Brock Savage
Cosmic Barbarian
- Joined
- Jun 17, 2019
- Messages
- 5,013
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Oh my god yes that IS a fantastic resource. I forgot that I owned a hard copy of it. Thanks for the reminder!Hi @ Necrozius I dig your living dungeon idea and using Kingdom Death as inspiration. Have you read Nightmares Underneath? It's one of my fave OSR settings and a big part of it are living nightmarish dungeons. It might provide some welcome inspiration or crunch to support your vision!
I also want to bring in some introspective horror to the Labyrinth as well. Maybe have the players define one or more “Passions” for their PCs. Something that can be triggered in some way. Like how a lot of horror movies will have the ghosts or demons play around with the victim’s obsessions, regrets and fears.
Nothing too complicated, of course, in the spirit of the simplicity of B/X. If using another system this would be easy (eg Mythras’ Passions).
Philotomy wrote an amazing take on B4 The Lost City that reimagined the lame monster zoo on the lower levels into a nightmarish descent into the mythic dungeon towards the heart of chaos (Zargon's lair). I wish I saved it when I had the chance because now I can't find it.Any other dungeon examples come to mind that capture a mythic underworld feel?
Philotomy wrote an amazing take on B4 The Lost City that reimagined the lame monster zoo on the lower levels into a nightmarish descent into the mythic dungeon towards the heart of chaos (Zargon's lair). I wish I saved it when I had the chance because now I can't find it.
The website appears to be down (the error message implies that the site needs to update its SQL database or something).Is that it?Jason Cone’s Campaign Log: B4 - The Lost City
B4 - The Lost City Lost in the desert! The only hope for survival lies in a ruined city rising out of the sands. Food, water, and wealth await heroic adventurers inside an ancient pyramid ruled by ...thedelvers.com
It's 4am and I need to get an hour or two of sleep before work but this looks like a campaign log. What I read were room keys for the lower levels of B4.Is that it?Jason Cone’s Campaign Log: B4 - The Lost City
B4 - The Lost City Lost in the desert! The only hope for survival lies in a ruined city rising out of the sands. Food, water, and wealth await heroic adventurers inside an ancient pyramid ruled by ...thedelvers.com
This thread on another forum has Philotomy posting some intended modifications to B4, which include some keyed areas. There's also a poster there who provides a link to Philotomy's old blog on the Wayback Machine... where I was able to get most of that session log, as well as other musings on the idea of a Mythic Underworld.It's 4am and I need to get an hour or two of sleep before work but this looks like a campaign log. What I read were room keys for the lower levels of B4.
Not literally every RPG. Elves don't get night vision in TFT or GURPS. (Unless, of course, the GM decides otherwise for their setting.) And even then, Dark Vision in GURPS is not D&D dark vision - it just means the character sees better in non-pitch darkness.. . .
Conversely, I've NEVER understood why Elves always get nightvision in literally every RPG ever. They're traditionally creatures of light and goodness and stuff. They might emit light, or be able to dismiss darkness, but I never understood why'd they'd have nocturnal abilities.
And I like my Dwarves using mining hats with candles and carrying big iron lanterns. That just looks cool. With darkvision, they'd never really need those, right?
I get so irritated at the ubiquitous night vision of generic D&D systems and campaigns. I file it in the same category as all non humans knowing, like, 9 languages By default. It is just this goofy bolt-on ability that removes a challenge you’d rather was there. Generally speaking, I don’t allow that sort of thing in my campaigns. If you want to see in the dark, get a torch. If you want to talk to a gnome, be a gnome or be smart enough to know a couple of extra unusual languages.
FWIW at least in OD&D, BX, and 1E AD&D orcs and goblins DO have a penalty to morale and attack rolls in sunlight.(which somehow ends up having no in-game rules expression in D&D! Clearly the sources suggest they should have morale checks and to-hit penalties on them in direct natural light).
Don't tell me what I like!The B/X morale rules are so obviously the good way to do it; I feel like all the other versions are like the stuff people come up with when they engage in white-room mental exercises without field-testing them at the table for a couple of years. I’ve heard so many people say they don’t like morale rules, and my reaction is always to think, ‘no, you don’t like crazy morale rules, which is what you were offered’.
Have to say that is always what have used, even in OD&D because that is what we were familiar with from Squad Leader. Even used leadership the same way.I like the 2d6 method for Morale. Gives me a good idea of how brave or cowardly a monster is....
I've heard of this. Apparently it is quite good!If you haven't already, you might want to check out Jason Sholtis' Operation Unfathomable. Should be a good source of inspiration, if nothing else.
DriveThruRPG
www.drivethrurpg.com
Interesting. It appears you're right and the Basic/Classic D&D line only gives orcs a penalty to hit in daylight, not a penalty to morale, despite the latter being explicitly mentioned in OD&D. Presumably it was edited out in the Holmes version where there is no morale rule, but then (likely unintentionally) not added back in the Moldvay & Mentzer versions even though morale was reintroduced.The only one I have on my while traveling is Moldvoy’s Basic description, and it gives a -1 to-hit penalty but no modification to morale. I know AD&D has morale rules in the DMG, but I can’t think of a single person I’ve met who ever used them. Did OD&D have formal morale rules? I’ve read and used the game for years but can’t quite recall…