Dungeon Fantasy Tutorial Adventure

[b-dog]

One thing I would really like to see is a tutorial adventure. I have not role played in many years so something like this would be good to get me back in the swing of things. Some things I would like would be encounters with people in towns along with many suggestions and reminders about the skills and abilites that would useful. Then I would like to have some outdoor encounter with reminders and suggestions as well. Once in the dungeon, I would like to have many situations where there are things that are not necessarily combat oriented but help to develope proficiency in the rules. When fighting monsters, I would like to have some suggestions as to which powers they will probably use, especially if they are loaded with powers.

[demonsbane]

Some people here agrees with this. It could be a work done by the forum people, or an official e23 SJG product. Or even (why not?) a Pyramid article.

I want to see some DF material in the Pyramid magazine.

[b-dog]

I think it could be very useful. I mean it could have sort of a checklist of things for the DM to follow. For instance, players come to a door in a dungeon, it would list whether the door was locked and if it is then it would list how difficult the lock would be to pick ( penalties or bonuses to lockpicking skill or even that the door is wizard locked and at what skill level) It would also list the door DR and hit points.

Then as the door is being opened, it would explain what to roll for the monster inside, say perception roll. If the monster is aware then give suggestions as to what the monster will do to prepare. Maybe he would summon other monsters or he would prepare some defensive spells. It could then go over combat with the monster If the monster is defeated, it could go over all of the search rolls, lockpicking and trap detection for the treasure.

There should also be some areas of the dungeon here character have to use skillls, like swimming across a river, walking on a narrow ledge ect. It would have reminders such as swiiming roll penalties for wearing armor, look on page X for details.

Finally I would like to see suggestions for how to play monsters that are very powerful such as mindwarpers and demons. These creatures are loaded with abilities and it is sometimes difficult to decide what they would do first, would they cast a darkness spell ot become invisable? Would they create illusions when the party opens the door? Or would they stand there are blast the party? When combat goes against them, would they teleport away or would they summon other monsters to help them? It would be nice to have sort of an idea as to what these creatures would do.

[demonsbane]

Hm, you are making here some questions for delineating a basic dungeon encounter.

Thinking about this, I can imagine Pyramid short articles called "Dungeon encounter of the week", featuring the needed crunchy points for grabbing such encounter and inserting it in any "dungeon" with little modifications.

Originally Posted by b-dog

I think it could be very useful. I mean it could have sort of a checklist of things for the DM to follow. For instance, players come to a door in a dungeon, it would list whether the door was locked and if it is then it would list how difficult the lock would be to pick ( penalties or bonuses to lockpicking skill

I will try to help. First of all, one needs to know where are located the needed rules!


First of all, regarding doors, locks and lockpicking: covered under Picking Locks, in DF 2 page 8.

See also Lockpicking skill in Basic Set Characters, p. 206.

or even that the door is wizard locked and at what skill level) It would also list the door DR and hit points.

See Doors and Locks in DF 2, p. 18, for all that and much more.

Then as the door is being opened, it would explain what to roll for the monster inside, say perception roll. If the monster is aware then give suggestions as to what the monster will do to prepare. Maybe he would summon other monsters or he would prepare some defensive spells.

For perception rolls and awareness, see Basic Set Campaigns: Surprise Attacks and Initiative (p. 393)

It could then go over combat with the monster If the monster is defeated, it could go over all of the search rolls, lockpicking and trap detection for the treasure.

This is very easy:

DF 2, page 9: Monsters.

DF 2, page 12: After the Battle.

DF 2, page 13: Loot.

There should also be some areas of the dungeon here character have to use skillls, like swimming across a river, walking on a narrow ledge ect. It would have reminders such as swiiming roll penalties for wearing armor, look on page X for details.

Oh, THAT. No problem!

Swimming: DF 2, page 8 (water hazards). See also Swimming skill in Basic Set Characters p. 224.

Check Basic Set Campaigns p. 354 ("Swimming"), too.

Regarding Narrow Ledge walking: DF 2, page 7 (Dungeon Parkour: Balancing).

Finally I would like to see suggestions for how to play monsters that are very powerful such as mindwarpers and demons. These creatures are loaded with abilities and it is sometimes difficult to decide what they would do first, would they cast a darkness spell ot become invisable? Would they create illusions when the party opens the door? Or would they stand there are blast the party? When combat goes against them, would they teleport away or would they summon other monsters to help them? It would be nice to have sort of an idea as to what these creatures would do.

DF 2 page 27: Balancing Encounters.

See also Basic Set Campaigns: Playing the Adversary, p. 493.

[Turhan's Bey Company]

Originally Posted by demonsbane

I want to see some DF material in the Pyramid magazine.

I'm toying with some DF-related things to submit to Pyramid, but the DF books are so far rather PC-focused and, for my tastes as a writer, too light on monsters and treasure, the fundamental building blocks of a dungeon-crawl. Of course, this just means that I'll need to mine Pyramid articles for monsters...

[demonsbane]

Please go ahead, Turhan!

It is probable Monsters and Treasures are going to be approximately DF 5 and DF 6.

[Kromm]

There will eventually be supplements on monsters, traps, and treasures. But DF is essentially a hero-centric subgenre, so it's vital that we get the basic professions, advanced professions, gear, and skill-use rules down before we start trying to parametrize lots and lots of challenges for the professionals' gear and skills. ;)

[Pmandrekar]

Originally Posted by Kromm

There will eventually be supplements on monsters, traps, and treasures.

Let me just say what I hope will be a collective *Huzzah!* on behalf of this player. Keep up the Great work!

-P.

[Rasputin]

Originally Posted by b-dog

One thing I would really like to see is a tutorial adventure.

I'm in the process of writing a simple adventure. However, I'm still not even at the proposal stage -- I'm at about 2,700 words, plus a few stat blocks, and the guidelines specify 13,500 words -- and I'm writing the first draft longhand to make the second draft typing the longhand version. Matt is right -- the GM stuff (monsters, treasures, generic locations, traps, generic NPCs) is behind right now, and having it makes design easier. Traps are always a pain for me, and I would often shun them in D&D (then again, traps scale like crap in D&D). The first PDF does help with treasure -- much of it is gold and magic swords -- and the third's races are a supply of monsters.

(Of course, I'd like to see Matt's next GURPS Accelerator article more than DF stuff in Pyramid.)

Incidentally, a GURPS Dungeon Fantasy Monsters PDF would not only do well to have monsters, but have basic templates for them, giving the GM a way to say that kobold 1 is a non-combatant (no template), kobold 2 is a guard and kobold 3 is a veteran soldier. An experienced GURPS GM knows much of this anyways, but this speeds it up.

[PK]

I don't think DF: Monsters will necessarily contain Kobolds and such, though, since they're not really "monsters" -- they're intelligent foes with their own "classes" and such. They'd fit better in a book featuring pregenerated NPCs to act as allies or enemies, I'd say. DF: Monsters will probably be more like giant spiders, hostile ooze beasts, and such... y'know, monsters.