I first encountered the “dungeon delve” at the exact same time I first encountered 4e. 3 linked encounters, designed to be played in a relatively short amount of time (45 minutes at the conventions). Dungeon Delve (the book) is full of them, one for every level, designed for quick pick-up games or for when you want some quick 4e butt-kicking without having to plan anything. Still, for an inexperienced DM, there are some challenges, and even experienced DMs might not bring their “A game” to a dungeon delve. Here are just a few tips to spice them up and make running a delve more fun for you and your players.
1. Know Your Players
This is, incidentally, my #1 piece of advice for running ANY game, but that’s besides the point. The way you approach running a delve for a group of inexperienced players is different for running up against a group who want to try out their newest optimized killing machine.
In the former, try to ease them into it, and be prepared for questions as you go along. Don’t play your monsters stupidly, but don’t kick them while they’re down either just because they don’t know all the capabilities of their characters.
In the latter, look for synergies between your monsters, and challenge the PCs as much as possible.
In either case, you also need to know what the players are expecting. While dungeon delves aren’t necessarily built for a lot of story or character interaction, if the players are looking for it, it’s generally not hard to inject, you just don’t want to be taken off guard when they decide to capture the goblin instead of killing it.
2. Add Some Details
This is the way the WotC DMs usually handle it and it’s a small touch that goes a long way. Describe the monsters and monster attacks in terms of what the PCs see, not just the names from the book. Have the intelligent ones shout taunts at the PCs, or guffaw when another monster hits. They can even give hints to what lies ahead in the next section with the descriptions: “The kobolds look like they have acid burns, as if they were punished by some acid-breathing creature for disobediance.”
3. Look For Ways to Awesome Up the Encounters
If you read through the adventure and think, “man, wouldn’t it be great if this monster got to do this…”, chances are, you should try and make it happen. Not only does it make it more memorable for the players, it also might make it more fun for you as the DM. Just manuvering the monsters into the position of being able to unleash some combination you like is the easiest way, but you could go as far as swapping some powers around.
4. It’s Not Just Fights
One of my favorite Dungeon Delve encounters that I took directly from the book in my campaign has a trap that fills the room with sand. Others have skill challenges and other terrain features. Read these encounters carefully and make sure you know how they work first, and then how they work with everything else in the room. They’re there to be used, so specifically having your monsters get into situations where they’ve lured a PC into a trap is the order of the day.
5. Be Flexible
A dungeon delve isn’t likely to be a big roleplaying challenge involving lots of NPCs with complex interactions, but players always seem to find a way to make things go a bit unexpectedly. It’s a contained environment so it’s a bit easier to plan for, yet you still have to be ready for the unexpected. This is where “Saying Yes” can come in quite handy: since it’s not in a campaign or even a longer adventure, there’s less likely to be ripple effects if you make a bad call, and it encourages players to make the game their own.
On the flip side, even if your players stick to the plan, keep an eye on how much they’re NOT saying. If energy levels are low, if things are taking too long, or any other perceived problems, shake it up. Have monsters retreat or go all out on one PC. Jolt the situation and get things moving, because if the game is running too long in a short dungeon delve, there’s something wrong.
Those are my 5 tips, feel free to share more. And if all else fails, you can always really shake a delve up by reversing the dungeon…
Amen to all that.
What I like most about the Dungeon Delves is that they just provide the barest framework. What you do with them is entirely up to you and your players. They make ideal “training wheels” dungeons while you’re learning the ropes of the new system, but they are so much more too.
For example, we’ve played Coppernight Hold (the first Dungeon in the book) four times now, and each experience has been different. The first time we were still learning the 4e mechanics and it ran more like a boardgame experience. Subsequent trips against Coppernight and his Kobold allies have been much more role-playing intensive with the latest one being a brutal, gritty hardcore strike team affair that felt more like something out of a WWII movie than anything. Brilliant stuff.
30 dungeons? Total replay value? Yes please! I can’t wait for Dungeon Delve II 😀
A great piece of software for this is Masterplan, which (in addition to lots of other handy DM features) can randomly generate delve-style adventures.
It’s at http://www.habitualindolence.net/masterplan/
Really I can’t say enough good things about this. Everyone who reads this column would do well to check it out.
D
My group has done about a half-dozen 45-minute delves in the past few weeks, inspired by my experience with a WotC-run Delve at PAX. They’ve been a great time, and we have over a dozen spare characters lying around so we can just pick them up and play whenever we feel like it. The emphasis for us really shifts to making quick decisions and keeping things moving so we can squeeze in under the time limit.
I wanted to point out one thing; the 45-minute time limit is for a 2-encounter, 3rd-level-party set. Playing at higher or lower levels is going to slow down or speed up the game noticeably, and all of the book’s delves are 3 encounters, so some judgement calls are necessary to use the entries in the Dungeon Delve book. I’d suggest just timing your group on those, rather than gunning for an increasingly unfeasible 45-minute time limit.
I particulary agree with your points 2, 3, and 4! Obviously the onus is on the DM to not slow the game down with BBEG monologues or detailed descriptions, but spiking the game with little descriptions like “The bandit leader drops! All of the goblin minions cheer and shout ‘now’s OUR chance to take over!'” keeps everyone entertained and energetic. And trying out new and different ways to spice up the encounters with fun terrain and weird effects keeps the game fresh AND has a very low opportunity cost – you’re trying to get through these fights quickly, so if it doesn’t work out as well as you hoped, you’ve learned something new and not wasted too much time on it.