Simple Dungeon Tropes for a Campaign of Virgins

[Wayward Son]

Maybe too video gamey today, but you have just described the Mobius Tower from Tracy Hickman's The Lost Tomb of Martek (except it also had a temporal stasis thing where you could manipulate frozen time to solve puzzles). That's from the era when videogames mostly meant "dots shooting dots at other dots".
Wayward Son , that hydra encounter is great. I bet everyone involved remembered it. I have to put something like that in my next dungeon. (Hear that, Arrowgrab ?)

It wasn't that, no. It was "The Search For Harold" iirc, a 2e module for characters levels 1-3.

 

[Zombra]

I think Desert of Desolation was my favorite module series. Never played them, they were just fascinating to read.

 

[Moonrise]

Gamey dungeons can absolutely exist in a world of mad wizards, but for their first time playing a tabletop RPG you want to showcase a dynamism that computer games can't provide. The people they meet aren't lore-dumps or quest-givers. NPCs have agency; they're powered by an intelligence, and they'll attempt to fulfill their motivations regardless of whether the players are paying attention. The "AI" can't be abused. Any monster with sapience is dangerous not because of its abilities but because it can reason. I've found pits to be the best baby's first dungeon deathtrap, as spellcasters don't yet have a way of getting the guy in plate across. They actually have to think about it. You should also teach them not to drink suspicious liquids. "Oh look, a fountain in a wizard's tower with water as pure as melted glacier. Surely the GM wouldn't have it out for us." As a matter of fact I do. It's called a crawl for a reason. The Magic Mouth spell is great for riddles, because it provides information without being reactive--the party can't beat the solution out of it. The imagination confers an unlimited budget; use it. Ever read House of Leaves? You can go full non-euclidean. There are mazes, and then there are hypercube mazes. I wouldn't go that far with new players, but consider something like Scooby-Doo doors.

 

[Melan]

I've recently come across Tomb of the Serpent Kings, which, while it has some serious organisation issues, also makes for a good starter dungeon that gives you the proper feeling of going into dark, dangerous, fucked up underground places where you are going to get killed if you aren't careful and lucky enough. It tries to introduce a lot of basic dungeoneering concepts like secret doors, traps, puzzles, the importance of investigation, etc. It is also large and complex enough to sustain a game for about two sessions, and let unplanned things happen. Also, it's free.

 

[Zombra]

Tomb of the Serpent Kings

Lots of great ideas in this thing - still way too big for my purposes (the author says it times out to 12-24 hours), but I'll likely steal plenty from it.

 

[Silva]

I swear I've read "..for a campaign of Vikings" in title and was waiting all this time for the supposed Viking themed dungeons. Lol

 

[ERYFKRAD]

d Viking themed dungeons.

Just play Expeditions Viking.

 

[King Crispy]

Zombra, let me throw my two cents at you. Assuming you haven't already begun.

Do you think the players you have would be interested in a more conventional start to the campaign before delving into a "dungeon"? Sounds like you're trying to attract some non-incels / semi-normal people into light RP, possibly more later.

It would be a shame to start this, they start to really love it, and you all realize none of the characters have any real backgrounds and that there's no real foundation explaining how this all came to be.

Consider starting them out in some sort of a tavern or similar environment. They might laugh about it at first, "What is this, some Hobbit movie?" But it can be a lot of fun hashing out who's who first, why they're there, what their motivations are before diving in. They get wind of some mine nearby or even just the basement beneath the tavern that needs to be checked out. Give the whole endeavor some sort of purpose. It also lends heavily to the "value" of keeping everyone alive. Emotional investment into each of their creations, even if they don't want to admit it.

It's a pretty well-known fact that Greyhawk got its start from a humble dungeon crawl and we all know where it went from there. But they had to do a lot of ret-con'ing and sort of patching to get it all to make sense later on. It doesn't have to be that way.

 

[Norfleet]

Have you done the orc and treasure chest in a 10'x10' room yet?

If you feel like being evil, give them all a bunch of high-level overpowered characters to start with, then drop them into an episode of Smart Kobold and kill them all.

 

[Neanderthal]

Always like to use magic mouths for warnings, riddles an shit like that. Good spell that playesr later gets access to.
Locked massive doors being pounded on, sealed by powerful runes and forbiddings.
A grave, tomb, or sarcophagus with a hero lying in state. +1 sword, an intreresting curse, or just backstory to round it out.
Shadows acting weird, twisting and screaming in silence or escaping you to form unknown letters and words.
Physics free zones, water dripping to the ceiling from the floor, a black pool above your heads.
The bones, equipment (good starting loot) and maybe journals of a previous adventurer.
A clue written in Futhark or something that players can't decipher, later give them access to another piece of writing that lets them learn runes and riddle out the message. Like translating the map at beginning of the Hobbit, make em feel smart.
Give em a treasure that they have no idea about, a small bone die with skulls for pips, a brooch shaped like a clenched fist, a headband that grants strange visions, backstory or abilities to discover later.
Sneak past massive numbers of superior foes, see an army passing from hiding or something similar.
A corridor where armed and armoured skeletons stands in recesses in the walls bare inches from the players who are squeezing past.
A hidden resting place or secret area where the players can rest, recuperate and learn all that crap thats most important for spellcasters. Think the guardroom in Moria where Pippin drops the stone.
A ghost or haunt wailing or acting out a sisyphean tasktotally oblivious to the players.

 

[Norfleet]

Always like to use magic mouths for warnings, riddles an shit like that. Good spell that playesr later gets access to.

You know, I always wondered: Who does this? Why is somebody putting magic mouths that actually give useful, if cryptic, warnings, instead of simply misinformation, mockery and obscenities? The last time I gave players the ability to do this to the world in a MUD, all they did was fill it with Yo Momma jokes. Maybe that's what should happen, the player solves the riddle of the magic mouth only to discover that the creating wizard really just put it there as a Yo Momma joke.

 

[Neanderthal]

Yeah I know what you mean, dungeons that feel artificial an just there as a player trawl, kinda vulgar an cheap. Thats why I always like to design around a use, what purpose the place serves or did serve: Say we've got an ancient royal tomb where the dead kings of centuries past are laid to rest, that shit soons gets expensive and keeping a staff on hand to maintain, guard and expand the place soon depletes even the treasury. So you hire a wizard to raise undead an elementals to guard the place, you set wards an magic mouths to test the pilgrims, priests or state dignitaries who will come there, you trap entrances or passages but leave hints for the faithful, that kinda shit.

Pretty soon the artifice builds a fairly convincing an organic locale rather than an xp pinata.

Course this assumes that the original architects designs all go to plan, when things go wrong it gets a lot more interesting.

 

[Snorkack]

Hey Zombra, humblebundle has the entirety of WHFRP2 sourcebooks on sale. For five-ish bucks you can get Karak Azgal, which basically contains one single mega dungeon. Plenty of inspiration to draw from.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Hey Zombra, humblebundle has the entirety of WHFRP2 sourcebooks on sale. For five-ish bucks you can get Karak Azgal, which basically contains one single mega dungeon. Plenty of inspiration to draw from.

And the rest of the books? Any good?

 

[Snorkack]

Hey Zombra, humblebundle has the entirety of WHFRP2 sourcebooks on sale. For five-ish bucks you can get Karak Azgal, which basically contains one single mega dungeon. Plenty of inspiration to draw from.

And the rest of the books? Any good?

From what perspective? Do you want to know if the system is good because you want to run a campaign with the ruleset? (probably no, just play generic d20 with warhammer setting. or wait vor 4th ed.)
Do you want to read warhammer fluff? (then go for it)
Are you looking for good adventure modules that fit with other game systems as well? (Only plundered vaults, few (very) good short adventures there)

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Hey Zombra, humblebundle has the entirety of WHFRP2 sourcebooks on sale. For five-ish bucks you can get Karak Azgal, which basically contains one single mega dungeon. Plenty of inspiration to draw from.

And the rest of the books? Any good?

From what perspective? Do you want to know if the system is good because you want to run a campaign with the ruleset? (probably no, just play generic d20 with warhammer setting. or wait vor 4th ed.)
Do you want to read warhammer fluff? (then go for it)
Are you looking for good adventure modules that fit with other game systems as well? (Only plundered vaults, few (very) good short adventures there)

All I can do with the books is read them man, no one plays Pnp in this country.
Bought the lot anyway.