Let’s not beat around the bush folks. Dungeon building is HARD! I’ve decided to construct the Kobold Hall from the 4e DMG inside Minecraft to give somewhere cosy for all those Zombies and Skeletons to live. If all goes according to plan, I might even host it up on a Minecraft Server someplace so y’all can try your hands at exploring the fabled Halls yourself. But first, there’s some digging to be done.
Kobold Hall, © WoTC, of course
I lay down a couple of self-imposed ground rules. I’m playing in Survival Mode in Minecraft set to Normal Difficulty. That means each day is a race against time before the monsters come out to play when darkness falls. While I could dig down then block the entrance from trouble and carry on, I’m going to play through the building work as a part of my regular game. That means keeping a trusty sword by my side and watching the time!
One 5′ square in D&D terms almost exactly equals two cubes, and should give a sense of scale as to what these dungeon layouts actually look like. For the Minecraftily minded, I’m using doku’s RPG texture pack and the Better Grass Mod. Between them, they make the already awesome game look even awesomer!
Leaving my trusty home behind. Bye bye. Sniff.
I gather up a load of tools (stone pickaxes, shovels and all important swords), grab some lumber and stone from my supplies then head out. After locating a suitable spot for a ruined mansion on a moderate hillside, I level the ground and set up camp.
As I don’t want to spend time racing back to homebase as the light falls, I build a quick mud hut to hole up in at night, then set about constructing the stairs down.
Light begins to fall all too soon, buy hey. There’s always another day. I head back to my trusty mud hut, light some torches and block up the entrance. No Zombies are getting me tonight.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Outside, I hear the Zombies and Skeletons roaming around, but I’m ok. I’ve even set up a Workbench in the corner and I’m merrily crafting new Shovels, humming quietly to myself when…. BOOOOOOOM.
OH YOU *&^&%*(^(^ing dick*^%*$($%er CREEPER! The blasted thing blows a hole clean through the wall of my mud hut and two Zombies swarm in. I swear they planned it.
I didn’t stand a chance.
All that remains of my mud hut, my body already eaten by Zombies.
Day Two in Minecraft: Operation STONE HUT, and digging out the first room of Kobold Hall.
Quick question to the RPG Blogger’s Network crowd: These aren’t technically RPG posts, though I suspect they (and especially the end result) may be of interest to a fair number of members. Should I continue tagging them as RPG (and so be picked up by the network), or not? What you think?
I share your grief.
I had a small fort, on the middle of an island on a frozen lake. I began digging for hours, and slowly started making my own wonderful dungeon tonight. And then I turned around and saw THAT UNGODLY HAPPY CUCUMBER FACE OF BOOM! Stupid me, I left a block for me to hop over the wall on the outside.
Began working on a FORTRESS over my mine. Starting with a door.
Also, I’m down with reading Minecraft posts….but I’d understand if some peeps are sick of hearing about it.
On another note….someone needs to get an RPGBN community server going.
Thanks, Rev.
When (and if) I finish Kobold Hall, I’m planning to host the world up on a server for y’all to roam on it wild and free.
Just watch out for Creepers :D
I will be checking on this often…
As for the RPGBN’s noisier elements…, I say don’t mind them… I sure gave up a long time ago. Heck, I haven’t visited that page in ages. :)
Thanks, CDM!
I played with the free version of minecraft a couple of months ago (no monsters, very basic stuff). However, with the add ons I’ve seen with the pay version of the game, I can see this as a model for 3d dungeon building. If the floor tiles automatically parse themselves out to 5 foot squares, this could be the tool that #ddi promised long ago. Gotta wonder if anyone on the WotC software team has taken a look at this?