Mediums and Messages

Converting GLoG Classes into Dungeons

Romeyn de Hooghe. Detail from The Works of Mars. 1671.

One of the big features of the Goblin Laws of Gaming is the ease of stitching together a class. Folks do great work making classes that are rich both in interesting mechanics and flavorful lore. Many read as a sort of closed form short fiction.

While classes are great, you only get to use so many of them at the table. What if we could convert them into dungeons (or other adventuring sites?)

As a heuristic, GLoG classes usually have the following parts (for more detail, perhaps refer to my old post on the subject):

Basic Conversions

This is not going to be a scientific process, but let's start with the basics:

  1. The name of the class becomes inspires the name of the location and the rough category it falls into.
  2. The background suggests what the site was used for before it fell to ruin.
  3. The class features become the rooms. They are arranged schematically based on the template they appear in.
  4. Starting equipment become treasures or magic items found at the site.

This room keying we can break out into the following questions:

Naturally, a given feature might fit multiple descriptions. In that case key it with multiple traits.

That leaves what exactly occupies the dungeon. That's trickier.

An Example: The Zouave

Let's try this out with an old classic - the Zouave from Numbers Aren't Real.

High Level Description

We start with the name. Zouaves are a type of light infantry. Perhaps this was a temporary fort? A military encampment that was left behind by an army on the move? For now let's just call it:

Tumbledown Encampment

Now what was this site for? The Zouave has three possible skills: forestry, rock-climbing, and ditchdigging. Maybe this site secured a mountain pass.

Tumbledown Encampment

This encampment once secured the [MOUNTAINNAME] Pass. The trail up to the site has been chopped clear, though some small saplings have started to regrow. The immediate approach is surrounded by trenches and drainage ditches.

Schematic Layout

Now we write our room list. The Zouave has the following features:

+1 inventory slot and +1 HP per level.

How do we interconnect these feature-rooms? Some fudging is going to be required here. Let's say that any feature that repeats in multiple templates is actually the same room and that rooms within a given template are connected in the order they were written. That gives us something like this:

Color coding here reflects the template the feature first appeared in. We could also use it as a danger heatmap.

Keying the Rooms

And now we can go through and complete our key. As we do, we'll ask ourselves what happened here since the site was abandoned? Any answer we can glean from the class' rules text will inform what kind of monsters we need.

  1. Tall Tales → Trap / Monster
  2. Nonplussed → Empty
  3. Extra Attack per Round → Empty / Monsters
  4. +1 Inventory Slot → Empty
  5. +1 HP → Empty
  6. Respect → Monster
  7. Old Friends → Special (maybe a Monster)
  8. Nose for Trouble → Monster

As I worked I noticed a few mentions of creatures: goats, wargs, "Unburied", cobolds, a wizard, a giant. I'll note that this is unusually generous in creature names. Still, 6 entries give us an encounter table:

  1. d6 Goats
  2. d4 Wargs
  3. d6 "Unburied"
  4. d6 Cobolds
  5. Wizard
  6. Giant

Now we can flesh out the rooms, rolling on our encounter table to see what monsters are guaranteed to be at the indicated locations.

  1. Donjon Exterior. Enclosed by a palisade wall and filled with collapsed tents.
    • A pack of d4 wargs are snuffling around in the ruins.
    • Pit traps covered by sand and woven bark mats litter the area, some uncovered by the elements.
  2. Internal Yard. Still littered with lumber to be inventoried.
  3. Holdfast. Empty, but highly defense chokepoint.
    • Arrow slits into Internal Yard
  4. Watchtower. Sagging with age. Rusted out cannon.
    • Provides a good view into Hedge Wizard's Quarters and Mess Hall.
  5. Brig. Locked cells line the walls.
    • One contains contraband - petty drugs, illicit texts, and a notable item.
    • d6 Unburied will rush the brittle bars at the smell of fresh meat.
  6. Hedge Wizard's Lab. Once a root cellar. Casks of grog, salted rations, and other shelf stable goods pushed to the side to make an an alchemist's laboratory.
    • Many of the barrels secretly contain blackpowder. Loads of it. Enough to destroy the donjon and trigger a landslide sealing the pass if necessary.
    • A notable item is tucked in the wizards effects.
    • 50% chance the hedge wizard is here working.
  7. Wizard's Quarters. Once the captain's. Richly appointed.
    • 50% chance the hedge wizard is here resting.
  8. Mess Hall. Buffet style counter with oven and cookware behind.
    • d6 Cobolds, thralls to the hedge wizard, are busily making a meal here.

Finally, we can make a pass to connect all these spaces with reasonable portals and interstitial corridors:

This is pretty rough but servicable. I imagine the fort used to be for keeping the giants bottled in the mountain pass, but now has been moved into by a hedge wizard and his servants.

Notable Items

I'll leave stocking with treasure for your consideration. I like to do about enough treasure for a party of level one adventurers to level per floor.

Most of that will be in loose coin, minor valuables, or bulky but expensive curios. Still, I also like to have a table of flavorful items, magical or otherwise, prepped for this kind of site.

In this case, we could just steal the "Kit" section of the Zouave verbatim, but let's say we didn't have that and adapt just the other starting gear:

Somewhere I came across the idea of a +1 enchantment as being an enchantment of "more of what this thing is." We can apply that approach to these items:

Expanding from Here

I'll leave this example there, but obviously there is a little more polishing work before this is table ready. Who is this hedge wizard? What's their agenda? What's their relation to their cobolds, those undead, and the giants that stalk the region?

If you want a larger dungeon, just chain multiple classes together. Connect D template to A template or Jacquays to your hearts content.

As with any procedure like this, inevitably you are going to have to make some judgment calls or fudge some results. That's a good sign! When you decide something has to be just so that indicates you've stumbled across something you care about. Revise other rooms or details to match where you've broken procedure, then continue from there.

#GLoG #practice