Free Dungeon Level Friday - Class of '84 Versus The Lair of The Robolich

This mini stares at me from my pile of shame.

The idea behind this project is like, Class of Nuke 'Em High, my DCC/Alma Mater hack called ALMA MONGREL and also the omni-present spindly form of The Sinister Robolich, who plagues my nightmares and occupies my days, damn his current iteration. Ivan Reitman-meets-John Hughes-meets-Lloyd Kaufman if you get me.

great movie, or Greatest Movie?

So like, The Breakfast Club and Spacehunter: Adventures in the Forbidden Zone have a Venn Diagram node, that being Molly Ringwald and that's who this post is dedicated to at the moment. Also, Overdog, who in my opinion spawned 40K quite nicely and so if you fail your Defense Against the Dark Arts because maybe the teacher is a TERF whackjob, then you get detention in the grimy cells beneath Central High School and from there you may slip into the Underzones... I ought to do a play-through but, really it's all a play-through in my head all day long and while it amuses me, well, the impact on physical reality may diminish us all

Here you can have the (subtly improved with many changes to the code but still not where I wish it) 4th level of  Mr Shiny's Detention Zone in the hideous dimensional rift beneath Central High. Join Claire Standish, her alternate-dimension doppleganger Niki the Scav, and their trusty roboporter EU-Dee (Enlarging Unit Decommissioned) as they discover the Tennis Racket of Lobbing +2 before suffering a TPK/Temporal Crossrip. Don't worry I'm sure they will be okay for the next session. The code is so fat and logy and stinky that I should just scrap it and start again but... but it owns me, now, I think 

There are no genres only an endless parade of cowardly adjectives, packed into 1054 lines of code-skeleton plus associated linked lines in other tables that leaked out of my brain so maybe, uhhh, fuck it I estimate 40,000 lines that have unspooled themselves in my head since 1983 with an effectively infinite dreary number of possible combinations. Maybe more than infinite! Transinfinite! 

Speaking of which, #blacklivesmatter #loveislove and #transrightsarehumanrights

If you don't agree, I take back my gift to you and you can stick to your Dragonlance or whatever

BREAKFAST AT OVERDOG'S

1. Hell Hound, hidden Gauntlets of Ogre Power and Shield +2 locked in iron trunks, and a trap: Caltrops, which must be avoided with a DC 14 Dexterity save or party members take 1d6 damage.
2. Toxic Five-Headed Hydra, a cauldron, full of foul water, hidden 21 native amethyst 250gp, trapped with: Corrosive Gas, causing all non-magical items to have an inopportune chance to fall apart.
   
3. The cramped room has a Contact Poison on a cauldron, full of pure drinkable water, forcing a DC 16 Constitution save or die. The trap is attached to a elevator. * like I said it's not perfect by any mean
   
4. There is 1252 gold , hidden here.
5. The cramped room has a Retractable Laser Turret attacks as Level 3 Magic Missile. The trap is attached to an arch.
6. G-Virus 4 Ghouls, a stall, and a trap: Disintegration Beams, forcing a DC 19 Dexterity Save or 40 damage.
7. The party can encounter 4 Mephits (Mixed Types), here.
8. Graffiti here says BEWARE THE POOLS. in blood.
9. Steam 2 Troglodyte Zombies, a steps, hidden Broom of Flying and High Tech: Power Fist Nonfunctional, trapped with: a Fusillade of Darts.
10. This cavernous room includes an Intricate Cloning Machine. The interacting character sacrifices 7 HP and gets faithful/insane/flawed clone.
    
11. 4 Ghouls, hidden 26 hematite 25gp divided into small coffers, and a trap: Slowing Gas. The victim is slowed for 4 turns, DC 15 Constitution save.
12. A Panic Gas. The whole party moves at +4 in the Initiative order for 3 turns but all actions are at -1d keeps the Eyes of Petrification and antique coins worth 950 gold safeguarded.
13. There is antique coins worth 2008 gold , hidden here.
14. Mecha Minotaur, an idol of  Sam Walton, and a trap: Blinding Gas. The party must make a DC 22 Constitution save or -4 to all attacks for 1d4 turns.
15. This cramped room includes a parking lot with 11 rusted-out automobiles or skimmers. The entry-gate is non-functioning. Vending machine, random items, will steal 25% of money inserted.
16. There is Helm of Comprehend Languages and Read Magic and High Tech: Automatic Rifle Functions on 1-12 in 20, hidden here.
17. Graffiti here says BEWARE THE TENTACLE BEAST. IT ATE GALSTAFF. in charcoal.
18. This room has a maintenance area. There are Vermin control devices e.g. traps, flamethrowers (2d6!), nerve-gas grenades (1d8 plus paralysis on DC 10 Constitution save), microwave emitter guns (1d10).
19. The party can encounter 12 Leech Rabbits, here.
20. Frost Troll, hidden 27 amber 100gp stored in pottery jars, and a trap: Poisoned Arrow Trap. The party sustains d20+5 attacks that do 1d6 damage and a random DC 15 poison.
    

(Here's the list of features I've mostly yet to implement in the main block of code)

## Feature wishlist

## 1. Geases and quests

## 2. Difficulty of some traps and saves scales with dungeon level via variable (editor's note: very easy, probably finish it next)

## 3. Integrated personalities of some generated NPCs (also super easy since I have like 4 of those)

## 4. Standardized formatting for monsters (bold), treasure (italics) - meh, maybe will maybe won't do

## 5. Re-rollable via link options for non-sensical entries

## 6. Room sizes, with larger rooms containing larger features

## 7. Random chance of adding a template to a monster - the templates are included - note added kludgy version on June 19,2020

## 8. Better treasure the farther down you go, maybe like the random treasure system in DMG1e

## 9. Lair treasure vs. Carried Treasure?

## 10. More Steam, Electricity, Magnetism

The Kids are Alright

#blacklivesmatter

I think the statements by WoTC about their product is terrific. I especially think that the statement by the Warhammer Community about GW's thing is especially terrific. Why? Well, for example 40K is rife with prose, visual art, and philosophy that glorifies violence, authoritarianism, bigotry, and hatred. So if you're a young lad not steeped in the traditions of Reagan and Thatcher and can't recall that Rogue Trader was a scifi/fantasy game deeply entrenched in anti-authoritarianism, you might get the impression that telegraphing those messages in the fiction is tacit endorsement of those philosophies. If you can't clearly delineate between reality and fantasy, you might think that the slaughter of The Other as depicted in the fiction is A Good Thing. Sure, we Old Fellers (listen I'm 45 and you should never ever ever trust anybody over 30 kids, especially not a charismatic clever artiste who has plenty of money and a fascination for half-his-age girls but I digress)

(remind me somebody to integrate my wargaming blog into Hapless Henchman)

Sure we Old Fellers clearly understand that NO no no! No people are inherently bad or good in the Real World. That nuance and those grey areas are of course what real life is like. That these great geniuses we hold dear who thought these things up whole cloth, like Gygax, like that guy Zak, like Ellis, they didn't STEAL those ideas so they could make money and get laid! No! They were in it for something else. Like the principle of the thing. Gary wanted you to question authority, home rule things, and definitely photocopy your books to share freely with other kids - the ideas were what mattered to Gary. He just wanted you to think for yourself. We don't give a fig where Arneson or that nice lady with the small-press ideas was taking things. For example.

I seen about 4 blog posts this AM linked from twitter that were direct responses to WoTC's statement. And you know what? I'm 45. I been doing DnD for about 80% of my life, give or take. Star Wars, too. You kids take it and run with it. Get rid of race. Get rid of racial bonuses. I find I prefer things like Into the Odd where those things aren't even posed in the text and if you want them, inject them, but you don't need to eject anything. it's not broken by design. It doesn't depend upon these old crusty Anglophile Middle-Class Country Gentleman ways. If DnD was a clever and funner offshoot of that old white guy's 'game of kriegspiel or whatever, GREAT.  I remember when 5e was approaching I was like "ehhhhh, who cares, I got mine" and a couple of folks on G+ said "hahahaha old man! you protest too much!" and I was hurt then, but the reality is that DnD is no longer mine. It might have been a long time ago, but better things have come. They took me a long time to find. DnD is big, and it's for the kids. Let the woke kids have DnD. They will make it theirs and it'll be better in the grand scheme of things than what a controlling, patronizing, paternalistic authoritarian balding, reactionary, overweight, swindling white dude wanted you to play. I'm not saying the dude wasn't multifaceted - hey man the thing is more nuanced than that. He wasn't an Orc, for example. Nobody's all bad, right?

Stay woke, kids. Fuck these menopausal old guys and their pearl-clutching. Do crime/Be Gay. Burn it down and what you drag out of the ruins will be better than what (in their hubris) The Ancients made. Get suspicious of anybody that gets nervous if you don't spout off about how great the brand is.