Eight-Bit Plots
July 20th, 2010
Hello and once again, welcome to Grave Plots, which, as by now I’m sure you all know, is the place to go for adventure ideas, plot hooks, and the like. This week I would like to bring you some adventure ideas inspired by classic video games. Classic games (and really any other media) make for great adventure fodder; consider, for instance, the plot line of Super Mario Bros. A fire-breathing dragon kidnaps a princess, and so a lowly commoner must rise from obscurity to battle hordes of strange and ever more sinister monsters, collect treasure, master the art of fire magic, storm the castle (which is full of deadly terrain features and insidious tricks and puzzles, by the by), and finally, send the evil castle boss (a minion of the fire-breathing dragon in disguise) hurling to his doom in a lake of lava, only to find that his princess is in another castle and his quest must go on. So Mario, undaunted, fights his way through forests and cloudscapes and across oceans, constantly racing against time, until eventually he does defeat his arch-foe and rescue the princess. With just a little bit of careful modification (and maybe some social situations), Super Mario Bros. can make for an extremely entertaining series of adventures. In this article I attempt to provide some suggestions on how to make those changes to some of the most fun games ever made.
The Tower of Kavas
Inspiration: Pac Man
The PCs have long heard tales of the tower of Kavas and the legendary treasure said to rest on the tower’s top floor. Now, curiosity, or perhaps need, has brought the PCs to the tower. They know the stories say no one has ever returned from within the tower, but they have a mind to be the first to do it. The tower itself can have any number of levels; personally, I like somewhere between 8-12 levels, but a shorter adventure might have only 4 or 5, while a long campaign could have as many as 50 or even 100 levels. Once the PCs enter the tower, they find themselves in a dangerous labyrinth full of twists and turns, dead ends, and the fearsome ghosts of those who came before them. The ghosts relentlessly hound the PCs, driving (or luring) them towards deadly traps, or fighting them toe to toe. While in the tower the ghosts have a greatly reduced rejuvenation period, and reform at a chamber near the center of the tower. PCs will discover the remains of the fallen adventurers who came before them and notice that they seem to be surrounded by an odd bluish mist. The touch of the living dismisses the mist for a time, and during that time the ghost of that adventurer becomes vulnerable to being destroyed. Because of this, it flees from the PCs at all costs; however, even when destroyed while vulnerable, the ghost will still rejuvenate as normal, trapped forever within the tower so long as the treasure remains locked above. PCs who fall in battle are immediately turned into ghosts themselves, madness and anger turning them against their former companions.
Each level should feature your own unique aspects; for example, one level might be a verdant garden filled with various fruits. Another might have a clearance of only a few inches, forcing the PCs to slither along the floor and use secret doors to evade certain death at the hands of the ghostly menaces. You should feel free to add whatever individual features you want.
On the top floor the PCs should encounter Kavas, the tower’s master. Kavas is a cursed demon who causes those he slays to rise as ghostly servitors, protecting his treasure. PCs could reason with him, learn his secret weakness somewhere in the tower, or defeat him through brute strength. Either way, once he’s dealt with, the PCs can take the treasure, leaving the tower victorious.
The Siege
Inspiration: Missile Command
The kingdom is under attack by an unstoppable army of demonic fiends, and the PCs are put in charge of seeing to the defense of one of the kingdom’s largest cities. The job won’t be an easy one: the PCs will not only have to turn a rag-tag militia into a fully-fledged fighting force, but also organize cooperation with the mages of the nearby academy of arcane study in order to stand any chance of survival at all. The PCs will have time to try to acquire intelligence and organize a meaningful resistance, shoring up the city’s defenses however they can.
As DM, you will want to set up your battle plan for the demons in advance. Be sure to plan for certain contingencies, and set up a string of encounters for the PCs to have to deal with personally. The assault should be relentless, coming from land, air, and sea; it would be a good idea to write some long descriptions about the action in the battle. If the PCs’ plan to defend the town didn’t include anything you didn’t plan for, then the demonic army will most likely defeat the PCs and the city will be lost, its inhabitants forced to flee back to the capital. If the PCs’ plan was really clever, or the implementation was unavoidable, the PCs manage to turn back the demonic horde and become heroes of the realm. They are placed in charge of ever greater responsibilities until the demons are truly defeated – no mean task, as their armies greatly outnumber the PCs’ forces, and they continue to strike ever harder and with greater cunning.
Subterranean Exploration
Inspiration: Dig Dug
The PCs were selected as members of an expedition of underground discovery. With the aid of a delver named Y’th’k, the expedition begins to burrow ever deeper into the subterranean world below, where they can discover much in the way of wondrous cities inhabited by subsurface dwellers, or encounter the mythical realms of earth deities, or a great number of other things that could lead to thrilling adventures. Along the way, however, they will also discover a terrible threat to their surface home and be forced into a competition with subterranean nightmares for the very future of the world.
One day, the PCs will find that they have dug too deep, and have woken something up: the fearsome linnorms, trapped deep within the earth since the beginning of time. The PCs now find themselves in a race to stop the linnorms from reaching the surface and destroying civilization. The linnorms are deadly foes with incredible abilities, and the PCs will have to be clever, drawing upon all their resources and allies to keep the linnorms from reaching the surface. As time goes on and the PCs face their deadliest foe time and time again, the PCs begin to turn the tide and gain greater and greater success, until at last, the linnorm threat is no more. Once again, the PCs are free to continue their underground exploration, and who knows what they’ll wake up this time?
Well, that’s it for another Grave Plots. Until next time, I wish you the best in your gaming endeavors. Additionally, if you would like to suggest a topic for a future Grave Plots, feel free to write me at jzaback@ necromancers-online.com. Who knows? The next Grave Plots you see might just be the one you suggested.