D&D General Hot Take: Dungeon Exploration Requires Light Rules To Be Fun

[Reynard]

I ran Abomination vaults for a little bit as a method to learn PF2E, and found that the the complex rules made dungeon delving a chore. I ran and played in a 5E Rappan Athuk game with similar results, plus incongruities of matching that system to old school sensibilities. There were other attempts at dungeon crawling with PF1 and 3.x era D&D, all failures to some degree or another.

Upon discovering 5 Torches Deep, Shadowdark and other rules light D&D inspired games, i have come to the conclusion that dungeon crawling requires a rules light approach in order to be fun. Unwieldy, complex systems are slow, and turn the crawl into a grind. The juice isn't worth the squeeze, as the saying goes.

Do you agree? What are your thoughts on dungeon crawling versus rules complexity?

 

[payn]

Yeap, new school games have left the dungeon behind. Thats obviously going to be a feature for some, bug for others.

 

[Ringtail]

Yes and no, I think its less about how much rules and more about where they are focused.

5e, PF, 3.5, etc. have either very granular or very hands off rules for how much time passes in a dungeon. Things I find important for random encounters, duration of torches/magic, etc. All which is integral to the dungeon crawling experience.

B/X (and its clones) and Dragonbane have quick, abstracted rules for time, which makes measuring time easy. Now I know how long you've been in here, how often I check for an encounter, how long that spell lasts, when you need to rest, etc.

Other things are important too. The fact that modern D&D gives most everyone permanent dark vision removes darkness as a challenge, what little remains is usually handwaived. Carrying capacity is once again, either nonexistent, or so granular nobody wants to bother. Once again B/X and Dragonbane have abstracted systems that make tracking it meaningful but not complex.

If you remove these elements, it doesn't really feel like exploring a dungeon, just a series of linked encounters in a dungeon setting. Which is fine, not every "dungeon" needs to be a Dungeon.

 

[TiQuinn]

I ran Abomination vaults for a little bit as a method to learn PF2E, and found that the the complex rules made dungeon delving a chore. I ran and played in a 5E Rappan Athuk game with similar results, plus incongruities of matching that system to old school sensibilities. There were other attempts at dungeon crawling with PF1 and 3.x era D&D, all failures to some degree or another.

Upon discovering 5 Torches Deep, Shadowdark and other rules light D&D inspired games, i have come to the conclusion that dungeon crawling requires a rules light approach in order to be fun. Unwieldy, complex systems are slow, and turn the crawl into a grind. The juice isn't worth the squeeze, as the saying goes.

Do you agree? What are your thoughts on dungeon crawling versus rules complexity?

Depends on what you consider dungeon crawling. If it’s the actual searching, avoiding traps, mapping, getting lost, dealing with light and having to track resources portion of dungeon crawling, I agree. Conversely, I played through Dungeon of the Mad Mage with 5e and we essentially passed over the aforementioned nitty gritty of dungeon crawling and the dungeon became largely the setting for the adventure, but it still played wonderfully with plenty of traps, strange things to interact with and obviously plenty of encounters. But because we were 5e characters, there wasn’t the same threat of “death waits around every corner if you aren’t cautious” feeling.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

Exploration in PF2 is extremely fast, I don't understand what you're talking about.

 

[Staffan]

Of course you need light rules for dungeon crawling. Otherwise, how do you know when the torches run out?

 

[payn]

Of course you need light rules for dungeon crawling. Otherwise, how do you know when the torches run out?

 

[overgeeked]

i have come to the conclusion that dungeon crawling requires a rules light approach in order to be fun. Unwieldy, complex systems are slow, and turn the crawl into a grind. The juice isn't worth the squeeze, as the saying goes.

Do you agree? What are your thoughts on dungeon crawling versus rules complexity?

Absolutely agree. Though I’d go a big step further. RPGs as a whole require lighter rules to be fun. Unwieldy, complex systems are slow and turn the whole game into a boring grind.

 

[jayoungr]

I think I'm with @Ringtail . For the classic dungeon, you need pretty defined rules for things like passage of time and encumbrance.

 

[payn]

Exploration in PF2 is extremely fast, I don't understand what you're talking about.

My guess is the exploration rules are too general and abstract. That PCs have too many abilities that make the survival sim part of dungeon crawling not a challenge.