I love D&D but not so much Dungeons, anyone else?

[Odhanan]

Makes sense. I like D&D as a game of player-driver exploration ("in search of the unknown, hoping for fortune and glory"). That's one reason I like dungeons (especially dungeons that are designed to facilitate and reward skillful exploration and play). It's probably also why I prefer large dungeons with lots of space, and sandbox-style campaigns. I'm much less inclined toward seeing D&D as a series of encounters or a path.

I really like this about the game myself. Now, you can have the exploration phase of the game, where players actually explore the complex, make wrong turns, trigger specific traps at specific crossroads and so on. That's the exploration we are talking about.

Or, you can have a broader description of the exploration as an ambiance, rather than a focus of the game, with triggers, checks, descriptions of more global attitudes and strategies that affect the outcome of the character's progression in the complex, with failures or successes prompting wandering encounters, hidden areas of the dungeon or whatnot. The exploration's still there, it just becomes more of a theme, a color to the game, rather than a focus of its game play.

Reminds me of this flowchart of mine, where I basically drew specific table set-ups using Dwarven Forge, linked together simply by travelling descriptions:

Now, imagine you interpret the lines as Skill Challenges, with the DM describing the ambiance of the corridors, some features of the trek, the players deciding how they want to deal with their progression, die rolls ensue, maybe triggering wandering monsters, or uncovering a hidden tomb somewhere, etc etc, until the global Skill Challenge indicates whether they got lost, took the wrong turn to another area of the dungeon, or found their way to the one they were looking for, et cetera.

It's cool, in a very, very different way than the traditional crawl/mapping approach.

 

[Marx420]

I've tried it, either minimizing dungeons to the background or removing them entirely in lieu of massive military style campaigning, and I find that eventually most groups will come to miss them and their simple left or right tunnel decisions. While aping different styles of play ala G.R.R. Martin or LotR is certainly possible under the crunch of D&D, it isn't what it is made for.

I've also gone in the other direction, starting at the bottom of a massive megacrawl with an uninhabitable post-apocalyptic waste serving as the overworld that would take incredible magical precautions to traverse safely. I only allowed subterranean races and had scattered hub levels of Mos Eiseley style wacky (Yes, I had just played Arx Fatalis at this point, so sue me.) It was hands down the best campaign I've ever run.

 

[Agamon]

For me, it's not about dungeons, per se. Any adventure in any environment that is hack, hack and move on to the next hack, hack, ad nauseum, isn't much fun, in my opinion. If the encounters have purpose and don't have a hard coded way of completeing them, any adventure can be fun, dungeons included.

I didn't think I'd like Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, being a megadungeon, which is often just a reason to hack baddies and take their stuff. But I read some ideas online about how to build backstory and relationships between the denizens of the temple. It ended up being a lot of fun because the party got swept up in the intrigue (it was also quite a meatgrinder, but that's another story).

I'm not currently playing 4e, but I like the skill challenge concept and will try to adapt it to PF in my upcoming game. Treating the environment as a skill challenge is a great idea.

 

[Banshee16]

I have similar feelings. I haven't been a big fan of dungeon crawls for years. While I don't abstract them with die rolls, I do tend to just avoid them.....my games have lots of encounters in the wilderness, strongholds, outdoor mazes, small cave complexes, castles, cities, etc. etc.

But the whole Undermountain-style dungeon? Not really. When I do use dungeons, it's usually for a specific point. It's the ruin of XYZ place, that was important for Y reason, and is the last place that the mcguffin was seen. But I keep the size relatively limited, and the encounters/reasons for going in limited.

Banshee

 

[Vanifae]

After having read the links to the Dungeon's Master.com, it's actually a very interesting take on the dungeon. It's a different approach, between a focus on the Encounter part of the adventure, and the Exploration part of the adventure, whether you favor one or the other and when.

Indeed, a dungeon could then look like a flowchart of sorts, with the links between various areas being a matter of verbal exchanges between DMs and players, and eventual Skill challenges arising from them. Depending on the results of those checks and exchanges, some prepped random encounters, or puzzles, or hazards could be triggered. It's an interesting take on the concept. Quite different from the traditional dungeon crawl, but not a fundamentally "wrong" way of doing it, for those who can't bother with listening to doors and 10-foot poles.

Cool beans.

Yeah I am not trying to remove the dungeon just find a different way to experience it that works for me and my mind set. I could even run a "mega" dungeon using those formats and it feel fun for me, suing the flow chart example you posted. Nice maps btw.

 

[The Human Target]

I think its very easy to go from fun to tedious in any dungeon with more than 4 or 5 encounters (especially if they all fit a theme.)

I suggest doing them rarely, skipping the boring rooms to the action rooms, and using skill checks/challenges to handle exploration fast.

 

[Beginning of the End]

I don't mind this occasionally - I wouldn't normally think of it as a dungeon crawl, because it's not about mapping out and looting the dungeon.

My point is that a good dungeon crawl isn't just "mapping and looting".

If we look at the dungeons of LOTR, we see the same pattern: Barrow Wight, Moria, Paths of the Dead, Shelob's Cave. The environments themselves convey information that enrich the story, while also providing crucibles of meaningful action for the characters to learn and grow.

I'm resistant to the idea of "skill challenge" dungeons, because you're taking a form that's fundamentally empowering to the players and turning it into a form which fundamentally de-protagonizes the players. I'm not a fan of that, although I can see how it would be appealing for people who generally employ the "lead the players to the plot they're supposed to be following" mode of gaming.

But I do understand how certain dungeon concepts are not effectively played in the "room-by-room" model. For example, part of the point of Moria is its scope and its emptiness.

One concept we've been playing with is the "hexcrawl dungeon". The PCs are still given agency as they figure out the general direction they want to explore, but just as you don't describe every tree in the forest during a wilderness hexcrawl, you don't describe every room in the dungeon. Hex features and encounter chances determine what areas of interest they encounter and how they encounter them.

 

[Psion]

I like dungeons. But I feel as if the average published dungeon crawl is "overcooked". I've seen some published adventure take some cool flavorful ideas and ruin them by sheer repetition by stuffing more instances of related encounters in the game.

I have been having a lot of success by the simple act of "JUST SAYING NO" to 20+ (filled) room dungeon adventures.

When running published adventures, I trim out the dumb encounters.

When making my own, I have been using the Five Room Dungeon as a design "starting point":

Roleplaying Tips for game masters for all role-playing systems

 

[JeffB]

For me personally- the classic gazillion level "megadungeon" is a big sore spot Even as someone woho learned on the LBBs, I disliked these at a very early age.I certainly am not a stickler for realism in a RPG, especially a fantasy RPG, but the megadungeons that make no real sense ecologically, some bartender charges a fee for adventurers to delve into, etc. the Undermountains, And Castles Zagyg/Greyhawk/Blackmoor of the world are not for my tastes in the least. I'd just as soon play Temple of Apshai, Telengard, or Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord for that sort of experience.


Now, the classic "ruined tower", " old haunted house", " lost city of the ancients", abandoned mines, and such, with some kind of "plausible" story, I love. In addition, the "fun house" dungeon, ala Chateau D"Ambreville, or even White Plume Mountain is something I love. They are small, there is a mission/quest of some sort, or a mystery to be solved.


Of course I begrudge no-one of their preferred play style if it differs from mine!

 

[pemerton]

My point is that a good dungeon crawl isn't just "mapping and looting".

If we look at the dungeons of LOTR, we see the same pattern: Barrow Wight, Moria, Paths of the Dead, Shelob's Cave. The environments themselves convey information that enrich the story, while also providing crucibles of meaningful action for the characters to learn and grow.

I'm resistant to the idea of "skill challenge" dungeons, because you're taking a form that's fundamentally empowering to the players and turning it into a form which fundamentally de-protagonizes the players.

Maybe, depending how the skill challenge is handled. I think it could be done in a fashion closer to the hexcrawl dungeon you describe.

I agree that a skill challenge dungeon isn't going to support exploration in the same sort of way that a traditional or a hexcrawl dungeon does. But exploration is not the only mode of player protagonism.