Dungeon Crawl: The Crawlening

[Brian]

I sent this e-mail to my potential players this morning:

Ho--okay.

I've been wanting to run (or play) in a game for a while, and I've decided that I want to relaunch my most successful game in recent history.  By which I mean a game where everyone had a good time, and there was a minimum of digression and BSing around.  We all had a good time until some drama from improperly set expectations set in.

To prevent that this time around, I'll explain everything more clearly up front, so no one feels let down about how things actually work out.

I'm planning on running a game in the evening timeslot for Saturday. I've discussed this with some (most) of you before, but here's the official invite/proposal.

This game is going to be a dungeon crawl.  Roleplaying opportunities are going to be kind of minimal, as they're limited to the stuff you can do in the dungeon.  There is a story here, and the story is this:

The human Kingdom (remember: Kingdom = good, Empire = teh evuls) has ruled most of the land beneath the sun as long as they can remember. Their good allies and friends the dwarves, gnomes, elves, etc., all work together in a generally harmonious band, and all is well.  Except ... deep beneath the earth dwells the most horrific, evil empire known to the races above -- the Underdark!

Your mission, as you have already chosen to accept it, is to venture into deep, dangerous portions of the earth, seeking entrances to the Underdark -- and destroying them.  The Empire takes care of your every need on the surface -- they want you at your best when you go down there!  You're not a member of the army -- you're a mercenary, or else doing this because you feel it's right.  One way or another, those monsters must be stopped!

Mechanically, this means:

Get On The Railroad:  Sessions will start at the entrance to the dungeon.  Kingdom merchants and suppliers will accept loots and exchange them for monies or equipment for you, and should you need it, you can hire NPCs to help you out.

Life Is Cheap: You can literally play a different character every session if you want to, because the premise is your characters are roles in a party roster, much like in the original bard's tale. Conversely, because this _is_ a straight-up dungeon crawl, there will be no punch-pulling, and if you are careless, characters will die (and it'll be a while before anyone can afford a res -- so _be careful_).

The Mission Goes On: Because characters can be swapped out in this scenario rather easily, you (player) get a running total of EXP that I will track that you can apply to your current character to make sure everyone's at the curve.  This shouldn't be a huge issue, but the game isn't about penalizing you _beyond_ a reroll.  That'd just be mean. OTOH, you can also look at it as having alts, just like in WoW.  "I don't want to tank tonight; I'm going to play my DPS."  "Cool; I've wanted to try tanking for a while!"

Wait, You Said No Roleplaying: Okay, so, there _will_ be minor roleplaying opportunities.  You do get to choose where and how you accomplish your missions, and you'll often get choices on dungeons to go to (having a good balance of KNO: skills is good to figure out what kinds of lewts you'll get).  Other than that, it's generally about having a good time, rolling some dice, and working together to form a team that's fun and awesome.


And now, some of the houserules (beyond the Bard's Tale-esque mercenary hiring) and conveniences:  To speed up gameplay and avoid trivialities, you are given equipment for your mission.

The Goods: You get a magic bag that you can stuff any loot into, and get that loot converted straight to gold at the dungeon entrance (where your merchants are), so you don't need to track it or haul it around the dungeon.

The Bad: Whenever the Kingdom knows there's an entrance to the Underdark in an area, they give you an explosive magic rune-box.  If the carrier of that box dies, it blows up.  (Don't die.)

Hirelings: You can hire NPCs to do the stuff no one in the party wants to bother with, though hirelings generally only ever do out-of-combat stuff (healing, knowledge/craft rolls, trap detection).  Hirelings do take from the party income of XP and GP, as well as having an up-front hire-cost.  They'll usually only stick around for one dungeon, anyway.

Oh, shoot, left out the part where I frame the entire game as one of those incredibly ancient 3.25' floppy disk games.

[Merc]

(remember: Kingdom = good, Empire = teh evuls)

The Empire takes care of your every need on the surface -- they want you at your best when you go down there! 

Ah, the underdark appreciates a good honorable challenge while the kingdom merely likes sending meat to the slaughter! Clearly, good and evil are well-defined! ^_~

[Brian]

Eh, typo. :p

[Merc]

Sure, sure. ^_^

[Brian]

Yeah, okay, fine, I'll have a bad guy named 'Gannin' who ensures that the heroes have the required magical sword to face him before the duel begins. :p

[Brian]

Results:

Game explodes on the launch pad due to, "Nah, not interested," from the wife of the player who offered to host.

Like the scheduling wasn't bad enough....

[Yuthirin]

I'd have played it.

[Jon]

Likewise.