Sunday, February 15, 2009

Lost Temple of the Laser Snakes

This whole dungeon kick I've been on lately culminated on Friday when I got my gang of Traveller characters to steal "the Jeweled Bird of Zi Amon" from a temple full of snake people. Good times.

I got to test out a bit of dungeon running in a situation where the entire campaign didn't hinge on it being interesting, and I thought it went rather well. Not something I'm going to make the focus of the campaign, but at least one player seemed to like it a lot, so I'll probably throw in similar activities from time to time. Perhaps not as straight up dungeon as this one, since he seemed more keen on the pulpy wackiness of it all, but definitely more artifact snatch 'n grab, as an occasional alternative to their political shenanigans.

It's strengthened my interest in running a dungeon as a full campaign, because I'm beginning to be more confidant that I can pull it off. I've had bad experiences running dungeoncrawls in the past, but I think I've gotten past the "a dungeon is a room full of things to fight" idea that caused most of my problems. With interesting rooms, and interesting reasons to head into the dungeon, it could work.

3 comments:

  1. Heh, looks like it was fun, and yeah, it's got a great pulpy feel to it. A bit Indiana Jones, a bit Star Wars, and a bit "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap", which is a nice mix. I'm also getting a vaguely noir vibe, a pinch, maybe of Dashiell Hammett?

    I'm curious to hear what you think of dungeoneering in the Thursday game, now that we're likely to be doing some.

    - Brian

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  2. Hey, what edition of Traveller are you using?

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  3. trollsmyth: Oh, most definitely a bit of Dashiell Hammett. I was surprised that none of the players picked up on that. Ah, well.

    I'm looking forward to the dungeoneering. Dungeon design is something I've mostly had to put together from theory and second hand reports, because though I've run a bit myself, I've never played through one.

    Mad Skald: Mongoose, no supplements. I kind of wish I was using Classic, but that's mostly for ideological purity's sake; the events tables worked out pretty well for us. I'm happy with it.

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