Darkvision Ruins Dungeon-Crawling

[Corinnguard]

No. Dungeon design doesn’t have to depend on darkness in any way. You can light the whole thing as brightly as your living room and get plenty of suspense and horror out of the layout and interior decorating (to put it flippantly). And since we are ourselves a visually oriented species, that means more to show via artwork and description. Unusual angles, use of the third dimension, alcoves and niches, misdirection and perspective tricks, horrible objects and art, and so on - this stuff is all right there.

I'd argue that the well-lit Backrooms is one of the best megadungeons of all time.

I was about to mention the Backrooms to @Autumnal when we both rolled for initiative, and you got the higher score. What makes the Backrooms into one of the best megadungeons is its' use of liminal space. They give you the impression that a given backroom goes on forever. And new backrooms are constantly being discovered.

 

[Himbo_Jones]

I'll reiterate that while "resource management" in Shadowdark is one aspect of lighting, it's really only a minor one.

What makes it fun is that you can unexpectedly lose your light at critical moments.

This is a really good point and something I hadn't considered. I think the suggestion of having the light of a torch go out (maybe with some sort of save) during battle is really devious and interesting.

It requires a particularly narrow view of dungeon crawling to consider lighting the main element of it to my view.

I don't know if the argument is that it is the main element so much as that it is an element. And when you are a DM trying to introduce challenges to your players, losing any element to what is, in my opinion, a poorly thought out design choice, can be quite frustrating. The point is that darkness is a pressure that makes the players have to spend resources and consideration. There are certainly other things that do this, but darkness is (and I think should be) one of them.

But, again, personal preference and all that.

Not real happy with unlimited cantrips either. A different (but related) issue.

I'm not even sure on this... thematically I agree, but from a gameplay standpoint if I were to choose unlimited utility or damage cantrips... limited utility cantrips seems to suggest make harder choices. limiting damage cantrips seems to just mean casters have to drop back to darts, slings, crossbows, etc. The utility cantrips are the ones that usually get around obstacles, like Light, Mage Hand, Message, Mending, etc.

I do think I agree with Distracted DM on this front. Damage cantrips don't bug me as much, but having some utility spells be just consequence free can be a bit of a pain.

For example, 5 Torches Deep has Light as a cantrip, but it's concentration...

This, however, is a great solution! I can see myself making tweaks to some utility cantrips so that they're concentration, forcing the wizard or cleric to choose between that and a more high-value concentration spell.

That all being said, I'm still somewhat on the fence regarding the detriment of utility cantrips. A wizard at level 20 in A5E only has 5 cantrips in their arsenal and if I can get them to make one of those 5 a light cantrip (or perhaps even some other utility cantrips as well) then I feel as though the introduction of a challenge has sufficiently forced a response by using up a resource (cantrips known) that might otherwise go to just more damage or something.

I could go either way on the matter, I think.

Right. I get that unlimited attack cantrips have some annoying worldbuilding implications in that they make the world feel more magic-ful, but they're mostly there so the Wizard doesn't have to resort to a dagger or crossbow or just standing in the back.

This is really the intersection of game mechanics and worldbuilding, and I find myself on the side of mechanics in this particular case.

I think the design principle should not be that "resource management is fun" but rather "resource management is worth the (un-fun) effort if it enables something that is fun."

Really, this just feels like a thread ender for me. It gets to the heart of the point so succinctly.

Oh, I like the monsters being able to see in the dark.

So...much...scarier.

But this. This is just... chef kiss.

A dungeon is a play environment that can support a whole bunch of playstyles.
One of those playstyles is dungeon crawling, and that requires things like limited resources, light scarcity and choices and consequence for pushing "one more room."

Hard agree. And the crux of the issue is that darkvision as a base mechanic makes it so that to recapture that type of playstyle you need to rely on DM Fiat in a lot of cases which doesn't always feel good on either side.

I fully believe that the correct way forward would have been to make darkvision an optional rule rather than a baseline expectation. Then the tables who didn't want to worry about light management or weren't interested in that style of play could add that into their rule set from the jump. Adding something is, and always will be, a much easier sell than removing something.

 

[Thomas Shey]

The poll doesn’t reflect the answer as “no”. The difference in darkvision and torches is that torches have a cost. It’s a potential drain on resources; whereas darkvision is only a source. Freebies for all! No restrictions, no pain points, no resource management.

Again, when someone can show me the cost for light, other than perhaps the very first time someone goes out, is high enough for that drain to not be invisible, come talk. Otherwise I stand by my opinion. Across my OD&D days I could have off my more long-lasting character probably bought enough torches for a thousand dungeon runs and not even noticed.

This might be possibly different in a game with a very conservative money model, but if someone wants to tell me OD&D didn't have proper dungeon crawls...well, yeah, I'm gonna be over here rolling my eyes.

 

[R_J_K75]

Because there's a strong counter incentive to either A) Use strongly limited resources on targets you don't need to or B) Stand around and do nothing in a fight, so if the only magical attack someone can use regularly is less effective than a common weapon, many, probably most people are going to use the common weapon.

Players are free to use their characters resources however and whenever they want or do nothing. Are you are advocating that players always choose the spells and weapons that do the most damage? Sometimes choosing weapons and spells for reasons other than maximum damage can be a lot of fun. I have found that when players choose a cantrip that deals a significant amount of damage they just spam it over and over which makes for a pretty generic encounter.

My point is that the presence of a reusable spell with about the punch of a crossbow, nor the lack of need for torches isn't going to be the primary controller of that anyway.

I'd beg to differ that an endless supply of cantrips and the ability to see everything wherever the party goes can certainly make a difference in achieving the goal they set out to accomplish.

At this point we're debating spells vs weapons and resource management and think it's best we get back to the topic of the thread.

 

[Thomas Shey]

There were in classic D&D games (and are again in OSR games) plenty of things to spend gold on. Training, food and water, weapons and armor, exploration gear, medicinal herbs, carousing, home base stuff, hirelings and henchmen, charitable works, church tithes, the list goes on.

Most of which were far from necessary for dungeon crawls. A lot of those were, effectively, rat holes to pour money down because you had nothing better to do with it. Most of the rest was primarily up-front costs you paid once and rarely needed to again (it wasn't like OD&D had wear-and-tear rules). And even the ones that did didn't impact this question much. Like I said, you could pay to carry all the lighting gear you might ever want, pay for the hirelings to carry them, and pretty quickly still stop noticing.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Again, when someone can show me the cost for light, other than perhaps the very first time someone goes out, is high enough for that drain to not be invisible, come talk. Otherwise I stand by my opinion. Across my OD&D days I could have off my more long-lasting character probably bought enough torches for a thousand dungeon runs and not even noticed.

This might be possibly different in a game with a very conservative money model, but if someone wants to tell me OD&D didn't have proper dungeon crawls...well, yeah, I'm gonna be over here rolling my eyes.

I should note that carrying capacity would also likely be an issue. How many torches and how much lamp oil can you carry?

 

[Reynard]

And I'm suggesting that unless you're using a massively different economic model than most D&D games--even most OSR ones do--the cost of light is too low to be a significant factor in that. You have to be talking, at best, a multi-day operation for it to matter, and even there it does so less and less over time if you're willing to hire bearers.

I'm not sure the economic issues are the most important. You can only carry so much, and the more torches you care, the less treasure you can come out with. On tope of that, torchbearers and other hirelings come with their own problems -- attracting hungry wandering monsters not least among them.

In other words: these are elements of dungeon crawl play that are intended to be important, however you deal with them.

 

[Himbo_Jones]

I'm not sure the economic issues are the most important. You can only carry so much, and the more torches you care, the less treasure you can come out with. On tope of that, torchbearers and other hirelings come with their own problems -- attracting hungry wandering monsters not least among them.

In other words: these are elements of dungeon crawl play that are intended to be important, however you deal with them.

I completely forget about hiring torchbearers! That was always a fun time having two or three dudes accompanying the party, no doubt scared witless by everything around them and yet still managing to hold those dang torches. What troopers. All for 50 gold a day, too

 

[Thomas Shey]

I don't know if the argument is that it is the main element so much as that it is an element.

Sure. But note the actual question in the title of this. That's hyperbolic at best. And as I said, this isn't a new complaint; to a large extent, while not as convenient, lighting stopped even being a minor impediment once Continual Light became available, and that goes all the way back to OD&D. If anything, in some ways it was worse, as originally it had an indefinite duration so you could just cast it on a necklace and hand them around. Sure, it didn't have some of the advantages of darkvision (people could see you coming) but it still meant the only time darkness was an issue was when something could cancel it out and still see themselves, and that just wasn't common.

Its the mountain-out-of-molehill element to this question I'm reacting to.

I do think I agree with Distracted DM on this front. Damage cantrips don't bug me as much, but having some utility spells be just consequence free can be a bit of a pain.

Perhaps surprisingly, I also tend to agree here, at least when what the utility is supplying is actually impactful.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Players are free to use their characters resources however and whenever they want or do nothing. Are you are advocating that players always choose the spells and weapons that do the most damage?

I'm arguing that, barring other practical considerations, a plurality of players will. Nothing in my gaming career has taught me to the contrary.

I'd beg to differ that an endless supply of cantrips and the ability to see everything wherever the party goes can certainly make a difference in achieving the goal they set out to accomplish.

Note I'm only talking about damage cantrips here. And I've explained my position on the lighting issue enough I don't see a need to repeat it.

At this point we're debating spells vs weapons and resource management and think it's best we get back to the topic of the thread.

I concur, though the resource management is what a lot of people seem to think is the core question here, which is why I've been addressing it.