Ode to OPDC
When I started my West Marches campaign, I was left with a daunting task: populating a blank slate with things to do. One Page Dungeon Contest was a lifesaver in being able to find, use and adapt interesting locales. The premise is to have an entire adventure listed on a single page. Yep, as it is written on the tin. Many entries lean system agnostic which does mean you need to convert it to your game; however, it is way easier making adjustments than creating something new, wholesale.
With a Sandbox, you need variety of tones for your players. Some are interested in Grimdark, others High Heroic Fantasy and others just want to have an excuse to let their inner theatre kid out. I’ve had tense political negotations one session only to have some weird slapstick happen the next one. By being able to create quick adaptations of these adventures, it also means that you don’t need to feel bad if your players bypass the adventures entirely. Some of these locales have been left to go to ruin by the players; however, a bunch of them have made permanent, drastic changes to the tapestry of the sandbox.
Seven Adventures
The Forgotten Mine of Roggweir by Barakiel in 2021 OPDC features starving deep dwarves who use the abandoned mine as their hideout. What makes this one interesting is that most of the party needs to shuffle around in cramped quarters while the deep dwarves easily move in the claustrophobic tunnels. The author mentions that the far end of the Mine descends into the unknown, prompting your prep to make something else up. With that, I used another OPDC entry listed below, the “Light of the Lifeless.”
The Grim Greenhouse by Stephanie Yang in 2021 OPDC is a five room dungeon which is pretty popular way of making a small little encounter for your players to mess around in. In it the botanist, an elf, has fallen asleep due to a new type of plant he has bred. The players have since come in, saved the botanist, gave him a bunch of mushrooms to grow and they have never come back.
The Light of the Lifeless by Wilmer Dahl in 2017 OPDC (pictured right) is a heist where a giant floating statue can freeze you in place and then beat you with massive fists. It patrols a donut shaped tomb where the party can try to rob the crypt for valuables without triggering the ire of the sentinel. In addition to traps to make things interesting, there’s some nifty story beats I’ve adapted into my game regarding what’s in the Observatory.
The Prisoners of the Gelantinous Dome by Jeff Call in 2016 OPDC is an adventure taking place within a gargantuan-sized Gelantinous Dome trucking about the countryside, having engulfed and abducted a castle. The party flew into the castle and decided to negotiate with the Oozefolk within. There was a note about one of the rooms having a vampire and I immediately knew that the castle that the Oozefolk stole were from a particular nation. They agreed to slay the vampire and I’ve allowed new players to make Oozekin from the Spelljammer setting as a reward for allying with the Oozes.
The Singing Cave by Ken Moore in 2021 OPDC has interesting mechanics involving exploring this cave that has been made to lull some kind of dangerous beast asleep. The author gives you the reins to decide what is resting at the end. Funnily enough, despite all of the warnings, my players decided to free whatever was sleeping on the other side. I quickly decided to go with a Fiend that has since been haunting the players.
The Skyblind Spire by Michael Prescott in 2016 OPDC is a cool drawn dungeon where you need to follow a particular path to supercharge a mote of power that begins with each adventure. If the players succeed, they are able to cast Wish. In this adventure, my players decide to side with the Summer Court Fey and destroy the rune at the top, as using the magic could kill the lake that they’re attached to. With quick thinking, the party decided to chisel the rune atop it off and has spent some time looking for other leylines they could construct their own Wishing Tower. Luckily, the idea got lost in the shuffle and I don’t need to worry about that.
The Unholy Hall of the Huntsman King by Yusef Shari'ati in 2021 OPDC is an adventure location where an evil Fey-blessed lord has declared himself king and rules with an iron fist. He transforms those who oppose him into beasts which he then uses as fodder for his frequent hunts. When confronting the party, one of the characters had the Noble background and was able to convince the tyrant through flattery and bribery acknowledgement from the crown. That’s right, the players decided to ally and hire a sociopath instead of doing battle with whom I thought was obviously a bad guy.
Perfect Branches into More Adventure
What’s more, is that you can insert an entire adventure into a part of a location. For example, I found a few adventures that dealt with wells that had gone dry. I found another dungeon and used it to connect to these One Page Well Dungeons, making for a quick and easy way to make a ‘megadungeon’. I spent far less time making this accursed town than many other adventures that are shorter because I was able to kitbash the adventures together. Saving time is important, because the players haven’t even bothered to visit that town. I saved myself trying to re-invent the wheel by adapting a location to my game.
Other times, the players decide to randomly visit a location and you still have that prepped. It is not like it has gone to waste. There have been plenty of adventure sites that I had made that sat in my binder for months before the players stumbled into or decided to visit. With West Marches, I can have totally new players who decide to visit one of these locales despite the regular group passing over it. Having a location you can “pull from out of nowhere” is a great trick to have up your sleeve. An example of a ‘professional dungeon’ is the Arcane Library’s The Demon in the Mirror which just requires a mirror to enter the dungeon; very easy to place anywhere whenever the party is obviously looking for trouble.
I had contributed to One Page Dungeon Contest last year with a silly adventure due to the theme being ‘And They Still Rise’. I had discovered that Andrew W.K. had put out an album that I wasn’t aware of and was listening to his old hits. That’s where I quickly came up with the idea of a priest of a god of celebrations who caroused so hard he died. He was canonized as a Saint of Revels due to not letting death get in the way of a good bacchanalia, rising every few weeks to throw an epic party at his tomb.
One Page Dungeon Contest has re-opened its doors for a new contest. This time, the theme is ‘Full Circle’. With my desire to submit an entry, I find myself having to do the hard part of adventure crafting - actually making the thing. Now I need to pay it forward for all of the nifty adventures I got to adapt to my game instead of staring at a blank page.
