tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6973193492803191556.post5513679086173181841..comments2024-03-19T00:34:06.489-07:00Comments on Bones of Contention: Spectral Interogatories IV - Xanadu and the NegadungeonBen L.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6973193492803191556.post-38933727787463488422022-10-15T23:18:53.822-07:002022-10-15T23:18:53.822-07:00I write Rotten Pulp. It's gratifying to see th...I write Rotten Pulp. It's gratifying to see that old post from so long ago still referenced and useful to people. It was definitely a bit flippant.<br /> <br />"...the Negadungeon manifests primarily for two reasons: first, the party is sealed within the temple upon entry (and attempts to escape through the portal are potentially lethal)"<br /><br />Personally I think this goes against good Negadungeon design. That's why the original post says "The door should always be open behind you." The PC's should be able to leave, but choose to go on because of a doomed obsession. They can hit a point of no return eventually, but I don't think this should be the entrance to the dungeon. <br /><br />What I meant by "Once you start the Negadungeon, you're committed to finishing it" is that the negadungeon itself has a corrupting force, like the lovecraftian mythos. "Once you've entered, things can never go back to the way they were. Something has changed in you, or in the world." You can physically leave but things will never be the same. <br /><br />Gradient Descent has a great example of how to do this. As you explore the dungeon, you build up "The Bends" which represents the possibility that you are actually an android with implanted memories. Even if you successfully leave the dungeon, this question of "Am I really human?" still haunts you. This is great because it pushes the PC's to explore deeper into the dungeon to find the truth, giving them more of The Bends. <br /><br />In general I think Gradient Descent is a strong template for what the Modern Negadungeon should look like. It even has the page of FALLOUT where the PC's actions can cause various terrible dooms to befall your campaign world. If someone asked me for a good example of the format nowadays, that's the dungeon I'd point to.<br /><br /><br /><br />Jackhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13576384742168685922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6973193492803191556.post-24714564162826878662022-04-28T06:19:15.299-07:002022-04-28T06:19:15.299-07:00For me at least, the issue with the puzzle was tha...For me at least, the issue with the puzzle was that it required a whole lot of repeated rolls to produce one of three possible results. The entire thing could've been replaced with a single random table. If each of the blue nodes on the network had an effect associated with it, it'd be more like a random encounter table presented in an interesting way.<br /><br />I did some analysis to determine the equivalent "single random table" for the puzzle here, btw. It's roughly a 1-in-8 chance of escaping and a 2-in-8 chance of "uh-oh" each time you try.<br /><br />https://thedwarfdiedagain.blogspot.com/2021/01/simplifying-xanadus-clock-puzzle-using.htmlMatt Phttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03301070414722134097noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6973193492803191556.post-15527406984979374722022-04-03T07:44:12.833-07:002022-04-03T07:44:12.833-07:00The review wasn't harsh at all! I welcome this...The review wasn't harsh at all! I welcome this kind of commentary about my work anytime - I think RPG writers need this, as it's so rare to find! So thank you once again to you and everyone at this blog who's putting in the time and effort to look into work with such a level of depth! I'm a fan. <br /><br />I think at some stage I'll do a 'Xanadu Remastered', which I imagine will have original art and new maps. And in fact, I am working on a kind of negadungeon right now, which was just funded a couple of weeks ago on Kickstarter. You can check it out here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/896634455/dngn-weird-fantasy-megadungeon-zineVasili Kalimanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03984616402869560100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6973193492803191556.post-85479593906213540842022-04-02T17:09:34.170-07:002022-04-02T17:09:34.170-07:00Vasili,
Glad the review was helpful, I hope it did...Vasili,<br />Glad the review was helpful, I hope it didn't feel too harsh because there's plenty I enjoy about Xanadu -- and its great for a first go at adventure design. Mostly my reviews look at products that are about a specific design idea, so in many ways this isn't a review of Xanadu at all so much as an effort to discuss the negadungeon. Anyway, It sounds like you've got plenty more experience since and I look forward to seeing more work -- perhaps someday a Xanadu rewrite or another negadungeon?<br /><br />I also think it's always worth drawing ones own map - but that might just be me.Gus Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14872819206286105195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6973193492803191556.post-57938924318407610992022-04-01T07:32:54.300-07:002022-04-01T07:32:54.300-07:00Thank you so much for doing such an in-depth revie...Thank you so much for doing such an in-depth review of my adventure! There’s a ton of invaluable information here, and it will take me a while to unpack. I think all the points you made are good ones. This is the first adventure I ever wrote, and in many way – I didn’t know what I was doing. I found that being a reader (mostly) and player of RPGs is very different to trying to write your own. Xanadu wasn’t even playtested (as it was written during the most intense period of the Covid lockdown in mid-2020, and none of my gaming group was around). You indeed picked out some influences like Death Frost Doom (which was the first OSR adventure I bought after a 20-year hiatus from gaming), and its incongruous and disjointed tone appealed to me (as did some Judges Guild products like the Wilderlands series and Tegal Manor). It just seemed easier to write a 'funhouse’ dungeon, rather than coming up with a plot. I also wrote Xanadu backwards - I started with the map first. I then just populated the rooms with what I thought was cool stuff, and then tried to make a few connections between elements, features, and monsters at the very end. In terms of the puzzle in Xanadu, everybody hated it! Very few people picked it was borrowed from Gamma World, and I think what appealed to me was designing it as a graphical element to include in the book. Most people I know who have run Xanadu have not used the puzzle (and when they did, their players hated it). But again, thank you very kindly for this piece. I’ve learnt more from this review about writing good adventures than I have from years of reading other people’s adventures and trying to figure out how to do my own. Vasili Kalimanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03984616402869560100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6973193492803191556.post-23882087150881354592022-03-31T07:47:58.203-07:002022-03-31T07:47:58.203-07:00I'm not sure that we disagree as much as you t...I'm not sure that we disagree as much as you think. I'm very much in favor of people writing negadungeons, think asymmetrical encounter/level design are absolutely necessary for good exploration play, and certainly support published adventures that depart from the vanilla.<br /><br />My primary issue with Xanadu is that I don't think it succeeds as a Negadungeon. Nor are its issues simply a matter of lowering HD and telegraphing dangers. Neither of these help when the party is trapped in a space where the only way out is a set of random rolls with a high chance of lethal failure and no alternatives. <br /><br />To succeed the negadungeon must be more then simply a location where the PCs die regardless of their efforts or choices. It's a horror scenario, and good horror slowly builds its tension, letting the viewers/readers/players realize the dangers. In the negadungeon the players should discover that it's their own misconceptions about the location and nature of play that have or will "doom" the characters. <br /><br />If it's to be part of a campaign, rather then a game like Trophy Dark built around the fun of losing with style, the negadungeon has to allow the possibility of the players unraveling this core genre change and escaping or winning before their own efforts (not designer fiat) produce or unleash their "doom". An alternative/addition to this - Death Frost Doom's ("DFD") contribution - and what perhaps makes a Negadungeon practically functional within a campaign, is a location where even after triggering it's "doom" the party can survive by making some sort sacrifice or suffering some largely narrative defeat. In DFD's case this is the famous zombie army that destroys the world and fundamentally changes the setting genre. Alternatives seem possible and interesting.<br /><br />Unfortunately, and despite solid design work, Xanadu manages to do neither of these things even as it comes close. I'd really love to see more functional negadungeons though, and this review is at least partially a small effort to encourage a revival of the form.Gus Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14872819206286105195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6973193492803191556.post-71198829699880704122022-03-31T05:08:38.996-07:002022-03-31T05:08:38.996-07:00Thank you for the review, Gus. As always good work...Thank you for the review, Gus. As always good work.<br />This is one where I strongly disagree with you, though. I would rather have an incredibly well-written and evocative Negadungeon than suffer through a bland, vanilla "well balanced" dungeon.<br />At least, works like Death Frost Doom and Xanadu have something that I can work with as a GM: lower some HDs, telegraph the dangers, lore dump in a couple of scrolls, old-crazy-man-on-the-road-saying-they-all-gonna-day-and-saying-some-cryptic-prophecy/riddle and BAM. I can GM this. <br />And let's not forget about the layout - mainly Xanadu's layout - which makes it easier to skim through and, therefore, easier to locate elements highlight and change them in my notes.<br />Maybe, my style of GMing is at odds with other people. I assume people like to GM things "as written". I never run full published dungeons as written, I always change them to fit my settings, so, to me, It's not a problem to edit things out of an adventure. The problem is when adventures do not give enough to work with. An those, are plenty. paraphrasing the meme, when it comes to Dungeon and adventure design "People's Boos Mean Nothing, I've Seen What Makes them Cheer" LOL<br />Again, great review, sorry if anything sounded hostile, English is not my native language, just wanted to drop my 2 cents of defense to the Negadungeons and why people insist on them!<br />Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02813239775408651325noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6973193492803191556.post-38138660564086073912022-03-30T11:11:26.671-07:002022-03-30T11:11:26.671-07:00As usual LS your instincts for a home campaign fee...As usual LS your instincts for a home campaign feel dead on, you can usually tell players that the adventure/location they are entering is different. For designers working on public release stuff or on a Negadungeon within the meaning I'm offering here I think a couple of points are worth considering and may push against just telling players, beyond of course the lack of satisfaction you mention.<br /><br />A) For the published design, one's always playing telephone, you don't have to tell you players to beware, you have to convince the referee running your adventure to tell the players to beware. This goes for the individual traps and obstacles as well - and for this signposting danger with obvious and inspiring detail strikes me as a solid start. Hopefully the referee will both focus on the right elements of the adventure and get the tools and inspiration to describe them in a way that gives players the right message<br /><br />B) For the Negadungeon specifically the forms appeal seems to me to be at least partially that it's a surprise genre shift. Unpuzzling that the adventurers may want to flee is itself the major puzzle, so mentioning that at the start can lose some of the appeal.<br /><br />I also hope people look back at the Negadungeons of the 10's and keep writing them, thinking about them and improving on them, especially with the increased interest in both horror and one shot adventures using early style systems. I should look at an actual extremely experimental Mid-OSR adventure next - Deep Carbon Observatory, but it's such a dense piece of work.Gus Lhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14872819206286105195noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6973193492803191556.post-75012659981358372622022-03-30T09:14:16.582-07:002022-03-30T09:14:16.582-07:00Signposting the different play expectations assume...Signposting the different play expectations assumed by different adventures is a tricky problem which I appreciate you mulling about here. In my own campaign where I run players through published modules one after another, I've taken to simply telling the players up front if something will be particularly demanding of them. It's not the most satisfying method, but it does the job at maximum efficiency. <br /><br />I also appreciate this more nuanced look at what makes a good Negadungeon. The term was a buzzword in what you call the mid OSR. Everyone was saying it, but I don't think I ever saw anyone really try to understand what made one good aside from its ability to produce dead PCs. LShttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15495083228566425216noreply@blogger.com