Space Station Dungeon - OPDC 2016 entry WIP

[Gamerprinter]

I decided to participate in the One Page Dungeon Contest this year, maybe my last time as a participant (I should be judging and not participating - maybe next year).

I decided to do a "space station dungeon", because I've always wanted to build a sci-fi dungeon, and with my recent 100+ sci-fi map objects recently created, I want to use them and create a few more trinkets to add to my sci-fi symbol collection. I've got the adventure text written and page layout done, ready to place the map once complete. I opted to use 8.5 point textual font for the body text, small enough to fit everything, yet larger than the 8 point sized font which the OPDC crew consider the absolutely minimum size (so I'm slightly above that).

Here's the rough draft map as I started it...

GP

space-dungeon.jpg

[Gamerprinter]

Here's where I'm at this morning, with an explanation of the back story and the labeled chambers...

Because the OPDC dungeons are supposed to be game system agnostic (one of their rules), I only used "moderate difficulty" or "very difficult" as modifiers to any skill checks for a given game system being used by those running this module. Also opposing force salvage team members are stated to be equal level/skills as PCs, and the armed salvage robot is stated to be twice the "hit points of any one PC", very strong claw attacks and machine gun fire - I do give d6 damage calls for its weapons, but nothing more specific than that. This could be played using Traveller rules, Star Frontiers, D&D5e/Pathfinder, or anything really my mentioned game mechanics is loose enough to fit whatever the referee chooses to run this with.

Adventure Back Story: the PCs were part of the station's crew as elite commandos and troubleshooters and put into cold sleep for an intended 18 month period while station was being maneuvered to an area of space for military operations. However one year into their cold sleep cycle the station was attacked by an enemy fleet, severely damaging station and killing all aboard. PCs survived in stasis in their cold sleep pods during the battle, but the wake up mechanism on their sleep pods were damaged. Thus the PCs continued in cold sleep for 9 long years. Considered abandoned property, a salvage team got the rights to the station and are currently in the process of dismantling the equipment aboard. Their activity causes the power source for the cold sleep cells to be disrupted, and finally wakes the PCs... this is how the adventure begins.

A. Cold Sleep cells chamber (where PCs wake up at the start of the adventure).

B. Equipment room contains 6 EVA suits, and an airlock door separating B from C. Note all EVA suits only have 20 minutes of oxygen in each, which forces PCs to make fast decisions and not overly spend time in airless spaces (which kind of creates a "hurry up" factor while the PCs negotiate the dungeon).

C. Large chamber with a massive hull breach from weapons fire, making this airless, with zero G, and open to outer space. Damaged bridging needs to be crossed with mag boots on as first skill encounter (moderately difficult).

D. Damaged airlock doors enters a large shaft through all lower decks, but lowest section destroyed in battle and gone, making this also an airless, zero G space. Airlock doors at E, F, and G await PCs to attempt to cross, as bridging here is gone, with a jump (moderate difficulty).

E. Airlock door opens to corridor still pressurized with atmosphere contained. The end of the corridor will be blocked with debris. However, when PCs open the airlock entry loose debris will fly out the corridor into space D, working like a trap causing physical damage and possibly breaching PC's EVA suits

F. Open airlock door enters corridor similar to area E, also blocked by debris, but airless and no air pressure, so no trap effect with flying debris. Both E and F are red herrings intended to be time/oxygen wasters.

G. Closed double airlock chamber to pressurized, breathable atmosphere beyond, allowing PCs to finally enter breathable area and shut off their oxygen supply in their suits.

H. 10 foot wide hallways here leading to armory. An armed salvage robot is guarding the valuables in this chamber until the salvage team gets there, it will attack any non-salvage team members who touch any weapons in this chamber.

I. Supply room contains basic supplies, food rations, and water bottles.

J. Elevator accessing upper and lower decks, however damage in elevator shaft prevents it from going down. Also next 2 decks above have jammed airlock doors the PCs will not be able to pass. Next accessable deck is the third deck above the deck PCs are on. Damage in shaft prevents going above this deck.

K. Engineering section - 2 plasma conduits are damaged and causing a 25' radius plasma "fire" damaging anyone entering the affected area. Also 3 armed salvage team members are dismantling equipment in this section and will have a fire fight with the PCs.

L. This corridor has damaged grav-plating doubling local gravity forcing PCs to struggle just to walk past this area, making fighting or other strenuous activity very difficult to perform. In the alcove an armed salvage robot unhindered by the increased gravity will fight PCs here.

M. Power plant chamber with a massive hull breach, making this chamber airless and zero G. However, 4 salvage team members are trying to dismantle the power plant and a fight in zero G with the PCs ensues (very difficult).

N. Jammed airlock door forces an engineer or technician in party to force the door open (moderate difficulty) to enter pressurized atmosphere beyond.

O. Missile Bay, where one (now dead and burned) salvage team member attempting to disengage a missile for salvage recovery, but instead set off the missile while it was still clamped from release. So exhaust flames are crossing entire room causing damage to any PCs attempting to pass the exhaust vector. An engineer can attempt to release the clamps and missile, but will still be burned for doing so.

P. Double airlock chamber like area G, but the airlock door on opposite side has been forced open, so area beyond is airless.

Q. Ship Docking Bay contains PC's 100 ton Skate class star ship that PCs must enter to escape the facility and end the dungeon. This bay has normal gravity, but is airless as airlock main doors are partially stuck open. 5 armed salvage team members are in this bay, 2 trying to bypass security airlock into star ship, while the other 3 are attempting to fully open the main airlock doors. Also an armed salvage robot stands guard while salvage team is at work and alarms them when PCs enter, and the final big fight occurs.

That's the premise and step-by-step encounters of this dungeon.

GP

opdc-map-update.jpg

[Gamerprinter]

Done, and I'm about to submit my entry to the OPDC judges.

Notably, my favorite here is Room O: is a missile bay, and one of the salvagers tried to dismantle a missile in the middle launch tube while the locking clamps were still in place, and he accidentally triggered the missile to fire. He's the burning thing on the wall near the airlock to Room P. This is kind of a trap. The PCs must cross the exhaust trajectory to get to the other side of the room and all will take good amount of damage doing so, unless the engineer in the party can release the locking clamps from the console on the wall opposite the missile tubes. He will take damage for doing so, but less than crossing the exhaust trajectory. If he succeeds the rest of the party can cross unscathed as the missile launches away.

I had fun with this one.

GP

opdc-2016-map.jpg

[BrianP]

All I can say is, wow.

[Gamerprinter]

Here's the entry PDF with adventure and map.

OPDC-2016-tumey-rude-awakening.pdf

[Gamerprinter]

I upped the damage caused by the missile fire, then I submitted this entry. Crossing the missile exhaust causes 3d6 damage. If an engineer in the party uses the console on the wall opposite the missile tubes he takes 2d6 damage but releases the clamps and the missile launches away, allowing the rest of the party to cross unscathed.

[Gamerprinter]

Since the OPDC rules allow you to post your entry with additional content and even game mechanics if you want on other online sources, I took the unorthodox step of uploading this into my DrivethruRPG publisher account as a more complete room-by-room gazetteer, a deck plan of the included small star ship in Room Q at encounter scale, as well as the entry map at full scale (32 x 54 inches) at 1 inch = 5 foot scale as a layered PDF, so users can shut off the labeling, grid, special effects, even the ship if they prefer to use a ship design more canon to the game system they are using to run this mini-module. Instead of just a little over a half a page of adventure text, I offer 3 full pages, with the entire product as 10 pages in total. Because this is a contest entry, the product offered here is FREE to download, and will never cost money to purchase.

Here's a link to that free product: http://drivethrurpg.com/product/1779...re-and-Map-Set

Cover Art:

rude-awakening-cover.jpg

GP