Just a random idea I had this morning -- make a ruined/abandoned star destroyer into a megadungeon for Star Wars d6. This was partly inspired by the most recent episode of The Mandalorian, but also Rey's scavenging the crashed star destroyer in Episode 7, and the thought of the ruined ship/dungeon in Metamorphosis Alpha.
Actually, I don't think dungeon crawling really fits the WEG rules so well, at least not as they're presented in SWd6. And I'd rather not get the game bogged down in one location like that, especially now that the party has their ship back and can go nearly anywhere. But if I did...
The ship would be a derelict in space, not crashed on a planet. It would need to be somewhere in the Outer Rim, most likely, or the Imperials would reclaim it. But it would need to be near enough to a space lane or trading hub world that lots of factions would have contingents in it. And there would need to be something of value scattered across the ship to keep the players interested in exploring it.
Actually, instead of an Imperial star destroyer, maybe one of the similar capital ships from the Clone Wars? Or something older than that even?
On the down side, I don't think I've got the time and patience to map out the interior of a star destroyer, let alone key areas of interest. Even if most of it is left blank, it would be a monster of a task.
Anyway, still an interesting idea, I think.
Cool idea. Reminds me of the Starship Warden.
ReplyDeleteI like this too. SW D6 characters are often greedy scoundrels, so it shouldn't be too tough to scatter rewards all around the ship. It would be tempting to just take an OSR megadungeon and reskin things as I go along...!
ReplyDeleteThe way I would do it would be to use the 'area maps' from the Victory Star Destroyer in WEG's 'Starfall' module, using only specific set-pieces (bridge, detention, engineering, hangers) as maps and only describing the areas between. Treating the whole ship as sort of '5-room dungeon' with hand-waved connections between areas.
ReplyDeleteI actually used this exact idea in my D&D campaign. An abandoned Imperial Stardestroyer, barely functional, just slowly cruising on repulsorlift over my setting, a few hundred feet up.
ReplyDeleteThat is cool.
DeleteI've woolgathered off and on over the years about how to pull off something like what you're talking about. You've seen the published Starfall adventure, I imagine.
ReplyDeleteSomebody actually apparently did undertake to come up with a set of Star Destroyer deckplans:
https://www.reddit.com/r/swrpg/comments/924ga5/star_destroyer_deckplans/
Here was a fun look at an idea for coming up with a ship's internal layout on the fly:
http://themetalearth.blogspot.com/2019/04/star-wars-its-not-dungeon-crawl-its.html
(I thought someone somewhere had come up with something similar using a set of random tables instead of cards, but I'm switched if I can track that down now.)
Robert Pearce's Starship Geomorphs, though meant for Traveller, could also come in pretty handy:
https://travellerrpgblog.blogspot.com/2020/07/starship-geomorphs-20.html
I always thought the deckplans for the Azhanti High Lightning from Traveller would be good for this. Way back in 1980 when I’d just started with AD&D 1e, and Traveller, a friend showed me his maps of the Enterprise from Star Trek - he was going to turn them into a dungeon. Lost touch so I’ve never known if he got around to it. I now have PDFs of AHL, so maybe one day...
ReplyDeleteA concept I've mentioned on my own blog a few times over the years is how I laugh at the idea of Megadungeons as a big deal in Fantasy when Sci-Fi gamers often own a megadungeon that they live in and which conveys them to their adventures.
ReplyDeleteI recently ran a campaign based on the Sci-Fi Britcom 'Red Dwarf' in which the PCs were the crew (and I use the term loosely) of a Rescue Vessel searching for the missing Red Dwarf that itself becomes lost in time and space. Their vessel was so large, and their were only four occupants, that it often seemed their home, their base of operations, their AI sentient starship, was also their greatest obstacle.
Outbound Flight is an example of a Warden-style Star Wars starship. It was only the latest attempt by the Galactic Republic to explore the Unknown Regions and reach another galaxy.
ReplyDeleteWhat if an earlier attempt has returned, but does not answer any contact attempts because it has gone all Metamorphosis Alpha, complete with mutant descendents of the crew and strange animals from the other galaxy?
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Outbound_Flight_Project