Dungeon Crawls - need pointers and help.

jester47 · Jan 19, 2003

How do you guyshandle dungeon crawls in your game?

Here is my problem: (I call it going clue because the dungeoncrawl resembles a game of clue even though we are not in combat we move from room to room using the miniatures.)

I would only like to have to set up a map and minis for fights. But this seems difficult to do in a dungeon crawl. I would like to use simply more description between fights, and then set the stage only for the fight or when things get critical.

How do you all do them?

Aaron.

Iron_Chef · Jan 19, 2003

You really only need to draw out rooms for major encounters or where the players become confused. Doing it otherwise and drawing the whole dungeon takes a lot of time--however, it can add some fun and fear into the game, and if the players start to run away from a fight, having the whole thing mapped out makes it easier to handle (and know where to ambush them, hehe).

Bagpuss · Jan 19, 2003

Yeah have a corridor mapped for unexpected combats and just the rooms where they are likely to have encounters mapped.

If your party is anything like mine they have made lots of noise and alerted everyone to their arrival, this means the bad guys can usually plan where they meet the party (hence I can have it mapped).

jester47 · Jan 19, 2003

How do you handle monsters that stalk them? One of the things I was going to do this last session was have a mind Flayer stalking the party and generally toying with them. However this slowed down the game, and they encountered the ambiguously nice mr midflayer. I wanted to get there "there is somthing here" feeling going on but I could not break away from the place to place nature.

Any suggestions on creatures stalking and skulking just beyond the light?

Aaron.

Bagpuss · Jan 19, 2003

You'll have to forgive me but I'm use to playing without minitures at all, even with dungeon crawls, so I'm having a hard time understanding your problem.

Generally our DM (or me if I'm DM'ing) draws a quick map on a bit of paper and discribes the place as needs be. If you want more discription put it in yourself, most modules don't discribe the corridors but you can usually get a feel for the place.

Add discriptions of the smells, sounds are they full of rubbish or clean (perhaps a warning of Gelatinous Cube?). Just use the figures for a marching order and place them on a map of a blank corridor.

Alcamtar · Jan 20, 2003

jester47 said:
Any suggestions on creatures stalking and skulking just beyond the light?

Trying to create paranoia and the feeling that something is there? Consult your notes and roll dice at frequent intervals. Ask for spot checks (which automatically fail). Every now and then, throw in a faint sound in the darkness, or the feeling that you're being watched, or a faint movement just beyond the torchlight. (But if you let them see something, expect them to take shots at it!)

The players will get the message loud and clear.

We only set up miniatures for fights. In between, I just narrate the passage down the corridors, ask for marching order, describe the room and maybe sketch a quick map of the room. If you have a terrain set like Dwarven Forge, you can use miniatures throughout (and its a lot of fun) but I wouldn't do it with just paper.

jester47 · Jan 20, 2003

One of the problems I have iswhen the encounters are "linked." That is when one encounter sets off another encounter sets off another etc. That and jugeing reaction time in the abstract. What I mean by this is say the players are going down a passage and the last one hears a noise behind them. A bazzilion dire rats are comming down the hall. Now the question is how does one determine where in the hall the players were if there is no landmark? (such as a door) This could be crucial as it determines how much time the characters have to get ready.

I guess a better question is how do you judge time and placement when going from non-combat to combat or critical situations?

I guess the short answer to theis is to use the encounter distance in the DMG...

Any other tricks?

Aaron.

KenM · Jan 20, 2003

We always us a battlemat, and manage to fit the whole level on the battlemat. we just started in party order. that way we knew where everyone was when a trap was sprung, ect.

cptg1481 · Jan 20, 2003

Player Positions and SOPs

jester47 said:
One of the problems I have iswhen the encounters are "linked." That is when one encounter sets off another encounter sets off another etc. That and jugeing reaction time in the abstract. What I mean by this is say the players are going down a passage and the last one hears a noise behind them. A bazzilion dire rats are comming down the hall. Now the question is how does one determine where in the hall the players were if there is no landmark? (such as a door) This could be crucial as it determines how much time the characters have to get ready.

I guess a better question is how do you judge time and placement when going from non-combat to combat or critical situations?

I guess the short answer to theis is to use the encounter distance in the DMG...

Any other tricks?

Aaron.

Here's what we do....

DM: You are walking down/through hallway/cave X, humina, humina....

(having explained the exact (or perceved as it is in many cases)dimensions of the terrain/cave in detail and Knowing what's coming begins to set up room with tiles and wall pieces...)

DM: Put your mini's where you are now....

Players: Neatly and quickly place themselves where they want to be as the DM directs the placement of the dungeon tiles walls obstacles etc.

(This is where the DM asks for checks and whatnot, our group is very mature and tends to err more on the side of character knowledge than meta-game so we comply according to what we think our guys would logically be doing in this situation)

DM: OK Zonk (1/2 Orc Ranger), who is in the front sees a form half hidden behind a stalagmite 40 feet in front of him, what do you do?

(from here its initiative ho...)

Yea, I know this method assumes that you only set up a room if something bad is about to happen, but it is a game we already know that bad guys are out to do bad things to us. The suspense thing comes in by not knowing what or who is going to do the things....and in what order and from where exactly. Sometimes we simply come upon a trap, obstacle or a non-combat type encounter using the same method...frequently enough that we don't feel like we need to stage ourselves in a more defensive array automatically.

I think a method to circumvent the problems above would be to ask for a few sketches or an SOP (standard operating procedure) of how the group would travel down/trough certain types of terrain and obstacles. In that case when you ask them to place themselves they know that they have to come up with some reasons not to be where they said they'd normally be. (It is possible that they are somewhere else occasionally PC's lower on HP than normal, encumbered etc.) If they are out of their normal positions, make them think about why and explain, let them know it's OK every once in a while but if the person always seems to have an explanation handy make the PC do a INT check to justify deviating from said plan. The players are often much more rules savvy than they portray their 10 INT ranger. (I'm very guilty of this myself when I play, I do try to think in character but those rules keep creeping in. What's a guy to do?

Our group seems to have fun with this method without the above insistence on an SOP but I guess it could be a sort of sanity check by bouncing their positions off the established the SOP (standard operating procedure) for those who have a problem with meta-game stuff creeping in.

Cheers, this was a good question, I too am interested in what the rest of the community does...

SemperJase · Jan 20, 2003

jester47 said:
Now the question is how does one determine where in the hall the players were if there is no landmark? (such as a door) This could be crucial as it determines how much time the characters have to get ready.

This is purely a DMs judgement call. Just tell the players where the they are in the hall and where the monsters are in relation to them. This works in our group fine. That is the point when you switch to tactical. Before that, just keep describing to the PCs where they are. "You are about 20 feet down the hall....". Then later, "You are about 50 feet down the hall when you hear..."
It just isn't practical to map out the whole dungeon then move minis around it every second. You can't always be in tactical mode.

We just map out the dungeon on graph paper to keep our bearings. Then we switch to tactical mode and draw out the specific area we are fighting in.