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

[Umbran]

I would be all for that.

Which is fair. However, I expect a number of readers would have a strong, even visceral reaction against doing this. That's fine, too, honestly. What I suggest is merely that folks examine that reaction, and why they have it for one pillar, but not the others.

There are games that treat, say, social/political interactions on the exact same mechanical basis as physical combat. Why do we reject something like that notion?

 

[Aldarc]

I suspect that there would be a much higher ratio of “& dragons” in the game.

 

[Flamestrike]

So, what does D&D look like if you presume that you will be emulating not dungeon crawls but Game of Thrones and The Wheel of Time or Lord of the Rings? What mechanical elements, specifically, need to change, be removed or added to make D&D a general fantasy RPG rather than a genre unto itself?

1) Gritty realism resting
2) Slow healing rule (no HP at the end of a long rest)
3) Ban all full casters. Half casters only (maybe also Warlocks)

 

[TheSword]

I’m currently running kingmaker and I was at first stumped by the hexploration, one encounter per day situation recommended by the AP books.

Instead I took a leaf out of the computer games approach. Either...

• Single encounter locations were expanded to have several encounters
• Single encounters were made substantially harder
• Single encounters were pushed towards roleplay encounters or world building therefore combat resource wasn’t relevant.

It’s working well so far. The range keeps things varied but without things being a pushover.

For instance one lair, was given sentries outside (encounter 1) a door guardian (encounter 2), a main lair (encounter 3), a leader and elites (encounter 4), and a beast (encounter 5). Arguably these could be fought in one go by a careless party but it would be an overwhelming fight.

I took a lot of inspiration from the five room dungeon approach. It isn’t just for dungeons...

The Ultimate Guide to 5 Room Dungeons

All sorts of locations can be structured this way.

 

[aco175]

The rules for combat are fairly structured and provide a framework that works. Social interaction and exploration may not be what some want, while others may want/need more rules. We have talked before about reducing a puzzle or a NPC interaction to a die roll and how some are fine with it and others are not, saying that it is taking some of the fun away from the players even if their genius mage would be able to solve the problem. The openness of everything non-combat is hard to make certain rules for- like skill challenges from 4e. They worked to a point, but some did not use them at all, while others found that players were just trying to use their best skill for all the rolls.

I tended to base skill rolls on the player and how much he was involved and how he played the game. Which is only relevant at my table and not anyone else. If I have a table of new players or kids that may not know about puzzles or logic traps and such, then the game needs hints and rolls to help. My father likes the logic puzzles and would not need a roll to give a hint. So to say all interactions need or do not need more rules if rather hard to create all-encompassing rules for.

 

[Charlaquin]

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.

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).

I agree with both of these sentiments, which may seem to contradict each other, but I think are simply using the term “dungeon” differently. Indeed, D&D 5e works fine and dandy as-written for running adventures that don’t revolve around exploring subterranean lairs full of hazzards and enemies. But, in order to make an adventure that isn’t about dungeon delving work smoothly in D&D as-written, you have to make it functionally a dungeon adventure where the adventure’s structure takes the place of dungeon walls. It will still fundamentally be an exercise in exploring the play space, managing resources, and dealing with hazzards and enemies that tax those resources. To fundamentally change the structure and play style of D&D would require a significant overhaul of its systems to move away from exploratory play and attrition-based difficulty. And while I hate to be “that girl,” I don’t know if what you would end up with would feel much like D&D.

 

[dregntael]

The primary focus of "Wheel of Time" is the breasts of the female characters... okay, okay, I'll quit snarking. The primary focus of "Wheel of Time" is conflicts among magic-wielders. Magic is very powerful, fairly controllable, and a lot of people can use it. Even the non-channeling protagonists get magic powers: Perrin's wolf-magic, Mat's luck and amulet, the supernatural gifts of the Warders. Anybody without magic is apt to end up in a supporting role. An RPG emulating WoT would have a very well-developed magic system and would give at least some magic to pretty much every PC.

This actually sound really close to what D&D already provides. The Wheel of Time is one of the few settings where all the high-level magic of D&D doesn't feel out of place at all (except perhaps for resurrection magic). This makes me wonder how feasible it would be to reflavour a few aspects of D&D to play in the setting of WoT. E.g. Perrin is either a ranger or a barbarian, while Mat is clearly a battlemaster with an unlimited version of the lucky feat and some rare magic items. Rand himself would be a level 20 sorcerer multiclassed with a level 20 fighter (OP munchkin that he is), with perhaps a few levels of warlock thrown in for good measure towards the end. Most Aes Sedai could be D&D wizards while other channelers would mostly be sorcerers or clerics. It would actually be interesting to homebrew a few wizard schools based on the seven (or 8?) Ajahs...

 

[Charlaquin]

I know where it came from. I don't know why it's still even being said. An encounter a day is 100% fine and it can be fun and interesting to every class involved while also being balanced amongst themselves.

The game’s systems are built around that assumption. Yes, you can run a game with one encounter a day and it can still be a lot of fun, but a lot of the rules systems will be superfluous (hit dice, for example, would be useless in a one encounter a day campaign), and depending on the party composition, the difficulty could become trivial, or much harder than expected. I hear all the time that 5e is “easy mode D&D” from people who don’t observe the 6-8 encounter day guideline. I never hear that from people who do observe it.

In short, you don’t need to conform to that guideline, but if you don’t, your gameplay experience will be very different than the one the game is written to accommodate.

 

[Ancalagon]

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.

It's actually quite doable to maintain that tempo in a city when "things are afoot".

8 AM: The PCs have breakfast. An informant shows up - she knows something but he's afraid to talk. PCs must convince her to give up information - an ally of the PCs has been robbed.

9 AM the PC see their ally - the alchemist - he is very glad to see them, he was just about to send his servant! An item he was working on - a vial of blood from one of the PCs - has been stolen. Consequences could be serious. Luckily, he had counter measure - the floor was covered with invisible ink, he has a potion that allows to see the invisible footprints, allowing PC to follow. He also suspect who the thief is, it's not the first time this has happened, and urges the PC to scare the crap out of the thief and retrieve the vial. He also is curious as to who wants the vial...

10 AM: The PC follow to a large in and stake out the place. The thief, Om Swar the Yellow, is a bit of a coward and particularly slippery (he's a mage!), so they have to do this right. His door is guarded by two thugs. They manage to foil's Om Swar's escape and learn he was hired to steal the vial by the Blood Merchant - he already has delivered it.

Noon: reconvene with the alchemist - this is very bad. The party agrees to steal the vial back.

2 PM: initial reconnaissance and info gathering.

4 PM: a social encounter at a magical auction house - already scheduled, PCs can't get out of it.

6 PM: random encounter in the streets -a funeral rite goes terribly wrong, undead spirit attacks.

11 PM: The PCs infiltrate the warehouse and steal the blood - but gasp a slugman is held captive in the basement, being used as an involuntary blood donor. This has been going on for over a year. The Slugmen are the ruling class in the Yellow City, the implications are huge.

2 AM: The PCs get roped into a nighttime assault to arrest the Blood Merchant.

This is a brief recap of a real adventuring day - took 2-3 sessions too.

 

[Ovinomancer]

The game’s systems are built around that assumption. Yes, you can run a game with one encounter a day and it can still be a lot of fun, but a lot of the rules systems will be superfluous (hit dice, for example, would be useless in a one encounter a day campaign), and depending on the party composition, the difficulty could become trivial, or much harder than expected. I hear all the time that 5e is “easy mode D&D” from people who don’t observe the 6-8 encounter day guideline. I never hear that from people who do observe it.

In short, you don’t need to conform to that guideline, but if you don’t, your gameplay experience will be very different than the one the game is written to accommodate.

I think a part of the issue is that the '6-8 encounter' is shorthand for how the daily XP budget parses out with Medium to Hard encounters. I pretty much never concern myself with getting within the 6-8 medium and hard encounters, but do tend to pay attention to daily XP budget as my tool to evaluate the challenge of a series between encounters. I think the reliance on the shorthand leads to way to much focus on the number of encounters and less on the nature of the daily XP budget in pacing.

So, not really disagreeing, just pointing out a technicality.