World Setting #
Dungeon #
The dungeons would be traversed room by room with encounters happening in each room. An encounter is not required to be combat but can include a trap / obstacle, a puzzle, or treasure. I would like the deeper into the dungeon you go the more difficult those trips would be while there are some repeatable elements of the early areas to allow for lower level kids to get experience.
I do want to avoid forcing the DM having to build a very complex dungeon with lots of rooms and encounters only for it too be breezed thru very quickly. I wanna do some form of eternal random generation; I’ve seen some neat systems that use a deck of cards. Another hitch that needs to be solved is figuring out the overarching story / little plot hooks that would keep you coming back to continuously send kids down into the dungeon. I do want to allow for “field trip” dungeons where you would take groups of kids to other locations like the zoo or pool or park for themed story bits. Perhaps this would be where the overarching story / plot hooks would be, in competition between different Daycares.
Another way to generate the dungeons would have them be not permanent settings and instead you’d just pick what level (difficulty) you wanted to do the mission on and send the kids to it. Resolving would involve X rolls and after doing so many missions the next level of the dungeon would open up. A roll table would be relatively easy to generate the mission blurb especially if you are running 4 or 5 missions relatively quickly. Having teams focus on a specific type of mission like loot gathering or just gaining XP could help weight the rolls in favor of those outcomes. Maybe have some kind of consumables to guarantee getting that outcome.
Daycare #
Original idea was that you’d be running a clandestine dungeon delving scheme while also running a daycare. If too many kids got hurt during their trips into the dungeons, you’d be discoverd and then the daycare would be shutdown. I think it’d actually be more fun to have these be sanctioned / regulated “Dungeon Daycares” where the trips to the dungeon are considered good for the kids growth and how they become well rounded adults. The Daycares would be deliberately built on dungeons with the intent of them being cleared by the children. Would this be child endangerment? No, because they are never in any actual danger… probably.
The Daycare is run by the player and is a base that needs to get built out. One of the key things that need to be retrieved from the dungeon is loot to pay for upgrades to the daycare. If you don’t bring in enough money / the kids don’t progress enough you’ll get shut down and the kids moved to better performing Daycares.
With enough loot gathered you’ll be able to pick new rooms for you Daycare to build and those will help train you characters while they aren’t on dungeon missions. I’m thinking that there will be three different ways they can boost the character:
- Giving them low amounts of XP
- Make getting some Feat cheaper (lower prereqs)
- Just granting them some Feat
Some rooms would also just help with things like getting HP back quicker or removing status effects.
Genre #
Generally when one hears dungeon they think of underground fantasy setting and when thinking of mechanics for the game, that is usually when I am picturing but I am not married to that theming for everything yet. I think it’d be fun to also allow like hoverboards and cell phones and more modern and sci-fi elements to influence it. The dungeon doesn’t even have to be below ground, could be an abandoned space station or deep in the forest. I am usually fond of more kitchen sink genres and kinda just mixing fun things with a disregard to what their power levels irl would be. Like of course a bow and rifle can do similar damage.