Dungeons and Dragons... without dungeons?

[Jasper_Winters]

I've been playing around with this idea for a while... what if you could run a campaign with no (or very few) dungeons? Most of the PC's time would be spent in the "regular world". There would still be action, of course, just not in such large environments or for such extended periods of time. Ideally, running a campaign like this would make standard dungeon cliches such as abandoned ruins, tunnel complexes, and the like seem unique and interesting, and something that the players might actually fear. If any of you are familiar with the webcomic Darths and Droids, think of those campaigns - there's action, but none of it is in a dungeon.

Basically, I'd like tips and advice about trying to do a campaign like this. If any of you have already done this, I'd like to hear what you liked about it and what you disliked, things that were difficult to do or any problems you encountered, and what your players thought of it.

[deuxhero]

War campaigns by default are such. You may consider strongholds "dungeons", but that's as close as you get.

[Steward]

This is actually an extremely common and popular playstyle. I can count on one hand the number of dungeon crawls I've actually played through. The idea of a free-roaming quest (a prototypical example of which is the one where the PCs have to race around the world collecting the Five Talismans of Whatever to stop the evil wizard Jerkface from blah blah blah the entire blah).

One of the main problems you might run into as a DM is being able to manage such an expansive setting. Unlike in a dungeon, where there is a limited amount of space to move in, the players could theoretically try to go anywhere. Assuming the storyline isn't constrained to a specific city or castle or something, you kind of have to be on your toes and ready to make sure that the world feels fully-realized and the players don't wind up wandering into a place that is suspiciously nondescript and uninteresting.

Similarly to that, if you're in wide open spaces a lot, you have to think about combat encounters a little differently. A rolling savannah is different from a tight, cramped, narrow dungeon corridor. Depending on the opponent, there will be different options for movement and attack styles. Flying away becomes a more viable option while encircling someone becomes slightly more difficult since you can't back them into a wall any more.

[Tvtyrant]

I tend to make environments for the outside world, with the degree of wilderness influencing CR (the more wild, the higher CR the monsters generally). Then I use dungeons as...actual dungeons meant to imprison things.

My experience with this playstyle is that it tends to be easier for the players, because things can't leap out of trap-walls and the group can simply fly. However, it also means you can use big things more easily (earth-gliding Purple Worms that leap out of the ground and pull people back in, for instance).

[DeathOfAMailman]

Yeah, this is how I run most of my campaigns. The players only go into "dungeons," as such, when the story calls for it; most of the game happens in towns, castle courts, wild forests, open savannah, or, my personal favourite, an arctic wasteland. Beasties in my worlds aren't confined to dungeons or caves; goblins and orcs have strongholds and warcamps more often than they reside in a tightly packed tunnel system.

[MukkTB]

The only problem is that any large building or enclosed space can become a 'dungeon.'

[Water_Bear]

In years of DMing, I have literally run one Dungeon. It took less than an hour to go through.

I understand the appeal of Dungeons, because they are the perfect environments to challenge characters. Any possible ability can be isolated and tested, fun and unusual monsters can be brought in without hurting the suspension of disbelief, and a well made Dungeon lets every PC shine.

But personally, I like the feeling that my Players are part of a living world and everything they do will eventually catch up to them. I love cities and massive battlefields, and I spend entirely too long statting up Humanoid NPCs to populate them.

Dungeons just feel disconnected from the rest of the game-world, and I have a harder time getting enthusiastic about them. I've played through Dungeons, good and bad, as a PC but I'm just not that kind of person. I suspect some other DMs have similar feelings.

[killem2]

I don't see why not, dungeons are meerly funnels for exp and treasure and some good ol roleplaying.

The same could easily be done in a very large and nasty metropolis. Maybe in a very very dense, but deadly dark forest.

[Reynard]

It was rare for my old DM to ever put us in the sort of dungeon that you generally think of in D&D.

Mostly he did single-city-based games, so the closet we usually came was when we hid in the sewers or got thrown into some dark recess of the castle prisons. There was a string of sessions where we spent 80% of our time on rooftops.


When I DM, I tend to shy away from dungeons as well, or at least the kick-down-the-doors, kill-the-monster, take-the-loot sort of dungeon.

[Eldan]

Depends on your definition of dungeon. @Locations filled with traps and monsters (that often have little reason to actually be there), often underground, with a boss battle at the end and treasure stacked in various points?"

Don't think I ever ran one.

"Confined place where part of an adventure, usually the finale, happens, and combat takes place?"

Sure. Say, Harbinger House, which was the last thing I ran. Of course, the players talked their way through most of it, and I removed most of the traps, because traps are usually boring. But it was kind of a dungeon.

[Mindstab_Thrull]

Very feasible. See DMG, sidebar on page 58 - BEHIND THE CURTAIN: WHY DUNGEONS?

"A dungeon is really nothing but an adventure flowchart. The rooms are encounters, and the corridors are connections between the encounters, showing which encounters should (or could) follow which other ones. You could design a dungeonlike flowchart for an adventure that didn't take place in a dungeon and accomplish the same thing. One encounter leads to two more, which in turn lead to others, some of which double back on previous encounters. The dungeon becomes a model, in this way, for all adventures."

The only reason to stick to a dungeon, specifically, is the atmosphere. If that's not your style, run a "dungeon" in the sense listed above rather than the literal sense. Wouldn't be too hard, I'm sure. Even wilderness, city and political adventures can be done this way.

Mindstab Thrull
*looks up to Endrek Sahr* When's lunch?

[ericgrau]

In addition to dungeons there are also extensive rules for city and wilderness encounters, so focusing on these is far from unreasonable. It's like saying what if instead of vanilla all the time we had mainly chocolate and strawberry. Sure, whatever you want.

[Andvare]

I really dislike dungeons, mostly because they rarely make any sense what so ever.

But then, I actually also prefer the roleplaying part of roleplay, and not the rules and combat. For some reason, I have always been an optimizer, but in D&D, it has been partly because I wanted to avoid combat, as I find the rues to be atrocious.

On the other hand, there's a times and place for everything (and it's called college). Sometimes an oldschool dungeon crawl can be fun nostalgia.


An open air setting can be an encounter flowchart as well. Storming a fortress is one such setting, where each part of the fort can act as rooms in a dungeon.
A dungeon is, at the end, just a tool to make encounters more limited and controlled. But there are other methods to achieve the same level of control. The Planescape setting, which I love, is a good example of this. A lovely blend of PC freedom and DM railroading.

[Ranting Fool]

No dungeons, sure... but no Dragons oh no the players would revolt! :smallbiggrin:

(Haven't yet put any Dragons in my new campaign)

[Keneth]

Depends on what you consider a "dungeon". Every sewer, large building, cave, underground complex, etc. can potentially be a dungeon. Every game should have lots of such places (how could they not?) but the characters should obviously not be limited to dungeon crawling. I've never run a game where the players didn't have the option of going wherever they wanted and I love designing encounters both for open and enclosed spaces (each have their pros and cons).

[Lapak]

Hex-crawling is also a classic D&D style. The Trollsmyth blog has a pretty solid series on how to set up a hexcrawl campaign starting here (http://trollsmyth.blogspot.com/2011/07/hex-mapping-part-1-whys-and-wherefores.html). (Blog is from an old-school D&D perspective, but the techniques talked about apply equally well to any edition.)