewriting.

One. Steal a random encounter chart from Region I and use it when the PCs enter an empty room.

Two. Give the barghests overlords. To continue the demon/devil theme, add a retreiver to the bad guy barghests and add a hellcat and/or erinyes to the rebel barghests.

Three. Give the insects a beblith leader (that the PCs don't face until they are 6th level).

Four. The shadows (and there should be more of them) need to be under the control of

Five. The jungle doesn't need much change, but adding a few more bugs isn't bad either.

Six. Finally, there isn't much need to play around with the guard stations (inevitables, etc.), although failed wards all over the Region are a great way to have more beasts sneak in.

If anyone else has suggestions, feel free to post.

 

[Leopold]

you know the lantern archons in the book are based on the little guy from HALO, right? the fact that you derived them from Tron is awesome.

perfect use of the lantern archons.

I blame it on the fact that I see this glowing ball and immediately thought of something saying "Yes!" or "No!" I forgot about halo! Curse you for reminding me of the Novemeber release date!!!

btw... i'm not sure if this is clear in the product or not, but the cornerstone philosophical tenet of the dungeon is that evil cannot be destroyed. good can. but evil cannot.

hence the prison.

that means, if lantern archons keep dying and showing up again and again, cyrlebrai (room G5) is going to get weaker and weaker.

just a head's up

It is? I JUST finished A and reading into B. I didn't see that in the preface that the more good dies the weaker it gets. I think I'll just disclude the latern archons from that pool and just say that Good souls that die in the prison goto lanter archons and after a while get promoted. That's it

I think that Lantern Archons as Bits are a neat idea, and I think I will borrow it from you on a scaled down level. I want to maintian the flavor of a fantasy world so when they meet a Lantern I think I will give it more of a personality. Yet, I like your idea... so yeah, I'm going to borrow it

Well they will have personality. A very bland, blunt, precise, and cold personality.

Here's a thought to make it interesting:

Roll 1d100. On a roll of 00 they get an archon with a 'bug' in it. What's a bug give you? Well it could give you:

1. Hostile Personality: Lantern is more hostile and bitter toward the party
2. Happy Personality: Cheerful, more talkative, joking,etc.
3. Inquisitive Personality: Asks lots of questions about PC's "where did you come from? What are you about? Why are you here?"
4. Sad PErsonality: "I've seen guys like you a thousand times, you're gonna die"
5. Has a bit more info on another area: "This unit has been asigned from Area D. I would avoid the tarrasque there"
6. Silent Personality: Doesn't talk, doesn't act, just hovers and produces on command, whatever they want.
7. Maximized Archon: Has full stats and full hit points and is advanced to the pinnacle of a Lantern Archon.
8. Roll twice.

Something like that. I remember watching Stargate: SG-1 and that episode with Dom Delouise and him being a bug and would talk and jabber on to SG-1 and he was a 'bug' or a 'fluke' I'm open to ideas on howto exploit it more