Crawling Around In The Dungeon

The frustrating thing about wanting to game is not being able to. My group has long since broke up and gone our separate ways. It happens. I'm not a big fan of the rules heavy stuff out there, so not playing Pathfinder or D&D means not getting into games at the local store. I readily admit that's what the gamers playing now want for the most part, but there's always been a segment who wanted lite rules. How else did Basic last for so many years? Somewhere along the way the designers just decided that it all needed to be complex and rules heavy, and THAT was the ONLY choice.

Try and suggest the alternative and you get shouted down in the forums and told how stupid you are for wanting it. It's sad, but true. Now, Paizo seems to have stumbled into this debate, and I say stumble because of what they were aiming for with the Beginner's Box. It was not put there for a rules lite version of the game. It was there as an intro that eases you in. Well, they did it so well that people who loved the old Basic and Expert books started asking for the Expert rules. Problem was, this was not part of the plan, and they don't want to splinter off the game base as they say.

I'll be interested in seeing how they feel after examining the holiday sales numbers. Paizo is s smart company. From the moment they were licensed to make Dragon and Dungeon magazines to all that followed, it's been a series of moves designed to make gamers happy. If they can cover the bottom line, I don't see why they wouldn't at least make Beginner Box 2. To be honest, 10 levels is all that you need for this. I know Mentzer did wonders with BECMI, but many gamers never went past BE. They could say if you want more than 10, get the core books, and I'd say, that's fair. Thank You. It can be done, and I don't buy that this a a case of a hard no from Paizo. More like a, "Maybe, if it's financially feasible, based on numbers from the Beginner's Box."

At the moment, I've been thinking about what I would do with HotDC if I went back to it. I feel very creative at the moment, but that could go a number of ways. I could always use the energy for a module for Labyrinth Lord too. I did just make two purchases over the holidays, one was Stonehell Dungeon and the other a look at what Dave Arneson's original game might have looked like called Dragons at Dawn. I bought the latter for the fantasy glimpse at the past, and it is interesting. I enjoy a good contemplation on the idea of what if. They did this to make a full fledged game, and it seems adequate. Not all RPG's need a mountain of rules.

The Dungeon Crawl has always fascinated me. Stonehell Dungeon is the biggest one I've ever seen for what is essentially the old Basic game. I've only skimmed through it. I like the concept. It's pretty much shorthand in areas I'd like more details, but if you are the one running the game and know the rules, it's a snap. This is a basic game after all. All in all, it looks like an adventure that will take quite some time to complete and would be lots of fun. Isn't that what it's all about?

Now from the time I got the old Modvay Basic book, I devoured it's contents. I knew the rules in and out. I could run the game without the books and people would have fun playing. Towards the end of my gaming, the last few years, I usually just threw a map together, decided what the plot was, what main monsters would be there, what rewards and off they went. It really just took as long as it takes to roll up a character to make an adventure. The characters from that campaign are central people in the Dragon Vale campaign I was designing for HotDC.

Dragon Vale got it's name because the mountains nearby had dragons. This comes from the Three Kings Island campaign from my younger days, but Dragon Vale is a newly founded town by three characters of the last campaign, Vanz, Tyranius and Fitertu. I didn't realize how much I had written down in the HotDC notepad until reviewing that recently. The basic idea was that the three adventures had an ulterior motive for founding Dragon Vale. Yes, the people are happy there, but the trio are in search of something, an ancient, lost and still thriving city.

The founders of the human colonies of the island one by one disappeared. Where? Nobody knew. The king and his son both left, and the grandson does what he can to keep rule, but his power is a fragment of his heroic grandfather King Robert I. There are whispers of a secret society running things on this island and neighboring ones, possibly reaching onto the mainland. But, who are they and what are they up to? Nobody knows, not even the king. Does it tie into the disappearance of all the early human colony founders? The trio of Dragon Vale founders think so, and they believe the secret city is the answer.

I originally called the city Moldayvia, but I'm not crazy about the name. The city is based underground. I had the concept jotted down, but I had written a couple of other adventures before walking away from HotDC. One was Danger in the Dwarven Dungeon, which was a five level dungeon crawl for characters of 0 or 1st Degree. I want a Dungeon Crawl for this game, a good one with storyline material, but plenty of Hack N Slash too.

What's funny is when I started down this road and was looking to name my little enterprise, I settled on Basic Old School Games. My friend, who is good this sort of thing and has never gamed suggested the name, Die in a Dungeon. I think, now, that he meant call the game that. It makes sense, as I always envisioned this game to have lots of action in dungeons. The name popped up when I was looking at the notes, and I realized the module could be called that. I envision a whole dungeon world beneath the land with cities, towns and villages at certain points.

I envision it starting with a character or characters waking up in the room of a dungeon. Where are they? How did they get there? How do they get out? The adventure begins there, but where does it end? It is essentially a campaign setting with everything they need to survive somewhere in this dungeon world. It is an insanely huge idea though and would require several modules to complete. I've actually considered using Neverwinter Nights 1 to help me create that vision. A pity I don't have a group to game with. It would be an excellent way to really put HotDC thought its paces.