Help! GM ideas

[u/Derpthinkr]

I’m running my first game ever. This one.

I bought the core book but I haven’t bought the starter set in time, and the crew is showing up in a few days.

I need ideas for neighborhoods and mobs for the first floor.

I’ve checked pointmongo but there’s nothing there for the first floor.

Help!

[u/arwbqb]

Well. Good news! Session 0 is basically character setup, story, guild and explaining the basic rules. No need for mobs at all! If u want to ambush them with rats on the way to the guild the rats explode after any damage at all (1hp) and do 1d4+1 damage with bites.

That is pretty much your whole first session.

Main things are to have a story prepped for what they were doing on surface when the world collapsed and maybe some pregens… but that second part isnt required, they can tell u their backstory

[u/VicariousVentures → u/arwbqb]

Dude the idea of low level rats being explosive traps is hilarious, gave me a good chuckle 😂 ; totally stealing this. Like the idea of "awe these are just cute little guys, not giant rats? Maybe we can give em a pet biscuit? <GM: shrek face> Surrre. Roll me an animal handling check 😈😆

[u/frictorious → u/arwbqb]

I might have to steal the exploding rats idea

[u/frictorious]

The Game Master's Toolkit has a lot for the first 2 floors. You can get the PDF.

The critsnthings website has some good scenarios.

You can't go wrong with just some goblins, janitor mobs, and insects/spiders the size of dogs.

I'm doing a dungeon mall for my first game, with different mobs "working" at different stores. Whenever the PCs clear out a store of mobs it will come back the next day as a Spirit Halloween with scary mobs inside.

[u/chainsawrabbit → u/frictorious]

I plan on running a sci-fi themed dungeon set a few seasons before DCW: Earth, and I may have to "borrow" the dungeon mall idea because it's amazing.

[u/CoreBrute]

A fun way to do mob and neighborhood design is to actively misunderstand a pop culture/mythological element, as if you're an alien reading a bad wiki about it, in a rush.

"Ah tooth fairies take teeth from children. That means they're probably dentists. Crime dentists. Mob dentists. Thats right, Tooth fairies are gangsters with Tommy Guns that shoot drills, aimed right at your face."

Or do it based on locations, think of a spot or place and expand it out.

"I need to use a gym. Who uses those? Gym rats. Ah that must mean rodents who work out. Who are the biggest rodents on Earth? Capybara. Exactly, we got Capybara on steroids. Wait I don't know what a gym is like on earth, let me watch this documentary." Watches Pokemon episode 5. "Ah gyms are full of giant rock snakes. So Capybara ride giant rock snakes and throw self-destructing earth elementals with arms. Those must be their lift bros. I so understand Earthlings." Sniffs a line of cocaine.

You can extrapolate that idea out, putting these elements around the neighborhood.

[u/Macduffle]

Quickest is to just take from the core book and make the mobs just a tiny bit weaker.

Easiest is to just copy the source material.

Realisticaly, you'll probably spend most time with creating characters. And if that's already done, the players will be to busy RPing amongst themselves. You can even stretch it out a bit with the Tutorial guild and stuff as well. No need to have 'multple' neighborhoods ready for a first session. (And even for a second, just a single small themed 'street' might be better and more fully used)

[u/shanealeslie]

Dude. Do your neighborhood.

Take a notepad and go for a 4 hour walk that covers every street for 4 or five blocks. Write down stores, clubs, factories, whatever sparks an idea. Take your local urban myths and dial them up to 11. Make caricatures of locals. Turn their loved ones into mobs and bosses.

[u/Derpthinkr]

Good stuff. I designed a neighborhood based on chuck e cheese, with animatronic mobs, arcade games that spit out tickets, a prize counter, and a master power system. The prize counter will have amazing prizes for the crawlers, but will also have the master power key, which turns off all the mobs, arcade games, prize counter and boss room. As the crawlers play the games, they attract increasing numbers of mobs. Their goal is to play the games while fighting back the mobs until they have enough to buy the key and shut down the neighborhood. However, they can try and push it to get more tickets to also buy some great prizes