New Dungeoncraft: The Dungeons of Greenbrier Chasm

[Cake Mage]

The quest cards are not the mechanic. They are a suggestion how to represent them a game, similar to a suggestion of giving the players a hand-out with the map of an area, minus the secret doors, traps and other DM secrets.

The Quests are basically "story-based" XP. So that a DM can grant XP for stuff that's not an encounter with other creatures, or where the XP value of the activity is badly measured with the XP value granted for overcoming the challenge of a monster/NPC. (Like dealing with an aristocrat that you could easily kill, but don't want to, because that's not the solution to your goals...)

I already do this in my 3.5 game. I give xp when they complete a "mission". Usually just bonus xp when they accomplish something.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I already do this in my 3.5 game. I give xp when they complete a "mission". Usually just bonus xp when they accomplish something.

I think a lot of people do it. I think even official adventure modules do it.

The reason why it's part of the game system in 4E seems to be that inexperienced DMs might have trouble coming up with a good guideline on how to do story-based XP. The 3.5 DMG isn't that eloberate on the matter, but it contains several tables for treasure rewards and a big table for XP by Challenge Rating. The MM gives CR values for monsters, and the DMG gives CR values for traps, but there is no equivalent for story-based XP.

 

[Primal]

Full article text:

Last month, we discussed the idea that the opening of the chasm was connected to the burning of the nearby forest.

Um, don't they proofread their articles? I seem to recall that the last Dungeoncraft installment came out in October?

 

[Primal]

Meh. Those maps are pretty bad. He doesn't give any context for them (they were clearly sewer maps, with a ludicrous number of random structures built off them), doesn't give any reason for why they are there or what happens when the PCs wander off down the side tunnels. Its the typical 'here is a random assortment of rooms, lets call it a dungeon' map.

The story ideas aren't bad, but are just as cliched as raiders attacking the town. 'Depravation' is a little out of place, however. Not sure what makes crops and calves 'depraved'

Just... meh.

I agree. All this reminded me heavily of the 'Expedition to Undermountain'-module. First of all, we didn't use the really lousy backstory ("You dream of Halaster dying, and with tearful eyes you realize that you *must* do something for Undermountain... etc.") because it was just laughable. It featured so badly done maps for levels 1 and 2 that they were practically unusable -- not to mention that the rift featured in the 'Delve'-format encounter area maps was not shown at all. And since they couldn't fit the whole level maps on one page, they just cropped them, which resulted in many corridors leading off the edge of the maps. You really needed the original 'Undermountain Boxed Set' to run this adventure properly. All in all,
if I ran this module without the original room and level descriptions, it would feel like the players were stumbling through endlessly long and empty corridors ("Hey, it seems that the reputation of this place is way exaggerated -- so far no monsters or treasure at all, and we've probably mapped half the level!").

Which brings me to my actual point. You see, I think this will be the "new" thesis for Adventure Building in 4E -- you only need the Encounter Areas and the rest of the dungeon will be just "You enter the Halls of the Bronzebottom Dwarven Clan and pass through two miles of empty chambers and musty corridors... *UNTIL* you finally find a set of bronze double doors deep within the halls! Roll for Perception, guys!"-type of short descriptions. Isn't 4E all about combat action, after all? I think it works in fiction (e.g. couldn't imagine why Tolkien would have described every passage or room in Moria) but I *like* to draw maps, and I think this style of DMing (or playing) would not fit me.

 

[WyzardWhately]

Which brings me to my actual point. You see, I think this will be the "new" thesis for Adventure Building in 4E -- you only need the Encounter Areas and the rest of the dungeon will be just "You enter the Halls of the Bronzebottom Dwarven Clan and pass through two miles of empty chambers and musty corridors... *UNTIL* you finally find a set of bronze double doors deep within the halls! Roll for Perception, guys!"-type of short descriptions. Isn't 4E all about combat action, after all? I think it works in fiction (e.g. couldn't imagine why Tolkien would have described every passage or room in Moria) but I *like* to draw maps, and I think this style of DMing (or playing) would not fit me.

I've put some thought into this to. My current idea is to have Dungeoneering or some similar skill useable to navigate vast dungeons like undermountain, moria, the TOEE, etc. If you make the check, you get to the "zone" I have mapped out, or at least to the next bottleneck with a guardian in it. If you fail, well, floors collapse and dump you on the wrong level, encounters with wandering monsters, simply getting lost, etc. Depending on the extent to which I can make all of those results interesting.

 

[Primal]

I've put some thought into this to. My current idea is to have Dungeoneering or some similar skill useable to navigate vast dungeons like undermountain, moria, the TOEE, etc. If you make the check, you get to the "zone" I have mapped out, or at least to the next bottleneck with a guardian in it. If you fail, well, floors collapse and dump you on the wrong level, encounters with wandering monsters, simply getting lost, etc. Depending on the extent to which I can make all of those results interesting.

Hmmm... it might work -- depends on which style of play your players prefer. Yet I fear that 4E is pretty much doing away with "dungeon dressing" (minor details, traps, items, treasure, monsters, hand-outs, etc.) .

And to disagree with mr. Wyatt: I *do* think empty rooms have their place in any dungeon -- you don't always need to have a monster or a "challenge" in a room to make it feel exciting. If my PC finds a hidden pouch of coins, a torn piece of map a mysterious rune scrawled on the floor or in an otherwise empty room, I'm usually excited.

And you need empty rooms so that the "Encounter Areas" and action would feel more special -- i.e. exploring the "empty" areas usually builds up tension very effectively. I remember one particular dwarven delve which had lots of empty chambers (actually most of them very "empty" of both monsters and traps), but then there were many that contained a lot of minor (i.e. "unimportant") details (such as runes and statues) and hidden caches (one even contained a magical shield). Although it took us four or five sessions to completely explore the place, none of us felt bored, because the whole place had felt heavy with tension and ancient history.

 

[AZRogue]

Hmmm... it might work -- depends on which style of play your players prefer. Yet I fear that 4E is pretty much doing away with "dungeon dressing" (minor details, traps, items, treasure, monsters, hand-outs, etc.) .

And to disagree with mr. Wyatt: I *do* think empty rooms have their place in any dungeon -- you don't always need to have a monster or a "challenge" in a room to make it feel exciting. If my PC finds a hidden pouch of coins, a torn piece of map a mysterious rune scrawled on the floor or in an otherwise empty room, I'm usually excited.

And you need empty rooms so that the "Encounter Areas" and action would feel more special -- i.e. exploring the "empty" areas usually builds up tension very effectively. I remember one particular dwarven delve which had lots of empty chambers (actually most of them very "empty" of both monsters and traps), but then there were many that contained a lot of minor (i.e. "unimportant") details (such as runes and statues) and hidden caches (one even contained a magical shield). Although it took us four or five sessions to completely explore the place, none of us felt bored, because the whole place had felt heavy with tension and ancient history.

Haha, that would have never worked with the group I play with. I remember doing a section of Undermountain (I got to play) and we had two empty rooms in a row and a player said "yeah, yeah, that's all nice, but we just keep going, room after room, until we find something interesting. Any small items we throw in the bag, just give us a list later. Let's get a move on it."

We were then attacked by wandering monsters. Higher level wandering monsters.

 

[Cake Mage]

if you do things like that, how are you to put the hidden traps in the dungeon.

"eh, and then you come to another empty hallway. Nothing interesting here, nope."

"so we move on..."

"HAHAHA, there is a trap!!!!, roll a reflex save!!"

kinda lame.

 

[Hella_Tellah]

"You enter the Halls of the Bronzebottom Dwarven Clan and pass through two miles of empty chambers and musty corridors... *UNTIL* you finally find a set of bronze double doors deep within the halls! Roll for Perception, guys!"

That's how I started out running D&D sessions back in the day. I map out the whole area now, but I don't know that it's really improved the game much. I used to just use a battle map when a fight broke out, at which point we'd kind of decide where everyone was by general group consensus. Everything else was purely descriptive, all in our heads. These days I draw out the whole dungeon to scale on a massive graph paper tablet and have the players move their minis around for most of the session, which has made it feel a little more like a board game, for good or ill.

 

[Voss]

Which brings me to my actual point. You see, I think this will be the "new" thesis for Adventure Building in 4E -- you only need the Encounter Areas and the rest of the dungeon will be just "You enter the Halls of the Bronzebottom Dwarven Clan and pass through two miles of empty chambers and musty corridors... *UNTIL* you finally find a set of bronze double doors deep within the halls! Roll for Perception, guys!"-type of short descriptions. Isn't 4E all about combat action, after all?

It certainly seems that way. For me, the uber-dungeon and the senseless dungeons are pretty much played out. I ran the original undermountain box set way back in 2e and, well... wouldn't want to do that again. Or subject players to fight, trap, fight, fight, weirdness, random crap to break up the monotony, portal, fight, blah.

I'd rather have plots and intrigues and heroics, rather than just a dungeon where you go in and kill everything, thats standing around waiting to be killed. And while dungeons can be used for that, but the big crawls of the past were a bit one dimensional.