How much "dungeon crawl" do you like in a campaign?

[Hjorimir]

I LOVE a good dungeon crawl if it is put together well. All too often DMs get very lazy with dungeons where rooms are furnished with nothing more than a pile of furs for monsters to sleep on and maybe a chest.

A good dungeon should have both a logical theme and ecology as well as some interesting characteristics that make the players think. Thinking players discuss and that leads to role-playing (which I'm a big fan of).

I voted 30% thinking pure dungeon as opposed to site-based encounters. If that was the intention, I would have said more like 70% with 30% random encounters.

 

[Terwox]

Generally, about 20-30%. I tend to do a lot of overland encounters. My last campaign had no dungeons... well, maybe a few "site-based" adventures, I guess.
Hah. Call a site-based adventure "anything that involves mapping a continuous location that involves rolling initiative more than once (and stands up to common sense, no world-maps.)"
Totally depends on the game, though. I don't use dungeons very often, though. I like them though.
Further, I think I've never really gotten to go through one... maybe one. It's really rare. DM's I've played under just don't like them.
DM's I've played under also have a bad habit of ignoring the rest of the group while one person gets the limelight.
This also seems to coincide with DM's who do not like to play -- I think DM's like that don't like to play because they don't get enough limelight -- if you're DM'ing, you get the limelight 100% of the time.
Just my idea, shrug.

 

[PJ-Mason]

Thats a good point about about varying definitions about Dungeon crawls. I voted 10%, but if you added in everything that could possibly be construed as a crawl (such as an assault on a light-house or something) the rate would probably rise to 30, maybe 40.

My knee-jerk reaction to the words "Dungeon Crawl" is that i go into shock, grow cold to the touch, rock back and forth, and start mumbling the words "you see a 10x10 room" over and over again, then eventually pass out.

 

[jeffh]

I think we're seeing the market getting behind the times in this regard. When I was a kid playing 2nd Edition, my friends and I gleefully ducked into every yawning cavern that was presented to us, no need for plot hooks in those days. But gamers have actually gotten more sophisticated in excatly how much ham well take in our fantasy sandwich. Yet the market is still putting out largely dungeon oriented adventures. Sure the dungeon offers some real advantages logistically: more predictable forks, no need for the massive simulations required to model societies and ecology, more of a reason for the PCs to be doing all the heavy lifting.

This is, as far as I can tell, exactly backwards.

It was in the 2E days that most modules avoided straight dungeon crawl setups in favour of story-based adventures, often with explicitly lableled "acts" and "scenes" like a play. When a dungeon crawl came out, it was a big deal. Nowadays there's something of a nostalgia kick; it's not that the companies haven't gotten away from dungeons, it's that they have, then they went back. This is apparently driven by, not ignorance of what people are asking for, but in direct response to it.

In short, for just about every point you make, the opposite seems to be the actual case.

 

[Pants]

Dungeon crawls... I very rarely ever use dungeon crawls. I tried to run RttToEE, but the game just got bogged down and slowly died. I do, however, use small, site based adventurers based around a small locale (not always a dungeon), but these tend to last only for 1 or 2 sessions before the players have finished exploring/looting the area.
Extended dungeon crawls would be very difficult for me to keep interesting. For one, I just don't have much of a knack for fleshing out the various rooms, corridors, and areas typically within a dungeon. I have a hard time with small locales, but big, extended dungeons would most likely tear my brain apart. I'm much better at rp-ing, intruige, and politics than at doing interesting dungeon crawls.

Still, I love them. I really like dungeon crawls that can provide interesting situations and locales AND not get bogged down. That would be great and I'd love to either run or play in such a game.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I love dungeon crawls, especially when playing a rogue. There's something about wandering through a dungeon complex that makes things come alive for me.

I tend not to like playing social characters, so political intrigue interests me about as much as slitting my own wrists. Outdoors stuff is okay, but then you get things diving out of the sky and trying to eat you; at least, in a dungeon, it doesn't rain on you.

Brad

 

[tjoneslo]

I voted 0%. After many years of walking though dungeons (both as player and as DM), I can't imagine anything less I'd like to do than kill monsters and loot treasure in a small space. I, and the players I play with, so prefer interacting with NPCs (and each other). If killing needs to be done, it get's done, but dungeon crawls are not something we do.

 

[ForceUser]

I voted 50%, but for me "dungeon" means "site-based encounter." I like to balance meaningful, story-driven roleplaying with hardcore action.

 

[FireLance]

Apart from flavor, I don't see how a dungeon crawl is different from any other adventure. In a recent adventure in my Eberron campaign, the PCs had to venture into a goblin ghetto under Sharn to retrieve a gem. Although the actual game (AG) was more role-play and puzzle based, it could easily be translated into a typical dungeon crawl (DC):

AG: The PCs descend into the depths of Sharn.
DC: The PCs travel to the dungeon.

AG: The PCs visit an information broker to learn the identity of the thief.
DC: The PCs find a scrap of paper telling them of a secret door.

AG: The PCs make a Gather Information check to find the thief.
DC: The PCs make a Search check to find the secret door.

AG: The PCs go to the thief's hideout.
DC: The PCs walk down the corridor behind the secret door.

AG: The PCs fight opponents who are also after the gem.
DC: The PCs encounter wandering monsters.

AG: The PCs arrive at the thief's hideout and find and disable a trap.
DC: The PCs arrive at the end of the corridor and find and disable a trap.

AG: The PCs fight the BBEG and retrieve the gem.
DC: The PCs fight the BBEG and retrieve the gem.

Admittedly, there were a few more twists and turns in the actual game, but if you break a game down into a series of challenges, it doesn't really matter whether it is a dungeon crawl or not.

 

[TheAuldGrump]

I said about 20% of the time, but it tends to cluster (3-4 session crawl, then nothing at all for many sessions).

Yep, sounds 'bout right. between 15 and 20 percent, but clumped.

The Auld Grump