I’ve become quite interested in the Dungeon Crawl Classics funnel adventure structure. The game’s core book explains that all characters must begin at level 0, and only reach a level in an actual class after climbing to the top of a big pile of their dead fellows in an introductory adventure. Each player controls 2-4 of these sadsacks, ideally ending up with one survivor each to begin the campaign in earnest. Of course, a lot of groups just play the funnel as a standalone.
It's unusual to have multiple PCs per player, but it works well here. This is in part because the characters are dead simple: 6 stats, an average of 32 copper pieces, three items determined in part by a mundane occupation, and a measly 1d4 hit points. They feel throwaway at the outset due to their frailty, but once you’re down to your last peasant or two, you start getting attached.
It’s been pointed out that the idea of throwing a village’s worth of peasants into a deadly, terrifying ordeal to see who will survive long enough to amount to anything has some uncomfortable classist subtext. I agree with that, and while I don’t think it would necessarily stop me from playing a funnel, it did get me thinking about the inverse.
At first, I felt like turning “the peasant funnel” into “the noble funnel” would be kind of pointless, but I had a few ideas I liked, so I figured I’d present them here. I started by looking at what goes into a funnel character: what should I change, and what was fine as is? The stat generation was fine. Besides rolling for stats being an OSR staple, weird and crappy statlines can easily be explained away by generations of inbreeding.
Next, equipment. I dispensed with the rolled coinage; that’s beneath a rich noble. If they survive whatever their harrowing initial adventure is (more on this in a bit), they’ll be able to hire a different peasant to play therapist or confidant every day for the rest of their lives. Still, I thought it could be fun to give them some wealth to flaunt. Thus, each noble gets an heirloom to start with – the kind of thing that could just as easily be a piece of loot for other adventurers to find.
Instead of occupations (which nobles obviously have no need for), I settled on pastimes. What do they do all day, not having to work for a living? My list includes a mix of athletics, the arts, and some slightly more uncouth interests. Each pastime has an item to go with it, like the peasant occupations. These are, for the most part, more useful than the heirlooms. If you’re wondering why a noble with 4 Dexterity practices archery, it’s because all their servants are too afraid to say anything about it. For HP, I don’t see any reason to change that. We all bleed the same.
To add some structure, I would encourage each player to have a family name for their cadre of PCs, having them all be members of the same noble house. Bonus points if they come up with a family motto or coat of arms (seriously, let them max out their head of house’s HP or something).
The last thing I want to address before providing my table of pastimes and heirlooms is: why would nobles go on an adventure? Typically, peasant funnels are easy to justify. If something is killing off villagers every full moon, no one else is going to do something about it. But nobles have servants for that sort of time-wasting. If a noble really felt threatened, they’d hire a few bodyguards or assassins. To remedy this, here are a couple of suggestions for frameworks:
The nobles are attending the queen’s banquet, and it becomes apparent that neither the queen nor her servants have been seen for hours. What’s the meaning of this?
The nobles are kidnapped one by one and all awaken in a death maze for the vengeful satisfaction of the bloodthirsty downtrodden.
People are taking sides between the crown and the church. The PCs represent those nobles who have taken one side or another. In the midst of planning their next move, they are beset by agents of the other faction.
Without further ado, here’s the table. Let me know what you think!
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