I’ve been playing a lot of Soda Dungeon again lately. Like… a LOT a lot. And I’m starting to get to the point where I can just let it run and do its thing while I work on other projects. For those of you who may not be familiar, Soda Dungeon is a free to play, lighthearted endless dungeon crawler from Armor Games. You send groups of adventurers you hire from the local soda tavern into the local dungeon to slay monsters and pillage the treasure, which you then take when they inevitably flee after being defeated by monsters. You spend the earnings to upgrade your tavern with more furnishings and fancier sodas to attract more powerful adventurers that can make it farther into the dungeon and obtain more powerful equipment that you then arm the next group with. Lather, rinse, and repeat ad nauseum. And then, just as you finish the dungeon and beat the final boss atop the tower, you are sent to another dimension where you must start all over again. You are however, given some “relics” for your trouble that make it slightly easier for you to start out and progress further, faster by powering up your characters. It’s a simple concept, but there’s enough there to where the game is stupidly engrossing.
Anyway, it got me thinking that the “endless dungeon” concept could be a fun short form campaign for a group of characters to partake in for a few sessions either as a break from the main campaign or as an interlude between larger stories. Let me set it up for you.
The characters start at 1st level (or whatever the equivalent is for the game you are playing). They find themselves washed up on a mysterious island with no knowledge of how they got there. Armed with just the clothes on their back they start to explore. They find a small village without much in the way of an economy – a simple inn, some boarded up shops and not much else. A massive tower reaching up to the heavens sits in the middle of the island, dominating most of the available land on the island. All the innkeeper can tell you is that the tower has always been there, and if the PCs want to find a way home, they may as well start looking there.
When they enter the tower, they find the entrance sealed behind them and the dungeon populated with increasingly powerful monsters. They fight, they take what equipment they can find, and they gain experience as they face continuously more powerful monsters with dwindling resources until they are finally overwhelmed and defeated… and they find themselves awaken on the shore with just the clothes on their back, but keeping the experience and some of the gold they earned on their first run, enabling them to make it farther into the dungeon the next time.
If you like you can even include an investing mechanic in the game, where each time the PCs are defeated, they can “spend” their treasure to improve the town or you can simply decide that for every X levels they manage to get through, they unlock the next improvement in town. These improvements could have any number of effects, from simply providing them with access to basic equipment before heading into the dungeon to potent blessings from the church that can grant the PCs boons such as rerolls, additional healing supplies, or other “miraculous” effects. If also gives the PCs a chance to break the monotony of the dungeon crawl by interacting with more and more townsfolk as they rebuild the town. Let them chew on the mystery of what this place is for a while, and why every new addition acts as if they have always been here.
This is not a game idea that is for everyone. Those that don’t like combat would be easily bored. But, I can see this kind of game being a hoot for the right party that just wants to beat up monsters for the next few weeks. The idea does require some pretty heavy front work on the part of the DM in order to create the dungeon and stat out the encounters, but once that’s done, you continue to run basically the same encounters. Maybe add in some variable effects here and there to make sure that things don’t get stale and introduce more items for the characters to accrue as they make their way further up the tower.
Now it should go without saying that a game like this needs a strong and robust combat engine with a focus on character progression and advancement to drive it. I simply don’t see it working as well with a game that is more focused on the narrative. And as much as I don’t really care for a lot of its other trappings, I believe that 4th Edition Dungeons and Dragons/DND Essentials is number one with a bullet for me in styling this kind of game in terms of character capabilities, an emphasis on tactical combat, an emphasis on encounter structure, and steady progression for both the characters and the monsters.
Likewise, I can see both 3rd Edition Dungeons and Dragons or Pathfinder could be very successful with this kind of game. I could see a case made for 5th Edition. It’s more rules like approach would certainly lead to a more stripped down version of the game, which has its benefits and its drawbacks depending on who you ask. I don’t see this kind of game playing well with a game like FATE Core or any game with an emphasis on evolving the character’s stories more than their abilities. Alternatively, games like Wild Talents or GURPs that involve heavy number crunching but don’t necessarily see the characters advance by more than a few points from session to session are also going to be hard sells – level based is where it is at for this type of game.
What are your thoughts? Is this the kind of game that would tickle your fancy for a few weeks? Or does the concept make you want to stab your eye with a d4? What system would you like to run it in? Sound off down below.
Ben Erickson
