A sketched map on the back of a character sheet is perhaps the most iconic and heart lifting illustration of what a good old-fashioned dungeon delve is all about. Three players were today the first to delve Black Peak and this map is what they returned:

With two of the regular Nottingham group away, we decided to pull out the Open Table megadungeon I’ve been promising. The mission was simple: reconnaissance. Go in, find out the state of the old Dwarven Sky Temple lost centuries before, and get out with a map.

It was delightful to break the usual GURPS traditions: we used a variant of the Third Edition Random Characters rules to generate some delvers; we played with GURPS Lite (2003) and dropped most of the wider options; we played theatre of the mind and focused on dungeoneering.

The players tell me they enjoyed discovering their characters through dice rolls and one even confessed to enjoying this game more than the regular Fellmyr (powered by GURPS 4e) campaign. It seems that having to deal with unchosen flaws and weaknesses heightened the challenge.

For me, there was pleasure in the unexpected as I left several elements open to chance.

The most memorable event was when one player decided to see if the full wolf-pelt adorning the bedchamber of the King was wearable. Imagine his shock as the pelt morphed to his skin and melded into his body. Now we have a literal wolf-man. Priceless!

You can get a lot of mileage from the Dungeoncrawl scenario structure, an Open Table format, some stripped down but robust rules, a bunch of imaginative players, and the willingness to improvise around the map and key you walked in with.

Can’t wait to take another group into those depths!

Game on!