[D&D4E] Forum Tourney Game: Dungeons & Dragons & Diablo

Jam Warrior

I had this idea the other night and wanted to gauge interest and bounce a few ideas off the forum before I put too much effort into working it into reality.

I was thinking or running a pure slay and loot game on the forum. Pairs (maybe threes) of adventurers to keep things fast paced. Just strings of random single room adventures with random enemies, random traps and random loot. See how far you can get before you die horribly and the next team gets to try and beat you!

Mechanics wise I was thinking to follow the DMG given ratios of encounter levels, loot tables etc. Purely random items but nothing you aren't proficient in and no wands for barbarians etc.

I'm thinking simplify XP into a level up every 10 rooms. A haven for an extended rest/magic dungeon shop every 5 rooms (but no back tracking to a previous one).

Also once things are up and running there's nothing to stop someone else running another game simultaneously with the same rules. We could get a proper high score table and everything.

So:
(a) Good idea / Bad idea?
(b) Anything you can think of that I have failed to take into account?

samurai6966

It be something cool. I would do it.

El Skid

Sounds like fun. Though levelling every 10 encounters seems a bit long for this type of thing. Bringing that down to 5 (or even 3) might be more interesting. Just a thought.

adventfalls

Yeah. What they said.

TiamatZ

1) How would treasure parcels fit into all of this?

2) Will items be randomly generated based on level?

3) What about traps and hazards, will they also be randomly generated? I would be funny if a group not trained in thievery enter a room filled with deathtraps and no monsters.

cytorak

It does sound neat. Not to be a jerk, but isn't this the point of the Dungeon Delve book of adventures? 3 connected battle/hazard encounters per level, 1-30.

Regarding skills, it seems Perception, Arcana, Thievery, and maybe Religion would be the go-to skills for everyone.

Jam Warrior

El Skid wrote: »

Sounds like fun. Though levelling every 10 encounters seems a bit long for this type of thing. Bringing that down to 5 (or even 3) might be more interesting. Just a thought.

I agree. Level every 5 encounters seems a better pace. I'm also thinking definately teams of three people rather than two so there's some variety in party make up other than a Leader and a Striker/Defender.

TiamatZ wrote: »

1) How would treasure parcels fit into all of this?

2) Will items be randomly generated based on level?

Working on the basis of a group size of three, the DMG says you should get an item at level +4, an item at level +2, and cash/potions to value of two items at level, so I'd stick with that. Combine the cash parcels into three awards and then randomly assign one of the five (Magic Items x2, Cash/Potions x3) to each encounter over the level. Unsure if it would be best to always give max potion drops (to help survivability), no potion drops (to increase challenge) or further randomise. Also tempted to make an equal level item drop and reduce the cash accordingly.

For what to actually give for magic items I was thinking first randomise by slot, then by random pick from all treasures of the target level for that slot. For weapons, armour and implements add a second randomisation of specific item by proficiency. Sure you'd get some items more suitable than others but that kind of random factor is what I'm aiming for. Discourages pre-emptive specialisation and encourages picking level ups/retraining to suit what fate has dealt you.

TiamatZ wrote: »

3) What about traps and hazards, will they also be randomly generated? It would be funny if a group not trained in thievery enter a room filled with deathtraps and no monsters.

Still considering how the encounter generator would work but random traps will definately be a part of it!

cytorak wrote: »

It does sound neat. Not to be a jerk, but isn't this the point of the Dungeon Delve book of adventures? 3 connected battle/hazard encounters per level, 1-30.

The delve book was definately part of the inspiration but I'm going for something more random and replayable. Plus leaderboards!

Plutonium

It sounds like it would be a lot of fun to put together a team of players, though it seems like it would be a huge hassle to run just because of people dropping out due to the wait time until their team is up, unless you were having the teams go in parallel.

Jam Warrior

I'm imagining a waiting list of players, when a slot becomes free just work through the list until you have three people ready to go, give them a few days to make a team and off they go. I'm hoping for it to be fairly fast paced. The DM in this game is actively out to kill the players!

The advantage of set rules for random generation is that as many games could be run simultaneously as willing DMs could be found to run them.

Plutonium

I'd imagine that people would much rather want to create teams to take advantage of synergies, rather than just be thrown together with the next two people on the list.

Jam Warrior

Also true. I'm sure it could be worked out were the project to ever get off the ground.

Tofystedeth

I would totally play it. It's like a D&D roguelike!

psolms

what you could do is have teams sign up if they want to make a team together (for example, me and 2 friends make a team of characters and sign up), or partial teams (jim and james, but no third) and finally singles (george - who would then be paired up with the next team, or could join a team in the recruitment thread)

but yeah, this sounds rad. you could even have multiple DMs running a team each (using the same random tables) and use the recruitment thread as the leaderboard.

i would definitely play this.

Omega2112

For a waiting list of players, would they already have their character ready, or would they make one when it was their turn to go?

illgottengains

It would be best to have characters already made I would think. Less time between figuring out it's your turn to die, and actually going and dieing.

I also like this idea and may be interested in DMing a second game, as well as playing.

Utsanomiko

There's some good potential in a small-party dungeon crawl, and I might be interested in participating at some point. I wonder how much the encounters and rewards will be able to vary and be 'random' in order to provide adventures that parties can compare to each others' experiences.

But I'm going to suggest that a waiting list will not work. It instantly reminds me of Lets Play games that trade-off among contributors and how quickly they lose steam the longer are their waiting lists. The problem of conflicting schedules and interests rises as time passes, so by the time the next team is ready some or most of the players lack the motivation or ability to post anymore.

Multiple simultaneous instances would be ideal, but that's still six players per DM, at best. I'd suggest keeping the waiting list down to three players in line, recruited from the pool of submitted PCs maybe several days before the next group's turn comes up. People should still create characters for the DM to pick from, but lining up multiple parties is not going to ensure a functional queue after a couple weeks.

samurai6966

You could have them fight against each other... I know it sounds dumb but a gladiator style fight would let 10-12 players play. The only problem would be the long time between post.

kuhlmeye

This honestly sounds like a really cool idea. I think it could be pulled off, but something that would need to happen is small teams. I think 3-4 was thrown out before, and that would probably be ideal. You would also need to let people form teams on their own, not only so they could coordinate to try to win, but also trash talking between teams!

Jam Warrior

PvP is whole different kettle of fish I don't fancy getting into. All the talk of how to pick players is skipping on a few too many steps I think! i might try and come up with some tables for encounter generation this weekend.

Any thoughts on encounter levels in pure random Vs random order? ie Should players always get one easy, two medium and two hard encounters per level, or should each encounter be rolled seperately giving the chance of them all being hard or all easy?

TiamatZ

For encounters, I highly suggest having easy encounters beX-1, medium encounters be X, and hard ones be X+1, where X is the parties' level.

Not just that, but an encounter also depends on the monster's roles and layouts. A fight consisting of Brutes-only is far different than a fight against Controllers.

And how will the system handle Elites and Solos?

Jam Warrior

Random generation table after random generation table! If sticking with set levels i was thing an X-1, two Xs, two X+1s and one X+2.

samurai6966

I would say mini bosses at every 5th level would be cool. Big ones on the 10th. If you live that long... MUHAHAHAHAHAHA!

PMAvers

While it may be more "meat" for the campaign than you're looking for, it sounds like a perfect xCrawl campaign.

INeedNoSalt

I think I would be very interested in something like thus.

delroland

I wouldn't use solos in the regular levels, but instead use them in completely optional "bonus" rooms. I'd do rooms in series of four: three random mob rooms followed by a single elite room; this would accomodate 2-man teams quite well. It also takes a lot less time to run four rooms instead of ten.

You could also allow the group to select the difficulty before each run, choosing between Easy (Lv-1), Standard (Lv+0), and Hard (Lv+1), affecting the treasure and XP appropriately.

Omega2112

Would this be PBP or maptools? I think that this would be a good opportunity to also show a lot of people how maptools works without getting them committed to a long term D&D campaign.

Horseshoe

also Jam: if you allow hybrids, you have a decent chance of having three characters run delve-type things intended for 4-5 characters of their level. it's still damn hard, but with hybrids you're covered across roles with three mans/womans. and if you're going for a diablo/roguelike feel it should be damn difficult, eh?

Tofystedeth

"Man those goblins were pussies! Yeah!"
*fall through trapdoor*
"Oh-shit-invisible-vampires-that-delevel-you-and-eat-your-gear!"
*run while getting mauled*
*fall through trapdoor*
"hey look! A teleporter back to the surface. And only 6 squares away too! lets go!"
*eaten by tarrasque."