Hole In The Ground

One of the other games I mention very rarely on this blog is InSpectres (and octaNe, which I consider practically the same game, or at least steal bits of one to put in the other.) I like the system a lot for really quick, loose play intended to be an evening's entertainment. And occasionally, I think about doing a D&D-ish mod of the system.

The games's creator, Jared Sorensen, has done a little brain-storming on just such a mod, which he calls "Hole in the Ground" for now. It's definitely leaning towards InSpectres, with players designing a team of explorers/adventurers who can hire employees and purchase equipment; individual characters apparently don't keep treasure, but instead the loot found is fed back into the team's resources. This is different from the approach I was considering, which is more like octaNe, but with as many of the basic D&D game terms kept the same, just with different functions; for example, the six standard attributes would be styles, replacing the standard octaNe styles.

Jared's posted a random dungeon design technique for the game: roll 2d10 for x/y coordinates for several rooms, then roll 3dF for each room's size. This creates a partial map of rooms in the dungeon; corridors aren't included, but must be discovered during play. I'm not entirely sure about the room placement system, though; it seems it could be done easier.