I've been playing/GMing D&D since the Red Box in the 80's. We played it, and the expert set to death. I had many a fun summer bashing the shit out of monsters, leveling up and crawling through dungeons.

Ever since I started playing WFRP 1st edition though (and after the Isle of Dread to be fair). I never really wanted to go back to the traditional Dungeon Bash per se, or super high-powered games. Most of my games generally focus on urban or wilderness areas (with a load of CoC influence in there as well).

I certainly don't mind hacking through a tomb or a lair. But I'd really like it to feel cohesive and semi-realistic (and not too long). That is to say, that there's a logical reason that the creatures are there in the first place (and at least they feign being alive for more than just fodder). Plus that such a crawl is linked to the overall story arc in someway.

I'd (personally) dispense with the more surreal and random type of crawls. Stuff like human-sized chess boards or floating blocks, etc. Anything that would cause the use of 'too much' magical energy. Yes, I know how that sounds, considering were are talking about a game made of pure fantasy and imagination.

I still consider myself a big OSR fan though. More because it brings me back to the 'basics', or why I actually loved RPGs in the first place (D&D, Traveller, CoC, etc.). I'm getting less enamored with all the 'bells and whistles' that are associated with more modern RPGs. I also love the fact that OSR games are extremely compatible and hackable. Not too mention some awsome stuff that is curently being released (and I'm also picking up some old stuff as well that I missed over the years).

I think Beyond the Wall nails it for me... OSR rules that are geared towards a sandbox within a DIY low(ish) fantasy setting. With rules to suit the setting where appropriate. C&C is another one. More because I really think the rule implementation is just so elegant. And solves the problem with skills, etc.

Most of the other oddities (forgetting spells, etc) can add charm to the game, so I'm happy enough with those. I'm not trying to say, that playing high-fantasy games are bad at all, but not just for me.

I'm interested in other people's thoughts on the subject. Do you still go through the basic dungeon bash? Or have you changed your style over the years?

Ta',

Rob.

My style has changed a little over the years. In the 1970's we started out as dungeon-crawls only, but then slowly developed a "world" a small step at a time. Path from dungeon to village. Area surround village. Nation containing village. Larger world area containing nation. And so on. It took several years of constant play and slowly grew, and during that time we moved more into an exploration phase and mixed in political stuff, with occasional dungeon delves to break the grind. That group eventually drifted apart.

My newer group (mostly family) hopped around between exploration and dungeons. I ran through a "campaign" each 9-12 months or so, continually making new settings for them to experience. As my kids grew up I ran into some time crunches, so I mostly stuck to standard dungeon crawls to limit prep time. Now I play in mostly 5E Adventurer's League games, which mix wilderness with dungeons.

I suppose over the course of 40+ years playing my games have been roughly half wilderness, half dungeon crawls. I haven't developed the same dislike for them that you have, as I hardly ever spend time worrying about "realistic" factors such as how to keep monsters alive in those places. My current group will play whatever I run, and I like the mix.

I still enjoy a good dungeon crawl but I don't run campaigns that are nothing but dungeon after dungeon. There is interesting stuff going on above ground too. A good mix of environments for adventuring keeps things fresh. Dungeons still have their place.

Silly/gonzo dungeons have their place as part of the Realm of Chaos where reality begins to break down and is twisted at the whim of mad sorcerers. But they certainly should not be the "only way to play". Personally I like a good mix of dungeon, wilderness and political stuff, with some urban adventuring. I strongly dislike "You are stuck in this dungeon FOREVER" type campaigns.

We never changed our style because our style was never a dungeon crawl in the first place. We discovered rpg's by ourselves, our first book was AD&D and we have to find out how to play. Our primary influence was Howard, Moorcock and the Lone Wolf game books by Joe Dever.

Quote from: finarvyn;970080I haven't developed the same dislike for them that you have, as I hardly ever spend time worrying about "realistic" factors such as how to keep monsters alive in those places. My current group will play whatever I run, and I like the mix.

I think a mix is always good... I try and vary my games as much as possible (but I do tend to favor urban, wilderness or small isolated villages).

Don't get me wrong though, I'm happy to let players annihilate monsters. I just like having them there for a reason, even if they are only guards for a big bad that has located itself in a nearby area. Incidentally, I like the way Symbaroum incorporated Dungeons and Wilderness. You have that feeling of awe and wonder at having to navigate the immense and largely unknown Davokar forest. Then decend into some forgotten tomb of aeons past. But the subterainion exploration seems quite grounded. Well, when compared to more high fantasy settings. But it's all good!

Quote from: John Scott;970089We never changed our style because our style was never a dungeon crawl in the first place. We discovered rpg's by ourselves, our first book was AD&D with no one to "teach us" how to play. Our primary influence was Howard, Moorcock and the Lone Wolf game books by Joe Dever.

Moorcock was a big influence on me as well. I still love the Stormbringer RPG. I'd love a pdf copy as my print copy is very old at this stage. I'm obsessed with horror too so anything I GM will be towards the horrific.

That's even better! I was brought into a group, so the GM was all about Dungeon Crawls at the time. They ranged from 'weird' to Super Mario world. We had a blast at the time to be fair, but as other games and influences started to creep in I adapted my own GMind style (when I actually started to run them properly I should say).

To be fair, he ran a cracking Isle of Dread campaign. That gave me a love for pirate and jungle games that I still have to this day.

Quote from: S'mon;970083I strongly dislike "You are stuck in this dungeon FOREVER" type campaigns.

God... Me as well. I just feel very claustrophobic as a player if I'm trapped in a dungeon that goes on and on with no respite. I also feel that there's not a huge opportunity to roleplay down there either (unless the GM has got something already worked in).

Yeah, I can see a place for a gonzo style dungeons. But for me, it would be more of having a  laugh with a few mates and a couple of beers.

I like political stuff as well. but again that could get boring if you don't have a good mix as you mentioned.

Your commentary on Symbaroum picked my interest. Care to talk some more about it?

Quote from: The Exploited.;970096Moorcock was a big influence on me as well. I still love the Stormbringer RPG. I'd love a pdf copy as my print copy is very old at this stage. I'm obsessed with horror too so anything I GM will be towards the horrific.

That's even better! I was brought into a group, so the GM was all about Dungeon Crawls at the time. They ranged from 'weird' to Super Mario world. We had a blast at the time to be fair, but as other games and influences started to creep in I adapted my own GMind style (when I actually started to run them properly I should say).

To be fair, he ran a cracking Isle of Dread campaign. That gave me a love for pirate and jungle games that I still have to this day.

We played Stormbringer/Elric! a lot. As a matter of fact it was the game that "dethroned" AD&D and the preferred system for my group at the time.

I've always enjoyed a wide mix, and any particular element--crawl, wilderness, city, naval, etc.--gets stale to me if it goes on for an extended period with no leavening of the others.  Because our group plays almost entirely in a broad but definite band of fantasy, it's even more important to mix up the contents within that band.

I'll have to check with my players, but they seem to like a combination of crawling something (dungeon, castle, forest, space station, whatever) with things to kill every other room or so combined with dealing with sapient (people) NPCs or Monsters.

They are having a blast playing B1 In Search of the Unknown, where I divided the top level into feuding orcs and goblins, and a magically sealed section with death lizards. And downstairs (through the death lizard section) are trolls with death lizards. The party is busy facilitating a romance between the daughter of the goblin leader and the son of the orc leader. This got them the wand to get into the death lizard section (which contains the book for which they are looking). But their main concern seems to be resolving the conflict between the orcs and goblins. Each group thinks the other is instigating conflict, and since the party is the only people who has talked to both sides, only they know...

I try to include a dungeon or two in my adventures/campaigns because some people may expect it, but they are not the focus and never terribly huge.

I never liked "dungeon crawls" even back in 1982, if by dungeon crawl you mean exploring dungeons and killing things and taking treasure and no real rhyme or reason for why I'm doing it. Even then I preferred to have a goal other than killing monsters and steal their shiny objects.

The dungeon crawl idea is like the game of chess: the playing field is structured and basically always the same, but the game is infinitely interesting because there is an infinite number of directions the game can go, though with recurring themes.  If you played it without the constraint and structure of the board it would lose a lot of what makes it work.

The trouble is that lots of people in our hobby don't know how to play chess, so as often as not a dungeon crawl is one person playing checkers vs. someone else who thinks they are the stage manager for finger-puppet Macbeth.