02-22-2018, 08:12 PM | #11 | |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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Re: What Do You Want In A Dungeon?
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I love memorable situations and NPCs. I love a great map. I love being surprised when I open the door. I love unexpected terrain: glowing mushroom caverns, rope bridges over chasms, houses (or cities) built into giant stalactites, weird gravity, invisible stairs, talking rocks (or slugs or smoke), ... magical and fantastical locations to explore and interact with. I love it when the vertical dimension is referenced, especially in a dungeon (levels with various connections, multi-story rooms, etc.) Add funky monsters and it's good times. As for length, I'm good with anything. Vignettes are great. I used to enjoy those "Book of Lairs" types of things with basically fully worked random encounters or mini-dungeons. Easy to drop into a larger game. But I definitely don't turn my nose up at epic adventure paths either. |
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02-23-2018, 11:48 AM | #12 |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: What Do You Want In A Dungeon?
Heh. I worked the preamble and history for Lost Hall of Tyr (a 5e adventure designed as a convention one-shot and demo of my Dungeon Grappling book) into a vignette type story, and was accused of being a wannabee failed writer novelist in a recent review of the book.
Different tastes, I guess.
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02-23-2018, 12:45 PM | #13 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: What Do You Want In A Dungeon?
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There are people who believe games and fiction are different facets of the same stone. They usually feel that games are better with some fiction in them, and/or that games are a good basis for novels, and/or that novels are good to adapt into games. Then there are people who feel that games and fiction are media as different as music and sculpture. Over the past 23 years working in this biz, I've run into both. You can't make 'em all happy.
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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02-23-2018, 01:42 PM | #14 |
Join Date: Jul 2014
Location: New Zealand.
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Re: What Do You Want In A Dungeon?
While a nebulous kind of concept I like to have a sense that a dungeon is either a stale and static place lying unexplored since whenever or is alternatively an active place with things happening unrelated to the delvers.
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Waiting for inspiration to strike...... And spending too much time thinking about farming for RPGs Contributor to Citadel at Nordvörn |
02-23-2018, 03:35 PM | #15 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: What Do You Want In A Dungeon?
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I'll cop to the fact that I didn't give a "skip cutscene" button that's a summary for folks that just don't care to get the salient bits. I could rework that if I ever revisit the module for a different system (like my own Dragon Heresy). In fairness to me, though, the vignette I wrote was designed to be jammed into a two hour play session at GenCon 50. I needed to set the tone of the world, prep the stage for the players to go wandering off into the wilds, and establish some of the good guys and bad guys. And I needed to do it FAST, because I only had two hours to play. The vignette said: Vikings! Tyr! Faeries! Goblins! Quest! fairly quickly. Eh. We shall see!
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02-23-2018, 04:31 PM | #16 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: What Do You Want In A Dungeon?
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Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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02-23-2018, 07:49 PM | #17 | |
Doctor of GURPS Ballistics
Join Date: Sep 2004
Location: Lakeville, MN
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Re: What Do You Want In A Dungeon?
Quote:
I think a evocative description, written with the most noticeable stuff first1], is important and useful. I can also see where folks want to do their own thing, but if I'm writing something for folks to buy, I guess I see it as my job to bring as much color to the board as possible. [1] The walls have tapestries on them filled with scenes of battle, and an overturned stool in front of a broken table seems to be made of alternating woods, maple and oak. Oh, and there's a minotaur named Bruno trying to impale you with her horns. Um, bury the lede there? :-)
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02-24-2018, 01:49 AM | #18 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: What Do You Want In A Dungeon?
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But then I'm guilty of only reading the vignettes in almost all of the Shadowrun 5e books, having no real desire to play SR5, but wanting to keep up with the stories about the NPCs... |
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02-24-2018, 03:04 PM | #19 |
Join Date: Dec 2005
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Re: What Do You Want In A Dungeon?
Good vingettes are good and bad vingettes are bad. All told, I think you should put them in if you have a good little story to tell and leave them out if you think you need one because it's supposed to be there.
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02-24-2018, 05:07 PM | #20 |
Join Date: Jun 2011
Location: Harker Heights Texas
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Re: What Do You Want In A Dungeon?
If you want good examples, take a look at the work being done by M.T. Black for D&D 5E, his dungeons are fun and interesting. I especially recommend Magic Village for Sale, Wizard in a Bottle and Into the ivy Mansion.
http://www.dmsguild.com/browse.php?author=M.T.%20Black |
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