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<blockquote data-quote="Charlaquin" data-source="post: 8654642" data-attributes="member: 6779196">Consider each keyed encounter a scene. There’s really only one order these scenes can play out. The party can backtrack to a room they have already visited, but they’ve presumably already resolved the encounter there, so there isn’t much to be done. There’s also a bit of a spectrum. Yes, the fact that there are two ways to open the secret door and the use of random encounters means that this dungeon won’t play out exactly the same way every time, but there’s pretty minimal room for variation. The keyed scenes still play out in the same order every time. So, maybe it’s not completely linear, but it is pretty far towards the linear end of the spectrum. Contrast it with, like, The Caverns of Thracia, which has multiple entrances to each level, and many paths between any two keyed encounters. That dungeon’s structure is far less linear, but still not totally open, as the players are for the most part restricted to the dungeon’s predesigned paths. I would call it a branching structure. Contrast both with Isle of Dread, where there is no restrictive dungeon structure, merely an open hex map that the players can explore in any direction.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Charlaquin, post: 8654642, member: 6779196"] Consider each keyed encounter a scene. There’s really only one order these scenes can play out. The party can backtrack to a room they have already visited, but they’ve presumably already resolved the encounter there, so there isn’t much to be done. There’s also a bit of a spectrum. Yes, the fact that there are two ways to open the secret door and the use of random encounters means that this dungeon won’t play out [I]exactly[/I] the same way every time, but there’s pretty minimal room for variation. The keyed scenes still play out in the same order every time. So, maybe it’s not [I]completely[/I] linear, but it is pretty far towards the linear end of the spectrum. Contrast it with, like, The Caverns of Thracia, which has multiple entrances to each level, and many paths between any two keyed encounters. That dungeon’s structure is far less linear, but still not totally open, as the players are for the most part restricted to the dungeon’s predesigned paths. I would call it a branching structure. Contrast both with Isle of Dread, where there is no restrictive dungeon structure, merely an open hex map that the players can explore in any direction. [/QUOTE]

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