Joined: Dec 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 206 Karma: 18
Dungeons in the Wilderlands « Thread Started on Jul 6, 2012, 5:46am »
I've been collecting the wonderful original sets of Wilderlands books and maps for a while now, and they've got me inspired to eventually run a grand hexcrawl. (Not now, I've got other things going on.)
What I'm wondering is how much dungeon stuff people using the Wilderlands (or just doing a different hexcrawl) tend to do. Do you stick a dungeon level or three under every "Ravaged Ruins" / "Relics and Ruins" entry? Or do you focus mostly on exploration of the map, with "Lurid Lairs" and random encounters and so on filling out the combat-type encounters? Or is there something else I'm missing?
Finarvyn Administrator Dungeon Master member is offline
Joined: Jun 2007 Gender: Male Posts: 4,673 Location: Near Chicago Karma: 178
Re: Dungeons in the Wilderlands « Reply #1 on Jul 6, 2012, 6:39am »
Well, "Sunstone Caverns" is under Thunderhold and there are some groovy sewers under the CSIO, but I'm sure that's not what you mean.
I have a set of generic dungons that JG put out in the 1970's and sometimes use that when a duneon crawl is appropriate. I don't usually think it out in advance, but get inspiration by the names of the hills or forests or whatever. The names often suggest some sort of mystery.
Marv / Finarvyn DCC playtester (2011) C&C playtester (2003) I'm partly responsible for the S&W WhiteBox Builder of the TrollBridge Master of Mutants; MA since 1976 OD&D Player since 1975
"Don't ask me what you need to hit. Just roll the die and I will let you know!" - Dave Arneson
Well, "Sunstone Caverns" is under Thunderhold and there are some groovy sewers under the CSIO, but I'm sure that's not what you mean.
Yeah, that's not really where I was going with it, although the levels under CSIO look like they'd be fun to run.
Quote:
I have a set of generic dungons that JG put out in the 1970's and sometimes use that when a duneon crawl is appropriate. I don't usually think it out in advance, but get inspiration by the names of the hills or forests or whatever. The names often suggest some sort of mystery.
What product was that? How good were the dungeons? I don't think I have it...
Re: Dungeons in the Wilderlands « Reply #4 on Jul 11, 2012, 12:25pm »
I have two Wilderlands campaigns running at the moment (one of which sadly seems to have gone dormant). They tend not to wander the wilderness without purpose (It's dangerous out there!), but seek out information in local villages. Each group has tried to explore local ruins when they heard of them.
The first group operates in the Roglaras peninsula. Their adventures have been drawn from Tegel Manor, the Book of Ruins, Lost Man's Trail, Pirates of Hagrost, and Modron. (Most of their time has been spent exploring Tegel Manor and its environs.)
The second group is north of Lenap. Their adventures have largely been home-grown, but I have material from the Book of Treasure Maps on deck, along with bits from the dungeon contests in the Judges Guild Journal.
Is a good start. There are also random ruin generators in some of the JG products too.
I have Caves & Caverns, it seems to have come after they did some weird switch of systems. Is that why I've seen a few unkind comments about its quality online?
I have Caves & Caverns, it seems to have come after they did some weird switch of systems. Is that why I've seen a few unkind comments about its quality online?
There are some GMs who blossom into full creative bloom when given a book of maps and charts to randomly populate them. A bit of random association stimulates their imaginations...
"Three medusas, a ruined ancient device, a sinkhole... and giant weasels... I've got it: The medusas worship ancient technology! They hunted down a cache of ancient devices but discovered that gigantic blind weasels occupy the cave. Since the weasels are immune to their gaze, they want to force the party to kill the weasels. Of course, the medusas can't be trusted: They don't want to risk the adventurers telling others about the cache's location before they can move it elsewhere!"
There are others who find such a prospect unappealing:
"Three medusas, a ruined ancient device, a sinkhole... and giant weasels... What the heck!?"
There are some GMs who blossom into full creative bloom when given a book of maps and charts to randomly populate them. A bit of random association stimulates their imaginations... "Three medusas, a ruined ancient device, a sinkhole... and giant weasels... I've got it: The medusas worship ancient technology! They hunted down a cache of ancient devices but discovered that gigantic blind weasels occupy the cave. Since the weasels are immune to their gaze, they want to force the party to kill the weasels. Of course, the medusas can't be trusted: They don't want to risk the adventurers telling others about the cache's location before they can move it elsewhere!"
There are others who find such a prospect unappealing: Three medusas, a ruined ancient device, a sinkhole... and giant weasels... What the heck!?"
Hah. That sounds like a fun take, all told. I would have done it differently, with the weasels as the medusas' pets, bringing them back victims in return for ancient shiny objects - but I used to have a ferret so I know about how weasel types can be.
Of course it doesn't solve the original question of distributing dungeons under the Wilderlands, but I definitely will take the spirit into account when I finally have time to run this thing.
Of course, it doesn't solve the original question of distributing dungeons under the Wilderlands, but I definitely will take the spirit into account when I finally have time to run this thing.
I had the impression that "your mileage may vary". If your players like to poke around in ruins and dungeons, seed lots of them into your wilderness. If they want to explore the wilderness, give them treasure maps and tattered scrolls that will lure them into the wilds. If they prefer cities, let them encounter allies and enemies to draw them into the city-states.
Joined: Sept 2009 Gender: Male Posts: 67 Location: Los Angeles, California Karma: 0
Re: Dungeons in the Wilderlands « Reply #10 on Aug 4, 2012, 12:08am »
I placed various major dungeons scattered here and there, such as Caverns of Thracia and some of my own design. I would give the party a reason to head out that way, and along the way I would set some shorter side-adventures that might very well be drawn from the hints in the booklets. I also tended to get the party involved in various political issues with the settlements scattered across the map.
So I guess the answer is, I usually have major adventuring sites detailed, and elaborate on minor side-adventures. But I have no qualms about a journey of a couple weeks with simple encounters, either monster-types or intelligent beings who are role-playing opportunities.
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