Just brainstorming here, I don’t have a group prepared to play this with or any specific details ready.
What if you made DND into a roguelike (with a bit of story focus)? I’m thinking something like Hades or Enter the Gungeon, where there is this massive dungeon that shifts and resets occasionally. Adventurers from all over the world come to test their strength in it. The catch? If you die in the dungeon, you awake, alive again back at the entrance with most of the treasure you grabbed along the way, if you have the resolve to keep living.
I would probably use something like Dungeon of the Mad Mage as a baseline (it already has a lot of what I need). The players could start weak and continuously try to get as far as they can, gaining levels with each decent run.
I’m toying with the idea where if your players are experienced enough at making characters on the fly, you could start them at low levels, and inside the dungeon they find temporary level-ups of a random class, and they would rebuild most of their character each run, during the game. This would require really experienced players though. Their eventual progression through the floors would be aided by getting shortcuts and starting with more levels as they get further.
Obviously, this would have to be introduced and discussed before even trying to start such an unorthodox campaign, but I think it could be neat. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for how you would run it, or any special mechanics you would make?
The biggest issue I can see with this is establishing a compelling gameplay loop.
The thing that makes roguelikes so much fun is the gameplay loop, which is most commonly done via a combination of easy-to-understand but difficult to master mechanics, and randomization. The problem with this in Dnd is once your group finishes a chamber, there is no reason to use that chamber ever again. You would essentially be making an entirely new dungeon each time they lose otherwise you risk the gameplay loop becoming boring. This is the case for puzzles and combat (which are the only things that I can see being usable here). Dnd is not designed as tests of skill, since most all skills within the game come down to the chance of success anyway. Once you know the solution is to climb the wall, there is nothing happening other than the player saying they want the character to climb the wall. Once you know where the hidden button is there is no reason to search for it. The same can be said for combat. Fighting the same collections of enemies over and over and over again usually doesn't get more interesting the more often it happens. I fear that a Dnd roguelike would be repetitive if it was just a contest of skill, puzzles, and combat Or would become WAY too much work for a single person to make modular encounters and puzzles enough to be randomized and feel new and satisfying for any substantial length of time. It seems like something that would be great for a series of one-shots, but no so much a proper campaign. All of that is ignoring the fact that roguelikes (and videogames as a whole) are designed around the player being able to do very specific and controllable interactions with the world, which is something that is impossible to translate into Dnd.
What I would recommend instead is to offer them something more akin to a Metroidveignia. They start very limited with only one path to go down. They die, wake up with more abilities, equipment, and knowledge, and now can get to areas they previously couldn't access. Perhaps they need to reach the end of one path to get a password to something, see that there is a hole in the ceiling they can't quite get to. They die, go back to the beginning, use the password to access a new area where they get a spell scroll for the fly spell. Now they can go back down that first path and use the scroll to go further. This sort of idea works outside of a dungeon too. Perhaps there is a town that is in a time loop and only the PCs who have entered the town as outsiders are able to remember what happened between days and it is up to them to find out what is happening to the town. Each day they are able to use the information they gathered to find out more, do more things, and eventually save the town. Kind of like The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask.
All of that said, I would love to be proven wrong about a roguelike dnd adventure. I'm sure it is more than possible given enough time and preparation but it is a massive amount of work to do for something that might only work a few times per person.
I would probably go back to original Rogue and have a setup where you basically have to clear one dungeon level per long rest, and the dungeon is one way -- once you go down, you can't return to a prior level.
How I would do it is by using a program called Endless RPG I picked up on steam.
It can be used to generate your random levels within certain presets. You can then export the base map as a PNG to roll20 or other platform to size it correctly and lay down the dynamic lighting. Keep the annotated map separate so you know what is going on.
You can add in your own ideas and tweak it to your liking too.
How I would do it is by using a program called Endless RPG I picked up on steam.
It can be used to generate your random levels within certain presets. You can then export the base map as a PNG to roll20 or other platform to size it correctly and lay down the dynamic lighting. Keep the annotated map separate so you know what is going on.
You can add in your own ideas and tweak it to your liking too.
If this existed, I could see streams of weaponless commoners kamikazeing into the dungeon, knowing they’ll survive and keep their treasure. The treasure economy would probably crash as a result!
If this existed, I could see streams of weaponless commoners kamikazeing into the dungeon, knowing they’ll survive and keep their treasure. The treasure economy would probably crash as a result!
That would be pretty funny. I wonder if certain adventurers would treat it the same way we do actual roguelikes. ”Eh, I’ll try a no jumping run, just because.” Would be something funny to mix in with all the serious fortune seekers.
Might change it up a bit, where you can only keep one item, which you have to bring back in next time. For example, you go in, grab a flametongue sword. Next time you try to enter, you HAVE to bring that sword with you. This would mean commoners would run in, grab the most valuable gem they can, sell it, and be unable to enter the dungeon ever again because they can’t get it back. Instead of the allure of treasure, maybe there are rumors of being granted a wish if you make it all the way to the end. I’m sure tons of people would dedicate their lives to trying to reach it just for the potential of never having to work again at peasant-level life.
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Just brainstorming here, I don’t have a group prepared to play this with or any specific details ready.
What if you made DND into a roguelike (with a bit of story focus)? I’m thinking something like Hades or Enter the Gungeon, where there is this massive dungeon that shifts and resets occasionally. Adventurers from all over the world come to test their strength in it. The catch? If you die in the dungeon, you awake, alive again back at the entrance with most of the treasure you grabbed along the way, if you have the resolve to keep living.
I would probably use something like Dungeon of the Mad Mage as a baseline (it already has a lot of what I need). The players could start weak and continuously try to get as far as they can, gaining levels with each decent run.
I’m toying with the idea where if your players are experienced enough at making characters on the fly, you could start them at low levels, and inside the dungeon they find temporary level-ups of a random class, and they would rebuild most of their character each run, during the game. This would require really experienced players though. Their eventual progression through the floors would be aided by getting shortcuts and starting with more levels as they get further.
Obviously, this would have to be introduced and discussed before even trying to start such an unorthodox campaign, but I think it could be neat. Does anyone have any ideas or suggestions for how you would run it, or any special mechanics you would make?
The biggest issue I can see with this is establishing a compelling gameplay loop.
The thing that makes roguelikes so much fun is the gameplay loop, which is most commonly done via a combination of easy-to-understand but difficult to master mechanics, and randomization. The problem with this in Dnd is once your group finishes a chamber, there is no reason to use that chamber ever again. You would essentially be making an entirely new dungeon each time they lose otherwise you risk the gameplay loop becoming boring. This is the case for puzzles and combat (which are the only things that I can see being usable here). Dnd is not designed as tests of skill, since most all skills within the game come down to the chance of success anyway. Once you know the solution is to climb the wall, there is nothing happening other than the player saying they want the character to climb the wall. Once you know where the hidden button is there is no reason to search for it. The same can be said for combat. Fighting the same collections of enemies over and over and over again usually doesn't get more interesting the more often it happens. I fear that a Dnd roguelike would be repetitive if it was just a contest of skill, puzzles, and combat Or would become WAY too much work for a single person to make modular encounters and puzzles enough to be randomized and feel new and satisfying for any substantial length of time. It seems like something that would be great for a series of one-shots, but no so much a proper campaign. All of that is ignoring the fact that roguelikes (and videogames as a whole) are designed around the player being able to do very specific and controllable interactions with the world, which is something that is impossible to translate into Dnd.
What I would recommend instead is to offer them something more akin to a Metroidveignia. They start very limited with only one path to go down. They die, wake up with more abilities, equipment, and knowledge, and now can get to areas they previously couldn't access. Perhaps they need to reach the end of one path to get a password to something, see that there is a hole in the ceiling they can't quite get to. They die, go back to the beginning, use the password to access a new area where they get a spell scroll for the fly spell. Now they can go back down that first path and use the scroll to go further. This sort of idea works outside of a dungeon too. Perhaps there is a town that is in a time loop and only the PCs who have entered the town as outsiders are able to remember what happened between days and it is up to them to find out what is happening to the town. Each day they are able to use the information they gathered to find out more, do more things, and eventually save the town. Kind of like The Legend of Zelda Majora's Mask.
All of that said, I would love to be proven wrong about a roguelike dnd adventure. I'm sure it is more than possible given enough time and preparation but it is a massive amount of work to do for something that might only work a few times per person.
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I would probably go back to original Rogue and have a setup where you basically have to clear one dungeon level per long rest, and the dungeon is one way -- once you go down, you can't return to a prior level.
How I would do it is by using a program called Endless RPG I picked up on steam.
It can be used to generate your random levels within certain presets. You can then export the base map as a PNG to roll20 or other platform to size it correctly and lay down the dynamic lighting. Keep the annotated map separate so you know what is going on.
You can add in your own ideas and tweak it to your liking too.
And here's a free, online generator that creates complete dungeons with new encounters every time: donjon; 5e Random Dungeon Generator
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If this existed, I could see streams of weaponless commoners kamikazeing into the dungeon, knowing they’ll survive and keep their treasure. The treasure economy would probably crash as a result!
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That would be pretty funny. I wonder if certain adventurers would treat it the same way we do actual roguelikes. ”Eh, I’ll try a no jumping run, just because.” Would be something funny to mix in with all the serious fortune seekers.
Might change it up a bit, where you can only keep one item, which you have to bring back in next time. For example, you go in, grab a flametongue sword. Next time you try to enter, you HAVE to bring that sword with you. This would mean commoners would run in, grab the most valuable gem they can, sell it, and be unable to enter the dungeon ever again because they can’t get it back. Instead of the allure of treasure, maybe there are rumors of being granted a wish if you make it all the way to the end. I’m sure tons of people would dedicate their lives to trying to reach it just for the potential of never having to work again at peasant-level life.