New Dungeoncraft: The Dungeons of Greenbrier Chasm

[king_ghidorah]

Hmmm... it might work -- depends on which style of play your players prefer. Yet I fear that 4E is pretty much doing away with "dungeon dressing" (minor details, traps, items, treasure, monsters, hand-outs, etc.) .

And to disagree with mr. Wyatt: I *do* think empty rooms have their place in any dungeon -- you don't always need to have a monster or a "challenge" in a room to make it feel exciting. If my PC finds a hidden pouch of coins, a torn piece of map a mysterious rune scrawled on the floor or in an otherwise empty room, I'm usually excited.

And you need empty rooms so that the "Encounter Areas" and action would feel more special -- i.e. exploring the "empty" areas usually builds up tension very effectively. I remember one particular dwarven delve which had lots of empty chambers (actually most of them very "empty" of both monsters and traps), but then there were many that contained a lot of minor (i.e. "unimportant") details (such as runes and statues) and hidden caches (one even contained a magical shield). Although it took us four or five sessions to completely explore the place, none of us felt bored, because the whole place had felt heavy with tension and ancient history.

Once upon a time, when I first started playing D&D 26 years ago, I might have said exploring empty rooms built tension because we didn't really know what would happen, and the way we played was so random that anything could have happened. As I have gone from teen age to creeping into middle age, I have to disagree with you. Encountering empty rooms one at a time is a waste of my time. Perhaps it's the fact that I don't game for hours every week, perhaps it's the fact taht I'm more jaded, perhaps it's the fact that I expect my games to be more like fiction and less like some weird exploration of disjointed fantasy, but if I played in a game where we wandered around some empty rooms until something happened, I probably wouldn't pla in that game for very long.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Um, don't they proofread their articles? I seem to recall that the last Dungeoncraft installment came out in October?

Probably they proofread it in November. Everything was right then...

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

So is the "mechanic" still those Quest Card things?

The mechanic was never the cards. That was a suggestion. The mechanic is a codified system of providing rewards to dangle in front of the players for accomplishing things they decide to do, rather than a poorly-defined ad-hoc system like the one in 3.x.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

See, I wouldn't pussyfoot around and have it only affect livestock and then say "the villagers want you to fix this before it starts to affect us." I'd have the villagers giving birth to goblins or gricks or something and then say "the villagers beg you to end this terrible curse before another of their young maidens dies in childbirth from the abomination in her womb."

More emotional resonance that way.

Lamashtu approves of this post.

 

[kennew142]

Hmmm... it might work -- depends on which style of play your players prefer. Yet I fear that 4E is pretty much doing away with "dungeon dressing" (minor details, traps, items, treasure, monsters, hand-outs, etc.) .

I don't want to be snarky here, but 4e can't possibly do away with any of these elements. We may see fewer published scenarios that deal with them, but most adventures are homebrewed.

And to disagree with mr. Wyatt: I *do* think empty rooms have their place in any dungeon -- you don't always need to have a monster or a "challenge" in a room to make it feel exciting. If my PC finds a hidden pouch of coins, a torn piece of map a mysterious rune scrawled on the floor or in an otherwise empty room, I'm usually excited.

On this point, I would agree 100%. Not every room must have a challenge in order to be interesting. I would maintain that the examples you've listed above do not equate to empty rooms. They are very pertinent to the scenario at hand.

And you need empty rooms so that the "Encounter Areas" and action would feel more special -- i.e. exploring the "empty" areas usually builds up tension very effectively. I remember one particular dwarven delve which had lots of empty chambers (actually most of them very "empty" of both monsters and traps), but then there were many that contained a lot of minor (i.e. "unimportant") details (such as runes and statues) and hidden caches (one even contained a magical shield). Although it took us four or five sessions to completely explore the place, none of us felt bored, because the whole place had felt heavy with tension and ancient history.

I wouldn't disagree with the first part of this paragraph either. Large empty spaces are good to help distinguish the encounter areas and to make them unique. My own preference, both as a GM and a player, is to gloss over these areas, to use narrative and a few rooms like you mentioned in the first paragraph to make these places interesting. I have never had much patience for endless descriptions of very repetitive rooms that were devoid of appropriate dressing, clues, information, etc....

Often I will use wandering encounters related to one of the encounter areas to spice up these regions as well.

Every group is different, however. If spending hours mapping out empty rooms and stretches of corridor is fun for your group, that's great. I have never been part of such a group.

 

[Keenath]

For me, the uber-dungeon and the senseless dungeons are pretty much played out. I ran the original undermountain box set way back in 2e and, well... wouldn't want to do that again. Or subject players to fight, trap, fight, fight, weirdness, random crap to break up the monotony, portal, fight, blah.

I'd rather have plots and intrigues and heroics, rather than just a dungeon where you go in and kill everything, thats standing around waiting to be killed. And while dungeons can be used for that, but the big crawls of the past were a bit one dimensional.

QFT.

A ton of the 3.x modules are big dungeons or a very thin storyline wrapped around a series of dungeons (RttToEE, I'm looking at you). I'd much rather spend gametime on a more interesting story with some real goals and skip over the hours of "The passage splits here, left and right..." "Left." "Okay, you step on a trap, and there's an ogre in the room..."

A small dungeon is fine, but once you've gone beyond five or six encounters, it's played out.



When it's down to me, I tend to develop small dungeons with three to four decent-sized encounters. Sometimes I'll link two or three small dungeons with 'dead zones' in the middle -- that's a section that's virtually abandoned where the PCs can rest that otherwise doesn't do much of anything; it's the underground equivalent of a road.

 

[Remathilis]

if you do things like that, how are you to put the hidden traps in the dungeon.

"eh, and then you come to another empty hallway. Nothing interesting here, nope."

"so we move on..."

"HAHAHA, there is a trap!!!!, roll a reflex save!!"

kinda lame.

Which has an unintentional corollary:

"eh, and then you come to another empty hallway. Nothing interesting here, nope."

"Ok, I check the floor for traps" rolls "29?"

Looks at notes. "No. No trap here."

"Ok, I check the ceiling. 26?"

"Nothing"

"Ok, any secret doors? 27"

"none."

"Ok, I tap the ground with my 10' pole..."

"Nothing"

"Ok, I move 10'. I search the ground for traps. 28?"

Repeat Ad nasuem...

 

[FreeTheSlaves]

I'm still just not understanding why the game needs a "mechanical wrapper" for quests. Beyond that, what does said "mechanical wrapper" look like? I guess this is a feature that's more for newcomers to the game?

Personally, I'm willing to step down a rung lower and see where these quest rules takes me. We're all going to be new comers to 4E, and besides that there are more than a few bad habits from previous editions that need breaking.

I won't allow the possibility of excessive pride to stop me from improving my game.

 

[howandwhy99]

Y'know I missed these before. These are cool. I'm a big fan of the reuse a map trick.

I think he should draw them in pencil though in case the PCs or NPCs alter them around to account for future actions. I'd include that for the modular overland maps too as even cities can be wiped out.

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

if you do things like that, how are you to put the hidden traps in the dungeon.

"eh, and then you come to another empty hallway. Nothing interesting here, nope."

"so we move on..."

"HAHAHA, there is a trap!!!!, roll a reflex save!!"

kinda lame.

I seem to recall that was addressed in another writing by WotC. I think their expectation is that traps won't be that style of "Gotcha!" Traps (by the way they intend) instead will be either an encounter of its own that needs to be overcome, or they will be part of the environment during an encounter and serve as an obstacle or even a separate combatant.


As for the article, I'm not so big on the design idea. For an introductory adventure, I don't like the idea that the chasm is a megadungeon meant to be done in parts. It just seem unfulfilling to get a group started with the idea of: "You can do a little bit of this right now, but come back when you are more than just local heroes and you can do the rest."

I would prefer the idea that something big and dangerous broke out of Greenbriar Chasm. Eventually the party goes to the chasm for some reason. They only encounter lower level things because the area is being repopulated by creatures that would never go near the thing that broke out. In the course of exploring the chasm, the party can find clues about what once dwelled in there and where it might have gone. The chasm itself is played out and is done. Through the party's adventuring career they continue to hear things that may have something to do with whatever broke out until eventually they understand enough to seek it out and stop it. Maybe I would return to the chasm by having the party discover months/years later that what broke out has returned to it in order to complete some dark ritual, but I would not just leave it as, "yeah, there are more levels for you to explore, but those inhabitants will just kick your butt if you go down there now. Come back in another 7 levels. They won't do anything to the town until you are ready to face them."