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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Hrothgar Rannúlfr" data-source="post: 4054639" data-attributes="member: 54436">When we ran a certain section of The Shackled City, one of my players often complained about the size of the rooms and hallways.  He said they were too small and it felt too cramped.  No room to manuever, at all.  And, the first characters into the fights were just about the only ones that could particiapate due to the cramped quarters.I like the idea of the minimum encounter area, but at the same time, I believe that sometimes cramped quarters are necessary to the story.  In that section of The Shackled City, I felt the size of the areas was just right based upon the history of the location and who built the structure.What I did to compensate was to run groups of rooms and hallways at once.  In the fights, the dungeon denizens would backtrakc through various passages in attempt to surround the PC's and cut off their exit to the surface.  They would also try to cut the PC's off from one another, too.  The monsters would also use horns, drums, gongs, etc... to warn as much of the dungeon as possible about the intruders.  It had a very epic feel to it in the way that it played out.  This was well before <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/drdd/20070827a" target="_blank">Mearls suggested that encounters in 4e might be designed as groups of rooms rather than single room encounters</a>.</blockquote>