Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Melan" data-source="post: 4367253" data-attributes="member: 1713">Jack Colby, I would be interested in that. I have not made up my mind yet how 4e's &quot;encounter zone&quot; style dungeon creation philosophy fits in there. I am not even sure it is a relevant issue to my points, though.Thunderfoot: you are of course right. In some cases, there are definite advantages to avoiding too sprawling maps; I think &quot;lair&quot; type dungeons can work well as a sequential or mostly sequential series of encounters. Maybe the Moathouse should be interpreted that way... although I'm still saying it would have benefited from a bit more layout complexity. It is a question of emphasis and degrees.The issue of verisimilitude is either relevant to you or not. To me, it is not very relevant beyond the superficial. While &quot;mediaeval&quot; architecture might often have been simplistic, it is not necessarily a good model to emulate for all games; instead, we dwell on the stranger things... or at least buildings which are, as someone put it when discussing architecture for a 3d computer game &quot;a pleasing jumble of basic elements&quot;. A building with hidden nooks, crannies, a secret staircase to the tower and a walled off section is more mysterious and more intriguing than a simple rectangular affair, and this is what counts. I do agree, though, that too much &quot;noise&quot; may not be so interesting. See <a href="http://www.cafepress.com/judgesguild.280126748" target="_blank">this</a> map for a good example of a dungeon which is very complicated, but wastes very little room on superfluous and empty space.Last but not least, you can see the theory in action <a href="http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=461790#461790" target="_blank">here</a> (scroll down a bit). The Khosura undercity was consciously designed with these ideas on my mind. I think it was mostly successful in play, although not perfectly - of my players, some would have liked less mapping and wandering around and more concrete encounters. What I did realise is that the sparse key did not work so well for me and my group, and I improvised a lot in play to compensate.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Melan, post: 4367253, member: 1713"] Jack Colby, I would be interested in that. I have not made up my mind yet how 4e's "encounter zone" style dungeon creation philosophy fits in there. I am not even sure it is a relevant issue to my points, though. Thunderfoot: you are of course right. In some cases, there are definite advantages to avoiding too sprawling maps; I think "lair" type dungeons can work well as a sequential or mostly sequential series of encounters. Maybe the Moathouse should be interpreted that way... although I'm still saying it would have benefited from a bit more layout complexity. It is a question of emphasis and degrees. The issue of verisimilitude is either relevant to you or not. To me, it is not very relevant beyond the superficial. While "mediaeval" architecture might often have been simplistic, it is not necessarily a good model to emulate for all games; instead, we dwell on the stranger things... or at least buildings which are, as someone put it when discussing architecture for a 3d computer game "a pleasing jumble of basic elements". A building with hidden nooks, crannies, a secret staircase to the tower and a walled off section is more mysterious and more intriguing than a simple rectangular affair, and this is what counts. I do agree, though, that too much "noise" may not be so interesting. See [URL="http://www.cafepress.com/judgesguild.280126748"]this[/URL] map for a good example of a dungeon which is very complicated, but wastes very little room on superfluous and empty space. Last but not least, you can see the theory in action [URL="http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?p=461790#461790"]here[/URL] (scroll down a bit). The Khosura undercity was consciously designed with these ideas on my mind. I think it was mostly successful in play, although not [I]perfectly[/I] - of my players, some would have liked less mapping and wandering around and more concrete encounters. What I did realise is that the sparse key did not work so well for me and my group, and I improvised a lot in play to compensate. [/QUOTE]

Verification