A Dungeon World creature and teaser for Plundergrounds 4. The stats are absurd, but you aren’t supposed to fight it. At best you might try to maneuver it into driving itself off a cliff! [Edit – the “it’s” is a typo. I’ll fix that and make a few minor tweaks for the zine release.]
A Dungeon World creature and teaser for Plundergrounds 4.
A Dungeon World creature and teaser for Plundergrounds 4.
Sooo…. why stat something like that up as a monster? Or at least, why give it armor and HP?
Fair question. I suppose I could just leave that bit out. And yet … I kind of like the idea that a foolish group could go after it and maybe actually take it down. If they could figure out how to get inside of it and such. When I wrote The Iron Tyrant for Codex I took the other route and just gave it the tag “indestructible.” I don’t think this thing is. But … uh … destroying it might actually just release the demon inside. All kinds of awesome story potential there. I suppose my verbiage above about not tangling with it is from my guilt over giving it way more HP than a dragon.
That may be partly my fault for mentioning that it looked so intimidating as a monster. I think stating this one is a good way to go. That gives the GM and players more options. Interact with this how you will!
It’s definitely in a gray area though. I understand the question and it made me double-think my choice. Good question.
I guess my beef is that I can’t see any fictional justification for ever inflicting HP damage on this thing.
Like, with the huge dragon, you can fictionally maneuver to hitting a soft spot (an eye, the inside of it’s mouth as it bites at you, its soft underbelly, the gap in the metal scales, etc.).
With this thing… I dunno? It’s just enormous, right? Like, kaiju sized. And its amorphous, meaning there aren’t any “vitals” to hit.
So the only way to meaningfully “fight” this thing would be to change the scale:
attack with an avalanche, and how many HP does an avalanche do? d10?
Or… use some sort of magic to make yourself kaiju-sized as well. But that’s sort of like giving ants HP because PCs might get magicked down the ant-size.
Jeremy Strandberg I see what you’re saying and probably tend to play in a similar way (if I’m understanding your thoughts correctly). However, Something like this would be seen very differently by a play group that grew up on anime than one that grew up on Ray Harryhausen films. What makes a reasonable combat opponent is pretty flexible.
Or get inside of it. (It’s a construct so there must be some way to break it, right?) But hey, the GM is always free to adjust/ignore stuff.
That’s exactly my approach Ray Otus. I look at everything in your zine as a gift. You were kind to give it to me but now that it’s mine, I’ll use it how I want to.
You calling me old, Logan Howard? =)
Ray Otus… and if you get inside it, then what? What’s a sword or ax or arrow going to do to an axle that’s 4 feet thick? Hell, what’s a fireball going to do? There’s no heart, there’s no stomach lining… it’s just moved by a demon.
My last pitch, then I’ll bow out: yes, the GM is free to adjust/ignore stuff. Of course they are. But what is your vision, Ray? Is this something that you think “yeah, they can fight this and deplete its HP?” If so, cool (and I’ll ignore them). But if you think (as you say) that “you aren’t supposed to fight it,’ then including HP is counter to that intention.
In the old OGRE game by Steve Jackson (I sent the cover to Juan Ochoa for inspiration in re: to this drawing) I used to consistently target the treads. That seemed like the best way to take out an OGRE. I could see doing that here. Finding a way to damage the wheels with spells or rolling boulders into it until it is immobile, even though its fangs haven’t been pulled. The most effective method would probably be fiction-oriented though. Lure it into a swampy area, for instance.
I think that original OGRE
image was Winchell Chung´s
My last post pre-dated yours Jeremy Strandberg. So here’s my direct answer. You say “there’s no heart.” Well, I dunno. There’s no human heart. Amorphous doesn’t mean it has NO anatomy. It just means it has a strange anatomy. I would absolutely guess there are things inside of it you could attack. I would let a group damage it if they rolled a strong Spout Lore or Discern Realities to know/find a weak spot of some kind.
Jeremy Strandberg I was only saying that you probably have a similar view of the “enormous foe” to mine. You can place yourself anywhere you like in my example. I’ll admit. Harryhausen’s monsters still play a role in my fantasy estimations (making me old).
Thanks for the discussion Jeremy Strandberg. It made me think. I can totally see your argument.
ramblingsofjacobanddelos.com – B.A.M.s in DW Why not fight it?
Nice, Mark Tygart. I read that a while back and forgot about it. Some good ideas there for fighting things that might be out-of-scale with a human’s ability to do damage.