Rules of dungeon crawling - player's perspective

[bushfire]

Over at the Necromancer Games forums there is a thread in General called "Veteran Advice" with pages of tips on dungeon crawling, and surviving it.

http://pub123.ezboard.com/fnecromancergamesfrm9.showMessage?topicID=597.topic

bushfire

 

[El Ravager]

Always go left. Not sure why, but its been established in our group that in any intersection you always go left.

 

[Exquisite Dead Guy]

Always go left. Not sure why, but its been established in our group that in any intersection you always go left.

It isn't just your group that does that. Every group I've ever played with/DM'd has firmly believed that "left is right".

 

[Pseudonym]

- always search the first room for secret doors, passages, traps, hidden panels, buttons, locks, etc... and keep doing it until the DM gets sick and tired of it. that way when you go to the next room and start to rinse and repeat he will just cave-in and tell you where everything is.

That strategy is how we got through the original Tomb of Horrors back in the day. Well, most of us anyway.

 

[Pseudonym]

Always go left. Not sure why, but its been established in our group that in any intersection you always go left.

We usually go with "right hand rule" and go right when given a option.

 

[Frostmarrow]

Always go left. Not sure why, but its been established in our group that in any intersection you always go left.

By consistantly choosing the left path you make sure that you won't become lost in a maze. It works with consistent right, too. It doesn't work if the maze is three-dimensional.

But that's not the only reason why parties do so. By always choosing the left door, you cut down on time otherwise spent deciding.

 

[Altalazar]

In 1E we had a long, standard list of things we'd do. I can't even remember them all now. My favorite, though, was that everyone walked 22 1/2 feet apart (so a fireball could only get one person, at most).

All statues were attacked and turned to dust.

All girdles were assumed to change your sex.

And now I wish i could remember more - I'll have to ask my old 1E group to see what else they remember.

 

[Flyspeck23]

By consistantly choosing the left path you make sure that you won't become lost in a maze. It works with consistent right, too. It doesn't work if the maze is three-dimensional.

... and it doesn't work to search the whole dungeon. As stated before, this tactic helps you from getting lost.

Knowing that, take a look at the Morkoth (MM2, p.153) and the rules on Morkoth tunnels. WotC wants to make us believe that "a creature using this method can eventually find the morkoth's chamber without error", while this hasn't got to be the case...


Anyway, the dungeon crawling rule would be:

- When lost, choose one and the same direction (left or right) every time there's a choice.

 

[Whisper72]

On the whole 'choose left or right when lost' issue.... only if the DM is not nasty enuff to use sliding walls, rotating rooms, teleport portals, multidimensional dungeons (i.e. it feels as if you walk straight, but gravity is switching such that you may be walking on the ceiling after traveling a long 'straight' line in a long tunnel) etc...

Muahahah!

 

[RuminDange]

A few goods ones:
1: Look up before a entering a room. Poke the ceiling if you can.
2: Poke the floor before walking on it, especially if it has a rug on it.
3: When in doubt and you have the resources, use Recon by force...ie...send a fireball in first.


RD