D&D General Taking the "Dungeons" out of D&D

[Greg Benage]

If you want the players to engage with politics, social positioning, war, and interpersonal relations, you should have robust rules for that and... in D&D, we don't.

I don't really agree with this. Rules and robust structures are more useful for some things than others. Something like combat, IMO, needs more of that than politics or interpersonal relations. Larding those areas of play up with more rules and robust structures is, to me, detrimental to the game. OTOH, I think we could use some more rules and structure around exploration--I know these are all subjective preferences.

 

[Stalker0]

I think others have nailed, the only real key consideration is how you want to handle fewer encounters per day...I mean you could have 6-8 encounters per day in an outdoors area I suppose, but I think it makes sense in most worlds.

This could be formal houserules to address recharging or just a note to players that long rest classes may get to nova more and look stronger than they do on paper. If you want one idea to help with recharge I posted this recharge concept just the other week to help with fewer encounters per day:

D&D 5E - Short Rest Replacement - The Drive Recharge System

So I've been tinkering with this concept, and I'm putting out an initial beta to get people's initial reaction. This is very much a rough draft, the numbers will certainly need tweaking, but it shows clearly what I am going for, so people can tell me if they like the concept of if I'm going in...

www.enworld.org

 

[Bawylie]

It looks the same. The adventure still has a goal/objective and something like 1-6 obstacles of varying difficulty between the adventurers and the goal. There are transitions between scenes and a light amount of resource management.

The only real difference is that in a dungeon, the structure of the adventure is apparent (it’s walls and halls and rooms). Whereas outside the dungeon, the structure is less like physical boundaries and more like chasing down objectives on a scavenger hunt.

When you really “pull back” and think about adventures as an organizational tool, you’ll find it easier to write your GoT or LotR scenarios. The physical scale may be different (and there are rules for travel you might brush up on), and the obstacles may be less straightforward than locked doors, monsters, and traps. And really, we could have benefitted from some stronger guidelines for social interactions in the DMG (not tongue-fu, though, social combat is a bad idea).

 

[Shiroiken]

Political intrigue adventures can run similar to a dungeon in form and function, because time constraints can easily limit resting. This leaves overland travel/exploration as the problem, since putting enough challenge into a day is both difficult, and unfair to short rest classes.

On solution is using the Gritty Realism optional rule. Making characters need to take 7 days for a long rest means that they'll travel several days, then need to rest a week once they're safe. The downside to this is that if you have a site for detailed exploration (similar to a dungeon), you have to limit it considerably or else the party won't have enough resources to return to safety. You could switch between Gritty Realism and standard resting depending on the type of adventuring, but I find this option contrived and unrealistic.

If you want to have adventure at locations, but want the overland travel to have consequences, I'd suggest stealing the exploration rules from the Middle Earth book (sorry, forgot the name). Some adjustment will be required, but it's not that difficult.

 

[Marandahir]

I think Dungeon crawling is a big part of a LOT of fantasy we consume, whether video games, movies, television series, or books.
It just doesn't necessarily look like D&D dungeons, and tend to be less designed like 1986's The Legend of Zelda's underworld labyrinths and more like 2017's The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild's Hyrule Castle: open world exploration of cities and ruins etc.

D&D has a heavy dose of Indiana Jones in its DNA, and that's not a bad thing.

Certainly when it's all about dungeon crawling or getting from the end of one dungeon to the beginning of another, the game starts to lose it's grounding in when compared to modern fantasies (I compared Zelda before, but most fantasy stories outside of the video game medium do not send the party to go gather 3 magical stones to get a sacred sword out of a pedestal and then 6 more magic mcguffins to unlock the seal to the big bad's lair).

Most fantasy series do have a driving plot, and often seek for a sweeping view of a country, continent, or fantasy worldspace to give a taste of various different morsels. This means that the outdoor exploration tier tends to be heavily represented in fantasy fiction, but D&D's dungeon-crawling roots aren't as well suited/adjusted for "The Fellowship Travels Across Country" portion of the game.

Unfortunately discontinued (at least for the time being) TTRPGs The One Ring and its 5e-compatible adaptation Adventures in Middle-earth provide a useful feature to the game that tracks the sorts of challenges a company or fellowship might face in the wild and how they might work together over large scales of time and distance. It's a good idea to zoom out when exploring, only to zoom back in for the occasional wolf pack or bear attack when relevant.

When I play Breath of the Wild, most of the adventure is just me and my wits and stamina against the elements (most often against the rain, darn slippery rockfaces! But also against the cold of the mountains, or the heat of the desert or volcano, or the darkness of a forest enveloped in magical night). In a given playthrough I might run into some bokoblins/keese/octoroks/chuchus, or moblins/lizalfoes/lynels/hinoxes/moldugas if I'm unlucky or venture into dangerous places, but most of the time I can explore safely, or find a safer route around the problems so I can focus on my fruit, veggie, bug, and mineral collections, or focus on making it to that next major landmark or far off in the distance.

Exploration Pillar needs a lot of work. I don't think D&D has an inherent problem with it, but the game does a very decent job explaining the combat encounter, how magic works, and dungeon crawling, and a decent job of explaining social encounters and how background characters tie the characters to the plot, but a really poor job explaining everything in-between, especially when it gets to large expanses of time and/or distance.

I think trying to load that pillar up onto the back of the Ranger was part of the problem (and why the Ranger is seen as a poorly-designed class, as written in the PHB, at least). I think a lot more heavy lifting could be done by the core rules themselves.

 

[Asisreo]

The obvious starting point is with the basic assumptions of six encounters in a day. That's something which basically never occurs outside of a dungeon scenario.

Following up from that means addressing basically every aspect of resource management, especially Hit Dice and spell slots.

I don't understand why there's this assumption that a balanced day requires at least 6 encounters. Not only is that untrue, but it permeates a sense that a DM takes away from classes like warlocks or monks if they do not have the 6-8 encounters.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I don't understand why there's this assumption that a balanced day requires at least 6 encounters.

Really? After all these years, you don't get where that's coming from? I find that very hard to believe.

 

[Oofta]

I almost never use dungeons, the game works just fine. I do use the alternate long rest rules because it suits the pace of the game better.

As far as rules for the non combat portion of the game I personally don't want it. I don't want people trying to game the system or even thinking of it in game terms. The stuff that happens outside of combat is the story we're telling as a group, not something based on charts, faction points or allegiances. It's the mayor giving aid to the PCs because they helped a cousin, a lawmaker secretly plotting against the group because they hurt his off the books business.

Yes it means a little more work for the DM, but for me that's half the fun.

 

[Reynard]

I almost never use dungeons, the game works just fine. I do use the alternate long rest rules because it suits the pace of the game better.

As far as rules for the non combat portion of the game I personally don't want it. I don't want people trying to game the system or even thinking of it in game terms. The stuff that happens outside of combat is the story we're telling as a group, not something based on charts, faction points or allegiances. It's the mayor giving aid to the PCs because they helped a cousin, a lawmaker secretly plotting against the group because they hurt his off the books business.

Yes it means a little more work for the DM, but for me that's half the fun.

I am of two minds on out of combat mechanics. I agree with you in many respects, but I also feel like when you have fewer mechanics for, say, "social combat" you end up punishing players who aren't necessarily good at that thing even when they want to play a character that is. No one has to prove they can really fight to play the heavy, why should a player have to be charming to play the face? That sort of thing.

 

[erc1971]

I have never made liberal use of dungeons in my fantasy games. I use them in about a third of the time when I am GM'ing. While they can be fun now and then, having the character's isolated for so long from other non-hostile people limits role playing options. And, I love the epic feel of defending a town or village. Nothing says awesome as you fight off a horde of bandits or orcs as the helpless villagers look on, with you as the only thing standing between them and slaughter!