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

[Aldarc]

If you are going to suggest 5E is a lighter game than B/X, I'm not sure there's much to discuss.

There's definitely not anything to discuss if this is your reading of my post.

 

[Neonchameleon]

No, but it doesn't mean speed makes it better, either. I'd rather have less areas with more engagement than the other way around.

Yes it does. If a dungeon only has five interesting locations and twenty tedious ones then it's a better adventure if you get to the interesting ones in two sessions than if you do in ten.

 

[Reynard]

Yes it does. If a dungeon only has five interesting locations and twenty tedious ones then it's a better adventure if you get to the interesting ones in two sessions than if you do in ten.

Also, don't make the ratio of interesting to tedious 1:4.

 

[Reynard]

On "tedious" rooms: the most important resource in dungeon crawling is time, and empty or "tedious" rooms are there primarily to sap that resource. The expectation is that about half of apparently empty rooms will contain either a trap or a hidden treasure. Speeding through the empty rooms means potentially leaving a dangerous obstacle in your path on the way out (remember, traps only go off some of the time, usually a 2 in 6 chance),or missing out on treasure aka XP.

Presenting the "tedious" rooms as interesting is one of the most important skills of the dungeon crawl GM.

 

[Neonchameleon]

Also, don't make the ratio of interesting to tedious 1:4.

Ratio in terms of what? If I'm building a dungeon based on a castle I might have four servant's quarters or privies for every duke's bedroom or ballroom. And there won't be much loot in the former two categories. In terms of volume of floorspace I therefore have no problem with the idea that most areas aren't intended to be highlights. But I barely expect to spend any time in the less interesting locations; in terms of time it's not 1:4. And something that slows the game down everywhere means that proportionally more time is spent in the less interesting locations.

 

[Reynard]

Ratio in terms of what? If I'm building a dungeon based on a castle I might have four servant's quarters or privies for every duke's bedroom or ballroom. And there won't be much loot in the former two categories. In terms of volume of floorspace I therefore have no problem with the idea that most areas aren't intended to be highlights. But I barely expect to spend any time in the less interesting locations; in terms of time it's not 1:4. And something that slows the game down everywhere means that proportionally more time is spent in the less interesting locations.

I don't think the former use of the dungeon should have a huge impact on what's in any given room in its current state. How long has the castle been abandoned? Who or what has occupied it since? What strange goings ons have changed it? That sort of thing.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Yes it does. If a dungeon only has five interesting locations and twenty tedious ones then it's a better adventure if you get to the interesting ones in two sessions than if you do in ten.

This assumes the twenty-tedious ones will engage as much of the mechanics as the five interesting ones. The only reason I can see that being true is if there's a lot of dead-execution in the mechanics, or the overall process has degenerated to the "every single thing has to be micromanaged or you die" level of some adversarial early DMing.

So I'm going to kind of stick to my opinion; unless you're trying to stuff too much into the dungeon exploration, you shouldn't need a system that maximizes speed over everything else.

Edit: To make it clear, if Reynard is talking about some of the full-blown pixel-counting levels counting methods some OSR people apparently think is attractive, I simultaneously get his point better and shouldn't be in this thread, because my opinion of that hasn't exactly improved in the last several decades; its intrinsically boring after a pretty short period.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

I don't think the former use of the dungeon should have a huge impact on what's in any given room in its current state. How long has the castle been abandoned? Who or what has occupied it since? What strange goings ons have changed it? That sort of thing.

It should matter for a while, at least. Oftentimes, a ruined fortification won't have everything cleared out of it just because it has new tenants. Large sections may go unused, and thus relatively untouched, other than for looting.

 

[Neonchameleon]

I don't think the former use of the dungeon should have a huge impact on what's in any given room in its current state. How long has the castle been abandoned? Who or what has occupied it since? What strange goings ons have changed it? That sort of thing.

Who said anything about former use? That dungeon was using a literal real world castle map as a castle and outpost connected to the BBEG.

 

[Argyle King]

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?

Disagree.

In theory, it makes sense.

In practice, I've found that rules being "light" doesn't always mean that a set of rules are intuitive or easy to learn.

See Also: The current discussing around how Stealth works in 5e24. On paper, it's a much simpler, streamlined, and "light" rule. However, 50+ pages of discussion about it show that it's not necessarily an intuitive rule or one that is easy to understand (as written).