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2017-12-01, 07:36 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2016
- Location
- Belgium
- Gender
Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Hello everyone. I was wondering if anyone had some ideas for making a dungeoncrawl last longer in-game? For roleplaying reasons, their characters need to be in it for at least 15 - 30 minutes and it can't be too challenging that they would turn back to resupply or rest to drastically change their spells. Thing is, I'd like to finish the adventure there in 1 or 2 sessions, so just adding in battles would take too long IRL for maybe a few minutes in-game of fighting.
It's a low (3rd) level party.
They haven't entered yet, so I can still change the setting of the place from typical dungeon to natural cave or something. I was hoping for some mildly challenging obstacles that can be resolved IRL reasonably quickly, but would believable take some time for the PC's.
One obstacle for those who immediately thought of climbing or anything rope-related: One player is a druid with a wolf companion.
Thanks in advance.
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2017-12-01, 07:44 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2006
- Location
- Pittsburgh, PA
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
- Physical obstacles are good-- walls that need climbed, chasms that need crossed, flooded passages that need swum through... even just long twisty hallways.
- Traps (and secret doors, to a lesser extent) will slow you right down, since searching for anything takes a while. Of course, trap-induced paranoia will also slow your players down, so your mileage may vary.
- Puzzles, particularly if you insist the deliberations be in character.
- Throw a choice or moral dilemma in and watch your players argue for half an hour. Inform them that the clock is ticking while their characters debate each other.
- Roleplaying encounters
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2017-12-01, 08:28 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2016
- Location
- Canterlot, Equestria
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
A puzzle involving weights that works by filling cisterns from the nearby river. There is a single bucket provided.
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2017-12-01, 09:23 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2012
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Chute traps that dump people into the bottom of the dungeon are great for not letting them leave whenever they want to.
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2017-12-01, 09:25 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2015
- Location
- Right behind you!
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Stone doors on a time-lock. (even if they bash through - that's time consuming)
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2017-12-01, 09:49 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2016
- Location
- Belgium
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Stone doors that can't be picked but need to be broken through, yes. Excellent, that's definitely going in, thanks.
I like the idea of them having to cross a chasm. Any ideas on ideal length and difficulty that doesn't make it impossible for the heavily armoured dwarf?
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2017-12-01, 09:56 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2015
- Location
- Right behind you!
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
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2017-12-01, 12:56 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Location
- Dallas, TX
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Eighteen empty rooms, on of which has a secret door. In each one, you can tell them, "After ten minutes search, you conclude that there's nothing here."
The treasure is in seven separate locked chests, not one.
"You start walking down the stairs. Fifteen minutes later, you finally emerge in a room with a door." [With the walk back up, that takes up the required thirty minutes.]
That's a feature, not a bug. Now the climbing will take longer in-game, as they work out how to get the wolf up or down.
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2017-12-01, 01:13 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2009
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
While keeping the wolf from eating the sheep, and the sheep from eating the cabbages ...
Make the dungeon big. If it takes 10 minutes to walk through a tunnel before the next room you can eat through time without eating through resources. Many old school dungeons would take advantage of this by having many (potentially) empty rooms between rooms of interest.
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2017-12-01, 03:12 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2016
- Location
- Belgium
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Yeah, except I feel like saying "you walk for 15 minutes" feels a little like a cop-out.
Also, who creates rooms with no purpose in mind for them? Think of the biggest building you can, how many rooms in it are kept empty indefinitely?
@ Jay R: As for the 'feature, not a bug' part of the wolf, how would you try and get the wolf up and down, not having access to any impressive magic? I'm genuinely interested and I don't want to be blindsided by my players' suggestions (which I already know would be insane, and funny, and insanely funny)
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2017-12-01, 03:17 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2015
- Location
- Right behind you!
- Gender
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2017-12-01, 03:51 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2006
- Location
- NYC
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Slowing down the party:
- difficult terrain
- one-at-a-time rope bridge across a chasm
- Hallway of Mandatory Tip-Toeing
- Golem guardian requires solution to a long-division problem for each PC before allowing passage either way
- boat on circular magical river links two parts of dungeon; takes a fixed amount of time to traverse its course
Wolf movement ideas:
- Cast levitate or spider climb on the wolf.
- Reins of Ascension.
- Fiendish Wings (feathered) graft. Warning: will tend to make the wolf behave like a cat.I want you to PEACH me as hard as you can.
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2017-12-01, 04:01 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jan 2009
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Put a bit of writing on the walls. Bonus points if it's in an old, hard-to-translate language that not all of the PCs can speak.
They will stop to read it, and to translate it for the PCs who can't.Last edited by Ezeze; 2017-12-01 at 04:01 PM.
"Nothing has to be true, but everything has to sound true." - Isaac Asimov (Second Foundation)
Avatar by Serpentine. Ezeze-doll by Recaiden.
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2017-12-01, 04:42 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2008
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2017-12-01, 05:44 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Aug 2011
- Location
- Sharangar's Revenge
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Warhammer 40,000 Campaign Skirmish Game: Warpstrike
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Thri-Kreen Ranger/Psionicist by me, based off of Rich's A Monster for Every Season
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2017-12-01, 06:04 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2016
- Location
- Belgium
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Excellent ideas. Thank you all.
And yes, they all come prepared. The druid originally believed he could live off the land, but has since learned that the weight of a few supplies are worth the saved spell slots for endure elements, etc
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2017-12-01, 06:07 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2006
- Location
- NYC
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
I want you to PEACH me as hard as you can.
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2017-12-01, 09:08 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2017
- Location
- New York
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
I like to use traps. Like, they'll step on a pressure plate and even something as simple as a pit appears, and now your players are spending time making checks to get over it, get someone out of it, et cetera. Now, imaging something more complex, like some kind of puzzle trap with a riddle or logic problem. That's going to take them quite a while.
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2017-12-01, 10:58 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Location
- Dallas, TX
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
My ideas don't matter. I'd build a platform supported by a rope, or have the strongest person carry the wolf, or use Feather Fall, or some such, based on what spells and skills the party had.
The point is that your players' ideas will be insane, and funny, and insanely funny. And they will take up in-game time to enact, even if they can be expressed in a single sentence.
[And you're supposed to be blindsided by your players' suggestions -- you're the DM. You're not supposed to know what happens next.]
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2017-12-02, 05:00 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2016
- Location
- Belgium
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Last edited by PH7; 2017-12-02 at 05:04 AM.
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2017-12-04, 04:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2010
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
The main question is: Was the 'dungeon' designed to keep people out, or is it more of a circumstantial ruin or the like? In the former case, many empty rooms to dissuade/confuse invaders are not just reasonable - they are expected!
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2017-12-04, 06:54 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Jun 2009
- Location
- Denmark
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Only combat happens in rounds.
In all other situations, time just flies.
How much time to do a search check of a room? 10 minutes.
Loot the dead enemies? 5 minutes.
Properly dress a wound? 5 minutes
Fiddling with a magic item to determine its use?
30 minutes will easily go by. 15 minutes is totally believable for one combat, the aftermath and checking the room.
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2017-12-04, 09:12 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Nov 2010
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2017-12-04, 10:34 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Location
- Dallas, TX
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
I tell my players that a "round" is not a measure of in-game time. It's a tool for simulating continuous action with discrete events. There might be three furious rounds in a few seconds, or a round could be a minute of staring at each other waiting for somebody to see an opening.
Don't focus on the simulation, focus on the situation being simulated.
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2017-12-04, 11:14 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Sep 2007
- Location
- Earth... sort of.
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Puzzle: Door that can only be opened by sunlight. (Possibly part of the puzzle is figuring out that's what it takes; maybe a riddle?) Takes four seconds tabletime for a PC to say "Okay so we get some mirrors and set it up to reflect light in from outside the dungeon" but that's easily a half-hour's work.
Puzzle: The floor of this room is covered in fungus that sprays acid when disturbed. Trying to burn it just creates a big cloud of acid-steam.
Well, that depends on whether an empty room is wall to wall bare, or if an empty room is, in fact, merely empty of enemies and treasure. It may also have been heavily re-purposed over time. "Back when this place was built, this would've been a kitchen. You can still see parts of the original ovens incorporated into the goblins' big still over there." or "When the church of Sigmar was in operation, this would have been a cheese storage. In fact, the shelf on the back wall is still standing, and you can see several torso-sized masses of desiccated fungus from where a cheese aged into oblivion."Avatar by K penguin. Sash by Damned1rishman.
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2017-12-04, 11:38 AM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- San Antonio, Texas
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
In B2, there's a section of minotaur caves that has a maze-like quality and a degree of confusion cast over it... even if you're following good mapping practices, you're going to get lost a bit.
The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
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2017-12-04, 03:15 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Feb 2006
- Location
- NYC
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
I want you to PEACH me as hard as you can.
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2017-12-04, 04:02 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- May 2006
- Location
- Wandering in Harrekh
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
Wait a few levels, and this will stop being an issue. (Only half-joking; higher-level combat tends to bog down noticeably).
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2017-12-04, 04:25 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Oct 2010
- Location
- Dallas, TX
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
I'll bite. Why? I track my PC's equipment, my spell list, my saving throws, by skill levels, my ability bonuses, etc. Why shouldn't I also track his path? Eventually, I'm going to have to decide whether to go right or left. Of course I want to make the best decision I can. I can't imagine exploring a complex of rooms and passages without drawing a map.
No DM I have ever seen has done this. Besides, Every competent DM, and every competent player, knows that there is a wide range of values for the map between "exactly perfect" and "worthless".
And when you're lost in a complex maze, your immediate goal is to get back to a part of it that you have previously mapped. That requires having a mapped section to return to. The map is helpful even if it's both incomplete and imperfect.
This does not match my experience. When we started, we mapped everything, and the DM had the standard tools to try to get us lost in the dungeon anyway, to increase the tension, challenge, and fun. I never saw anybody "run from the room crying, and ... never play D&D again."
Never.
Did you just make this up, or have you actually seen somebody run from the room crying, and never play D&D again, because his map wasn't perfect?
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2017-12-04, 04:32 PM (ISO 8601)
- Join Date
- Dec 2007
- Location
- San Antonio, Texas
- Gender
Re: Tips for making a dungeoncrawl last longer?
The Cranky Gamer
*It isn't realism, it's verisimilitude; the appearance of truth within the framework of the game.
*Picard management tip: Debate honestly. The goal is to arrive at the truth, not at your preconception.
*Mutant Dawn for Savage Worlds!
*The One Deck Engine: Gaming on a budget
Written by Me on DriveThru RPG
There are almost 400,000 threads on this site. If you need me to address a thread as a moderator, include a link.