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

[Reynard]

Moldvay Basic, the second greatest dungeoncrawling engine in the history of TTRPGs, is not light.

See, this is definitely an issue of using definitions. Compared to modern D&D Moldvay is exceedingly light. It fits in a 64 page rulebook, just for a start.

 

[Manbearcat]

See, this is definitely an issue of using definitions. Compared to modern D&D Moldvay is exceedingly light. It fits in a 64 page rulebook, just for a start.

Probably. The way I would classify Moldvay Basic is extraordinarily economic, not light. That is because an orthodox Moldvay game has layers of integrated procedures and loops that all participants have to constantly execute and cognitively weigh throughout the course of a single dungeon.

Its just a brilliantly conceived and executed engine with a lot of functional stuff coherently packed into a comparatively small booklet. But there is a lot to it.

 

[Reynard]

Probably. The way I would classify Moldvay Basic is extraordinarily economic, not light. That is because an orthodox Moldvay game has layers of integrated procedures and loops that all participants have to constantly execute and cognitively weigh throughout the course of a single dungeon.

Its just a brilliantly conceived and executed engine with a lot of functional stuff coherently packed into a comparatively small booklet. But there is a lot to it.

That is an interesting distinction I don't think I have encountered before. Can you explain more about it? Can you name a game that is light but not economical?

 

[Staffan]

This essentially undermines the whole point. Which is fine if you don't actually want to engage in a dungeon crawl, but not much help when discussing how to best engage in a dungeon crawl.

Allow me to explain.

This is the core part of the Princes of the Apocalypse campaign. It is meant to be the "ancient dwarven citadel of Tyar-Besil", and represents about 3-4 levels of adventuring. Each of these quarters has a path to the surface, with about 10-15 miles between the two farthest ones. So you'd expect this to be pretty huge, right?

Spoiler: Princes of the Apocalypse

The whole thing is about 900 by 700 feet (860 by 680, if I counted it right). It's about the size of two by two New York city blocks. By comparison, almost by coincidence, that's about the same size as the village of Red Larch, which is meant as the adventure's "safe space".

Now, I certainly wouldn't want there to be more actual adventuring locations to make the place worthy of being considered a "citadel". It took forever to play through this place, and it was definitely a contributing factor to my distaste for big dungeons. What I would do is to figure out one to three interesting zones on each map, cut them out, and put a whole lot of "generic ruined dwarf city" in between them. I'd treat moving through this similar to how Mutant: Year Zero treats moving through the Zone. First time you're moving through a region, you'd be subject to random events and/or encounters (some of which might be mini-zones on their own), but after that you have found a safe(ish) path with significantly reduced risk of bad things happening. You can keep exploring into new areas for more random stuff, or focus on the areas that actually matter if you're being goal-oriented. But you'd still have roughtly the same amount of places of interest, just spread out farther.

 

[Reynard]

Allow me to explain.

This is the core part of the Princes of the Apocalypse campaign. It is meant to be the "ancient dwarven citadel of Tyar-Besil", and represents about 3-4 levels of adventuring. Each of these quarters has a path to the surface, with about 10-15 miles between the two farthest ones. So you'd expect this to be pretty huge, right?

Spoiler: Princes of the Apocalypse

View attachment 375554

The whole thing is about 900 by 700 feet (860 by 680, if I counted it right). It's about the size of two by two New York city blocks. By comparison, almost by coincidence, that's about the same size as the village of Red Larch, which is meant as the adventure's "safe space".

Now, I certainly wouldn't want there to be more actual adventuring locations to make the place worthy of being considered a "citadel". It took forever to play through this place, and it was definitely a contributing factor to my distaste for big dungeons. What I would do is to figure out one to three interesting zones on each map, cut them out, and put a whole lot of "generic ruined dwarf city" in between them. I'd treat moving through this similar to how Mutant: Year Zero treats moving through the Zone. First time you're moving through a region, you'd be subject to random events and/or encounters (some of which might be mini-zones on their own), but after that you have found a safe(ish) path with significantly reduced risk of bad things happening. You can keep exploring into new areas for more random stuff, or focus on the areas that actually matter if you're being goal-oriented. But you'd still have roughtly the same amount of places of interest, just spread out farther.

Again, i don't think there is anything wrong with this. This is actually the basic methodology in the new The One Ring MORIA adventure book -- it treats Moria like a wilderness exploration, rather than a dungeon crawl, as you describe. And I think it is the right way to go for a location that size. The Underdark, broadly, works the same way.

But those things, not even Moria, aren't megadungeons in the D&D sense. D&D megadungeons are not that big from the standpoint of just measuring distances. it is more about room count than anything else.

Of course, a good dungeon crawl doesn't require a megadungeon. I actually prefer dungeons of somewhat more limited scope, appropriate for a couple character levels worth of adventuring, rather than a whole campaign in one megadungeon. But that is mostly because I like changing up scenery etc.

 

[SpellObjectEnthusiast]

See, this is definitely an issue of using definitions. Compared to modern D&D Moldvay is exceedingly light. It fits in a 64 page rulebook, just for a start.

Yeah but the cost of that is the layout is an absolute nightmare.

 

[Mannahnin]

For whatever its worth, we absolutely used to have a Mapper back in our old OD&D days, but we not only didn't use, but I never even encountered a game where someone used a Caller.

The only times I've used a Caller are in large groups for old school play.

The first time I can remember doing so was in 2010, Frank Mentzer running Palace of the Vampire Queen at TotalCon for 12 players. We actually had two Callers- one for each table of six players, which represented the front and back halves of the marching order.

And during the pandemic with large groups (over six players) playing OD&D or B/X over Zoom or other videoconferencing software. A Caller helps keep the group organized and play flowing smoothly, but also helps mitigate the audio stream issue with online play, reducing the amount of overtalking which happens.

 

[Manbearcat]

That is an interesting distinction I don't think I have encountered before. Can you explain more about it? Can you name a game that is light but not economical?

The economic I'm aiming for here is economic with respect to (a) reducing general overhead and handling time while simultaneously maintaining both (b) the focus of its play and (c) the magnitude of its decisions (both individual decisions in isolation and the throughline of a connected sequence).

Economic and light also need to index expectations of proportionality. If you tell me something is "rules light", well...my expectation is that, while it is going to be a truncated play experience (for all values of "play experience" here) that it still possesses all the means to resolve essential gamestate and situation-state changes. You don't get to be exempt from that responsibility just because you've written one page (or ten pages) of rules.

Here is an example.

Lasers & Feelings (this is not a knock on Harper's work...I think (?) you know I'm a big fan John Harper's thoughts and execution as it pertains to game design). This game is ultralight but I wouldn't classify it as economic because, despite its extraordinary lack of rules density, the experience of running it (and playing it...but I ran it) is way more burdensome than I would like. That is because it is basically Apocalypse World layer 1. While certainly playable (as an AW layer 1 game is), the blank space inherent to L&F's lightness demands that the GM/table answer some very key, very consequential questions during play about resolution that get answered by AW layers 2 through 3 (or even 4).

Put another way, absence of key rules/procedures can be just as confounding and labor intensive to play as presence of rules/procedures (and L&F exemplifies this imo).

 

[Reynard]

Yeah but the cost of that is the layout is an absolute nightmare.

I think that's more a function of era. it took a while for folks to realize that RPG rules did not need to look like stereo instructions.

 

[Reynard]

The economic I'm aiming for here is economic with respect to (a) reducing general overhead and handling time while simultaneously maintaining both (b) the focus of its play and (c) the magnitude of its decisions (both individual decisions in isolation and the throughline of a connected sequence).

Economic and light also need to index expectations of proportionality. If you tell me something is "rules light", well...my expectation is that, while it is going to be a truncated play experience (for all values of "play experience" here) that it still possesses all the means to resolve essential gamestate and situation-state changes. You don't get to be exempt from that responsibility just because you've written one page (or ten pages) of rules.

Here is an example.

Lasers & Feelings (this is not a knock on Harper's work...I think (?) you know I'm a big fan John Harper's thoughts and execution as it pertains to game design). This game is ultralight but I wouldn't classify it as economic because, despite its extraordinary lack of rules density, the experience of running it (and playing it...but I ran it) is way more burdensome than I would like. That is because it is basically Apocalypse World layer 1. While certainly playable (as an AW layer 1 game is), the blank space inherent to L&F's lightness demands that the GM/table answer some very key, very consequential questions during play about resolution that get answered by AW layers 2 through 3 (or even 4).

Put another way, absence of key rules/procedures can be just as confounding and labor intensive to play as presence of rules/procedures (and L&F exemplifies this imo).

I think I see what you are saying. I will say, though, that this is the first time I have ever encountered this particular definition of "rules light."