As the title (coined by the great @SandroMayCry) may imply, this isn't the announcement of a new project, but rather an attempt at flushing some game concepts and ideas from my head. I'm probably never gonna seriously work on DIG!, but if you'd still like to learn more about what a dwarf-centric game made by yours truly would look like, read on.
THE PITCH
Nothing is more important to dwarvenkind than the Great Work, the sacred duty of restoring and reclaiming their long-lost Underkingdoms. Not family, not love, not wealth. Nothing. Without the Great Work, they have no future. No place to call home.
The Great Work is everything, and it is an honour to be a part of it. You shall face many a hardship during your Watch, and you may even forfeit your life while fighting for your people's future, but you will live on in each and every tunnel your company recovers, digs or improves. There is no greater legacy.
Evil hides down below, infesting and corrupting your ancestral homelands. The cruel, opportunistic and genocidal Drow seek to take every last inch of the Underkingdoms from your people, armed with weapons bought with stolen gold from the people Above who feign neutrality, and with destructive spells supplied by their High Elven brethen. Opportunistic dragons have made their lairs where your forges once burned, hoarding the wealth your ancestors left behind. Hell-spawned goblins and orcs raid your cities, dragging your young and your weak to their infernal pits.
The Dwarven Companies of the Watch are outnumbered a hundred to one, but you don't have the privilege of giving up. Your enemies will never broker a long-lasting peace, not while you're still Below. But no matter what the people Above say, yours is not a lost cause. You are living proof of that.
And so you fight. For your young. For yourself. For the chance, however small, of living to see some better days.
MECHANICS (OR LACK THEREOF)
Now, the real reason why I won't turn this into a proper project isn't the overly dramatic, clichéd and politically clumsy drivel above, but rather an unwillingness to settle on a playstyle/framework. I can't decide whether I'd want DIG! to be a more traditional thing (like a mix of Cairn and Electric Bastionland), or if I'd rather go with something akin to Forged in the Dark games. And I have a good reason for that, too.
The central procedure for DIG! involves the PC Company's Shifts — that is, the time they spend away from base, renovating tunnels, digging deeper, liberating long-forgotten outposts or simply patrolling. Each successful Shift would allow the characters to either fill a portion of a progress clock (there's that damned FitD influence again), or wipe off a portion of a threat clock. Progress clocks would be assigned to constructive Shift actions, while threat clocks would be a way to measure the rising threats to the Company's progress — which is why Shift actions like patrolling the tunnels, reinforcing an outpost's defenses and charging into enemy territory would alleviate those threats.
At each and every Shift, the Company would have to roll a Threat die (d6, a glorified Overloaded Encounter Die). On a 1, the Foreman (aka the GM) would roll an event in the relevant table — that is, each type of Shift action would get a table for this. The Company could choose to push themselves to accomplish more during a Shift, be it by extending its duration or by working extra hard, filling/erasing another portion on the clock. Each time they did so, though, would warrant another roll of the Threat die, adding 1 to the odds of an event and increasing its severity.
PC Companies would also get to choose a directive, like War, Engineering and Relief, and each of these would double Shift effects on certain actions, while halving them on others. Company creation would also involve choosing a Righteous Pursuit, which is a fancy way of calling a big, memorable goal, the kind of thing that only a few dwarves ever manage to achieve. Examples of Righteous Pursuits would include brokering an alliance with emissaries from Above, destroying an infernal pit, founding a new city or liberating a sacred forge. I really enjoy this aspect of DIG!, as it's a great way of letting the players signal what they're particularly interesting in doing during the campaign.
The thing about the whole spiel above is, there's nothing stopping me from merging both playstyles — that is, keeping the clocks while still following the more involved, lethal, turn-to-turn gameplay offered by OSR games like Cairn and Electric Bastionland, but I'm worried about losing what makes those different approaches tick by combining them. So, as it is, this remains just an exercise in design exorcism.
ARCHETYPES
The final bit of DIG! I need to exorcise are the archetypes, which would be structurally similar to Electric Bastionland's failed careers. I have no idea how many I'd include, but I did manage to note a few down while I was still processing this whole thing. They'd each have two questions leading to a d6 table (which is where Electric Bastionland's influence comes in), but the examples below only have the questions, as I didn't quite get to the part of this folly where I start writing tables, thankfully.
- The Noble (what is your family's claim to glory, and what privilege do you have?)
- The Miner (what are you looking for in the tunnels, and what's the strangest thing you've found down here?)
- The Outlander (where did you come from, and what made the dwarves accept you?)
- The Exile (why were you exiled, and what secret keeps you alive?)
- The Reverend (what is your faith, and what symbol do you carry?)
- The Fallen (what got you discharged, and what did they arm you with?)
- The True Believer (why do you believe in the Great Work, and what did you buy in preparation for your Watch?)
- The Canary (what are your songs about, and what instrument do you play?)
- The Bastard (what did your noble-blooded parent promise you, and what family heirloom did you take?)
ALL DUG OUT
And that's all I came up for this fever dream of a game concept. Is DIG! ever going to be a thing? Probably not. But the idea of dwarves fighting to reclaim their homelands and protect their people against all odds still speaks to me. Tales of camaraderie, self-sacrifice and the hopeless struggle for a better future... that's proper V.V. bait, right there.
Alas, this could probably be done well enough as a campaign in a variety of different games, so at this time, there's no need to reinvent the wheel.
But who knows.
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