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Smaller or bigger dungeons?
- Thread starter MerricB
- Start date
Desdichado
Hero
Smaller, quicker; get the damn thing over with.
I'm 100% on board with whichever editor in Dungeon who wrote the recent headliner that games like Diablo and whatnot make the pen and paper dungeon experience fairly obsolete. I have less interest in dungeoncrawls than ever (and I never really liked them that much, honestly) so if I have to have one, I want it to be:
1) thematically interesting; not generic,
2) make a lot of sense both in terms of how it's laid out and in terms of why we're there in the first place, and
3) be something that we can do and move on from fairly quickly.
I'm 100% on board with whichever editor in Dungeon who wrote the recent headliner that games like Diablo and whatnot make the pen and paper dungeon experience fairly obsolete. I have less interest in dungeoncrawls than ever (and I never really liked them that much, honestly) so if I have to have one, I want it to be:
1) thematically interesting; not generic,
2) make a lot of sense both in terms of how it's laid out and in terms of why we're there in the first place, and
3) be something that we can do and move on from fairly quickly.
DaveMage
Slumbering in Tsar
The thing is, though, that this debate is of questionable merit anyway.
After all, even the "megadungeons" are composed of diverse sections. In essence, they are a bunch of small dungeons which happen to be linked. Rappan Athuk, the World's Largest Dungeon, Undermountain, etc. are not room after room of the same monsters and treasure. (Well, Section A of the WLD is, but not the whole thing.)
It's more a question of how much time do you want to spend in a dungeon vs. how much time you want encounters elsewhere (city, wilderness, etc.).
After all, even the "megadungeons" are composed of diverse sections. In essence, they are a bunch of small dungeons which happen to be linked. Rappan Athuk, the World's Largest Dungeon, Undermountain, etc. are not room after room of the same monsters and treasure. (Well, Section A of the WLD is, but not the whole thing.)
It's more a question of how much time do you want to spend in a dungeon vs. how much time you want encounters elsewhere (city, wilderness, etc.).
MoogleEmpMog
First Post
Smaller. Oh, Merciful Principle, smaller.
Few things annoy me more than slogging through a dozen or more meaningless filler encounters on the way to the one or two actually compelling ones that advance the story or provide a meaningful challenge.
I don't mind a large area, provided most of it is abstracted. Conan routinely explores 'dungeons' the size of entire cities in Howard's stories - but only runs into a three or four fights or traps or hazards. In Star Wars, the Death Star is a 'dungeon' the size of a small moon - but the protagonists only have about six discreet encounters in it.
My rule is, if an encounter is not compelling - because it's difficult or because it's important to a character or the overall story or because it's just damned cool in its visuals or something - it should not be included. It may happen, but it happens in the background and has no mechanical effect.
Few things annoy me more than slogging through a dozen or more meaningless filler encounters on the way to the one or two actually compelling ones that advance the story or provide a meaningful challenge.
I don't mind a large area, provided most of it is abstracted. Conan routinely explores 'dungeons' the size of entire cities in Howard's stories - but only runs into a three or four fights or traps or hazards. In Star Wars, the Death Star is a 'dungeon' the size of a small moon - but the protagonists only have about six discreet encounters in it.
My rule is, if an encounter is not compelling - because it's difficult or because it's important to a character or the overall story or because it's just damned cool in its visuals or something - it should not be included. It may happen, but it happens in the background and has no mechanical effect.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
Any encounter has (or can have) a mechanical effect - it can weaken or strengthen the party for what comes later. Encounters can prevent rest or re-buffing; or provide items that could come in handy in a later encounter...or just provide experience points.MoogleEmpMog said:
Wandering monsters...oh, where have they gone?
Lanefan
Lanefan said:As a player, I prefer a mix...some small, some big. That way, we're never sure what we're getting into.
As a DM, my adventures also vary...some are designed as small, others long and involved. Of course, this never survives first contact with the players, who can make an epic out of a 10-room explore and who can also make a dine-and-dash out of the biggest adventure I can write.
Lanefan
I like mixes as well, it keeps things more interesting to me.
Doug McCrae
Legend
They just use up charges from your wand of cure light wounds. You have to balance the gold you gain versus the gold they cost. It's all about the money, baby!Lanefan said:
MoogleEmpMog
First Post
Lanefan said:
All of which is boring as hell, ineffective, and completely unnecessary if not for arbitrary and frustrating rules artifacts.
I've never seen an encounter, wandering monster or otherwise, that could use up the resources of a smart party - unless it was strong enough to kill one or more of them, of course, in which case it qualifies as interesting, anyway
. Time constraints can do so and are actually exciting, tense and in-genre.If the party needs an item, it's far more interesting if they get it in a meaningful encounter - and if getting it isn't interesting, then why not just have them find it? Of course, the idea that the item is critical to success is rather offputting, as is the idea that they could potentially fail to acquire it if it IS critical. It smacks of PC RPGs like the Ultimas, where you could miss a single item or say the wrong thing to a single NPC and discover only hours later that you could no longer finish the game.
Is leveling so slow you really need to throw in easily mooked encounters just for the sake of giving out more XP?
I'll stick with enjoying more of my sessions, k'thanx, rather than clicking (or in this case rolling) Diablo-style through a host of mooks in the hopes of one day encountering something worth fighting, talking to or running from.
Nyeshet
First Post
No preferrence so long as the dungeon makes sense.
If it is small or large and has the stereotype "one orc lives in a locked 10 x 10 room with a treasure chest" then I don't like it. I like the idea of dungeons having a theme to them, I admit - whether it be a partially buried lost city, an underground necropolis / catacomb, an abandoned palace with maze like passageways, an enemy fortress filled with foes that could readily overcome the non-stealthful through sheer numbers, or so forth. Themes are nice. Random rooms filled with random treasure guarded by random monsters - with no thought for cohesive layout, organization, reasoning, etc - are not nice.
So big or small, it does not matter, so long as it makes sense!
If it is small or large and has the stereotype "one orc lives in a locked 10 x 10 room with a treasure chest" then I don't like it. I like the idea of dungeons having a theme to them, I admit - whether it be a partially buried lost city, an underground necropolis / catacomb, an abandoned palace with maze like passageways, an enemy fortress filled with foes that could readily overcome the non-stealthful through sheer numbers, or so forth. Themes are nice. Random rooms filled with random treasure guarded by random monsters - with no thought for cohesive layout, organization, reasoning, etc - are not nice.
So big or small, it does not matter, so long as it makes sense!
