Dungeon Bash turned on its head

Ah, its feels good to be back in the P&P driving seat after a couple of random posts about MMOs.

So without further ado...

Dungeons.

You gotta love 'em.  

Though, that said, the tired old dungeon bash (or Dungeon Crawl as they are oft called) has really had its day for anything but the most rudimentary of games run for the most novice of players.  And even then I'd say you could do something more interesting with it.

Award-winning P&P game designer John Wick, whom I have referenced numerous times in prior posts, has a pretty interesting concept with his Dirty Dungeon.  Which he describes here on You Tube.

As with most of Wicky's ideas, they certainly give you food for thought, but I tend not to take them up wholesale, rather pick bits out of them, mush them up a little and turn them into something else.  Which is precisely what I intend to do with his Dirty Dungeon concept - and make it more of a collaboration rather than something almost purely player prescribed, which whilst an interesting idea - goes a little too against the grain of roleplaying for my delicate palate.  What I'd like to see players do, is actually roleplay the gathering of the information.  And so you as the GM come to the table with a rough background for why the dungeon is there.  And a modular design for the architecture, and as the players do their research in libraries, talking to old adventurers, and generally listening to rumour and gossip about the place, you think on your feet and use their discussion and the ideas that emerge to build your dungeon on the fly.

Anyway, that's not what I came here to talk about.  That's all intro.

The following idea is something I developed a few years ago, inspired by the Bulldog Productions game Dungeon Keeper. I started it once with a group of players but never got to finish it due to the encroachment of RL into the fantasy world I prefer to inhabit.  It might be interesting now to redevelop it in conjunction with the Dirty Dungeon idea above.

The idea is fairly straightforward but ultimately turns the classic notion of the Dungeon Bash on its head.

In a distant region of the world, a little off the beaten track, a town has been periodically besieged by the denizens of a nearby dungeon.  And periodically the town strikes back by sending off the odd group of heroes and adventurers to seal the dungeon, and its fate, once and for all.  Obviously this hasn't worked, and none of them have ever been seen or heard of again.

The PCs are hired by notables in the town, or the local Venturers' Guild, or just because they want to make a name for themselves.  Whatever reason, some townsfolk tell them about the dungeon, and they stride off (after researching the legends and making suitable preparations one hopes) to go bash it.

But this is an 'evilpilch' game, and they don't call me that for nothing.

The dungeon is in fact the lair of an ancient and potent Lich, far more powerful than the combined forces of the party.  And this is important.  Because at some stage (not prescribed, we allow the players to penetrate the dungeon to a degree) but one by one, they come a cropper and fall foul of the dungeon's traps and undead denizens.  

But this is not the end of the game.  Far from it.  The players, after their demise are reawakened en masse, on a series of cold dark slabs of stone, much like sarcophagi.  And on a shelf before them they see what they suspect are their own hearts in dangling from a chain within glass jars.  A corresponding crudely stitched wound down their breastbones.  They have been reanimated as Wights.  Undead that retain the memories of their former lives, and their skills, but are at the behest of their reanimator.

On so begins the game proper.  With the Lich tasking the players to defend its lair against intruders.

The Lich also has a series of special tasks for them, kidnapping virgins from the town.  Bringing in children to sacrifice at the Lich's altar.  All manner of gruesome and unsavoury assignments.  There may even be a way for the players to turn against their master, or otherwise indirectly orchestrate the Lich's demise so they are freed from bondage.

But in short, this is how a regular dungeon bash can be turned on its head.

Messiah scenario idea...

I've been toying with this idea for a number of years.  When I say toying, I mean considering vaguely from time to time, but not doing anything about it - including writing notes, so it is only a vague-formed notion.

The idea is that the players are tasked with protecting a young girl, maybe 7-8 years old, who is allegedly the earthly form of a god, or perhaps the offspring of a god, on her journey to a distant place where she may fulfil her birthright.  The girl's protectors, in order to try and keep the girl safe have hired, with the promise of great reward and arcane treasures, a band of experienced adventurers from a distant land.  The distant land bit is important, because the hirelings have to be of a sufficiently different culture as to have little understanding of the religion the men adhere to.  Nor any prophecies concerning the girl.  The reason for this, is that the girl is actually evil.  The men appear to be good.  Very gracious and in all manners and appearances benevolent. And the girl too, appears good.  Blonde hair, flowing white dress, beatific smile - the classic hallmarks of benevolence and corruptability.

The game starts with the PCs waiting on the roadside, on an out-of-the-way road on the border between two lands.  The girl's escort are to bring her here covertly, under cover of darkness, so she can be whisked away into foreign realms and kept safe, until the location of the distant place she is to be brought to has been revealed - scholars are investigating that element concurrently.  The escorts suggest to the PCs that they keep moving, as far away as possible, because the girl has many dark and eldritch enemies (actually good and wholesome enemies).

They provide the party with an artefact which will enable communication at a distance.  But the artefact should only be used occassionally.  It also requires a roaring fire.

I use a skill called 'arcana' in my fantasy game world, which is essentially lore regarding enchanted artefacts, because every magick item has a history, was created by someone, used by people and potentially in various important events.  The magick communication device (I'm considering a statuette one has to place in embers, and which then speaks in a deep booming voice - not the voice of the communicator on 'the other end' - similar statue), if a player wishes to, and rolls a high enough score against their arcana skill, they know that such a device was created by X for Y but lost many years ago, suppossedly fallen into the hands of darkness.  This is a clue to the fact that the people who have hired them may not be precisely whom they appear to be, and not necessarily benign.

To create tension, whilst this initial exchange is taking place, two dozen riders come storming in to take (or kill) the girl.  The riders must be in sufficient number to cause the party concern as to whether they should stay and fight.  To build this tension up, have a couple of the escorts fall early on in the conflict, and the leader instruct the party to go.  Thus the game kicks off early on with a chase scene.  And as the PCs look back they see the escorts battle with some of the riders, but most begin to pursue the girl (and the PCs) indicating what their true goal is.  The players are experienced though, and should be able to dispatch and evade - though not easily - their pursuers.

After putting some distance between them and their pursuers, the party will eventually make camp against a developing storm.  Storms in my fantasy games are also an indication that people are using magick - the more powerful the magick, the more violent the storm.  This knowledge is common to any spellcasters and rumours/omens to non-spellcasters, but such information should be relayed to players in their background notes, and thus not drawn attention to overtly within the game.  This makes it a slightly more subtle clue than if one was to explicitly state it at the time.

During the night a winged beast attacks the camp.  It has been summoned by the Order the riders belong to, and its task is to slay the child.  The PCs must obviously protect her. Describe the roaring winds and the beating wings and the foul breath of the beast.

The game continues in such a way with the various hostile encounters in various forms and guises, all with the objective of killing the child.  These are intended to be the 'action scenes' used to surprise and alarm the players.  But each, must have some sort of clue as to what they are really dealing with.

Clues as to the true nature of the child must also come in the form of incidental scenes.  A mad beggar woman on the outskirts of the town (with the gift of trueseeing) recoils in horror when she sees the child.  A very close likeness of the child must be present in an ancient text in a church they stop and shelter at along the way.  The church itself the child says is 'creepy'. As I consider this scenario idea more, I will concentrate initially on two things:

1)Scenes of Action - how are the forces of light realistically tracking the child, and sending forces against her?
2)Clues - what incidental occurrences can be employed to hint at the true nature of the child?

In public areas, out of sight of the PCs, the child will also attempt to illustrate her tendencies.  Essentially, bad stuff happens around her.  Dogs bark, cats hiss and flee.  Ravens alight in her vicinity.  But such reactions must be handled with subtlety.

If the players realise who she is, they may attempt to kill her, but killing the physical embodiment of a god is no easy task, and in fact takes either special weapons, or special places, or special rituals.  I feel there should be multiple options to kill her, but all take some planning and involvement, and will be dogged by her supporters on the one hand - and also by naive do-gooders on the other.  What I mean by this is as soon as the players realise the child is evil and attempt to do her in, some passers-by will only see grown men doing something bad to a child and attempt to intervene.

If the players never cotton on to the fact that the child is evil.  Then they will eventually be tasked to take her to some ancient place, at a specific time (conjunction of the planets etc.) where they are to perform a ritual of 'raising' or some such thing, where she 'matures' and takes on all sorts of additional powers.  At this point the players are asked by her if they wish to bow down and worship her.  Those that do gain benefits but become tainted and evil.  Those that don't have to flee or be slain.

Thats the rough idea for now.  Any suggestions are welcome!

The Frankenstein game...

Just quickly while I think of it.  Another interesting game I'm looking forward to running is what I have jotted down in my notebook as 'The Frankenstein game'.

I came up with the idea after reading Gustav Meyrink's classic: The Golem.  Having been written in 1914, and its subject matter, lends itself very nicely to a vaguely off-piste Cthulhu offering.

I haven't decided yet whether to set the game in and around Lovecraft's fictional Miskatonic University. Or make use of some old maps of London and have them at Imperial College or perhaps Guy's Hospital as that way I could set some of the game around spooky old post-Ripper Whitechapel, an area I know well as I used to live one street away from the site of the Ripper's second murder.

The basic idea is this: The PCs are all medical students.   One Jewish PC discovers a sheaf of papers when helping his local community to tidy up an old synagogue damaged in a vicious storm.  The papers, incased in the stone altar that was cracked in two by a falling tree reveal the Jewish legend of the Golem, but a variant form of this myth which talks about constructing a golem from flesh, not clay.

And so the game sees the players locate and hire suitable premises for their experiments, and then they begin grave robbing in order to obtain body parts to assemble into the shape of a monstrous man.  Requiring fresher parts, they begin raiding the hospital morgue and eventually turn to murder in the smoggy gas-lit streets at midnight.

This is admittedly the bare bones of an idea for a game, but I think it has legs. :-)
Especially if you allow the players to create their golems with multiple limbs, beast claws from london zoo and generally go more Reanimator/Cthulhu with it.

A game in which the players are, arguably, the bad guys, can commit grave-robbing, body-snatching, and murder and create a monster they can control(?) sounds like a lot of fun to me!