Talk:World's Smallest Dungeon

From AdamWiki

My original adventure text:

CurtisP's critique:

Adam's response:

CurtisP's response to the response:

Adam again:

Sparks chimes in:

CurtisP indents even more":

I applaud your efforts, but i see a number of problems with this adventure:

I think you missed the point. This was never meant to be a serious adventure. It's a spoof of the World's Largest Dungeon, that's all. Something I tossed together in the space of about an hour. But let's talk about your technical critique.

Well there's two reasons I tore into it the way I did. First was the pomposity of the sentence "Well, anyone can create a huge monstrosity, but it takes a special kind of creativity to make it very small." Of course now I realize that was all tongue in cheek.

You have to remember to cast detect irony next time.

Irony is such a lonely word... sorry, I listened to too much Billy Joel

The second is that I also wrote a "World's Smallest Dungeon" (www.neoventures.org/ondemandgames) as a commercial venture. My page went up a mere week after yours, and yours showed up in a Google search and mine did not. On top of that, yours was actually smaller than mine, so I had to prove that yours was broken and therefore didn't really count and that way mine would still be the smallest.

A commercial venture? You mean there's a freaking market for this shit?

I hope so, I've invested over ten dollars so far. A domain name will cost me another seven or eight. Of course the finished product sells for a dollar.

I never thought I'd be pleased by the words, "yours was actually smaller than mine." When I wrote The World's Smallest Dungeon (TM), I realized that all someone would have to do to steal the title is publish an even smaller dungeon. I thought to myself, an escalation battle of smallest dungeons could be a lot of fun.

My plan was to make more dungeons, each slightly larger than the last, called the Second Largest, Third Largest, etc.

What's most amazing is that you didn't notice that I somehow mixed up scorpions and centipedes. That's a serious editing error (which I will fix).

What can I say. I guess I was blinded by my own self-righteousness.

It seems a silly thing to get self-righteous over, in any case.

It gets worse. I just googled World's Smallest Dungeon today (04/24/05) and there are still no references to my dungeon, but yet another reference to yours. This time to your livejournal posting on 3/27, even though there are no hits for my livejournal posts of 3/28, 3/26, or 3/25.

In 879 BH (Before Humans), in the Year of the Gnome, a powerful wizard created the most dangerous of all artifacts, a sphere of annihilation. Unfortunately, he created it in the middle of a giant hill. Its source of power, the mana-full glowstones that lay dormant in the hill, gave out a thousand years later and the sphere disappeared with an unsatisfying whining noise, much like the air squeezing slowly out of an untied balloon.

I checked the description for the sphere of annihilation and didn't see anything about it needing a power source. Also, sphere's of annihilation are two feet in diameter, so why would it have left a four foot diameter hole?

The size of the hole is a technical error. I probably read it as having a two-foot radius. But maybe it bounced. Boing boing negative energy goodness sproing!

Or it went Nova, expanding before dissapearing.

No, it definitely fizzled out in a whiny way. No supernovatic pop. Maybe it was like a deep breath before a long, melodramatic sigh.

The power source is poetic license. There is really nothing in the Dungeon Master's Guide that explains how to create artifacts and it describes these items as "beyond the ken of present-day knowledge" and states "their means of creation are long gone." For all we know, an artifact could require a power source. You know, "Sphere of Annihilation, by Ronco! Some Assembly Required. Requires two "AA" batteries."

Or it may very well be that spheres created by humans need a power source, whereas artifacts do not.

Huh?

Artistic License, Making Shit Up, etc.

The pressures of time eroded the hill that had hidden the perfectly round cave, and various creatures lived in it, including some snakes, a badger, and a grig named Edgar. This is not their story.

Tiny creatures can not fit through an eight inch wide tunnel. The best they can do is squeeze through a twelve and a half inch tunnel. This means that there is no way for the scorpions to enter or exit the tunnel (unless they can travel extradimensinally or shrink). The same is true for grigs, and especially badgers, which are small. Although there are none listed in the SRD, one can assume that diminutive snakes exist. So at least one of the types of creatures purported to live there, actually could have.

Tiny creatures are "typically between 1 and 2 feet in height or length." I can easily imagine such a creature crawling down an 8 inch wide tunnel. If it helps, imagine a 6 foot tall man crawling down a 2 foot wide tunnel. It's a tight squeeze, certainly, but it's possible.

I think you're alluding to the Space requirement for Tiny creatures (which is 2.5 feet, or 18 inches, not 12.5 inches). Note that this refers to space needed for combat. Even the rules for Squeezing refer to movement in combat, not an absolute limit on movement. Maybe they greased themselves up first. That'd help.

Nonetheless, the adventure assumes that the scorpions are stuck in the hole and never leave.

Just like Bonzai Kittens! In any case, the space syndrome is something that a lot of adventures have problems with, especially the ones from WOTC. Like a large creature in a 10 foot wide room that gets behind the characters.

I assume you mean Bonsai Kittens. I imagine Bonzai Kittens to be these feline paratroopers jumping out of planes screaming BONZAI!

I guess that will be my next game, Bonzai Bunnies and Kamakazee Kittens.

Anyway, in the World's Smallest Dungeon, one can expect to be a little cramped.

Over time, the little cave lost its perfectly round shape and a bunch of annoying monstrous scorpions moved in. They harassed the local fauna for a few years before being slain by a handful of local commoners. A few days later, a gnome necromancer named Sbodvin the Moderately Dark found their carapaces and turned them into skeletons to do his bidding. They guard his only magic item, which he has left in the hole.

So we have a gnome necromancer with the ability to cast animate dead, a fourth level spell. This would require him to be a minimum of seventh level. And he only has one magic item? Must be a low magic campaign world.

Actually, Sbodvin was a 5th level cleric, not a specialist wizard, and thus could cast animate dead as a 3rd level cleric spell. He didn't even call himself a necromancer; that was a title the village gave him. He preferred the title "The Moderately Dark."

To me Necromancer implies Specialist Wizard,not cleric. So just change the text to "his only remaining magic item"

I'm not understanding how the second sentence follows the first. And while "Necromancer" does imply Specialist Wizard, "necromancer" does not. How about I just change "necromancer" to "spooky-dude" or "goth"?

Sbodvin had more magic items, but he lost some of them in his tussle with the village and he lost the rest to a sly awakened hedgehog in a poker game one night. Oh, the shame.

Now this rocks. Details like this simply MUST be in the adventure.

Psst. I think you need to cast detect irony again. That was funny and stuff.

Actually, even ironic comments can be worth adding. I'm kind of with CurtisP on this one. :)

A hole leads into a small hollow space in the side of a hill ... The heroes can explore the hole through creative divination magic (scrying, wizard eyes, etc.). They will not be able to enter the hole physically unless they are Tiny-sized or have the means to shrink themselves thus.

As far as I know, there is no spell that will shrink a creature more than one size category, As mentioned before, tiny creatures cannot fit through the hole, only diminutive creatures and smaller. This means that the only way to become small enough to enter this hole is to start out as tiny, which is an inlikely size for any standard adventuring race.

See above. A Tiny creature can conceivably crawl down the hole.

Even if it were not possible, the polymorph spell allows you to assume the size and shape of a Fine-sized creature, such as a mouse. Or one could polymorph into a Tiny-sized humanoid for the sake of convenience and then reduce person down to Diminutive-sized. Or just not eat for a while.

Polymorph! Damn, why didn't I think of that. A druid could get in easy too.

So could a 3" tall fairy. I suppose I could include a disclaimer, "This game runs best when the characters are less than 12 inches tall."

"This adventure best for a small party. Literally."

The hole is the mouth of a two-foot long tunnel that widens gradually into a larger roughly-spherical space about four feet in diameter. This cavern is very dark, kept so by a permanent Darkness spell.

Who cast the permanent darkness? The wizard who created the sphere of annihilation? Why would he have bothered. It wasn't any of the prior residents, and it's highly unlikely the commoners did it. This leaves the necromancer. Since permanency is a fifth level spell, this brings the necromancer up to ninth level.

It's a function of the Sphere of Annihilation, which is an artifact, and is therefore very tricky and unpredictable. The Sphere's strong connection to the Negative Material Plane left a permanent darkness effect there. Yeah, that sounds good. Or maybe Sbodvin forgot to pay the electricity bill.

Actually sphere's are holes in the tim-space continuum, but a leak from the negative material plane sounds good.

A hole in the multiverse has to go somewhere, right? Like, where half my socks and my car keys end up. I just don't think you can have a Sphere of Annihilation hanging around for centuries without having some kind of effect on the world. Darkness seems like the least of the problems it could have left behind. It's an artifact and can't be neatly summed up in a few paragraphs.

Ah, the power of a plot device. ;)

Monstrous Centipede Skeletons (EL 1)

Note that I've now changed these to monstrous scorpion skeletons to match the pictures and opening text. --Adam 13:20, 27 Mar 2005 (EST)

A colony of 8 Tiny monstrous centipede skeletons lives here. The skeletons were created by a gnome necromancer. They lost their ability to climb effectively when they became undead and cannot get out of the cave. They will mindlessly attack anything that enters.

The minimum space a tiny creature can occupy is a twelve and one half inch by two and one half foot rectangle, an area of about two and one half square feet. The cave has a diamter of four feet for an area of about twelve and one half square feet. The only way more than five scorpions can fit in there is if some are sitting on top of others. In addition, only creatures two size categories larger or smaller can occupy the same space as a creature. Since no medium creatures will fit in the cave, this leaves only fine creatures being able to enter the already occupied cave.

See above. The Space requirements are for combat.

Nonetheless, imagine a Tiny scorpion is about the size of your (certainly dog-eared) Dungeon Master's Guide, and maybe 3-4" tall. (Tiny centipedes would probably be two feet long and very skinny.) Imagine eight of them piled on top of one another inside a hole that could fit an EZ Boy Recliner. Yeah, they're all over each other; they don't care cuz they're undead. Or scorpions. Or undead scorpions. If any PCs want to enter, it's gonna be pretty crowded on the floor, sure.

Really, though, if you're a tiny creature in a dark hole full of undead scorpions, you have more important things to worry about than being crowded. It'd be sorta like a little Insects of the Damned Rave in there.

Well the real problem here would be adjucating the combat. It seems to me that as a DM, you would have to say, "I'm just going to ignore a bunch of the combat section." While this is a DM's perogative it can rather annoy characters.

I never really considered that anyone would actually play this thing. But let's suppose someone did. At some point, you have one or more shrunken PCs inside a four-foot-wide hole. Which part of the combat system did you intend to apply here? Hrm, they're all in the same 10-foot square, but the Squeezing rules might apply here, only it's a ball-shaped room without a flat floor. Right.

If I had to actually DM this for a group, I'd break it down to a smaller grid system, say 6-inch squares, and go from there. I don't imagine a lot of maneuvering in the hole, though. The whole thing is such an exercise in futility because most parties would just toss a flask of oil in there and burn it all out. Aww, they won't get the potion of cure minor wounds...

Or they could do a variation on the Pied Piper! There's got to be some d20 expansion for musical skills. Someone wanders off with this little trail of enthralled undead scorpions dancing along behind them, while the rest of the party proudly retrieves the potion...

Monstrous Centipede Skeletons

Tiny Undead

CR 1/8; HD 1/4 d12; HP 2; Init +6 (Dex, Improved Initiative); Spd 20 ft (climb 20 ft); AC 14 (+2 size, +2 Dex); Atks Bite +2 melee (1d3-5 plus poison); SA Poison; SQ Immunity to Cold, Damage Reduction, Improved Initiative; AL NE; SV Fort +0, Ref +3, Will +2; Str 1, Dex 17, Con —, Int —, Wis 10, Cha 1; Poison (Ex): A Tiny monstrous centipede skeleton has a poisonous bite (Fort DC 10, initial damage 1 Dex, secondary damage 1 Dex). The save DCs are Constitution-based. Immunity to Cold (Ex): Skeletons are not affected by cold. Damage Reduction 5/Bludgeoning: Skeletons lack flesh or internal organs.

From the SRD description of Animate Dead, “A skeleton can be created only from a mostly intact corpse or skeleton. The corpse must have bones.” Scorpions are invertibrates and have exoskeletons, not bones. This means that it is impossible to create a Centipede Scorpion. This explains how they are able to fit through the opening, they don't actually exist. Also from the spell description, “If a skeleton is made from a corpse, the flesh falls off the bones.” So it would not have its poison available even if it were possible to make one.

I'm loosely interpreting animate dead. Bones, chitonous exoskeleton — same to me. Scorpions and centipedes just wear their bones on the outside. Skeletons have teeth and fingernails, don't they? Those aren't bone.

Skeletons do not have fingernails. They may or may not have teeth.

Do they have patellas? I guess not. Or sternums or other cartilaginous sections. If you animate the corpse of a baby into a skeleton, does its soft cartilage head fall off the bone and you get a mostly headless baby skeleton?

Uhm, ew, Adam.

You're correct that the skeletal scorpions shouldn't get their poison attacks, since those rely on fleshy parts (poison sacs). But I call for artistic license here.

Artistic license is code for "ignoring the rules"

Sometimes it's code for "the rules are silly; let's have some fun." If my players stopped play to argue that the skeletal insects could not possibly have poison, I'd say, "Okay, you're right. But these are exploding skeletal scorpions, and this one does 10d6 damage to your 1st level elf wizard with the silly name.

Or replace them with flaming, quacking ducks that flop around on the ground, turning the earth into lava and incinerating the entire party. You know, "ducks roll, everybody fries." Or something like that.

The "flesh falls off the bone" thing really makes me crave pork ribs though. Mmmmm. Pork ribs.

I'm all about the beef brisket myself.

Mmmmm. Brisket. Falling off undead cows.

And again, ew.

In the bottom of the cave under some loose dirt (Search, DC 12 to locate) is a potion of cure minor wounds (cures 1 point of damage).

A potion of cure minor wounds? This potion is so worthless that it isn't even listed in the SRD, According to the item creation rules, this potion has a value of twenty-five gold pieces. Animating the scorpions would have required eight black onyx each with a value of at least six and one quarter gold pieces, for a total of fifty gold pieces.

Yeah, it's worthless. That was the point. I made it up. The Encounter Level was 1, though, so I didn't want to put a full potion of cure light wounds in there.

Did you check the treasure table? A cure light wounds potion is 50 gp and well within reasonable treasure for an EL1 encounter. Unless you are one of those really stingy DM's.

Yes, but the World's Smallest Dungeon should have the World's Smallest Treasure. If you're not one of those really stingy DMs, wouldn't you spend the money on a real adventure?

Animating the scorpions required a black onyx gem worth 25 gold pieces per Hit Die of the undead. Since each skeletal scorpion has 1/4 HD, that's 5/4 HD times 25 gp, or about 31 gold pieces. Why would he do this? He was good at necromancy, but bad at math.

Well now that I know he was a cleric it all makes sense.

It does? Cuz I just made all that shit up.

What you are saying here is that a necromancer of at least seventh level had only one magic item, and it was worth a measely twenty-five gold pieces. In addition, instead of carrying this marginally useful item with him , he hid it and used up twice its value in material components to protect it. That is one stupid necromancer, which brings us back to my earlier definition of special.

Yes, that's what I'm saying. He was wise beyond his years (Wisdom 19) but not too bright (Intelligence 6). Also, after being beaten by the angry townspeople and having his favorite items stolen from him, then losing the last items in a very embarrasing poker round (he tried to bluff a pair of sevens), all he had left was that crappy little potion. It was the principle of the thing. He felt he really had to protect it. All he had left was that potion and some of those onyx things, and the villagers were closing on him fast. He did what he had to. Desperate times call for desperate measures. "You may get ol' Sbodvin the Moderately Dark, but you'll never get my weak-assed little potion!" he cried into the night. Actually, his cries into the night were eventually what gave away his position to the townspeople. Like I said, he wasn't too bright.

I hope this illuminates the near-permanent darkness of the shadow I've drawn over the rules in the creation of this little adventure. Thank you for reading my little joke of an adventure, registering an account here, and posting your detailed analysis of the technical merits of my work. I appreciate your time.

-- Adam 12:12, 27 Mar 2005 (EST)

Thank you for not taking my comments personally. I shall send you a copy of my dungeon.

No, I find the whole thing totally hilarious and just a bit surreal. I took a moment to look over your own dungeon, which I shall call The World's Second Smallest Dungeon (since mine gets that title, neener-neener).

Mine is the Real World's Smallest Dungeon. Just like the Real Ghostbusters which actually came years after the original Ghostbusters. Except that mine came only days after yours, and you aren't wearing a gorrila suit.

While you asked me not to distribute it, I would like to offer my critique of it here, when I have some more time to do so.

I have finalized mine and put it to press. I will send you another copy, which you may quote fromfor critiquing. You may want to create a new article for it though.