D&D 5E Clarifying Dungeon Turns for my Players

[FallenRX]

I actually wrote a whole thread about how these dungeon turn rules are still in the game but kinda scattered.

Maybe that can be of some use

 

[NotAYakk]

Maybe a tiny bit more structure. Like:

In a 10 minute turn you get to pick 3 aims, divided between tasks:

• Guard (against enemies)
• Search (a given area)
• Explore (a new area)
• Rest (and recover)
• Investigate (something specific)
• Map (and measure)
• Scout (and Sneak)
• Help (and Support)
• Other (freeform)

Scout: Lets you examine areas further out, without the party coming along. Disadvantage on Stealth if you do it 1x, advantage if you do it 3x.

Rest: Each turn you rest you add 1+aim at rest task. Each turn you don't rest, you subtract 1 (min 0). When you hit 10 you get a short rest.

Guard: PCs who are not on Guard have -5 passive perception. PCs guarding twice can make an active check. PCs guarding 3x have advantage on the check.

Search: PCs not Searching have -5 passive investigation to spot traps, and are at disadvantage on saves against them. PCs searching twice can make an Investigation check, 3x with advantage.

Explore: Speed the party moves at. Unless the party splits up, use the lowest explore value.

Map: Have 4 levels of maps, depending on how much they aim at this task and prodiciendy in cartography. Do a check to get the next level map up.

Investigate: 1x disadvantage, 3x advantage.

Help: 1x make a check to bump someone else up 1 aim; 2x auto-bump. 3x check to bump 2.

Other: ~3 minutes focused, or 5 minutes split attention on something.

The idea is to make it somewhat predictable for PCs, and avoid narrating 5 minutes of searching for secret doors. Stakes are clear.

 

[Charlaquin]

The turns are more for the players than the characters.

Edit: to clarify, I see it like this: everyone states their intention for the round, but mechanics don't occur until everyone says what they're going to do. But I can see that's not communicated clearly, and is even contradictory with actions like "delay." I think I should do a rewrite to clarify!

Yeah, I think exploration “turns” are a really useful thing, but I think it works better as a simultaneous group-turn rather than breaking it up into individual player turns.

 

[Unwise]

While I would not personally use what @NotAYakk was suggesting in my group, I think it could be really handy for groups that want to add a strategic/tactical element to their exploration play. It would work really well on a tight time frame. It would also work well for all inexperienced or lazy players that just sit back and let the rogues do everything out of combat. If they are explicitly called upon to contribute, it might keep them more engaged.

Something to keep in mind though is that whenever you present players with a list of options, their minds eliminate anything not on the list. You end up with a common problem in 4e D&D where people feel if it is not on their sheet and not in the list you gave, then they can't do it. This creeps in even in experienced players.

 

[Shiroiken]

I've expanded the travel rules to break down into 1 minute exploration turns to ease play. Everyone chooses a default action, so I know what people are supposed to be doing when something happens. I also use passive skills a lot, so this allows me to simply know who checks against what without having to stop narration. I've found it speeds up the game tremendously, unless a player decides to keep switching their default action for no reason.

One important thing I did was break "looking for danger" into two groups: looking for something hidden and looking for something unusual. Hidden uses Perception and is primarily against monsters, while unusual uses Investigation and is primarily against traps (depending on the trigger mechanism) and secret doors. Not only does this make it easy for me to know what passive score I'm going against, but it makes Investigation a more useful skill.

 

[NotAYakk]

nod - the point of the list is that "doing nothing" isn't as useful as "doing something".

In a "roll and bad things happen if you roll low" situation, sitting back and letting the rogue do everything "is optimal" in terms of results (if not fun).

In a "everyone does something" model, failing to do stuff (failing to roll) leads to less stuff being done. And the skill monkey (while more competent) can't do everything at once, so either you advance very slowly (with narrative impact) or you spread the work around.

 

[Jaeger]

We are about to start a big, meaty dungeon in my weekly game, and to help keep things moving I want to introduce Dungeon Turns into the game. I know that my players do best when they have a little guidance, so I want to work up a quick document they can use to help them with the concept.

One of my chief knocks on 5e is that it has less GM tools in the DMG for actual dungeon delving than B/X had in 1980...

Go Here: ( OSE SRD - A well organized version of the B/X rules)

Time, Weight, Movement - OSE SRD

oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com

Dungeon Adventuring - OSE SRD

oldschoolessentials.necroticgnome.com

Click on the Adventuring tab: You get a drop down and you can see the procedures you need for most types of adventuring you would want to run.

Free. And straight forward to port to 5e.

Also get you free exploration time tracker here:

Free PDF Download: Exploration Time Tracker

So years ago, when I still worked for somebody else, and we had to keep track of all of our billable hours, I created a personal timesheet/ ...

savevsdragon.blogspot.com

No need to reinvent the wheel. 1980's D&D has you covered.

 

[Malmuria]

Yeah, I think exploration “turns” are a really useful thing, but I think it works better as a simultaneous group-turn rather than breaking it up into individual player turns.

The difficulty I've found with everything being simultaneous, is that then the social dynamics of the group sort of determine what happens. Meaning, maybe one person is more proactive and wants to jump in sort interacting with the environment, which leads to a consequence (trap triggered etc), and then everyone else follows along. Or, maybe the group is polite and every wants to wait for someone else to go first, leading to silence and inaction. One thing that might work is to use turns for everyone to describe what they want to do, and then resolve everything simultaneously.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

The difficulty I've found with everything being simultaneous, is that then the social dynamics of the group sort of determine what happens. Meaning, maybe one person is more proactive and wants to jump in sort interacting with the environment, which leads to a consequence (trap triggered etc), and then everyone else follows along. Or, maybe the group is polite and every wants to wait for someone else to go first, leading to silence and inaction. One thing that might work is to use turns for everyone to describe what they want to do, and then resolve everything simultaneously.

This kinda sounds like what would happen if a group with no clear leader were to do something stressful together.

Perhaps instead of resolving actions in the order of Passive Perception as suggested by the OP, order by Charisma score, (or d20 +CHA) to simulate how the more forceful personalities take charge.

 

[Charlaquin]

The difficulty I've found with everything being simultaneous, is that then the social dynamics of the group sort of determine what happens. Meaning, maybe one person is more proactive and wants to jump in sort interacting with the environment, which leads to a consequence (trap triggered etc), and then everyone else follows along.

If you’re doing exploration turns, you shouldn’t be moving on to resolution before everyone has declared their action. If the proactive person’s action will set off a trap or whatever, make note of that, but find out what everyone else is doing before narrating the results, and narrate them all together. That’s the point of using turns instead of freeform exploration.

Or, maybe the group is polite and every wants to wait for someone else to go first, leading to silence and inaction.

Sure, if that’s a problem you’re having, it’s probably best to ask each player in turn what their character does.

One thing that might work is to use turns for everyone to describe what they want to do, and then resolve everything simultaneously.

I took simultaneous resolution as a given here. Maybe I misunderstood the opening post?