Starting Donjon

[Tony Irwin]

Just bought Donjon and am looking forward to running it with my group. Got stacks of old D&D material I could get a second run out of, but have asked my mates to consider whether they'd enjoy a Lord of the Rings setting, which is pretty much all Wilderness Adventures and Dungeon Crawls anyway when you get down to it ;-)

Anyway some questions:

Does playing it with d10s affect the game adversely? We've all got screeds of d10s but nary a d20 amongst us.

Any words of wisdom for a group about to start Donjon?

Cheers folks

Tony

[Valamir]

On dice:  ANY dice could work.  Theoretically you could play with d4s.  IIRC the use of d20s came from initial riffing off the D&D standard.

Donjon's mechanics are pretty much the same as Sorcerer mechanics in the rolling (very different in the interpretation) and most Sorcerer games I've seen/heard of use d10s.  

The only mechanical difference it will make is the number of tied dice will be higher which shouldn't have a tremendous effect (it would have a pretty noticeable effect with d6s I'd expect).


On wisdom:  decide in advance where to set the Zany dial.   Donjon's mechanics work equally well at totally outrageous and madcap nonsensical adventures or more serious "traditional" type adventures.

My vote (not that I get one) would be to set the zany dial low, simply because we haven't had many (any?) actual play examples posted of more serious Donjon sessions and I'd love to see one.

Recommendation #2:  Make sure the GM is thoroughly familiar with both the magic system and the find-a-treasure system, and has already decided how liberally to interpret magic key words.  Setting that standard up front will avoid hassles in the future.

[Zak Arntson]

Our group used d6's and things worked fine. The number of ties didn't bother anyone.

I would recommend writing up a rules summary, with the 1 success = 1 fact or 1 die in big letters. Include other things, too, like how to make Wealth and Provisions rolls, and especially how combat & magic work. Photocopy it and pass it out to each player.

[jdagna]

Any words of wisdom for a group about to start Donjon?

Besides Valamir's recommendation on being up front about magical interpretation and zaniness, I do have a couple of other suggetsions.

I don't know how experimental your group is, but for some people, the concept of a player being able to affect the plot is mind-blowing.  The first response I got when I told someone about it was "But... but... but... how does the GM keep control?!"  Some players may try to be "polite" by not taking full advantage of their narrative powers, which just defeats the whole beauty of Donjon.  This is probably why most groups have played really comedic campaigns so far - by not taking it seriously, people probably feel more empowered to take control.

[Bailywolf]

On the zany-dial thing... I've a hankering to run a fairly serious Cityscape donjon game... more Lankhmar than Ankh Morpork.  Big vast old city, riven under with miles forgotten tunnel, rotting gothic grandure above, byzantive politics, anchient sorcery, and corruption of society and soul.  All with a black sense of humor.  

Anyhow, for this thing I was considering some kind of reward system for creating facts which support the setting and capture its flavor, and for a penalty for doing things goofy and inapropriate.  One thing I was considering was for descriptive Facts which bolster the setting or are especialy cool use the AND currency exchange (making it count for both bonus die and Fact), for just humdrum detail the normal OR exchange, and for stupid or out of line Facts, the BAH! exchange, in which the Fact is accepted, but causes the character to loose a die on his next action.

Just TRY and find a cowbow hat now me lado.


But then, I may just resort to GM perogitive and say "come on man, get int he spirit of the thing.  Try again."

[Zak Arntson]

Yeah, setting the zaniness dial up front is a very important thing. I would like to try Donjon out as a serious game. Clinton? The rest of y'all? Maybe we should try some serious gaming for the Sundays? I could change my zombie from goofy to really creepy. Whee!

It would be a big (and probably nice) contrast from my Fighter-D Alpha game, which has it's zaniness dial turned up to eleven without remorse.

[Mike Holmes]

Hey Ben,

What I'd do is give each participant (players and GM) a pile of tokens. Perhaps ten or something. When a player does something cool, the players can award him a token. These can then be exchanged for an extra die on any later roll, no more than one per roll (or use a scaled exchange: 1 token = 1 die, 3 tokens = 2 dice, 6 tokens = 3 dice, etc.).

This way players have an incentive to perform actions that interest the rest of the group. Assuming there is agreement before play as to what that it, it should work out. If you want to keep a tighter control, then only the GM can give tokens.

This is an idea that's been going about for a while now, and seems to be a good way to reinforce appropriate play with any system.

Mike

[Bailywolf]

Mike, consider that idea yoinked.  It fits nicely as an ingame reward for apropriate play.  I might use jelly beans.

[Mike Holmes]

I might use jelly beans.

Oohh. If players eat them they can't be used, right? Very cool. Tempt the players to eat their metagame rewards instead of using them in play. Give them a lot, and charge more for dice. Then players can just hand over fistfulls the size of which will equal their enthusiasm. And then eating a few doesn't seem so detrimental to your metagame ability.

For Cons use mints. For obvious reasons.

Mike

[jdagna]

Zak:
I tend to run pretty serious games and generally gravitate toward that, so wouldn't mind at all if the Sunday game went that way.  But it depends on the other people - I'm having a good time already, and trying to force a group to be serious can make everyone miserable.  

Mike:
I like the token reward idea!  It doesn't run into possible rule problems (like the AND/OR system might) and is a reward with a value that equals the effort required to earn it.

[Mike Holmes]

Ooh. One note if you use this system. Do the patneted Jake Norwood technique, and have bowls. Two for each player. One to give, and one to hold rewards recieved. So a player does not accidentally buy dice with tokens that are not his to use (meant only for giving away).

Mike