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General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
Dungeon layout, map flow and old school game design
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<blockquote data-quote="malacapricornis" data-source="post: 4366994" data-attributes="member: 72686"><p>Means to get information to make meaningful choices rather then blind/random choices are important in the non-linear dungeons. The old school methods of hirelings, consulting with sages or demons, interrogations, communing with rocks and nature are all good methods.</p><p> </p><p>Ultimately, in a game as opposed to a reality simulator where time and effort in preparation and play are limited resources, having a fun, entertaining, and for me appropriately challenging encounters are more important then the illusion of grand strategic choice.</p><p> </p><p>You have to have cooperative players and a cooperative DM to have a rewarding game session. In essence, the players need to be good sports to hit the proper dungeon that was prepared to begin with. A whole world can be created and populated, much like Morrowind but like Morrowind most of the encounters will not be tuned for your players. Unless of course encounters are always tuned for your players which again brings up the illusion of choice. If you choose dungeon A or dungeon B and the results are approximately the same did you really have much choice.</p><p> </p><p>If dungeon A was 6 levels lower then your party and dungeon B was 6 levels higher then your party then either choice is not going to be satisfying for your game time.</p><p> </p><p>This, imo, is also applicable to the dungeons themselves. If you are going to level and gain magical items that put you ahead of the challenge of areas you have bypassed, backtracking is going to be relatively trivial. Nonlinearity is useful if clumped in clusters of encounters that can be tackled with appropriately leveled and equipped characters.</p><p> </p><p>Again this is all a matter of taste. Some groups may like very well the free form worlds where intrigue, figuring out puzzles, and gathering clues about the world to make strategic decisions based on scouting and communing etc are important. It's not my taste as I feel that as a game it's more rewarding to me to be adventuring.</p><p> </p><p>Now that said, my fondest gaming memories online seem to be the freeform nature of Ultima Online...</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="malacapricornis, post: 4366994, member: 72686"] Means to get information to make meaningful choices rather then blind/random choices are important in the non-linear dungeons. The old school methods of hirelings, consulting with sages or demons, interrogations, communing with rocks and nature are all good methods. Ultimately, in a game as opposed to a reality simulator where time and effort in preparation and play are limited resources, having a fun, entertaining, and for me appropriately challenging encounters are more important then the illusion of grand strategic choice. You have to have cooperative players and a cooperative DM to have a rewarding game session. In essence, the players need to be good sports to hit the proper dungeon that was prepared to begin with. A whole world can be created and populated, much like Morrowind but like Morrowind most of the encounters will not be tuned for your players. Unless of course encounters are always tuned for your players which again brings up the illusion of choice. If you choose dungeon A or dungeon B and the results are approximately the same did you really have much choice. If dungeon A was 6 levels lower then your party and dungeon B was 6 levels higher then your party then either choice is not going to be satisfying for your game time. This, imo, is also applicable to the dungeons themselves. If you are going to level and gain magical items that put you ahead of the challenge of areas you have bypassed, backtracking is going to be relatively trivial. Nonlinearity is useful if clumped in clusters of encounters that can be tackled with appropriately leveled and equipped characters. Again this is all a matter of taste. Some groups may like very well the free form worlds where intrigue, figuring out puzzles, and gathering clues about the world to make strategic decisions based on scouting and communing etc are important. It's not my taste as I feel that as a game it's more rewarding to me to be adventuring. Now that said, my fondest gaming memories online seem to be the freeform nature of Ultima Online... [/QUOTE]
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