Creative Director
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So we're aware that a fair amount of our readers aren't as interested in the old classic "dungeon crawl" adventure. In my mind, the classic dungeon crawl is an adventure along the lines of #112's "Maure Castle," or to be more recent, #129's "A Gathering of Winds."
Personally, I really enjoy dungeon crawls, especially when they've got plots and dynamic inhabitants and creative encounters. Plus, they're the cornerstone of D&D. There will always be dungeon crawls in the magazine. But we've also been trying to make sure that other adventure types are represented lately as well.
In striking the balance, I have a question for those of you who dislike dungeon crawls. When does an adventure become a dungeon crawl for you? Is it still a dungeon crawl if the adventrue takes place entirely on a ship that's been stolen by pirates? What about if it's a manor house you're hired to infiltrate and rob? How about adventures that spend half their words on investigation/role-play/urban & wilderness setup and close with a small, 5–10 room dungeon?
Basically, how much "dungeon" can you bear to see in an adventure if you hate dungeon crawls?
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I think that dungeon crawl is a measure of degrees, not an absolute. The more it seems like a dungeon was created by a random dungeon generator chart, the more of a crawl it seems. S2 you couldn't have put together with a chart.
If the dungeon has a little creative 'oomph' to it, I think that's what they're talking about. S3--I mean it was like a crawl, but who cares; there's laser guns. It's not just a bunch of boxes with monster/trap/treasure chest/monster AND trap...
So we're aware that a fair amount of our readers aren't as interested in the old classic "dungeon crawl" adventure. In my mind, the classic dungeon crawl is an adventure along the lines of #112's "Maure Castle," or to be more recent, #129's "A Gathering of Winds."
Personally, I really enjoy dungeon crawls, especially when they've got plots and dynamic inhabitants and creative encounters. Plus, they're the cornerstone of D&D. There will always be dungeon crawls in the magazine. But we've also been trying to make sure that other adventure types are represented lately as well.
In striking the balance, I have a question for those of you who dislike dungeon crawls. When does an adventure become a dungeon crawl for you? Is it still a dungeon crawl if the adventrue takes place entirely on a ship that's been stolen by pirates? What about if it's a manor house you're hired to infiltrate and rob? How about adventures that spend half their words on investigation/role-play/urban & wilderness setup and close with a small, 5–10 room dungeon?
Basically, how much "dungeon" can you bear to see in an adventure if you hate dungeon crawls?
This is a great question to pose.
I personally am not a huge fan of the Dungeon Crawl...not to say they can't be wicked fun, but I don't understand why adventurers would want to spend most of their time in some hideous ridiculoulsy dangerous underground deathtrap. Those wacky adventurers.
For me, any time my character can't actually talk to anyone I think "dungeon crawl." I know this is not right, but it has often been my experience with the game. Whenever we go underground the discussion becomes about mapping, supplies, potential threats and nothing else. I like role-playing moments that reveal character relationships and interesting interaction.
Dealing with a ship that has been hijacked by pirates instantly evokes lots of fun character activities I can engage in. Do I talk to the pirates? How do I talk to them, and which ones do I try and talk to? Are there other people on the ship I can get to help me fight the pirates? Do I join them? Do I pretend to? Suddenly I am thinking much more on a roleplaying track than a "we gotta map this ship and search it for traps and treasure" track.
My favorite type of adventure is the last one you mentioned James - half their words on investigation/role-play/urban & wilderness with a small 5-10 room dungeon somewhere in there.
Huge dungeons with multiple levels and hundreds of rooms are not really that dramatic in my mind. Think Indiana Jones...the ultimate adventurer. Most dungeons in a Jones movie are only 10 rooms max. The first dungeon in Raiders is awesome and it is only about six areas long or so.
Temple of Doom, a little bigger but still only a couple of "areas" (bug chamber, trap chamber, worship Kali chamber, Slave mining area, torture chamber, weird room with the table with candles on it where you experience the psychadelic potion, etc.)
The fun thing about the imagination is that we can go anywhere in a heartbeat. BAM! We are in a tavern full of rakshasas, BLAMO! Now we are in a sewer pipeline where a mad sage-like hermit hides amongst his wererat brethren. We can jump time and space so easily and it is sooo much fun to do so...therefore I can think of no real reason I would like to be stuck in a perfectly mapped out realistically realized dungeon that stretches on for eternity.
Okay, I am just babbling now...let's get back on track.
Manor house to infiltrate and rob - not a dungeon crawl. Mostly because I can see the whole "dungeon" and I can watch people's activities inside without trying to get in. This changes things. I can also ask people questions about the "dungeon" as it is on a main boulevard or what not. Finally I can come up with fun ways to try to get into the "dungeon." I have never tried to get into an underground labryinth with the old "here to look at your tapestries" trick, but I'm willing to bet it (and other fun tricks like it) work better on the manors than they do the dungeons.
Ship taken over by pirates - not a dungeon crawl. For all the reasons I stated above. Different focus. This brings another great point - motivation. I know, I am getting all actortastic on this, and gaming is not acting, but motivation is something that makes anything more interesting. If the ship I am traveling on gets taken over by pirates all sorts of interesting motivations may pop up to drive my actions. If I was heading to Regalport to bail out my brother before the Prince puts a noose around his neck, and now the pirates are taking the ship to Port Verge, then I am f+&!ed, and I have the desperate need to change the situation. This makes things more fun for me. I usually have trouble finding any real interesting motivation to drag my self into a nasty fungus filled underground cavern full of smelly creatures who want to kill me (beyond the old standby - "TREASURE!"). :-)
Spend half time on investigation/role-play/urban&wilderness setup with short "dungeon" at the end - not a dungeon crawl. This is the real kicker. All the prelude to the shorter crawl can create all sorts of interesting motivations for heading there and foreshadow the villains encountered therein. That's soooo much more fun than wandering into some series of tunnels and being attacked by a bunch of bad guys whose names I don't even learn before I've spitted them on my longspear. That sucks. I hate when a cool NPC turns up in a written adventure with absolutely no foreshadowing. Half the fun is being afraid of the bad guy/hating the bad guy before you even meet him or her. I think this style of adventure (half in/role/urb&wild half dungeon) allows the DM to establish the story's variables and get the PCs jazzed up about the dungeon and excited to meet the baddies therein before they even get there.
Okay! Sorry about the uber-long post. Too much coffee today. Gotta stop drinking coffee!!!
I , for the most part, love Dungeon Crawls, so maybe I'm not to best person to give you the answer you're looking for. However, I have often thought about what I think you're trying to get at. I see the thing that separates the great dungeon crawls (i.e, Tomb of Horrors, White Plume, etc.) from the average is the narrative that is carried along during play . If the story/hook/concept are great that's not all that matters. That great narrative has to be sustained throughout all the encounters in the game. Even if the story is light and concept is good, (for instance Goodman Game's DDC line is quite popular.) The game can still be very enjoyable, again when that sense of urgency is always present.
When things actually become a "crawl" in a negative sense is when the games become exactly that. You're limited to room after room of oddly placed things that don't make sense in the narrative or things seem to just be an exercise in endless combat. When encounters, or too many encounters allow the narrative to get lost is where problems set in. I find the Return to Temple of Elemental Evil's Crater Lake region to be an prime example of this. The narrative gets lost to hordes of endless combat and you quickly find yourself saying "why are we here again?".
Even the greatest Dungeon Crawl of all time (IMO), Necromancer Games, "Rappan Athuk" suffers from this to an extent. (Although if you sign up for Rappan Athuk you already know what you're in for, just plan on bringing a six-pack of replacement characters).
I have often found investigative, heavy dialogue, or adventures that require lots of non-combat related role playing tend to become "Crawls" of another kind. I hate to say it but I find both types of games are somewhat mutually exclusive with a very thin line of overlap. Striking that balance is key and rare. Overall the narrative and the concept override the physical setting everytime as long as that narrative is sustainable. I think if anyone doesn't think "The Whispering Cairn" contains the best balance of material in a single adventure in years, then you shouldn't worry about getting across to them as they are looking for a different kind of game.
So we're aware that a fair amount of our readers aren't as interested in the old classic "dungeon crawl" adventure. In my mind, the classic dungeon crawl is an adventure along the lines of #112's "Maure Castle," or to be more recent, #129's "A Gathering of Winds."
First of all, thanks for the interest! As it's been said so many times before, it's been a real privledge for hobbyists to have such a direct line to their leadership.
For me, dungeon crawling is less about the "dungeon," and more about the "crawl." Static duingeons are great, as long as they don't slow down teh narriative, or present a series of encounters that are meaningless. For me, I'd say that I loved A Gathering of Winds about as much as I hated Maure Castle. And here's why:
A Gathering of Winds is a dungeon, but everything in it has a logical place. The encoutners vary from stand-up fights to negotation, and there's even a moment halfway through where the goals of the PCs are reassessed (right after rescuing Allustan). The dungeon has a consistent theme throughout, and there isn't alot of empty rooms.
Maure Castle, on the other hand, is a mess. Instead of a cohesive plot, the vast majority of adventuring takes place room to room. While I appreciate the creativity in describing each room, there's nothing for a PC to get inspired about. It's a "moral neutral" set of independent encoutners strung together under the title "Maure Castle." Kill things, survive the "save or die traps," and take all the stuff.
Take one specific example from Maure Castle: Room 7B. . . You have to break through a barrier for the privledge of getting charmed to destroy magic items. Furthermore, the PCs actions are set by a random table! When I was 12, I may have enjoyed "tee-heeing" at this encoutner, but now it's just dull, illogical, and unfair.
There is a similar example from A Gathering of Winds that I have opposite feeling about, area 12. The PCs have a dead end, and they can spend as many resources as they want tinkering with the false gatehouse. Instead of horrible DM twink-fest that they have to passively save against, the PCs are taking an active role in their own befuddlement. Furthermore, there is a logical reason and purpose behind the area to begin with.
I think static dungeons are great role-playing opportunities when they are focused, logical, and possess conceits that allow PCs a chance to care. I don't want "crawling" encounters which are no fun play, hold zero role-playing possibilities, and only exist for a DM to indiscriminately wreck the party.
So I guess to answer the original question. . . I want a dungeon to have as many opportunities to let the players fulfill the heroic/villanous fantasies that brought them to teh game. . . not another opportunity to "crawl" for the sheer sake of "crawling".
The fun thing about the imagination is that we can go anywhere in a heartbeat. BAM! We are in a tavern full of rakshasas, BLAMO! Now we are in a sewer pipeline where a mad sage-like hermit hides amongst his wererat brethren. We can jump time and space so easily and it is sooo much fun to do so...therefore I can think of no real reason I would like to be stuck in a perfectly mapped out realistically realized dungeon that stretches on for eternity.
Actually, this was what I meant to say. :)
Well said, Nick.
Actortastic. I have to use that. It's what my friends use to describe my RP style. I think we similar outlooks on such things, Nick. =)
This is an excellent thread. I'm going to have to wait until I'm out of work before I can adequately respond.
I must agree with the majority of the people that have posted so far. A dungeon crawl is, to me anyway, a more or less linear series of fights or encounters without any possiblity of talking.
When I'm in a game and it starts to feel as limited as a computer game, you can go left, right, up or down but can't jump up into the edge of the window and climb up the outside of the tower, it has become a dungeon crawl.
Being a pen and paper game means that all that happens is in the minds of the players, I don't personally want to see any dungeons, and I know that even the short ones from Indiana Jones would feel out of place for my usual characters to be in. It works out for Jones because he is someone who should be in there, but if I'm a quiet scholar from a major city, I have no place in any sort of dungeon.
It doesn't mean that my character doesn't get trapped into dungeon crawls, when I find myself unable to talk to the police and the GM clearly wants us to start a fight, it feels like a dungeon crawl/computer game and I want out.
Random encounters have the bad taste of a dungeon crawl too. It goes back to the story, any events that happen in the story should have some reason to be there. Just because every 20 minutes we may encounter 1d20 random monsters on a major road doesn't mean I want to fight them all, or indeed any of them.
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To me a dungeon crawl is a dungeon crawl when the possiblities become limited to multiple choice: Fight, Flee or Random.
Once I feel I'm limited by those choices I do everything in my power to change it, to do something else, anything else. Therefore, I would prefer to see no dungeon crawling in the adventures that I play.
Personally I prefer Dungeon Crawl style adventures, particularly in the 1st edition style. Although it is nice to have a change from time to time.
I believe Erik addressed this to some degree in his editorial on the Jade Empire video game. A story is being told and necessarily needs certain things to happen. there's two ways people seem to get turned off by dungeons:
A - Excessively Railroading
B - Monotonous
A - Part of the allure of D&D is the free form nature of the game. Anything that limits this is bad. That's why there is often pushback on a certain set of dungeons; there aren't any real options. you go through a door, kill some stuff, and are confronted by another door. Go through it, kill some stuff...
The original Whispering cairn avoided this linear pitfall admirably. There were parts of the dungeon PCs could skip, plus there was ample opportunity for players to do their own plot/character development. I bought this issue from my FLGS, read the Whispering Cairn and subscribed to Dungeon that night. I haven't regretted that decision.
B - Someone else already mentioned this, but Maure castle holds absolutely ZERO allure for me. It in my mind exemplifies everything bad about dungeons. I will make the disclaimer that I am going strictly by the Extra level that was published after I subscribed and not the Original in Issue #112. At least for that level, 1/3 of the magazine was dedicated to mapping out a floor of a dungeon wiht no discernable plot, and which even if it was being used for an adventure that had a plot, said adventure didn't erquire the entire floor of the building to be a complete entity. It comes off as room after room of Mega encounters/sudden death traps and no real reason for PCs to get explore other than it's there so why not?
This is a fabulous question by the way. I guess to summarize- when I think about Whispering Cairn vs 3FOE, They're both very logical in the way they are written and are in a nutshell "Adventuring party explores hole in the ground" type of adventures. The difference is that WC allowed for more free form interaction with the world as a whole, whereas 3FOE explocotly limited the players ability to go off on tangents.
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Creative Director
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These are excellent responses, everyone; keep them coming!
The main reason I'm asking this pertains to Adventure Path 3. We toned down the dungeons in Age of Worms from Shackled City, but I don't think we toned them down enough. Certainly, making dungeons too big is the #1 reason writers end up blowing out their word counts.
Expect smaller dungeons in AP3. With one or two exceptions, that is. We'll certainly have at least 1 Giant Dungeon in there somewhere, but it'll be a dungeon more along the lines of what you see in "A Gathering of Winds" than "Maure Castle."
I like dungeon crawls, provided they are done creatively.
A look at Issue #116's "30 Greatest Adventures" shows (by my way of categorization) 20+ dungeon crawls ... not bad for something that isn't so popular! (Obviously nostalgia plays a part in this list, but still ...)
For me, the creativity and theme is key.
S3 (Barrier Peaks) was such a wild idea that it never got boring. The Whispering Cairn had a good cohesive feel. C1 (Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan) was basically a dungeon crawl but the enccounters were unique and the dungeon strongly themed -- excellent stuff that outclasses many more recent d20 adventures.
Few people enjoy the monotony of room after mindless room of humanoids ... the orc in a 10 by 10 foot room syndrome ... but when a dungeon crawl is strongly themed, doesn't seem random or completely unrealistic (my main complaint about White Plume Mountain), and offers some roleplay opportunities they can be great.
Note that I don't rule out roleplay in a dungeon crawl, but rather define a dungeon crawl as an scenario in which 99% of the adventure takes place on/in a mapped dungeon of some sort. In this context The Village of Hommlet or Against the Cult of the Reptile God aren't true dungeon crawls, (**SPOILER WARNING**) but once the PCs enter the naga's dungeon or moathouse they are pretty much dungeon crawling. Greenwood's Undermountain is certainly a dungeon crawl, but between the interesting NPCs and monsters the PCs might encounter and Skullport the opportunities for roleplaying are plentiful.
These days I think the term "dungeon crawl" has become somewhat synonymous with pure "hack & slash" adventuring coupled with seemingly-never-ending expanses of boring rooms filled with uninspiring creatures -- by that definition, I hate dungeon crawls as well!
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Creative Director
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I wouldn't say dungeon crawls are not popular; in fact, I'd say they're probably the MOST popular style of playing D&D. They're also the easiest to design. This all combines to make the dungeon the most common type of adventure, which is also why we tend to have to work harder to get non-dungeon crawl adventrues in the magazine.
I love dungeons, I hate dungeon crawls. I need a reason to enter a dungeon other than the BBEG at the end has $$$. And, why does the BBEG have to be in the last room? Let me bust in and surprise him and let him do a fighting withdrawl for the rest of the adventure. He would have an advantage, because he knows the layout of the dungeon and can use this to his tactical advantage. My group could be calling for his surrender or vowing to bleed the life out of him. Lots of verbal exchanges as well as missle exchanges. Give me a chance to use some of those skills that I dumped points into. Have a parallel path and let me race the BBEG to the prize at the end. Give me 8 ways to succeed. Linear adventuring is bad; dungeon adventuring is good!
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Chalk me up as a fan of dungeon crawls. I love 'em. I also love character interaction. I like the game because I can explore new and interesting places that I will never see in real life. Danger, cool encounters, tricky traps, they are all part of my desire to see exotic and strange locales. I love dungeon crawls whether they are through the woods, under the sea, in the clouds, whatever, I LOVE 'EM!! I'm being run through the Tomb of Horrors in my current campaign, a bit trappy but way cool! I also died 3 times in the original back in the 80's?
I would like to see some adventures on the Isle of Dread as a follow-up to the Dungeon magazine that had it updated (some).
Any chance of that James?
FH
Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Doh! The boards ate my long post. Sigh.
I'll be brief:
1. Maure Castle/Gathering of Winds: These are dungeon crawls that I don't generally like. Too artificial, too many traps. The buildings don't make sense, they exist just to destroy PC's. Any building built to be a challenge or just to hold a treasure is a dungeon crawl I'm not interested in.
2. 3FoE/RttTEE: On the line between dungeon crawls I like and don't like. Both adventures occur largely in dungeons, but the situations are dynamic and the structures feel organic (they have places where people live, work, etc - not just random rooms for the sake of clever traps).
3. Whispering Cairn/HoHR: Adventures that involve dungeons. They're fun to play, they have a good mixture of dungeonness and creatureness, and incorporate cool ideas into an interesting location.
I hope that helps.
I'm going to take the middle of the road stance here and say that I enjoy dungeon crawls as a player and don't care for them as much when I DM.
Why do I like them as a player? Because I've DMed 80% of the time in the last 26 years and I still haven't "played" enough to get it out of my system.
How could dungeon crawl adventures in Dungeon be improved? Shorter=yes
Make sure dungeons are "logical?" Okay
Here's my biggest request for improving dungeon crawls:
Put all the stat blocks in one place. Tell me who and what lives in the entire dungeon and then give me notes about where they will be. I find the most annoying thing is that there is an underlying assumption that creatures just sit around in their respective rooms, smoking cigarettes and telling dirty jokes until the PC's open the door. I also don't like having to read all the various room descriptions to get all the stats and tactics...let's put the stat blocks, the relationship between the inhabitants, their potential locations and their tactics all in one place. Makes game prep faster and easier too.
Every dungeon crawl from Dungeon magazine that I've run has involved the creatures reacting to the intrusion by organizing pre-planned defenses (if appropriate) or attacking the intruders in mass (when dictated by the creatures' type or intelligence). That tends to shorten the adventure and make it harder than the CR's, but unless the room description dictated that the creature stay there in place, the inhabitants react to actively defend themselves and their home.
Now, if the PC's are very astute and manage to silently infiltrate the dungeon and silently take out one room at a time, more power to them....but how often does that work out on a consistent basis?
When I design "dungeons" for my game, I draw a rough map, list all the inhabitants, their tactics, their relationship, etc. and that's it. I make changes as the PC's explore the "dungeon" to make sure I can leave them in a good stopping point. I add details to the map as things go along; I shorten it when I need to....if the players are in the mood for long explorations and meticulous examination, I give it to them. If they're restless to get it over with, I give it to them and move up the main encounter.
I'm not saying Dungeon's "dungeons" should be like that, but there should be more flexibility and ease of reference built in for the DM who wants to accelerate the game or shorten the game prep.
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Bella Sara Charter Superscriber
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Here's my biggest request for improving dungeon crawls:
I second that request. I'd really like to see the maps include the positions of the creatures. That way, you can tell at a glance where everyone is and decide how they react. I don't think dungeon should adopt the delve format, but I think more could be done to cram information into the map page. If nothing else, adding the key on the map (e.g. Flood Season) is a terrific time saver.
Good Dungeon Crawl = combines a wildness trip to get there with a dungeon that has a logical history and ecosystem
Bad dungeon crawl = illogical plcaement of random assortment of monsters and treasures..i.e. rust monsters living next door to an iron golem....same old same old traps..."awakening statues!!!"
Examples of good dungeon crawls =
1. Lost Caverns of Tsocanth, which combined a mission type hook (get those items before Iuz), wilderness exploration, and then extensive dungeon. The dungeon was a challenge to find, otherwise someone else would have loted it already..
2. ISLE OF DREAD, great wilderness trip and then nice dungeon at end with secret enemy great capstone.
3. I3-I5 desert of desolation series..wilderness travel and dungeon crawls..
4. L1 Secret of Bone Hill..short dungeon in wilderness area
5. Hall of the Beast Tamers in original Forgotten realms guide..same with the Myth Drannor dungeon with the senile lich that he originally had in an early dragon..thinking issue 80 or something..
Bad Dungeon Crawls:
1. WG7 Castle Greyhawk..if I ever see Diet Coke golems in dungeon I will never buy it ever again.
2. WGR1 Greyhawk Ruins ..better than the joke version but hard to play it ..it is really, open door, kill, loot..after a while the haphazzard monster and treasure placement gets to me. ..at least Undermountain had the Halaster telporting portals to explain why the monsters there and how they eat when not mauling clerics..
3. B4 the lost city..we all loved it as kids but come on, this is just throwing random monsters and treasures in rooms with very little consideration to the overall scenario of being in a buried pyramid.
4. X2 Castle Amber for the same reason, I loved playing it but I was only 13 at the time..
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Creative Director
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I second that request. I'd really like to see the maps include the positions of the creatures. That way, you can tell at a glance where everyone is and decide how they react. I don't think dungeon should adopt the delve format, but I think more could be done to cram information into the map page. If nothing else, adding the key on the map (e.g. Flood Season) is a terrific time saver.
Here's my biggest request for improving dungeon crawls:
I can, unfortunatley, guarentee that at this point you won't be seeing this happen much. We generally don't have enough time to coordinate this level of communication between the text of an adventure and the adventure's maps, since by the time we've got the text in a place where it's solid and won't be changed, the maps are done and there's not really enough time to go back and make changes to the map without risk of messing it up. Worse, the point of a lot of encounters is that they're dynamic; that's why you rarely, if ever, see creatures appear in the read-aloud text. What the monsters in a room are up to depends wildly on what the PCs have done to rile them up before they actually enter the room. Further, monster positions tend to clutter the map.
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A few thoughts on dungeons from my side:
I had a strange experience last year! When I DMed "The Forgotten Forge" from the ECS my, which has only a few brief descriptions of areas below Sharn (and little maps), letting the DM flesh out the parts "between" those areas, my players told me that, even without making a map themselves during their delve, that this had been one of the coolest dungeons they ever played.
Shortly before, I run Jzadirune, where the players of the above sample had been part of the group and everyone of the players told me afterwards that it has been too big, too boring and without any atmosphere at all.
Besides, it has been a horror to DM...
So that doesn't mean a dungeon with only basic descriptions is a good one, while one with descriptions for every room and step the PCs visit/take, is a bad one.
One of my favorite dungeon crawls (and in my eyes the best 1st level adventure ever) was/is The Whispering Cairn from Erik.
I figured out that the following is true for my group and myself as their DM, to make a dungeon worth (and most of all FUN) playing:
- A good reason to go there
- Atmosphere!!!
- Prepareability (sorry, can't find a better word now)
What I mean with "prepareability" is the following:
Jzadirune was the hell to prepare, because once the PCs entered, they could go anywhere. Since you have to check an order in which to describe the rooms in the text, you as the DM has a certain "run-of-things" in mind - but the DMs order and sequence of events and rooms visited is most certainly not the one the players will use.
As you prepare you have areas you love and once which you just won't be comfortable with. When your players stumble into such an area, everything "goes down", the game might even get stuck.
I like dungeons where the players kind of get, well, it's the wrong word but somehow fits, railroaded through the dungeon. That doesn't mean that the exact order of the dungeon should be given, it should mean there are kind of small areas which to prepare is not that hard and in which the players have total freedom in which direction to go. Think of it like:
Entering the dungeon, the pcs have one room where two rooms are ajacent. The two rooms only lead back to room #1 where there's a corridor leading to area 2 which has 5 rooms in all. From one of those rooms there's an exit to area 3 and in another room there as exit to area 4.
In this way I find it easier to be prepared kind of - pcs enter area 1, than area 2 follows. After that they might run into area 3 or 4.
Sorry if I am a bit confusing right now, but I fear I lack the proper words to make my idea clear. Anyway, The Whispering Cairn did exactly that for me. The areas are easy to perpare and they have to be played in a certain order. I haven't played it yet, but from the first reading I am still familiar with the "flow" of the dungeon, where the pcs go first, where they will/have to go second, etc.
A dungeon should be easy to follow in mind for the players.
If it get's too big, even the Dm will fall into:"You enter another room with two more doors to the west and south..." I hate that!!!
Sorry, for getting too long. When I am awake again, I have to check what I've written here, and hopefully it still makes sense for me... I hope you get what I meant to say.
... How about adventures that spend half their words on investigation/role-play/urban & wilderness setup and close with a small, 5–10 room dungeon?...
This is the kind of adventure I like best, and is also the category that most of the adventure queries I have been working on/submitted have fallen into.* I like a good massive dungeoncrawl, like a Return to Temple of Elemental Evil kinda thing, but I feel they should be the exception, not the rule.
* It is rather ironic that the only query to make it past the Gatekeeper was in fact not one of these, but instead simply a dungeon crawl, albeit a dynamic dungeon with opportunities for RP as well.
EDIT: Nevermind, found it. Google is your friend!
Meanwhile, on-topic...
In striking the balance, I have a question for those of you who dislike dungeon crawls. When does an adventure become a dungeon crawl for you? Is it still a dungeon crawl if the adventrue takes place entirely on a ship that's been stolen by pirates? What about if it's a manor house you're hired to infiltrate and rob? How about adventures that spend half their words on investigation/role-play/urban & wilderness setup and close with a small, 5–10 room dungeon?
Basically, how much "dungeon" can you bear to see in an adventure if you hate dungeon crawls?
Well, I don't hate dungeon crawls by any stretch, but I will admit to having something of a short attention span with them. More than 12-18 areas (spread over two or three levels) and my eyes start to glaze over. Maure Castle, despite the coolness of it being new Greyhawk material from Himself, I found to actually be rather hard to get into.
A really good "dungeon crawl" from a fairly recent issue, I would say, was "Cradle of Madness" -- with one design problem. The dungeon was basically a long hallway with the Big Encounter at the far end. When I ran it, my group ignored _everything_ on either side and went straight for the ceremony, thus bypassing 85% of the adventure. Talk about "linear!"
But my point is that it was just the right size. Smaller than that, and it doesn't feel like you've _done_ anything ... larger than that, and it gets to be a chore.
IMO, obviously. :)
-The Gneech
So we're aware that a fair amount of our readers aren't as interested in the old classic "dungeon crawl" adventure.
Personally, I really enjoy dungeon crawls, especially when they've got plots and dynamic inhabitants and creative encounters.When does an adventure become a dungeon crawl for you? Is it still a dungeon crawl if the adventrue takes place entirely on a ship that's been stolen by pirates? What about if it's a manor house you're hired to infiltrate and rob? How about adventures that spend half their words on investigation/role-play/urban & wilderness setup and close with a small, 5–10 room dungeon?
Basically, how much "dungeon" can you bear to see in an adventure if you hate dungeon crawls?
I really don't like dungeons as all the ones I have ever been on have been vacant. The only thing in there are other monsters who want to kill me. Granted the reason for being in there has been relatively good, but still I find them kind of boring. However, if there were say a race of people who had now taken over the dungeon and decided to live there and that I could run into that would be much better. I would get to stop and talk to someone and maybe that could spin off another adventure.
Just like, about 90% of everyone else here, I prefer to have a character building experience. Sorry but my character doesn't develop much by evading death traps and monsters, it is built through communication with other sentient beings.So yeah, manor house, or pirate ship not a dungeon crawl.
Later
A.
A dungeon crawl in the traditional sense every now and again can be great, so long as they make sense and they strike the balance between being cohesive to having some variety. I've had players complain at the table itself that they were really bored by just going from room to room, killing what's inside, checking for traps/treasure, moving on. Wash, rinse, repeat.
"Murder in Oakbridge", "Chimes At Midnight" and "And Madness Followed" (Hate titles that begin with prepositions, but anyways) are a great example of what I like to see in exchange for a dungeon crawl, at least some of the time. Written up events and encounters that work in a chronological progression spread out over different areas. And they have to be dynamic; not writing up every possible choice the PCs can make, but providing a general approach to the encounter that the DM can expand on with confidence.
Nicolas Logue's recent Eberron adventure "Flight of the Golden Dragon" is an example of this. Almost all of it takes place in one area, but sometimes the PCs are trying to stop a hijacking, diffuse a hostage situation, derail a sabotage attempt, etc. Not every detail is included, but there is enough direction to both advance the plot and to let the DM tailor the encounters to their players. Everyone has understandable motivations and act according to them.
"Hall of Harsh Reflections" was a chance to do this that was passed up in favor of not one dungeon crawl, but two dungeon crawls in the same adventure. What guild of assassin dopplegangers spend all of their time hanging out in the warehouse? They should have been hounding the PCs relentlessly for their Illithid master while the PCs frantically tried to find their way to the mastermind, if just so that they can let their guard down enough to buy a drink without worrying about the barmaid poisoning it because she's a doppleganger.
Dungeon crawls are definitely fun, but they can't be 90% of the campaign or else it's going to get very old very fast. Investigation or role-playing heavy adventures may be more effort, but they approach the cinematic and heroic aspects of D&D more than what basically amounts to grave-robbing at the end of the day.
James,
Just to clarify--I don't want the maps changed; I just would prefer the stat blocks, tactics and possible locations of the dungeon inhabitants located together, not scattered around the room descriptions in the text. Anything that can be done to reduce page flipping in any adventure, dungeoncrawl or not, would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks again....
BTW--since everyone is mentioning adventures--I'm running "Hateful Legacy" right now from #131 and the ogre cliff dwellings are one of the coolest "dungeons" I've seen in a long time. I love that kind of stuff.
So we're aware that a fair amount of our readers aren't as interested in the old classic "dungeon crawl" adventure.
My bet is most of your readership is not unhappy with Dungeon Crawls per se. Certainly I'm not - I'd just like some verity. I mean we have been having something like 5 of every 6 adventures be Dungeon Crawls for at least a couple of years now.
I'm glad you ask. Thank you very much. Yes, I hate dungeon crawls, I hate nearly all of the 'great' modules of the early D&D age. Most of the times I just took a small part from them and then made my own thing.
The biggest problem is, Dungeon Crawls are boring and illogical. That doesn't mean that a logical dungeon crawl is better, it is still boring. Why?
There is no room for players who like characters that aren't maximized for combat or trap finding.
My players like to see their characters in the spotlight and I think every players like this. To make the characters alive, they decide to make some choices, which from a character point of view are logical, but make no sense to powerplay. These characters doesn't stand a chance in a dungeon crawl, because there are no true options to a violent solution.
I like a good combat and action, but not if it is the only thing that happens.
Another point is, I'm a experienced DM and my players are experienced, too. There is not much we haven't seen yet. Things that were great twenty years ago, are now boring us to death. Game mechanics come and go, a strong story stays. If a adventure has a story that sparks the imagination, it is easy to overlook some flaws.
The Whispering Cairn was a great example of how an adventure can have a little bit of everything.
Much intelligent discussion on this thread. Before I give my opinion, James, let me just say this: 1) thank you for asking the question and being such a great part of this community. 2) DO NOT CHANGE WHAT YOU'RE DOING JUST TO MAKE US HAPPY. Sure, we complain. But writing a D&D adventure is no different than writing a poem or novel or screenplay -- at its best, it's a work of art, and no great work of art ever came from a committee! If AP3, in both concept and execution, isn't something you and your writers aren't absolutely STOKED to bring to life, it's going to fail. So don't do what makes us happy, do what makes you happy. And if that means building a 99 room dungeonplex, so be it.
Now, to answer your question, there is nothing better than a great dungeon and nothing worse than a bad one. I'd never read TOMB OF HORRORS prior to finding the 3.5 conversion on WoTC...wow, talk about awesome. Diabolical and utterly delicious. Countless opportunities to create utter chaos amongst players -- which is what they want, whether they'll admit it or not. I now understand what people mean when they talk about "first edition feel." Last week, I bought the CASTLE MAURE PDF looking for more first edition goodness. Very disappointing. It seems to me to be about a bunch of "evil" creatures who don't do much more than dispatch adventurers who lack the courtesy or common sense to stay out of their home.
What makes a great adventure, whether set within a dungeon or not, is a compelling dilemma that provides the players an opportunity to solve the problem in whatever way they choose.
By the way, I think the two most recent installments of AoW are fantastic.
Jebadiha wrote: Much intelligent discussion on this thread. Before I give my opinion, James, let me just say this: 1) thank you for asking the question and being such a great part of this community. 2) DO NOT CHANGE WHAT YOU'RE DOING JUST TO MAKE US HAPPY. Sure, we complain. But writing a D&D adventure is no different than writing a poem or novel or screenplay -- at its best, it's a work of art, and no great work of art ever came from a committee! If AP3, in both concept and execution, isn't something you and your writers aren't absolutely STOKED to bring to life, it's going to fail. So don't do what makes us happy, do what makes you happy. And if that means building a 99 room dungeonplex, so be it.
I second that thought! I subscribed to Dungeon about a year ago after realising how awesomoe the content is nowadays (that includes all of the "dungeon crawls")
James, I see the words "dungeon crawl" as having two seperate and distinct meanings....
1 - To all of us a dungeon crawl is the type of adventure that is underground and consists of rooms upon rooms filled with traps and treasure.
2 - To some of us a dungeon crawl means a completely illogical and (after the first three encounters or so) boring hack and slash fest that leaves all players wondering "why are we here?".
I should point out that I have played a "crawl" or two which had no walls or tunnels, it's really a bad TYPE of adventure rather than a location FOR an adventure.
Please don't make any drastic changes, you guys are doing such a good job out there on the west coast. Remember that most of the subscribers who are happy with the magazines content are the silent ones. I suspect that for every complaint you recieve you have ten happy customers.
Last thought - Motivation
Motivation for the party to go on the adventure. This is the absolute key to making sure a dungeon doesn't become a "crawl". If the party has a burning desire to snuff out the spark of life in the BBEG, then you can place that opponent in the deepest, longest dungeon you want. They will cut through all opposition and beg the DM for more, and they'll talk about it for years afterwards.
This has been a great thread so far and I hope more folks out there contribute!
my two coppers - Rath
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(...)I just would prefer the stat blocks, tactics and possible locations of the dungeon inhabitants located together, not scattered around the room descriptions in the text. Anything that can be done to reduce page flipping in any adventure, dungeoncrawl or not, would be greatly appreciated.(...)
Yes, that would be a great improvement. Because it's getting even more worse if the stat-block and the Tactics or Development and Roomdescription are on different pages...
All in one place (the stat-blocks) would be a DMs-Heaven!!!Red Hand of Doom shows it works...
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Creative Director
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Never fear; this question isn't a symptom that we're considering big changes to Dungeon. It's nothing more than me trying to get a grip on what exactly comprises a "dungeon crawl" and why the phrase seems to be used negatively more than postively. Personally, I'd classify any adventure where the action takes place in a defined set of rooms as a "dungeon crawl." The pirate ship and manor house examples I list above would both likely get the "Dungeon Crawl" appelation if they ran in Dungeon, since the map dictates the confines of the adventure.
"Red Hand of Doom" and "Into the Wormcrawl Fissure" more or less show how I think the dungeon crawl needs to be handled in this crazy modern day and age; smaller dungeons with neat areas and no "empty rooms." Want a LOT of dungeon encounters? Make sure they're split up between several different locations, or at the very least, differently themed levels of dungeon. And for the love of Obox-ob put stuff in that isn't straight-up melee fights! Not everyone plays fighters with swords and shields.
Anyway, keep on chatting. This is interesting stuff.
With "dungeon crawls," my players like dungeons, but generally don't care for huge, multi-level complexes...especially those that have 4-6 doors and hallways every time you go through a room (too many choices often as bad as not enough choice). I personally think "dungeon" type locales are the heart and soul of fantasy adventures (at least the kind I enjoy most). Crypts, ruins, castles, prisons, haunted houses, etc. make for the most memorable adventures (location, location, location).
Personally, I think "Red Hand of Doom" is a perfect model for D&D adventures. Whoever thought to place the designer notes sidebars in the text is a genius. The adventure features a great mix of adventure locales, and thus players don't feel trapped in a single location for a lengthy period of time.
Putting stat blocks all in one place... interesting. I'll run it by Sean and the art folk.
This is how it was done in Return to the Temple of Elemental Evil, and I, for one, thought it was a great idea. It makes the text of the adventure easier to read, and it might make layout easier. For example, IIRC, Dragotha's stats are split over two pages, not facing, but on opposite sides. That will make running him a bit difficult. (I'm tempted to just scan both pages and print them out in such a way that I don't have to flip much, just for his stats alone.) If all the stats were collected at the end of the adventure (much like the new monsters/magic items) this may not happen as often.
Greg
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Never fear; this question isn't a symptom that we're considering big changes to Dungeon. It's nothing more than me trying to get a grip on what exactly comprises a "dungeon crawl" and why the phrase seems to be used negatively more than postively. Personally, I'd classify any adventure where the action takes place in a defined set of rooms as a "dungeon crawl." The pirate ship and manor house examples I list above would both likely get the "Dungeon Crawl" appelation if they ran in Dungeon, since the map dictates the confines of the adventure.
"Red Hand of Doom" and "Into the Wormcrawl Fissure" more or less show how I think the dungeon crawl needs to be handled in this crazy modern day and age; smaller dungeons with neat areas and no "empty rooms." Want a LOT of dungeon encounters? Make sure they're split up between several different locations, or at the very least, differently themed levels of dungeon. And for the love of Obox-ob put stuff in that isn't straight-up melee fights! Not everyone plays fighters with swords and shields.
Anyway, keep on chatting. This is interesting stuff.
Red Hand of Doom got it right: several "smaller" dungeons without extraneous fluff. A dungeon should be functional (how does a band of goblins live in here?) and not just a directed series of encounters leading to the bad guy and his treasure. The Whispering Cairn (#124) and Unfamiliar Ground (#119) are also exemplary (and two of the best dungeon crawls written for low levels).
I'm a big fan of dungeon crawls. (For me, it's political intrigue that brings on the yawns and groans). But I do see room for improvement.
My biggest problem with dungeon crawls is a large number of empty rooms. Sure, it makes sense that every room in a castle, etc., doesn't necessarily need a trap/hazard/monster, but after about the fifth one my players start getting irritated. It is a game, after all.
I reallize alot of this stems from the old days, when empty rooms were included for the DM to flesh out. But nowadays, I think most DMs would rather have the rooms fleshed out, and sub their own ideas where appropriate.
I'm also not a big fan of completely random population and complete illogic. I like themes of creatures, such as you've done with the wormspawn, that have a reason to "lair" together. This is in sharp contrast to an adventure where room number one houses a family of kobolds, while room number two has a pack of ghouls. Why haven't the kobolds been eaten?
The biggest suspension of disbelief killer is "you open the 5x5 foot door to reveal a 15x15 monster". How'd it get in there?
Same goes for traps. I love a good trap as much as the next guy, as long as the trap seems to serve some sort of purpose rather than just being a random obstacle.
Good attention to detail can turn a poor dungeon crawl into a memorable adventure.
I like the fact that, more and more, designers are putting serious, detailed thought into how to make the game FUN. Figuring out what rules make the game fun, and which bog things down. Then, when folks like WotC and Paizo incorporate their findings and discoveries into their adventures and products, the game benefits immensely.
For example, random traps sprinkled throughout the dungeon. As a side effect, players slow everything down while their characters search every square inch of the dungeon on the chance a trap lies in wait. Now, the thinking about traps has really moved away from that paradigm and towards making the presence of a trap an opportunity for characters to meet a challenge and possibly evade or eliminate it. The emphasis is on making the game more fun for the participants.
I think dungeons/adventures are undergoing a renaissance of sorts. I love the classic adventures and always will have nostalgia for them. As far as actual play, however, I appreciate the direction adventures are taking. Emphasis on the fun, de-emphasizing the mundane, the boring, and the tedious. There seems to be a growing and evolving *intentional* process involved about focusing the game on the fun. I don't recall ever seeing this level of forethought, design, and anticipation applied to the game before.
Maure Castle, on the other hand, is a mess. Instead of a cohesive plot, the vast majority of adventuring takes place room to room. While I appreciate the creativity in describing each room, there's nothing for a PC to get inspired about. It's a "moral neutral" set of independent encoutners strung together under the title "Maure Castle." Kill things, survive the "save or die traps," and take all the stuff.
It's funny because when I first read "Mordy's Fantastical Adventure" back in the day, I hated it. Primarily because of some of things that you have listed. One of things I liked about the reissue is that they (Rob -- Erik, et al, kudos! btw) gave a lot of the major bad guys interesting background and even some of the fodder had some interesting motives.
When you look at any of the classic modules they were extremely light on this stuff (G 1-3, D 1-2 etc.) and the later 'supermodules' that added in more plot and background were basically held at arms length and fingers pinching nose.
The reasons for this are many but I think the most important is because we, as DM's, have very specific needs when it comes to plot, story, and NPC's. Those old modules (epitome of hack-and-slash) were memorable because of individual DM's that put there own slant on things. The AP's have to tread a fine line between how much background is too much and also keeping each adventure cohesive to the over all thread of the story (without making them useless to those DM's who don't have any desire to use the AP as a whole). Good luck!
I think the reason dungeon crawls are far less popular now then they were (in the 'classic' module era) is because the power level of the game has jumped significantly. You no longer spend the bulk of your adventuring career at the low and mid levels. 3rd edition for good or ill moves characters very quickly into the mid and high levels. Once a character gets to those levels of power he wants to be a force in the campaign world and utilize the power that he has gained. Unless designed carefully I don't think the dungeon crawl does that very well.
Trying to run most of those old modules 'as is' would be incredibly difficult because the party would be at such a level as to either make continuous encounters with giants either too difficult or incredibly boring and monotonous. And yet if you throw a bunch of different creatures together to make things challenging then you better have a very good story for why they all exist in that dungeon to begin with.
I know as a DM that has very little free time I expect those adventures that I read in Dungeon to be as complete as possible and basically ready to run straight out of the magazine. Yet when thinking back about all those modules that I bought from TSR, I never expected, nor wanted, something 'ready-to-run' for my game. Probably because back then I had the time to put in personal touches to make it a 'classic' adventure.
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A dungeon crawl occurs when the pacing of your game drags to a grinding halt and you can't wait to end it all, kill your character, and go home.
But seriously, I actually think older and more experianced players dislike dungeon crawls because they don't hold the same kinds of suprise and wonder that they did when they first started playing and didn't know every monster in the book. I don't like to play them myself, because I think about continuity and detail and stuff like that.
However when I was 12, I didn't. New players just figuring out the rules of the game probably have more fun crawling than developing personal relationships. Its a simpler concept. Sometimes, simple is good too.
To me a dungeoncrawl is a simple adventure with few options and a very guided directive. Its easy to run, easy to play, get-the bad-guy type of thing. It has little to do with setting, more to do with the style of play. Seasoned vets of the game, they like to debate with villians; newbies just learning things... they want to know that the monsters are bad and they can kill them.
In this regard, dungeoncrawls are vital to the future of the game. If I sit down with bunch of my 8th grade students, who've never played before- the first thing I run is a hack-n-slash dungeoncrawl, and that's all it takes for them to beg me to play THAT GAME afterschool for the rest of the year.
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(paraphrased).....Someone else already mentioned this, but Maure castle holds absolutely ZERO allure for me. It in my mind exemplifies everything bad about dungeons.
... (in)the Extra level that was published....
1/3 of the magazine was dedicated to mapping out a floor of a dungeon with no discernable plot, and which even if it was being used for an adventure that had a plot...
...It comes off as room after room of Mega encounters/sudden death traps and no real reason for PCs to get explore other than it's there so why not?
I agree. And more to the point, TG is referring to the EXTRA level...imagine reading Dungeon 112 and finding the WHOLE ISSUE taken up with room after room after room after room after room after room after.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
There is simply no excuse for this, ESPECIALLY when issue 112 was, itself, an ADDITION to an old 1stEd. zoo-maze-trap-fest.Is there actually a market for this? Have our tastes and expectations really not evolved in 20 years?
The problems with this 'adventure' are:-
1) How big can a place be? By now,the whole area must be riddled with so many holes, that the earth's crust should collapse in on itself.
2) Arbitary limits on where the PCs can go smack of railroading, DM fudge; call it what you will, this sort of stuff is like a red rag to a bull for players, who will do everything in their power to bypass it. E.g. The lower levels are accessed by "unopenable" doors. Says who? Any PCs of this level have access to passwall, transmute rock, wish, plane shift, commune: you name it, they WILL try it, and the DM had better damn well say what's behind those doors or his campaign will crash & burn right there. This is not a question of 'awkward' or 'disruptive' players. As far as they are concerned, they are GOOD players, confronting the problem set before them. That's why I just can't imagine a huge clamouring for a sequel to the original module...anyone who had played the original, who remembered such frustrating episodes would surely have bitter, painful memories, not rosy nostalgia, ...no?
I don't mean to disrespect the author(s) of the recent works; I do respect anyone who can crunch page-long stat-blocks and come up with traps that challenge high-level PCs. I may even dip into the text some time and transplant a creature or trap to somewhere in my campaign more fitting to it. But such encounters should be the culmination of a themed adventure, not 'just room no 452886, level 542'.
My whole response to issue 112 was "Wwwwwhhhyyyyyyyyy????????????".
I agree. And more to the point, TG is referring to the EXTRA level...imagine reading Dungeon 112 and finding the WHOLE ISSUE taken up with room after room after room after room after room after room after.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.
There is simply no excuse for this, ESPECIALLY when issue 112 was, itself, an ADDITION to an old 1stEd. zoo-maze-trap-fest.
Is there actually a market for this? Have our tastes and expectations really not evolved in 20 years?
Actually from Erik Mona's various posts on the subject, Maure Castle was one of Dungeon's most popular issues.
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Just take a look at the "sphere" room in White Plume Mountain for a unique spin on the dungeon crawl. I have noticed that some of the newer adventures are using the 1st edition style of those old puzzle rooms, except they are putting that much thought in to the adventure as a whole. My players seem to love running around underground as long as there is a logical reason to be there in the first place.(seems like most groups on these boards are the same)
Remember, the game is called Dungeons and Dragons for a reason. I get happy when I see the words "dungeon crawl". It hasn't evolved in to a negative term for me yet.
It should be noted that the reason issue 112 is available in PDF is that the issue has SOLD OUT, at least that is my understanding. This is a distinction not shared by most other issues. I imagine, therefore, that it must have been a very popular issue.
That said, I'll admit it is also one that I haven't read, so I can't comment personally on the adventure. But for people asking why... clearly that sort of dungeon crawl DOES sell. At least when a gamer celebrity authors it.
- Ashavan
[It's funny because when I first read "Mordy's Fantastical Adventure" back in the day, I hated it. Primarily because of some of things that you have listed. One of things I liked about the reissue is that they (Rob -- Erik, et al, kudos! btw) gave a lot of the major bad guys interesting background and even some of the fodder had some interesting motives.
Those are some good points Craig, and I can admit that Maure Castle does make a couple attempts at plot and character. I also grog what you and others are saying about the enjoyment of static dungeons, in general. I like ‘em too.
However, I want to talk a bit more about Maure Castle, since it’s come up a few more times. . .
For the most part, I’m pretty easy to please, and I’ve enjoyed 99% of the adventures I’ve read in Dungeon. If something doesn’t work, I can always change it to suit my style of play. However, my dislike of Maure Castle is very specific, and is probably the sole example I can think of regarding what not to do (from the magazine itself, of course . . . feel free to insert “Tomb of Horrors,” and a few other 1st edition modules into this too).
The checklist of bad encounters includes one-solution battles, a “compulsion” to touch objects that have harmful effects, single ability score checks with such vastly different results (Intelligence is a very small factor in determining the effects of the purple stone, for instance), rooms in the same dungeon with illogical hazards (poisonous fumes, magical fires, bubbling acid), several “empty/mundane” rooms mixed with several trapped rooms mixed with several treasure rooms (a reeeally bad combination).
All of these “not-so-good” elements are passive effects that slow down the narrative. In my experience, players of all ages want to take an active role in the game, letting their decisions make a difference in their own survival, advancement, etc. Unfortunately, as this particular adventure is played out, and the players observe the kinds of indiscriminate, random challenges that they have to face, their only logical recourse (to empower themselves) is to search every 5 ft. space in every single room, run a scan of all the detect spells, and mess with every single object as if it were a possible magical item, trigger, door, or trap. Talk about bogged down! Any attempts by Mr. Kuntz to develop NPCs or a cohesive storyline can’t really make up for this inherent problem.
As a smaller single-level adventure, this design wouldn’t be fun to play. As a massive multi-level dungeon . . . it’s just flat-out painful. Apologies to those that worked hard on this issue, but I figured that using Maure Castle is the best way to illustrate a “bad dungeon crawl,” and I really wanted to provide honest feedback.
Thanks again for the opportunity, and I think that the Paizo staff is doing a wonderful job with the magazine!
It should be noted that the reason issue 112 is available in PDF is that the issue has SOLD OUT, at least that is my understanding. This is a distinction not shared by most other issues. I imagine, therefore, that it must have been a very popular issue.
That said, I'll admit it is also one that I haven't read, so I can't comment personally on the adventure. But for people asking why... clearly that sort of dungeon crawl DOES sell. At least when a gamer celebrity authors it.
- Ashavan
Yeah, this adventure did sell out, didn't it? I'd forgotten that.
I am not a person of faith, but regarding Maure Castle’s sales figures, I desperately want to believe the following equation:
Wayne Reynolds gets a cover, especially one as awesome as #112. It’s be-oo-ti-ful. (plus) The words “Giant-Sized Super Adventure” on the cover, something that excites me for the same reasons that the words “Adventure Path” do, regardless of its actual content (plus) The invocation of “by Gary Gygax.”
(equals)
Awesome sales.
Now that’s faith. :)
Super thread! Most of my feelings are already represented here, but I'll try to add a little.
Generally, I just can't stomach dungeoncrawls. This has been a relatively recent determination, as I've played in a few "Classic-style" modules recently. Simply, they're boring: especially those "Classic-style" ones. They tend not to make sense and be monotonous. Too frequently heard was the phrase, "why are we here again?"
James, the examples you give (like the ship) are great as there is still context. The adventure isn't the dungeon; the dungeon is simply a piece of the adventure. I prefer this type of dungeon.
Dungeoncrawls tend to focus on fighting and it puts everyone into the classic roles. This is obviously the way many like to play and more power to them. However, I bore quickly from these, as they're typically too limiting.
So when is a dungeon crawl a dungeon crawl? When it's outlived its usefulness. When it's no longer fun and engaging. When someone says, "OK, let's handle this room just like the last five." The better ones are integral to a larger plot and limited in size and scope.
IMHO of course.
From the 1st edition modules, three possible examples of true "dungeon crawls" (as the term seems to be evolving in this thread) could incude Ghost Tower of Inverness, White Plume Mountain (mentioned above), and Tomb of Horrors (the "killer dungeon" prototype).
Several other 1st ed. modules seem to epitomize adventures with plots: Against the Giants and Vault of the Drow. Obviously, these series also had elements of dungeon crawl built into them (slogging through the Underdark, for example), but they also had cohesive plots, groups of monsters and bad guys in close proximity for good reason, and a narrative flow.
I like all of the above named adventures -- each has its charms, each has its drawbacks. From a personal stance, I prefer the adventures with a narrative flow, and where monsters have reasons for collecting in one place.
Of course, many adventures are of both types, such as Temple of Elemental Evil. It had a plot, narrative flow, but it also had a hefty dungeon crawl.
It often seems that after the "mystery" of the dungeon wears off, it often becomes a chore to slog through, rather than an adventure. For various reasons, once a dungeon gains too many rooms, too many hallways, and too many different encounters, it moves into the category of dungeon crawl. As long as the setting (be it dungeon or whatever) retains an air of mystery, a feeling of danger, and an atmosphere of impending danger, it holds a lot of fun potential. Once the dungeon becomes commonplace (another empty room, or this room contains dust and cobwebs), it ceases to be unique and becomes gaming-by-numbers.
Hey!
Great thread guys - thanks!
There's not been much dicussion on the LOCATION of the dungeon. How does this figure for most people?
For me, the most enjoyable dungeons to crawl through (crawl evokes the right claustrophobic dungeon atmosphere) are the ones in/of the most remarkable locations. So what it's just cave room #54...
I want to crawl through lost temples of forgotten gods.
I want to crawl around a slowly filling with water mine.
I want to crawl through the swiss cheese caves of the southern cliffs.
I want to crawl through the ancient burrows of the moon beast.
...
I'm sure you get the idea.
:)
Peace,
tfad
Yeah, this adventure did sell out, didn't it? I'd forgotten that.I am not a person of faith, but regarding Maure Castle’s sales figures, I desperately want to believe the following equation:
Wayne Reynolds gets a cover, especially one as awesome as #112. It’s be-oo-ti-ful. (plus) The words “Giant-Sized Super Adventure” on the cover, something that excites me for the same reasons that the words “Adventure Path” do, regardless of its actual content (plus) The invocation of “by Gary Gygax.”
(equals)
Awesome sales.
Now that’s faith. :)
I actually ran that adventure, and we stopped halfway through the second floor for lack-of-fun and unfair lethality.
I think you're right in part. Hell, all of x, y, and z made it "collectible." I wonder how many of those people played it?
I think that there's some adventures that can be interesting reading material without being fun to play. I think that this is one in that it showcases an extreme: the deadliest dungeon. It's an adventure that has to exist. As a player though, I don't enjoy being randomly exterminated, and as a DM, I don't enjoy getting bogged-down in "Take 20" Searches every 5 feet (as you suggested earlier).
I would personally rather not see any more adventures like this one for a while. If the numbers indicate that those are the ones that sell though?