The Lost Art of Dungeon-Crawling

There is a certain type of adventure that in recent years seems to have fallen out of popularity: dungeons.

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

"I Look Up!"​

The release of several old D&D modules got me looking at some of these old original adventures, and they are quite eye-opening on the subject of dungeon design. These are the first games of D&D we played and while some are a little dated, it's easy to see why they kept us playing. While almost everything in those adventures was dangerous, there was magic and mystery in the rooms you found. There were rooms with strange orbs suspended from the ceiling; mysterious indoor gardens full of medicinal plants, poison and monsters; ghostly feasts that share a tragic history; and mysterious keys guarded with fiendish traps.

I think I know why dungeons fell out of vogue. Way back in the early 80s we discovered city adventuring. Modules then became quests or investigations across a cityscape full of NPCs and role-play opportunities with all manner of details and cultures. This new way of gaming outside a maze opened a whole new sandbox. This change in adventure design opened new vistas for adventurers, but crowded out the traditional dungeon crawl as a result.

A Return to Form​

Luckily, in recent years we have seen a more interesting return to dungeons. More designers are coming back to them and trying to break the myth. Mork Borg has its share and a other ‘old school’ games have sought to blow the dust off the idea of raiding underground facilities. Its fun to dive into these lairs once again, and a simple diversion from what has become the usual kind of game. While I’m certainly more on the side of narrative play and character interaction, sometimes it is nice to know that you just need to pick a door rather than work out the villain’s plot and craft an elegant plan (that one of the players may just ignore anyway).

If you are thinking of crafting a dungeon of your own, here's a few pointers.

Give the Place A Reason​

Whether it is an old ruin or an underground laboratory, make sure the dungeon has a reason to exist and some sort of history. A hole in the ground isn’t very interesting so give it a back-story, even just a small one. It might be a tomb, an old ruin creatures have taken over or a lab where magic went wrong. It need not be especially clever, just as long as you can place it in your setting.

A Dungeon Need Not Be an Actual Dungeon​

What you are creating is a place full of rooms linked with doors and corridors, so it need not be underground. A house or a castle is basically the same, as is a sky city, large airship, underwater citadel or even a walled in town (put a roof on real world Venice and you have an epic dungeon).

Don’t Construct It with Only One Path​

When you are making a lot of cool stuff it is very tempting to make sure none of it gets missed. But you should avoid the temptation for having only one path through the dungeon that takes in every room. If the player characters miss out rooms 34-48, you can use them in the next adventure. Nothing is wasted. But if you insist they follow one path you are ruining the fun of exploring a dungeon and taking away the agency of choice. If you offer several different paths, when they enter the room of certain death you can point out with a clear conscience that they didn’t have to open the black door with the skull on the front.

Corridors Are Rooms Too​

Don’t reserve encounters just for rooms. They can happen anywhere in the dungeon, in corridors, on stairwells; anywhere the player characters don’t expect one.

Add Some Mystery Not Just Monsters​

While you will need a few monsters to fight to gain some treasure, put in traps and just weird stuff too. Not everything need be deadly, just something weird to make the player characters think can be fun too, if only to cross a room (the Crystal Maze will be a big help here). With magic in the world you can put some very odd places in a dungeon. Just imagine something that would look strange and enticing when they open the door and then figure out what it does. It might be a room full of glass spheres, a garden with odd looking plants, a table set for a feast with only statues as guests. The weirder the room the more the player characters will be intrigued.

Make Sure There Are A Variety of Encounters​

This relates to the above; don’t rely on one sort of encounter. Make sure you have a mixture of traps, monsters, weird rooms and role play encounters. Try to avoid having the same type of room twice in a row if you can.

Don’t Skimp on the Role-Play​

Even dragons might chat; just because it is a dungeon doesn't mean there are opportunities to role play. Trapped creatures, intelligent monsters under a curse or a contract and even the odd guard might be talked to as easily as fought. You can let the player character make this decision, by who they choose to attack on sight. But remind them that they can talk their way out of situations as well.

Make Every Door Worth Opening​

If you do the job right, each door the player characters come across will fill them with a mixture of fear and anticipation. What lies beyond this door, a trap, a fearful death, untold riches or wild magic? If a room or encounter doesn’t’ feel that interesting to you, cut it from your dungeon. Maybe consider it a little and use it later on when you’ve made it work better. A dungeon need not be a sprawl, and a shorter one has the advantage of potentially allowing the player characters to escape and try another one some other day.

 

[TheSword]

Yes, Serves it up. As in to serv, to be a servant.

That’s an odd corollary. I served my parter Sunday roast last weekend but I’m not his servant.

It would depend on how you define events and view them. Obviously, a written module will generally be static on the pages (though some will discuss patrols etc). The DM's responsibility (for indeed if that is what you were intending to say, a DM has a larger responsibility) is to dynamically create responses and events based on the player's actions, using the adventure as a guide. This isn't something that can be conveyed in a written module as of course, the author has no idea what your players do. Which is why we have DMs and it's not just computer run...

I define an events as interesting occurrences that prompt players to react to them, but continue anyway if they don’t, changing the nature of the events.

They don’t depend on the PCs to interact with them no. So yes they can be written down. See Rime of the Frostmaiden for several such events.

 

[Reynard]

That’s an odd corollary. I served my parter Sunday roast last weekend but I’m not his servant.

I define an events as interesting occurrences that prompt players to react to them, but continue anyway if they don’t, changing the nature of the events.

They don’t depend on the PCs to interact with them no. So yes they can be written down. See Rime of the Frostmaiden for several such events.

But why do you think dungeons don't do events well?

 

[Rob Kuntz]

Dungeons are settings. They are the places where events happen. The events themselves are the plot, the adventure.

Imagine that an evil cult leader was found out and driven out of town (perhaps even by the PCs) and has gone to ground to perform a nasty ritual that will grant him revenge on his enemies. If he completes the ritual, woe to the innocent! The PCs have to find him and stop him before time runs out. Typical adventure plot stuff.

Now put him in the dungeon.

Of course. If you regard the map I deposited (above) it is just a wide expanse, a locale. A very large locale. And there is much happening within it, so much so that it would take possibly 20-30 pages of terse plot summaries just to explain them all and the interrelatedness of some. There are pieces that one starts with in the City with specific persons (or a person) which then can go back and forth as the "plot thickens," or that could be set-ups, red herrings, the works, so to speak. What it is not is static. All encounters have a reason for being there, including some wandering monsters that have made their way into this chaos that others have not dealt with... yet. But it is related to solid ideas of what is going on above, around and elsewhere, so there's lot to work with. A good DC requires base campaign info at the very least; failing that many premade adventure designers often revert to "draw your swords"

 

[delericho]

Dungeoncrawls that are dynamic with varying encounters and possibilities are infinitely more interesting than the kick in the door, kill all the things, repeat variety. Interesting dungeoncrawls almost require a more combat as war, lots of flasks of oil, and 10’ poles approach. Does 5E even have the procedures for a dungeoncrawl?

During the development of 5e there was a fair amount of talk about a modular design, which sadly seemed to fall mostly by the wayside. This is an area where they could have been hugely beneficial - not every campaign really has use for "procedures for a dungeoncrawl" (or wilderness exploration, or detailed overland travel, or...), but some campaigns would find such a thing very useful, for part or all of the time.

So it's kind of a shame that the DMG doesn't have a number of these modules with such things fleshed out in some detail, and with guidance as to when to use them (and, just as importantly, when not to use them!).

 

[Reynard]

Of course. If you regard the map I deposited (above) it is just a wide expanse, a locale. A very large locale. And there is much happening within it, so much so that it would take possibly 20-30 pages of terse plot summaries just to explain them all and the interrelatedness of some. There are pieces that one starts with in the City with specific persons (or a person) which then can go back and forth as the "plot thickens," or that could be set-ups, red herrings, the works, so to speak. What it is not is static. All encounters have a reason for being there, including some wandering monsters that have made their way into this chaos that others have not dealt with... yet. But it is related to solid ideas of what is going on above, around and elsewhere, so there's lot to work with. A good DC requires base campaign info at the very least; failing that many premade adventure designers often revert to "draw your swords"

Dungeon campaigns are also very player driven by nature. The PCs need motivations and goals in their explorations, and they need to be willing to make forays, do research, search for allies and information, and so on. I can see why some folks think dungeons are just boring combat slogs if no thought is ever put into anything beyond "clear the next room." You don't clear the mega-dungeon, you adventure in it.

What's weird is how that seems to seem novel. No one would ever expect that you would "clear" The Dark Forest. It's perfectly natural that you would go into The Dark Forest and contend with it's strange and malevolent inhabitants in order to recover the Star Crossed Lovers who fled their imperious houses. Certainly no one would expect you kill every thing in the Forest. The dungeon is no different than that mythical wood in this regard, but there is this mistaken yet firmly held belief that it is a place to be wholly and completely conquered.

 

[Reynard]

During the development of 5e there was a fair amount of talk about a modular design, which sadly seemed to fall mostly by the wayside. This is an area where they could have been hugely beneficial - not every campaign really has use for "procedures for a dungeoncrawl" (or wilderness exploration, or detailed overland travel, or...), but some campaigns would find such a thing very useful, for part or all of the time.

So it's kind of a shame that the DMG doesn't have a number of these modules with such things fleshed out in some detail, and with guidance as to when to use them (and, just as importantly, when not to use them!).

I know they aren't interested in doing a DMG 2, but 5E would really benefit from one, I think -- a whole book focused on optional rules and different procedures and genre/tone/setting specific subsystems.

 

[TheSword]

But why do you think dungeons don't do events well?

Because I have seen large quantity of published dungeon crawl type adventures and they don’t. Add to those I’ve already mentioned, tomb of annihilation, princes of the apocalypse, shattered star, dungeon of the mad mage, return to the temple of elemental evil, against the giants, lost caverns of tsojcanth. None work well with events. They are sitting there waiting for adventurers to interact with them.

The structure of a dungeon with multiple rooms and corridors between the party and wherever the action is happening, means events become much harder.

 

[TheSword]

Dungeon campaigns are also very player driven by nature. The PCs need motivations and goals in their explorations, and they need to be willing to make forays, do research, search for allies and information, and so on. I can see why some folks think dungeons are just boring combat slogs if no thought is ever put into anything beyond "clear the next room." You don't clear the mega-dungeon, you adventure in it.

What's weird is how that seems to seem novel. No one would ever expect that you would "clear" The Dark Forest. It's perfectly natural that you would go into The Dark Forest and contend with it's strange and malevolent inhabitants in order to recover the Star Crossed Lovers who fled their imperious houses. Certainly no one would expect you kill every thing in the Forest. The dungeon is no different than that mythical wood in this regard, but there is this mistaken yet firmly held belief that it is a place to be wholly and completely conquered.

They are fundamentally different structures. Entrances A, B, C etc lead through a progression of rooms containing X, Y, Z. That is very different to an expedition to the Dark Forest or Deadly Desert etc

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This isn't something that can be conveyed in a written module as of course, the author has no idea what your players do. Which is why we have DMs and it's not just computer run...

Sure it can be. It's a total cop-out and outright demonstrably wrong to pretend it can't be.

Well-written adventures of the kind you're describing will often have some kind of advice and ideas on reactivity, and indeed, there are plenty that do. I read countless adventures like that in Dungeon, even, for example. There's an incredibly elaborate heist adventure for 4E for example which has a lot of stuff on that and also invents Blades in the Dark before Blades in the Dark did. Or Dragon Mountain, which is a huge dungeon which is entirely built on anticipating that there will be tons of events and reactivity.

The problem is that a lot of dungeons aren't designed with "events" or "reactivity" in mind at all, rather the designer sees them as something largely static, and indeed there are some where pretty much any reactivity will break them or trivialize them.

There are others which work decently - but it's highly variable, and it is something you can write/design for.

 

[Reynard]

They are fundamentally different structures. Entrances A, B, C etc lead through a progression of rooms containing X, Y, Z. That is very different to an expedition to the Dark Forest or Deadly Desert etc

I think you are making a distinction that doesn't necessarily exist. The Dark Forest has paths and lairs and streams and caves and clearings and so on. It's a dungeon, just not one made of stone.

That said, I shouldn't really be trying to convince you of anything. I see it differently, that's all.