When I started this new gaming group over a year ago, my intention was to run a few games of the characters travelling the countryside with an artisan caravan, having little adventures, and eventually heading into a classic dungeon setting. The type of adventure I can phone-in by now. Easy peasy.
The dungeon destination plan ended when I got a complete box set of The Night Below setting (with a Dark Sun box set as well, that I might never use). I hadn’t really done a full on epic underworld adventure for many years, so I thought “what the hell, why not use the set I bought?”
And so there they are. After a few set-up games, I was able to get the party chasing slavers into the underworld (that I try to refer to as “The Great Beneath” in my games, but always end up calling “Underdark” ayway). When we start the game tonight, they will be in the midst of destroying the trolls for the deep gnomes, as put forth in the early parts of book 2 of the set.
So, after tonight they should be informed of the horrible abominations deep below who plan to conquer the above world. They will more than likely be well on their way to the most dangerous and difficult parts of this adventure module. Those dangers include whole tribes of hostile creatures, and whole cities of aberrations with armies of guards and slaves. Also, there are close to a dozen possible major allies in the depths, all of them with personalities and motivations all kinds of things that make them unique. The characters will be facing tons of hack and slash no doubt, but there is plenty of opportunity for parlay with the entities who have the same enemies as the PC’s.
Multiple parlay, wandering monsters opportunities galore, slow travel, and assaults on cities. Hooboy, this might take a long time. I checked out a few adventure logs about Night Below gamers have posted online, and one of the campaigns seems to have been going on for 8 years! Daaaaaaaaaamnnnnnn.
OK, I have already set-up ideas to move things along a bit faster. For one thing, I’ve reduced the scale of this underworld. In the adventure, the party is expected to move back and forth on foot between locations that are hundreds of miles apart. Again and again they would have to trudge the same endless tunnels. The module makes it very important that you travel to the surface a lot. So anyway, what would be 20 miles on the maps are now 5 miles. That smalling down of the scale will help a bit. The players will still have to travel a main tunnel 150 miles long (which seems a long way to me underground), but I am also having greater use of “flux points,” sort of teleport spots. I’m going to make those a tiny bit more handy so characters don’t have to travel the same ground constantly. I want this adventure to take months in both the real world and the game world, not years.
So, I can cut down on the travel time. But where I fear I have bitten off a lot is the city assaults. First the City of the Glass Pool at the end of the second book, then the battle royal at the end of the third book at the Aboleth city. Hooboy, it’s going to be a lot of work. Not that I haven’t had giant city battles in games of yore, but those usually had the players helping out a large army or something, so the party could be fighting in a certain contained area. But in both city assaults in The Night Below, you are expected to do it in drips and draps. Guerrilla tactics of hit and run, usually including long-ass treks to the surface world, are recommended again and again. Not only can it go on forever, but there is a lot of logistical stuff for DM’s to keep track off. Different races and groups in the cities will react different ways. And in the City of the Glass Pool, you make multiple assaults in order to rack up unique “points” that, if you eventually get enough, cause the collapse of that city. And shit, this isn’t even the biggest city assault of the module.
Can I handle it? I think so? Is it going to be a lot of work soon? Hells yeah. Do I want to do all that work? I…don’t know. We only play for three hours on a weeknight. Some of these battles will be hours and hours long. Again, can I even do this and get it finished before the end of 2010 so I can start a new campaign? Stay tuned…
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Just make sure that if you shorten distances and have "flux points", that the PCs are still having enough random encounters to give them the experience points, gold, and magic items they need to be ready for the big city assault. Especially if (as in my case when I ran it), the party was smaller than the suggested "6-8".
ReplyDeleteJeremy: even though I'm afraid of a long xp grind eventually burning some/all players out on this, I know it must be done.
ReplyDeleteBrunomac,
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like an awesome trek into oldschooldom, but I agree with your shortening of distances and other slight 'modernizations'.
As Jeremy said, you should be careful not to leave your party underpowered, but I would also balance that against character burnout. If it's really going to be an issue (and it could, if it means a few sessions of grinding ala modern MMOs), I'd suggest either lightening up some of the big-battle foes (just drop a few HD and hope nobody notices) or throw a couple of HIGH exp baddies at the party that you know they are equipped to beat handily.
I don't think most players object to a little DM exp-throwing around as long as it doesn't ruin the game by making it too easy--if it serves to make the game difficult but beatable (and eliminate a tedious, storiless grind), I think it's worthwhile.