First play: How to Host a Dungeon

 Short version? This was not quite what I expected, but it was a really fun exercise!

With RPG game masters in mind, How to Host a Dungeon is more of a guided exercise in somewhat localized world-building. The manual takes you through a number of steps, called Ages (briefly described below), to end up with a populated world that has a history that can then be used in a fantasy role-playing game.

Step 1: The Primordial Age

You start with a landscape profile, which you draw on your page, either completely of your own making or patterned after a general plan randomly selected by d6 roll. Then you map seven stratigraphic layers in the underground portion, so you have eight zones of play, including the surface. Then you roll a die to decide the composition of each layer (i.e.: caves, gem deposits, subterranean biomes, and more). There is an optional feature called a Nexus, but I did not use this in my first game. The board is now ready to be populated.

For ease of keeping track, stratigraphy layers are labeled 1-8, usually with 1 being the surface and 8 the deepest layer.

Step 2: The Age of Civilization

There is a list of civilizations to choose from: aliens, dwarves, elves, demons, and magicians. Each has its own set of turn options, called a Lifecycle, that are played through until the civilization comes to an end. As you play through the Lifecycles, you will be drawing rooms and tunnels, mining resources, and keeping track of population until the fateful day of their destruction, disbanding, or disappearance.

Step 3: The Age of Monsters

Part of the print job is a pile of monster cards. Each monster has a certain way to spawn into the game and a custom Lifecycle of three possible actions: one they always do (unless it is impossible), one that is conditional (used to resolve being unable to do the first action), and a list of lesser actions from which they may choose one to perform.

Each monster gets to take a turn, with new monsters entering the fray until one of them achieves superiority through numbers or riches. Some build more rooms, others just roam what already exists. The Age ends when a monster group reaches a threshold level of population or wealth, or special condition found on their particular card (not all monsters have one).

Step 4: Age of Villainy

The monster group that triggered this age embarks on a path of villainy as a horde or an empire. Each path adds more action options to the villain monster group which they follow until they control the board in whatever way their path dictates, ending the game.

My session

Primordial Age

I rolled landscape profile 4, an up-thrust mountain where the stratigraphy is angled, such that all but one of the layers are exposed to the surface on one side of the mountain. Layer 1 (surface) rolled forest cover, layer 2 rolled a large cave that takes up most of the layer, layer 3 rolled a large cave with three distinct gemstone deposits, Layer 4 rolled a large cave with a lake in it, layer 5 rolled two small caves with water in them, layer 6 rolled a large cave with magma and a vent tunnel that goes to the surface, layer 7 rolled a fungus biome, and layer 8 rolled six gemstone deposits.

Age of Civilization

Dwarves move in, tunnelling over from the left side of my paper. They start with two living quarters and two treasure vaults (population 2, wealth 2).

They explore, finding the cave of gemstones and they build a workshop. (pop. 3, wealth 2)

Mining begins on one of the gem deposits, a drinking hall (fortification) is built. (pop. 4, wealth 3)

Mining begins on second gem deposit and a power plant is built. (pop. 5, wealth 4)

Mining begins on third gem deposit and the settlement is big enough to be called a city. It is granted the name Hulden Dur and a great room is constructed in which is carved a giant statue of the Torvund the Founder. (pop. 6, wealth 5)

With the available gems being exploited, the dwarves push deeper into the mountain, finding two more gem deposits in their exploration. A manufactory is built. (pop. 7, wealth 5)

Mining begins on the first of the newly discovered deposits and a tomb is built. (pop. 8, wealth 6)

Mining begins on second new gem deposit. An impossible engine is constructed (bonus: build an additional room). The dwarves build a magnificent imperial throne room (epic treasure). (pop. 9, wealth 7)

There's a reason it was called an impossible engine. Unstable from the day they started it, the engine was closely monitored and kept in check by the dwarves' best scientists and mechanics. They used it to infuse the most perfect of gems with magical energy. These gems were used to power tools and weapons of all kinds. It was only a matter of time before the inevitable happened. A missed flaw in a gem approved for infusion caused the gem to crack, releasing a burst of energy that damaged the machine and its controls. Unable to stop it themselves, the dwarves in the room ran, but some were not fast enough. The explosion rocked the city, destroying the nearest rooms, shock waves causing cave-ins in the further away rooms. A quarter of the population was lost, caught in the explosion or buried under the rubble.

Unable to cope with the losses, the survivors packed up their belongings and riches and left their city deserted.

Age of Monsters

Years pass. So closely together are their advents to mountain, one might say they came together. A small group builds a new settlement in the incredibly large cave. They call it Brazencragg, but they are followed by a hungry couple of dinosaurs. On the other side of the mountain, a swarm of insects finds the warmth of the vent hole and builds some caverns next to the vent tunnel, capturing some of the heat from below to help them thrive.

The dinosaurs infiltrate Brazencragg's cavern, hunting the settlers and multiplying. The sellers build a tomb, but it doubles as a fortification against future attacks. The insects delve deeper into the mountain, finding the tunnel in layer five that connects the two caves. A group of elusive humanoids called Morlons appears in layer 8.

Brazencragg is careless and loses more of its people to the dinosaurs. The Morlons build a refinery to process magma, drawing the ores and metals out of it. The bugs find and infest the ancient dwarven statue room. A giant takes residence in the fungus biome of layer 7.

The dinosaurs wipe out Brazencragg and move into the gem cavern that had been mined by the dwarves. The giant is attacked by the bugs, but kills enough of them that they retreat. Morlons move into the lowest of the dwarven mine chambers and explore into the lower gem deposits. An ogre shows up on the shores of the magma pit.

Dinos expand their territory into the dwarven chambers to look for food. Morlons expand into dwarven chambers and build a fortification, but get robbed by the ogre. The giant attempts to rout the ogre but loses. The bugs attack the ogre and he kills them all. Nomads come from the surface.

The ogre extorts the Morlons again and they retreat into their caves. Nomads move and trade with the Morlons. Dinos hunt the giant. City of Saltbury is established on the surface.

Saltbury starts to delve into the deeps, dinos hunt some of their scouts. Dinosaurs rout the ogre. Morlons refine more magma. Ogre attacks the nomads after they just built a bazaar and some are killed. A medusa shows up in a dwarven living quarters.

Saltbury builds a wall. The dinosaurs wipe out the nomads and breed triggering the end of the age and they become the villains.

Age of Villains

Saltbury allies with the Dinosaurs. Since building their wall, the city dwellers are now safe from being hunted in the depths. Saltbury is safe from the dangers below and turn their attention outward.

Medusa scouts out other rooms left by the dwarves, searching for prey and finds the Morlons. Morlons continue their magma refinement. The Ogre hunts them.

The Dinosaurs attempts to rout Medusa and fail. They breed to replace their losses and just so happen to populate a stratum layer with no other monsters in it, triggering the game-winning condition.

The final map of my first try at How to Host a Dungeon.

Thoughts

I was not expecting how things went down, as in profile-wise. Where the designer's game description says How to Host a Dungeon will generate a complete dungeon map, I was picturing a top-down view. As one can see, that is not the case. However, I see that the profile view allows for layers of elevation and I think works better playing/planning on a single sheet of paper. I have never GMed a game or created a world for one and maybe the profile is a well used method of dungeon creation among the breed (I am currently in the middle of my first D&D campaign, so very new to this) and as such, my praise here is not a surprise.

The creation steps and their changing through each age kept me engaged right up to the Age of Villains. I liked the sense of directed randomness as I rolled and drafted features and populations with the liberty to arrange how they looked as things unfolded. Interesting also was the sense of there being a central location where most of the action was taking place in a grand fight for dominance (around the Dwarven structures here) while outlying caverns housed fewer life forms that mostly just existed.

Even though I have never run a game as a GM, after playing this I feel like I'd have a leg up already creating a micro-world for some RPG campaign. There's locations with varied terrain and treasures, a history of past and current populations, each with different behaviours, localized interactions, and even some strange technologies. I feel like my map would be easy to transfer to some other game.

One thing though, I was forced to stop at the switch from Age of Monsters to Age of Villains and I had a hard time wanting to pick it up again to finish. I did finish just before writing this down, but it's been a month. Maybe I was tainted by one of the comments I read about how the commenter doesn't play the last age. Or maybe I felt the same thing they did. Maybe some combination. At any rate, I felt like the game was already won and I was just figuring out by how much. Interestingly enough, as seen above, I only played one more turn before the game ended.

One thing I would change is to use beads or tokens for population and wealth as suggested instead of using a pencil and eraser. The map would be a little cleaner for it and I might have had an easier time with tracking.

I got this title from DriveThruRPG. It was on sale when I purchased it and I forget what I paid, but to play a 2 or 3 hour epic that you have a hand in creating for less than the cost of a movie ticket (not that many of us are doing that activity right now), I feel it was a good deal. I can see myself playing/using this again sometime, probably not right away though as I've been drawn into other things, some of which will be appearing on this blog over the next few weeks.