Dramatic Dungeoncrawling

[Altin]

I'm curious whether anyone here has come across the problem of keeping side-based adventures (ie. games in the dungeoncrawl mould in that the action is driven by the PC's exploration of a location of some description) from becoming monotonous exercises of 'listen at door, search door for traps, open door, fight baddie (if any), get loot (if any), rinse, repeat'.

Perhaps some context is in order. I am currently running a fairly dark, mood-driven Ravenloft game (I wouldn't go so far as to say that it is consistently a horror game but it leans in that general direction) which has, until now, mostly been driven by me throwing various events at the group and having them respond to or cope with the situation. This gives me a good deal of control over the level of tension in the game - if this seem to be dragging, I just throw the next thing in my 'sequence' at them.

However, soon they're going to be going into what is essentially a dungeon (in actual fact the site a group of linked wizard's towers where something has gone wrong - bit like in the System Shock games or Aliens 2 - but which contain information they need) and I'm not sure how to keep the tension up to the level which I am used to having with plot-driven games. In my previous experiences with dungeons bigger than a few rooms, they tend to feature long periods of ho-hum exploration followed by short bursts of intense action (when traps are inadvertently triggered or monsters encountered). Has anyone got any tips on how to make them more engaging and immediate without making the whole thing into a massive death-trap?

Yours,

Altin

 

[Sodalis]

I find that the best way to keep the pace of the game moving is to give a time constraint on the players- either through an NPC that pushes them along, or a timed aspect of the dungeon that forces them through it in a hurry.

That way, they are unable to sit there and ponder about which door to go into, or take tens and twenties on their checks- and then pick locks with precision.

A time constraint forces them to think on their toes, and if they knew that they only have five minutes left to retrieve the books and get out before the tower collapses, maybe they will not take the time to pick a lock, but have the brute kik it in, or magic to break the doors- wasting a couple of their spells before the baddie.

Another things is to have an ominous presence. Have a thumping go on in the background- which will keep your players on their toes. the sound og heavy breathing, or clanging chains, or whatever will make the players paranoid- even if it leads to a room with a magic door that has "ghost sound."

Dont give them all day and three weeks to roam the dungeon. Have roaming monsters and random things to keep them from sleepuing and recovering their spells anytime they want.

And the funnest thing for you is to have traps trigger when they leave. most parties, aftre killing the bad guy and collecting the treasure, just say, "we go home." and the DM lets them. They had hell getting in, why let them get out so easily. Make traps that trigger after they have passed it, or trigger as they leave. so if they just say "we leave" then start rolling the damage. they didnot search fro traps- or disarmed it- it went off...

 

[Jack Haggerty]

Mix your encounters... Have monsters approach from behind while they listen at a door.

Or toss in neutral creatures who aren't really interested in killing the characters, but just want to be left alone... If they are smart, they may be able to negotiate information out of him.

Leave doors open or slightly ajar.

Be careful to describe what they are fighting, rather than straight out telling them.

Recently, a group I was DMing ran across an ochre jelly that had disguised itself as a grimy pool of cavern water. I described it exactly that way, and they didn't realize what it was until I mentioned it while calculating experience. It took them two and half rounds to realize that their weapons weren't hurting the creature, and were only splitting it in two.

Or... I had an "airlock" trick set up for them. A long hallway with a locked door at either end. The characters had keys to the doors, but regardless of whether the doors were unlocked or not, one door would not open unless the other was closed. Now, in the hallway I put several animated stone statues. Not too difficult to fight, except for 8 hardness of stone. The statues had orders to attack anyone in the hallway. The players didn't know whether they were facing stone golems, or elementals or what, and were frantically trying to open the outer door while fending off the statues.

 

[dvvega]

Sodalis: good comment on the traps AFTER the bad guy is dead. In fact Altin should know that one already (hi Altin it's David).

As for the dungeon crawling bit, it's difficult. One thing you could try to do is to let them search, listen, etc ... and let it become monotonous ... then during the monotony surprise them.

What you can do is to ensure that there is NOTHING they can find with standard searching (put it 5 feet above them), make the listen checks harsh (don't forget to add in the -1 per 10 feet - PHB), etc.

What this does is to make them think "gee there's nothign here". They either will give up doing all that cautious stuff, or you spring on them the bad thing as a surprise. The minute you spring it on them, they'll go back to monotonous searching, rinse and repeat.

Of course you spring a trap, or a creature clinging to the roof waiting in the darkness to jump on them (ala aliens). Gratuitous use of incorporeal undead (not too many, but ensure they can tackle them ... they're near impossible in 3rd ed now).

Don't know what kind of creatures you like to use, but jermaline are nasty little things that can be used to hamper a party "on the run".

 

[Tonguez]

Make dungeons thematic - something as simple as a recurring motif say a skull symbol at strategic locations. The background noise is good too. And always give your dungeons a history and rationale.

Remember that not all denizens of a dungeon are hungry 'monsters' so include RP encounters.

Have PCs come across traps which have already been disarmed/triggered and leave other hints that perhaps someone else is in the dungeon too.

Provide hints and rumours unrelated to the current adventure but which might lead to later adventures or RP once the PCs finish the dungeon (perhaps the answer to a previous mystery which they have encountered)

 

[Bonedagger]

<Edit> Someone already wrote something similar.

 

[Umbran]

I'm curious whether anyone here has come across the problem of keeping side-based adventures (ie. games in the dungeoncrawl mould in that the action is driven by the PC's exploration of a location of some description) from becoming monotonous exercises of 'listen at door, search door for traps, open door, fight baddie (if any), get loot (if any), rinse, repeat'.

Well, there's a couple things you can do.

One, keep the dungeon short. It cannot become monotonous if there aren't many repetitions.

Another is to not allow the dungeon to become "localized". If the players can treat each room as a separate entity, without concern from interference from elsewhere, then they can relax into monotony. If monsters in one room react to happenings nearby, they have to use more wits.

Another is to get rid of the blasted doors. Just make rooms open onto halls for the most part. Only put a door on a room if there's specific reason to keep the dungeon denizens out.

 

[mmadsen]

Has anyone got any tips on how to make them more engaging and immediate without making the whole thing into a massive death-trap?

My basic advice is to keep doing what you're doing, but place it all in the abandoned wizards' towers.

If you want to avoid "listen at door, search door for traps, open door, fight baddie (if any), get loot (if any), rinse, repeat," you can take the wandering monster concept up a notch. The party can't listen, search, etc., if they're constantly harrassed by annoying foes or if they're fleeing a terrifying foe.

Perhaps they'd be in over their heads if the entire "dungeon" came after them, but they're able to keep on the move, hold a room or two long enough to search, etc.; they can't just stand and fight every time.

The compartmentalized nature of the standard D&D dungeon serves a couple purposes. First, it's very easy to DM. You just look at that room entry and do what it says. Second, it lets the heroes kill lots and lots of stuff over the course of an adventure -- much more stuff than they could dare take on at once.

If you feel you can keep track of a haunted keep full of nasties, you don't need to compartmentalize them, and if your goal isn't to let the heroes soundly defeat bite-sized portions of the enemy force, then you don't even want to compartmentalize them.

 

[Anabstercorian]

Give them a strict goal

Open ended dungeon delving is fun, but it can get old. To ensure that the players stay focused, give them a flat-out, time-limited goal at the beginning of each delve and award them a modest experience point bonus for achieving it. For example:

"Retrieve a specific magical item rumored to be in the dungeon before the trading caravan and the merchant who wants the item moves on."

"Destroy the Shadow Dragon Nrassghuj before he completes the Oblivion Ritual on the night of the full moon and increases the power of his breath weapon."

"Find the Crypt of the Unknown Mage and explore it, before the upcoming earthquake seals it away in the darkest, most hidden depths of the earth forever."

 

[Altin]

Thanks to everyone for taking the time to reply. Sadly I haven't the time to reply to each poster but I did want to let you know you've all helped immensly.

In summary, what a lot of you are suggesting amounts to making the dungeon into an active component of the game rather than a passive one, so as to prevent a leisurly pace on the PCs' terms. In this particular case, given that I'm aiming for a 'Aliens'-style feel, this is perhaps best done by the repeated use of one quite powerfull opponent with a good deal of staying power and the brains to use his knowledge of the dungeon to his advantage.

I've been designing a flesh-golem variant as a static 'just when you thought it was all over' bad guy but in response to the comments above, I might have him roam the dungeon instead and jump in at appropriate moments to knock a PC or two into the negatives and put the fear of God into the rest of them. We'll see how that works.

Thanks again to everyone and, in particular, Jack Haggerty whose airlock corridor is a very, very cool bit of architecture which will no doubt make its way into one of my games at some point and David (hey yourself, didn't know you read here!) whose idea of things jumping on super-paranoid players from above is so evil it could only have been invented by the GM who put a glypth of death in the treasure of the main bad guy for one particular adventure. Killing my poor Cleric with a single roll of the die, I might add.

Yours,

Altin