2010-09-18

How Gonzo Will It Be?

So how gonzo is this megadungeon going to be?  The answer is, a little, but not very.

I expect some of the encounters with the wizards to get quite goofy.  Despite all the automatons listed below, that's because I have a hard time rationalizing living beings in a gatehouse area that's been sealed off for millenia.  So I came up with some robot buddies to try to steal the bones of the party from their still-living flesh.  Even then, their presentation will be something along the lines of "a shambling horror of steel and bone lurches out of the shadows", nothing too sci-fi going on.  The ones in good repair that the party meets will, of necessity, be a bit futuristic.  As they get further into the dungeon, the critters will veer much more towards classic D&D monsters.

The campaign won't have much in the way of guns, jetpacks, etc.  This is post-apocalyptic in the D&D sense - ruins have been deserted for untold ages, the world has moved on and isn't particularly looking back at a lost past, etc.  Technology is largely turned to dust, and what hasn't isn't any more potent that magic items, so there's not much call for it.

Some of my magic items will be flavored as tech goodies (instead of a dagger +1, you get an equally mystical "phasic knife", which acts exactly the same).  But essentially, that's just so I don't have players being complacent about the magic items they get.  "A dagger +1?  Give it to the henchman!" would be a typical reaction.  However, "The knife is nothing but a thin band of metal bent into the outline of a blade.  On the grip is a red jewel.  When you depress the jewel, the blade is replaced by a field of blue light." is an unknown, and something to be treasured.

3 comments:

  1. I read through several posts here and I really like this blog (especially the title) and hope that your campaign is a success. Just a couple of comments:

    -Have you considered using Mutant Future of Sorcery & Super Science, or aspects of these? S&SS! is very Thundarr meets Zothique and the magic system is fairly unique.The game is handled in under a hundred pages and the test drive (House of Blue Men) is free.

    -Gonzo can be over the top without being silly. I run a fairly gonzo LL/AEC game in comparison to a very 'The Hobbit' and animated LotR imagery Barbarians of Lemuria game (using the races I wrote for BoL) and the gonzo is certainly fun, basically anything can happen, it usually does and it is usually not good.

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  2. I didn't look at Mutant Future, but I did read a bit about Sorcery & Super Science. There's a few reasons why I'm sticking with LL.

    a) My players are expecting D&D, so that's what they shall receive.

    b) S&SS wasn't exactly the flavor I was looking for. It's really going to be much more of a D&D megadungeon campaign than anything mutant-y. Except for the wizards, they'll be all loaded up with goofiness. But they will only be occasional protagonists.

    Thanks for the compliment on the title. I expect that henchmen Phillip and Terrence will be meeting a horrible demise at the player's hands on Wed night...

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  3. Yes, with your explanation LL is the way to go. S&SS! is more Thundarr than dungeon crawl. You might still check out the free MF download to mine for ideas. There are a lot of great ideas, including exploring ruins, different types of encounters and merging LL& MF.

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