This week’s guest is Andrew Clayton and we talk about his Foundry Virtual Tabletop and how it started with his own curiosity and playing online with his friends. We discuss Foundry’s place in the TTRPG community, its low barrier to entry for basic functions and how it’s great for technical folks who love to tinker. Andrew also answers several questions from friend of the show Jeremy Deram of People Them With Monsters.
MD 230 – Cyber Sisyphus
This retro-futurist conception of London streets is covered in a thick fog. You can’t see more than a foot in front of you. The floor goes uphill and has the pattern of a circuit-board maze of perpendicular lines that the Cyber Sisyphus, a boulder-size orb that glows neon blue, is to be navigated to a concave nest at the top. Each dead end has a floating proximity mine that ticks like a timebomb. It explodes when the orb gets too close, briefly blowing away the fog and knocking you back to the starting position.
There are two levers on opposite walls. One moves the orb north/south, and the other east/west. There are two pairs of cyber goggles. One that allows you to see the north/south walls and the other the east/west walls. Everyone must work together to solve the maze through this asymmetry of information. When the orb moves, it leaves a glowing force field behind it so you can’t backtrack or cross where you’re already gone. Each player can only see a piece of how to solve the puzzle and must communicate with verbal instructions.
Hiding in the fog with his cane and cloak is Jack the Hacker. He hides in the shadows, cackling, giving instructions on how the room works and threatening to kill you if you fail. Whenever any aspect of the puzzle doesn’t go right, he mocks you to increase your levels of tension and frustration—talking about how much smarter he is than you—bragging about his algorithmic efficiency.
If you solve the maze, Jack rewards you with a combustiboard. This floating hoverboard can jump 20 feet, leaving an explosion that deals blast damage. The Cyber Sisyphus shrinks to become part of the board and the orb can be shot out of it like a cannon ball that grows into a cyber-boulder.
Art: Tiger Wizard Words: Steve Albertson
Story by: Andrew Bellury, Steve Albertson, Andrew Clayton
Appendix N: The Fog of War by Errol Morris, Darknet Diaries (podcast), Shadowrun, Mission Impossible, Breath of the Wild, Jack the Ripper, Hackers, Star Trek (The Holodeck), Sherlock Holmes, Tron, The Matrix, Silicon Valley, Golden Eye, Acade (villain of Spiderman).
ANNOUNCEMENTS
All Dwarf drawings are in, submissions have closed, and our amazing panel of judges are reviewing all of the entries. We’ll be announcing the winners very soon!
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Dungeon Cats is a rules-light, casual TTRPG by our own Tiger Wizard. The pre-launch page is now live on the Epic Level’s Kickstarter! Click the “notify me on launch” button to make sure you don’t miss out!
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We’ll be podcasting live at Gamehole Con in Madison on Oct. 19th- 24th. Dragon Warrior will be running games. Sign ups are now available. Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 10:00 AM CST – Old School Essentials: Mad Dungeon Rooms
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We’ll be be at PAX Unplugged in Philadelphia from Dec. 1st-3rd. Dragon Warrior will be running games. Signups TBD.
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Two new poster adventure maps are now available for purchase at Exalted Funeral.
The Worm that Glows based off of season one, episode 11 with Jenna Marie of Chaotic Click Clacks with amazing artwork from Oh! Oozi.
Oh! Oozi is also the artist and co-creator with Steve for their Image comic book Ghost Spy.
Headkicker! The Musical based off of season one, episode 19 with Brian Shutter of Neon Lords of the Toxic Wastes with front side artwork from Mustafa Bekir.
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Thanks for listening to Season Two of the Epic Levels Mad Dungeon podcast, where D&D hip hop group Epic Levels and a guest create a system-neutral, playable dungeon room using improv, comedy, and lifetimes wasted on roleplaying games.
You can support us via Patreon for early episode releases, bonus map content, extra art, access to our discord server, and lots of other exclusive goodies.
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Mad Dungeon is hosted by Andrew Bellury, Steve Albertson, and produced by Zach Cowan.
Theme song by Epic Levels and beat by Inner Resting.
© 2023 Epic Levels. All characters in this adventure–even those based on real people–are entirely fictional.