Given the Star Wars topics going on at the moment, it's interesting (funny?, amusing?) to me how my view of SW almost exactly parallels some of the dislike/disinterest in dungeon crawls.  Thought it was kind of cheesy at first, and repeated exposure hasn't improved my reaction, to the point now where I'll go out of my way not to interact with it.  Makes me wonder how much of the dislike in inherent in the thing itself versus the personal experience with it.

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;970974Given the Star Wars topics going on at the moment, it's interesting (funny?, amusing?) to me how my view of SW almost exactly parallels some of the dislike/disinterest in dungeon crawls.  Thought it was kind of cheesy at first, and repeated exposure hasn't improved my reaction, to the point now where I'll go out of my way not to interact with it.  Makes me wonder how much of the dislike in inherent in the thing itself versus the personal experience with it.

That's my take on it nowadays too. Was a big fan of the original saga on my teens, but nowadays I find it silly, kinda infantile and uninteresting.

I'm currently running a campaign which is theoretically a big megadungeon crawl, except for the fact that the PCs haven't been to the dungeon yet and we're into our eight session.  It's basically ASE, but one of the things that drew me to ASE in the first place was the fact that the setting is so interesting.  The first six sessions dealt with the party's three-day walk to Denethix from the region outskirts.  Last week's session, they got their hands on some sick rock (which they were looking for)...and promptly lost/sold it (long story).  So last night's session was spent looking for new leads, and the players had a great time just knocking about Denethix.

I'm not sure what this means, except that I've found it productive to minimize planning ahead and follow the players' leads.  If your GM is just railroading you from crawl to crawl, then the railroading may be the real problem.  After all, if the GM is flexible, the PCs can probably say "screw this hole in the ground" and head off for greener pastures.  Try to take over the local thieves guild, etc.  

I had a group of players with the opposite problem.  I kept everything very open-ended while they were expecting (hoping?) for a railroad with a clear idea of where they were "supposed" to go.  They didn't like the adventure I had given them hooks for, but I had to stress to them that they didn't actually have to undertake it, as they had simply jumped on the first hook I barely mentioned.  The adventure in question was a heist that they could approach any way they wanted, but that only caused player paralysis.  I'm not saying that this was their "fault"...it was just their play style, and at the end of the day, that wasn't how I wanted to GM.  We made an amicable split, and I salvaged one of the players for my current ASE campaign.  This group LOVES openness and is in no rush to get to "the point".

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;970974Given the Star Wars topics going on at the moment, it's interesting (funny?, amusing?) to me how my view of SW almost exactly parallels some of the dislike/disinterest in dungeon crawls.  Thought it was kind of cheesy at first, and repeated exposure hasn't improved my reaction, to the point now where I'll go out of my way not to interact with it.  Makes me wonder how much of the dislike in inherent in the thing itself versus the personal experience with it.

Not really. I mean you *could* dungeon-crawl... if going around military complexes amounts to nothing but killing whatever is in there and taking their stuff without context is what you want to do.

In terms of wider gameplay - it's really no different than how I run my normal D&D games with some different setting conceits. Personal tastes and all that. My D&D games aren't dungeon-crawls for the same reason my SW games aren't dungeon-crawls. My games are larger, with larger scope. A dungeon-crawl in my game is almost just an adjective for a set purpose. Like Colonial Marines going on a "bug hunt". There might be some safe assumptions made. But beyond those, the circumstances will dictate the situation as needed.

Quote from: tenbones;971015Not really. I mean you *could* dungeon-crawl... if going around military complexes amounts to nothing but killing whatever is in there and taking their stuff without context is what you want to do.

In terms of wider gameplay - it's really no different than how I run my normal D&D games with some different setting conceits. Personal tastes and all that. My D&D games aren't dungeon-crawls for the same reason my SW games aren't dungeon-crawls. My games are larger, with larger scope. A dungeon-crawl in my game is almost just an adjective for a set purpose. Like Colonial Marines going on a "bug hunt". There might be some safe assumptions made. But beyond those, the circumstances will dictate the situation as needed.

Wait, I think we are not on the same page.  I wasn't talking about dungeon crawling in Star Wars.  Only that my reasons for disinterest in Star Wars seemed to strangely parallel the expressed reasons in this topic for disinterest in dungeon crawls (which I do enjoy somewhat).

Quote from: Dumarest;970919What makes it sardonic in your view?

sar·don·ic
adjective
grimly mocking or cynical

There are different tones one can take when playing any particular genre, but when we play sword & sorcery we tend towards the Conan-esque "ideals are for chumps".  It's the difference between "You can take our lives, but you can never take our freeeeedom!" and, well, crawling up the jakes and knifing a prelate in the backside so you can infiltrate a castle.

Quote from: daniel_ream;971073There are different tones one can take when playing any particular genre, but when we play sword & sorcery we tend towards the Conan-esque "ideals are for chumps".  It's the difference between "You can take our lives, but you can never take our freeeeedom!" and, well, crawling up the jakes and knifing a prelate in the backside so you can infiltrate a castle.

I guess my Wilderlands game must be more Sword & Planet then, there's definitely a lot of FREEEEDOM!!! going on.

Quote from: daniel_ream;970835I really, really like what Torchbearer does there.  Dealing with the spelunking and resource management is more tension than the combat.

That sounds pretty cool... I'll definitely have a gander for it.

Quote from: darthfozzywig;970910The reaction table in B/X and modest levels of creativity tend to generate tons of roleplaying opportunities. Just requires DM and players not to go "roll for initiative!" at every encounter.

Granted, a decent GM can make a crawl more than just a hack and slash. But quite a few people seem to like the 'kill and take the treasure' concept of play. Nothing wrong with it per se, but it's not really for me...

One other aspect of dungeon crawls is that it is generally a place which is antagonistic towards intruders or the adventuring party (which makes sense of course given the circumstances) so your roleplaying options can be limited. Unlike entering a village where a chaos cult exists. Overt action against the party is probably not desireble, as it will bring unwanted attention, etc. But the characters can and will have to interact with the whole village to root out the evil. nd decend into some kind of lair where they have their haven.

Quote from: The Exploited.;971175Granted, a decent GM can make a crawl more than just a hack and slash. But quite a few people seem to like the 'kill and take the treasure' concept of play. Nothing wrong with it per se, but it's not really for me...

One other aspect of dungeon crawls is that it is generally a place which is antagonistic towards intruders or the adventuring party (which makes sense of course given the circumstances) so your roleplaying options can be limited. Unlike entering a village where a chaos cult exists. Overt action against the party is probably not desireble, as it will bring unwanted attention, etc. But the characters can and will have to interact with the whole village to root out the evil. nd decend into some kind of lair where they have their haven.

This reminded me, I had one more inspirational article for ya: Published dungeons should be better

That article goes into detail about why most dungeons suck, and how to make them fucking awesome. Also its a short, punchy little coffee-break read, so that's nice.

Quote from: The Exploited.;971175Granted, a decent GM can make a crawl more than just a hack and slash. But quite a few people seem to like the 'kill and take the treasure' concept of play. Nothing wrong with it per se, but it's not really for me...

One other aspect of dungeon crawls is that it is generally a place which is antagonistic towards intruders or the adventuring party (which makes sense of course given the circumstances) so your roleplaying options can be limited. Unlike entering a village where a chaos cult exists. Overt action against the party is probably not desireble, as it will bring unwanted attention, etc. But the characters can and will have to interact with the whole village to root out the evil. nd decend into some kind of lair where they have their haven.

Once again I'm sorry you've been subjected to such shitty dungeons run by shitty referees.

My long standing issues with dungeon crawls / megadungeons are due to:

• General preference for low (magic) fantasy.
• Without a lot of magic, almost no dungeon crawls make sense.

A large dwarf or goblin (or similar) complex? Makes sense.
A large abandoned former dwarf or goblin (or similar) complex, with a few different creatures who have wandered in, but is 90% empty? Makes sense.
A dragon's lair with perhaps a couple other creatures it allows to live there as guardians / warning systems. Makes sense.
A small underground lair for one type of creature. Makes sense.

A large dungeon crawl with lots of varied creatures? I've never enjoyed it.

• What do they eat? Why don't they kill / eat each other?
• Why do they hoard treasures that aren't really of use to them? Where are they getting those coins? What are they doing with them later?
• Who dug out all this earth in the first place? (Seriously. If we take Moria as the ur-dungeon, then note that it was built/used/expanded over 10,000+ years in that storyline. Most other worlds don't consider that extensive of a timeline.)
• What was it used for before all these creatures showed up?
• Why are all the rooms so cleanly square or rectangular?
• Who maintains everything so parts of the dungeon don't collapse?
• How do those traps work? Who maintains / restocks all those complex traps?
• etc.

It these are not issues for you, if you don't need internal consistency to have fun, and if you are happy to hand wave it all as magic or a mystery, then have fun beating things up and taking their stuff! It's just never really worked for me.


So how did we get here in the first place? I think it's as simple as the length of the original Monster Manual. With that much variety, there become a desire to use all of those wondrous creations. While the first few modules were focused (on giants or drow) or DID try to explain the weirdness (tomb of horrors, white plume mountain), no one wanted an entire adventure of fighting through a just a giant ant colony, so all the oddities started getting mashed up and dungeons lost cohesion.

I think the way we got here was because starting with DAs first blackmoor sessions, the players were exploring dungeons.  When Gary started using the concept, the first thing he did was draw up dungeons.

Then a lot of people starting playing RPGs for reasons antithetical to the concept of dungeons.

Quote from: EOTB;971217I think the way we got here was because starting with DAs first blackmoor sessions, the players were exploring dungeons.  When Gary started using the concept, the first thing he did was draw up dungeons.

Then a lot of people starting playing RPGs for reasons antithetical to the concept of dungeons.

There are lots of people starting playing RPGs who have never read Barsoom, or Conan, or Fafhrd and the Grey Mouser.

Not sure what that statement means. From early on a lot of those interested in RPing over dungeoncrawls were from sf/fantasy fandom. And Barsoom and 98 percent of Fafhrd and Grey Mouser stories have nothing to do with anything you could call a dungeon.