But it is sufficient for reliably getting the PCs to the entrance of the dungeon (and universal enough that it provides little meaningful constriction in terms of the types of characters that can be created of course, there’s also no reason why a player couldn’t find a more unique goal for their PC).īefore one simply writes off “find the treasure” as bland pablum, however, consider that in its more specific forms “find the treasure” has served as the basis for some of the great stories of our time (or any time): Raiders of the Lost Ark, The Maltese Falcon, The Hobbit, The Illiad, The Golden Fleece. “Find the treasure”, in its most generic form, may not be terribly compelling. “Find the treasure” might mean killing monsters… but it could also mean sneaking past them, negotiating with them, distracting them, hiring them, tricking them, trading with them, or any number of other possibilities.) (“Kill the monsters” implies blasting them with spells and poking them with pointy bits of metal. And, notably, a specific end which - unlike “kill the monsters” - doesn’t pre-suppose the tactical and strategic means of success. Here I once again find myself looking back to the earliest versions of the game, when the default method of play was not “kill the monsters”, but instead “find the treasure” - i.e., exploration geared towards a more specific end. Is there a way we can make it a more clearly defined goal? You’ll be exploring whichever way you go.īut “exploration” remains a compelling concept. I suspect this is because it doesn’t provide a strong enough criteria for decision-making: If you’re standing at an intersection in the dungeon and your goal is merely “to explore”, does it really matter which way you go? Not really. It lacks the necessary specificity to function as the driving force behind a campaign. But in my experience, exploration for the sake of exploration can be rather aimless. It’s not unusual at this juncture for someone to say, “Exploration.” Go poke around in the corners of the dungeon because you’re curious about what might be hanging out down there. Having set aside the default mode of “clear the dungeon”, what are we to replace it with? And the more you restock the dungeon while your players are trying to destock it, the more of a grind the whole thing becomes. Second, the formula is inherently designed to use up material, whereas your goal with the megadungeon is recycle, reuse, and remix material. If your goal is to “wipe out all the bad guys” in a dungeon filled with bad guys, then the megadungeon boils down to a very simplistic dynamic: You go into the dungeon, empty as many rooms as possible, and then retreat. And when you attempt to apply this default formula to the megadungeon it creates two major problems:įirst, it’s a grind. However, it does have the rather unfortunate side-effect of inherently funneling everything through the combat system, drastically narrowing the range of potential gameplay. And the players generally know exactly what they’re supposed to be doing (“Wipe them out, all of them”). It has the virtue of being easy to set-up (Bad Guys X are trying to do Bad Thing Y and they can be found at Bad Place Z). As you can see, it can be easily mapped to any number of potential crises. There’s nothing terribly wrong with this formula, of course. “Kalarel is trying to summon something terrible from the Shadowfell!” “How do we stop him?” “Go to the Keep and… clear the dungeon.” ( Keep on the Shadowfell).“The Giants are arming for war!” “How do we stop them?” “Go to their steading and… clear the dungeon.” ( Against the Giants).“Slavers are kidnapping people off the streets!” “How do we stop them?” “Go to the slave pits and… clear the dungeon.” ( Scourge of the Slave Lords).“The corrupt mayor is planning to release the Yellow Sign and drive Freeport into madness!” “How do we stop it?” “Go to the Lighthouse and… clear the dungeon.” ( Freeport Trilogy).“The forces of chaos are marshaling for an assault on the last bastion of civilization?” “How do we stop it?” “Go to the Caves of Chaos and… clear the dungeon.” ( B2 Keep on the Borderlands).But you’d be surprised at how often everything boils down to “clear the dungeon”. The loss of this clear-cut goal is problematic because “clear the dungeon” has long since become the default tactical solution for virtually every scenario in D&D. The important thing, however, is that one cannot reasonably expect to achieve that goal. It would be something like the ultimate instantiation of the hack ‘n slash campaign: There’s a dungeon over there. (I suppose, in a general sense, you actually could hold such a goal. Such a goal would be as meaningless as a World War II game in which the goal was, “Kill all the Nazis.” One of the key concepts of “ (Re-)Running the Megadungeon” is that the goal of the adventure is not and cannot be to “clear the dungeon”.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |