086 - Has It Been Done?
Jun. 21st, 2016 02:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captain_slinkyI got an idea for a Role Playing Game product, and I need to know (1) Has It Been Done, and (2) Is It A Good Idea?
So here's the idea: A deck of cards that contains a complete Dungeon & Dragons Adventure worth of generic encounters. Designed to be either a stand-alone adventure OR as a filler for those times that you KNOW your player's aren't going to get anything accomplished during this session. A standard deck of 52 poker-sized playing cards, each one with a different spur-of-the-moment scenario that should take no more than 15 minutes or so for the adventurers to complete, each one ending with a door being revealed which leads to the unknown. Two of the cards are "Final Battle" cards which could end the game.
Each card begins with "You find yourselves in a room with..."
EXAMPLE: "You find yourselves in a room with a large, ornate statue of a Frog in the center, facing you. Measuring approximately 8 feet tall by 14 feet wide, the statue takes up over half of this 20-foot-by-20-foot cavernous room. It's hard not to notice that the eyes of the idol seem to gleam in the torchlight of the room, almost as if they were... giant gemstones? Other than the door you came in, you see doors to the North and the West. (The eyes are indeed gemstones - Giant rubies to be exact. Attempting to remove them will set off a ribbiting alarm sound which attracts 1d6 Frogmen, wee page XX of Monster Manual).
There would be an overall theme to the deck, an "Admiral Darkstar" figure who owns the dungeon and must be destroyed, Soul Gems that need to be gathered, villagers that need to be rescued, so on and so forth.
Price point would be about six bucks. What do you think?
ADDED: The 52 scenarios (some 13 hours of game play I think?) is just per deck, the 52 encounters tied to that particular "Boss" or "Theme". Mix and match, combine, use as much or as little as you like... the main reason I would make something like this would be for those FRUSTRATING times when I have a railroad bit of the adventure set up and the party decides to go off on a tangent. My mind is focused on telling the story of why this town needs saving and that the quest for the mystic sword is so important (for example), but they just want to find out more about that goat I mentioned in the flavor text leading up to the town.
"Fine. You guys IGNORE the inviting warmth of The Plot Device Inn and instead go to investigate the goat you saw on the way in to town. shuffleshuffle Yu find the goat and he leads you... he leads you to a large, Oaken door in the side of a nearby bluff. He seems to be pleading with you to open the door..."
Keeps me, as a Dungeon Master, from yelling "IGNORE THE GOAT DAMMIT AND GO INTO THE INN WHERE THE MYSTERIOUS OLD MAN IS WAITING TO GIVE YOU A MAP AND A SWORD, DAMMIT!"
Designed as a supplement, but can be played as a stand-alone game :)
So here's the idea: A deck of cards that contains a complete Dungeon & Dragons Adventure worth of generic encounters. Designed to be either a stand-alone adventure OR as a filler for those times that you KNOW your player's aren't going to get anything accomplished during this session. A standard deck of 52 poker-sized playing cards, each one with a different spur-of-the-moment scenario that should take no more than 15 minutes or so for the adventurers to complete, each one ending with a door being revealed which leads to the unknown. Two of the cards are "Final Battle" cards which could end the game.
Each card begins with "You find yourselves in a room with..."
EXAMPLE: "You find yourselves in a room with a large, ornate statue of a Frog in the center, facing you. Measuring approximately 8 feet tall by 14 feet wide, the statue takes up over half of this 20-foot-by-20-foot cavernous room. It's hard not to notice that the eyes of the idol seem to gleam in the torchlight of the room, almost as if they were... giant gemstones? Other than the door you came in, you see doors to the North and the West. (The eyes are indeed gemstones - Giant rubies to be exact. Attempting to remove them will set off a ribbiting alarm sound which attracts 1d6 Frogmen, wee page XX of Monster Manual).
There would be an overall theme to the deck, an "Admiral Darkstar" figure who owns the dungeon and must be destroyed, Soul Gems that need to be gathered, villagers that need to be rescued, so on and so forth.
Price point would be about six bucks. What do you think?
ADDED: The 52 scenarios (some 13 hours of game play I think?) is just per deck, the 52 encounters tied to that particular "Boss" or "Theme". Mix and match, combine, use as much or as little as you like... the main reason I would make something like this would be for those FRUSTRATING times when I have a railroad bit of the adventure set up and the party decides to go off on a tangent. My mind is focused on telling the story of why this town needs saving and that the quest for the mystic sword is so important (for example), but they just want to find out more about that goat I mentioned in the flavor text leading up to the town.
"Fine. You guys IGNORE the inviting warmth of The Plot Device Inn and instead go to investigate the goat you saw on the way in to town. shuffleshuffle Yu find the goat and he leads you... he leads you to a large, Oaken door in the side of a nearby bluff. He seems to be pleading with you to open the door..."
Keeps me, as a Dungeon Master, from yelling "IGNORE THE GOAT DAMMIT AND GO INTO THE INN WHERE THE MYSTERIOUS OLD MAN IS WAITING TO GIVE YOU A MAP AND A SWORD, DAMMIT!"
Designed as a supplement, but can be played as a stand-alone game :)
