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

[Cadence]

In other words, what the OP has is not a design problem, it's a player problem. I do not think anything should be done to the game to try to coerce players into one particular way to play it, so the only solutions I would suggest to the OP are ones that would be useful in any type of game. Like shortening combat encounters.

If I want to run a dungeon crawl, then that's the pitch I make to the prospective players. If they aren't interested the I save it for later.

 

[Reynard]

That is not going to happen as a core mechanic but it is already there I think for anyone that wants to play that way. DOMM is 15 levels of nothing but dungeon.

And terrible.

 

[Levistus's_Leviathan]

And terrible.

There's actually a lot of really good stuff in Dungeon of the Mad Mage. Unfortunately, all of them are the lower levels that are buried under a dozen+ boring dungeon levels with nothing exciting to do. My group got bored around level 9, and never made it to the best levels of the dungeon.

 

[ToddBS]

The other problem is that dungeon crawls are occasionally fun but emphasis on "occasionally." The game has evolved since the 1970s, and so has the playing culture. Dungeon crawls in ye olden days were very light on story - if you look at those early modules, the dungeon crawls and combat encounters were the point, with the story being there to facilitate them. I don't think most tables play that way anymore. It's great that some do - more power to 'em - but 4e was probably the most dungeon crawler friendly version of the game since AD&D and it tanked.

Yeah, my own memories don't track with D&D actually being a dungeon crawler. Maybe in the very early OD&D days. But by the time I came to the game with BECMI we played long-term campaigns. I think we left dungeons behind at level 4 when we graduated to the blue Expert box. And that was almost 40 years ago.

 

[Retreater]

It comes down to the adventure design. Darkvision was common in 3.x and the Light spell was easy to come by. 3rd edition's tagline was "back to the dungeon," so I don't see any reason 5.x can't do the same.

 

[tetrasodium]

Oh man. So many changes.

The nerf to exhaustion is a move in the right direction. You can use exhaustion from the "play test" without crippling the party from the off. For some that wasn't an issue but for others it was a game quitting line never to be crossed.

Light. Races would need to be changed, i.e. you'd need to not have something like 75% of all PC races have darkvision. You'd also need to remove light as a cantrip. Somehow center the effects of dim light (disadvantage on perception checks). Push for the black & white sight of darkvision to actually matter (like making lots of things dependent on color vision).

Food & Water. They are doing a bit of the work by removing the ribbon abilities from backgrounds (looking at you Outlander) along with swapping favored terrain out for expertise in the ranger. Both of these work to make exploration not automatic, which is a step in the right direction. Though with the default DCs of things like getting lost and foraging, expertise is effectively automatic exploration...but it's a start in the right direction. Also remove or nerf spells like create food & water, goodberry, etc.

Resting. This is the big one. RAW long rests in 5E give you too much. Long rests in the "play test" give you even more. You either need to nerf resting, or dramatically increase...basically everything on the DM's side of things to make 5E anything more difficult than a cakewalk. Things like wandering monsters every 10 minutes and start all those encounters at deadly. Definitely remove Leomund's Tiny Bunker.

Procedures. You'd actually need to put the procedures for dungeon crawling together in one place that's in the actual main books instead of sort of put them together in the two DM's screens focused on wilderness and dungeon exploration. And, of course, you'd need those procedures to be good and work as intended...and for that intent to be properly challenging the PCs and players.

Personally, I doubt WotC will ever do anything like most of those. Mainstream D&D has moved on. The new player base is more interested in high action, tough guy, badasses. The appetite for hard scrabble adventures with weak, near-peasant adventurers is still there, but it's a niche within a niche within a niche at this point.

I agree with all of this as needed first steps but would add one big one. Cantrips need to change in two important ways. First they need to be linked to class or spell list linked magic items like equipment/weapons list type gear. Second they need to scale based on the item they are linked to rather than character level (with some being charges not unlimited). It poses a serious problem for dungeon crawling when a bunch of classes are literally born with the only weapon they will ever care about rouynd after round for the entire campaign

 

[Azzy]

Yeah, my own memories don't track with D&D actually being a dungeon crawler. Maybe in the very early OD&D days. But by the time I came to the game with BECMI we played long-term campaigns. I think we left dungeons behind at level 4 when we graduated to the blue Expert box. And that was almost 40 years ago.

This is my experience, too. I came in in 86, and dungeon crawling was something that became more and more of an occasional thing as we discovered more story-themed campaigns. While I am good with the game having room for dungeon crawls, I certain wouldn't want the game to focus on them as that would bore me to no end.

 

[R_J_K75]

Here is a dungeon crawl I put together recently:

I'm intrigued, what's with the wheelbarrow?

 

[Xamnam]

When I want to do a dungeon crawl, which I do on occasion, it is easier to do in 5e than any other edition of the game, because 5e is easier to play than any other edition of the game. Combat still takes way too much time, but that is true of wherever it is happening.

Do I have trouble setting traps and puzzles and other "exploration" challenges in 5e? Nope. Do I have trouble building challenging combat encounters in 5e? Nope. I just don't see anything about 5e that discourages dungeon crawling at all. It's just that the game doesn't try to coerce campaigns into it like it did once upon a time, and it turns out that players and DM's aren't that into non-stop dungeon crawls when they don't have to be.

In other words, what the OP has is not a design problem, it's a player problem. I do not think anything should be done to the game to try to coerce players into one particular way to play it, so the only solutions I would suggest to the OP are ones that would be useful in any type of game. Like shortening combat encounters.

Here is a dungeon crawl I put together recently:

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That terrain!

 

[TerraDave]

It comes down to the adventure design. Darkvision was common in 3.x and the Light spell was easy to come by. 3rd edition's tagline was "back to the dungeon," so I don't see any reason 5.x can't do the same.

And these things were also in 1e.

I have never really played D&D were it was about rations and torches.

I do think excess resting can interact badly with certain dungeons that depended on a certain amount of attrition. I put limits on long-rests starting in 4e to deal with this. Old school dungeons also work well with a "challenge the player" approach. 5e actually has language to facilitate this--i.e. the very loose skill system--and for players that buy into this, they can be quite entertaining, in any edition.