Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 wokzombie Feb 05, 2010 22:17:37	For about three months I've been the DM of our mostly newbie D&D group, and so far I think I've done a good job at keeping everyone entertained and on their toes. The adventure has been mostly about survival and traveling so far, they could practically never go back to where they came from so I had an easy job of giving the group a sense of choice. If they went through route A they would find an abby for example, if they went with route B or C they would have found the same abby. This is of course pretty cheap and linear, that's why I want to make my job a bit harder by giving them more choice and at the same time I also want to make things feel a bit more epic. My idea is to make a temple that my 'evil guy' used to abuse a race by making them think he was a god where the players can move around in freely, solve environment puzzles, fight and learn a bit of lore about what has happened. I'm hoping to make this pretty big, or at least big enough for them to get lost. This being the first time I make a dungeon crawler like that I'm looking for some existing adventures or (preferably D&D related) lore to get some ideas from and get a better sense of how I can give the rest of the group as good a time as I can give them. To be more specific I'm looking for inspiration, information or ideas that can give me a good idea of what kind of atmosphere I want to set, what can make or break a dungeon crawler, and how to run a semi-open adventure like that.
#2 yellowdingo Feb 07, 2010 0:55:09	The Abbey As described in “Name of the Rose” by Umberto Eco   Demographics Population:                                560 Monks:                                      60 Servants:                                  150 Geographical Area:                    2 hexes x 56 square miles (112 Square Miles) Local Agricultural Yield:               31% yield Rate Description:                               A small, wealthy Abbey with an extensive Library, and Scriptorium. Surrounding land worked by peasant farmers subjected to considerable poverty.   The Library   Estimated Contents of library:     +10,000 Assorted Works including 2400 Bibles (assorted languages) Estimated Library Value:             1-5 million gold pieces   Required Farming Population Tennant Farmers:                       350 (not including children)   Required Agriculture in the Valley Woodlot:                                   33 x 1700 acre Tennant Farms:                          350 x 19&1/2 acre
#3 wancow Feb 09, 2010 15:52:51	In the DMG 2 they have this really cool section on "Themes" which is basically imbueing diverse critters with similar powers and characteristics.  For instance, Hobgoblin Trained Humanis might get Phalanx Soldier. What I've been doing, however, is sketching dungeons on Graph Paper at 10' per square (rather than the normal 5' per square).  It gives me a whole lot of room to work with to make it big, and make it good. In the first extensive dongeon I did, I used a lot of spiders types.  Ettercap and Kruthik.  I also have a very fixed set of villains in the Underdark, so they had to be encountered as well.  The were Orcs and Druegen (1E MM2 Duergar). What I'd think about is exactly how your badguy would feel.  Exactly what kind of environment(s) would he be comfortable in.  Would it be dank? Dry? Filthy? Clean? Dry and Filthy, I'd use Gnolls as his minions.  Dry and Clean: Hobgoblins.