A Return to the Dungeon

[RangerWickett]

KM, do you want to tweak D&D, or create a new system? D&D undeniably has sacred cows like classes and levels. Even if classes are less strict, they still need to be there.


A thought proposed in the other thread is that 4e works to make sure each class has interesting options each round of combat in every encounter. In this hypothetical system, maybe we want to give each class (whatever a 'class' here entails) interesting options during each 'round,' whether that round is a 6-second combat round, or a 10 minute roleplaying scene, or a day-long exploration scene. And somehow we want to unify these options in a small number of resource pools.

4e uses HP with healing surges, and various frequencies of powers. There's very little in the way of long term consequences; either you succeed a combat or you're dead. 4e's design goal is that you end up with a nearly clean slate after each encounter, so there's less to track. This causes players to subconsciously focus on the short term, making the right choice at this instant, rather than weighing short- and long-term consequences.

I don't quite know where I'm going with this. *chagrined smile*

Hm. Maybe we need to consider different types of challenges, and come up with ideas that might make sense narratively, but that don't work in the current version of the rules.

 

[RangerWickett]

Let's consider some hypothetical adventure design, and see if we get any clever ideas for the game to handle those situations well.


For example, Red Hand of Doom basically consists of several mini-adventures that all build together, spanning 4 or 5 levels.

When I played it in 3e, there was pressure because you couldn't dally. You had X days before the army reached the city, and in that time you needed to pull off a lot of victories to keep the army from steamrolling you. Each mini-adventure usually involved 1 or 2 minor encounters (battles or social or exploratory), and one major combat.

It was paced well, though a lot of times there wasn't much "game-based consequence" in the earlier encounters. The climactic combats at the end of each mini-adventure were actually challenging, but all the other encounters, puzzles, and challenges were really just there to eat up your time. It worked for that adventure, but if you wanted to run an adventure without a ticking clock, you'd need a different depletable resource to keep the tension up.

The first mini-adventure' has you stumble upon bad guys and figure out an army is forming. You warn the nearby town, then have to figure out where the army is and what they're up to. After a lot of talking and interacting and establishing the environment, you set out to investigate a front outpost of the army, where you have a big fight, and then earn a major haul of intelligence.

In 3e it was easy combat, then roleplay with some skill checks, then hard combat.

In 4e it would be level N combat, skill challenge, skill challenge, skill challenge, and finally level N+3 combat.

How would it be in KM's hypothetical idea?

 

[Victim]

In a dungeon-based game, I see choosing Door A or Door B being more key than choosing to be a dwarf fighter or a gnome wizard. If Door A leads to fabulous treasure, and Door B leads to a deathtrap, choosing Door B is probably the wrong choice, but being a fighter or a wizard shouldn't matter either way. If you're a defender, you might have a different way of dealing with the deathtrap, but ultimately, you still made the wrong choice in play (and now your party is closer to being killed before the dungeon is "beaten").

In order for a choice to be meaningful, it has to be informed. If Door B is a terrible idea, there needs to be ways to gathering information such that people can figure out it's bad. Otherwise your fundamental gameplay model amounts to coin flips.

Also, IME, it's rather strange to assume that people exploring the dungeon won't want to actually explore the dungeon and will instead be happy to leave plenty of unsecured, unknown areas at their backs. If we didn't clear everything, then we're not really done with the dungeon, are we? From the other side of the table, it seems weird to design stuff with the hope that it won't come up.

 

[I'm A Banana]

No new direction really intended. I just wanted to see ideas about the design.

And the idea was to tweak D&D, though ideas even from farther afield are still welcome, I'd think.

Seems like the focus of such a game would not be "overcome the obstacles", but rather "make the right choices, and deal with the consequences of wrong choices"...

I'd still see it as "overcome the obstacles," the obstacles would just be entire adventures, not individual combats.

So, for instance, HP/healing surges might only come back at the end of the dungeon, rather than at the end of the day, because until you're out of the dungeon, you're still in the same "challenge."

It worked for that adventure, but if you wanted to run an adventure without a ticking clock, you'd need a different depletable resource to keep the tension up.

I think this is key -- the adventure eats something that the PC's don't get back until the adventure is over.

In your Red Hand of Doom example, it's time.

In a basic dungeon crawl, or wilderness exploration, maybe it's HP/healing surges.

In a mission against a powerful antagonist, maybe your failures yield success for the enemy.

In order for a choice to be meaningful, it has to be informed. If Door B is a terrible idea, there needs to be ways to gathering information such that people can figure out it's bad. Otherwise your fundamental gameplay model amounts to coin flips.

Hmm, good point. To continue the comparison with character generation, what informs your decision to choose Power A over Power B, or Race A over Race B? How do you think we could apply the same logic to choosing Door A over Door B?

 

[pemerton]

Characters become more like one another, more similar, because the differences in play are not so dramatic (more about how they do something, than about whether or not they do something at all). This can lead to lighter character creation rules, lighter builds, lighter restrictions. If the major difference between the fighter, cleric, thief, and wizard, is how they deal with the deathtrap (fighter negates the damage, cleric heals the damage, thief avoids the damage, wizard bypasses the damage), role protection and specific powers become less heavily weighted. It's easier to multiclass, or to gain new powers, because ultimately, what matters is the player's choice during play, not what tools you bring to the show.

This sounds a lot like Tunnels & Trolls. Maybe if you have a look there you'll get some ideas.

From what I've been following of KM's theories, any class would be able to use their own talents in similar ways:

<snip>

Class choice becomes less about 'what you can do' and more 'how you do it/what you're better or worse at.'

If class choice is simply colour, then you probably don't need classes anymore. A game that fits the description of being about "how you do things" rather than "what you can do" is HeroQuest. So maybe i f you have a look there you'll get some more ideas!

But both T&T and HQ are a long way from games like D&D 3E/4e - the action resolution is far less tactical and far more abstract. If you want to have tactical action resolution, then players will probably want to build features into their PCs that can engage with those tactical considerations - be that training, equipment or whatever. And at that point the technical minutiae of character building start to reemerge.

 

[Wik]

A few ideas for an amazingly awesome thread-

1) Eliminate all the "fiddly bits" that relate to character "builds". Most of these are built towards the encounter, and a sort of specialization - specialization is great for encounter-based play, but not so great for dungeon-based play (because everyone wants to adapt to new encounters). Feats are a very good example of character specialization - and the more of them there are, the more specialized PCs will inevitably get. I would either reduce the feat list, or tailor your dungeon to encourage generalization (ie - bring back skeletons that take less damage from piercing weapons and have statues take more damage from blunt weapons, so a fighter that only ever uses his sword is a bad character choice).

2) Get rid of treasure packets - and magic items. Hear me out. The magic item economy in 4e is tailored to the idea of a sort of magic item arms race. If you drop them, instead tailoring in those benefits into the PC (as suggested in the DMG 2, but I would add some daily powers and extra critical damage), then the magic items you do reward can instead offer neat abilities such as in 2e. Hell, you could probably get away with the 1e/2e magic item descriptions as written, for the most part. Treasure packets are no longer necessary for the arms race, and they help because the players no longer think "it's alright - if we miss some treasure, we'll just pick it up somewhere else".

3) Expand on rituals. I'd make 'em cheaper, and quicker to use. Have the PCs actually use them in game, so they have more stuff to do in a non-combat scene.

4) An idea I was playing with were tokens, similar to action points, that would allow roll modifications and players to modify their powers - so the wizard's "burning hands" spell could set fire to a house, or something. Whenever a character spends a token, he gives it to the GM, who can use it against the PCs (but whenever a token is spent, both the GM and the player have to agree the situation is fair). A GM who spends a token against a player gives it back to the player. These tokens don't do much in combat (maybe adding +1d6 to a d20 roll or damage roll), but are built to modify powers/feats/skills in new and creative ways ("I have mounted combat for this scene!"), and to allow players to take control of the plot a bit more.

 

[steenan]

A few ideas:

1. Simplify combat mechanics. Keep it balanced, but make it easier to use and much faster. A non-boss fight should take at most 20 minutes. This leaves enough time for exploration. Most of 4e framework may be kept, but with much less modifiers to calculate and less (if any) map-based positioning.

2. Adventure powers should be used instead of daily powers. Similarily, healing surges should refresh at the end of an adventure.

3. Use different criteria for monster balance. Take into account how easy it is to detect, avoid or trick a monster, not only how strong it is in a combat. A powerful, but slow and dumb creature isn't a bigger obstacle in a dungeon than a weaker, but sneaky and perceptive one. This may lead to monster roles defined differently, with their role in the dungeon as a whole considered ("guard", "scout", "ambusher" etc.)

4. Give mechanical tools for creating balanced dungeons, taking their geometry and function into account. A balanced dungeon, in general, does not consist of level-appropriate encounters, but ensures that these high above party level may be avoided somehow.

5. Remove dependence on magic items and the whole magic item economy. Loot from dungeons should help characters become known and important, noc increase their mechanical effectiveness. I feel tempted to revive the "XP for gold" paradigm, but basing it on gold spent, not gold found. PCs rob a vampire crypt or clear a bandit camp and then throw a party, build a fort or fund an orphanage - each of the three gives them experience points.

6. Implement a solid, robust and flexible systems for movement/exploration, information gathering/puzzle solving and social interactions. They should be more akin 4e combat than 4e skill challenges. Include resources that are used in such situations, like HP, healing surges, action points and powers are used in combat.
balance classes in such a way that each of them has something to do in each challenge type listed above. There may be a separate set of roles in each of these areas, every class implementing one of each set. For example, a ranger could be a striker/guide/scout/reasonable.

 

[Pig Champion]

Class choice becomes less about 'what you can do' and more 'how you do it/what you're better or worse at.'

This sounds terrific.

 

[Rechan]

2. Adventure powers should be used instead of daily powers. Similarily, healing surges should refresh at the end of an adventure.

This was my suggestion.

Also, this would require scaling mechanics back - as others have suggested. Classes and races give their features for the encounter. So classes and races would need their features to facilitate the Adventure, rather than the encounter.

For instance, Dwarves would get a bonus when underground, dealing with underground dungeons. Possibly a boost to the Dungeoneering skill. Elves in wilderness adventures. Half-Elves in city/political adventures.

The Economy could be shifted to a more abstract Resources mechanic. That way the resources reflects more than just GP - it could be favors, it could be a Boon you received from the ghost you freed. Resources could be used for bribes, for getting ahold of a one-use item to bypass or shortcut something.

It's very hard to make "Door A vs. B" an important choice when it's uninformed. So making that choice informed would be useful. For instance, "This route is shorter but more dangerous" "This route leads to a dead end". PCs might be willing to go to the dead end because There Might Be Treasure There, or they might take the short route to get to the END first. But, as pointed out, remember - the goal is also to explore the dungeon, to see everything, not to just get to the end as fast as can be and leave many stones unturned.

6. Implement a solid, robust and flexible systems for movement/exploration, information gathering/puzzle solving and social interactions. They should be more akin 4e combat than 4e skill challenges. Include resources that are used in such situations, like HP, healing surges, action points and powers are used in combat.
balance classes in such a way that each of them has something to do in each challenge type listed above. There may be a separate set of roles in each of these areas, every class implementing one of each set. For example, a ranger could be a striker/guide/scout/reasonable.

I endorse this, as I've had the thought before too.

Although to add to this, the notion that "Out of combat = more like combat" isn't necessarily just "OK, I attack the Duke with my 'Words of Niceties' At-Will, and reduce his Social HP to 23...". It's more of an abstraction. Taking the Skill Challenge and removing the successes and failures into a more point based, with powers that help facilitate that. The one thing though to avoid with this kind of model is taking the fun out of it - if you turn out-of-combat into another combat-style situation, it can easily turn into "I 'hit'" "You find treasure". Skill Challenges require narration, so keeping that narration is important.

My favorite system uses the same framework for all conflicts (physical, mental and social), so I'm a little biased.

 

[Rechan]

What it almost makes me think of is a card game. Almost like M:tG. I know some will recoil in horror at that, but it makes me think of an exchange like this:

DM: "Ahha. Well, you know this is a Trap Filled Hallway." Presents hallway.
PC: "Oh. It's a good thing I have this... Ten Foot Pole." Lays out card.
DM: "Hrm." And now he must tip his hand towards the traps in some fashion.

The notion being that instead of having every little piece of description (in this case a ten foot pole), and having to actually describe prodding and the DM describe actually what each prod elicits, it's more of an event or a game piece that furthers things along or offers an edge without the explicit detail. Thus, more of an abstraction.

Some spells could easily function in the same way, providing an abstract edge rather than tracking the minutia. As said earlier, it would be more "How you do it" rather than "What you do".

But that might feel more "boardgamey" than some feel.