World's Largest Dungeon?

[thundershot]

When my WLD arrives (and I have 5 players readying new characters, all different classes), I plan on using Advanced Bestiary to spruce it up... OH WAIT, IT'S NOT OUT YET! Just getting a jab in, Nicole... I'm really excited about the Advanced books...



Chris

 

[Demon Gnome]

Ran our first game this past Friday. Overall it went well. Initially the players started to get bored with the many 'empty' (different descriptions for each but still essentially empty) rooms, though towards the end of the night they started to enjoy it more once more started going on, namely the first rat swarm, and before that the ogre (who the dwarves attacked on sight, like the trio of orcs at the beginning).

Line of the night (after dealing with the resetting acid arrow trap):

"They can't have them everywhere."

 

[twofalls]

First Play

Hey Folks,

The Sangine Sentinels had thier first go at the WLD this past weekend. Into the Dungeon went a Paladin, Sorcerer, Rouge, Cleric, Champion, and a Mageblade. To thier credit they are a group that prefers diplomacy to hack, so I anticipate them getting into the politics of the dungeon, such as they are.

They were irritated by the attitude of the orcs in room two but left them alone, and the apearance of the fiendish shadwomantles and rats have disturbed them all, particuarly the Paladin. They didn't get far as the first part of the session was given over to character creation... the last encounter of that session they encountered on of my personalized random monsters (an Alley Reaper from Creature Collection 1). The cleric managed to drive it off after three turning attempts while everyone else ineffectually tried to fight it.

We've come up with a prolbem however. Mapping is a pain in the butt as it takes up a lot of time and slows the game to a crawl. I remedied that by telling them that for this crawl thier characters have perfect recall, so long as they have been somewhere they can recgonize it and recall where they are in relationship with the rest of the dungeon. However in practice this has fallen flat as the players themselves don't recall or understand where they are.

This group is anal about leaving no stones unturned or secret door undiscovered! it has been proposed that we create photocopies of the maps to slowly reveal as the dungeon is explored. However there are symbols on the maps that show the door locations and some trap locations as well as other oddities. Does anyone have either a solution to this, other than photocopy...white out, then photo copy again (the time involved makes me cringe)? One idea was to take a digital photo and doctor it in photoshop to remove the symbols, then print it out... however I'm no wiz at photoshop and for obvious reasons having a player do it is rather self defeating.

 

[haiiro]

In response to seeing twofalls's and Demon Gnome's posts here about starting up WLD games, I created a separate thread to discuss that topic. It seems like it might get lost here, and I'm really curious about it!

If this sounds like a good idea to you, here's a link to that discussion thread.

 

[Jim Hague]

Hey Folks,

The Sangine Sentinels had thier first go at the WLD this past weekend. Into the Dungeon went a Paladin, Sorcerer, Rouge, Cleric, Champion, and a Mageblade. To thier credit they are a group that prefers diplomacy to hack, so I anticipate them getting into the politics of the dungeon, such as they are.

They were irritated by the attitude of the orcs in room two but left them alone, and the apearance of the fiendish shadwomantles and rats have disturbed them all, particuarly the Paladin. They didn't get far as the first part of the session was given over to character creation... the last encounter of that session they encountered on of my personalized random monsters (an Alley Reaper from Creature Collection 1). The cleric managed to drive it off after three turning attempts while everyone else ineffectually tried to fight it.

We've come up with a prolbem however. Mapping is a pain in the butt as it takes up a lot of time and slows the game to a crawl. I remedied that by telling them that for this crawl thier characters have perfect recall, so long as they have been somewhere they can recgonize it and recall where they are in relationship with the rest of the dungeon. However in practice this has fallen flat as the players themselves don't recall or understand where they are.

This group is anal about leaving no stones unturned or secret door undiscovered! it has been proposed that we create photocopies of the maps to slowly reveal as the dungeon is explored. However there are symbols on the maps that show the door locations and some trap locations as well as other oddities. Does anyone have either a solution to this, other than photocopy...white out, then photo copy again (the time involved makes me cringe)? One idea was to take a digital photo and doctor it in photoshop to remove the symbols, then print it out... however I'm no wiz at photoshop and for obvious reasons having a player do it is rather self defeating.

I'll post here when I get my comp copy from AEG. Send me an email at mcarroll at protocolzeo dot com, and I might be able to persuade someone I know who's good with Photoshop to erase and edit some of those maps for you, then scan them in to make available as files for DMs who want their players to have maps...

 

[The Forsaken One]

Jim, I'd worship you as my god.... for a week orso.

 

[Jim Hague]

Jim, I'd worship you as my god.... for a week orso.

Nah, just send money.

Incidentally, over on RPG.net (stifle your groans, there's actually productive discussion going on there right now) there's talk of working up a fan-produced index for the WLD. jim pinto has offered to convert any such effort to PDF and post it in Alderac's site. Just FYI.

 

[Sir Elton]

Is this thread still alive!?!!?!

 

[Ozmar]

We've come up with a prolbem however. Mapping is a pain in the butt as it takes up a lot of time and slows the game to a crawl. I remedied that by telling them that for this crawl thier characters have perfect recall, so long as they have been somewhere they can recgonize it and recall where they are in relationship with the rest of the dungeon. However in practice this has fallen flat as the players themselves don't recall or understand where they are.

Have you considered using graph paper?

Here's how we do it. We play with Minis, so our GM always writes out the dungeon itself as we explore on one of those wet-erase mats, and a player (usu. me) just sketches out whatever he draws on a sheet of graph paper. I add notes about what we find on the side. It works great and doesn't slow down anything.

Here's another idea that I do in my games. I bought large tablets of 1-inch graph paper from an office supply store. They cost about 10$ for a tablet, and are usually found over by the presentation materials. These are great, b/c the GM can draw on them with anything - crayons, markers, whatever... And you can take notes on them. And they are scaled for Minis. And you can save them and have a (to scale) map of everywhere you've explored!

Enjoy!

Ozmar the Mapper

 

[DM_Jeff]

PC death issues

After finishing reading chapter 2 last night, I realized the chances you'll end the dungeon with the same PC you started isn't likely to happen. And it might not always be easy to explain in the traditional fashion how your replacement PC shows up. I was bored at work this morning, so...

Table XX: How to introduce a new character while adventuring in WLD

1 A monster used a poorly worded wish for a slave and got you; you escaped.
2 As you put your replacement mini on the table, explain how everyone sees a huge, celestial hand placing someone through the ceiling.
3 Drank a magic potion and appeared here.
4 If you are playing a monstrous race, you fled from your fellows to start a new life.
5 Read a magic scroll which teleported you here.
6 Stepped into a portal on the outer planes and it landed you here.
7 The party or their foe tries to cast summon monster or summon nature’s ally and gets you instead.
8 Through an ancient family curse, your body vanishes and your next of kin appears in the spot.
9 Was a prisoner captured on the surface and kept down here for amusement.
10 You ______ (stole from, defiled, peed on) a temple of Loki and you woke up here.
11 You are in the next treasure horde the group finds: you were an intelligent magic item who was granted a mortal form as reward for great service to a celestial knight.
12 You are waiting; curled up inside the next ______ (chest, barrel, coffin) the party opens with no memory how you got there.
13 You came down with another adventuring group, you’re the last left.
14 You had way too much to drink at the festival, and woke up here!
15 You have been following the group from the beginning, they just never saw you.
16 You played a prank on a gang of pixies…you don’t remember anything after that.
17 You used to be a ______ (bugbear, gnoll, harpy) and when you died a shaman reincarnated you.
18 You were getting married! You finished saying “I do” and you wound up here!
19 Your clone appears, courtesy of an old lady you saved from a runaway wagon a few years back who was really a wealthy Queen in disguise.
20 Your last group was fighting a ______ (ogre mage, kobold sorcerer, demon binder). They cast a spell and you appeared here.

-DM Jeff
(co-author of section O)