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[Pantheon]

I used to be a Dungeon Master of a small Dungeons and Dragons group when i was younger. The sessions didn't really ammount to anything and we gradually lost interes probably because we were too young and had too short attention spans.

I've recently been thinking about starting up a new group, and while playing DF an idea struck me. Why not use a dwarf fortress as a dungeon location? It's every bit as detailed as it needs to be, made up of square tiles, has lots of guards and traps, and maybe most importantly: Rediculous ammounts of awesome treasure.

Thoughts?

[hitto]

Plus, you can test your dungeon in adventure mode... Just export the map and voilà!

[Diamond]

I used to be a Dungeon Master of a small Dungeons and Dragons group when i was younger. The sessions didn't really ammount to anything and we gradually lost interes probably because we were too young and had too short attention spans.

Maybe you were not just good enough as a DM ?

Also very nice idea for mapping purposes. Probably my next campaign, once I finish two current ones Are you thinking about abandoned fortress or the existing one ? And its likely to be a HUGE amount of treasure and mastercrafted stuff in big fortress. Not something I like to give out to players 

[Pantheon]

Well, i was thinking about trying it out at first with a very small 7-dwarf fort just to see how well it translates. Then later on, when the players are more powerful, i could take a big fort, let goblins or orcs kill most dwarves and run away with most of the loot, and then have the surviving dwarves hiring the players to help reclaim the fort or an artifact from there.

And yea, maybe i sucked as a DM, who knows.

[Sliver Barb]

Using the exported map is kind of a nifty idea, although I can't imagine any sort of serious D&D session being held by playing DF itself or anything, unless you plan on doing some very extensive code work.

You'll also need to make up new meanings for a lot of the symbols, or you'll have some really bizarre things happen during the dungeon crawl.

"You are in what appears to be a large stone chamber full of long stone benches. Each bench is lined with long knives. Kitten corpses litter the floors, decapitated kitten heads tumbling about everywhere on the loose stone. Large metal cages along the southern wall are stuffed full of hundreds of the live versions of the animal, all mewling pathetically."

"I move towards the cages and attempt to open the first one."

"You succeed. The small animals skitter out, milling around you in random directions. Suddenly one of them locks eyes with you, and you feel the strangest urge to obey its wishes."

"Huh... I attempt to hit the kitten with my Broadsword of Ice."

"You start to swing, but suddenly your arm stops halfway. Instead, you pick up the little ball of fur and caress it gently. 'I wuv you, kitty! I'll never hurt you!'."

"Shit."

[Hagadorn]

"huh, Wuss" (The barbarian reaches down and snaps the kitties neck)

"MR WUFFLES!? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO"

Fighty McFightyFight Cancels Pet Kitten: Item Lost Or Misplaced.
Fighty McFightyFight Cancels Coherent Thought: Berserking.
Barby McBarbarian Cancels Use Oesophagus: Item Lost Or Misplaced.

Fighty McFightyFight... has endured the loss of a pet recently... has eaten a delicious Barbarian Oesophagus lately...

[Pantheon]

Yeah the plan was more or less to take screenshots and write down the details of the fort, not use dwarf fortress in the sessions themselves.

And of course you'd have to modify certain aspects - but this description:
"You are in what appears to be a large stone chamber full of long stone benches. Each bench is lined with long knives. Kitten corpses litter the floors, decapitated kitten heads tumbling about everywhere on the loose stone. Large metal cages along the southern wall are stuffed full of hundreds of the live versions of the animal, all mewling pathetically."

Seems awesome to me Maybe you could change some inscriptions to detail the way the kittens are murdered, so the adventurers know that the purpose of the cats is simply to show how evil the dwarves are.

[Reese]

ah, the pest dwarf forts for adventuring locations for D&D would be abandoned forts, brim full o nasties, squaters, and mostly pre-looted...

not DF, but I made a dungeon that was an abandoned dwarf mine for D&D, I started with a basic layout of the mine, the assumption that the dwarfs mined the place out and left with most of their stuff, and started mentally moving people intot he abandoned place... a powerful wizard, a tribe of goblins (whose mystic killed the wizard in an epic struggle... they died to the explosive runes inside the wizard's spellbook...) and so on to give me a nice lise of logical encounters for the place, including the wizard's mini beholder familiar...

[Karik]

I would be up to doing a Dwarf Fortress styled dnd game.  Start off with seven PC's leaving mountain home with a wagon, some supplies, and out to look for a destination!  I would even DM if you don't mind?

[Diamond]

I would be up to doing a Dwarf Fortress styled dnd game.  Start off with seven PC's leaving mountain home with a wagon, some supplies, and out to look for a destination!  I would even DM if you don't mind?

I dont think DnD will work out with digging around and without spells. Perhaps some other system ?

[Quantum Toast]

Nice idea, I think I heard someone suggest it with Boatmurdered once.

Would it be too sadistic to make the players get strange moods while exploring the forts?

[Grendus]

Nice idea, I think I heard someone suggest it with Boatmurdered once.

Would it be too sadistic to make the players get strange moods while exploring the forts?

That'd be epic. Make sure the stuff to make the mood is scattered around the fortress, and the other players either need to help him find it or decide to kill/not help him and let him die.

"Damnit, Oleg the Barbarian just became a legendary stonecrafter. Another useless dwarf... I mean player."

[Holy Mittens]

On a similiar bend, I've been playing around a little bit with the Dragon Age: Origins toolset in an attempt to create a DF-inspired module. The main thing its missing is goblins, but the darkspawn make decent replacements.

[Tryptic]

Nice idea, I think I heard someone suggest it with Boatmurdered once.

Would it be too sadistic to make the players get strange moods while exploring the forts?

I think there was a discussion or two on the RPG.net forums about using Boatmurdered as a location for a D&D game. 
Sadly, the site is blocked on the PC I'm on right now, but you can probably find it if you do a search for "Boatmurdered".

I do remember someone saying it actually didn't work very well though.  But whether it's due to a poor GM, poor mapping, or other reasons, I don't recall.

[Astramancer]

One thing's for sure, the Rogue will have their job cut out for them finding and disarming all the traps.

I don't know about you, but just getting into my forts would be a nightmare.  Between the 10-disk weapon traps, pressure plate land mines (deconstruct supports overhead), collapsing bridges (usually using floor grates) and, of course, a nice cleansing magma bath to make sure none of that narrow goblin underwear survives.

Heck, the approach wouldn't be very fun, either, I've got cage traps littering the countryside to collect livestock.  Granted, if it's an abandoned fort, that, too, would be funny, because the PCs would constantly be running across cages full of dead animals.

And woe to the incautious who unbolts the door and opens it without pondering why it might be warm to the touch (or, in a different part of the fort, why the stone around it is damp)