Dungeon #173: Dungeoncraft 22 - Dungeon Dressing

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Huh, lot's of "dungeon" in the title...

New article up: Dungeons & Dragons Roleplaying Game Official Home Page - Article (Dungeon Dressing)

The topic is how to add some elements to the dungeon to make it more interesting and to add something to the story and the game experience.

It also discusses a problem we've heard before - people only see their power cards and forget that there are options to "improvise" stuff.
The article has some suggestions how to use the "dungeon decor" as a way to motivate people to look beyond power cards.

Also it mentions a yet-to-be-announced product that apparantly will also contain maps made entirely from existing dungeon tiles. Another Dungeon Delve perhaps?

 

[Derulbaskul]

(snip) Also it mentions a yet-to-be-announced product that apparantly will also contain maps made entirely from existing dungeon tiles. Another Dungeon Delve perhaps?

I think Dungeon Delve II is more or less confirmed (not officially, per se, but enough unofficial posts to suggest it's a definite) but I got the impression, and I may be wrong, that he was talking about building a much larger map from dungeon tiles. Maybe it's for an adventures in the HS series of adventures?

 

[Rechan]

Dungeon Delve must have sold enough to encourage them to make another one. But I can't imagine it having been that profitable.

 

[Pour]

I wouldn't mind a sort of Dungeon Craft book filled with traps, terrain features, hazards, poisons, diseases, new parcels and all the other nuts and bolts we need to plug into our campaigns. Or maybe I'm just describing the DMG3...

I'd love a Dungeon Delve II. In a pinch the first one has really helped, as well as aided me as a resource in encounter design. To one up it, though, maybe set each of the delves in existing settings, published or yet to be published, and throw a few old favorites. May help sell the book, too, knowing there's a few Mystara delves, Ravenloft, Spelljammer, Planescape, etc. etc.

Or better yet, why not a Dungeon Delve Classics, 4e interpretations of the best traps, encounters and hazards from the old modules, scenarios lifted from White Plume Mountain, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Tomb of Horrors (despite the fact it's coming out as a stand alone), Castle Amber (I want to encounter an ogre that thinks its a human woman!) and all the rest?

 

[Rechan]

Or better yet, why not a Dungeon Delve Classics, 4e interpretations of the best traps, encounters and hazards from the old modules, scenarios lifted from White Plume Mountain, Expedition to the Barrier Peaks, Tomb of Horrors (despite the fact it's coming out as a stand alone), Castle Amber (I want to encounter an ogre that thinks its a human woman!) and all the rest?

That would be cool.

Part of what I didn't like about the DD is that it's basically just taking all the pieces that have been published and putting them in a linked three room situation.

Give us something new. New traps. Or a new monster. Or some stuff like a skill challenge. Or provide something interesting like objectives and things like that. Just a three-room dungeon using monsters from the MM does not freaking cut it.

 

[Pour]

Agreed. Of all the time savers, I think skill challenges relevant to a particular dungeon would be the most useful to me.

I also wouldn't mind an NPC or two related to the delve. Doesn't have to be anything too long, just enough to get me going.

 

[JoeGKushner]

They need an Wilderness Surival Guide that is essentially an outdoor Dungeon Delve.

 

[Rechan]

So, after reading hte article, I have to think: if there's some weird magical effect in the dungeon, then wouldn't the denizens of said dungeon have used it rather pointedly, or removed it?

The article gives several examples of things that help the Party in the next encounter, but if that's teh case, then anything further on would want that thing out of their house, so to speak.