Saelune said:
For Players: Do you enjoy them? What do you enjoy about them? What dont you? Do you prefer moving pieces through set-up dungeons or only care about relevant rooms? Do you prefer to see the whole thing, as you explore, or just in your own head? Do you map it out yourself as you go?
They tend to be the most interesting part of the campaign, depending on how you define 'dungeons', so yeah, love them. They're where everything happens, while most of the rest of it is just the bard hitting on bar maidens, buying equipment, and listening to the DM dump exposition about the story - which can be interesting but is often more akin to being read to than actually engaging with the game.
Generally I'll only care about relevant rooms, relevant being defined as rooms that have a point to them rather than just being an empty thing sitting there with no purpose at all, but a well designed dungeon should also be realistic, even if not all the rooms end up relevant - say, having a storage closet for priestly equipment that has no enemies, no loot, no relevant story, but is there because as a temple that's kind of what you expect to be there. Ideally, all such rooms should have some level of story, enemy encounter [Can be used as a set up for later. Say you're going to introduce a tough battle against a magic resistant boss monster, have one such room have a single, weaker, magic resistant enemy that gives the party a bit of warning that magic resistance is a thing, and if possible is one that lore wise would imply the boss that is to come], or loot that gives the players some type of reward for exploring, even if its just small.
I prefer to see the thing properly drawn up, as its kind of necessary for combat, however it should be revealed slowly as rooms are entered and explored, rather than all there to begin with. Some of the best moments have come from trying to figure out whether we should go through that door or not, having the rogue sneak through while invisible, finding a mega boss monster waiting, and going NOPE, heals time, then come back. Of course, such a room shouldn't be drawn up or shown, except to the rogue who scouted it, until the whole party goes through.
The last thing is a difficult game/dungeon design task, but truly worth it if you can manage; Know your party, and give them a shitton of opportunities. In the last campaign we ran through, it wasn't just murder-hobos that made it work. There were some brutal trapped doors, though not party wiping, that our rogue could work on. There were ways for our wizard to use all of his utility spells to help scout ahead, or reach lost treasure. Our bard could persuade a mob into rioting, and actually cleared an entire dungeon without us having to do anything. Know the abilities your party can use, and throw in opportunities for it everywhere. To start with, it is a lot of fun for players when they feel like they're fucking with the dungeon - What's that? I can't see into the next room? Well, I just climb up the wall, look down from the roof and see what there is!" - but it doesn't disrupt the flow of the dungeon because you actually planned for that. They feel intelligent, they get rewarded for not just killing everything, and it gives them the tougher choice when starting the day; Do I prepare all my combat killing spells, or my utility spells for scouting ahead? Dark rooms where the mages light-casting cantrip is useful, or the monk's blind fight, feel really rewarding for those players, though they have to be carefully balanced such that they can only be abused as much as you want them to, and only by the players you want to be able to. When two conflicting solutions to a problem exist, that would make one player remove another's ability to be awesome [Say, light vs Blind fight], trying to provide an opportunity to synergise them instead may be better - enemies who are stronger in light, but struggle hard when in the dark, so your mage will instead lower the light levels, and then your monk can blind fight to defeat them.
Its a damn hard thing to get right sometimes, but it makes for the most rewarding dungeon experiences possible for players, where all skills are used and the best way to play isn't always just as murder hobos [Had campaigns where the opposite is true, and trying to play intelligently almost gets everyone killed, while running in and murdering everyone made us rich. Wasn't as fun, combat is cool but we also like thinking we're smart for having a better solution to the problem].
In general, researching game design and how game designers tended to handle this back when games weren't just murder hobo simulators is a great resource. Helps with designing encounters, dungeons, and everything else, and its basically what your job as the DM is; game designer for your party.
The Wykydtron said:
That 3 crit bad/good luck makes me think of whenever I DM. No matter what the plus to hit is my enemies just roll nothing above a 5 for half the combat and everyone makes whatever saves I throw at them. Both PC deaths in that campaign were suicide by bomb and Cloudkill PVP respectively. Nothing to do with my actual combat challenges.
Don't worry, the same thing happens to players. Ended up getting party wiped one campaign because we came to a boss room, sent only the tank forward to get aggro because we knew the boss would slaughter everyone else with an AoE. It casts two AoEs on just the tank. Max rolls on all damage, fails all saved with a 2 or 3 roll. Level 5 character, ~80 HP lost in the first instant of the battle. Then the damned thing takes off, flies, and shoots a bow to finish the tank off [He was on flat 0 HP from the AoEs at that point]. We cast spells. It has magic resistance, and every spell cast fails with a roll of 5. The dice are absolute bastards sometimes >.<
