#dungeonsasmonsters and “what i learned from last session”
#1 Bend Bars, Lift Gates is pretty cool. The Fighter used it to smash through a palisade trench and a stone staircase.
Beeing able to say “yeah, i will destroy that” is pretty powerfull when you think about it. Johnstone Metzger also commented on that.
#2 The same fighter now has a singature style (Innitiate Playbook) allowing him to attack at all distances with +2/3 damage and brutal/forcefull. He can do this with his staffblade or without. I guess the move stacks with Signature Weapon.
#3 And i just reread that and realised that “weapon using” and “signature weapon” don’t stack.
Dungeons as monsters seems to work mostly as a source of inspiration. Looking at the list and saying “okay, i take this and this option” and then i roll for it seeing what element is stronger and how strong it is. From there you go on with your regular moves. I wouldn’t use the rules as a strict procedure but mostly as an idea starter. We only went through 3 rooms though so i haven’t seen the whole thing in action. Writing the elements of the dungeon down is a good idea in general, everyone should do that.
totally forgot,
the orcs are using some kind of powder to mutate flesh. They are trading it against steel with the nearby dwarfes. The dwarfs are interested in it for some of their own alchemical expereriments. This will be awesome later. (golems with mutated dwarf brains to control them!)
Did he yell “OH YEAH”?
Totally agree with your impressions of Dungeons as Monsters.
Thats an interesting thing to find out. I totally forgot to ask last time…
Fantastic. Bend Bars, Break Gates is a fantastic example of letting the fighter turn loose, something that hasn’t been done for some time.
Yeah, that’s how I use Dungeons as Monsters these days too. Like if I roll something that seems lame or just doesn’t inspire cool stuff in my brain, I ignore that roll and keep moving down the list to the other elements.
Recently, I ran a haunted forest adventure where I rolled undead, rival adventurers, and water monsters. I skipped the undead and just kept the other two (a rival group of adventurers were fording a stream and a river kraken was silently picking off the weakest).
I need to buy DHotD… All the cool kids have it by now…
Could someone give me a rundown of what “dungeons as monsters” mean exactly? Jonathan Walton, I’m looking at you 😉
Another thing i did:
Some of the rooms were covered in snow and ice. Everytime a player got knocked to the ground or against a wall they took extra damage because of ice crystals etc. poking at them.
Dungeons-as-Monsters is just a simplified way of running a “dungeon” where you don’t have to map and stat up everything, but can generate the rooms of the dungeon as you go, so the GM can “play to find out” as well in that regard. Some people still use it before the crew enters the dungeon, as a way of generating an interesting and thematically appropriate location, but I tend to run it on the fly. You basically come up with a bunch of different “threat themes” and roll to see which ones are in the next “room.” It’s a bit like creating your own mini random encounter table for each dungeon-like thing in your game, but the things you roll are not just, like, wandering monsters but lakes of fire and giant machines of doom and such.
This is how i think it is supposed to work yes, I just have one question. Lets say it was established that the big necromancer is in this dungeon. I have a extra big necromancer thingy as part of the dungeon but never roll higher then a 9. Do I insert him anyway or does it mean he is not there?
Up to you. The rules say “roll or choose results,” right? So you can choose to place something that you don’t roll.
forgot that, yes.
Oh. The treasure table is really useful i found. It was the first time i used it and it worked realy well and gave away some interesting things.