How would you spin the classic JRPG Adventure Town (city built near or around the entrance of a mysterious dungeon...

The only campaign I've run like that had a nice comfy town and a mine that produced some magic storing crystals and fungi useful to alchemy. The whole area was slightly more 'alive' than elsewhere, with good crops and plentiful, large animals.

Then the smoke came from the mines. A green haze turning man and beast alike into mutants. Some resisted and proved immune, including the PCs by default. But it was clear someone needed to go down and find the source to stop it.

At first they met only mildly mutated miners, then violent ones, then orcs and goblins. The further down they went the more monstrous everything got and the smoke grew thicker and greener. They encountered hidden dwarf, fey, kobold and drow outposts, barely surviving. At the bottom, a great magical seal, glowing bright green and venting tons of smoke. Party decided to smash it, either breaking the smoke spell or releasing the source and slaying it.

The slowly weakening seal had been holding the Tarrasque in slumber. Chase scene ensued, back to the surface, facing off against it at the bottom of the mine shaft as villagers looked down from above. The party won, barely, and were declared heroes, smoke effects cleared up, etc. Was a fun campaign.

>Keep the dungeon, but the leadership of the town is in cahoots with whatever mysterious force lies below to keep the meatgrinder going indefinitely for their mutual profit.

I like this. Maybe something like in... some game I don't remember the name of. It was set in an old mining town. The mine was closed (said that it ran out) a long time ago, and the town started to falter. There was even a really shitty disaster a few years after that was the final nail in the coffin... or so it seemed. Things had been admittedly hard, but the town recovered.

At the bottom of the mine lies an eldritch being. While it slumbers the town prospers, but its appetite has to be sated with human sacrifices, or else it slowly destroys the town before demolishing it with another catastrophe, this time for good. Those who feed him -basically the neighborhood watch of older townspeople, possibly including the sheriff- get some mystical abilities in exchange for dumping all the undesirables in there.

For your game, the twist would be that the townspeople spread that there's treasure at the bottom of the mine; and indeed, there's quite a few ore veins that are yet to be mined, and possibly things like gems as well, but anyone going too deep will be swallowed up whole by the dweller of the abyss, feeding the monster and making the town prosperous without them having to even lift a finger. There could even be some monstrous cultists who always lived in the mines who know they won't be bothered as long as they only take those who enter the mines and don't raid the settlement nearby for sacrifices.

Maybe you could use one thing I planned to use one day. Instead of an underground dungeon, you have a sprawling, ruined city that adventures from around the globe have flocked to to explore and loot. It was an ancient magitech magocracy that eventually bent physics so far that it broke, leaving their city a twisted tangle of time and space and eldritch magics. This way, you can cram as many different environments and dangers into your game as you want and still have it make sense as being one "dungeon." Your adventure town has sprung up on the outskirts of this city, in the safe zone, and acts as a cosmopolitan base camp and trading hub for everyone trying to scavenge the ruins.

This is a good idea.

Have the hub town be at a major crossroads in the heart of a kingdom that fell into ruin under magical and mysterious circumstances. You can go and see what you can find at the old Grand Ironworks, which sank into the earth. Or you can see if you can penetrate the barrier around the High Temple. If you are feeling especially stupid you can brave the streets of the capital, but do not go near the palace. None have returned from those grounds.

You are literally asking for a megadungeon with a hub town.

Research who was "the blacksmith" and "The bartender" in different cultures, communities and societys.
There are usually people who specalice in fixing metal stuff (which is easier than making metal stuff btw) and humans are social creatures, so there is usually a place for people to gather.
Basic steps to get new quipment is rather simple if spelled out.
While on your way, ask people what the word "forge" means in the language spoken in the next destination.
Go looking for "Forge"
Once found there is usually a dude working with it in the next 1-3 days.
Point out what you want or what is broken and hold some coins or trading goods out.
In 70% of cases you will get your stuff fixed.

Try the Glorantha based Adventure "Apple Lane"
Keep in mind that this is a very high fantasy setting where reality is a myth and myths are reality.
Which means as much that Heracles wasn't running around punching divine lions in a distand past.
It means A Heracles like Hero lives is the next city, used to buy your carrots as a teen and punches divine lions to death.

I like this idea.

Literally Dark Souls 2 but still not bad.

Well yes, that is the base concept, but I think what OP is getting at is he wants ways to riff on those kinds of settings to make something more unique.

Been listening to GG NO RE's Alabamia sessions, and they're pretty cool.

Would you set your campaign in a fantasy version of your state?

I really don't know, the idea has potential but Alabama has plenty of legitimately interesting history and meme potential to work with. I'm not sure what Maine has to work with other than the fact that it's still like 90% woodlands means plenty of unexplored territory in a fantasy setting.

OP, what you need is Made in Abyss, minus the loli torture.

>minus the loli torture
And that's why it's shit.

Grimgar? Basically adventurers are that common because they die like flies.

pic is right there OP

make sure to include cute girls everywhere

I like the way Etrian Odyssey does it.

>Otherwise bland small city made unique only by being near a strange, but otherwise docile megadungeon
>Government finally lifts ban on entering megadungeon (for any number of reasons)
>People seeking fortunes flock the area, turning the small city into a boomtown for adventurers and people wanting to make money off of them
>Escalating conflicts between adventuring parties lead to the establishment of a guild structure to keep everything civil
>Megadungeon is full of rich resources to make it valuable to anyone willing to brave the risks. Both flora and fauna grow abnormally quickly
>Valuable and useful ores just kind of crop up, endlessly
>Evidence of ancient technology which could lead to an industrial revolution if reverse-engineered
>Megadungeon is actually a gigantic life-supporting habitat meant to support an ancient civilization through an ecosystem collapse, but whose creators died before they could make use of it

And it's set on a post-apocalyptic earth

Deathtrap Dungeon

Why does it have to be made fun and interesting? Are you so hipster that everything has to have a 'unique twist' to it?

Have the players be lords who are given ownership of parcels of the land. Downtime is spent interacting with the townsfolk. building new structures, and finding new inhabitants.

The place is actually a huge, clandestine insane asylum, and both the dungeon and the town are all part of an elaborate fantasy set up to provide therapy for deeply deranged individuals who become "adventurers" who obviously can't be allowed to run around unsupervised with their superpowers

That last one is literally Etrian Odyssey 1

Make it a business with the various dungeons being tourist traps. Maybe make the adventurers that world's version of jocks.

Made in Abyss. Wanted to post pictures, but Veeky Forums doesn't let me. Big ass adventure town built around a whole with deep-sea inspired critters, lots of artifacts and a curse that specifically fucks over humans.

As a less grim version of , mix and match to your tastes.
You can look to various open world games to flesh out the city itself. Witcher 3 makes very good lived-in places. Then you take any sort of inspiration and mini-stories from your favourite rpg or anime and throw it in there.

What would be the lore for your super-dungeon?

Someone played Night in the Woods recently.

>tfw your thread is still alive when you last saw it on page 9

Not entirely sure yet, I've been jotting down down that sounds neat from this thread and coming up with ideas for each. The original inspiration for the idea was Etrian Odyssey games but didn't want to have the same "Earth all along" plot twist, and I figured if I was changing that I might as well see what else I can switch up and decided to consult the board.

Newest idea is a post-great flood scenario, the "dungeon" in this case being a tower that reaches above the surface and eventually leads down to a city done on the ocean floor. The city is long devoid of sentient life, but sea creatures and other dangers still persist. In the face of this, ruin delvers still frequently descend into the depths here, which is one of the few sources of mostly intact old-world artifacts and magitech left that have been discovered. As for the hub town, it's built on a bunch of boats and barges that have been chained together surrounding the tower. Still working out what the big plot twist should be for this variation should I choose to use it, but I think it can work.

>tfw your thread is still alive when you last saw it on page 9

Not entirely sure yet, I've been jotting down down that sounds neat from this thread and coming up with ideas for each. The original inspiration for the idea was Etrian Odyssey games but didn't want to have the same "Earth all along" plot twist, and I figured if I was changing that I might as well see what else I can switch up and decided to consult the board.

Newest idea is a post-great flood scenario, the "dungeon" in this case being a tower that reaches above the surface and eventually leads down to a city done on the ocean floor. The city is long devoid of sentient life, but sea creatures and other dangers still persist. In the face of this, ruin delvers still frequently descend into the depths here, which is one of the few sources of mostly intact old-world artifacts and magitech left that have been discovered. As for the hub town, it's built on a bunch of boats and barges that have been chained together surrounding the tower. Still working out what the big plot twist should be for this variation should I choose to use it, but I think it can work.

Forsaken city is best solution, since it explains the breadth and complexity of the dungeon.

Though you may have to come up with some chicanery to explain how it’s not all flooded.

To explain such dungeons in my setting, the lore is the Gods kneecap society whenever it gets too powerful.

How do you want to vary it up though? Because 100 floors of waterlogged city will likely grow weary.

Also I’d go the Venice route for hub town for aesthetics.

Still working on that bit. The flooding can be handwaved easily, say that the mortal races knew the smite was coming and built the place as a final middle finger to the gods before everything got flooded. That includes objects in place to pump out any water that gets in. Ultimately the original inhabitants still died from attrition in the end though. As for variation yeah that does present an issue, can't think of anything off the top of my head.

Actually forget the dying of attrition, instead they just dissapeared without a trace. Discovering what happened to them can be a part of the larger mystery.

Actually, better idea. ditch the dying of attrition bit, instead they disappeared without a trace and have figuring out what happened to them be part of the bigger mystery.

It may be a bit obvious, but perhaps look to Rapture.

Have parts falling apart, littered with monsters. Have some overgrown with sea-life. Have some eeriely preserved in all its former grandeur.

And do different districts. Military barracks, entertainment district, agriculture district, etc.

And maybe vary it up with ocean segments. Coral reefs, seaweed forests, the ocean floor, with various shipwrecks, abyssal trench, volcanic vents, and so on.

And now I want to make a setting with a Cthulhu flavored Rapture.

>The lower level has a portal to another part of the world
>you can't go back once you cross it
>once you cross it, something will track you until you find the next. You are now on a quest to reach all the portals and find whatever stops that fucker

Every portal is just the top or bottom of another megadungeon, only by completing the entire circuit can you stop the stalker and return home.

The story goes that Adventure Town was built to prevent the creatures within the Dungeon from ever leaving it. People from all four corners of the Kingdom would stop by Adventure Town, where they can find all manner of equipment to buy and sell. Oftentimes they would quest into the Dungeon, some even do return and with treasures, either from the Dungeon itself or their less fortunate fellow heroes.

The native population of Adventure Town found out that this story was an universally better solution, than routinely offering their own talented youth in sacrifice to the Dungeon. It is better for PR purposes, the Dungeon has important magical services to offer that help with Adventure Town's prosperity, all the tourism keeps the economy active, and the unusual concentration of would-be heroes contribute protect it from outsiders.

I like this, but why stop at just the town? Sure, the town may have come later, but what if the dungeon itself is a cover-up for something even more sinister? Like the town natives are descendants of an ancient civilization that fucked themselves over somehow and built the dungeon on top of the now sunken capital to keep whatever scourge they brought upon themselves from reaching them?

However, there are still those who wish to revive their once great nation, and know of a macguffin deep within their buried city that could bring that about. To that end, they spread tales of the place to get freelancers and adventurers to investigate, but don't inform them of their true objective. After all, you wouldn't want it getting around to the current ruling force that you're planning on staking a claim in their territory.

aaah i haven't been able to post for hours, fuck

>big town, lots of stores particularly targeted at adventurers in the center
>everything low-levels could need
>no farms nearby, all goods are imported
>townspeople in the square are only ever seen selling stuff, handing out quests, or talking about the dungeon
>no adventurers ever go into the other parts of town, why should they? it's just normal non-adventure shit there
>lots of quests to go capture monsters, but no one seems to use them for anything
>any townspeople who grow attached to adventurers disappear. they say it's the monsters in the dungeon- they smell love
>adventurers never question the lack of farms, or where the townspeople get money

the dungeon is actually run by townspeople. they set up unfair instakill traps down there, kill adventurers, and sell the gear- usually getting it right back too. the dungeon is their livelihood.

That "holy shit" feeling when you first see the disintegrating messages in Lost Shinjuku.

OP here, user you are a goddamned genius. There's been similar shit posted already but for some reason when I read yours the ideas just started coming.

>Setting is just as you described, and presented as a lighthearted fantasy romp with a focus on dungeoneering
>Get the players settled in, spending the first 3-4 levels doing a mix of dungeon delving and surface sidequests to get them introduced to the various town NPCs, and get some of the NPCs reason to start becoming attached.
>Around this time start dropping hints that something is amiss. The general store owner's daughter is "sick" but the apothecary/alchemist says he hasn't been by to buy medicine. A PC or a comrade has died recently to a trap that their remains were irretrievable from, but the blacksmith has some stuff on sale that looks EXACTLY like theirs. An NPC who the PCs are friendly with gives them a vague warning about being careful who they trust, and going missing shortly thereafter.
>Big Reveal happens at level 6 if the players haven't put the pieces together yet, local government accuses them of crimes they didn't commit, begin escape and fugitive arc
>After some time on the run and getting a better grasp on the situation, sneak back into city to secure proof of the city leadership's involvement, their innocence, and rescue of at least one of the NPCs they've befriended
>They tell the PCs that while imprisoned they overheard of the existence of a failsafe in case the dungeon's true purpose were exposed and they needed to cover up the evidence
>Cue sneaking back into the dungeon one last time, going to the bottom and setting off the failsafe so the place can never be used to entrap adventurers again

Obviously for this this to work not all of the citizens are complicit. Some are active participants, some are aware but choose to go along in fear of the consequences of not doing so, and some are outright oblivious. It's not too long either, so it's great for a low power campaign too.

Fellow maineanon? To prove it, what is maines unofficial drink

Afraid I wouldn't know, lived in NH until like 4 years ago and I don't drink to begin with. I can tell you that it iced like hell this morning, the Wells police are asshats, and that the Malagentia SCA heavy list chapter holds their practices in Portland though,

Yeah, that's pretty cool. Plus, it lets the roleplaying slowly evolve- a good campaign for newer players who only know the dungeon crawling aspects- as long as one of thr pcs is willing to be an accomplice to your unfair death plot

The men with no taste.jpg

> Wells police are ass hats
It checks out. Im up in the L/A area.

Well since I have the campaign idea ready might as well keep the thread around to bounce ideas around. Since this is a JRPG setting, or at least makes the illusion of being one, we're gonna need some waifubait. Not too many, I'm thinking 3 spread across the various NPC roles. Romance won't be an option for obvious reasons but they're there to provide options for plot progression.

To start, borrowing a concept from s apothecary.

>Role: Potion shop owner.

>Personality: Outwardly rather grumpy, yet oddly caring, though with a dry sense of humor. Often cautions adventurers against common pitfalls and rookie mistakes, acting concerned as a means to earn trust.

>Involvement: Reluctantly complicit and on the payroll of the Adventurer's Guild. She's long since accepted that there's nothing she can do to change the situation, either for herself or the adventurers that fall victim to the town. She has tried to lessen the number of deaths in her own ways, slipping perception boosting formulas into her potions in hopes that at least some will be spared by them.

Actually in her mid-forties, her personal research into a formula for eternal youth resulted in her current appearance. If the players earn her trust and pry into the matter, they'll learn that she's not all that bothered by her new form itself, but admits it's made running the adult-size shop a little inconvienent. She will have a side plot involving solving her problem which depending on the outcome and the PCs interactions with her may result in her being one of the first taken. She's a hard sell though, she's been at this a long time and it'll take a lot to get her to favor this particular set of adventurers when she's watched so many march to their death before.

How anime do you want this? Katanas? People yelling out their moves?

Not at that level. Remember this is all a carefully maintained illusion. I want it to still be DnD once the curtain is pulled back, so just having little handwavable elements is all I'm going for.

Actually you're right scratch this . Okay maybe just the image, I can still use the concept I think, but it's very rough as is. It's going to be a balancing act to appeal to my players and still keep it from getting too far into weeb territory.

Well, I may be misinterpreting if, but it sounds like it’s going to get darker and more serious the longer it goes on.

Which if were the case, I’d go full weeb so that it’s contrasted much more, and comes way out of left field.

You know, something like duck-season. Absurdly cheesy and cheery premise, people assume they know what they’re in for, get a few hints something creepy is going on, and then you rip open the curtains.

That could work too I suppose. As far as the level of anime-qualities I'd probably set the standard at the level of Fire Emblem games, with the high end of the scale being the more anime moments of Awakening, and the setting on average being at the level of Path of Radiance/Radiant Dawn: present in various amounts, but super weebshit being edge cases, like 4 or less of the entire cast, and the rest still having various quirks of the medium but are kind of just there as though they would have had those traits regardless of how anime of a game it was.

Depends on your skill, but i’d Have a super dorky super weeb helper NPC ala Solaire that helps the party initially but slowly succumbs to whatever is wrong with the dungeon.

Mega-dungeons have been a thing in OSR since forever

I actually may have a concept for that.

How's this. All new adventurer parties that arrive in town have to register with the Adventurer's Guild. When they do, they're assigned a guild sanctioned "veteran" to supervise them for a provisional period of time, for their "safety". In reality these veterans are the eyes and ears of the Guild, keeping tabs on adventurers and townspeople alike. Shortly after the PCs discover the truth, he'll "leave town" with a convenient excuse or just saying this shit is too heavy for him to handle in order to report back to his superiors. He'll end up disappearing after this, only to show up again in the final act as the centerpiece of the final encounter, but this time deadly serious.

Instead of a simple dungeon, why not have it be the entrance to an entire underground ecosystem and kingdom instead?

Ooh, Solaire being a traitor. Smart. Plus you get to make it very personalized based on the parties previous encounters.