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mr_h
June 3rd, 2008, 16:11
I'm also posting it on Four Ugly Monsterts since wanna get some more opinions (maybe on enworld, not sure yet).

My gaming group has been having some issues with getting together to play. We all want to, but our schedules kind of suck. As such, I have been pondering an idea with solo adventures, but rather then take one character through at a time (thus forcing me to create a separate adventure for each pc), I thought about allowing one player to run a group of characters. I fleshed it out a bit more below.

Slaves of the Crimson Wizards
The idea is to have 'solo' adventures in which one player makes a party of 3-4 characters (small enough for one player to handle, large enough to cover the basic needs). Each player runs his party through the same encounter with a specific goal or two in mind (escape the dungeon, kill the liche, rescue this, make it from here to there in the least amount of time, etc).

At the end of the adventure points are awarded, for things such as Monsters Killed, Traps Avoided/Disarmed, Treasure Received, Goals Accomplished, Action Points Used. They would also lose points for things like Damage Taken, Number of Extended Rests taken, etc.

The background story (in a nutshell) is that the players are all prisoners of some large wizard conclave in a dark part of the world. The group that goes through each adventure are monitored via magical means and it is 'broadcast' to the population, a sort of reality show for the fantasy world. Some of the environs would be real, some are just massively complex illusions. After the adventure the group is sent back to the slave pits, though those who do better tend to get better environs (think in a sense the gladiators of old, they're prisoners and slaves, but some can live outside of cells or even earn their freedom).

My questions/concerns: How to even out the points? I was thinking something along these lines:
Monsters Defeated: (XP / 10 or 100)?
Traps Avoided/Disarmed: (XP / 10 or 100)
Treasure Received: +1 for every 100 gp worth
Action Points Used: +10 for each used (thus benefiting teams that dont take extended rests?)
Goals Accomplished: depends on the adventure, probably something like 50 or 100
Extended Rests Taken: -10 (the healing and refreshing of powers makes it easier for teams who try to rest a lot)
Damage Taken: -1 for each HP of damage taken (the groups that avoid combat miss out on the treasures, but dont lose points for damage?)
Character Death: Well, that's pretty much a big punishment as is

Bonus Points: There would be several situations for bonus points for the characters. Things like: There is a room off of the dungeon that has no purpose to the overall goal, but in the center is a pedestal with a sword on it. The room has a number of traps...PC's can ignore the sword and not suffer for it, or they can try and get the sword, thus geting more treasure and some bonus points, but at cost of extra risk (damage taken, possible delays, etc).

Time tracking: There's have to be someway to track the amount of time PC's are in the dungeon and give points to the team that finishes fastest, etc.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

Griogre
June 3rd, 2008, 21:03
Look into Dungeon Bash by The Other Game Company. It has solitar D&D rules and costs 10 bucks (its worth it for the NPCs alone). Instead of generating a free form dungeon per the solitare rules you would just tell them the layout and monster rolls. This would also give you a chance to play, and allow you to tweak the encounters.

You can find Dungeon Bash at RPGNow & DriveThruRPG and more info can be found here: https://www.theothergamecompany.com/rpgproducts/dungeonbash.html

Also it appears he is going to be doing a free upgrade to 4th Ed. However, he wants to do a dual suppliment for both 4th Ed *and* 3rd Ed and we know that is a no no now under the GSL. I don't know how that will turn out but if you are staying with 3.5 you should probably drop the 10 bucks now rather than later.