D&D (2024) What could One D&D do to bring the game back to the dungeon?

[Digdude]

As an old school dm trying to evolve with 5e, I had no problem running Sunless citadel as a dungeon crawl. I did not make them keep track of torches, or arrows. I just assumed they had enough and would tax them next time they got to a place to rebuy them. Spells, specifically cantrips do have a too drastic of effect on the game. Between dancing lights, lights, and guidance being spammed continuously, a whole aspect of dark areas and skill check danger was reduced. But I didnt take it personal, its just the way 5e characters are made. In the end, just going room to room and having some running fights between rooms was a blast and I had fun running it. You just have to be adaptable to what your players are like and what you are comfortable running. There is no one size fits all fix the 5e dungeon issue without a paradigm shift, that does not seem popular right now.

 

[payn]

I have had no problem when I've wanted to add in a dungeon crawl, but my standards look nothing like Manbearcat's, above. I suggest that those are some very exacting, idiosyncratic needs for what a dungeon crawler has to have, and if your needs are that specific it doesn't make sense (as he acknowledges) to expect that a game with as huge an audience as D&D is going to orient itself around them. There are niche RPGs that would work better, or you could go with your own home-brew version of 5e if you want to keep some of its basic kit.

Honestly, what I think this thread is demonstrating is that there isn't even clear agreement on what a "dungeon crawler" is. In my interpretation of what it is, there is no problem executing one within the 5e ruleset.

One of the most frustrating things (and im not picking on you Clint) is that folks think a clear agreement is even necessary to have the discussion. If dungeon crawling works for you, tell us how you are doing it. Listen to folks who say they cant do it out of the box. The interest is in the how to dos, the needs, and the differing perspectives. I also agree, that if folks say a complete overhaul of the magic system is necessary, then its likely 5E is not going to work for them. I still enjoy hearing about their desires for dungeon crawling games. YMMV.

 

[Digdude]

I look back at the old 2/3e dungeons and I think the equipment list as Matt Colville has eluded to was the core of the dungeon crawl. We as DMs wanted to reward our players when they took the time to load up on some of that gear and when encountering some of your best laid shenanigans, they overcome it because they had a pound of flour or ball bearings. Many of today's cantrips simple hand wave a lot of these problems with no disruption to the inventory and really no pre-thought. Are the older Dms annoyed at this? Do you feel cheated? Is there a expectation of because dungeons were hard "back in the day" they should be just as hard now? These questions are simply to reflect on. Ask yourself. Game on!!

 

[Malmuria]

I think what dungeon crawl has come to mean is any adventure that takes place in a dungeon. The five room dungeon is a good example of this: 5 encounters and situations neatly split up into discrete chunks. The advantages of this are many: you can prep a series of scenes and don't have to think about how the scenes interact with each other really, and each one helps build a story with a climax at the end.

For me the "crawl" part is everything @Manbearcat talks about, including some sort of risk/reward set up. Venturing forth has to be risky, uncertain, scary even, and only done because there is some possible reward waiting. Darkest Dungeon, the videogame, is a dungeon crawler in this sense, and indeed that game was inspired by Torchbearer.

 

[Malmuria]

Does anyone ever watch videos of people exploring caves? Absolutely terrifying. They don't have a top-down map of where they are going, even with modern equipment (flashlights, etc) they can barely see what's 30' ahead of them, elevation changes are disorienting, and the space is palpably claustrophobic. And there aren't even fantastical monsters there. So how does one create those feelings of risk, disorientation, and uncomfortableness in an rpg?

Confronting mtn LION in CAVE

www.youtube.com

 

[James Gasik]

1. Bring the sexy back.

2. Bring the dungeons back.

3. ??????

4. Sexy dungeons!

um.... not that there's anything wrong with that.

Sexy dungeons!? That's how you get Bards! Do you want Bards?

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

Sexy dungeons!? That's how you get Bards! Do you want Bards?

What the Bard sees in his mind:

What everyone else sees:

 

[payn]

What the Bard sees in his mind:
View attachment 269766

What everyone else sees:

View attachment 269768

 

[Bill Zebub]

And there aren't even fantastical monsters there.

You can't prove that.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

So having read 13 pages of comments I come to the conclusion that the issue is not "dungeon crawling" per se nor even inventory management that 5th edition manages just fine and dandy but a particular style of play that involves interaction with a (very) challenging environment with very little buffer provided by the characters innate competencies as listed in the character sheet.
What I mean my innate competencies would be stuff like cantrips, and other powers that allow challenges to be bypassed without interaction. I would all passive skills to that list.
I am sceptical that darkvision is itself an issue, if the rules were enforced and the passive skills were removed and light brightness and dimness radii were enforced.
I could be wrong in my interpretation but that is what I am getting.
Can 5e provide such a game, out of the box I would say not but I think it could be easily modded to get close. Remove passive skills, maybe make casters use hit dice or something else to represent the tax of continuous cantrip usage (or the exhaustion rules). Replace the XP rules with something else and stay below level 7 though I have to ask why not play an OSR game at that point?