So, I love me a good dungeon crawl, and one of the ways in which I do it is to label each corridor/room and populate it. This means when the party moves, they don't move square by square, but rather room by room. This also means I'm less likely to do random encounters unless the party decides to take a rest.

But at the same time I'm wondering if anyone else here does it differently. I don't play in public games, only with people that I am very familiar with. Also, I'm the only GM as no one else in the group has any experience with it. So, how do you do party movement in your dungeon crawls?

If we're talking about 1E, it's 10 feet per round per 1" of movement rate. However, if the party is mapping, the rate is halved. I use a hand counter to track round by round. Every x number of rounds calls for a wandering monster check, x set according to the area and desired pace, generally somewhere between every 25 to 100 rounds.

It's easy enough to do it this way. And it helps improve time-keeping in general. Some players have expectations that the durations on buffs reasonably match what's in the book, and since I skew magic items towards consumable and limited-use items, buffing is probably more common in my games than average. Also, sometimes I just need to off-screen movements of guards and patrols.

Quote from: mudbanks on February 21, 2022, 09:46:53 PM
So, I love me a good dungeon crawl, and one of the ways in which I do it is to label each corridor/room and populate it. This means when the party moves, they don't move square by square, but rather room by room. This also means I'm less likely to do random encounters unless the party decides to take a rest.

But at the same time I'm wondering if anyone else here does it differently. I don't play in public games, only with people that I am very familiar with. Also, I'm the only GM as no one else in the group has any experience with it. So, how do you do party movement in your dungeon crawls?

Do you use graph paper? Because it's trivial to track movement on graph paper.

   I have everyone write down their standard party order for certain situations (10' corridor, 5' corridor, door entry ect.) used to do this on paper but
we usually use miniatures for this nowadays.  I tend to enjoy random events so I'm usually pretty good about remembering to check for wandering
monsters, I usually have some such encounters somewhat planned out, and whereabouts their lair might be, though some dungeons may not have
any such encounters at all.  For example, if there's a cave complex of say, 36 troglodytes, i might have a common room with 18 by default, less however
many they might encounter as wandering monsters, if they didn't meet them in the halls, they'd find all 18 of them there.

   Most times i'll check once per turn in a dungeon setting (as opposed to about 3 times a day for overland travel), i keep track of time on an index
card/log i make up with current hp for the PC's and other such info, ticking off rounds and turns.  Playing 1e right now so the standard 10 feet per
one inch of movement (generally 6" or 9" for the party as a whole, though the thief and mage alone can make 12") applies.  Depending on the
dungeon encounters can be anywhere from 1 in 6 to 1 in 12 in most of the ones I've run, though there are always exceptions.

For 5e D&D: I tend to do encounter checks at real time = game time, so if the players spend half an hour nattering, I typically roll a d6 and 6 = encounter. When moving through dungeon I typically have the PCs move their move+dash (on tabletop or Roll20 battlemap) at a time then redraw/reveal map. For typical PCs that's 60' move. I might say only move your speed if it's a crowded dungeon, PCs are mapping, etc. Every 10 moves I'll typically roll an encounter check. If the party short rests (1 hour) I make 2 checks.

Quote from: S'mon on February 22, 2022, 03:25:17 AM
For 5e D&D: I tend to do encounter checks at real time = game time, so if the players spend half an hour nattering, I typically roll a d6 and 6 = encounter. When moving through dungeon I typically have the PCs move their move+dash (on tabletop or Roll20 battlemap) at a time then redraw/reveal map. For typical PCs that's 60' move. I might say only move your speed if it's a crowded dungeon, PCs are mapping, etc. Every 10 moves I'll typically roll an encounter check. If the party short rests (1 hour) I make 2 checks.

Exploring at "Move + Dash" pace seems likely to trigger a lot of traps and miss details, but in 5e that likely doesn't matter much.

Quote from: mudbanks on February 21, 2022, 09:46:53 PM
So, I love me a good dungeon crawl, and one of the ways in which I do it is to label each corridor/room and populate it. This means when the party moves, they don't move square by square, but rather room by room. This also means I'm less likely to do random encounters unless the party decides to take a rest.

But at the same time I'm wondering if anyone else here does it differently. I don't play in public games, only with people that I am very familiar with. Also, I'm the only GM as no one else in the group has any experience with it. So, how do you do party movement in your dungeon crawls?

There are lots of different ways to do party movement in or out of a dungeon.
Some just describe it and keep mental track of where things are. I use this alot combined with the next method. The players are supposed to map things based on that info.
Some just describe it but have a map on hand that they are secretly tracking things.
Some draw the map out for the players as they go.
Some use tiles or other other tools like dioramas in some manner.
Some used a program to do it. One of our local DMs did.

And other ways. And even variances on how exactly or when those or other styles come into play even.

In BX for example dungeon movement is unified
Searching a 10x!0 area takes a whole 10 minute turn.
A character can move their whole movement rate in a turn. Which is 120ft, or 12 10ft spaces on the average map. This was when exploring. Movement could be faster in known places.
Encumbrance slows movement to 90/60/30' per turn as it accumulates.
The characters have to rest 1 turn after every 5 they have been moving about. So a 10 minute break after 50 minutes of creeping about.

This allows for a pretty good idea of how far the characters can go in a dungeon every turn.
Example, doing a complete circuit of area D of Keep on the borderlands would take about 2 in game hours, 12 turns. This counting two 10 minute breaks. This assuming not stopping to search anything and taking the most direct course with no detours. With detours and searching and fighting... well. They are gonna be there a while.

Quote from: HappyDaze on February 22, 2022, 03:32:27 AM

Quote from: S'mon on February 22, 2022, 03:25:17 AM
For 5e D&D: I tend to do encounter checks at real time = game time, so if the players spend half an hour nattering, I typically roll a d6 and 6 = encounter. When moving through dungeon I typically have the PCs move their move+dash (on tabletop or Roll20 battlemap) at a time then redraw/reveal map. For typical PCs that's 60' move. I might say only move your speed if it's a crowded dungeon, PCs are mapping, etc. Every 10 moves I'll typically roll an encounter check. If the party short rests (1 hour) I make 2 checks.

Exploring at "Move + Dash" pace seems likely to trigger a lot of traps and miss details, but in 5e that likely doesn't matter much.

Oh, I don't assume it's 6 seconds per 60' of movement, more like 1 minute perhaps.

Quote from: Pat on February 22, 2022, 02:30:21 AM

Quote from: mudbanks on February 21, 2022, 09:46:53 PM
So, I love me a good dungeon crawl, and one of the ways in which I do it is to label each corridor/room and populate it. This means when the party moves, they don't move square by square, but rather room by room. This also means I'm less likely to do random encounters unless the party decides to take a rest.

But at the same time I'm wondering if anyone else here does it differently. I don't play in public games, only with people that I am very familiar with. Also, I'm the only GM as no one else in the group has any experience with it. So, how do you do party movement in your dungeon crawls?

Do you use graph paper? Because it's trivial to track movement on graph paper.

I use gridded maps so that would be more or less the same thing. Sometimes I use maps by 0one too.

When playing online, I use 5' squares and players move square by square until I tell them to pause. When playing at the table, I go room by room. For the benefit of those mapping on paper, I give the length of a corridor, but we don't really move figures until they encounter enemies. 

I don't track time spent walking in either case. Any other activity takes ten minutes, whether it is looting bodies, checking for traps, picking a lock, or searching for something hidden. Each of those ten-minute activities risks a wandering monster, usually on a 1-in-6. After rolling each die, I can drop it in a cup to note that another ten minutes is past. When there are six dice in the cup, they have been in the dungeon for one hour.

I'm not sure of the best way to handle this, I just kept the narrative and estimated time spent. Combat is a figured in rounds so that takes care of itself. But then, sometimes real time is useful. I was once made a reference to a wet patch on the floor, just to make the narrative a little more interesting than "The tunnel continues for thirty feet". The players thought about it, discussed it, argued over strategy, tried all sorts of things to test for traps or strange anomalies, curses, whatever. It was so hard to keep a straight face. It was a puddle.

I try to focus on narrative rather than numbers.  If the time doesn't matter then everything is an estimate.  So really it depends on what the PCs are doing.  For example, there was one session where the PCs were inside a Spelljammer that crashed in the ocean.  It was important to keep track of the movement and time because the ship was filling with water.  That's an extreme example where after a number of rounds they're waist deep in water.  Then it's shoulder level water.  Then they're treading water with only a head's space between the ceiling and the water level.  In those situations the narrative is tied to the numbers.  That's the extreme.  Otherwise I do something like this:

60ft per minute: Normal pace, looking for traps and hidden stuff, not using stealth.
30ft per minute: Investigating the area, tracking, or using stealth.  Full perception. *
15ft per minute: Investigating the area, tracking, and using stealth.  Full perception. *

*This doesn't include investigating a room or scene.  Realistically, if I'm sneaking around it would take longer than a minute to investigate a room, but not a hallway.  So this is really just moving through an area, looking for clues, creatures, and traps.  If they stop to investigate then we're on a narrative time.

All of this is rough estimates.  I tell the PCs beforehand so they have an idea.  So I'll say, it's a big hallway.  It will take about 3 minutes to sneak across and look for traps, tracks, or clues.  As a DM, I want to keep the information mechanics as open as possible.

It depends which game style you are using:

1) Theater of the Mind
2) Abstract Minis
3) Grid & Measurement

I'm a big fan of random encounters...but I plan them in advance.
AKA, the dungeon level has 6 wanderers and I have them statted out in advance and I know WHY they are wandering around (guards, hunters, lost, other raiders, etc). I use 6 because I like rolling D6 and it's plenty enough for me BUT surprises me a bit to which "random" encounter occurs.

I tend to do like mudbanks from the OP and go room by room rather than having timed movement. I will sometimes do declaring a marching order and then getting a general idea about how they proceed (i.e. are they going cautiously but steadily, or checking traps all the time, etc.), then saying how far they go before something happens.

Compared to some, that means I'm somewhat freeform. Still, this is the same way that most GMs handle PCs moving around in a city or in the wilderness. It's less strictly time-based, but it means that a dungeon can have some empty sections (for example) and less time is wasted on them.

Quote from: AtomicPope on February 22, 2022, 07:54:43 PM
I try to focus on narrative rather than numbers.  If the time doesn't matter then everything is an estimate.  So really it depends on what the PCs are doing.  For example, there was one session where the PCs were inside a Spelljammer that crashed in the ocean.  It was important to keep track of the movement and time because the ship was filling with water.

That sounds all well and good. But there's never a time in my games where time doesn't matter. It's more a question of scale. I've put a ton of thought and examined things from different angles and have concluded that round-by-round is usually the most appropriate scale for dungeon exploration. But if there are situations where segment-by-segment is more appropriate, I'll do that instead. Or I'll do turn by turn, hour-by-hour, or even 4-hour blocks. Day-by-day and week-by-week scales are usually used for "down time."