OK to basically explain whats going on in my campaign recently my players discovered that one of the most powerful heros of their world Stan Lee, (an amazing Wizard and collector of powerful artifacts) died while in his sleep. The While he was never an official member of any guild and preferred simply being an adventurer of the people the two highest adventure guilds decided to use this as a good moment to pull a cash grab. Simply put in honor of this great hero both guilds asked for heavy funding from the local towns to build a dungeon where they will hold an adventuring tournament for 8 adventure groups. Who ever wins gets one of his three most powerful artifacts. No matter who wins both guilds are getting filthy rich and thats kind of the point of this for them. Two corporate identities who are using this to fill their pockets, while our group joins in the tournament in hopes of getting the prize.
I was just wondering if any of your other DM's may of had any suggestions to help me, maybe make this smoother, or even say how you would run it. I would love some feed back as this is only the third game ive ran and the other two before hand had been stopped because of a players leaving being to heavy or the players simply didn't like their characters.
I would include a few more puzzles and skill checks than in a normal dungeon, and go for monster challenges that could be repeated (I.E: Hired guards, adventuring parties use dulled weapons that deal nonlethal damage), and possibly have the entire dungeon have a scoring system, possibly based on how many rooms they clear, how much time it takes them, and point reductions for any party members that go down, etc.
This is all assuming the adventuring party decides to go and try their hand at the dungeon.
If you are familiar at all with the 4E adventure "Owlbear Run" from Dungeon Magazine #213, it give a great framework to build a competitive race-like adventure around. Basically what you are going to do is build a very large, interlocking dungeon with lots of possible paths. Then plan the basic route for each of the competing teams to the end. Then plan out a few tables of "encounters" for the party to come across.
What Owlbear Run did was break encounters into three types; mental (traps and puzzles), physical (usually monster fights), and owlbear (getting your owlbear to cooperate). Each of the checkpoints along the race was predetermined by the DM to be a certain encounter type and when a group hit the checkpoint they had to overcome it to move on. Then it assigned the competing teams values to overcome those challenges on a d20 roll. For example, the all-elf team from the Feywild was great at owlbear challenges, average on mental challenges, and poor on physical challenges. The PC group just got to handle the actual encounter while the NPC teams moved on or didn't based on their d20 roll.
Since the NPC teams had planned routes already, when the PCs got to plan their route (likely without seeing the planned route of the competition unless they tried to get some inside info before the race began), it would be possible for them to meet up with other NPC teams at certain checkpoints. Some NPC teams were written to play fair and not bother the PCs unless attacked. Other NPC teams were fighting dirty and tried to hinder the players in some way if they crossed paths.
Basically though, what you are doing is planning out a handful of encounters that your players will have to overcome and then rolling on a table or deciding ahead of time what sorts of challenges the NPC teams come across and resolve it with a d20 roll, only worrying about those teams if they cross paths with the players. If the party takes to long on a given encounter, just give a +2 bonus to the next checkpoint roll for all the other teams or something and if they roll high enough, you can even say they skip ahead two checkpoints.
As a fun twist, the adventure also sprinkled in "Sponsor" encounters. The players had the opportunity before the race to get a single noble or dignitary to sponsor them. Each of the sponsors had an encounter mixed into the checkpoints and if you came across the encounter put in place by your sponsor, you got to pass it for free. As an example, the "evil" sponsor had hired a group of thugs to waylay the competition, but if he was your sponsor, they would let you past without attacking you.
While the adventure itself is based more on a race across a mountain, you can easily modify it to fit a dungeon setting.
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"The mongoose blew out its candle and was asleep in bed before the room went dark." —Llanowar fable
I am running a similar campaign myself. One thing my players have really enjoyed is having chances to mess with other npc team. They have chosen large portions of their tools and spell choices in plans for messing with their least favorite team in an airship race. Just a thought.
I am running a similar campaign myself. One thing my players have really enjoyed is having chances to mess with other npc team. They have chosen large portions of their tools and spell choices in plans for messing with their least favorite team in an airship race. Just a thought.
Have the wizard True Polymorph into a dragon - destroy the other teams before race, with some damage on PCs too so they don't get suspicious.
OK to basically explain whats going on in my campaign recently my players discovered that one of the most powerful heros of their world Stan Lee, (an amazing Wizard and collector of powerful artifacts) died while in his sleep. The While he was never an official member of any guild and preferred simply being an adventurer of the people the two highest adventure guilds decided to use this as a good moment to pull a cash grab. Simply put in honor of this great hero both guilds asked for heavy funding from the local towns to build a dungeon where they will hold an adventuring tournament for 8 adventure groups. Who ever wins gets one of his three most powerful artifacts. No matter who wins both guilds are getting filthy rich and thats kind of the point of this for them. Two corporate identities who are using this to fill their pockets, while our group joins in the tournament in hopes of getting the prize.
I was just wondering if any of your other DM's may of had any suggestions to help me, maybe make this smoother, or even say how you would run it. I would love some feed back as this is only the third game ive ran and the other two before hand had been stopped because of a players leaving being to heavy or the players simply didn't like their characters.
I would include a few more puzzles and skill checks than in a normal dungeon, and go for monster challenges that could be repeated (I.E: Hired guards, adventuring parties use dulled weapons that deal nonlethal damage), and possibly have the entire dungeon have a scoring system, possibly based on how many rooms they clear, how much time it takes them, and point reductions for any party members that go down, etc.
This is all assuming the adventuring party decides to go and try their hand at the dungeon.
If you are familiar at all with the 4E adventure "Owlbear Run" from Dungeon Magazine #213, it give a great framework to build a competitive race-like adventure around. Basically what you are going to do is build a very large, interlocking dungeon with lots of possible paths. Then plan the basic route for each of the competing teams to the end. Then plan out a few tables of "encounters" for the party to come across.
What Owlbear Run did was break encounters into three types; mental (traps and puzzles), physical (usually monster fights), and owlbear (getting your owlbear to cooperate). Each of the checkpoints along the race was predetermined by the DM to be a certain encounter type and when a group hit the checkpoint they had to overcome it to move on. Then it assigned the competing teams values to overcome those challenges on a d20 roll. For example, the all-elf team from the Feywild was great at owlbear challenges, average on mental challenges, and poor on physical challenges. The PC group just got to handle the actual encounter while the NPC teams moved on or didn't based on their d20 roll.
Since the NPC teams had planned routes already, when the PCs got to plan their route (likely without seeing the planned route of the competition unless they tried to get some inside info before the race began), it would be possible for them to meet up with other NPC teams at certain checkpoints. Some NPC teams were written to play fair and not bother the PCs unless attacked. Other NPC teams were fighting dirty and tried to hinder the players in some way if they crossed paths.
Basically though, what you are doing is planning out a handful of encounters that your players will have to overcome and then rolling on a table or deciding ahead of time what sorts of challenges the NPC teams come across and resolve it with a d20 roll, only worrying about those teams if they cross paths with the players. If the party takes to long on a given encounter, just give a +2 bonus to the next checkpoint roll for all the other teams or something and if they roll high enough, you can even say they skip ahead two checkpoints.
As a fun twist, the adventure also sprinkled in "Sponsor" encounters. The players had the opportunity before the race to get a single noble or dignitary to sponsor them. Each of the sponsors had an encounter mixed into the checkpoints and if you came across the encounter put in place by your sponsor, you got to pass it for free. As an example, the "evil" sponsor had hired a group of thugs to waylay the competition, but if he was your sponsor, they would let you past without attacking you.
While the adventure itself is based more on a race across a mountain, you can easily modify it to fit a dungeon setting.
I am running a similar campaign myself. One thing my players have really enjoyed is having chances to mess with other npc team. They have chosen large portions of their tools and spell choices in plans for messing with their least favorite team in an airship race. Just a thought.
Fenchurch, Gnome Wizard, Red Skies in Mourning
Have the wizard True Polymorph into a dragon - destroy the other teams before race, with some damage on PCs too so they don't get suspicious.
I stole my pfp from this person: https://mobile.twitter.com/xelart1/status/1177312449575432193