How large should you're average dungeon be?

[Imaro]

So, I was looking over KotS a few days ago and something occurred to me... if I'm ever going to use this adventure, I would definitely have to cut down some of the rooms in the actual keep. This in turn got me to thinking if my group is abnormal when it comes to the amount of continuous dungeoncrawl my group finds enjoyable. So I decided to put a poll up. If you comment, I would appreciate if you state whether you play, DM or both (and what percentage of both) as I am also wondering if the answer to this question is different upon whether one plays or DMs more.

So tell me how many rooms of continuous dungeoncrawl do you find is your upper limit for enjoyability...

 

[Cor Azer]

I'm pretty much always a Dm, but I have yet to hit an upper limit my players enjoy. That said, any dungeons (or dungeon-like structures) they encounter are only as big as they need to be for the plot to progress. Sometimes its a one-room tomb, other times its a multi-floor temple with associated catacombs that takes 2-3 adventures to fully explore. I haven't really tried anything much larger than that, but there's been no sign of ennui or any displeasure with the size.

 

[Jack99]

I try to keep my dungeons at somewhere around 4-8 rooms, but rarely fill every single room with monsters.

 

[Rechan]

I try to keep my dungeons at somewhere around 4-8 rooms, but rarely fill every single room with monsters.

The last part of this sentence is a good point.

A dungeon really shouldn't have a monster in each room. There should be empty rooms. Rooms for exploring. Rooms for pacing. Etc etc.

I think a good 6-7 encounters are the maximum, for me. The biggest offense in my eyes is going into a dungeon and coming out more than one level higher. I'd rather get "more" from each level.

 

[the Jester]

If it's a good dungeon with an lot of variation in it, I can play an entire campaign in a dungeon.

Currently, I'm running a dungeon with somewhere over 100 rooms in it. The pcs have options for leaving, have a strong motivation for exploring and finding their way to the top and then out (they came into it in the middle of about level 5 or 6 via a teleport circle) and have a variety of empty rooms, monsters, traps and weird features to interact with.

 

[Mouseferatu]

I'm not normally a fan of huge dungeons. I prefer small crawls, mixed in with lots and lots of non-dungeon scenarios. In fact, I prefer a campaign with no crawls to a campaign with lots of them.

But that said, it depends on the dungeon. While my overwhelming preference is for short ones, if the encounters are varied and interesting enough, advance the plot, are more than just combat for combat's sake, and are set up in some way so there's more to do than just go room to room, then size is irrelevant so long as it stays interesting.

(Also, nitpick: "You're" = "you are." The possessive you wanted is "your.")

 

[darjr]

Yea, little dungeons. Just lots of them jammed into a small valley.

 

[the Jester]

On a side note, make up your mind what the question is when you post a poll. The thread title is NOT the same as the question in the poll; which are you expecting people to answer? You certainly aren't getting any kind of real poll results when half are answering the thread title and half are answering the poll question.

For the record, I answered the poll question. To answer the thread title, I'd say an average dungeon should be around 4-10 encounters spread over 4-20 rooms or areas.

 

[Betote]

The ideal size for me would be 8-12 rooms, with 4-8 combats. About a third of the room count should consist of roleplaying encounters, traps, treasure, story elements or just empty rooms.

That'd be for an adventure that was essentially a dungeon (as in PF20's "The House of the Beast"). For an adventure with[/] a dungeon (as in a mystery where the final clue/item/treasure/enemy is in a dungeon), I prefer 4-8 rooms, with 2-4 combats.

Te occasional megadungeon (as "Tomb of Abysthor") is good as the background element of a campaign, and you definitely need some more places for the PCs to go. In this cases, the big dungeon is in fact reduced to 4-8-room adventure sites inside that dungeon.

 

[Vorput]

I voted 8-12, but at least 4-5 of those wouldn't have monsters. They'd have a riddle or trap, or even just be ambiance with maybe a treasure hidden in.

In fact the more I think about my vote, the more I think I should have chosen 4-8...