Darkvision Ruins Dungeon-Crawling

[loverdrive]

you want to make darksight different because it doesn't have any real equivelent anyway

Eyes her night vision goggles suspiciously

 

[GrimCo]

Eyes her night vision goggles suspiciously

Eyes his Cat S62Pro with FLIR camera suspiciously

 

[DEFCON 1]

I agree that being more creative is good.

I strongly disagree with some of the sentiment behind the overall post in general.

For both pitched combat and overall strategic command, being able to see in conditions that others cannot is a force multiplier.

That's why night vision is/was a gamechanger in modern combat and things like thermal optics are valuable items.

And how does any of that have an impact on the mechanics of Dungeons & Dragons dungeon-crawling?

Yes, I agree in the "real world" a force with night vision goggles has an advantage over a force that does not. But we are referencing D&D and the mechanics therein. What is gained by a party entirely made up of characters with darkvision that isn't gained by a party that uses light sources? (Other than the distance enemy creatures have to be away from the PC before they are within sight range, as I mentioned upthread?) Did you read the entire thread before responding to my first post, because I went into far greater detail in subsequent posts.

 

[GMMichael]

. . . But we are referencing D&D and the mechanics therein. What is gained by a party entirely made up of characters with darkvision that isn't gained by a party that uses light sources? (Other than the distance enemy creatures have to be away from the PC before they are within sight range, as I mentioned upthread?) Did you read the entire thread before responding to my first post, because I went into far greater detail in subsequent posts.

Well, we're at least referencing D&D and other games that have an ability similar to darkvision. Which is a lot, I think. I think @Argyle King noted correctly that darkvision is an asset. The king didn't note what darkvision can remove from the play experience. So:

What is lost by a party entirely made up of characters with darkvision?

Yep. Maybe others played differently... but for me the focuses of dungeon crawling were about exploring areas, fighting monsters, and working your way around traps. That was what dungeon crawling was about. The whole resource-management thing was there, sure... but we weren't playing for that... that was just some smaller thing we had to keep half-an-eye on while doing all the important other stuff.

So you're discounting the value of torch-logistics. That's fine - what about:

• Exploring areas? Entering a room and immediately seeing all of its exits does a bit to reduce "exploring" to just "walking."
• Fighting monsters? It's one thing to see and prepare to fight the withered, shambling ice wraith in the creepy glow of your bloodsight (so-called for its sub-red hues of infrared). It's another thing to be squinting into the darkness past your torchlight when an uncanny, long hiss comes from up ahead, and you realize there's an unearthly chill crawling up your hand and threatening to put your torch out.
• Working around traps? The torch-wielding character says, "do you hear that clicking? It sounds mechanical*. Is it a steam-golem? Some kind of device? Did we set it off, or does it always sound like that? Should we get closer and find out?" The darkvision character says, "oh, look. A clockwork trap. Thief, get up there and disarm it. Carefully."

Now if there's another game out there (outside the D&D fantasy sphere) that makes getting attacked in melee range by a "grue" a virtual death sentence, and thus you need to notice them earlier at range and kill them all before they move up to you... then sure, things like having enough light sources matter. But I'm willing to bet that those kind of non-D&D dungeon-crawlers with those kinds of creatures don't have darkvision as an option in the first place.

I'm okay with agreeing that darkvision doesn't ruin D&D dungeon-crawling on the grounds that D&D already has enough problems. So, maybe let's not bring D&D into it?

*This doesn't mean "rules-based."

 

[mekhawretch]

When I was a kid we played 3.5 and basically everyone had a character with darkvision so I remember we essentially hand-waved over the issue of light-sources - we had a good time regardless so I wouldn't go so far as to say it ruined the experience.

When I began running games again without darkvision, it was noticeable how it introduced at a lot of fiddly 'wait, who's holding the torch' and 'no, wait, you can't see over there' moments that at times felt more like a trivial bit of upkeep, or me coming off as a pedantic DM, and less like a generator of interesting scenarios. That might be because most of my players were total newbies to TTRPG's so they don't know the standard dungeon-crawling procedures, and cause I'm still a pretty green DM, but I think we will iron it out eventually. I'd say darkvision isn't a thing that's makes the game immediately better as soon as you remove it, it takes a bit of experience to make it work without it.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Eyes her night vision goggles suspiciously

Not the same thing. Try using night vision goggles with no light whatsoever (or if they're the alternate form, no heat). Darkvision as depicted, which allows you to see in pitch dark to a sharp distance and no farther, has no precedent; as I noted, if you're talking low-light or infrared vision, you're talking different things that work under different rules (and even have historically in D&D).

 

[Distracted DM]

I'd say darkvision isn't a thing that's makes the game immediately better as soon as you remove it, it takes a bit of experience to make it work without it.

It's definitely more difficult to include adversity, rather than making things easy- I think the adversity is what makes a better experience, though. It sort of galls me to say that you're adding an element of difficulty, because it shouldn't be "adding-" having darkvision shouldn't be the default IMO, but here we are :')

An extreme comparison would be saying "I'd say hit points aren't a thing that makes the game immediately better as soon as you track them, it takes a bit of experience to survive if you're using HP."

 

[Thomas Shey]

It's definitely more difficult to include adversity, rather than making things easy- I think the adversity is what makes a better experience, though. It sort of galls me to say that you're adding an element of difficulty, because it shouldn't be "adding-" having darkvision shouldn't be the default IMO, but here we are :')

An extreme comparison would be saying "I'd say hit points aren't a thing that makes the game immediately better as soon as you track them, it takes a bit of experience to survive if you're using HP."

I'm not sure either "adding" or "removing" does the discussion good on this sort of thing; its more like the situation of people's tolerance for splitting or lumping in attributes or skills in games; no one has unlimited tolerance for various kinds of in-play difficulties and no-one wants none; its just a question of where you consider it fun and where you consider it just an annoyance, and that's entirely personal.

 

[Distracted DM]

I'm not sure either "adding" or "removing" does the discussion good on this sort of thing; its more like the situation of people's tolerance for splitting or lumping in attributes or skills in games; no one has unlimited tolerance for various kinds of in-play difficulties and no-one wants none; its just a question of where you consider it fun and where you consider it just an annoyance, and that's entirely personal.

Oh yeah, this is entirely a discussion of opinions.

 

[mekhawretch]

I'm not sure either "adding" or "removing" does the discussion good on this sort of thing; its more like the situation of people's tolerance for splitting or lumping in attributes or skills in games; no one has unlimited tolerance for various kinds of in-play difficulties and no-one wants none; its just a question of where you consider it fun and where you consider it just an annoyance, and that's entirely personal.

I suppose that touches on the thing I said about needing some experience to know when to focus on tracking vision and light sources so it's own kind of fun challenge for the players, rather than a chore with no particular stakes involved. Like if you go 'Oh by the way it's been an hour in-game, so your torch just burnt out and you can't see' - 'Oh ok, I just light another one', that's just busywork. It takes some discernment in running games to know when it would be the most interesting time for the torch to burn out, and when to gloss over it, and when to track it properly so the players don't think you're just arbitrarily dicking them over when it would be 'interesting' to do so.