Monthly Archives: December 2022

RPGs

Making up A Game with My Granddaughter

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Back in August, 2019, I made up a super simple RPG with my granddaughter called “Dragon.” She was a player with a bent to be co-DM as she wanted the story to go a certain way. So while she’s got the mental capacity to play an RPG, she doesn’t yet have the hang of player/GM distinction.

She is a blue dragon who breathes lightning.She ate a bunch of people who were causing trouble. But she doesn’t eat them for her diet. She just drinks water and milk.

Then some more people came with weapons because they were upset she ate people. She breathed lightning on them. (I didn’t make it easy to just eat them as they were armored/prepared for that.)
While she was busy with the ones with weapons, some others were trying to take her treasure. She dealt with the thieves by stomping on them.

She elaborated that she has 3 sisters and they all have Anna and Elsa dresses (AKA Frozen) and had a slumber party.

She dominated the narrative, because things have to go her way.

I decided to do this since she was using her magic wand to “write” on my skin, my desk, etc. I used my magic to get rid of it. The little stinker said, “Magic, magic, take away your magic. Now you don’t have magic!”

So I decided it was time to add dice to our make believe. She loved that idea!

I let her choose what dice to roll for different things. I was thinking along the lines of stats, but nothing solid.

I just used dice for how many people eaten, causing trouble, trying to steal, etc.

Probably a simplified FATE like system or just use different dice for amounts.

She’s loved rolling my different dice since she was about 2. Back then it was what’s that number? Then it became which number is bigger, the one on your die or mine? So fun to play with her & see her so excited.

Developments in The Game

We still occasionally play this game.

Trying to come of up a scenario that isn’t just a repeat of the last one or that she buys into is more challenging as she gets older. The last time she asked to play a couple weeks ago, she was greatly disappointed as I had a creative drought and my mind was blank for ideas. Work stress just saps my ability to be creative.

Last post of the year

Today is December 31, 2022. It’s been a challenging year in many ways, just read the headlines. Personal issues have come and gone, and I’m still here.

May your 2023 be filled with health, happiness, loved ones, and gaming!

I’m doing the Dungeon23 Challenge, and will share progress perhaps on a monthly basis. I plan to do as much or as little each day I set aside time to work on it. January is my busiest time of year at work, so I plan to work ahead starting this 3 day weekend.

I also just submitted my scenario to Gary Con that I plan to run each morning for a total of 4 times. I’m considering doing a playtest online before then.

RPGs

Farewell RPGBA

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The RPGBA (Role Playing Blog Alliance) was a website with an RSS Feed of RPG Bloggers. It had a strong presence on G+. When the original owner of the site wanted to step away and had planned for it to just end, Scott Newbury of the blog of Dice and Dragons took over. When G+ ended the group moved to MeWe.

Even though RSS feeds took a big hit when the wonderful support built in to many browsers was taken away the RSS feed PGBA was still going strong.

As with the passing of G+ and the fading of Twitter as a go to for many TTRPG topics, so too is the RPGA going away. This includes shuttering the MeWe site. Since it is behind a login, all the posts there will be lost unless Scott decides to somehow archive them.

I considered for a moment stepping in, but I have myself spread thin already.

I checked the list of blogs and for some reason, mine isn’t there. I pulled the list and made a copy that I have posted on a page of my blog here. So many blogs have gone dark over the years. Sadly, several went dark and were never or not recently updated on the Internet Archive.

I encourage everyone with a blog to ensure their site is backed up on the Internet Archive. This page explains how to archive individual pages manually or with browser extensions, and there is an option to crawl pages you specify.

Prior Site

It should be noted that the RPGBA stepped in when another site for the same purpose ceased accepting new members and itself faded into the mists of time. Sadly, I don’t recall the name of that prior site. Like many others, I waited two plus years for my blog to be accepted, when it went dark.

RPGs

Dungeon 23 Challenge Narrowing The Scope

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I’ve decided to do the #Dungeon23 Challenge as I mentioned in my prior post where I describe what it is, resources some have suggested, and my own ideas about it.

The biggest issues after sticking with it for a year are narrowing the scope of the project so that it is manageable, and narrowing the scope to what resources one uses to generate the maps, select themes, and populate each room.

Some can just wing it and do it all off the top of their head. If I did that, it would be rather bland. I want something fun and interesting that others would want to use, whether in whole or in part.

For generating the dungeon, I’m thinking of the 1e DMG Random Dungeon Generation tables. At the least, I will use it to plan the entrances to the dungeon. I think having multiple levels have a connection to the surface, even if a convoluted connection, makes sense. Some of those connections would be how various creatures get into the dungeon to begin with.

I think there should be factions in the dungeon that control a section of a single level, or multiple levels along obvious stairwells, etc. Food, water, waste disposal, power, control (of areas, creatures, features, magic, etc.), alliances, absolute enemies, minions, lieutenants, and bosses, should all make sense. Just figuring out how all this works would be part of the adventure and exploration for a party of adventurers.

My Process

I’ve decided to stick with what I have and use a Graph Composition book for thee #Dungeon23 Challenge.

I have an index page and page 1 is for Brainstorming.

Brainstorming Page – Even more ideas below.

Using ideas I’ve scrawled in notebooks or written blog posts about or new ideas.

  • Levers & tilting floors, sliding walls, etc. Both simple and complex traps. Some of which are not obvious to the trapped that they have been trapped.
  • Kobolds as maintainer & re-setters of traps. They get food and wealth from traps. However, they compete with carrion eating monsters. Kobold controlled territory will have fewer carrion monsters.
    Kobolds will ignore those who ignore them.
  • Magic and other items will be USED by dungeon dwellers. Adventurers will RARELY find magic items not being used.
  • Not everything in the dungeon is a monster to be slain. Killing intelligent creatures will invoke the enmity of all the others against those responsible. Murder hobos will not last long.
  • Using wits and planning and avoiding fighting as was the case with original D&D style of play will achieve better results. Only creatures of animal intelligence or truly evil intent will the party be at risk of a fight.
  • Balanced encounters are not a thing. Creatures of more HD than the level of the dungeon will not be rare, especially near connections between levels. Factions that span multiple levels will project power in this way. Masses of low HD creatures will offset the advantages of multiple HD creatures, especially if the low HD creatures are cunning and cooperative.
  • Various tricks and trap ideas I’ve written about on my blog or in various notebooks, but never used.
  • Food, Water, and Waste – How do the dungeon inhabitants survive and not fill up the passageways with refuse?
  • How do intelligent dungeon inhabitants make use of the unintelligent ones to maximize their strength and control of their territory?
  • Creative encounter tables – See Nested/Dynamic Encounters below.

Deciding Which Resources To Use

There are far too many good resources to help generate and populate dungeons to just limit it to one resource. This includes manuals of both old and new games, gaming resources for such things, and so many blog posts over the years of OSR blogs about this very topic.

No one resource has everything I feel that I need for this. If I only had to pick one resource it would be the AD&D 1e DMG [Affiliate Link]. This would be Appendices:

  • A – Random Dungeon Generation
  • G – Traps
  • H – Tricks
  • I – Dungeon Dressing
  • K – Describing Magical Substances

More Blog Articles On Megadungeons

Here is a collection of links to various blog posts about megadungeons. Some of them are collections of articles. Sadly, many old blogs and some articles are no more, not even on the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.

Old School Campaign Tent Poles

http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/02/old-school-dungeon-design-guidelines.html

http://thedragonsflagon.blogspot.com/2012/05/secret-door-triggers.html

http://therustybattleaxe.blogspot.com/2013/12/megadungeon-hall-of-fame-megadungeon.html

http://thedragonsflagon.blogspot.com/2014/01/keying-corridors.html

http://initiativeone.blogspot.com/2014/02/ready-reference-whats-blocking-corridor.html

Megadungeon talk abounds!

http://9and30kingdoms.blogspot.com/2014/02/random-dungeon-musings.html

https://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/p/megadungeon-design.html

https://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=42&t=27662

http://beyondtheblackgate.blogspot.com/search?q=megadungeon+design+and+philosophy

http://therustybattleaxe.blogspot.com/p/dungeon-links.html

http://therustybattleaxe.blogspot.com/p/megadungeon-links-ii-maps-tables.html

Dynamic/Nested Encounter Tables

This is a great idea that can be applied to dungeons, cities, and hexcrawls to make encounter tables generate more interesting results. Or use as a base to make custom encounter tables including those options. (Great for one shots and convention games, or modules.)

http://monstersandmanuals.blogspot.com/2011/10/dynamicnested-encounter-tables.html

http://www.welshpiper.com/dynamic-encounter-tables/#more-2342

RPGs

Dungeon 23 Challenge

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Sean McCoy kicked off an idea on Twitter that soon took off.

https://twitter.com/seanmccoy/status/1599809865836363782
Dungeon23

He went into more detail on his blog.

The idea is simple:

  • 12 Months – Levels
  • 52 Weeks – Themes
  • 365 Days – Rooms

Some rooms are empty. Descriptions need not be complex. That is, keep it simple.

This idea has taken hold across Twitter, Mastodon, blogs, and other social media.

Some have lists of a few Megadungeon Resources:

https://twitter.com/yungdumbitch/status/1371617098930122754

Some have created resources specific to the theme of a room per day:

https://twitter.com/zwgarth/status/1600637717162987524

One posted a carrd page with the suggested 52 weekly themes.

https://twitter.com/wldenning/status/1600554252446973989

My Musings

It caught my imagination too. I am so close to acting on this challenge.

The #Dungeon23 idea is interesting. The original idea is to use a weekly planner and do one level each month, one room each day.
The result is a 12 level 365 room megadungeon.

This needn’t be limited to a dungeon. It could be:

  • 12 separate dungeons,
  • 12 districts of a city,
  • 12 regions of a wilderness.
  • All places to explore.

I’ve always wanted to do a megadungeon. All efforts thus far have ended way too soon.

I’m debating doing this. Getting past January will be the hard part, my busy time at work.

  • One could also plan out their own multi-level generation ship for Metamorphosis Alpha.
  • A large base or space station.
  • A mine.
  • So many possibilities….

The dilemma is which idea to settle on and actually do it.

  • A monthly blog post to show each month’s results?
  • Clean it up & publish it?

Making sense of it so that it is an organic structure with factions & any changes resulting from adventurers will change how things proceed.

  • What planner to use?
  • Physical or digital?

Time to let the mind wander.

I favor Graph Composition notebooks that are 200 pages of quad ruled paper.
40 x 28 squares per page. That’s 1,120 squares.
Seems small for 31 rooms, not leaving room for hallways that’s 17.5 8×8 rooms, or 70 4×4 rooms.

The page seems small until you start to build something that makes some sort of sense. Not all rooms will be tight packed.

Some plan of general structure and guidance makes sense.

The goal is to finish, so a plan to help succeed means pre-planning.

Each level could be a different smaller dungeon connected by portals.
The portals could be one way or have the connector back to the prior dungeon be in a separate location.

So many ideas….

The Megadungeon tag on my blog.

City 23 Challenge

I see some are doing the #City23 challenge instead of the #dungeon23

Back in 2015 for the April A to Z blogging challenge, my theme was cities. That might help those doing the city challenge get some ideas.

2015 A to Z Challenge Theme Reveal – Cities/Cities As Ruins/Cities As Megadungeons