Day 22 of #RPGaDay and the word "LOST" and my mind takes the circuitous route to the topic of Reverse Dungeons.
The concept of the reverse dungeon, where you are the monsters, defending against threats from "heroic" humankind have been around far longer than "We Be Goblins" and the Complete Book of Humanoids.
In my own D&D-speak, GAZ10 The Orcs of Thar introduced humanoid races are playable characters to my group. The comedic interior Jim Holloway art and simplistic and sometimes parodying sections of the sourcebook turned off some (not me!) and we put it on the back burner to be forgotten.
The next time this concept came to the limelight was literally the dying months of 2nd Edition AD&D, with the quite obviously titled Reverse Dungeon.
Historically, the concept of the Reverse Dungeon goes about as well,as a party of all dwarves, or a party of all thieves. Once the novelty wears off, there's a party with overachieving strengths and glaring weaknesses. It's not impossible to run a game, but certainly not the easiest.
After a great yet-to-be documented Hackmaster TPK, we were still looking for a game to fill in our monthly session. The plotline of the ending campaign was in the midst of the early portions of B10 Night's Dark Terror, and as I am wont to do, I realized the bad guys had won and would eventually work their way into the Hidden Valley of the Hutaaka. A game about the inhabitants meeting such a threat didn't sound like such a bad idea, so I statted out some of the Hutaaka and the Traldar and decided to playtest this at our monthly session, using Basic D&D
It wasn't a total disaster, but between the host's wife demanding to cook some Thanksgiving dinner (or at least a meatloaf) in the heat of Summer, the inner-city crime spree going down, the fact the rotation of Traldar characters' body count creating replacement with over-simplistic names like Fug, Hug, and Lug, it was an experience.
The one conversion that has worked was a Reverse Dungeon of B4 The Lost City Using Hackmaster, the characters were common Cynidecians and of the common folk who just encountered a breach from "Hell Above." They put down the armored demons from there, but slowly pieced together that their world was not how it seemed. I'd love to expand on this concept, and I hope that the recently announced Original Adventure Reincarnated #4: The Lost City, being published by Goodman Games, will have more data, but I'm not holding my breath.
The only other true example of a Reverse Dungeon I want to experiment with is more a Reverse Wilderness. I have pages of material to convert the X1 The Isle of Dread into a campaign using far more interesting material that just the original module and 3rd Edition entries in Dragon and Dungeon magazines. Using the islanders as player characters allows for more freedom, more role-playing, and a much higher bodycount.
Of course, I've been using a good portion of my level 1-3 plot in my forthcoming Adventures in Gulluvia Basic D&D game, so I'll need a new group of players to try it out, until we get beyond the Great Wall.
...and let's not tell my players that the entire Adventures in Gulluvia setting is a reverse dungeon of the original "naughty" version of B3. We just haven't gotten near the palace yet, or the added twist I have in store.
Mwahahahahahaha!
The concept of the reverse dungeon, where you are the monsters, defending against threats from "heroic" humankind have been around far longer than "We Be Goblins" and the Complete Book of Humanoids.
In my own D&D-speak, GAZ10 The Orcs of Thar introduced humanoid races are playable characters to my group. The comedic interior Jim Holloway art and simplistic and sometimes parodying sections of the sourcebook turned off some (not me!) and we put it on the back burner to be forgotten.
The next time this concept came to the limelight was literally the dying months of 2nd Edition AD&D, with the quite obviously titled Reverse Dungeon.
Historically, the concept of the Reverse Dungeon goes about as well,as a party of all dwarves, or a party of all thieves. Once the novelty wears off, there's a party with overachieving strengths and glaring weaknesses. It's not impossible to run a game, but certainly not the easiest.
After a great yet-to-be documented Hackmaster TPK, we were still looking for a game to fill in our monthly session. The plotline of the ending campaign was in the midst of the early portions of B10 Night's Dark Terror, and as I am wont to do, I realized the bad guys had won and would eventually work their way into the Hidden Valley of the Hutaaka. A game about the inhabitants meeting such a threat didn't sound like such a bad idea, so I statted out some of the Hutaaka and the Traldar and decided to playtest this at our monthly session, using Basic D&D
It wasn't a total disaster, but between the host's wife demanding to cook some Thanksgiving dinner (or at least a meatloaf) in the heat of Summer, the inner-city crime spree going down, the fact the rotation of Traldar characters' body count creating replacement with over-simplistic names like Fug, Hug, and Lug, it was an experience.
The one conversion that has worked was a Reverse Dungeon of B4 The Lost City Using Hackmaster, the characters were common Cynidecians and of the common folk who just encountered a breach from "Hell Above." They put down the armored demons from there, but slowly pieced together that their world was not how it seemed. I'd love to expand on this concept, and I hope that the recently announced Original Adventure Reincarnated #4: The Lost City, being published by Goodman Games, will have more data, but I'm not holding my breath.
The only other true example of a Reverse Dungeon I want to experiment with is more a Reverse Wilderness. I have pages of material to convert the X1 The Isle of Dread into a campaign using far more interesting material that just the original module and 3rd Edition entries in Dragon and Dungeon magazines. Using the islanders as player characters allows for more freedom, more role-playing, and a much higher bodycount.
Of course, I've been using a good portion of my level 1-3 plot in my forthcoming Adventures in Gulluvia Basic D&D game, so I'll need a new group of players to try it out, until we get beyond the Great Wall.
...and let's not tell my players that the entire Adventures in Gulluvia setting is a reverse dungeon of the original "naughty" version of B3. We just haven't gotten near the palace yet, or the added twist I have in store.
Mwahahahahahaha!
(341/120)
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