Looking for help with a Dungeon Crawl Mechanic/Idea

[denouement231]

Hi All!

I’m reach out looking for help and inspiration. I’ve been working on “my ideal dungeon crawler” for a long time and who knows when I’ll ever have enough time and really get there but…

There is a mechanic I’m trying to capture, that I first encountered in Shadows of Malice, and it was brought back to my attention in Daniels own project A Land in Peril.

It is the idea that, with a small table and a bunch of cards, you can create TONS of enemies. The image below shows that I’m talking about:

You roll on a table for what kind of enemy you’re going to face, how powerful it is, and how many abilities it has, and draw a card or two to make it unique and interesting. I LOVE THIS!!! I love the way it makes a tremendous amount of variation with so little.

Dungeons of Doria also does something like this with its enemy deck where you can draw additional abilities that make the enemies you draw tougher.

I also want to point out that the 4AD decks do something like this, with each card having a PART of the picture, and you draw several to flesh out the whole picture:

A lot of oracle decks do things like this. I love multi-use cards, so, so very much.

Mini Rogue does something clever, putting multiple enemies on just a few cards, where depending on what LEVEL you encounter an enemy, determines what kind of enemy it is:

Unfortunately for my purposes, these stat blocks are a little small, I’m interested in creating more complex enemies.

The new mint tin game Crypt Crawler creates random stack blocks for specific enemies by slipping 1 or more additional stack blocks under the specific enemy:

So here is what I’m trying to do… I’m trying to take the general idea of using FEWER MATERIALS and combining them for GREATER DIVERSITY.

But I’m trying to see if it works for something specific I’m trying to do for my own system.

Here is how my system works so far (Edited For Clarity (thanks Genghis-Prawn!!!):

1. Each player starts with a 5 torch cards in hand, and 1 torch card in the fray (a pile of face down cards at the center of the table). Each player has their own torch corresponding to them. So one player might be red, all of their torches are red, another player might be blue, all their torches are blue. This is so it is clear which torch corresponds to which player.

2. A group of adventurers enter a room, each one of them seeing something different. Depending on the room, each player draws X cards from a dungeon deck and adds it to their hand initially containing their 5 torches. The dungeon deck contains enemies, traps, features, events, etc… all things you would encounter in a dungeon room. One player might draw a hand of 3 enemies and a treasure chest, another player might draw a hand of something completely different.

3. The Draft The adventurers think quickly, whisper something to each other, pointing, shouting, yelling for help, lying, and begin to move. Players are free to negotiate, share information, lie etc… but at this point:
   a. Each player takes 1 card from their hand and adds it to the fray face down.
   b. Then each player chooses 5 cards to keep in their hand, and pass the rest to the player to their left. This process is repeated until each player is left with only 5 cards in hand.

This is a twist on a “draft” where the players are collectively drafting the the fray instead of choosing which cards to keep for themselves.

4. The Fray The dungeon responds based on the choices the players collectively made. Once each player only has 5 cards left in hand, the fray is shuffled, and laid out from left to right. Each time a player’s torch is revealed, all of the cards revealed prior to it are assigned to the player whose torch was revealed. For example, I reveal 3 enemies in a row, then reveal player 2s torch… this means that all 3 of those enemies go after player 2.

In short, in many dungeon crawlers where you would have AI rules about which enemy attacks which player, or roll a die to determine… this system instantly assigns enemies to players based on the position of their torch with respect to the enemy in the fray as it is laid out.

5. Once all of the enemies have been assigned, the players interact with:
   a. the cards that they kept in their hand at the end of the draft
   b. all of the cards that they were randomly assigned from the fray.

Say there was a treasure chest in your hand during the draft… by keeping it it in your hand by the end of the draft, you must have passed along, or put one of your torches into the fray. Say you have a magic sword that is effective against ghosts… maybe you want to keep the ghosts in your hand since you’re the one who is effective at fighting them, rather than risk another player who is not-prepared fighting them.

In short, the fray is a randomization mechanism, where what you keep in your hand during the draft is essentially what you, the player, are CHOOSING to interact with… while the fray mechanism is choosing what you MUST interact with. Everyone is operating with partial information, and potentially selfish aims.

(I’m hoping this is a clearer explanation… maybe I need pictures!)

Now here is what I want to do:

I want to have less cards. Right now, I have 1 enemy on each card, and would need a ton of cards to make this an interesting and varied dungeon.

Somehow, I want to randomly? generate a diversity of enemies with interesting abilities and effects… while using this drafting/fray mechanism. I can’t just have several cards with different bits of information that that end up combining into single enemies. Some of them are kept, passed along, added to “the fray” and shuffled, and re-distributed. I want the information the players to have to be meaningful as they’re making decisions. I also want it to be quick, and not have to look up a ton of information on tables. Maybe a table or two? But not bog down the game trying to keep information in mind while you’re looking at your hand during each round of the draft.

Help me with this! Is it even possible? Any creative designers have ideas of how to do this? It is a very physical problem and I have a few thoughts but I’m looking for something exceedingly clever that will make me Chef’s Kiss.

Please ask me clarifying questions if what I’m describing doesn’t make sense. I’m really looking for input and inspiration from mechanically inclined folks and experienced dungeon divers that have seen neat ideas in the games they’ve played.

Thank you!

[Genghis-Pawn]

I had a longer reply written but a cat ruined it.

This is interesting. I’m not a very experienced player or designer, but I like puzzles and questions. Here’s an idea that may not work depending on how co-op vs cutthroat and asymmetric you intend this to be:

1. Assign 1 color of torches to each player, so that when The Fray is revealed folks can work out who got greedy.
2. Use the color of torches as a “suit,” and assign (one or more) suits to most loot cards as well.
3. Scale combat difficulty (e.g., HP, or multipliers on damage) by total # of torches revealed in the fray.
4. Take the most prevalent Suit in the fray and use it as the “lookup” of Monster Type.**
5. Take the second most prevalent Suit in the Fray and use that as the “lookup” for a Monster’s special ability. And/Or, have special “Take that!”-suit cards in the Dungeon Deck that players can pass into the fray to add special abilities to the enemy.

** And here’s the kicker on #4: rig it up so that if I am playing a Wizard/purple torches, then when an enemy spawns in the Fray from purple-suited cards, it’s an enemy that’s bad news for Wizards (E.g., all enemies of that Type have “magic resistence” as a base trait). Likewise for any other character “Class.”

This enables players to think about not taking Loot because they want to make life hard for another player by “seeding” the Fray with that suit. It also makes it likely that I will pay for it if I get greedy.

This could work well if you want players wheeling and dealing every turn: “Ok ok, yes, I took a lot of loot this time as you can tell from all my torches in the Fray – but I will give you some of the loot if you help me fight this monster!” But if you didn’t want that kind of informal negotiation to be prevalent, this might not work for you.

[denouement231]

Haha oh cat…

I’m so grateful for your input! I should elaborate on exactly how the system is working so far before I go into trying to understand your suggestions. I was too brief in explaining what I actually have rules as written. Hopefully this will be clearer.

Here is how “The Fray” works.

1. Once players have finished the pseudo-draft into the fray, the fray is shuffled and dealt out left to right in a single row.

Let’s say you and I are the players. (To your point in 1. Each player’s torches ARE the same color.) My torches are T1, your torches are T2, and the enemies are numbered 1-…

2. We lay out the Fray: T2,E1,E2,T1,E3,T2,E4
   Each time you reveal a players Torch, all enemies that were laid out to the left of that torch are assigned to that player.

So in this case, Enemies 1 and 2 are assigned to me (player 1), enemy 3 is assigned to you (player 2), and enemy 4 is assigned to no one. (Side note I worked on this system for a long time to figure out how to quickly figure out what enemy attacks what player in group battles in dnd). The first torch (t2) was placed BEFORE any enemies, so it is not targeted.

So, first to your thoughts.

1. Yes, each torch is labeled or colored according to the player they belong to, but more importantly the POSITION of the torch with respect to everything else in the fray assigned a statistical danger to being greedy.

2. I’m having trouble visualizing this. If my explanation above how how the system works still makes sense with what you’re describing here please clarify I’m interested.

3. Essentially, the more torches you have in the fray, the more danger YOU are in… and if other players put more torches into the fray… the more danger they are in too. Now there could be specific enemies that do something like “hp = # of torches in the fray.” When it comes to the rules for the enemies, the sky is really the limit.

4. So let’s say we each are given our initial hand of cards for the draft. I look at this card with a “lookup” for a monster type. I see that if my torch is the most prevalent… it is going to be a monster of type X… and then I think to myself, if genghis-pawn is the most prevalent torch, it’s going to be monster type Y. So depending on the kind of character I’m playing, I might think, (boy i’d rather it be monster type y… I better convince genghis-pawn to go “into the fray” by putting more torches than me… Is this sort of what you have in mind?

5. Again as in 4, say I look at this card and it has an ability like "if the 2nd highest suit in the fray is X, then y (specific to different character types), would we each look at the card and essentially fear being the 2nd highest suit? Do you imagine all of the rules of the different types of enemies or abilities to be ON the card itself? Or are you imagining a separate look up table?

To your point… based on how I explained the position based enemy assignment, not taking loot DOES make it harder for other players.

Negotiation is going to be a huge part of this game. Passing and using other player’s torches to help/steal is a huge part of this game… but I’m not worrying about that right now hah! I just want to figure out how to need fewer cards than one enemy per card.

Thank you again for participating in my brainstorming!!!

[Genghis-Pawn]

@denouement231

I’m having trouble visualizing this. If my explanation above how how the system works still makes sense with what you’re describing here please clarify I’m interested.

Yeah I think I may have gotten off on the wrong foot by starting from an incomplete understanding of “The Fray.” I’m still not sure I fully understand it, and that makes it difficult for me to work up a reply.

Your most recently reply makes clear to me that there are “Enemy Cards,” which was not clear from the first post.

• Where do enemy cards come from? Are cards from the “Dungeon Deck” multi-use cards that (in the current design) show both loot and specific enemies?
• How much of your current design is flexible? You say you spent a lot of time building a design that’s easy to read because it’s easy to spot torches and enemy cards, but then (If I am understanding you correctly) you’re asking for suggestions about how to get rid of specific enemy cards.

To be honest I think we may be reaching a point of diminishing returns here, since I don’t feel I have a clear enough understanding of the current design to be poking at it.

[MattBarker]

I’d like to be able to help, but it’s been a long day at work and I cannot comprehend all of it. Perhaps a video play through of what you have so far ?

The only thing I can add is that it would be great if the cards had head/body feet on them with an associated int/Str/Dex related ability.

A bit like those old children’s flip books, but with grim dark body horror

[MattBarker]

So only completed monsters become active, and the rest are fed back into the meat grinder

[denouement231]

Thank you so much for your feedback!! Re-reading my initial post I see that while clear in my head, it is not so clear in the initial post. I’ve tried to edit and re-write it somewhat. Hopefully it makes more sense?

I think I’ve answered your questions…

• There is a main dungeon deck, and all sorts of stuff you would find in a dungeon is in it. Enemies, cursed alters, everything you would find in a dungeon room. When you enter a room, each player draws X cards from this deck and get a “glimpse” of what is in the room. Then it is through the drafting mechanism that each player gathers more information as they see more and more of all of the contents of the room.
• While I do like the system as it works now, I’m seeing that it requires a lot of cards. I’m generally flexible but the system does work nicely for what it does. I do want a 1:1 ratio of cards to enemies BUT… I want the enemies that can be generated to be more diverse.

To give a simple example of a solution I thought of to give a sense of what I’m looking for. Say each “room” has a # 1-6. and each enemy card has… 6 different enemies on them, the enemy that card represents is chosen by the room #. Mini-rogue does this:

So the player who sees that card merely looks at the card and immediately knows the enemy they face, but that same card can represent 4 different enemies. Obviously the amount of information you can have is limited.

I hope I’m clarifying a little bit.

[denouement231]

I’ve tried to clarify the rules so it’s easier to wrap one’s head around. Perhaps pictures are needed!

I love that idea though. I’ve been thinking about something just like it, to basically have parts of stat blocks spread across several cards that all line up in the end to create a complete picture.

I imagine that each player sees something ABOUT the enemies, and as they pass the cards during the draft, they’re learning more about what they are facing. I peak into the room and the first thing I noticed was it’s claws… then my companion said it was a demon
(Cards are passed during the draft and I see what they were talking about.)

The thing I’m really hoping to somehow accomplish is to have a 1:1 ratio of enemy cards to enemies themselves, where each player can look at the cards they have in their hand during the draft, and know what it is, and plan accordingly. Whether the cards themselves have all of the information, or there is some other physical/practical trick I’m just not sure…

Which is why I’m asking for ideas!