05-03-2018, 03:48 AM | #1 |
Join Date: Jun 2010
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The Art of Dungeons
Here is my idea for a Dungeon Fantasy campaign, reposted from the Ideas Are Easy thread. In town, the party visits a magical painting gallery - the magical paintings each warp the party to a dungeon/super-adventure/megadungeon (see: Mario 64, Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, The Painted World from Dark Souls 1).
You just have to touch the painting to warp to its dungeon. The painting dungeons have warp points back to the gallery inside, so going back to town is less of a hassle (if you can make it to a warp point...) and the party can use the Connoisseur (Fine Art) skill to intercept the symbolism of a painting and analyse the artist to gain info on the dungeon's monsters, treasure, puzzles, etc. (Just like with Research, Current Affairs, and other skills, with the usual dungeons.) The gallery curator occasionally changes the paintings on display, putting some into storage and others on display. The party can use influence skills to convince him to keep paintings for dungeons they want to explore on display. Donations to the gallery upgrades the dungeons (art restorations restock the he treasure, gives better treasure, new areas in the dungeon, less threatening enemies, etc.) or adds new ones (the curator bought new paintings). Donations may also buy fancier decorations (better treasure or combat bonuses in dungeons), commemorative plaques thanking the party (reactions bonuses in dungeons AND in town), social events for the gallery (new NPCs) and meetings with artists (bonuses to researching the dungeon). So, what do you think? |
05-03-2018, 07:19 AM | #2 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ronkonkoma, NY
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Re: The Art of Dungeons
Don't limit yourself to dungeons. Gary Gygax had the "Hall of Many Panes," which warped characters to all sorts of pocket dimensions: land of giants, fairy realms, whatever he could think of. Each was a limited area to adventure in.
If your players buy into the paintings-as-dungeons idea, that's fine. But expect them to jump the rails and look for adventures outside of town. |
05-03-2018, 09:30 AM | #3 |
Join Date: Jan 2006
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Re: The Art of Dungeons
There needs to be at least one incident where whatever is keeping the monsters from using these warp points fails and a bunch of seriously bad critters show up in the middle of the hoity-toity part of town in the middle of the biannual Badgermilk festival.
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05-03-2018, 09:41 AM | #4 |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: The Art of Dungeons
A fun variant would be to have the paintings be of rooms, not entire dungeons: The gallery is the dungeon – just a very safe one with no wandering monsters between rooms (but keep reading . . .).
The challenge then would be determining each painting's perspective, because anything directly to the sides, above, or below the artist, or behind the artist, wouldn't be visible. That wall with a chest in front of it might be at the very end of a huge room filled with monsters at the heroes' backs! Smart delvers would look for reflections and shadows (better pray the artist was talented enough to capture those!). There would also be no way to know what's behind any door in the painting – though to stay on-theme, there shouldn't be many rooms, much less exits to the great outdoors. Mostly, exploration involves going in, dealing with the encounter, and returning to the gallery. Of course, the way back to the gallery might involve climbing up to some really strange vantage point used by the artist, or traveling the entire length of a vast hall, or any number of other complications. The portal back needn't be a painting . . . it could be a door, a window, a swirling magical gate, a mirror, or even a blank wall (have fun finding it!). As justification, one could say that the paintings were created by a sinister master of Gate magic who liked to use pocket dimensions to imprison enemies, keep a monster zoo, hide treasures, and just add space to their lair without paying architects and builders. Which means studying the technique of that one artist might be its own Connoisseur or Hidden Lore skill that helps with the above assessments. Bonus points if the gallery director or curator is actually a descendent of the artist – or even the artist, well-disguised and with a totally new identity. The heroes might find themselves stepping back into the gallery somewhere totally different. If this person is devious enough and presses paintings face to face or alters the paintings, the delvers might end up trapped in some strange places. And of course a couple of paintings by another artist could add spice. Perhaps any painting hung here starts to acquire strange properties, and if the artist isn't a master of Gate magic, the imaginary places in the paintings could become real . . . and be very strange.
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
05-03-2018, 11:35 AM | #5 |
Join Date: Jun 2010
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Re: The Art of Dungeons
I'd consider every adventure outside town and not in the gallery would be a minor side quest or mini-dungeon...and the main treasure at the end of it is a new painting that the gallery will pay a lot for, and then it becomes another full dungeon to explore.
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05-03-2018, 11:39 AM | #6 | |
Join Date: Jun 2010
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Re: The Art of Dungeons
Quote:
So the final battle against the big boss requires destroying certain paintings before confronting him, ala Harry Potter finding Voldemort's horcuxes. |
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05-03-2018, 01:26 PM | #7 | |
GURPS Line Editor
Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Montréal, Québec
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Re: The Art of Dungeons
Quote:
__________________
Sean "Dr. Kromm" Punch <kromm@sjgames.com> GURPS Line Editor, Steve Jackson Games My DreamWidth [Just GURPS News] |
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05-03-2018, 07:20 PM | #8 | |
Join Date: Dec 2009
Location: Saint Paul, MN
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Re: The Art of Dungeons
Quote:
I came at it from a different angle. The delvers are in the long lost tomb of an ancient archmage (or lich or some other high-IQ being). But it is only mostly dead (or maybe it's a cosmic prison, not a tomb). One way or another, the delvers get sucked into the being's memory palace. The details would depend on the type of being and its backstory, but the goal might be to destroy it or to learn a secret or to cure it or set it free. Characters with relevant lore abilities (e.g., Hidden Lore or Psychology, perhaps Thaumatology or Theology) might be rewarded with clues from the paintings. Even a good research roll before the adventure could be rewarded at this point, "You recall from your research a chapter that didn't seem relevant at the time..." Part of the fun here is that it provides a plausible rationale for lots of wildly different settings and the memories need not be perfectly true to standard laws of physics. And, at least it would be a memorable experience... |
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05-04-2018, 01:11 AM | #9 |
Join Date: Jun 2010
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Re: The Art of Dungeons
Mini-bosses in a "memory palace" dungeon could be crafted from big moments in the artist's life.
For example; "My wedding day" - the mini-boss is the bride. (Still in her wedding dress.) "The birth of my son" - the mini-boss is the child. (Not literally, of course, but a twisted monsterous beast vaguely in the shape of an infant.) "The day my best friend was killed in an industrial accident that cleaved him in two" - the mini-boss is the animated severed halves of the best friend. (One half flies through the air and casts spells while the other half wields some mighty metal weapon cobbled together from the malfunctioning machine that killed him.) "The day I found my father had hung himself in despair" - the mini-boss is the animated corpse still hanging from the rafters. |
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