A Monster a Day Part II

I've been trying to keep up this pace, but I've slowed down. I honestly don't know how Enraged Eggplant does it over at Generic Universal Eggplant. Making a monsters, crosschecking rules, checking sources, and fitting them to the setting has proven more time consuming than originally anticipated, but still, I have produced about twenty new monsters since I started. I'm hoping to maintain that pace for another month or so, or at least until I have a few areas mapped out.

On the upside, I have statted up 14 mephits and a variety of demons and undead, so there is that. I need to work on some not-so-supernatural baddies, too. I have some ideas for the inhabitants of the local forests and their link to the Abbey, so I'm guessing they'll be next.

Monster Lists & Mapping

As everyone who has read this blog for any time knows, my system of choice is GURPS, mostly out of laziness. Yes laziness. GURPS can handle any play style and genre pretty well, even if specialized systems might potentially outshine it on a case-by-case scenario. So what that means for me is that, while I might not get optimal performance for each genre I enjoy, I only need to know one system. That is valuable to me. It doesn't hurt that GURPS handles my two favorite genres pretty well, too!

This post isn't a plug for GURPS, though, so I'll get to the point. I use GURPS. I am lazy. These are sometimes at odds. GURPS does not have a dedicated bestiary in the way that Dungeons & Dragons does. There's no single book I can open and get my hands on hundreds of premade monsters. Sure, Dungeon Fantasy has four books of monsters, now, and I use them, but two are toolkits for making specific types of monsters - oozes and dragons, and the other two have 60 monsters combined, at most. My point here is that as a GM, if I want monsters, I very regularly have to make them myself.

Of course, I've been doing this for a while and have my own repository of monsters at this point. I've even posted some of them on this blog. So that helps, but that doesn't mean I always have the monsters I need on hand when I start placing them on maps. So this is what I do.

As I map, I jot down notes of what goes where and keep a running list of every monster I've placed. This includes different flavors - e.g., Goblin Archer, Goblin Mook, Goblin Priest, Goblin Fighter, Goblin Kamikaze (don't ask), etc. I also jot down monsters with affix combinations - e.g., Possessed Berserk Killer Minotaur of the Juggernaut and such. Some of these will eventually turn into monsters in and of themselves. Lastly, I jot down any monsters that might be traps or traps that might be monsters. Sometimes there are gray areas.

This list becomes my To Do List for monster creation. Anything that doesn't come in flavors or with affixes are just base monsters. Those that have flavors get a base monster and then flavors built on those base monsters. The same goes for monsters with affixes. Finally, those that blur the lines with traps get a final sorting at this stage, and those that make the monster cut get statted. Usually, inspiration or tangents grab me during this process and spawn a few other monsters for the ever-growing folder of That-Which-Paper-Men-Were-Not-Meant-to-Survive.

So if you're mapping and have an idea for a monster, jot it down on a list. Keep that list handy. It's nice to know what's in your dungeon or wilderness area. It's also nice to have a ready-made list of stuff to do when you find some down time.

Puzzling Out Puzzles

Today we are going to talk about puzzles. I suck at making them. I always have. I've also rarely enjoyed solving them - in computer games, in roleplaying games, and in real life. Sorry. I just don't care for riddles and tricks and such. So what am I to do when they are such a staple of megadungeon design?

Let us consider what a puzzle is. At its heart, the classic puzzle is a problem. They may be (in my very intractable opinion) annoying tricks, but they don't strictly have to be. I argue that they can simply be a non-monster, non-trap problem to be overcome. And I don't mind problems.

What do I mean by problems? A puzzle might be a switch that does something somewhere, but the players don't know where or what. A puzzle might be a secret door that isn't opened from where they are, even if they know the door exists. A puzzle might be a warning scrawled on a wall about some danger elsewhere in the dungeon. A puzzle, in essence, is anything that presents the players with an unknown.

That obvious stone door with no handles that won't open? How to open it or bypass it is an unknown. And it gives the player something to do that isn't guessing which combination of button pushes opens the door. No. The players need to do something meaningful - research, grab the nearest pickax or sledgehammer, break out some magic, search for a button or lever, etc. In this way, the puzzle goes from a tedious chore the GM assigns because he can to a call to action.

So am I implementing puzzles in the megadungeon? You bet! Are the puzzles obnoxious guessing games or frustrating adventures in code breaking? Not a chance.

Unforeseen Consequences in Dungeon Mapping

I have realized recently that there are some major consequences to some of my early design decisions regarding dungeon entrances. See, I started out thinking, “An ancient castle sitting on top of a dungeon is cool!” so I made that the main entrance. And that sounds all well and good, but that castle is big. But it’s a megadungeon, right? Well…

The thing about players is that they are unpredictable. That’s what makes GMing fun, though; you never know what they’ll do. That’s why I prefer sandboxy games, too. If I wanted to know the outcome of every action in the story, I’d write a book. So how does this interact with Giant Castle for an Entrance?

Consider how a castle looks. It’s a big, tall structure open to the air with walls and windows and ramparts and stuff. And these players are going to show up decked out with burglary gear, ropes, and murderous intent. So yeah, I laid out entrances, and there are ways through all of them, even if some are tougher to penetrate than others. But why should the PCs settle for going in the front door when they can climb in through a 5^th floor window?

Lessons from the Megadungeon, Part II

I’ve been making a big push for stocking, lately, and in doing so, have come across a few more practices that seem to really help.

Label Rooms & Hallways Clearly

Each room should have a designation unique to it, not only for that level, but for the entire megadungeon. This will help with searches later on. I’ve adopted the following nomenclature:

[Zone Number][Zone Level]-[Room Number or Hallways Letter]

I used Zones because I will have multiple zones at a given depth. They don’t necessarily connect (or do!), but they are distinct areas with distinct features and difficulties. Each zone has multiple levels, so the zone ends up a multi-level construct within the greater dungeon. Rooms get numbers because there are more of them than hallways.

At first I wrestled with how to number rooms (upper left to lower right or whatever) and eventually realized I will be tracking PC movement, not hunting down a particular room on a map by its designation. So I just do whatever makes sense at the time. It’s works out well so far, but I’m sure I’ll regret it later.

Name Rooms

Once you have all of your rooms numbered, go give them names. Nothing super fancy, just a name for what that room is. If you’re not sure, skip it and do it later. Those names will inform what goes in them, how you describe them, etc. Using good room names cuts down on the amount of info you need to mention in the description. Heck, name your hallways, too!

Don't Get Bogged Down in Details

Keep your room descriptions vague. List stats for things the PCs can interact with – doors, locks, chests, traps, monsters, etc., but skip the minor stuff like floor type, wood paneling, ceiling descriptions, etc. You can do that on the fly. Jot it down then. No need to waste time on what you can improvise later.

If You're Not Sure, Skip It

If you get to a room, and you’re not sure what should be in it, what a puzzle is, what trap to use, which monster combination to throw in there, skip it. After you work on the surrounding area, you’ll get some ideas. Or maybe you’ll be showering and think of something. Or an episode of Frontier will give you an idea. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. If you don’t have the idea now, it’s fine. Don’t waste time, and move on to a room you do have an idea for. There’s a lot to stock; don’t get hung up on one room.

That's about it at the moment, but if you have any other suggestions for stocking, please make mention in the comments below. I'm always up for advice on this sort of thing.

Horror in the Megadungeon

Today is Halloween, so I figured I’d celebrate by posting about horror in the megadungeon. As I may or may not have mentioned, the megadungeon is starting to get a serious dose of horror elements, and lately I’ve been contemplating how they fit in with the tenants I originally laid out when I talked about how I run Dungeon Fantasy. So with that in mind, I’m going to talk about the various things that I look for in good horror and see if they support or run up against what I look for in a good Dungeon Fantasy game.

Mapping Progress Report

I've finished mapping another dungeon entrance down three levels, and I've noticed that I'm not doing as much with set pieces as I really would like. I feel like each area should probably have that one memorable location that players will talk about and reference again and again, but I just really haven't been designing with that in mind.

I think what I will do is see if any such areas emerge while stocking, and if not, add some in during Pass #2. I have purposely left a lot of empty space around my dungeon for that very reason, in fact. Now I am glad I did.

Of course this does beg the question: What should a set piece be? Obviously, it should be unique and memorable. Just another 10-by-10 room won't do. But that doesn't mean it needs to be a giant, cavernous room, either. It could be a maze of claustrophobic tunnels in which the PCs are forced to fight ratmen on their own turf, or maybe it's the tops of a series of pillars sprouting from a bottomless pit.

I think the main thing is that it is different from the rest of the area and not encountered before this point in the dungeon. Sure, pillars through the bottomless pit of mist might exist somewhere else as a level unto itself, but here is the first time you see it. These are the bottomless pit pillars, and that level is "the one like the bottomless pit pillars" - not the other way around.

Still, I don't think I'll reuse set pieces as a basis for entire levels too often. Anything can be overdone, and frankly, it's better if the unique areas stay unique. Also, I'm starting to think there will be an area with pillars thrusting out of a bottomless pit filled with mist. Go figure.

So, what sort of set pieces have you used in your dungeons? What is your favorite published one?

One Super Dungeon

I became enamored with the idea of a megadungeon after reading +Peter Del'Orto's blog Dungeon Fantastic.  I have long run sandbox games, and the idea of a massive dungeon complex that adapts to and is shaped by the players appealed to that. Some time this past winter, I decided I wanted my own, so I began conceiving an ancient evil fortress buried under a ruined city that itself arose as a center for dungeon delving. But as I slowly worked, thought about the history, and worked up multiple entrances and interconnections, it became clear that this was not a single contiguous dungeon. It was a super dungeon.

Not everyone may know of super dungeons by name, but the concept shouldn't be terribly unfamiliar. Briefly put, a super dungeon is a massive complex sprawling across miles rather than yards.  It is a dungeon of dungeons. Those curious should look up David Pulver's Eidetic Memory: Super Dungeons (GURPS Pyramid #3/50: DungeonFantasy, p. 20-25). It's well worth the read.

This particular super dungeon consists of a pre-starfall fortress where a particularly evil spirit once sheltered while creating an army with which to conquer the world. It was burrowed out deep beneath a natural cave system in a remote part of an equatorial jungle. Eventually, the forces of good managed to defeat the vile spirit and dismembered him. They hid each of the twelve parts within the massive, labyrinthine fortress and sealed it. Those of his followers who survived his defeat scattered to the wind, but only for a time.

After years passed and memories faded, the shattered forces of evil began to coalesce once more at the fortress. Groups of cultists and dark-minded adventurers sought out the buried dungeon and attempted to gain entrance. Some sought powerful artifacts, others wanted to stitch together the pieces of their fallen master and his broken dream. Over time, a vile and despicable city grew atop the dungeon stronghold, and once again the forces of good found it necessary to decimate the growing threat before anything came of it.

Now, the primary megadungeon consists of the Swallowed City - the remnants of that dark jungle town, its sewers which reach through the natural caves down into the vile fortress, and the fortress itself. Those ruins are still partially inhabited by a variety of unsavory beastmen who regularly try to plunder what lies beneath their feet. They are often beaten back, however, by forces unknown to jungle inhabitants. Satellite dungeons include a local beastman dwelling known as Bridgetown, a number of cenotes that dot the land, the natural caves, a large subterranean river, the compound of a local witch, an abandoned gem mine, and a forgotten and fearsome temple buried beneath the roots of the rainforest.

A Relational Map

I suppose this map could still use some more information. In particular, it needs to denote which regions connect to the surface. I'm sure it's missing other things, too, but that is the one omission staring me in the face.