This weekend I’m running a Dungeon World / X-Crawl Mashup (DW rules, XC setting). The premise is that each one of the crawlers are “boss monsters” from other X-Crawls who have been forced into a crawl team and sent into the most lethal Crawl ever designed – sort of the X-Crawl Superbowl.
(For those who don’t know X-Crawl, imagine the movie “The Running Man” except the runners are a D&D party – televised bloodshed, strategic product placement, and cash prizes.)
I’ve got some individual and group questions done to ask them at the start of the event, but I’m worried about riffing the game in a convention environment.
As a result, I’m hoping that the DW community can help me out with some contributions.
I’d like to have a down-and-dirty list of “encounter areas” for the crawl (dungeon). They don’t have to be detailed, but just enough to give me something to work with. Here’s some examples of what I’m thinking of:
“THREE MINUTES IN THE CAVE!” – For a 1,000 coin prize and a year’s supply of Dragon Turtle Wax (TM), the group needs to run into a dragon’s cave and retrieve a Maguffin, and get it out again in three minutes.
“SHOOTS AND LADDERS” – An obstacle course style event. Terraced rock platforms, rickety ladders, and hidden goblin snipers. Simply make it out alive to clear the room.
“SUPERFLY” – A disgusting chamber filled with monster excrement and lorded over by a gargantuan, bloodthirsty fly. Somewhere in the garbage is a fabulous pride – how much is your dignity and basic hygiene worth to you?
Stuff along those lines. The game will be tongue-in-cheek and very violent (these monster are a wrecking crew).
I need time to process this, but doing X-Crawl with DW is fing brilliant.
Thanks. I loved the hell out of the idea of X-Crawl, but the fast and furious, crazy hijinks that a game like that should have was totally countered for me but linking it to a system as mechanically constipated as D&D 3.0.
And hurry if you or anyone else has suggestions, the game’s being run tonight at the convention (Friday, 8PM EST). 🙂
Here’s the event blurb:
“Dungeon World / X-Crawl Mashup: No Hold Bard Steel Mage Match”
“Umber Hulk Hogan. George “The Dire Animal” Steele. Rowdy Roddy “The Pied” Piper. Andre the Half-Giant. The Undertaker. “Stoneskin” Steev’austen. Hammer Montana. These are the lords of the X-Crawl circuit – the most popular dungeon bosses on television. Each of them has killed dozens of adventurers for a televised audience. But what happens when the titans of X-Crawl become the adventurers and are forced into the Crawl as participants? This Dungeon World game is loosely based on the X-Crawl setting. For those unfamiliar with the setting, think of the “dungeon delves” of fantasy RPGs crossed with the movie “The Running Man.” It’s a world where television audiences watch magic-slinging heroes fight for their lives for treasure, fabulous prizes, and lucrative product endorsement deals. Pre-generated PCs provided.
RUMBLE IN THE JUNGLE: Wrest the crown the King, a 12-ft-tall silverback girallon as he holds court in this abandoned canopy village. Leave your weapons on the floor, you’re gonna need all your hands. Oh, did we mention the baboons?
FLOOR IS LAVA: Retrieve the Halfling Lite (TM) Feed Your Thirst Idol from the far of end this wood-covered room. And then get back out. What could possibly be difficult about that? Fire beetles? What fire beetles?
MINECART MADNESS: Oh, you got the Halfling Lite (TM) Feed Your Thirst Idol did you? Well, you better run cuz here comes the lava flow. And the salamandars. And more fire beetles. Good thing there’s this elaborate system of rickety mine carts leading away from here, right?
A BRIDGE TOO FAR? Get across the Elvenweave (TM) Rickety Bridge before the lava flow burns you all alive. Never you mind the crossbow turrets on the other side. Or the House Cannith (TM) Mechawasps patrolling the skies. Or the crocodillians below.
Jeremy – I love you. Have my babies.
I will pass, thanks. However…
SAVE MY BABIES! In a personal twist, one or more of the PC’s children has been kidnapped and encased in a magical egg. This egg has in turn been hidden in a swampy morass that is litterally littered with felldrake eggs–all about to hatch! Oh, and don’t forget the overprotective felldrake parents or the occasional assassin vine.
Hey… how’d it go?
Sadly, the event didn’t go off. Not a soul signed up for it. So I feel like I put a lot of work into something for nothing. Maybe I should have just went with a generic DW game.
I could post the characters if you had any interest in seeing them. I basically cobbled together a wrecking crew of spoof wrestlers and made them 4th level.
I was especially bummed because the principal designer of X-Crawl was actually at the convention, and I was sort of hoping that maybe he’d drop by just out of curiosity, but for all I know he wasn’t aware of the event. (Though this seems hard to believe as it was a small con.)
Ack, that sucks man. I’d certainly be interested in seeing whatever you had put together.
It’s large-ish and I don’t have a drop box set up. I could email it to you and you are welcome to post a link to it if you can host it.
You should be able to upload to your drive.google.com, then share it (either publically or with specific individuals).
OK. I think I did it correctly: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3gMidNG4kXJME1vRUw0aGYyOU0/edit?usp=sharing