For the Love of Dungeons

[JRRNeiklot]

It's not just the combat aspect. Exploration is an excellent example:
Have you played Gothic, Oblivion, or any MMORPG? Having a cool, realistic-looking 3D environment to immerse in is absolutely great. It's not an area where pen & paper rpgs can hope to compete.

I disagree. Computer graphics will ALWAYS be inferior to the pictures in the mind's eye.

 

[Hussar]

Not everyone requires their worlds to conform to the needs of miniature battle grids - if you do, then just ignore that element or adjust it to fit your scale. I think you are missing the more important point, which is about avoiding lazy uniformity that becomes boring to explore.

There are additional problems here though. The mapper has to draw those corridors too. He's got to fart around trying to get his map as accurate as possible (after all, that's part of player skill in trying to find secret rooms) and having corridors that are 13 1/2 feet wide is just a PITA.

And, never mind about minis, 1e D&D has space requirements for the weapons. IIRC, Basic/Expert D&D limits 1 PC/10 foot square in a dungeon when fighting.

Making corridors 12 feet wide is not adding variety, it's just adding pointless detail that drags the game down.

You want variety? Decorate the corridors with bas reliefs. Color the floors. Put in devotive niches every so often.

But screwing around with this sort of niggily detail? Naw. Time sink with little reward.

 

[Hussar]

I disagree. Computer graphics will ALWAYS be inferior to the pictures in the mind's eye.

For you maybe. Is it really that hard to believe that some people look at video games and think, "WOW, that looks FANTASTIC!"?

 

[Jhaelen]

I disagree. Computer graphics will ALWAYS be inferior to the pictures in the mind's eye.

Well, it depends on the mind, though. With a brilliant DM, maybe. With an okay DM, not so much. It takes a really good storyteller to achieve immersion to such a high degree.

A question: Do you like player handouts? Do you show the players pictures of monsters or use minis that actually look like the monsters they represent? Or do you limit yourself to verbal descriptions?

I think the visual aspect of a pen & paper rpg is important, too. I love using handouts and I've found it helps players to immerse themselves better.

For me, great 3d graphics almost guarantee instant immersion. Apparently, not everyone finds this to be true.

 

[Reynard]

I think the visual aspect of a pen & paper rpg is important, too. I love using handouts and I've found it helps players to immerse themselves better.

I'd contend that handouts serve far more than a visual role. They can be fairly crude -- tea aged parchment ftw -- but still be extremely helpful and cool because they provide a tactile and prop benefit.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Something I've been wondering about - what is the purpose of empty rooms? Why not just use longer corridors if you want a bigger physical gap?

In OD&D, only a third (a roll of 1 or 2 on a d6) of the rooms contain monsters. Of the monsterless rooms, 1 in 6 of those contain treasure, which should be hidden or otherwise hard to get at (in a trapped chest, for example).

So what is the purpose of all these rooms that contain nothing? Are the PCs expected to search them all, in hopes they may contain hidden treasure? Do they look interesting with furnishings and statuary and so forth or are they featureless?

It seems to me that a lot of time is going to be spent describing rooms that contain nothing of importance. Another way to put it would be -

Twenty minutes of fun packed into four hours.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Among other obvious uses, foreshadowing.

 

[Reynard]

Something I've been wondering about - what is the purpose of empty rooms? Why not just use longer corridors if you want a bigger physical gap?

In OD&D, only a third (a roll of 1 or 2 on a d6) of the rooms contain monsters. Of the monsterless rooms, 1 in 6 of those contain treasure, which should be hidden or otherwise hard to get at (in a trapped chest, for example).

Lacking monsters and/or treasure != empty.

So what is the purpose of all these rooms that contain nothing? Are the PCs expected to search them all, in hopes they may contain hidden treasure? Do they look interesting with furnishings and statuary and so forth or are they featureless?

IMC, IMO and IME: yes to all of the above, sometimes.

It seems to me that a lot of time is going to be spent describing rooms that contain nothing of importance. Another way to put it would be -

Twenty minutes of fun packed into four hours.

This goes to a definition of fun that is entirely subjective. The dungeon crawl is a particular kind of play, preferable to a particular kind of player. Some people think short, directed and linear "site based adventures" are teribly boring. Some people think a D&D campaign that consist of only "things of importance" is terribly boring AND predictable. Some people think "20 minutes of fun packed into four hours" refers to combat.

IOW, there are no answers to your questions that don't boil down to "because it's fun (for me)". One could attempt to explain why it is more fun to explore 66% "empty" rooms and have players describe their physical positions rather than relying on a skill check, but I doubt it would be worth the effort. Either such a thing sounds like fun to you, or it doesn't. And even if it does, you'd still have to sit down at the table and play that way to know for certain.

 

[Doug McCrae]

In the OD&D example of play, the party don't enter the, presumably, empty room. They listen at the door and hear nothing, so they go on to the next door, hear monsters, and kill them.

I think the main reason for this is that speed is very important in OD&D, due to wandering monster checks. The 1-in-6 chance that a monsterless room might have hidden treasure is actually not high enough to be worth the risk of random encounters.

Incidentally, in the play example, the players obviously know the rules very well. For instance, they know that boots and cloaks are the only kinds of clothing that can be magical - "do there seem to be any old boots or cloaks among the old clothes in the rubbish pile?" So I would assume they know the chances of a monster-free room containing treasure.

EDIT: The other reason for only entering a room when you've heard monsters might be to gain surprise advantage.

 

[Wiseblood]

I beg to differ. Treasure is quiet therefore I would entre the rooms without noise.