Dungeoneering 101

Have the rules for dungeon survival changed much over the years?

Read an article at CBR.com on “How to Survive an Old-Fashioned Dungeon,” by Jennifer Melzer, and it made me think of how my group is doing in the somewhat-old-fashioned Princes of the Apocalypse campaign.

So … let’s take look!

Carry a Light Whenever Possible

Old school, yes, this was essential. It still is — key races don’t have Darkvision (etc.). On the other hand, in my opinion, this quickly gets into logistical annoyance. How many torches are you carrying? How much longer will your torch last? How’s the lamp oil supply doing? Do you have to drop your torch to use your weapon? Did the torch get left behind when you fled? Is the DM keeping track of that stuff, or the players?

Speaking as a player, that was never fun. In our college homebrews, we just figured that “Continual Light batons” were SOP at the magic markets and left it at that. (We also called them “Continual Light begonias,” which was much funnier after a few beers.)

In PotA, between an early light-emitting artifact the party found (per the module) and light spells the party has, this has not been a real issue. Indeed, it’s often been the opposite, with my occasionally having to warn the party (before or after they are bushwhacked) that wandering down dark halls while brightly lit up will probably not help their Stealth rolls.

(Side note here: VTTs that manage lighting / vision, like Roll20, can be fussy and fiddly, but, damn, the effect is awesome.)

Never Separate the D&D Party

A general truism, even today. Technically speaking, encounters  are scaled for the full party — splitting the party means you’re going to run into things you are not ranked up for. Similarly, challenges of various sorts are often keyed to abilities or knowledge that only a subset of the party has; if a different subset encounter them, frustration ensues.

That said, sometimes it makes logistical sense to split things up, especially if it’s to send someone on an errand back through already-cleared terrain. As a GM, I try to play it fairly: no intentional piling on a wandering warrior, but no pulling punches, either. Random encounters can be a thing, though they can also be more easily scaled down to fit the people who are off in another direction.

The worst part about a split party is that it makes keeping the multiple groups all engaged and interested a greater challenge. I’ve played as a player in games where a split meant sitting around, bored, for 45 minutes while the DM did side quest stuff with their favorite players. Not good show.

Create a Dungeon and Map As You Go

Wow. I remember when we had to do that. Always bringing graph paper to the game– “You said the room was left three squares and up four squares from the door?” Especially pre-battle maps, this was always a PitA, and a guarantee of error-filled “Wait, how can this room be here, that would overlap this other room” time-wastage.

Again, VTTs can solve this problem quite neatly. In Roll20, our party can easily see where on the level they’ve been, its contours, etc. It’s a bit of realism compromise that works.

Note that this is most important if you are playing on a grid (my preference). If you are doing “Theater of the Mind,” it’s a lot easier to abstract out this kind of stuff, even if the picture-is-a-thousand-words aspect of maps is more difficult to handle that way.

Don’t Underestimate the Dungeon’s Environment

Environmental challenges can make things interesting, and different from endless corridors and rooms. Different dungeons should have different feels. PotA has been good at this, aided thematically by the elemental cults involved, and the nodes have been particularly strong this way, leading to environments that are not just window dressing, but actual challenges in and of themselves. Fighting a melee in a wind that requires a STR save each round to avoid being pushed back, or exploring a realm of underground rivers and lakes and waterfalls exercises different mental muscles, and gives the DM different tools to make encounters more challenging than just adding more mooks.

Having the environment — breezes, smells, sounds, even tastes in the air — changing and giving clues (some legitimately misleading) can and should keep people on their toes.

Exercise Caution with Everything in the Dungeon

I’m not a believer, at all, in the Killer Dungeon. It quite quickly turns into Not-Fun, and for me, D&D is about story-telling, not body count. Tapping every floor tile, checking for traps at every door, getting killed by gold slime masquerading as a door knob … that’s just not my cuppa, as player or GM. Being hypercautious all the time slows the story down, and gets repetitive, and disasters meted out by such things then feel arbitrary and unfair.

That said, the occasional trap, deadfall, Mimic, etc., where it makes sense, can keep people on their toes. Complaisance should not necessarily kill, but some good woundings are reasonable.

PotA is pretty good here. There are a few puzzles, a few traps, but not so many that it becomes a drag. In fact, I might have asked that it be a bit more challenging — people, esp. our Rogue, sometimes are sometimes a bit blasé about scouting things out, and a few more traps might worth inserting.

Avoid Unnecessary Enemy Encounters

Define “unnecessary”.

I agree that full-dungeon sweeps aren’t necessary. They might not even be fun. But if the encounters (and their treasure) have been well designed, skipping some of them can also mean missing out on some fun things, even under the rubric of We’ve beaten the Big Bad in this zone, let’s get out of Dodge before our spell slots run out. And, again, if things have been written well, the treasure or other clues that drop from an encounter might be useful, or even necessary, later on in the campaign.

That said, not all enemy encounters need be combat, either. Trickery or even honest negotiation can be useful, and it’s up to the DM to figure out when this might actually make sense. Allied but rival factions might step aside; outnumbered mooks might surrender (and then maybe fight another day). Murder hoboes can be fun to play … for a while. But they make it hard to tell a good story.

PotA provides a lot of hooks here — distinctive costumes to wear, passwords, competitive enemy factions you can play against each other, and material pre-written that you can use if the party decides to bluff its way in rather than just leave pools of enemy blood on the floor. The players in my game have tended to under-utilize this option, sometimes to my frustration, but it’s good that possibility was considered.

Don’t Give the DM Ideas to Use Against You

We once had an informal rule at our table: if the player suggested an terrifying explanation for something that was worse than what the GM originally had in mind … it was off limits. For a while, at least.

The advantage of playing with a canned module is there’s not that kind of temptation.

In sum …

The article in question shows how much hasn’t changed in the world of FRPGs. Most of these rules still apply, as moderated by the quality of the DM, the module (as applicable), and the players. Some of the old school grinds — mapping things out, torch logistics, etc. — are easily (and, to my mind, properly) avoided. Others — don’t split the party! — are evergreen. A word to the wise is sufficient.

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