Latest DungeonBash/Dungeon Crawl

I've taken to using the words 'Dungeon Crawl' when listing my game in convention schedules to make it very clear that it's a dungeon crawl.  The name DungeonBash is great but it doesn't say much about what the game is.  I'm trying all kinds of things to get people interested in playing the game.

I ran the game yesterday at Conclave of Gamers.  This is a new con that expanded from a board game focus into more types of games.  I thought I would pull a double here - help the con by having another game and see what the response was with a different crowd.

I ran it twice and neither time had what I would call a full table.  The first game had 3 out of 4 players (someone played 2 of the characters) and the other game was full during registration but only 1 (maybe 2) of them showed up.  The last seat was filled by someone who seemed to be guilted into playing and I'm not sure how much he enjoyed it.

This is the exact reason why I was testing the waters again.  I have yet to run the game at a convention and fill the table with enthusiastic players.  Even the last game at GengisCon had 3 players and 1 who seemed more interested in me than the game.  The 3 players were a family so 2 were kids.  Not what I wanted but I ran the game for them.

I've come to the decision that not enough people want to play.  The game is optimized for 4 people so not getting that many puts a burden on the other players.  Getting less than 3 is no fun at all.  I haven't canceled those games since 2 people showed up to play but its been tempting.

I changed up the rules for this convention and I'm considering more changes for the future.  Not that I have any plans at all to run it but it's nice to take the experience and use it to improve the game.

• Pre-built dungeon - I did this already.  Building the dungeon on the fly takes too long during a convention.  If I'm ever asked to run it for a group and we have time I can go the 'build as we go' route.


• Fewer rooms - When they're searching for 3 items having 9 or 10 rooms is too many.  Combat is random and takes too long for them to get into all the rooms.  Next time there will be 6, at most 7, rooms.  Items x 2.


• Different monster charts - I didn't like how the current monsters fit into the new format.  I'll change up the encounters to be more suited to the play style.  That means not using some of the minis and duplicate encounters on the chart.  I'm good with that.  I think I can mix it up enough to make it work.


• Faster multiple encounter progression - The progression feels slow and doesn't add to the tension of the game.  This is an easy one since I can pick from the existing cards to do the progression.  I already did some of that in the last game.

In a way it means making the game smaller.  Having a big dungeon layout is great and attracts attention.  It doesn't attract players.  So a big part of the modular dungeon pieces I made won't get used.  Sad but more effective.

I didn't sign up to run the game at the next upcoming convention.  I knew I could get in if I had success at this one.  I didn't have success.  I won't be signing up for the next convention.

It's a waste to pack it up (after fixing bits that need fixing) after all the work that went into it.  I'm very sad that the minis painted by my friends will get packed up with the game.  At this point I don't see a way to not pack it up.  It won't go out of style so putting it away for a couple of years isn't going to move it off the charts.

What's most disappointing to me is that I get a lot of "That's so cool!  I want to play!" and then when they get the chance they don't.  Or people sign up and don't show up.  I like running the game and I'm proud of what I built and that my friends helped out making it awesome.  Then I sit at a table with empty chairs all around and it's hard not to take it personally after a few conventions.

Anyway.  Here's a picture of the layout I built on the fly at the last convention.  I decided to use the space available to me to make a nice big dungeon.

Savaged Firefly

First off - I hope to be posting here more often.  I probably lost most of my followers by being a slacker but hey, my own fault.  Then again my gaming has taken a steep dive since I don't have a gaming group.

I decided to run a Savage Worlds game in the Firefly setting after getting the Serenity role playing game books.  I didn't like the game system in the books and thought that it would be better served as a Savage World game.  And so it began.

There is a distinct lack of canon in the book.  The book is licensed and Joss didn't have the chance to build out the 'Verse in only one season.  Insert short session of sobbing here over the cancellation of Firefly.  Without enough setting material the game would be difficult to play at best.

There's been a few people who have done work on filling out the setting and adapting the existing material to work with Savage Worlds.  There's a few highly detailed pieces that are interesting in their own way but don't add enough to game play.  I'm using bits and pieces of those for my work.  Luckily Pinnacle just released their Sci Fi Companion book so what I need for the ships and other sci fi stuff is in place.  And the setting is mostly low tech for game play.  I'm using less than a dozen pages from the companion book.

Onward!

One thing that's completely necessary is the planets.  Even in the canon only the planets used in the series are listed (with a couple of extras) and the information is sparse.  There's no city names!  Even in the published adventure book there's no city names!  First order of business - generate list of city names.

Hrm.  So what are the cities like?  Time to check out Traveler and have a hard look at their world building rules.  Those will help with some of it.

Next sticking point was while I was building out cities.  I needed to put in Alliance presence.  There's no official Alliance military structure.  ~sigh~  So set the planets and cities aside to build out a realistic but not overly detailed military structure.  My friend Brian had a look (he was in the military and plays a lot of historical wargames so he can see it from both sides) and made corrections.  I'm questioning why one rank got dropped so that's a bit on hold.

Once I get the military structure I can work on the types of presence and how big they are.  That will be a standalone document that I'll be putting on this site as fan created material.

Then it's back to the cities.  I've got some that I used in my games with a few place names and those are the first ones I'm expanding.  I'm also working on the cities for planets where I expect my players to go.  It's so much easier than making it up on the fly.

Finally - genealogies.  Somehow I'm on a kick of having a lot of Chinese families in this game.  Maybe because half the universe is populated by Chinese so they're going to be around.  I made the 'mistake' of putting in a family relationship during a gaming session and so it began.  I've got the idea for three of them and I can continue to split them off with marrying into Anglo (had to look up the wording from the series) families.  I like a cohesive  gaming world and it's always fun when past events come back to bite players in the butt.

Finally - crime "bosses".  The series had less than legitimate business contacts on several planets.  I'm doing the same thing.  I decided to base my NPCs on my friends.  They're all on board with this and have come up with suggestions for their characters.  At least one is even painting their own mini.  I think of it as an homage to them.  I'm also using names of people I know for businesses.  Might as well work those in and some of them have cool names.

All the documentation will probably be on the front page of the website so it's easy to find.  I'm also going to work on separating out my specific things (like the family connections) from the basic documents.  I'll provide the families if people want to use them.  It's so much easier when someone else has already done the work, right?

I have a couple of other things going on as well but I'll try to keep this blog more current as I go.  I feel bad for leaving it alone for so long.

Dungeon Crawl

I've been lax about posting pictures from the dungeon crawl in action.  Back in February.  But hey!  Here they are now.

I asked players to take pictures during the game since I've found that I tend to be too busy to take enough pictures.  They did so I have pictures!  Here's some of the better ones.