SUPER ADVENTURE 4 PLAY REPORT AND THOUGHTS
Spuk ran the fourth super adventure a few weeks ago and it was a weekend long super crawl of a collage of famous dungeons both from the past and present. Tomb of Hoors led to Liminal Horror, Incandescent Grottoes led to some 5e stuff I had no clue about. It was great! And though the overwhelming whiplash of tones and styles could have been overwhelming, our main goal of finding golden loot crates that were also from a myriad of systems kept the play focused (there was a GURPS chest with some truly fantastic items for Dungeon Fantasy... I must not think about lest I have a GURPS relapse.) It was a really fantastic way to get a whirlwind tour of modules I've heard of or never had a plan to play in.
Wilbur the Death Knight
Another entry in the long and storied tradition of the hero Ascellus Tiramisu and his noble house. Let fame trumpet from the mountains that his humble herald Wilbur was promoted to a Death Knight after participating in the dungeon. After first donning a suit of supernatural armor with the capacity to spout fire and slugs, Wilbur helped his lord to dispatch the gross hordes of monsters that filled the various rooms and pools of the Dungeon of Collage. After felling a truly treacherous room filled with scorpions, dewinged manticores, and other foul beasts the Good Lord Tiramisu bequeathed a blade of midnight flecked with the fires of stars. The sword spoke when I picked it up. "Wilbur, herald the dooms of those weaker than you, those who stood against the House that built you and your reputation. Rend the flesh from the constructed cowards who poke at the Good Lord. Spill blood in his name and through this, let I sing your praises and the Lord's both."
Reflections
So yeah, my level 2 fighter got enough XP to hit level 4 and now has the living body armor from Gradient Descent and Blackrazor. I am very curious to see how my most outwardly evil character handles this glow up returning to 1000 Statues and the Spokelands.
I played four or five different characters across as many sessions and found enough golden chests to tie for first alongside Shy Owl. Videogame design and TTRPG design being mixed can often lead my skin to break out in hives. Spuk's mishmashing of dungeons with an encouragement to use prior knowledge as well as the clear goal of the Golden Loot Crates created a very unique rhythm to the crawl. After a session, those of us with experience were quickly leaving rooms that didn't have a loot crate in them and just be lining to new areas of the dungeon. It really did feel like leaderboard chasing in an old arcade game. I talked to Spuk about how this kind of gameplay made me wonder if adding "league" like modifiers to games every so often might give things a shot in the arm or change the default method of interaction in fun and novel ways. The Dungeon of Collage was an arcade style game taken to an even more ludicrous next step. The Dungeon of Collage also presented itself as a very interesting simulacra to the dungeons that it was composed of. With the greater context stripped away and with characters using modes of interaction and play not intended, it produced some very strong "narratives" that sound like they could have arisen from someone's home game back in the day. If you heard someone say that their D&D party found a trove of laser weapons and used them to kill Santa in White Plume Mountain you wouldn't even question if it was being run true to the module or any of that prescriptive BS. Spuk was able to conjure up those hazy lunchtime retellings of sessions through the live chopping and screwing of dozens of sources.
To give advice to other folks out there who might want to run a Super Adventure, keep it simple, play it straight, be bold, and as always, respect the legacy.