Dungeon Raiders Interest Check

[coolcoyote]

Hello forum goers!

This is an interest check for a game / writing experiment.

The theme is simple. You are part of an adventuring party exploring the maze like ruins of an ancient castle filled with monsters traps and a treasure horde guarded by a deadly dragon.

Getting there however is a bit harder. Because this is a story where your character can die at any time.

The game is played like this :

Before every post you make (beyond your first introductionary post for your character) you will roll a 20 sided die. If you roll a 20 you are exempt from rolling for the next turn. However if you roll a 1...your character writes themselves out of the story...usually fatally.

It can come from the monsters you are currently fighting, a random trap of your choice, stabbed in the back by a fellow player, getting trapped and being unable to continue etc etc etc. You are allowed to write in a new character next turn and the process repeats.

Collectively the number you roll is added to the progress of the party. Once the party reaches a collective 100 (the number may change depending on how many people join ) points rolled you reach the treasure and fight the dragon to win the game.

Along the way you are qllowed to spoof or control any monster thrown at you, or make up your own, just NOT the other actions of player characters.

And since this is a game aimed to improve your writing skills you are expected to use full paragraph rp, 3-4 lines will do just fine with out ** marks etc etc.

If you are interested just pass along a description of their character and Ability. It's a steam punk fantasy setting so plan acordingly ^.^

Here is my character as an example.

Name: Dylan Locke

Species: Lizard Fox

Description:
Peasent is perhaps a kind term to describe Dylan's ragged appearence. A tattered hooded shawl made of brown leather covers his shoulders, its hood masking a fox like head with long point ears and a slender snout.

The fur of his body is red but his scaley under belly is black. His tail is more lizard than canine; long, thickn and with a tuft of black fur on the end.

He leaves his torso uncovered, leaving the effects of his gluttony and sloth evident for all to see in the form of a pot belly hanging over the top of his long flowing loin cloth.

Ability:
Skilled thief and pick pocket.

[Kesh]

Rather than having a character, may I bump in from time to time to control an enemy? I already have a lot of RP's going at the moment but I have more than a few ideas for monsters, traps and people to put against players and I would like to toy with a couple of them.

[coolcoyote]

Sounds ok with me

[Drakeyboy]

I like the idea, but a single bad roll means you have to go...

Like if there was a few exception areas or something. Maybe you need like five bad rolls or something. But just one seems a little too quick you know?

[coolcoyote]

I was wondering that myself actually. Like I said this is mostly an experiment.

We can do a 3 strike rule or a 5 strike rule. Give players a sense of suspence as they slowly draw closer to the end of the story

Im game for that

[Kesh]

Why not make it so you have health, and when you roll a bad number you lose a certain amount of health depending on the enemy?

[Drakeyboy]

Well i would figure that certain scenarios could potentially ignore the strikes. But i would personally use them very sparingly. And maybe after completing a few challenges you can heal a strike. But it would have to be sory of dificult and like a risk rewaed sort of thing. Like in a scenario where you could potentially heal a strike it would riase the failure number, so instead of it being just one it could be one, two, and three, making the move tactical and risky at the same time. Basically health would be the strikes.

[coolcoyote]

What do you both suggest o.o

I am aiming for this to be as simple as possible

[Drakeyboy]

To be honest... as soon as you said you get a bad roll your gone. Things are going to get complicated. but it's up to you.

[coolcoyote]

Lol, true that. So how about this.

Option 1:
Each player gets five hp. Each turn players roll 1d20. Rolling 1 or 2 subtracts 1 hp. Rolling 19 or 20 adds 1 hp.

Option 2: at the start of each or new challenge turn the gm rolls a number. Players have to meet or beat that number. Those that dont lose hp and they are wounded icly or narrowly dodge the challenge icly.

Option 3: we each roll 1d20 each turn. When the collective number reaches 100 we tally up the points we rolled. Player with the least dies. And so on and so forth until last player standing wins.

Option 4: when you try to over come a challenge you roll a d20. 20-18 is a critical success. 17-13 is a normal success
12-7 is a slight success, 6-3 you fail, get injured. 2 you are severly injured. 1 you die.

You can get injured three times or severely injured twice before you subcome to these injuries.

Of course in all of these options you can opt out to getting captured instead of dieing, its just your character is taken to the final treasure room where they await rescue...or a horrible demise should the party fail.



Like i said, this is an experiment in making dice rolling in forum rp enjoyable with the suspence that there are consiquences should you fail

So im up for any suggestions

[Drakeyboy]

I like option 2 the most to be honest. But a few little tweaks to make it interesting. Say if the heroes roll a crit, or for those that don't know a twenty, during a challenge gets a point and those points can be redeemed later to heal up or preform amazing feats dispite our rolls.

Like for example during a challenge, say a fight, and you roll a three. Say I roll and get a one. Unsatisfied i use up one of my points to re-roll or make that a pass. Don't know yet on the very technical parts yet. But you get the idea.

Maybe we can also implement a cap of points stored and maybe a single starting point.

[coolcoyote]

Indeed! Sounds like a plan. If its something you are skilled at, say for example Dylan is skilled at lock picking, so he would get a bonus of 1 to his dice roll. Etc etc.

Or if you roll 3 successes in a row you get some kind of reward probibly the choice of rerolling your next poor dice roll or getting 1 extra hp. Hp in this case meaning saving throw.

So to clarify:

At the start of each new obstical the gm rolls from a premade list to choose the obstical, then rolls a d20 for its difficulty. Some obsticalls may increase the difficulty by 1-3 points.

The number rolled is added to a collective 'progress' meter. When it reachs 100 the players reach the final boss and treasure room so you can either face a small horde of easy challenges or a few large ones.

Players are allowed 3 saving throws.

Saving throws used when a player fails the challenge. When a player runs out of saving throws the player writes that characcter out of the story either by killing them off or having them captured by monsters.

If a player rolls 3 success's in a row they have the choice of  gaining a Perk.
A. Lowering the difficulty of the next challenge by 3 points,

B. re-rolling 1 dice roll

C. Gaining 1 saving throw

So...too complicated or just right?

[PEFA Harker]

Indeed! Sounds like a plan. If its something you are skilled at, say for example Dylan is skilled at lock picking, so he would get a bonus of 1 to his dice roll. Etc etc.

Or if you roll 3 successes in a row you get some kind of reward probibly the choice of rerolling your next poor dice roll or getting 1 extra hp. Hp in this case meaning saving throw.

So to clarify:

At the start of each new obstical the gm rolls from a premade list to choose the obstical, then rolls a d20 for its difficulty. Some obsticalls may increase the difficulty by 1-3 points.

The number rolled is added to a collective 'progress' meter. When it reachs 100 the players reach the final boss and treasure room so you can either face a small horde of easy challenges or a few large ones.

Players are allowed 3 saving throws.

Saving throws used when a player fails the challenge. When a player runs out of saving throws the player writes that characcter out of the story either by killing them off or having them captured by monsters.

If a player rolls 3 success's in a row they have the choice of  gaining a Perk.
A. Lowering the difficulty of the next challenge by 3 points,

B. re-rolling 1 dice roll

C. Gaining 1 saving throw

So...too complicated or just right?

That's just right, for a forum-based roleplay.

[George]

0ne more thing, what if players are "downed" when injured and another player can attempt to help them? And as CC mentioned, the capture could call for a quest/mission to save that character? Both of these could encourage stronger bonds between characters, which in turn adds to the RP instead of just the G.

[coolcoyote]

Im ok with that. pretty much how a players character is dispatched is entirely up to them. In a nut shell when their number of saving throws hits 0 they are either killed, gravely injured, or captured. If a person is captured they are more than welcome to rp with their character in a cage with other characters captured, awaiting rescue...or awaiting a grizzly demise via horrible monster.

I can make it possible to use your perk to save a wounded/ dying/ going to be captured hero but only if you can do so before their next turn o.o

Im a pretty eaay going gm so Im not going to be a complete stickler to the rules just that when you hit 0 something bad happens what that is is up to you

Its like a combination between an rp, a board game, and a survival contest.

I will be making an official ooc thread for this once we finalize what everyone will enjoy. Unlike my usual rps the build up for this one will be short, spawning characters directly at the enterence of the dungeon. It will be aluded that the heroes met in a tavern the night before but you are welcome to have a character just appear there.

So, thank you all for comments and suggestions. Show of hands paws and tenticals. Who is in?