Mudcore is rad

I have titled my newest campaign "Mudcore" as a tongue in cheek call back to an often disparaged style of game. In brief, Mudcore refers to a game where the player characters are frequently far from heroic and typically spend their short miserable lives wallowing in the filth of some dungeon that WILL kill you; its only a matter of how long until it does. I've seen the term used in conversations typically bashing the mythological "Old School" style of play as if most gaming tables in the halcyon days measured the life of their characters in hours and never saw level 3. The best they might do was scrounge some loose change on the floor before slinking away to the nearest bar sniveling and snorting. From my understanding this certainly was NOT the case but getting to the truth of the common original dungeons and dragons experience is of little use or interest to me. 

I am primarily interested in the mythology and, in this case, was curious what a game that took some of those premises and went with them would look like. 

Enter Mudcore. The year is 1865 and the president is dead. You are returning home to your small Pennsylvanian mining town like so many others at the conclusion of the Civil War. There, you find the dungeon. With nought but ingenuity and the resources you can find among the depths you'll seek to travel ever deeper in to the earth to solve the great mysteries of your hometown, possibly recover lost treasures, and confirm the veracity of the rumored Ring Of Wishes in the mine's depths. 

Death at 0 HP. ODND (Or well Swords and Wizardry), and starting at level 0. One to one time. The denizens of the dungeon are horrific, the traps are devious, and above all the dungeon is motivated to lure you in to your doom. 

 

Does that sound like fun at all?

 

My players certainly think so and most of them cut their teeth on DnD 5e, Pathfinder, and modern fantasy. We've been having a ton of fun as a departure from the more standard epic tales we've told as a group. This is about a small town, not saving the world. Its about the megadungeon, there is not much else to do but explore it. And its about the characters, will they make it out of this one alive? I think pitching the expectations of this game - its relatively high lethality and clear focus on dungeon exploration - was an essential element of getting this to work. I think the mythology of Mudcore games and the hated response/reputation arises not really from the conditions of the game, but rather an adversarial relationship between the DM and the players. I can easily imagine this being a terrible experience if sprung on unsuspecting players or if the DM goes on a power trip. I've learned from this in the dozen or so session so far that even in this very "limiting" experience, many players will thrive. I feel it analogous to improv: a completely blank page with no guidance is very hard to get into, but if you have an initial set of conditions that limit your options, it can be counterintuitively easier to be creative and have fun. 

Now for the negatives. Not all my players have enjoyed the transition. There is a subset that bounced off of the idea and only occasionally show up. And that is totally fine by me. I'd much rather run a focused game for a group of people that are really enjoying it, than a generalist style game that only kinda appeals to folks who spend half the time on their phones. Its been refreshing, I may template my games in the future on this idea (although I am blessed with a particularly large group of TTRPG enthusiast friends). 

In our games, characters die. They struggle with challenges trivial in other high fantasy role playing games (How do we even get down this 20 ft drop? Or did we come in from the right or left passage, are we lost?). And honestly progression (We use GP for XP) is comparatively slow. But my players (and I!) have really been enjoying the clear focus and a chance to slowly unwind the mysteries of a small region, get to know the local characters and environment, and take part in the small problems of the town. I've built in a few things to appeal to different types of players; an overarching mystery for the players invested in lore/world building, a megadungeon with lots of factions and history to explore for players who like exploration, and challenging encounters with bizarre/unusual monsters for players who like puzzles and violence. Does that make this no longer a Mudcore game? At least according to my definition it still is but argue however you want. In conclusion, I don't think running a game with high lethality with characters who are not epic heroes or even characters who are ratcatchers by day is somehow a negative. As long as you have buy in from your players and are clear about expectations, it can be a fun and rewarding experience (or even a palate cleanser between other types of games). 

I've also got great players so my experiment here should be taken with a grain of salt.  

Oh and I produced a trailer to get my players in the mood for the game as well as tease a few of the mysteries. If you are curious, here it is below: