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Negadungeons

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 09:19:06 No.43273836 View Reply Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43273849 >>43273857 >>43273897 >>43273928 >>43274002 >>43274008 >>43274427 >>43276566 >>43276902 >>43280872 >>43280968

Would/have you run your players through a Negadungeon?

>A Negadungeon is an inversion of your typical dungeon, where instead of being a positive experience with plenty of treasure and other rewards, it is a thoroughly negative experience that involves hard choices and cruel sacrifices, terrible traps and horrifying monsters, with few or no rewards and ultimately leaves the party far worse off than if they had never entered.

Why?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 09:20:55 No.43273849 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43273836
So, just a dungeon? All the time, yeah.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 09:22:00 No.43273857 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43273836
To end the campaign on some note other than "we got the loot and then got drunk."

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 09:26:31 No.43273897 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43273963 >>43282148 >>43284724

>>43273836
This is usually a bad idea because:
>... with few or no rewards and ultimately leaves the party far worse off than if they had never entered. (I'm assuming this means even the rewards for it outside the dungeon arent worth it)
There's challenging and difficult, and then there's just shitting on players and ruining fun. The difference is the reward, whether they can say afterwards: "That was really tough, but in the end it was worth it!"
And in situations in which it isn't necessarily "worth it" it needs to be because of player fault not because you railroaded them into having a bad time. bad decisions and luck should lead to negative outcomes, not the DM for some reason deciding he's allergic to fun and want everyone to have a bad time.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 09:30:48 No.43273928 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43273836

I don't really see the point, to be honest. I've run Death Frost Doom for my players before, and they refused to touch anything, refused to stay, and insisted on leaving as soon as possible.

A negadungeon only works as a kind of genre shift, a 'trap' for players who don't expect one. Otherwise, unless the PCs have no choice - i.e. EVERY dungeon is a negadungeon - why not just go home and head somewhere with richer prospects?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 09:33:59 No.43273963 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43273976

>>43273897
>only epic loots matter
If they can't have fun RPing it, then they're shitty rollplayers.

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 09:35:26 No.43273976 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43276838

>>43273963
Nice strawman faggot. Never did I say the rewards were physical. Try harder next time you stupid nigger.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 09:38:17 No.43274002 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43274340

>>43273836
I did this once

The world was a high fantasy setting that had undergone an apocalypse when all magic froze, instantly sending the world into an ice age where the gods were frozen and unavailable and using even weak magic gave wizards instant hypothermia

The first dungeon was a dwarf fortress that had 3 enemies- a giant spider guarding an elevator shaft that took off the arm of a player (or rather it injected poison and amputation was the only way to save the player)

A demonic amalgamation of dead villagers from the player's village (which had been destroyed by rampaging cannibal orcs, the villagers fled into the mines while the players delayed the orcs), the players destroyed the physical form of it but had to simply endure the whispers of the insubstantial demon until they left the mines

and the sole survivor of the village besides themselves, who had gone mad and fled across a frozen underground lake and was murdered to stop him from continuing to ring a cursed bell that caused crippling pain to any who heard its echoes, which had been plaguing them their whole journey

The only loot was rusty, ill-fitting dwarvish equipment and some books nobody could read (but could be burned to stay warm)

That was the first session, and it did a great job of setting the tone for the rest of the campaign better than any of my pregame expository dialogue and OOC discussion did

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 09:39:34 No.43274008 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43273836
I'm running World of Darkness. It's a negaplanet.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 10:15:56 No.43274340 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43274002
>That was the first session

Was there a second?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 10:24:25 No.43274427 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43273836
My friends once told me to run the most grimdark adventure i could come up with, so i made a negadungeon to be the last dungeon they need to complete or the game would go on until the end of the universe (literally in this case). A party member died along to way trying to hold off a tide of demons from murderfucking the party, the BBEG went full edge in the final fight, throwing people as his weapon who exploded into a shower of blood and gore when they hit the ground and ended with the party having to either choose the destroy their home world, which at this point was resembling the last few days of End Times from Warhammer Fantasy, to save another planet the BBEG was going to conquer using the entire world's worth of zombies as his army, or to doom the other planet which had reached a thousand year long period of peace and prosperity for everybody on it to extend their own world's lifespan for about a decade. Ultimately in both cases meant that the BBEG would die one way or another.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 12:46:24 No.43276327 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Any time I try, I end up feeling guilty and relaxing the dungeon. I don't like being a bully.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 13:00:34 No.43276566 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43276733 >>43276962

>>43273836
That's not a negadungeon, that's just a dungeon.

Stop inventing stupid terms.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 13:12:50 No.43276733 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43276566
But anon, roleplaying games are about a smooth progression to a satisfying conclusion, along a set of conquerable obstacles that provide intermittent rewards! Please get your negative, obsolete attitudes off of our Christian board.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 13:19:51 No.43276838 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43279172

>>43273976
Dammit Oda the One Piece better not be friendship

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 13:23:54 No.43276902 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43273836
The final part of my Dark Heresy party's campaign counts. We were told in advance it was a suicide mission, and indeed, 4/5 party members died, though the last two made a heroic sacrifice to stop the BBEG, leaving only the priest who traded his eyesight for critical information on how to stop the BBEG alive with a sergeant guardsman, the only survivor of the squad of 20-something guardsmen we had as backup when going in, and they were stranded on an unknown planet to which we were somehow teleported through warp dickery. Ironically, in the last boss-fight (not the BBEG himself, because he was on the powerlevel of lolwtf-evaporate your head with a glance) that sergeant managed to deal more damage than any of us on the boss due to lucky rolls with his plasma gun.

In the end, it was a very satisfying conclusion, but with as good as the entire party dying it was the end of the Dark Heresy sessions. We kept playing as a group with death watch, but that was not my cup of tea so I left.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 13:28:01 No.43276962 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43277770

>>43276566
It's a little different than the classic dungeon, and a bit more extreme than even dungeons like the tomb of horrors.

http://rottenpulp.blogspotdotcom
/2013/03/negadungeon.html

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 13:28:38 No.43276980 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43287738

I've taken part in the OSR craze. Every fucking dungeon is a negadungeon.

You thought there was a treasure in that chest? Stupid bitch, it's full of yellow mold! Enjoy dying of organ failure! Nothing in this dungeon is worth anything.

It got so bad that my group was literally staling the furniture just to break even. And they were so far gone into it that they considered this a central, rewarding part of the game. Fucking trying to heckle the DM to allow them to smoke giant bats and sell them as culinary experiences to rich idiots. And the DM also loved it.

I mean, I guess I can see the appeal of feeling actually accomplished just for surviving, but fuck that type of game. I often lost more than one character in a session and none of them, NONE, reached 2nd level.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 14:13:14 No.43277770 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43278302

>>43276962
Tomb of Horrors is pretty mild when considered out of context. The problem with it is not how hostile it is, it's how much of a dick it is. There is malicious, sadistic glee in its design, and it's the metagaming kind of glee. It's not something you kill characters with, it's specifically designed to make players cry with rage and frustration. Play it sometime, I'll even run it for /tg/.

'Dungeon' is a very, very broad concept and can include a staggering varity of themes, ranging from heroic to bleak and depressing. If I'm playing newer editions of DnD, then a 'negadungeon' is indeed an inversion of what I expect. If I'm playing WHFB or Dark Heresy, it is exactly what I expect. The term is meaningless and its use asinine outside of a very specific context.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 14:41:07 No.43278302 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43278740 >>43278856

>>43277770
>The term is meaningless and its use asinine outside of a very specific context.

The "nega" part of the negadungeon is in part because it's an "inversion", but it also is in part because it is a "negative" dungeon. It's the kind of dungeon that really can't be used to often with the same group of characters, because rather than providing a positive outcome, it renders the characters worse off, crippling them either financially, physically, mentally, spiritually, or emotionally. Bleak and depressing is really just the starting point of a Negadungeon, and the real goal is to push it as far down that path as possible, making it likely that the party has to retire after completing it.

When looking at most games, not simply newer editions of D&D, there are very few that follow that model of "things are bad, and they're just going to get worse." Even ones that seem that way always seem to promise some measure of a happy ending, no matter how bad things may get.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 15:04:26 No.43278740 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43278302
>When looking at most games, not simply newer editions of D&D, there are very few that follow that model of "things are bad, and they're just going to get worse."

That's because it's hard to do those right.
Usually they're too full of bullshit "gotcha" instant death traps that you can't possibly have seen coming and/or an excuse for the DM to go full grimderp and make everything/everyone about the world so fucking depressing and terrible for everyone it goes around the other way too hard and makes it a fucking joke.

>"Oh no, we brought the cure for the plague back, but it was actually a bomb and exploded those three orphanages located directly next to each other. That's what, 8 we've accidentally destroyed so far?"
>"Don't worry, we still have that +1 Magic Sword that's actually demon-possessed and will control you and make you kill everyone you love. What should we do with it?
>"Eh, just throw it in the sack with the 12 other ones and the 50 PC corpses we've had to lug around."

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 15:09:43 No.43278856 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43282148

>>43278302
>It's the kind of dungeon that really can't be used to often with the same group of characters, because rather than providing a positive outcome, it renders the characters worse off, crippling them either financially, physically, mentally, spiritually, or emotionally.

In that case and in broad context, the term's meaning boils down to 'a structured negative experience'. A discussion of using negative experiences in games would be an interesting one, to be sure.

>When looking at most games, not simply newer editions of D&D, there are very few that follow that model of "things are bad, and they're just going to get worse."

True, the heroic model has a broader appeal and is more popular.

>Even ones that seem that way always seem to promise some measure of a happy ending, no matter how bad things may get.

Examples? Granted, you can run any game to a 'happy' conclusion, but if a system supports, and indeed encourages, one or more methods of negative character progression, then having negative experiences (including dungeons) is a given. Them being a given negates the need for a differentiating descriptor. Keep in mind you're talking about a single experience, rather than the overall tone and results of a complete game (that meaning a campaign composed of several such experiences, positive or negative).

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 15:24:04 No.43279172 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43284694

>>43276838

>implying it isn't

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 16:50:05 No.43280872 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43273836
Isn't this how every campaign is supposed to finish?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 16:57:00 No.43280968 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43281040 >>43281102

>>43273836
But the XP is the reward, because experiences are the reward

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 17:00:30 No.43281040 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43280968
There is such a thing as a bad experience. And there are ways to lose or take away a characters XP.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 17:03:34 No.43281102 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43280968
One permanent negative level is usually enough to wipe out all the experience you gained within a dungeon.

With some bad saves, a single encounter with a vampire can result in multiple negative levels.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 17:10:11 No.43281219 Report Delete

Quoted By: >>43281510

So, whats the actual point of a negadungeon? Why would you go there? Why would you play in a game with one? What purposes does the concept serve?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 17:26:24 No.43281510 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43281219
It teaches a lot of lessons, even if they're pretty harsh.

A good negadungeon takes advantage of certain bad traits of characters, and the players get to watch as obsession, arrogance, and often raw foolishness pushes their characters deeper and deeper. It also takes advantage of meta thinking (there HAS to be something worth all of this trouble, etc.) and sunk cost fallacy from the players side, so that in future adventures they don't take rewards for granted and also to recognize that just because there's a big monster it doesn't mean there's an equally big treasure behind it.

That's the rationale, at least. Personally, I'd rather just sprinkle a few of these lessons here and there instead of creating an entire dungeon of "Fuck You."

Though, a comedic negadungeon might be cool for a one-shot. Losing a lot sometimes can be a lot of fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3C1BSbq5aB0

Anonymous

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Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 17:45:12 No.43281936 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Only if they "ask for it". I put it in quotes because they don't specifically have to ask "Hey, we can we through a horrifying assrape tunnel for absolutely no reward?". "Hey, let's go explore that exploding barrel factory", or "A demonic rape brothel? Pfft, we're adventurers, what could possibly go wrong?", or "Let's play Dark Heresy/Space Hulk/[any Warhammer RPG]" are "Negadungeon" since apparently that's what we're calling them now-worthy remarks.

They shouldn't be for minor sidequests like "Well, we need to slay the dragon, but we've got some spare time so let's go get some medicine for this dying village first".

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 17:46:30 No.43281964 Report Delete

Quoted By:

You mean Monopoly?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 17:54:44 No.43282148 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43278856
>Them being a given negates the need for a differentiating descriptor.

I'm not entirely sure why you think that.

Dungeons are expected to have a certain mix of positive/negative experiences, but ones which are so thoroughly weighted towards rejecting the silver lining are sufficiently distinct. They're somewhat rare, and for the reasons that >>43273897 points out. They're challenging to make and run, because it's much harder for people to enjoy failures.

And, a dungeon isn't really a single experience so much as it is a lengthy sequence of them, and some of the longer dungeons might actually wind up being the entire campaign.

I think a Negadungeon serves best as the 2nd act of a three part campaign, either as its entirety or as the final piece. It's a good way to place the party in a nadir situation where all hope is genuinely lost, before the third act introduces some way to recover and triumph.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 19:50:09 No.43284654 Report Delete

Quoted By:

Hmm, actually, couldn't the dungeon itself be the reward? I mean, if they cleared it out, doesn't that mean the ownership transfers to the adventurers?

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 19:52:01 No.43284694 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43279172

> set people against each other and cause murder and mayhem and ultimately the toppling of the world government over "friendship"

That's the best thing ever.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 19:53:11 No.43284724 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43273897
i agree.

however a negadungeon every now and then mixes it up and makes the loot more rewarding i think, since you stop treating it as guaranteed.

but yeah, in general you want to reward the players.

Anonymous

Anonymous Sun 25 Oct 2015 21:58:21 No.43287738 Report Delete

Quoted By:

>>43276980
>implying implications

Literally what the fuck are you even playing, I've been "taking part" in the OSR since before it even had a name and I've never had an experience like yours.

Except the "stealing the furniture" part, that's actually old-school play as I remember it and there's nothing wrong with stealing fine furniture, fancy tapestries, silver statues, and gilt chandeliers.

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