I have a question for the editors as well as DMs and players.
There's a lot of talk with the new adventure path about moving away from dungeon crawls and doing more investigation, wilderness, and so forth.
How much do you enjoy playing in straightforward dungeon crawls or running dungeon crawls, and how much demand do the magazine's staff see for dungeon adventures compared to more modern types?
Dungeon crawls are really what my friends adventures lead to. He tweaks current adventures he finds or just makes his own, and in the end you got a dungeon crawl/normal "modern" adventure. He's great at em and if you DM try it. But dungeon crawls are fun sometimes and other times I like "modern" adventures. Magazines really don't make them to much though so it kinda stinks, but the adventures they make are still great.
~GtG
As a DM, I like dungeon crawls because they're somewhat traditional. The classic dungeon crawl.
The dungeon is also a great place for PCs to make names for themselves. The epic campaign we just ended started with a ruined castle and a multi-leveled dungeon beneath. It was a great starter dungeon.
PCs can excel in dungeons. Rogues sneak and search for traps and secret doors, wizards examine ancient sigils and writings, fighters are on guard at all times, and clerics are constantly vigilant against the threat of undead, etc. etc...
Also, PCs are often rolling checks and testing their skills on a near-constant basis in dungeons. Lots of time to sweat there. It's tense in a dungeon, where the ceiling can collapse at any moment. Players are on their toes in dungeons, and that's always a fun time.
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I think as a game master a 'crawl a lot easier to run. There's a more finite playing field to manage, from a tactical and npc-controlling standpoint.
I think as a player it is a lot easier to get apathetic about, if a 'crawl is run poorly, or the dungeon is of mediocre design. As long as you don't feel like a party of cattle going through a chute, it's okay. If there's some novelty to it, it's okay.
I've been in real standard crawls before that felt more like doing chores than adventuring. When you hit a monster that the gm plays to the hilt, using all of the environment, or really seems to have mastery of its abilities, the choriness of it goes away.
I've played for over 20 years and they (dungeon crawls and combat heavy wilderness adventures) are still my preferred venue, as a player and a GM. Perhaps it's because I grew up in the 1980's playing 1st edition where it was very much a defeat-monster and receive experience & gold, but I've always thought dungeoncrawls as the prototypic experience, particularly with a plausible storyline dropped into the background. Many of the 'serious Role-players' I have met in the past have come across as more drama-heavy individuals that are frequently high-maintenance on me as a GM, because they want to dialogue with every person they run into, and they want to 'explore their character's background and story,' which is fairly foreign to me, but if that's what does it for them, so be it. (Being a psychologist by profession) I think that certain personality types are more attracted to the non-dungeon crawl qualities that the more role-playing adventures have to offer, and knuckleheads like me prefer a straight up brawl with the monster to get that +3 greatsword. Given my inclinations, I think the current editor for dungeon magazine is the best thing to come along in quite some time. I think the Age of Worms is the most exciting thing D&D has cranked out since Return to the Tomb of Horrors in 1998.
If the dungeon is plausible and not just an menagerie of random monsters and treasures, I love 'em.
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I love a good crawl. Wilderness encounters are ok by the Dungeon is where I belong. City based adventures with Political intrique and other "talky" stuff gets boring for me. I like clear-cut challenges and options. To quote Heathanson, I feel like some adventures have too much "choriness" and are overflowing with choriessitude. George W. Heathanson, whodda thunk it!
;>
FH
I think a mix of adventure types is my favorite way to run a campaign--hack 'n slash gets boring after a while, even if there are lots of interesting tactical challenges thrown in, and after a session or two of pure roleplaying, I'm ready to out swords and have a good fight again. Wilderness, I think, is the hardest to do, and I'm not sure the skill system as elaborated in the PH is really a big help--but if done well and mixed with other stuff (pre-set "random" encounters and mini-dungeons) it can also be fun.
Out of the adventures I've created for my homebrew campaign, two of my favorites have been hybrids--for example:
The dwarf theocrat cuts a deal with the PCs to raise a dead party member if they'll bring back a hippogriff egg. The PCs have to explore a thirty mile section of mountains to find the exact location of a pair of nesting hippogriffs, during which they have several combat encounters (orcs, ogres, and the hippogriffs), plus have to roleplay encounters with denizens of the area to get info on the hippogriffs (a band of stone giants, nomad herdsmen, and a witch encamped in an old ruin. While looking around the ruin, the PCs discover it is an ancient elven city, and explore several buildings, finding clues connecting to a larger quest they are involved in.
The party has been asked by caravan guard captain to track down two of his former employees whose theft of caravan trade goods has ruined his reputation. They have escaped from the city prison, and the party can either bribe their way in to investigate, or infiltrate via the sewers. The former path involves more roleplaying, the latter an encounter with a wererat and his othyugh pet who feeds on the waste and corpses dumped into the sewer from the dungeon basement. They discover the two were helped to escape by someone coming up through the sewer drains, and track their trail through the sewer, leading to more dungeon encounters. The trail disappears once it leaves the dungeon, so the party has to bathe and make inquiries in the criminal underworld to discover a jailbreak specialist who arranges these affairs for a living. Then, they locate him and spy on him to find out where the criminals are hidden--in the end, they have to extract them from a brothel in a very bad slum area, with the difficult task of either fighting their way past thugs and quarter watchmen or successfully deceiving them as to why they are carrying two unconscious men through the streets. Their actions help to unveil a conspiracy to ruin the captain's caravan guard agency, and also serve to introduce the PCs to the underworld of a city whose politics they are destined to become deeply involved in.
I suppose these synopses don't do justice to the amount of fun we had playing the adventures, but hopefully they illustrate a style of play that maintains a good balance of city, dungeon, and wilderness and changes the pace often enough so that players don't get bored. I think the adventures that best exemplify this style of play in AOW are Whispering Cairn (assuming frequent breaks from crawling the dungeon to recover, sell loot, and explore Diamond Lake), Hall of Harsh Reflections/the Champion's Belt (this is a great adventure because of the heroic implications of the players' actions), and to a lesser extent Prince of Redhand and Into the Wormcrawl Fissure. The hints and hooks dropped into the other adventures, combined with the possibility of running the campaign in one of the big published settings also make the campaign as a whole easy to add more of whichever elements the DM feels is missing--so on the whole it's a well-designed campaign, even if some of the adventures tend toward being outright dungeon crawls.
I don't like to say I don't like Dungeon Crawls, as they do make my life easier as a DM. But on the flipside, Dungeon Crawls can easily become the most tedious form of gaming, as PCs enter room after room of traps, monsters and mysterious sigils. Jzadirune is an example of a bad dungeon crawl, too many rooms and too much crawl. Most of the time 50% of the party had little to do as their were too many rooms vs. too little encounters. Since so many of the encounters were traps and secret doors only the rogue artificer or elves could be included. During combat everyone fights, but during a long series of skill rolls only the skilled roll.
On the other hand the Dungeon is a place where the pace is completely controlled by the players, oh aye the monsters will get organised eventually, but for the most part the next room is at best a half existant limbo which only exists after the point the rogue has checked for traps, the cleric has listened at the door, the wizard has cast mage armour and the fighter kicks it in.
So I enjoy dungeons but not crawls, because a crawl is slow and no matter how quickly you pace your fights, a dungeon that is too large feels too slow. I enjoy Dungeons where the players go in, kick some ass, get some treasure and get out knowing they saved the day, or learned who else's ass they gotta kick to save the day. Fortunately that name is found in a city past the dark forest so they can still work on their tans and practice talking like civilised folk instead of putting everything to the sword and falling through another secret door into a wall of deadly poison undead parahnas.
I now need to design the Wall of Deadly Poison Undead Parahnas trap (EL 6).
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I think dungeon crawls are great if (1) they don't go on too long and (2) they don't form ALL of the campaign. The big problem I had with the SCAP was that, while it started off really well with a good mix of roleplay, urban, dungeon and wilderness, it got bogged down into, what seemed to me, a series of dungeon hacks. I got bored (as DM) and the players got bored too. While I think responsibility for that lay primarily with me (I didn't really bring out Cauldron as a living breathing city with, y'know, real people in it that the players could care about) the format didn't really help much.
I think that maybe the Red Hand of Doom has things about right. I think huge dungeon explorations don't do it for me or the players, but small discreet dungeons of, say, about 20 rooms intersperced between roleplaying, wilderness and plot exposition seems about right. (Smaller dungeons are also much easier for a DM to create, of course.) You get the violence, you get the interaction, and you can move on before the site outstays its welcome. Say 60-70% site based, and the other stuff making up the rest.
I'm a big fan of dungeon-crawls, as a player AND as a DM. I really enjoy them. I guess because they're more defined than outdoor scenarios... A little easier to run.
Ultradan
Did I mention how much i love ruins. The best crawls take an hour to finish because there is only one or two rooms. Maybe there is a monster, probably not. A great way to introduce new magic items if the party figures out a riddle or puzzle, or maybe a way to get information into the party's hands that they don't even know they need yet. Yup, small ruins are my favorite as a GM.
I like ruins as well because they present cover and concealment and climbing challenges, there's rooms and darkness, but also open areas with vegetation. Great places for ambushes and large scale, fun fights with lots of bad guys of various CR's....
Amen to ruins! They're ideal for the kind of hybrid adventure I outlined above--you've got some free-form above ground exploring, potential encounters with non-hostile (or at least diplomatically resolvable) encounters, hazards, interesting tactical challenges (trying to get the enemy sniping at you from the top of the crumbling tower, etc.)--AND it's easy to insert a small dungeon amidst the ruins (even if the party's been over them with a fine-toothed comb, the entrance might have been hidden in rubble or overgrown with vines the last time they visited. And there is always a rationale for some interesting puzzle or the possibility of finding a cool item.
Amen also to short dungeons! They are easy to make (2-10 rooms with 1-8 encounters is enough), and easy to plunk down anywhere in the campaign world (a dungeon that small need not be a legend known for miles around, a la Castle Greyhawk or the Temple of Elemental Evil). You don't necessarily need to plant a lot of plot hooks to get the players to enter (an ancient tomb covered by the dunes that was recently exposed by the blowing winds sits by the roadside, its closed doors indicating its unplundered status; a convenient cave appears just when a heavy thunderstorm forces the party to take shelter, but it turns out to have some interesting contents inside.) If the beckoning mini-dungeon doesn't tempt them this time, you can always save it for later and try again with better plot hooks. And sometimes, the mini-dungeon has the seed for a major turning point in the campaign . . .
Hmm;if you mean the traditional meaning of dungeon crawl as going down into a hole in the ground using various means and entering a lost or hidden area of unknown traps and monsters to get rich and powerful or the more liberal meaning of dungeon crawl as taking on any bad guy force in their lair such as a city thieves guild or some mobs wilderness camp; it doesn't matter to me. I love em both and more or less consider it the direction every game should head for the finale, if it doesnt; I will sorely be dissappointed. It would be like getting all dressed up to the T's and staying home to watch bad tv - yuck.
There was a really, really good article in Dragon #10 called "Rational Dungeon Design." I believe it was re-printed in the Best of Dragon Volume 1 (not the Paizo compendium), which is where I first read it.
It talked about how the dungeon needs to be consistent, have a history, have a reason for being there, have an explanation for why the monsters are there--not just a dingy underground adventuring theme park.
I guess people had put some thought into this very topic from the very beginning of D&D. This might be a good candidate for a reprint in Volume 2 compendium from Paizo, because it's timeless.
I like dungeon crawls -- but I fall fast asleep in "mega-dungeons." Two or three levels of 6-10 rooms max, is what I consider a good dungeon.
And as has been commented already, there needs to be other stuff going on in-between.
-The Gneech
As a player I prefer mystery / roleplay in a city environment, where I can have an opportunity to breathe life into my character. You can't express much personality in "I tumble past the beast and poke him with my rapier from behind!"
Hacking my way through endless tunnels isn't much fun unless there is some purpose behind it (e.g. rescue the child who was kidnapped by goblins and being held ransom). Even then I would expect that the goblins might be negotiatied with rather than just blindly attacking a group of characters.
I enjoy "Scooby-Doo" plot twists where the goblins parlay and explain that they were actually hired by someone in town to kidnap the child so that they could get at their competitor. But it needs to be like an onion, small layers of the plot revealed over time.
I love "Dungeon crawls" both as a DM and a player.
oh, mini dungeons for me please, after the 2 level I begin to fall sleep, ass a DM and as a player, give me an 8 rooms dungeon and I will be happy
Wow. A lot of dungeon crawl fans. Granted I've only played through a couple of them, and only GMed one once back in my first days with D&D (and that was because he was captured and trying to escape OUT of the dungeon, not explore it).
My biggest question has been why? Why are there dungeons out in the middle of the wilderness? Why are they full of treasure and monsters instead of, say old rusted cells full of bodies and rotten straw? Why would anyone who's hunting a villain go room by room through something like that rather than just looking for signs of activity and ignoring areas that are obvioiusly abandoned. Every one I've ever played in felt really fake and contrived and it took a tremendous mix of politeness and ingenuity as a player to figure out ways why my character would ever possibly be doing this.
I guess it just comes of not being part of the old school D&D culture, having been brought into gaming through games that were designed to feel like stories so the bizzarities of dungeons really start to get to me--like why the two ochre jellies just sit in this room all day every day in front of this big treasure chest until the day that I come into the room...or the storeroom with a handful of gold coins strewn about and a necklace of missiles sitting in a barrel in the corner. Just feels too much like a video game.
It is a peeve of mine when dungeons don't make sense. They're popular because not everyone particularly minds illogical dungeons as long as they're interesting, especially so younger players or new players. Still, I cringe every time I read an adventure and come across an unlikely encounter that's explained away by a contrived excuse. Some examples:
1. You enter the chamber to find the door slam behind you and a pair of red eyes peer out of the darkness, speaking in Abyssal "The mortal who bound me to this room eight centuries ago is long dead... I shall exact my slow, cruel revenge on you instead!" Plausible. There's a reason for the monster to be here, a reason for him to not have left, and a reason for him to attack. The players should later discover why someone would bind a demon to a room at all.
2. As you begin to force open the suspiciously unattended treasure chest, ooze drips from the ceiling and begins to burn through your clothes. Suddenly, a massive blob snaps out and glomps over you... Plausible. The ooze probably lives here, is attracted by movement, and eats anything who comes in. The treasure was somebody's but they got eaten. The ooze hasn't left because it's a constant supply of food.
3. There's a big rock in the middle of the room. It awakens when you enter to reveal that it's an earth elemental, because it was in... some kind of elemental hibernation? Not so plausible. (Apologies!)
It is a peeve of mine when dungeons don't make sense. They're popular because not everyone particularly minds illogical dungeons as long as they're interesting, especially so younger players or new players. Still, I cringe every time I read an adventure and come across an unlikely encounter that's explained away by a contrived excuse.
While I basically agree with you I'll note that from a players perspective most of the time the explanations simply are not apparent.
That said - if you, as the dungeon designer, work out what X monster does in a normal day and then provide some kind of a background and rational you go a long way to giving your dungeons a feeling of authenticity. Your players won't find out any significant amount of this information however when they do work out some element and it follows logically from the environment your dungeons will feel and seem much more authentic.
The downside of all this is that its problematic to convey in your average Dungeon adventure - or any module for that matter. Its using up valuable space that could be used for the core of the adventure - really who cares what the monster eats for breakfast, especially if your going to encounter it at dinner time?
My biggest question has been why? Why are there dungeons out in the middle of the wilderness? Why are they full of treasure and monsters instead of, say old rusted cells full of bodies and rotten straw?
Dungeons are around so much because they are the most defensible fortification in a magical universe. Most are too small for dragons or giants to enter easily and you have "fatal funnels" that you can focus your defenses on. You can fight your enemies on your home ground and not out in the open where they can get to you.
Castles are vulnerable because they're visible and subject to aerial attack and require tremendous amounts of manpower to guard compared to dungeons. Dungeons can be hidden. Enemies have to look for them. Then when they find them, they have to find the entrance and overcome your set defenses.
You know the secret tunnels and can get behind the dungeon delvers to ambush them. It's your death playground. Why would the orcs build an above ground camp where everyone can see them, attack them from any direction and encircle them. No, they build/inhabit dungeons so they can have a fighting chance and have a place to raise their kids with a little margin of safety ;)
To me, dungeons make perfect sense in a world of spells, flying creatures, fantastic monsters and incredible danger.
If just a few of the creatures in D&D had been real in the real world, our forefathers would have dug a hole in the ground too.
Of course, it also would have taken our forefathers only about a century to cleanse the planet of anything non-human, but that's beside the point. Mankind is an efficient hive killing machine. Yeah, the trolls caused heavy casualties at first, but within a year we had the flamethrowing acid death squad tactic perfected and now all that's left is some ash urns in the Smithsonian.
That said - if you, as the dungeon designer, work out what X monster does in a normal day and then provide some kind of a background and rational you go a long way to giving your dungeons a feeling of authenticity. Your players won't find out any significant amount of this information however when they do work out some element and it follows logically from the environment your dungeons will feel and seem much more authentic.
That's basically what I like. Perhaps, most of the time, the players don't question why there are orcs is guarding the pie, because the real reason is that they're there to kill the orc and take his pie. Sometimes though, it's nice for players to forget that, and not all players enjoy this style of play.
By having your encounters make sense, you put something there for players who like to think about things and make it more three-dimensional even if it provides little or no game benefit. Why are there orc zombies in here? The orcs must have a necromancer who's raising their fallen numbers. What are all these fire giants doing in the caverns of the red dragon's lair? They must be working for him. You shouldn't open an oaken door and see a gray render alone; what motivation could he possibly have? If trapped, why hasn't he escaped? Why does he attack you upon entering? Why does he fight to the death?
What's worst is when you're caught out and the player realises that there IS no real reason for monster X to be guarding treasure Y, and nothing makes a game feel flat more quickly.
I dislike dungeon crawls unless they have a compelling story behind them that the players can experience (and not just for the DM's reading pleasure). Age of Worms is that story. Many of the dungeons in that campaign would be pretty dry individually if it wasn't for the overarching storyline.