D&D (2024) What could One D&D do to bring the game back to the dungeon?

[mamba]

Obviously. There are still core rules. People are of course free to ignore or revise them if they wish, but that doesn’t make them not the core rules.

matter of perspective I guess, what races / classes / skills / spells there are and what combat looks like is much more core to me

Yes, and?

nothing, I corrected you and you agreed. If you want an 'and' that would be 'and they never were all that popular to begin with, which is why we no longer have them'

Interesting that you claim there are no core rules but still talk about the base game

none is probably an exaggeration, as I said combat is probably as core as it gets (but can still be adjusted). Some rules that were probably ignored or tweaked on more tables than used them as written are definitely not however.

What house rules or 3rd party rules would you recommend for this purpose. If you wouldn’t recommend any, why are you here?

to point out that 5e never (fully) left the dungeon / you can do dungeon crawls in 5e, contrary to what the title indicates. And if 'bring back to the dungeon' is a euphemism for 'bring back micromanagement' then that is not the right direction for D&D to go in imo.

The only thing the dungeon needs from my perspective is to be an interesting dungeon. Do less with pure skill checks and care more about the player's descriptions of what they do.

 

[Charlaquin]

matter of perspective I guess, what races / classes / skills / spells there are and what combat looks like is much more core to me

nothing, I corrected you and you agreed. If you want an 'and' that would be 'and they never were all that popular to begin with, which is why we no longer have them'

none is probably an exaggeration, as I said combat is probably as core as it gets (but can still be adjusted). Some rules that were probably ignored or tweaked on more tables than used them as written are definitely not however.

to point out that 5e never (fully) left the dungeon / you can do dungeon crawls in 5e, contrary to what the title indicates. And if 'bring back to the dungeon' is a euphemism for 'bring back micromanagement' then that is not the right direction for D&D to go in imo.

The only thing the dungeon needs from my perspective is to be an interesting dungeon. Do less with pure skill checks and care more about the player's descriptions of what they do.

Right, so if all you’re here to say is “don’t,” then you’re not bringing anything of value to the conversation. The topic of the thread is what house rules could be added or existing rules could be changed to better facilitate dungeon delving. If you think dungeon delving is already perfect in 5e, then just go enjoy it as it is instead of butting in to yuck other people’s yum.

 

[mamba]

Right, so if all you’re here to say is “don’t,” then you’re not bringing anything of value to the conversation. The topic of the thread is what house rules could be added or existing rules could be changed to better facilitate dungeon delving. If you think dungeon delving is already perfect in 5e, then just go enjoy it as it is instead of butting in to yuck other people’s yum.

What about those people yucking up my yum with their proposals (were they acted upon) ?

Only hearing one side in a discussion feels kind of pointless. I do not think that micromanagement adds much of interest to the game, quite the contrary, but that does not mean you cannot find something that would make dungeon delving more interesting. When someone proposes something that does, I'll let you know

My proposal above was to not just roll dice (skill checks) but instead play it out. Feel free to add to that or argue against it. Give us a list of ideas / obstacles that can be encountered and rules for how to overcome them, something that involves gameplay (kinda like what Level Up did). Turning this into 'inventory management, the game' is not getting people back to the dungeon, it is why they left it.

 

[Reynard]

Turning this into 'inventory management, the game' is not getting people back to the dungeon, it is why they left it.

As OP I wanted to address this because it has come up a couple of times: the subject of the thread is NOT "what can we do to get people playing 5E to come back to the dungeon?" I don't care one whit what those people do or don't do. The subject of the thread is a hypothetical "what can we do in this new "edition" to make it more friendly to dungeon crawling for those that like that." It isn't about how those changes might upset your non-dungeon crawling game, or about whether some people might or might not like those rule changes. it is explicitly about what those rule changes could be to make 5E for friendly to the dungeon -- because currently, it is not. Rampant cantrips eliminate a number of basic dungeon delving procedures, too fast recovery and healing disrupts the importance of time management, and over reliance on skill checks undermines the player skill aspect.

 

[Greg Benage]

Your thread your rules, but it does feel like you’ve basically loaded the question now to something like, “What could OneD&D do to bring the game back to a certain kind of old-school dungeon-crawling,” and if that’s the case, you’re right, you don’t just need procedures — you need to change most of the game.

 

[Charlaquin]

What about those people yucking up my yum with their proposals (were they acted upon) ?

I can assure you there is no risk of “micromanagement” being a thing in 5e again.

 

[Reynard]

Your thread your rules, but it does feel like you’ve basically loaded the question now to something like, “What could OneD&D do to bring the game back to a certain kind of old-school dungeon-crawling,” and if that’s the case, you’re right, you don’t just need procedures — you need to change most of the game.

How to make 5E work for dungeon crawling was the entire premise of the thread. it doesn't necessarily have to be exactly old school procedures, though. I think Five Torches Deep load and supply works pretty well for simplifying material resource management, for example, and there are some other rules I have seen using recharge mechanics or supply dice that might work too. The point is that you can't ignore that stuff if you are doing a dungeon crawl.

It should go without saying, but I will point it out anyway: there is a different between a dungeon crawl and doing a dungeon in an adventure. A dungeon crawl implies the exploration, survival and resource management are important parts of play. 5E does "adventure in the dungeon" just fine because it cares about X encounters per Y time, which contained environments are good at. But it doesn't do dungeon crawls well, because it handwaves and/or obviates a lot of the things that are important about crawls.

 

[mamba]

The subject of the thread is a hypothetical "what can we do in this new "edition" to make it more friendly to dungeon crawling for those that like that." It isn't about how those changes might upset your non-dungeon crawling game, or about whether some people might or might not like those rule changes.

ok, are we talking about how can we accomplish this for people that like all the micromanagement, screw everyone else, kind of way or in a way that also gets other / new players to want to go there?

Because I feel this is doing the former rather than the latter

Rampant cantrips eliminate a number of basic dungeon delving procedures, too fast recovery and healing disrupts the importance of time management, and over reliance on skill checks undermines the player skill aspect.

hey, all of this I can sign on to (details to be ironed out) and none of it really is micromanagement (depending on what exactly you do, it might lead there however)

I’d also add too much darkvision, make that low-light vision and get rid of flying or water-breathing races.

Proposed much of that in another thread a few days ago. Including cantrips / Goodberry / Tiny Hut. Also, slower progression (todays level 15 is tomorrow’s level 20 or so)

I doubt any of it will happen, certainly not the darkvision & races or power curve, but pushing the rest further out is fine.

 

[Reynard]

ok, are we talking about how can we accomplish this for people that like all the micromanagement, screw everyone else, kind of way or in a way that also gets other / new players to want to go there?

Because I feel this is doing the former rather than the latter

I'm not sure why this is a thing. I'm not in charge of 1D&D development, so I'm not trying to "screw" anyone. Also, it seems like you could include these rules -- whatever they might be -- ina way that didn't "screw" all the players who weren't as big on it. that is what modular design is for -- it makes the game more broadly appealing.

Why do you assume that folks looking for more dungeon crawling rules are out to get you?

 

[mamba]

I'm not sure why this is a thing. I'm not in charge of 1D&D development, so I'm not trying to "screw" anyone.

I get that you are not in charge but I assume you would want to see them in 1DD, or are we talking homebrew only? Not according to the title at least…

Also, it seems like you could include these rules -- whatever they might be -- ina way that didn't "screw" all the players who weren't as big on it. that is what modular design is for -- it makes the game more broadly appealing.

Why do you assume that folks looking for more dungeon crawling rules are out to get you?

I am not saying they are, I am saying they can. This entirely depends on the changes, which is why I was asking. Are we essentially trying to update the 1e rules to 5e or looking for something new. To me a lot of what is mentioned here is leaning towards the former or something even ‘worse’ (Torchbearer was mentioned repeatedly and while I know little of it, that little makes me think it is the king of micromanagement)