Quote from: CalithenaBut given the strengths of 3e as a system, if I was a pro designer for it, I'd want to find ways to mechanically integrate the pieces of the environment into each other, so that the tactical play fed into a strategic puzzle that you could 'unlock' with good performance.

The "Mastering Iron Heroes" booklet has a few interesting thoughts about that, especially the "action zones". I'd like to see something like that in future products, although I have to admit that I haven't read Dungeonscape yet.

Quote from: SosthenesThe "Mastering Iron Heroes" booklet has a few interesting thoughts about that, especially the "action zones". I'd like to see something like that in future products, although I have to admit that I haven't read Dungeonscape yet.

The co-author of Dungeonscape is Rich Burlew, better known as the author of Order of the Stick.

Quote from: Abyssal MawThe co-author of Dungeonscape is Rich Burlew, better known as the author of Order of the Stick.

Erm, okay. So?

For those interested, a copy of Melan's post on dungeon maps is here:

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18710&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=30

The whole 14 page thread has a lot worth reading...a lot of it is geared particularly towards megadungeons though, which are a subset of dungeons more generally.

This thread at K&K is more general and meanders a little, but also contains some food for thought:

http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=168&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0

Quote from: SettembriniWell, I could argue against that, but that deviates to much from the thread. Another time, maybe.

Let´s settle it with:
How morale is handled, must be kept in mind.

Isn't that already covered under your own "Plausibilitätenabwägung"?

(literal translation: "consideration of plausibility")

Quote from: SosthenesErm, okay. So?

To me that was interesting trivia!

Quote from: CalithenaPierce, we're kind of hijacking your thread, but at least it's an interesting hijack.

Not at all, not at all. It's very illuminating.

QuoteIs it just the hole in the ground thing that bothers you, or is it the whole idea of wading into sequential hackfests that you don't like?

There's that, but it's also that, the more tightly constrained the environment, the more the metagaming will be foregrounded, especially in the room-by-room approach, of course. If it feels like every room has a CR painted on the door, I'm out. Playing monsters "smart" doesn't alleviate that.

Now in some ways that can't be avoided, but I did like Settembrini's remarks to the effect of--

QuoteEDIT: ...that requires constant decision making. The history of the decisions in face of hardships define the characters. They develop, take a life of their own. The continued exposure to pressure, that can be navigated, avoided or overcome acts as a catalyzer for character centered play (not game). What you do is more important than what you say. The primacy of action and consequences.

That, and ditto your post on p.1, tells us how a specific kind of roleplaying is generated by the specific environment that is the dungeon.

And lastly, to bring in a completely random example which I came across the other day--not a dungeon but a module by a great designer of them--what I'd like to see, and I assume Caverns of Thracia has that (as IMHO absolutely NO Gygax dungeon ever had), is simply, well, Teh Awesome.

Teh Awesome:

http://www.acaeum.com/library/citybrass.html

This is the prelude to CoB. It's a trek through the desert. I haven't looked at it in terms of railroading or anything just yet--I'm too busy being amazed by how it's a series of really compelling set pieces. I'd be perfectly happy with a dungeon equivalent of THAT.

QuoteIsn't that already covered under your own "Plausibilitätenabwägung"?

(literal translation: "consideration of plausibility")

Yes and No!

The effect of the RC rules is, that after the first casuality, a morale check must be made. That´s a free terror spell for the enemy to save against!

My experience with ad-hoc ruling of morale is that the enemy will retreat when it makes sense.
But if some puny goblins panick and totally freak out after they are ambushed, that needs a rule. If this result was handwaved, the players wouldn´t feel like they achieved anything themselves.
But if you have that nice little morale value, then it becomes something to build tactics upon.

I swear to god, there is no 3.5 DM that would have (via ad-hoc ruling or handwaving) twelve goblins panick just because they are ambushed by three 1st level guys and a cowardly henchman.
But in the BECMI environment, that´s totally possible.

That´s why I´m also speaking about Relevanzkern (core of relevance). 3.5 has no morale, so it´s not in the combat subsystem. Winning by breaking the enemy morale is not "balanced" in 3.5, and thusly would lead to a breakdown of the XP treasure system.

Quote from: CalithenaWhat I really want to see, and what Melan's article addresses, is more play at the strategic level. Making alliances with monsters, recon, maps as valuable information-bearing adjuncts, playing off big monsters against each other so you don't have to do the hard work of killing them, etc. Working the dungeon environment as a whole, as you discover it (and DMs shouldn't be too parsimonious with information, either).

Very interesting stuff, and a very enlightening post. There *is* a decided lack of strategic gaming in most modern dungeons. Part of it is driven by the relentless drive to the next character level: 13 encounters, X at CR Y, Z more at CR Y + 1, etc. The game has become a little too scripted for its own good.

(True story: When running my last dungeon, one of the players noted that they had overlooked a passage from early on in the place. They went down it and found the place abandoned. The lizardmen who lived there took off when they found that the PCs had slain the hobgoblin warlord who had recruited them. It was the first time in years that the players had "missed" a segment of a dungeon.)

Strategic elements are perhaps the hardest to integrate into a dungeon, since they require an eagle's eye view of what's going on. In reading over KotB last night, it was interesting to start thinking of the relations between the humanoid tribes, the temple of chaos, and the Keep. It takes a good, thoughtful designer, or a DM who's good at juggling lots of NPCs, to make such relationships shine.

OTOH, I think it's easy to overthink these things with respect to mechanics. It's tempting to, say, give the goblin king a loyalty score toward the PCs. If they do stuff he likes, he goes up and he helps them. If they piss him off, it goes down and he works against them. On one hand, it's an easy way to track a relationship. On the other, I'd be wary of a mechanic that replaces a DM's judgment. Part of being a DM is making arbitrary judgment calls. It's all too tempting for a designer to place his system where a DM's judgment used to stand. I prefer such things to be more along the lines of measures and key breakpoints, guides a DM can use to manage things more easily, rather than mechanics that dictate gameplay.

Morale rules fall into a similar place for me, to riff off a side discussion. I think they're useful when a DM consciously applies them to achieve an effect he wishes to create. It's interesting if a specific goblin tribe is full of cowards who run when their noses are bloodied, but I'd rather not see that become a strict part of the game.

OTOH, any mechanic or option that introduces a dynamic feel to a fight is cool. Maybe the goblins run when their morale fails, but the bugbears gain a bonus as they fight to the death. The altar in the temple sucks out the evil cleric's soul when he dies, but it then summons a horde of demons that run rampant over the entire dungeon.

The interesting thing is that maybe such mechanics or ideas can feed back into strategic play. To steal from EGG's playbook, maybe destroying a set of sigils in a dungeon slowly unleashes more monsters, or causes passages to collapse and new ones to form. The PCs can learn to manipulate such events to seize control of the dungeon.

Quote from: mearlsPart of it is driven by the relentless drive to the next character level: 13 encounters, X at CR Y, Z more at CR Y + 1, etc. The game has become a little too scripted for its own good.

Mike, Jeff Rients explained this a while back as the reason why earlier versions got it right when they awarded XP for treasure. It doesn't make complete sense (unless you assume that the money is later spent on training) but it produces the right motives and goals for strategic gaming. After all, to my mind, the soul of strategy is the "indirect approach": defeating challenges by attacking them at their weakest point, not their strongest.

Quote from: Elliot WilenMike, Jeff Rients explained this a while back as the reason why earlier versions got it right when they awarded XP for treasure. It doesn't make complete sense (unless you assume that the money is later spent on training) but it produces the right motives and goals for strategic gaming. After all, to my mind, the soul of strategy is the "indirect approach": defeating challenges by attacking them at their weakest point, not their strongest.

In Basic D&D, you were pretty much forced to award XP for treasure.  

You know how much XP a skeleton was worth? I think it's like 10XP in Basic D&D. A goblin was like 5XP.

It took about 2000 XP to level just ONE time (more if you were playing certain classes, maybe less if you were playing a thief). So either you had to individually kill 200 skeletons (any one of which was probably evenly matched with your guy), or 400 goblins. or..or..... something else had to happen.

And more than likely, you had to make sure everyone else in the group was going to level up too. So let's call that .. 1600 goblins. To get to 2nd level.

So I'll take the current XP system as it is right now.

Quote from: mearlsOTOH, any mechanic or option that introduces a dynamic feel to a fight is cool. Maybe the goblins run when their morale fails, but the bugbears gain a bonus as they fight to the death.

Hmm, has anyone ever done some group/mob feats or templates?

Quote from: Abyssal MawIn Basic D&D, you were pretty much forced to award XP for treasure.  

You know how much XP a skeleton was worth? I think it's like 10XP in Basic D&D. A goblin was like 5XP.

Yes, this is how I screwed up my D&D GMing. I thought that giving XP for treasure didn't make sense...that XP should represent "improvement through experience"...therefore I tried to just use XP for combat. I forget if I was smart enough to try to adjust the rewards, but essentially it led to a hunt for monsters that were wimpy enough to give 1st-level characters a reasonable chance. And there weren't enough of them...so characters didn't advance fast enough, plus they died too much.

[In fact I think I even toyed with the idea of a 1/2th level in the dungeon as a sort of warmup. Mind, this would be around 1979 and I'd be about 13. I was working from the idea in OD&D, not sure if it was still in AD&D let alone if it's in 3.x, that the "depth" of a dungeon level should be an indicator of its difficulty.]

But if you get all of your XP for combat, then there's a greater incentive to try to fight everything, than if you get XP for simply completing "the mission". This is axiomatic unless players really don't care at all about advancement. Basically, mission-based awards--of which "loot" is a variety--encourage divergent thinking and seeking alternate approaches.

Quote from: Elliot WilenIn fact I think I even toyed with the idea of a 1/2th level in the dungeon as a sort of warmup.

So, you mean something like a series of open-topped trenches or a hedgerow maze?

!i!

Thanks for taking the time to chat about this, MM!

I think more cool 'metatactical' elements is a worthy thing to add to future dungeons that's clearly within the grasp of the 3.5 rules and great fun to play around with, so I'm really glad you all are thinking about that. I just wanted to bring up the strategy thing because even though it's farther from the grasp of current theory (though some groups there are who do it quite well informally) it seems like something that could pay strong dividends with well-thought-out approaches.