kiladecus
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"Julius, Seize her!"
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Post by kiladecus on Jul 7, 2012 19:58:56 GMT -5
Hey everyone, I am new here, but NOT new to game design or papercraft. I had an idea for doors, and I thought I would throw this out there. I have heard talk about the game having components switching over to cards. This is both GOOD and BAD. I find with cards it can be good because when you find something you can simply lay it next to your Hero's sheet. If they drop something before the Quest is over, you discard the card and that is it. If the Hero decides to keep the item, you can write it down on the sheet AFTER the Quest, and there you have it. The card gets shuffled in to be found again... The DOWN side of this is if you want to have a lot of items, the deck will be HUGE! Also, you would have to have items be in different rarities. To do this, you would have to have 5 small daggers (for example) be more common, while a Manna Sword would be two per deck, and a Great Key would be a one per deck. (Yes, I played MTG since it first came out nearly 25 years ago). SO, if you wanted to have 100 different items, then you would have to have about 375 cards (or there abouts). Also, speaking of Treasure, I am still new at this, and haven't read all of the "newer" rules, just 3.1., so if I say something stupid, please forgive me. I was playing today, and kept getting a chest that had 2 gold pieces in them (because of my die rolls). Have you ever considered doing gold as XDX? I open an chest and get 2D4 gold. I roll a 2 and a 3: 5 gold pieces. Seems like it will give the chest a little more diversity. ALSO, if things go the way of cards, then you can have one that says, "GOLD: Gain 3D6 in gold pieces." Here is another question... I am ALL about designing Monsters, and wanted to know a little bit more about this. I saw there was a formula for determining XP for a monster. I have a few questions that hopefully someone can answer for me: - 1) Is there a certain "cost" for the Laws of the Monsters? Does it add to the XP if a monster chases you down the hall, or is it the same for ALL laws. If the Monster runs away and shoots at you, does it STILL give the same XP?
- 2) It mentions that some Monsters may shoot at you. Are there things like Skeleton Archers that shoot a bow and arrow at you? If there are, when the skeleton is dead... or "eliminated," what happens to its bow" If my Hero has an open slot, can he pick this up and either use it, or sell it back in town for HALF of its value? Seems perfectly logical to me! Sure, he wouldn't shake the body down looking for gold fillings or anything, BUT if they had some gold coins, a nice dagger or better armor, then why not?
- 3) Is there a "Master List" of Monsters that I can use to swap out existing monsters from the Quests and keep playing them?
- 4) Is there a way of improving weapons? For example: You buy a suit of +1 leather armor for 50gp. Could you pay a blacksmith in town another 50gp to make it +2? Sure, you could buy a suit of better armor for less, but it is the point of the thing... Maybe make your suit of Platemail -1 MOV (instead of -2 MOV) for the price of 60gp. See what I am saying?
NOW, I have a few questions. I had a Hero that bought 2 empty bottles for 10gp each. When I found the Fountain, he filled these up. Did I just make Healing Potions for 1/2 the price? I didn't read where you COULDN'T do this. I am sure this has been addressed before. Next, some Monster have the "Flying" ability. Since this is listed as a "Skill/Ability," is it possible for a Hero to have this? I know they can't "buy" flying, but who says ALL Heroes HAVE to be Human? I have only seen the list for "Heroes" and "Dwarf Heroes." Can you have Elves, Ghoblins and Centaurs? Do you just pick your figure and use it, using the base stats for the Heroes, and it is generic regardless of the race (except for Dwarves)? Now, I think that the idea of having the chest printed out as mini cards or chits, would be GREAT! Simply have a card that is a fold-over and a picture of a sword, gold piece or so on... It should have a value (FULL value of the item. It can be "sold" in "Town" for 1/2 value. People can do this to increase their gold between Quests. I also had an idea about the doors. I was (and have been) working on developing my own Dungeon game for YEARS, and I saw where EmergencyOverdrive had a link here that he posted on CardboardWarriors (OneMonk). In the latest version, I had my doors that were made of either wood or metal, and they could be unlocked, locked or sealed. (I was shocked to see how well this could be adapted to DP)! It would work like this: 1) Wood, Unlocked 2) Metal, Unlocked 3) Wood, Locked 4) Metal, Locked 5) Wood, Sealed 6) Metal, Sealed Wood would be treated as a Dif:1; Metal, Dif:2 "Sealed" would simple mean "Magic Resistant" like the Great Doors. As in the Quest I have looked at and played, the Great Door would be a "7." I know I can play this in the Quests I make myself, but I thought I would share this. I can't think of anything else right now, but be rest-assured, I WILL post more as I can think of it. Thanks for your attention! (BTW, I am REALLY excited to find this game)
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Post by lordzeke on Jul 7, 2012 22:52:49 GMT -5
For the treasure cards to play on what Kiladecus suggested for the gold drops.
you could also make a card called... "Common Weapon".. "Rare Weapon" etc each of these cards would have a list of say 6 different weapons that could drop and all you have to do is roll a d6. I would imagine you could do the same for armor or potions or what ever you want. This would keep it realitively generic. Quest specfic treasure could be handled by a special card that is put in the deck.
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kiladecus
Contributer
"Julius, Seize her!"
Posts: 35
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Post by kiladecus on Jul 8, 2012 0:05:21 GMT -5
Another option might be "+1 weapon." You could say it was a dagger, short sword, bow or whatnot, player's choice. I also had another idea, but I am afraid to even mention it... so I will, anyway. You could roll the dice like you do now, but have EVERY room be 6x6, and you could use the rooms themselves as the cards to determine what rooms they were. You could STILL roll, and if it said "+" then you would put that out. If it said "Room" then you would draw a room card (meaning the room itself) from the pile and flip it over. You can place two small torches (like 1/4 of an inch) on one side, and place "steps" or "grids" or whatever, to show where the doors would be. The two torches would be on the sides of the door where the Heroes just entered. If there are 2 other recesses for doors, then you place 2 more doors on them, and determine what kind of doors they are (as per the dice roll). This would eliminate having to roll for dice to see what kind of room it is, how many doors, what kind of doors... Furtheremore, you could also prevent some extra rolls by descretely placing a yellow border or "coin" on a predetermined square to show where a treasure chest is. A red border, or skull (different than the ones you have now, maybe a red one, or one with horns) would be where the "Monsters" would be. There could be several rooms, and one without monsters could also be "treasure troves," and ones with nothing but monsters would be barracks. These are ALL just ideas. I have heard a little talk about trying to avoid some dice rolls to keep the action going. This might help. Another good thought is if there are 6 different rooms, each one with a varying degree of difficulty, then the player would print out 2 sets of these rooms, and insert the Sarc. and Fountain rooms into the "deck." The Great Rooms would remain the same. You could even use the SAME rules for placing items and Monsters, because this is ONE room that SHOULD be different each time. Once again, this is YOUR game, and I am just offering some suggestions. Thank you for your attention. BTW, it you go with the cards for the chest, you could put the traps in the backs of the cards. You could have it be like this: Chest: (Dif 1 to unlock; Dif 2 to Disarm trap). If the Hero rolled 1 success, he unlocked and opened it. If he rolled 2 successes, he unlocked and disarmed it. He flips the chest over and sees a skull (blood mark, whatever) with the number 3 on it. He has to save against a 3D6 attack. If he does, he gains 6XP (+the 2 for unlocking it). If it WASN'T a trap, the chest is open, and he sees a gold piece with the number 3 on it. 3D4 in gold... 3,4,2... 9 gold pieces. See, not a whole lot of rolling.
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kiladecus
Contributer
"Julius, Seize her!"
Posts: 35
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Post by kiladecus on Jul 8, 2012 0:12:35 GMT -5
Another thought... If you go with cards for the "Monsters," you could make a deck of cards listed as "Level One," Level Two," and so forth. You can do this for, say, 6 Levels (1-5, plus the "Big Boss" card mentioned earlier). When you enter a room, you draw a card of the appropriate level for each "red" mark on the floor of the room. If you are using a Level 5 dungeon, you could either draw ONE level 5, or a Level 2+3 card. When you flip over a Monster/Encounter card, it could say one of the following: CHEST. You place another treasure chest there. NOTHING. A shadow in the room made you think there was something there, but there isn't, OR whatever it was scurried away. No threat, and NO XP. BIG BOSS. Draw a Big Boss card. (Since you will have a DECK of them and they are random). As far as a regular Monster/Encounter card, it might look like this... SKELETON [Listing of all of its stats] ------------------------- 1 - Swordsman (A +1 Sword) ---------------------------- 2 - Duelist (2 +1 swords) ------------------------------ 3 - Ranger (+1 Bow) blah, blah, blah.... 6- Lich (2 spells) And depending on the weapons (like sword or bow) would determine the Monster's Law. The Red Spots would determine the number of the creatures in the room, and their locations. It would also assign EACH Monster a weapon (unless it was a Owlbear, and so forth). When the room was cleared, the Heroes pick up the wepons, and can chuck them back to town, and cash them in for half of their value in gold. Any feedback?
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kiladecus
Contributer
"Julius, Seize her!"
Posts: 35
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Post by kiladecus on Jul 8, 2012 0:47:00 GMT -5
...In the case of the BIG BOSS, it would just be the ONE, and he would start on the square FARTHEST away from the Heroes.
If he had minions (like say an Orc Warboss had some Ghoblin slaves), then they would be placed on each of the red squares that HE didn't occupy.
Each BIG BOSS card would have either JUST the Boss, or a Boss and ONE kind of underling.
I think this would really work great.
You could make a few different cards per level, and it wuld really give it diverstiy, and the players could choose how many of each type of card to place in the pile. If you wanted, you could also just use the few cards (like 6), and after EACH Encounter is used, shuffle that card BACK into the pile.
Not everything will be ALL skeletons... you might have one that would be themed creatures. Like poisonous creatures (Bugs, snakes, scorpions, Basilisk, and so forth).
There could be woodland animals: Bats, rats, wolves, bears, boars and Great cats
Magical Creatures: Faeries, Satyrs, Centaurs, Minotaurs, Nagas and Nightmares.
Dragons: Whelps, Drakes, Wyrms, Young Dragons, Adult and Elder.
See, it wouldn't be very difficult.
Ok... I will let you digest this. I just couldn't sleep and my mind is racing...
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erf_beto
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Post by erf_beto on Jul 8, 2012 13:05:51 GMT -5
wow, that's a lot of input you have there, kiladecus! For the reasons you mentioned, cards can be a tricky subject. We can't keep adding cards to the deck every new level, or the amount of cards will easily go up through the roof! You'd have to severely restrict the breadth of levels and monsters and treasures to make it work. DP means a lot of things to different people. Some want to play it for several quests in a row, advancing their heroes to higher levels like in a regular RPG, while others just want a quickie dungeon crawler fix. Some want verisimilitude, others want silly. To cater to all play styles, I find it hard to believe the game will officially go card based because of that: random tables make it much more flexible without giving you another thing to cut and glue and mount... which, rewarding as it is (DP is beautiful!), is probably one of the reasons why the game has difficulty expanding its player base. Not to mention, creating new quests - which is something encouraged to ALL players - becomes increasingly difficult if you also have to create your quest specific cards. It's hard enough finding matching monsters... BUT... (there's always one, isn't it?) Adding cards is something that everyone seems to want at one point or another, so I find the discussion quite healthy. AFAIK, DP has always been a "house ruler's game". Want something different, do it! With any luck, you'll find someone else who shares your opinions. So, even now when I'm helping with v4, there's a lot of things I'd do differently. Cards is one of them. I'm sure everyone involved in DP has his or her particular way of running things too. I'm going to share my ideas for decks of cards and what I intend to do as my "ideal DP": a casual game that emulates a quick dungeon crawl I can play with gamers and non-gamers alike. IMO, the game can't go too high. I rarely have enough people to game with, so long campaigns are rare (non existant these days). I will probably have to "reset" after completing a couple of adventures, and start over again or go a different route and select different quests to take. *I* also don't care about über heroes fighting demigods in the pits of hell, I don't need/want them to go that far... Also, every new level or quest brings new monsters to cut, new cards to print, etc etc. Flattening the math (i.e., reducing level ups), and reducing monsters and treasures to a few generic, but wide, spread will guarantee components that can be used and reused for a long time. So for instance, treasure cards will feature mostly common items, but the Quest itself may award you a specific magic item. The treasure has to be discarded (or sold) after the game ends, to prevent players from hoarding items and consumables. DP has a lot of randomness, which cards will *reduce*, not emulate. That's a downside, I know, but I'll have to deal with it. DP also has a lot of different *types* of randomness: monsters, traps, doors, rooms, locks, treasures... having one deck of cards for each group is too much, in my opinion. Proposed solution: different types of components. cards, different sized tokens, chits, gaming stones, miniature furniture, whatever. See this old topic of mine for an example of what I mean: oversoulgames.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=dptalk&action=display&thread=700 As you'll see from the discussion there, they'll probably have to be generic enough to accommodate different levels: you can't have a chest printed with "5 gold", as that's not appropriate treasure for a higher level dungeon. So, right now, I have 3 decks of cards: Rooms, Treasure, and Monsters. And Door and Chest markers in different sizes. Room cards have everything you described in your "afraid to mention" idea (you probably noticed that I actually came up with something very close to that so far). A Room card has a drawing of a room or passage, with skulls (monster location), doors, and chests in place. You draw one card, read it and build the dungeon, placing the tile and chests and doors; and then you draw as many monster cards as the room card has skulls and place them randomly around that room. Monster cards have all the stats for the creature, so that's a nice. After you kill the monsters you can loot the chests. Underneath their bases/tokens you'll find their contents: gold, potion, trap or lock - overcoming the later two allows you to draw a treasure card. The quest may dictate whether you remove or add certain cards from or to the deck, so that's a bit customizable. Or you can use them all together for an Endless Dungeon Crawler game. So, that (and some more) is MY side project. It may end up looking like a different game, but it's completely compatible with the "original'.
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kiladecus
Contributer
"Julius, Seize her!"
Posts: 35
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Post by kiladecus on Jul 8, 2012 16:05:18 GMT -5
Thanks for taking the time to reply. As I stated, these were just some thoughts I came up with. I truly LOVE this game, and am sure my wife is tired of hearing about it. It doesn't matter WHAT happens with this game... it is an amazing game, and I have really enjoyed it thus far. I, too, hate high level Heroes. That is why I have started pointing up my Heroes ( I have 12 so far), and I draw four randomly before each Quest. This way I can advance them slowly together. I LOVE the freedom and diversity this game holds. I am using characters that my friends and I have used in COUNTLESS RPG's and video games for decades! I have enough potential characters to fill a small nation. I still have a couple QUESTions: I was curious if you could let me know about other races for Heroes, or just point them up as regular ones and use a different figures. (I might eventually be interested in running an Undead Hero, or other silly things). When you point up Monsters, is there are certain number of points you spend on them? Do they ALSO have access to the same equipment and skills? ALSO, I wanted to mention that the Dwarven suppliment with the Hand Gun, was incredibly AWESOME! This REALLY opens up a LOT of potential and figures to use. Finally, IF there were a rule (I may incorporate this under the "HOUSE RULES") where you could "recruit" Monsters (as long as they were intelligent), I am sure that it would have to be when it was on it's last LIF, and since the Monsters don't have WIT (which I am assuming is where you would find a Charisma skill), what would you suggest? Perhaps the Monster's Level+1? What I am talking about here is you are fighting 3 Ghoblins. Two are eliminated, and the third is on his last LIF. You (the leader of the party, or whatever) says, "If you show us where the Great Room is, we will let you live." If you make a roll of the Monster's Level+1 (You would need 2 WIS successes to "recruit" him) then he will join your party. If he is alive at the end of the Quest, then he becomes a playable character.
If I could "recruit" Monsters into Heroes, I wouldn't complain about only having humans to play.
Just a thought...
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erf_beto
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Posts: 369
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Post by erf_beto on Jul 10, 2012 8:30:31 GMT -5
Well, I think you already found your way to the DIY manual, so I'll let the number crunching to you. Regarding your other questions, the Heroes races matter on character creation, by giving discounts when purchasing special abilities. Currently, only Dwarves have had better support. I'm cooking up the figures for Elf and Halflings (but I don't have access to their specific rules). If you want to use different races, go ahead. Give them any ability you feel won't break the game, and build them using the hero creation rules. I've often thought about going "solo", with a wizard an his summons, or a druid and animal companions. About recruiting monsters, I'd probably not allow this for free. But there's possibly a new Special Ability in there, like "tame" or "charm". It could work by limiting the number of recruits you can have, how long the effect lasts, the pre-reqs (like a "Subdue" ability, where the creature flees and is removed from the game), the type of creature it affects, etc etc... Usually, defeating monsters don't give anything besides some gold, so you can't reuse their gear. Think "could I do this in Legend of Zelda or Final Fantasy?". It's as simple as that.
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kiladecus
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"Julius, Seize her!"
Posts: 35
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Post by kiladecus on Jul 10, 2012 21:04:31 GMT -5
Actually, I stol.... was reminded of... TACTICS: Ogre where you could "recruit" Monsters (or enemies). I think that you would have to have an ability like you stated can have it fall under WIT. It would give you a +2 for this skill. Since the Monsters ALSO have WIT, then maybe to do this, you have to have a roll off, their number of WIT dice vs. yours. This number is modified by the Monster's LIF (+1 per LIF remaining). The one who has the most successes wins... in the event of a tie, then it counts as a failure. You have to BEAT the Monster's roll. You get ONE try PERIOD, even if ALL Heroes have the "Charisma" skill (or whatever it's called). Finally, you can only recruit ONE Monster at a time. If a second one is "recruited," then the first one leaves peacefully, unless attacked by a party member. I think this would be a LOT of fun, and for those people that want to have a pet dragon, then this could happen... (note I said "could").
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erf_beto
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Artwork Wizard
Posts: 369
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Post by erf_beto on Jul 11, 2012 6:42:25 GMT -5
It brings to question something I don't recall being discussed: how powerful you become when you have NPCs, summons and other meat shields blocking monsters and choking corridors for your heroes. I don't remember where I saw this, but I think you can only have one summoned creature per Hero - but IIRC they are dispelled when you leave the room, so even if every hero summons one, it might even out. In the case of recruits, since it doesn't make sense for them to vanish (or does it?) maybe it's best to limit one per party. Makes sense when you think that these are guys you've recently beat to near death, and now you're walking with an army of them. Did I hear the sound of revolution? Is that a guillotine? Wait, where are you taking me? Wha.. NOOOOOOOO!!! Unless they go from NPC to PC and start to count as one of your four Heroes: ranger gets a pet? leave fighter in the pub. Just brainstorming
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kiladecus
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"Julius, Seize her!"
Posts: 35
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Post by kiladecus on Jul 11, 2012 22:37:01 GMT -5
My thought was that they act as a 5th character (or similar to the summoned creature). If they die, then they are dead. If they survive the end of the Quest, then they become a PC.
I think that the limit of ONE is MORE than fair. As I mentioned, if you have to have a LITTERAL battle of the WITs, then the chances of you recruiting someone is very remote. But then again, it would give someone incentive to boost their WIT.
I didn't know that sumoned creatures dissappeared after you left the room. I thought they were "bubbles." (That is my term for things that are around until they "pop"). I think MY house rule is they are with you until the die. Then again, limit ONE per character. The odds of a party having more than one person that can summon is pretty remote, so I doubt you are going to have your rooms congested.
The good thing about these magical familiars is they are there, and then just knocked back into their home dimension... or the tie that binds them here is severed.
I LOVE that I found this game. There is SO much potential and it is SO much fun.
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