Here’s the post that I promised wouldn’t write since it could be construed as a comment bait. However, since I spent 2 hours reading arguments and trying to define some fairly controversial terms, I’m not going to waste that! No siree!
Now, just so we’re clear on this, I’m interested to read your thoughts and opinions on this but PLEASE, lets leave out any bad-wrong fun arguments and personal attacks at the door.
While I prefer to play newer editions of D&D, I like to know about the other manners of playing D&D out there.
Since we’re in the final stages of the One page dungeon contest, I’ve been hard at work trying to clarify/define the various categories under which we’ll judge the entries. While the contest is not about editions of D&D and such, the two co-sponsors: Chgowiz and I are respectively old and new school DMs. Thus we made categories for “best old School” and best “new edition” type entries.
I knew from the get go that this old/new divide would be subjective, hard to pin down and open for arguments. This is the kind of things that means vastly different things for many.
The perception of old/new school is highly influenced by the period at which a person was introduced to the hobby. It is muddled up further by the fact that new players get introduced to the hobby through modern retro-clones of D&D, making them neo-old school players.
Arghhh, my freakin head hurts already!
Anyway, I sat at my desk, fired up my IM client of choice (I use Digsby by the way) and got a hold of Chgowiz and Graham to help me define what new/old school would mean in terms of dungeon designs so I could offer the judges common example to work from.
Here’s what we came up with. It’s not complete, it’s not precise but it’s what we agreed on.
Oh and for the sakes of argument, I put A D&D 2nd edition as the transition between the old school and new school of dungeon designs, mostly because it’s the edition that saw a major shift in how adventures were written and was heavily influenced by the storytelling wave of the 90’s.
It also marks the period I left D&D, I came back with the third edition, but that’s a story for another day.
Also take note that I wrote those to help judge the one page dungeons, so some of the characteristics I defined make sense in that context only.
Old School D&D Dungeons(Pre AD&D 2nd ED and Retro-Clones)
- Classic maps (Blue, Crowded, etc)
- Overblown titles like Lost tombs of the Omniscient Arch-Lich Prophet (Goodman Games went for that 100% in their Dungeon Crawl Classic line)
- Limited story outside of the dungeon key (you discover the story as you read the keys).
- Numerous rooms (More than 10 per “level”)
- Presence of empty rooms for random encounters and DM creations
- Tricks and Traps separate from Combat (Major defining point)
- Extensive and varied random encounters with limited regards for PC levels and dungeon restocking
- Encounters that challenge Players over PCs
- Expectations that the party will retreat and regroup in some of the encounters.
The following 2 articles helped me come to these definitions:
- Grognardia’s Old School guidelines.
- T. Foster’s reply in this Knights and Knaves thread.
I’m open to suggestions on things I might have missed that really should be in there.
And yes, left out Gygaxian Naturalism intentionally from that list, I’ll come back to it later.
New School D&D (3rd Edition and Fantasy derivatives, 4th edition)
- Less numerous rooms or grouped rooms
- Large areas to allow space for miniature play
- Extensive background and story around the dungeon instead of in the key.
- NPC motivations and goals spelled out
- Focus on set-piece encounters taking into account PC resources
- Encounters with defined interactive elements above and beyond monsters (Hindering terrain, Obstacles, traps, etc)
- Tricks and traps embedded in combat
- Encounters designed to progressively use party resources (without implied retreating) until natural resting point or final confrontation with ‘”Boss”
- Level-appropriate encounters.
Now for that list I plunged into my (and Graham’s) personal experiences having read Dungeon magazine voraciously and having played so many D&D 3e/4e adventures.
Of course, some elements of old school designs appear in newer adventures and by the same token, some classic adventures feature some items that I put up as new school. What I was aiming at was tendencies seen in adventures of one school vs the other.
Once again, do chime in if I missed an element that should be crucial.
About Gygaxian Naturalism
That term was coined and later defined by James Maliszewski at Grognardia. Whenever I discussed the contest with our old school judges, they all mentioned that Gygaxian Naturalism was part of what old School gaming was all about. To a certain extent I agreed with them.
Then my good friend Graham crashed the apple cart and argued, quite energetically that Gygaxian Naturalism as defined by James, was mostly applying the entries of the 1st Edition of the Monster Manual to build dungeons and lairs that had a certain verisimilitude in regards to the game world.
What complicates the debate further is that James’ definitions of Gygaxian Naturalism have since been broadened by various people to encompass many different things, including how dungeons are to be believable by featuring non-combatants and a certain food chain pattern throughout the dungeon’s fauna.
With such a broader definition, saying that Gygaxian Naturalism is old school is misleading at best and quite possibly downright false. Any adventure, old or new, can feature elements of naturalism that do not directly challenge the players. While D&D 4e clearly assumes that noncombatants get no combat stats, I’m sure that many DMs have used naturalistic elements in their 4e adventures to push a story or present setting elements to the players.
That’s why I came up with a different dungeon-focused definition that isin’t bound by a ‘school’.
Dungeon Naturalism
A group of elements that define a dungeon as being an area where creatures live and function above and beyond their role as challenging Player Characters. Non-combatants, lairs, sources of food and water is a staple of adventures with naturalistic elements.
To me then, Gygaxian Naturalism is Gary’s own touch in making his D&D world feel alive beyond the existence of monsters trying to kill PCs. In fact, when James M. says that newer editions of D&D abandoned GN, he’s entirely right.
Older adventures and later ones that emulated them had more naturalistic elements probably because the core books of the time (the MM and the DMG) had plenty of material on this. But this does not prevent DMs from other games (later versions of D&D and everything else) to create their own naturalism.
In fact, I think that naturalism has been taken out of rules book to give this responsibility solely to individual DMs to do as they see fit, modeling their own worlds and deciding how much, if any, naturalistic elements are to be included in it (because for many, this was never important).
In later editions of D&D, I think that’s unavoidable because of the existence of several campaign settings with conflicting rules of naturalism. Its especially true in 4e’s case where the design decisions were to provide a default non-setting (Points of Light) to allow DMs to build whatever they want once they had tamed world building basics.
So like Graham said, while Gygaxian Naturalism has its place in discussing the history of the game, and while James M’s strict definition is old school (roll 1d4X10 for adult Orcs in a Warband), the concept of naturalism, as defined by other writers, is a design philosophy that transcends editions and game engines.
What do you think?
I like the second definition quite a bit. For the longest time, however, I gamed under the assumption that said “naturalistic” elements unless present were assumed but not encountered. For example, if you entered a cave, there would be things there that can be eaten by the occupants (moss, bats, etc) but I didn’t bother describing them because they were irrelevant to the situation. But my players always assumed these things were there: when they stayed in such an environment too long for example, they would forage and hunt for food under the assumption they could find some, and they did.
However, I always thought Naturalism was harder to do with humanoid enemies. For the most part, I don’t use humanoid enemies that would have families or bonafide long-term communities (such as a tribe of Orcs). Mostly because I find 90% of the D&D Monster Manual boring and all the monstrous human races are the biggest offenders in that regard. So I guess I have never actually butted heads with the more complex aspects of naturalism, because if all humanoid enemies you face are either lone wolves or organized criminals, rather than the classic orc tribe or kobold lair, a bunch of the more “troublesome” naturalistic elements wouldn’t really apply.
Wyatts last blog post..The Dromidae Empire Part I
Thanks Wyatt.
The thing is, using naturalistic elements in 4e can be great ways to create new non-combat challenges. Like a skill challenge to convince the female matriarchs (that run the whole tribe) that killing the orcs is the best possible idea.
In fact, naturalism can make boring, cardboard cutout humanoid feel less boring and more individual.
Hyena pens in gnoll warrens, Macetail behemoths nurseries in Hobgoblin warcamps, Troll cutting bits and pieces off themselves to reproduce… nothing of this in the 4e Monster Manual, yet all fodder for adventures.
To clarify, my argument was two parts, and was mostly based around the one-page dungeon contest.
1) GN, as defined by Grognardia, is applying Gygax’s own naturalism to your world. This is distinctly old school, but almost impossible to judge. We can go to the old MM for every entry and make sure that the orc lair does indeed have 5-10 orc children in it, but that in no way tells us that the designer followed GN. Those children might be there solely because it’s story-appropriate. Judging this is also tedious at best, unless you have the 1e MM memorized. As such, it probably shouldn’t be a judgeable factor.
2) Naturalism, as defined by Chatty above, is very easy to judge (some good examples in Chatty’s comment, above), but is not intrinsically old- or new-school (nor is it distinctly Gygaxian). It’s merely a style of dungeon design. It shouldn’t really be within a “school”, though it’s a big enough topic that it might be worth its own category.
So is Gygaxian Naturalism old-school?
Yeah, I’d say it is.
But all GN is trying to do is make a consistent world based on some underlying assumptions, and that is most definitely not part of any one “school”.
GN is just an old-school way of creating naturalism.
…or something.
“Arghhh, my freakin, head hurts !” 😎
@Graham: Thanks for chiming in! Good discussion today.
@Rick: Feel free to shoot my editor.
Oh wait…
@Wyatt: Funny. We are at a complete opposite 90% of the encounters my player meets are humanoid and their pets/family. In my latest game I had civilian mixed with enemy representing the non combatant village members which could only grabbed player and where like minion with defenses of 0… This is mostly due to my own preference to have politics and manipulation being part of my encounters. Monster in my book are as boring as you define humanoid they don’t provide enough story element to an encounter for my taste. 😉
As for the naturalist thingy… I’m of the impression that it does not seems to be a defining factor of what his old or new school dungeon. Well, I rarely do dungeon in my campaigns mostly because it does not make sense that someone would build one in the first place. The few time I do have dungeons I need to have a logical explanation for people to live there and how. Which would define this as dungeon naturalism given the description above. My style is sooo not old school… I cannot remember the last time I draw a dungeon map or put a trap in one. 😉
I’m obviously not a good reference for these things given my own preferences. hehe!
To clarify, the humanoid monsters in the MONSTER MANUAL bore me. I meant that literally in my first statement, but in retrospect I didn’t say it clearly. I make 99% of my own stuff which does include humanoids, but with more interesting traits and abilities that suit me. I don’t run “stupid rampaging beast” encounters all the time. But I’ve worn out the classic D&D fare by now, so “orc tribe”, “goblin cave”, “gnoll hideout” are all boring encounters to me. Usually I run humanoids who are mercenary groups, criminals, assassins, or megalomaniacs, etc. More usually, they aren’t hanging out where people will get in the way of what they’re doing. So that kicks a lot of “non-combatant” naturalism out.
Wyatts last blog post..Feats of Eden II
Good solid definitions. As someone who veers towards the ‘old school’ style I’m especially interested in seeing the new-school design entries for the contest, seeing if and how people incorporate ‘dynamic terrain’ in their dungeon. I think the one page format is a great learning tool as the design choices are presented in a clear concise manner. Good times !
Sean Willss last blog post..Tunnel Quest
To extend this idea of Dungeon Naturalism further into a kind of ‘Unified Theory Of Naturalism’, we need only consider that Naturalism applied in dungeon design is essentially the same process as Naturalism applied to player character development – otherwise known as character background and player immersion in the role of that character to create a believable person with realistic motivations.
The two processes simply take place on opposite sides of the DM’s screen.
Or not, if you’re one of these yo-down-with-the-players screen-free DMs 😉
Lurkinggherkins last blog post..Placing City State Of The Invincible Overlord In The World Of Greyhawk
I was designing a dungeon map last night. I use the map creation as a starting point for my creativity. I always find myself asking questions like who built this dungeon to determine elements on the map. I then ask whose lived here but now is gone so I add some more elements or lost secrets based on that idea. Lastly I put in the current residents. How they use the dungeon for their purposes is the next question. You see the original designers made the map. The current residents just have to make use of whats there with maybe minor changes.
So I guess I’m very dungeon naturalistic in my design. I loved the article – let their be a method to your madness in a very old Dragon magazine. It made it into Best of Dragon vol 1. Its an awesome way of doing naturalistic dungeons.
@Sean: Thanks for the kudos. I’m not sure how many ‘new school’ entries we’ll get as they tend to be longer winded than the old school ones and the template has limited space. That makes it a special challenge. Still, while browsing the entries, I found at least one that felt very ‘new school’ to me.
@Lurkinggherkin: Interesting thought. While I don’t want to create a unified theory (its not my main interest), you’re right in saying that players that want more believable characters will add elements to their characters like a DM would add to his setting/dungeon.
@John: YI like the way you go at creating your dungeons. In fact, your dungeon design philosophy reminded me of a game I saw before. While digging for it, I found it.
How to Host a dungeon
Its a solo game where you build a dungeon from the Dawn of Time to the present day and go through different phases of its history. Once you’re finished with the game, you have a map and the full history of your dungeon, ready for your tabletop RPG. Its a neat idea.
The game might have been influenced by that Dragon article. Hey, that reminds me that I used to own the first 2 volumes of best of Dragon Magazine (the old, pre-paizo ones). I seem to recall some wicked critical hits tables.
Well, of course you don’t want to create a Unified Theory. Otherwise people will shoot you down with counter-examples for having the temerity to call it a Unified Theory! 😀
Seriously, though, I do wonder whether a tendency towards Naturalism is something that groups as a whole aspire to, rather than dungeon designers working in isolation. That is to say, players who are enthusiastic about adding depth and realism to their characters inspire referees to do the same for their dungeons (or other adventure settings) – and vice versa.
It might also be said that naturalistic referees and groups of players who take a less naturalistic approach to character development are a bit of a mismatch in terms of their expectations of each other. The naturalistic referee will feel frustrated by a group of players who have no interest in backstory and who are all about kicking in the door.
(Of course, there will also be variations in playing attitudes within a group – I’m talking about average tendencies here, nothing more)
Lurkinggherkins last blog post..Placing City State Of The Invincible Overlord In The World Of Greyhawk
@Lurkinggherkin: (Great alias BTW) I think that DMs who feel the need to achieve believability will tend towards designing dungeons like John describes above. While I feel a strong need to achieve a sense of internal consistency in my dungeons (ex: I don’t put living monsters in sealed tombs unless they have an infiltration point or live for ever) I don’t actually think about naturalism much as I am very focused on challenging players and spend most of my time designing encounters… I usually let the rest by the curb…
I need one of those random dungeon furnishing books…
Anyone know of some good ones?
Thanks, Chatty. I’ve had this screen name for years and it’s served me well!
I think the motto ‘As much naturalism as we know our players will appreciate or be inspired by, but no more’ serves us well here.
Lurkinggherkins last blog post..Placing City State Of The Invincible Overlord In The World Of Greyhawk
@Lurkinggherkin: That’s a good motto.
Now I’m being developing a nerd’s fixation on the “How to Host a Dungeon” game… I think I’ll give its creator a shoutout.
When my friends and I started in 2E we routinely joked about nonsencial dungeon lay out. So much so that I took it upon myself to create a ‘sensible’ dungeon filled with minotaurs and mold men. The minotaur’s glumly at the mold men, lacking anything else worth eating…
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My head hurts indeed. Great work!
I think your list of what makes an adventure old- or new-school is right on. I’m not sure what you mean by “encounters that challenge players over PCs”.
Yaxs last blog post..Drow vs Undead: A ‘Demon Queen’s Enclave’ Review
@The Main Event: I think that going for “logical” dungeons is a near unavoidable step in a DM’s evolution. Some keep at it while others abandon this for other design styles.
@Yax: Thanks man. What I meant to say by challenging players is that the older editions of the game had no skill systems and few (if any) mechanics to resolve non-combat obstacles and challenges. In such editons, DMs tended to challenge players instead of the PCs. So you would have tricks and puzzles that players had to solve by thinking instead of relying on knowledge/abilities that characters had on their sheets.
Often, the players would tell the DM, in varying levels of detail, what their characters tried to do and the DM would make a ruling based on common sense, coolness and entertaining value of the action to adjucate how it went.
Or at least, that’s how I remember it from the time I played A D&D.
One thing I’ve noticed from sitting in on a couple of 4e games is that there is a greater mix of monsters within each encounter than the 1E AD&D games I played in – instead of meeting 1d6 Goblins it’s more likely they’ll be led by an Ogre and a couple will be riding wargs. It really spices up the encounters having enemies with a range of attributes/attacks etc.
Sean Willss last blog post..Tunnel Quest
@Sean: very true. It’s a design assumption of 4e that monsters with different combat roles (and therefore different monsters) usually co-exist in the same encounter to offer a more varied combat experience. Since so much effort went into making D&D’s combat in a more complex tactical game than its predescessors (at least, pre 3e), this variety becomes necessary to avoid loss of interest from the players.
That being said, my spider senses are telling me that people are working on fast comb at rules for 4e. Something that would allow combat in mere minutes and still simulate danger for party. Should this become a reality, we might see a return to encounters with more baseline-type monsters.
When it comes to “player” challenges vs “character” challenges, I have a sliding scale. I am old school enough that I like the players to take first crack at a puzzle. If though its looking like the puzzle is too tough I allow them to make appropriate skill checks (maybe even a challenge). I hand out max xp if the players do it. I hand out good xp if the characters do it. I don’t make puzzles that stand in the way of progress. Meaning failing a puzzle challenge does can not block progress. Its more of a special reward.
This approach does 2 things. If a puzzle is solvable by the players its fun and it rewards them for paying attention to clues laid out ahead of time. If a puzzle is solved by the characters via skill checks it rewards the taking of those skills. This approach only works though if occasionally the group does not overcome the puzzle. If they always do then the taking of a skill or the smart thinking was for nothing. I like to find ways to reward choices.
@Sean: Well, getting a bit OT, but…..back in the day when we used to play 1st edition having an ogre leader and a few wargs thrown in was nothing unusual if you were fighting a pack of goblins. I really don’t think that interesting, mixed encounters are the exclusive preserve of any particular edition of D&D, nor do I think that earlier editions did anything to discourage them.
Then again, meeting a handful of ‘boring’ monsters doesn’t have to be an uninteresting encounter either. In a recent encounter in my campaign the party’s scouts ran into a few bugbears. They managed to take one prisoner and get some useful local knowledge out of him – the bugbears were scouts too, for their tribe that’s recently moved into the area. They’re still holding him captive and chances are they’ll let him go at some point in the future. They’re not cold killers, by and large.
Lurkinggherkins last blog post..Placing City State Of The Invincible Overlord In The World Of Greyhawk
(continued – as my edit time ran out) ….in fact, thinking about it, this gets back to my earlier point about naturalism being something that arises as a group phenomenon rather than simply being a referee’s style choice. Because my players know I’m a referee who tends towards a naturalistic style, this in turn affects their playing style. They assume everything happens for a reason, and those bugbears have a story to tell, hence they take prisoners. And because I know they are likely to take prisoners, I have a story prepped for them. It’s a kind of chicken-and-egg thing.
Lurkinggherkins last blog post..Placing City State Of The Invincible Overlord In The World Of Greyhawk
The player challenge in my entry is picking up on a theme as regards traps, the person who set them doesn’t want to deal with village idiots. Hopefully, astute players gain some insight into how to deal with the traps and the mindset of the NPC before any interaction takes place.
I hate it when real-world riddles are used to test players, in my experience it makes it harder to remain immersed in the gameworld.
Sean Willss last blog post..Nanodungeons
Chatty:
I think you’re correct in your analysis of the weakness of “gygaxian naturalism” as a label, more or less – my group’s discussed much the same thing. This isn’t weird to us, but my group’s mostly comprised of full-time academics (it seems that in my group, you earn your d20 with your M.A.).
The problem I had with the term as originally coined is that I was never clear on why the onus of a living world was ever incumbent upon the designers – I’ve never played in a world that was 3 dimensional because of the designers’ choices.
But given all that, I’m still not sure how “dungeon naturalism” is any more helpful than the original term. In my experience, there’s nothing in New School that suggests unrealistic or illogical dungeon design to me; for all of 4e and Goodman Games’ modules faults, there’s nothing inherent in the dungeons that I’ve read that’s any more implausible than any of the classic modules I love.
The difference, I suspect, isn’t that dungeons are somehow more or less “natural” – it’s that the “natural” dungeons that new schoolers are exploring are differently real than the dungeons found in older editions of the game. In Keep On The Shadowfell, for instance, I don’t detect any sort of out-of-whack ecology in the module that isn’t present in older modules – and the encounters that are extra-dungeon (i.e., external to the dungeon proper) are generally spread around believable topography (dragon burial sites, caves behind waterfalls, etc.).
For me, my quibble with 4e isn’t a lack of naturalism – as should be obvious, I think a complaint like that is kind of absurd (in the philosophical sense). My beef is that the monster manual’s failure to put in the bits of flavor that others have deemed a sign of “Gygaxian naturalism” makes it kind of boring. It’s more useful in terms of its utility for combat – and my game has improved because of its clarity of purpose. I just kind of liked to see how the designers’ played with monster flavor in the entries
Even though I seldom used their flavor as written, sometimes I’d mix and match. It gave me stuff I could steal and swipe when I set out to build my own world – a world which was no less real than Gary and Dave’s, just differently real.
-neal
Since I first read James talk about naturalism, I have been dissatisfied by the term. I’m not sure I really grasp the nuances of it all to distinguish all the implications of his or your definition (just watch the amount of space in blogs about the subject!), but your definition intuitively felt better. Somehow.
Thanks!
Andreas Davours last blog post..My Appendix N – gaming influences
I had my nose bleeding over this topic. Is this a kind of game?
Chatty,
Upon reflection, the one thing I think you absolutely nail is the idea that realism (a much better term than “naturalism,” I think, given the specificity in aesthetics attendant upon naturalism) is an emergent property from the story we tell at the table. It is decidedly not something found in the rulebooks that we then instantiate into our games by using the rules (or the monsters from the monstrous compendium, or the 3e falling mechanics or the 4e dynamic, changing battlefields).
-neal
Sorry, I was away playing some Wow (sacrilege!)
@John: I like your approach. I too think that puzzles (that usually always challenge players) should be fun and not be a bottleneck to the adventure. They make great side ‘passages’ in a dungeon to get to a hidden treasure or to bypass some encounters.
Your layered approach is great as it allows players that can’t tackle the puzzle a chance to still succeed at it.
@Lurking: The richer the setting and the more players are willing to experience it passed combat encounters and treasure parcel, the less ‘ordinary’ any encounter will feel to the gaming group. This is really a Your Millage May Vary type of thing.
@Lessthanpleased: I wasn’t trying to re-define James’ take on GN than I wanted to put in words that aspect of dungeon design that takes into account the ecosystem and natural aspects of it in its design.
As for the fluff having been taken out of the Monster Manual, I wonder if 4e will see some books like Paizo’s ‘Monsters revisited’ where iconic D&D monsters are given a more ‘ecological/Sociological’ treatment. I hear that Wolfgang Baur is making a ‘Best of Ecologies’ anthology, that might be worth taking a look at.
As for your second comment. I refrained from using the term “realism” because it’s unarguable in terms of a Fantasy game. Verisimilitude is my expression of choice. Something that will aid and/or push back the limits of a gaming group’s collective suspension of disbelief.
@Andreas: As I said before. My attempt was not to advance the theory of Dungeon design. Yet, I’m very satisfied that the definition hit home for several readers. Thanks for the kind words.à
@Chris: You see, I was going for exploding your head, I guess I need to try harder. 🙂 Seriously, as the Caveat at the beginning says, I did this in the context of our One Page Dungeon. Sharing it was my way of taking advantage of work I did to submit fresh content to the blog. I take you you’re going to stay in the ‘meh’ crowd and that’s all right too.
Peace man.
Thanks for the comments, this is great.
A question a bit tangential to the main discussion – why is tricks and traps being exclusively separate from combat a feature of Old School D&D? I’m just not seeing how having tricks and traps integrated into an encounter takes away from the old-school feeling.
Traps and such are specifically combat hazards in 4e, while in older editions they were usually self-contained.
It was rare to see a pit trap, for instance, integrated into a combat, for various reasons. Partially because less use of maps and minis meant it was hard to judge just when the PCs should fall in during the combat.
Traps in older editions also tended to be “stand back and let the Thief disarm it”, and often were found in the form of trapped doors or chests, which weren’t usually opened during the combat.
None of these rules are absolutes, though. There is overlap in both directions, but this is the tendency.
Grahams last blog post..32 hours of D&D gaming party!
It seems to me that there’s a relationship, at least coincidental, between a style of play where the Dungeon has no back story (“Limited story outside of the dungeon key” as you put it) and the need for Gygaxian naturalism. My “Dungeons” are necessary encounters in part of a broader campaign in a (hopefully) coherent world. They don’t need additional commentary in the monster descriptions to explain what the orcs are doing there.
If your dungeons are stand alone “worlds” with no part in a coherent larger story then you need some sort of backstory to attach to the monsters in the dungeon to explain why they’re there.
I stopped doing dungeon adventures qua dungeon adventures years ago for this reason. They’re incoherent slaughterfests and they don’t hold my players’ attention.
flashhearts last blog post..Documents on the Unfortunate Lapse of Discipline
I stopped doing dungeon adventures qua dungeon adventures years ago for this reason. They’re incoherent slaughterfests and they don’t hold my players’ attention.
But, this is the reason why traps and puzzles are a thing of it’s own, a scene change after a combat, so that there will be more than slaughter in the dungeon.
Andreas Davours last blog post..My Appendix N – gaming influences
The thing that I dislike about Traps (not tricks) played outside of an encounter is that they are non-interactive game elements unless you are a rogue and you find the trap. Most of the time, unless your players play in what I used to call ‘full paranoia Crawl mode’ (Take 20 on search every 5′), the trap hits, causes its effect and we’re done with.
At least, when its embedded in combat, the trap becomes an interactive element that crafty players can use against those they are fighting.
Granted, you could do that in old school adventures, provided you got monsters to follow you and get a facefull of the trap you led them into.
Phil: All traps become interactive when the players know of them before triggering them (or after they need to pass them again). The most classic one is an uncovered pit that one needs to get over. Or a door with a corpse/skeleton (of the probably inanimate kind) in front of it.
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I honestly never taught about that before. Naturalism.
I guess it is center to my way of DMing. If it doesnt make sense in my world, it doesnt exist. In my current campaign there’s only one ”dungeon” and it’s at the end of the campaign. And you bet that there’s absolutely no random room. Even a mad and evil monster would not bother to create part of a dungeon if he did not have an idea of what to do with it.
And you’re right Chatty! My head hurt too. I think I will need to read it all again tomorow morning before I post a complete comment on the subject. I’m off to bed.
Very interresting btw… as always!
Unless your a rogue, I kind of fail to see how a trap is interactive. The rest of the group watch the rogue investigate and disarm the trap.
You could, technically, try to use it against the inhabitant but it would be illogical for them to fall for it, since they surely know of it existence the dungeon being their home and all… 😉
But then again I’ve always hated traps at a visceral level. It goes against my storyteller side, which screams at the waste of time on insignificant detail.
Well, the idea in older editions of D&D (and in e.g. T&T) is that it isn’t supposed to be non-interactive for everyone except the Rogue/Thief!
Everyone have a chance to detect and defuse traps, but he is the best one for the job.
This is getting away a bit from the first thrust of this post, but I do find the discussion about how to handle traps interesting. The ‘full paranoia Crawl mode’ is something I have experienced myself and didn’t like it a bit. I do wonder if it isn’t a peculiarity of 3rd ed, though.
Vincent Baker’s Storming the Wizard’s Tower had an interesting way of handling it. It was almost a bit like a combination of OD&D and D&D4 when we played it.
Andreas Davours last blog post..Impressions of the latest T&T, and a minotaur!
@Andreas: ‘Full Paranoia’ a peculiarity of 3e? I think not. Back in my early gaming days when we played Blue Book/1e, particularly homebrewed dungeons, you really knew what full paranoia meant. 10′ poles used to tap ahead, copper coins thrown every damn place before you went there, mirrors used to look around corners, and we roleplayed all that out. With good reason, too. In those days DM’s used to buy and use supplements like ‘Grimtooth’s Traps’ with relish.
Personally, I don’t place traps without a reason, and my players know what sorts of environment to expect them in, so they don’t go ‘full paranoia’ all the time. When they do encounter a trap once in a while, some of them actually seem to like it (except maybe the sucker who falls for it…) – ‘Yay, traps, so retro!’.
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Yan;
So, GM describes how there’s this crumbled body in front of the door that blocks the corridor. Someone tells that they are check if there are any holes in floor, walls and roof. And indeed such exist, in the roof. Now the players brainstorm how they should pass this obstacle; maybe by blocking the holes, maybe crushing the door from afar and running past the trap. Maybe by finding what triggers it.
I fail to see how this would not be interactive, or how someone being a rogue makes everyone else irrelevant.
@Tommi: What you describe is my way of playing the game, roleplay over dice rolling. Not everyone thinks that way. Alot of people think the skill, the dice & the rules managing those situation (traps, etc) are there to accelerate things. So to them, it’s just a “rogue thing” because they got the skill to deal with that.
I personnally would not use a trap if it doesnt make sense that it’s there.
There’s many “natural” way to implement traps in the environment. You only need to have reason for it. Creature, humanoid, monster, etc could set a trap for food, for protection, to capture an enemy… If I create a dungeon, a traps could protect the entrance of it. I could use it to protect the lair of a creature “xyz”. A trap for the sake of having one in the middle of an hallway is … let’s say weird to me.
@Tommi: Well your right in that it depends on how you play. In my own experience though I don’t remember having ever played with someone who used traps as a puzzle. It came down to you make a search roll to find a trap and you make a disarm roll to disarm it (or fail to). This is when you did not have a trap in the middle of the way with no way around it. Making you scratch your head on how the hell did the inhabitant of the place circumvent the pit trap or whatever else.
Puzzles are interactive since they will as you said include every one, dumb trap with search and disarm roll are not. So we could agree that to make a trap interesting it should be turn as a puzzle instead of looking for the gotcha effect.
I think the idea of traps as interactive puzzles is over-stated by old schoolers. It’s a good idea in theory but in practice the difficulties of a) planning the trap, b) imagining a disarming mechanism which as much sense when the players hear it as when the DM imagined it, and c) getting the players to understand the correct solution mean that in practice the traps are often just a failure. This is also true of political scenarios in games – what seems a crystal clear network of political allegiances to the DM is clear as mud once it’s explained to the players.
I’m pretty sure this is why game designers invented the skill check – so they could add a layer of abstraction to a process which, when negotiated directly between dm and players, fell flat on its face as often as it worked.
And there is always the dual-approach to traps, where the trap is disarmed by a skill check but a good idea from the player improves the chances of the check succeeding. No reason for either-ors.
flashhearts last blog post..Documents on the Unfortunate Lapse of Discipline
@flashheart: When you say “fell flat on its face as often as it worked” I don’t understand what you mean. Can you give me an exemple?
I’m not being sarcastic btw. It’s just that I never “hope” for a puzzle, a trap or any other plot device to work a way or the other. Success or failure of the PC attempt to solve anything is always a “success” for me the DM.
My goal is to create a world for the PCs to evolve in, I’m not aiming for a precise result. The more unpredictable the better ;-)…
Maybe I’m just missing your point.
That’s why I’m asking!
D_luck: I am very aware of what you stated. Very aware.
Yan: I don’t see the point of gotcha-traps, or roll-dice-to-solve-traps. Maybe some do enjoy them.
That said, puzzle traps, as you call them, do not fit every game.
flashheart: We would the GM have a particular solution in mind? Where’s the fun in that?
Tommi: I don’t see the point of gotcha trap either… But power trip DM likes it.
“You enter the room and fail to see the trap the ceiling falls on you, your all dead.”
😉
Suggested reading –
The Trap
Enjoy!
Lurkinggherkins last blog post..The Trap
I actually have no idea how it used to work “back in the days” since I never played D&D back then.
Anyway, I think we all agree that the big problem probably not is the lack of interaction with the trap, but traps as breaking the suspenders of disbelief. I understand why someone would use a skill system for traps, but it’s one situation where I think the invention was a bad idea.
Andreas Davours last blog post..Impressions of the latest T&T, and a minotaur!
@Yan: quote: “You enter the room and fail to see the trap the ceiling falls on you, your all dead.”
A very similar moment happened in a game I was playing in a long time ago. My friends and I pissed off the DM so much he killed us all. It was a game of Paranoia so you could say it make sense to kill all the PCs if you want, but if you do that out of pure anger it’s not the same thing!
D_luck, Tommi: the point of a trap is to set a challenge the characters can solve. So for them to do that, you need to describe something they can understand and interpret, and find a solution for. Thus they get a sense of success. If their success is independent of your description, then you might as well do a skill check, right? And, DMing is no fun if your players don’t have to interact with your descriptions. Similarly, playing is no fun if you know that what your dm tells you and what you do are unrelated.
So, the DMs description has some relevance to how the players solve the trap. But often, the situation the DM envisaged, which was so clear to him/her, fails dismally on description, and the clear hint at a solution which the DM was putting in just doesn’t work, so the players screw up or give up as often as they succeed.
This happens a lot. That’s why skill checks were invented, I think – to mediate between the human failing of the DM (can’t quite describe things perfectly) and the players (too stupid and drunk to understand anything).
flashhearts last blog post..Documents on the Unfortunate Lapse of Discipline
I have been away from the computer since last night so while I’ve read all the comments since, I haven’t been able to answer and I likely won’t try.
Traps should have their own posts (as Gherkin did today). Suffice it to say that I prefer traps in D&D 4e than the average ones I played in 3e. Tommi’s point is very valid. Traps definitively can be used as non-gotcha obstacles that can make the dungeon feel more like a Indiana Jones scenario (Skeletons Impaled on Rusted spears are a fine example).
Thanks for the discussions people!
I have found that once you start playing with intelligent and resourceful players you pretty much have to come up with a logic for every encounter, be it trap or monster that you put in. Otherwise players will concentrate on the irrationalities you allowed in and wreck the gaming experience. eg: ‘There was a live minotaur in this tomb, so there must be a way out’…’we use our magic to deconstruct the trap to get at the mechanism (remember the ‘super-charge spring spell?)’
(A memorable example in the Hall of the Fire Giant king (G3) when the party nicked the solid adamantite doors to the dungeon and sold them..)
It is useful to use magic, unknowable mystery or just irrational/insane npcs to allow you to set up not-sensible things in adventures, (The tomb of horrors did it beautifully – Acereak the Lich testing the players for his own amusement) but it wears thin if you do it too much.
Setting up realistic situations leads to very different role playing experience. The Paladins have to deal with what happens to the orc tribes dependents now you have killed all the males… an interesting morality issue.
Not-realistic dungeons are only ok if everyone agrees to what to expect, otherwise some players will clearly be upset to find the random encounter table has placed 6 cloud giants in a 10’x10′ room with no exits..
Hey Ranalf, my players did that to me with the adamantite doors as well. It’s very true that those “gygaxian naturalist” dungeons often left strangely unbalancing or manipulable phenomena for players to rort. The focus on the internal mechanics of the game system can lead to strange effects in practice, which are generally avoided if you make sure that everything in your dungeon is there as a coherent aspect of the plot.
flashhearts last blog post..eh?
Obsidian, actually, not adamantite.
{/pedantry}
But obsidian was listed as a semi-precious stone in the 1e DMG worth 10gp. I recall calculating the value of those huge doors at 6,000,000gp. And in those days we gave xp for treasure 😉
I remember this quite clearly because I independently came up with the idea of nicking the doors and selling them. Amazing how so many people also came to the same conclusion without the benefit of the internet to spread the idea!
However, maybe here we were at fault for not taking the naturalistic approach to its full conclusion – if someone tried that on me now as a DM I would say that flooding the market with that much obsidian would grossly devalue it as a semi-precious stone. Never thought of that at the time, though, as my 15-year-old brain had a pretty shaky grasp of economics.
Lurkinggherkins last blog post..The Trap
@Ranalf: Consistency and verisimilitude do matter in dungeons, especially if you play with a bunch of engineers, Chemists and PhDs like my group.
That’s why I was so blown away with the Rule of Cool as I had found the one way of dodging pedantic nitpicking of the details of my adventures as if I could create a an encounter that was cool enough to wow the players, everyone stopped challenging the little details I didn’t have time (or didn’t want to spend the time) getting perfectly right.
Know your players! I had some behaviour like that in a 3rd ed campaign, and it threatened to wreck the economy of the campaign. Now when I’m less caring about realism I would love to see players take some doors and sell them for 6 000 000 gold!
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