Sunday 8 April 2012

One Rough Night

Last year, I entered the One Page Dungeon Contest and was picked as a winner, despite submitting a One Page Haunted Village rather than, well, a dungeon. Rather than doing the sensible thing and quitting while I'm ahead, I've decided to enter this year's contest. Once more, I have failed to produce an actual dungeon, although in my defence, it does feature a map. Sort of.

Long-time fans of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay may find the title and the scenario in general quite familiar, and I must own up; after I came up with the idea, I realised the general similarities to the classic "A Rough Night at the Three Feathers" from White Dwarf #94 and so changed the title as an homage.

In terms of tone, the scenario is somewhat whimsical; my intent was to try and do a fantasy role-playing version of the classic farce, and I hope that comes out in play. There is room for dark intrigue too, and one of the characters is a powerful demon, so there's even potential for a Total Party Kill if the players really mess up or the GM has a thumping hangover.

No statistics are included, so the scenario can be played with any system. WFRP is, of course, recommended. You can download the scenario here (14mb) or here (3mb).

12 comments:

  1. Can't seem to DL your one pager. I need to get on the ball for this year. Good luck with the contest.

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  2. Figured it out. Ha, very cool Kelvin. I love the name, The Dog & Bastard. I'm going to confiscate that one for myself. Again, great luck with the contest.

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  3. I really like the format of this Kelvin, the way the arrows between each NPC describe their relationship. Haven't seen this way of plotting out an NPC-interplay-heavy scenario before, very impressed.

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  4. Hi. I couldn't see an email address anywhere, but thought you folks may be interested in my show coming to Brighton Fringe in May - Age of the Geek - details here - http://www.stellarnursery.com/threeandten/sample/performances.php?eventId=3290:73

    or feel free to email me - haydencohen@gmail.com

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  5. "A Rough Night at the Three Feathers" also appeared in Apocrypha Now, which was a great resource for WFRP and also by Hogshead Publishing. I played the adventure once and it was excellent.

    Nice adventure, kind of a WFRP version of Cluedo. I think the GM would need to provide some kind of reason for the players to get involved in the intrigue, such as someone dying and fingers being pointed at the PC's.

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    1. I did think about that -- my initial idea was to have the noblewoman take a shine to one of the player-characters -- but I decided I didn't want to force the issue and let the GM come up with something specific to their group.

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  6. I stumbled upon this on the 1page dungeon contest site.

    Mate, you should soooo win that contest!

    I stopped RPGing circa 15 years ago, and am currently planning with friends to revive the tradition. What mostly made me stop playing was inability to somehow leave the formula of dungeon crawling while we clearly outgrew the stuff.

    Imagine my surprise, there I am looking at the entries and all I see is the same old: room1: 5 goblins, room2: 2 goblins and a chest.. and then I find this gem!

    You just captured on a one-page sketch, what published modules take a chapter to describe (and sometimes fail). A mood set from the start, and everything a GM needs to get his imagination going, instead of book-keeping facts!

    I actualy can't wait to start browsing this site, but just had to stop and post a comment.

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    1. Thank you! Part of the reason why I've not done a standard dungeon is that I don't really have a taste for them myself and I don't think I could do the format justice; that said, I have an idea for next year's contest which is a bit more conventional, but only a bit.

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  7. Are you a Man City fan? Or a just a watcher of car wrecks?
    I love that Balotelli's in there. I just had a 0-level PC named Balotelli the Blue get killed in a DCC game this week. Silva and Milner are still alive....
    Anyways, whether that makes any sense or not, nice OPD :)

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    1. No, not a City fan, but Balotelli's comedy antics made his name stick in my mind. There's no other connection though.

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  8. This. Is. Awesome. That is all.

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