doctorbadwolf
Heretic of The Seventh Circle
So, it comes up a lot when talking about D&D, and I’m wondering how unusual I actually am on this.
My group does not often “delve”. I don’t just mean dungeons. We do not often go to an adventure location, and follow a process that could be called “basically delving just using a city/forest/whatever instead of a dungeon”. It happens sometimes, but we don’t have fights that are just there to have multiple combat encounters, we don’t have anything resembling a “room by room” structure unless we are in a house or whatever and trying to find something, which isn’t especially common.
The closest we have come in the last few years was a forest adventure, which did involve multiple places within a broad location, a fight, and a skill challenge, but I think we’d be stretching the definition to call that a delve.
Before that was an investigation spanning about a quarter of Khorvaire with no enclosed or otherwise limited locales (some plains, some rooftops, and then the city of Korth), ending in a defensive battle protecting one PCs’ family home.
Before that was a bank heist mixed in with a tourney (the mark was a participant as was his intended buyer), which was resolved as a series of skill challenges with flashbacks to establish pre-heist planning.
Before that was a tower that could have been run more like a dungeon, but we just don’t enjoy that gameplay so we abstract pst the stuff we find boring like checking every room, and it was instead an exploration challenge followed by a setpeice encounter that mixed skill challenge with combat. The tower had magical defenses that the party managed to take over, which slowed down the enemy horde, and blocked off some of the reinforcements that the big baddie could call in.
In another campaign, we were basically a cross between Jedi, cinematic FBI agents, and the Galaxy Rangers, investigating corruption and spy craft from the Illithid empire’s agents.
My buddy does tend to use “adventure sights” more, but also avoids “room by room” procedural delving. It’s more, explore and investigate, and then do a big setpeice thing that could be combat or a skill challenge to perform a ritual while the clock ticks down toward doom, or a mix.
What about you? How close do you get toward the traditional dungeon experience?
My group does not often “delve”. I don’t just mean dungeons. We do not often go to an adventure location, and follow a process that could be called “basically delving just using a city/forest/whatever instead of a dungeon”. It happens sometimes, but we don’t have fights that are just there to have multiple combat encounters, we don’t have anything resembling a “room by room” structure unless we are in a house or whatever and trying to find something, which isn’t especially common.
The closest we have come in the last few years was a forest adventure, which did involve multiple places within a broad location, a fight, and a skill challenge, but I think we’d be stretching the definition to call that a delve.
Before that was an investigation spanning about a quarter of Khorvaire with no enclosed or otherwise limited locales (some plains, some rooftops, and then the city of Korth), ending in a defensive battle protecting one PCs’ family home.
Before that was a bank heist mixed in with a tourney (the mark was a participant as was his intended buyer), which was resolved as a series of skill challenges with flashbacks to establish pre-heist planning.
Before that was a tower that could have been run more like a dungeon, but we just don’t enjoy that gameplay so we abstract pst the stuff we find boring like checking every room, and it was instead an exploration challenge followed by a setpeice encounter that mixed skill challenge with combat. The tower had magical defenses that the party managed to take over, which slowed down the enemy horde, and blocked off some of the reinforcements that the big baddie could call in.
In another campaign, we were basically a cross between Jedi, cinematic FBI agents, and the Galaxy Rangers, investigating corruption and spy craft from the Illithid empire’s agents.
My buddy does tend to use “adventure sights” more, but also avoids “room by room” procedural delving. It’s more, explore and investigate, and then do a big setpeice thing that could be combat or a skill challenge to perform a ritual while the clock ticks down toward doom, or a mix.
What about you? How close do you get toward the traditional dungeon experience?
