The Sunderdome can be used as a second chance after a TPK Just temporary make their levels synced to the ones in the Sunderdome and if they win, they come back alive with no consequences

I like How you can spot the exact moment in the video editing process that Zelda was released

We had a friend running Sunderdome for us and it was really fun... I was a tortoise bard that played the bagpipe and had a barbarian friend that was the drummer for our "band" and we got to the Sunderdome by mistake, thinking that it was summerdome, a music festival 😅😅😅

I actually did this for an "arena" battle. I had to come up with an automate feature that actually worked quite well. I did have an excel sheet to help me track stimulus and stuff. It was complicated, but it worked. My players didn't realize all the work I was doing behind the scenes.

My DM did a 36 player, Hunger Games inspired PvP Battle Royale. Before the game started we were allowed to message each other and form groups. HP was tripled since PCs deal a lot of damage in general. The map was a huge island with tons of roaming bosses and points of interest. The first session was the Cornucopia fight, and with 36 players it took almost 2 hours to get through a round. From then on each group or individual would schedule a session with the DM and play it like a hex crawl adventure until there was a chance to run into another group or player. Then if it turns out they would encounter each other, a session with both groups would be made and they would fight until death or escape. There were sponsor points you would earn for killing bosses and players or doing something cool, these could be spent to obtain items from sponsor drops (1 point= 1gp basically). Near the end of the game a giant lava dragon emerged and started roaming the map, forcing us into more conflicts. When we got down to the last 4 we decided to team up, kill the lava dragon, and escape the arena. We ended up taking down the organizers of the event who turned out Yuan-Ti. They were using the souls of the contestants to make a god. We killed their god, toppled their empire, and resurrected all the fallen contestants. It took 20 months of weekly games and was horribly stressful. But it made for a great story.

I feel like you could make this like a Fate sort of deal, where the players are fighting over an artifact

I offered to run this to some of my friends and just do a series of One Shots from this book. We started off with Night In Midhallow and they got so invested into it they just wanted to run campaign out of it. So now I'm writing a whole faction intirgue story out of it. Thanks so much for the inspiration Xp to Level 3 team!

My group periodically takes a break and plays a battle royale. It's super fun and there's so many ways to play it. Sometimes we DM as a group, sometimes there's one DM, sometimes we do a gladiator style tournament. We also do a "bring your two strongest builds" and just straight up duke it out haha. Highly recommend and it gives you a chance to try things out that you may not be able to otherwise.

I can confirm that the Sunderdome was a great way to trick my Dark and Darker-deprived friends into playing D&D and it was quite fun to run.

I can only imagine if the wall killed via damage and you have Zealot Barbs dragging people into it.

*aggressively takes notes for my “multi-shot” arena campaign*

We did this in our DND pub crawl, it was hilarious. It’s a lighthearted campaign of 20 one shots, where the idea is to drink the beer that gets you to the next pub, until the last one at level 20.

When it comes to TTRPG battle royales, I prefer something similar to Hunt: Showdown as opposed to Fortnite. The party is provided a bounty for a creature they need to kill, but the reward is so high that bounty hunters also tracking the monster try to kill the party and steal their bounty while the players just try to escape. The free-for-all actually has an objective besides just "survive"

This is pretty awesome, but it also makes me wonder if a play-by-post D&D Battle Royale with 50-100 people would work. Just, tracking player positions and treating the other players like encounters in between action choices. Maybe put a kind of Blood on the Clocktower spin on it where some players really think it's a BR, some are trying to kill the other players, some know it's a huge ritual to have their struggle serve to empower the lesser chaos deity presiding over it and claim them as champions to control and trying to break that and defeat the 'host', and others being straight up minions of the host trying to make sure everything stays chaotic. Secret objective is actually to level up enough to face the host as the BBEG, with however many people you manage to band together with and convince to your side. Or 'win' and become the deity's chosen champions.

I had an idea for an afterlife system where instead of going to an afterlife based on your alignment, you go to an afterlife based on the way you died. Powerful people who died in combat are sent to an afterlife similar to this, where they're randomly grouped together in small teams in a constantly-shifting environment filled with structures and items and creatures. Once there's only one team left standing, the environment shifts around again like puzzle pieces realigning, and everyone's revived and shuffled into new teams. The person who killed you one cycle might be someone you have to rely on for a victory the next. Of course, in my campaign, the party would accidentally get sent there before they died in combat. So the threat of death would be very real for them.

I ran The Sunderdome today, and it was pretty fun. My players landed in the badlands and came across Hilmar, though they had already looted a resupply tower and dominated Hilmar because Zorra was already dead and Hilmar only had 3 HP. After that, they just camped in the middle of the dome the whole game until the other parties came to them.

YES YES I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT THIS!!!!! ❤❤❤❤

I love the quest-o! I've pulled it out a few times to quickly set up one shots when my normal game sessions fall thru! It's well written and easily adjusted for many level ranges. I love that the stat blocks have quotes too!! Really nice touch.

Oh this is a video about the Quest O Nomicon. I just thought this was just a really long ad read for a minute. Good video though.

This sounds really cool. If I had 16 or so friend who wanted to play D&D there could be 4 parties of 4. And the players could fight each other.

That's sounds awesome, I've seen that idea in Goldbergs with jock vs. nerds duking out in D&D, game modes like this remind me of how DND Shorts made COD zombies in D&D as well

This is a BRILLIANT concept! I now wanna try my hand at making a few alternate maps & optional villains to throw in to the Sunderdome!

Dude I love how you set this up. Thank you!

You could use this as like a tournament survival arc for a campaign, not just a one-shot

My party once got enrolled in an adventuring competition and there where arena battles with unique twists. Honestly the most fun I’ve had in a dnd game so far

Sounds exactly like what I was looking for/going to homebrew myself. Definitely going to look into getting this and running it with some of the players across our two campaigns!

This was the best ad for the Quest-O-Nomicon you could have done - I barely made it halfway through the video before I had the store open in another tab. I have so many people say they want to try D&D, and this seems like a great way to cater to any new group!

This is one of the coolest one shots I've seen in a while. Normally when I thought of running a battle royale style adventure I would always run it as just the players vs themselves. PVP. Seeing how you have changed it to actually fit the battle royale genre makes this awesome. I love the different arena biomes and traps and monsters that were described. I love the ability to easily modify the adventure for higher levels. This is a true work of art.

Love this!! You should do more overviews of adventures in the quest-o-nomicon like this.

I'm so going to use this concept as a trial that a deity will put their followers through to select a champion

so I really enjoy this video and I want to thank you, many good ideas to play with here

Love this idea. Definitely going to try it out!

Fun idea for the wall If you get caught in it, you immediately drop to 0 HP and have to roll your death saves with disadvantage. Also the wall counts as an antimagic barrier, so nobody inside can heal someone outside. If you somehow survive that, you get teleported into the wall at 1hp and gain a debuff.

love this idea a lot since i first saw mike krahulik run a acquisitions incorporated spinnoff like that, he even allowed the players to pay him in real money for better equipment

Kickstarter backer here! I got the book a few months ago and can confirm it is awesome! I haven't run Sunderdome yet, but had plans for it in June. This vid is perfect timing! Great job on the book Jacob & Crew! If you make a sequel, i will totally buy it!

once thought of doing a battle royal kinda thing in shadowrun 4, though it was a custom setting, all post-apocalyptic so when the players get caught by a strong group of bandits they basically get tossed into the arena and wake up there (since they prolly got knocked unconscious) they get to be the underdogs because most of the other participants already know the arena as it is used as a form of entertainment even thought of the announcer (yes, there is an arena announcer) deciding to give additional rewards for the winners if they kill the party and then the party for surviving the hunt, just in case the party is openly showing their skills (since they most likely are the best fighers in the arena) the ring was planned to do damage over time, since healing in SR is quite a bit harder, though damage taken increases over time as normal and distracts (extra modifier) while doing stuff in it none the less, i got some really good additional ideas from your explanation now, so thank you for providing some good content as always!

This is amazing! Been thinking about making a team arena competition myself for my campaign, but this makes it so much easier. Thanks a lot!

I've already run a slightly modified Sunderdome (jacked it up for higher levels) and it is, indeed, really really rad.

I love your passion for this game and how hard you work to make cool stuff for us to try. Nice work dude, keep it up 👍

I remember when Ac. Inc. did this in 2018. Mike had greatly simplified the mechanics for brevity (and loaded his Encounter Deck with Dexterity checks to punish Jerry/Omin). That was a fun time.

You can tell Jacob let his inner Zelda fan shine through in this vid

A few months ago I runned 'The Treasure of the Obsidian Cove' from start to finish for some of my friends. They ended up loving the adventures and seafaring because of how well you all wrote it, so we continued it as a campaign. Now I'm picking up stuff from here and there, Ghosts of Saltmarsh (lizardfolk and sahuagin storyline only) but it has nothing to do with Saltmarsh (Larson's Landing > Saltmarsh). Thanks to you and all your work a group of adeventurers are sailing through the Trackless Sea not knowing that they're about to be entangled in a war between Luskan, Ruathym and the Lords' Alliance, all part of the schemes of the Kraken Society and its founder, the kraken Slarkrethel (BBEG) and his subacuatic empire. Love what you guys are doing, you are great!

This is a really cool adventure and I'm considering getting the book and integrating it into my setting. That Divine retribution guy really fits my themes as well.

Sharing actual content from Questonomicon is what made me purchase it. You have some excellent material, sorry that I waited for this video to make my purchase. Keep up the good work!

yoooo I actually homebrewed and ran something like this and it was a great success! I'm glad others are looking for ways to make it work too!

This looks great! Can't wait to try it out in my campaign or run as a one shot!

I wish I could like videos more than once. Every time you make a solid point, I go to tap the button, but I've already tapped it.

I’m actually going to be running “The Heist “ from your book with some adjustments as a lead into Descent into Avernus. Honestly a heist to steal soul contracts for friends and family is an awesome set up.

This just sounds like a really fun add in to any campaign. I’m getting the itch to DM again, and this sounds like something I want to run. Very cool idea.

Looking at the map and the concept. This would be a perfect session to use those pre-gen characters from Starter bundles. I don't know if you have a certain level for this, but I do like the simple rules.

this sounds really cool, id love to see the arcane arcade cast play through a one-shot like this!

Looks and sounds awesome. I may run this whenever I convince my friends to finally play again 😂

That all sounds pretty awesome!

In one of my campaigns in which all my players are a part of a royal house's royal guard, in a city where there are a dozen houses all which have their own royal guards, I had a yearly festival in the mega-city that was a contest between the houses and it was a battle royale in a massive arena. Underrated concept, to be honest. Kind of perfect for a TTRPG if done right.

The sunderdome sounds fun. I think I'll use it and kinda make some of my own arenas to run a fun mini campaign. Also will have to look into buying that PDF.

This sounds so cool omg. Now I want a standalone board game that's a Battle Royale, that would be so cool!

Hey man, I just ran the Heist from the Questonomicon last week and I just wanted to say that it was a really fun western adventure! I would have appreciated a guide to include fire arms because, I gave the players the ones I found in dnd beyond and they were even better than the magic item on the quest.. but real fun either way!

I feel the way I'd want to run this (mainly because I'm not super big on Random tables, I guess, but maybe other people might prefer having a second option/idea for how to set this kind of thing up.) Rather then RNG for where all the teams land, and just having them be an element in the table which could be encountered, I feel I personally would build a time table for each group. Knowing where they land, and on a time interval script what happens to each group, like every 30 minutes, what do the NPC groups do, where are they heading based off their current position, etc, and just leave it flexible. For example, if a group is marked at 2 hours to reach a supply landmark and clear it out, if the party is also heading there, but will show up 30 minutes late, you have the choice to just delay the NPC group so they're at the landmark when the players show up, or explain how they just left and could be easy to track if they wanted to pursuit I feel I'd prefer this style since you could basically make a time table for all the areas where the players have no influence, and have groups be eliminated in the background, or have some more natural story telling happening as the players can later stumble into areas that the NPC teams have been, and you have a clear reference for what happened there. I also think if you want to be a bit more subtle about the fortnite inspiration, another option rather then an instant kill circle is you could have this arena as a floating landmass somewhere, and break each of the biomes into a few smaller regions, every X hours, one of the regions in each biome collapses shrinking the playable space down until just one region is left, and then chip away more and more at that one as the finale. Just some ideas. \o/ Do whatever works best for you of course, but I think its always nice to provide options or different points of view when it comes to design.

This sounds really cool. I'm planning on doing a campaign with Lasers and Liches and this would be a great way of spending an day to good off at an "Arcade" in game.

Love your work, Jacob. This has given me a strike of inspiration for a MOBA-inspired game. I know it's not the same as a Battle Royale, but it's adjacent.

I've rewatched sunder 4 times now in the last couple years and the dis arena is one of my favorite parts

I love battle royale campaigns! My first successful was kind of one, but more based on the Hunter X Hunter “Hunter exam”, but still making NPC’s that reoccur and having the party try to survive as it gets more dangerous is so much fun!

This is awesome I will be getting the pdf till I can get ahold of the physical copy :)

Just got the Book, excited to run this for my group!

I saw this done in Riptide by JRWI, where it was a 'tournament' which was just a coliseum and prob like 10 or less teams, a specific goal, and then they could choose who to fight and how to achieve the specific goal.

Thats so cool! Thanks for the content Jacob

Amazing concept!

i did this exact thing like 2 weeks ago it works out so well we did it as a school club. went on for about 3 hours with different tittles to be one, last to die, least death, most damage , most kills, i ended up takng first winning multiple magic items for our campaighn

im currently working on a battle royale one shot based on the scp world, this video was an awesome inspiration, thank you!!!

Jacob explaining the quadrants: "Yeah it's basically the safest one _except_-"

Please do this type of video for all of the questonomicon. Holy cow moly please for the love of content make more of these. Easy to follow guides and hearing how excited you get about these one shots make it so much more worthwhile to try out the various options in the book. P.S. I got the book and love it

This is brilliant!!!

It has been so cool watching you grow as a content creator. You are so cool!

Alright, I've been putting off buying the QON for a while now, but gosh darn it, this video convinced me to purchase it. I can't believe I didn't get it sooner! Thanks Jacob, and all the lovely people who contributed to its creation! You definitely put in the work, and it serves as an inspiration to other gamemasters who want to create their own adventures.

I've unironically been thinking about this for the past 2 weeks.

I did basically this exact same thing for a DND 4th campaign I ran in like 2011. It was like a "yearly competition where teams enter and you collect 5 orbs." you can attack other teams but dont have too, you can even pay other teams for for their orbs. killing is allowed but frowned upon. different terrines, puzzles, traps. it was super fun

oh man this needs to be played that would be super fun

I just started my first group ever as a DM, and as a new DM. This book was absolutely AMAZING for me. I've played a few games but I'm far from experienced. We played Whispy Peaks and it was perfect! Now to figure out how to streamline to the next session. Do you have any tips on how to scale the other adventures with the players? The goal being Sunderdome will be a lvl 20 encounter and the last one the group faces.

This sounds really fun!

preeetty cool ideas, I'll steal and adapt a few for a mid campaign battle royale type situation

Would be quite happy if you did a video like this for each quest in the book. Easy video for you, advertising for the book, helps give me your insight and breakdown so I can pick and choose which adventures I run. ❤

This is a really cool idea, i like it :D

This is such a cool idea

This is, by far, the most fun I've ever had listening to a sales pitch lol

Zelda reference in thumbnail… Love it!

That sounds so dope!

You just inspired me to make a complement for dnd of my Homebrew Arena, gonna try to play the sunderdome with my players

I’ve been meaning to run some things from that book, but I need to get my next campaign started first since our primary DM just finished his 3 yr storyline

This sounds really cool, honestly.

Sounds really good

there was a ruleset for Pathfinder, called Conflict PVP that allowed for just this sort of thing. the DM took on more of a judge role, and the players submit their movements every round to them, so when actions are taken on turns, the DM can confirm that it was premeditated and not meta. this also allows for the players to move in fog of war without risking meta knowledge. in addition, a set came with maps, and obstacles/traps that can be set up to make the terrain more interesting.

This could even be a whole long term campaign, with alternating adventures in the dome and then plot sections outside of it.

Dude, the music was banger in this episode

My group did something similar to this concept with another D&D party our DM was in. Essentially we were in a enclosed arena with free for all rules and magic items scattered throughout the arena. Whichever group survived got a magic item in their campaign. Lorewise this was essentially a multiversal tournament that plucked adventuring parties from their realms to prove there worth and provide entertainment to the Gods. While we lost, as I was playing a Warforge Tempest Cleric, I had a cool showdown with the opposing party's Zealot Barbarian who had lightning flavor...It was awesome, as it was a no hold brawl with no healing in general and my Warforge being juiced by a Frost Giant's Strength Potion.

I appreciate all the Zelda music in the background

Great video! Keep up the good work, my dude.

Love this idea! Wish I could buy the book, but life isn’t fair.

My friend came up with a idea similar to that to me, and I was like: Bro that sounds kinda stupid, but cool. And to see the idea more detailed and conceptualized like that is somewhat cathartic ngl

Definitely going to try this

This would be a really good idea for a Secret wars style story, where a Divine Entity is trying to find a team of adventurers to show whether good or evil is stronger, or a CW Crisis story where an entity is trying to find adventurers that can help with a coming global crisis