Hi all! I've been lurking for years as these boards are an incredible source of information/inspiration and I like learning about how others are playing the game. That said, now I would like to run an idea by the community and maybe get some help as I'm prepping for a new campaign.
I bought a couple of first-person dungeon crawler games on Steam over Black Friday and naturally it made me think of old-school D&D and gave me an idea for a different way of handling overland travel.
The first-person dungeon crawler genre heavily draws inspiration on the way D&D used to be played back in the days – big emphasis on dungeon exploration with a grid map, encumbrance and loot management were really important, wandering monsters checks rolled often, finding hidden treasures, etc. That said, most of these video games usually treat everything like a “dungeon” and have interconnected maps for everything (not just dungeons, but also for forests, mountains, deserts, etc.). While they usually make it easy to go back to the main hub at the click of a button, you have to find your way from one area to the next by finding points connecting them. While you could say megadungeons in D&D are basically doing just that, I’ve never seen any D&D campaign use interconnected maps to, well map and link everything including overland areas (forest, mountains, desert, everything).
I was wondering if anyone ever played a game like this or had any experience DMing something of that scale. I’ve played sandbox/hexcrawl games, but I’ve never seen a campaign treat overland travel in the same way we go through dungeons. Basically what I mean is treating overland travel areas just like another “dungeon floor”. A forest could be mapped out with “hallways” and “rooms”, connecting Town A to Town B with an entrance to Dungeon C and you roll for wandering monsters once in a while as your players go through it. For instance, in Stranger of Sword City and Etrian Odyssey forests are just another “dungeon/labyrinth” with a forest theme, but a dungeon nonetheless. Essentially, everything would be considered one big dungeon with many floors/different areas. The first Dark Souls also does that to an extend while not having a map and not being grid-based.
TL;DR - has anyone ever played/DMed a campaign which always stayed in "dungeon-mode" by linking every map and dealing with everything like a huge dungeon (outdoor areas included)?
Edit: changed the title as it was too similar to another thread.
Thanks a lot!
I bought a couple of first-person dungeon crawler games on Steam over Black Friday and naturally it made me think of old-school D&D and gave me an idea for a different way of handling overland travel.
The first-person dungeon crawler genre heavily draws inspiration on the way D&D used to be played back in the days – big emphasis on dungeon exploration with a grid map, encumbrance and loot management were really important, wandering monsters checks rolled often, finding hidden treasures, etc. That said, most of these video games usually treat everything like a “dungeon” and have interconnected maps for everything (not just dungeons, but also for forests, mountains, deserts, etc.). While they usually make it easy to go back to the main hub at the click of a button, you have to find your way from one area to the next by finding points connecting them. While you could say megadungeons in D&D are basically doing just that, I’ve never seen any D&D campaign use interconnected maps to, well map and link everything including overland areas (forest, mountains, desert, everything).
I was wondering if anyone ever played a game like this or had any experience DMing something of that scale. I’ve played sandbox/hexcrawl games, but I’ve never seen a campaign treat overland travel in the same way we go through dungeons. Basically what I mean is treating overland travel areas just like another “dungeon floor”. A forest could be mapped out with “hallways” and “rooms”, connecting Town A to Town B with an entrance to Dungeon C and you roll for wandering monsters once in a while as your players go through it. For instance, in Stranger of Sword City and Etrian Odyssey forests are just another “dungeon/labyrinth” with a forest theme, but a dungeon nonetheless. Essentially, everything would be considered one big dungeon with many floors/different areas. The first Dark Souls also does that to an extend while not having a map and not being grid-based.
TL;DR - has anyone ever played/DMed a campaign which always stayed in "dungeon-mode" by linking every map and dealing with everything like a huge dungeon (outdoor areas included)?
Edit: changed the title as it was too similar to another thread.
Thanks a lot!
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