Getting Out of the Dungeon (Or, "Help! I'm a DM who uses nothing but dungeons!")

JoeGKushner said:

Rarely? There were whole books discussing environemtnal issues in the 3.5 game. Previous editions had numerous books on the most favored of hostile environments, the old water (including DMR books like of Ships and Seas), as well as numerous adventurers that placed the party in danger not only from, say the Sea Devils in the Monstrous Illustrated series, but also the environment they hailed from. There was always the problem of resource consumption, or worrying about the magic being dispelled, or having the proper spells and how they worked in that environment at the players knowledge.

In addition, part of the 4e 'charm' is using the environment itself as part of the conflict.

In various fictional series, such as Crown of Stars by Kate Elliot, there are numerous examples of the environment providing as much of a problem to the characters as the foes they face.

Mixing it up can lead to some interesting opportunities.

Is it true that it might be not for all players? Sure.

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Obviously anything might not be for somebody. That's a given.

The reason for posting why the environment might not be a satisfying threat for some groups was exactly that - a reason why.

Of course the environment-as-threat has been a given in probably every version of every RPG ever written. It's ever-presence has, as you say, made its way into 4e almost as a combat assumption.

But I used to wonder why I personally found it unsatisfying, along with some of the people I've gamed with, and it didn't dawn on me until recently, when I started reading some Joseph Campbell.

I'm sure there are other reasons players mightn't enjoy the environment as a threat, but I'm certain a big one is the lack of personification.

Is it true that combat itself, for some players, especially those who prefer the role playing aspects, might not be for all players? Sure.

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Right, and I'd say that's stating the obvious.

But don't you think it would be interesting to understand why a player didn't like combat in their RPGs? I can think of a couple off the top of my head and I personally love combat in RPGs.

I don't think there's anything obvious about the motivation behind the trite "it's not for everyone". In fact I'd say the why of something is inherently useful. Your mileage may vary.

So once again I note, "Not every player will appreciate every adventure and while the ideal game is to have every player firing on all cylinders, sometimes it's not going to happen."

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Don't you think it would be useful to know why?

And yet, is this a thread about player motivation or getting out of the dungeon? Might be a good thing to fork it as opposed to continue going in venues that the OP probably didn't intent.

JoeGKushner said:

And yet, is this a thread about player motivation or getting out of the dungeon? Might be a good thing to fork it as opposed to continue going in venues that the OP probably didn't intent.

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Excellent point.

However I'm not a fan of starting new threads because I usually don't have much more to initially say on a topic than my one line: "Be aware though that lack of personification in these threats can be unsatisfying for some players."

It's not until I'm drawn into a discussion that I become verbose enough for the opening post of a thread, and by then it's obviously too late.

Yes I know I'm lazy.

Feel free to fork this one. ENWorld-does-pop-psychology could be a thread for the ages. I'm sure religion, politics and stupid analogies will rear their ugly heads like the foul chimera of legend.

Celebrim said:

BEST. ADVICE. EVAR.

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There's very little I'd add that Celebrim hasn't already said.

I have just one additional suggestion... ZORK.

I build non-dungeon adventures in a manner very similar to what Celebrim is suggesting... They basically are dungeons with different window dressings. What I've found helps is to make block diagrams of the locations, instead of (or in addition to) grand overview maps. Each square is a location, and lines connecting the squares denote possible paths of travel between them.

The original ZORK games did just that.

Your map might look something like:

Wilderness adventures are great fun (for the DM), although they get to be less challenging when the PCs become high level. Back in my DM days (1E/2E days here), I used to do roughly 1 to 3 wilderness to dungeon crawl adventures (of course, you can do both; make the PCs struggle through some god forsaken wilderness to get to the dungeon). If you put some thought into it, wilderness adventures can be really challenging. Consider:
Deserts: blazing hot sun (how's that plate armor feeling, oh mighty fighter?), cold nights, struggle to find food, water extremely limited....
Arctic: bitter endless cold, not much food, falling through ice into freezing water, snowblind, frostbite, getting lost in blizzards...
Jungles: my favorite Intense heat and humidity (watch that plate armor rust away), disease, poisonous spiders in your boots, mambas in your bedroll, leopards, unpotable water, a lack of food (again)...
of course, that's even before throwing in hungry carnivores, swarms of insects, unfriendly natives, etc. One thing I always liked about outdoor adventures is that the PCs can't 'fort up in the hallway' and do the Conga Line of Death. In the outdoors, the enemies can get at them from all directions....

Thanks for the input, everyone - it really made me look at it a different way. In retrospect, it doesn't seem terribly complicated at all, and I'm wondering why I was even struggling with it.

I think I was just absolutely stumped as to where to get started! Especially useful was thinking about it in the same way as dungeons, which made that about 1000x easier.

Celebrim said:

Here is the crucial question: are your dungeons good?

Because if the answer to that is, "Yes.", then I can teach you how to do every single other sort of adventure simply by reapplying what you know about dungeons.

...

If you keep in mind that everything is a dungeon, then you'll be ok. Apply what you know about making dungeons to making things that don't look like dungeons (but are!) interesting, and you'll be fine.

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Wow, excellent advice! I hadn't really made the connection between dungeons and "not dungeons" given the latter is... well, not dungeons. I'll make sure to use the advice!

Pbartender said:

I have just one additional suggestion... ZORK.

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Looking at it from the perspective of "how would I do this if I were making a text-based RPG" made it a lot easier to wrap my head around, good call!