Thoughts on Darker Dungeons?

[Kol Korran]

So, I'm a relative newbie to 5e. Most of my gaming experience is in 3.5/PF, and older editions to a lesser degree.

A few years back I started an ambitious project, about a self contained sandbox in Eberron's past, in the region now known as Drooam. The campaign was set to focus on exploration of the wild, of sites of interest, with very few settlements yet lots of mysteries, while in the background there were a few factions with their own goals, plans and such, changing the setting as the game progressed. There was no set story or plot, but rather lots of challenges, and thing sto be done, with the goal of letting a story develop from the actions of the PCs, their interactions on the world, and so on... an emerging story, not a preplanned one.

Yet due to the birth of my children, more work, other life responsebilities and more, I abandoned the project, and even gaming for a long while... when I started to return to the hobby slowly in the past 2 years or so, I became intrigued by 5e's simplicity. It meant a lot less hassle and dealing with tons of details that 3.5/PF entailed! Could I resume my project in 5e? But... as I read about it more, and started to play it, 5e feels... a lot more protective and sheltering of the players, and nearly doesn't deal with any open wild exploration at all (at least as far as I've read so far).

So i was looking for any kind of house rules/mods when I came about... Darker Dungeons. A LOT of the ideas there intrigue me, but since I have so little experience in the system, I thought to ask the forum memebers of your opinions:
- What did you try? What didn't you try? Why?
- What worked well? What didn't? Again- why?
- Did you change anything?
- Any major issues to consider?

I'm especially asking about the folllowing:
1) Travel and survival rules (Journey phases, hunger, thirst, fatigue and so)
2) Inventory rules
3) Injury and death rules
4) Mental stress rules
5) Long rests requiring a week, and down time activities.
6) Equipment wear and tear.

Thanks in advance,
Kol.

[CheddarChampion]

While I can't speak about the Darker Dungeons rules, I had fun with Adventures in Middle Earth 5e.

It has rules for travel, specifically roles for PCs to assume, journey phases, random-ish encounters that rely on the Guide's skills, and events that can help or hurt with exhaustion and shadow points.
It had shadow points, which build up over a long time and negatively affect your character's mind. Which is a little more fun than going insane because you rolled 3 failures, despite 27 successes. For example.
You couldn't get long rests in the wild, you had to be in a safe place. Even then only "Sanctuaries" would grant you a long rest overnight.
It also had downtime activities, but then so does 5e. Check Xanathar's guide to everything.

5e already has inventory rules via carrying capacity. If you disallow Bags of Holding and journeys require supplies, they become more relevant.
If you want to make dropping to 0 HP more dangerous, you can roll for random injuries or make characters roll Constitution saves to avoid exhaustion whenever they drop to 0 HP. This diminishes the effectiveness of yo-yo healing.

Equipment wear and tear isn't a fun mechanic, it penalizes martials more than casters and doesn't have an upside.
Please just ignore it, but if you must, keep it simple with triggers that can damage equipment and have damaged equipment be -2 to whatever it is: damaged weapons get -2 to damage and attack rolls, damaged armor gets -2 AC (to a minimum of 1 AC boost), and damaged spellcasting foci/component pouches impose a -2 penalty to spell attack rolls and spell save DC.
Have it so that damaged equipment can be repaired in a safe town over the course of a day or two, and damaged expensive/intricate items require you to spend 10% of their base cost as well.
Effects that trigger damaging equipment can include critical hits that deal over 50% of a character's health or bring them to 0 HP, environmental effects like spending a long time in saltwater will rust metal, or stuff like high fire damage vs wood or high acid damage vs metal.

[Mellack]

So, I'm a relative newbie to 5e. Most of my gaming experience is in 3.5/PF, and older editions to a lesser degree.

A few years back I started an ambitious project, about a self contained sandbox in Eberron's past, in the region now known as Drooam. The campaign was set to focus on exploration of the wild, of sites of interest, with very few settlements yet lots of mysteries, while in the background there were a few factions with their own goals, plans and such, changing the setting as the game progressed. There was no set story or plot, but rather lots of challenges, and thing sto be done, with the goal of letting a story develop from the actions of the PCs, their interactions on the world, and so on... an emerging story, not a preplanned one.

Yet due to the birth of my children, more work, other life responsebilities and more, I abandoned the project, and even gaming for a long while... when I started to return to the hobby slowly in the past 2 years or so, I became intrigued by 5e's simplicity. It meant a lot less hassle and dealing with tons of details that 3.5/PF entailed! Could I resume my project in 5e? But... as I read about it more, and started to play it, 5e feels... a lot more protective and sheltering of the players, and nearly doesn't deal with any open wild exploration at all (at least as far as I've read so far).

So i was looking for any kind of house rules/mods when I came about... Darker Dungeons. A LOT of the ideas there intrigue me, but since I have so little experience in the system, I thought to ask the forum memebers of your opinions:
- What did you try? What didn't you try? Why?
- What worked well? What didn't? Again- why?
- Did you change anything?
- Any major issues to consider?

I'm especially asking about the folllowing:
1) Travel and survival rules (Journey phases, hunger, thirst, fatigue and so)
2) Inventory rules
3) Injury and death rules
4) Mental stress rules
5) Long rests requiring a week, and down time activities.
6) Equipment wear and tear.

Thanks in advance,
Kol.

I played with those rules one short adventure. Here are my feelings
1. Travel and survival really just seemed to slow down the adventure. There was no real danger that we would starve, it was just how long would it take to actually get where we needed to go. We ended up skipping much of it to actually get to the main adventure.
2. Inventory seemed pretty good. Simple way to keep encumbrance levels down.
3. Injury and death rules were not a big deal. It helps prevent pop-up healing, but with such limited spells that didn't seem a big deal.
4. Those had no effect. We never go to enough stress for it to matter.
5. The long rest really changed gameplay. The casters didn't like it much as they were not really casters, just sub-par martials. Having only a few spells able to be used during the whole adventure practically means they spent most of the game waiting for the right time to use them. I would recommend a shorter recovery time.
6. It was annoying. Damage to equipment means it works poorer, ie weapons do less die and armor protects less. It means the players get weaker as the adventure continues, making it harder to do the regular procession of starting with mooks and then getting tougher opponents.

It had too many components that I believe lead to the death spiral effect where a couple of bad rolls leave you screwed for what might be several sessions, so I have some reservations on it.

[LudicSavant]

5) Long rests requiring a week, and down time activities.

Not familiar with Darker Dungeons specifically, but usually these sorts of downtime rules are a complete mess because durations don't change to match the new schedule. Stuff like Mage Armor just isn't designed to last one encounter.

Does it do anything to address that?

[Aett_Thorn]

I'm especially asking about the folllowing:
1) Travel and survival rules (Journey phases, hunger, thirst, fatigue and so)
2) Inventory rules
3) Injury and death rules
4) Mental stress rules
5) Long rests requiring a week, and down time activities.
6) Equipment wear and tear.

Thanks in advance,
Kol.

The main group that I am in has been using different parts of Darker Dungeons for the past few campaigns, and we’ve tried a few different parts of it each time with differing results. But I wanted to respond to these questions specifically.

1) Travel and survival rules have been pretty fun and interesting for all involved. Makes things a bit more challenging during exploration, but you have to plan for it more as a DM.

2) We ended up not liking the inventory rules. Items in-game don’t come with these classifications, so it was a lot of hassle looking things up all the time. Str-based characters for more slots, but it was immediately filled with their armor and weapons, so there was no real point to it. We ended up switching to a backpack-based inventory system that has worked better.

3) We didn’t use the injury rules, but did use the death ones, and it worked just fine.

5) This is fine, as long as the DM accounts for the change, and doesn’t work great for dungeon crawls. You still want roughly the same number of encounters per long rest as with normal rest rules, so instead of one encounter per two hours, say, it’s now one per day. Highly dependent on the DM’s pacing. The downtime activities were good for some RP value, too!

6) We tried this and really didn’t like it. Too much micromanaging of inventory that just bogged things down too much. We found that we all just stopped tracking it and then just let it go without much fanfare.

[Mellack]

Not familiar with Darker Dungeons specifically, but usually these sorts of downtime rules are a complete mess because durations don't change to match the new schedule. Stuff like Mage Armor just isn't designed to last one encounter.

Does it do anything to address that?

Not that I saw when we played it. That does make a whole category of spells effectively worthless. The few spells for a long time also means a lot of spells that are just useful or convenience get dropped.

[Kane0]

- What did you try? What didn't you try? Why?
- What worked well? What didn't? Again- why?
- Did you change anything?
- Any major issues to consider?

I'm especially asking about the folllowing:
1) Travel and survival rules (Journey phases, hunger, thirst, fatigue and so)
2) Inventory rules
3) Injury and death rules
4) Mental stress rules
5) Long rests requiring a week, and down time activities.
6) Equipment wear and tear.


Have a copy and read through it once, never saw use because it wasnt the sort of game my players wanted.

1) cant think of anything off the top of my head to reccomend, but shouldnt be hard to narrow it down or come up with something if you cam specify your requirements
2) I recommend a simple carrying system that incorporates both weight and size (i remember one using the term 'bulk'), the core ones are just a little bit lacking but you dont want charts and calculators for this.
3) When dropped to 0 HP tack on a level of exhaustion or a lingering injury, with a save if you're feeling generous
4) ehhh i'd just skip it really, tracking all your other resources should cover this
5) Try the gritty variant in the DMG instead. Short rest is an overnight camp, long rest is a full day off.
6) KISS. Model it like exhaustion, six levels of disrepair imposing -1 through to -5 to attack/damage/AC/DC (destroyed entirely at 6) and can be fixed up by anyone proficient in the right tools during a long rest. Be sparing in dishing out equipment damage.

[Mjolnirbear]

So i was looking for any kind of house rules/mods when I came about... Darker Dungeons. A LOT of the ideas there intrigue me, but since I have so little experience in the system, I thought to ask the forum memebers of your opinions:
- What did you try? What didn't you try? Why?
- What worked well? What didn't? Again- why?
- Did you change anything?
- Any major issues to consider?

I'm especially asking about the folllowing:
1) Travel and survival rules (Journey phases, hunger, thirst, fatigue and so)
I use the journey thing, but I modified it.

I wanted Discoveries to be one of the options on the types of encounters rolled, and made traps it's own category while obstacles stuck with skill challenge or things that actually are obstacles, like massive storms or gas spores or green slime. My eight types are friendly social, hostile, combat, treasure, discovery, obstacle, questions, and trap. Most importantly, I roll twice and use both to give an encounter depth and uniqueness. (I though that was part of DD, but upon review it looks like a tweak. Maybe because the Angry DM's version of this is the one I saw first).

The Danger Number I made into Population. The more population there is, the more encounters of every kind you get.

It still works fundamentally the same for randomly getting layered, interesting encounters. In that respect it's friggin' amazing, and I can add more tables for like Lower Dura social or use the combat tables in Xanathar's by biome. By design, I have more neutral and friendly encounters than combats or traps, so I set more encounters. I even roll for the weather each day. Travelling doesn't feel like a chore, it feels interesting and really encourages discoveries, random treasures, ruins... Basically, that feel when you go over a hill in Skyrim or Breath of the Wild and find something new to explore. And the combats are never a random owlbear; it's an owlbear chasing a terrified merchant, or an owlbear protecting her cub, or an owlbear happening to sleep in a cave with a treasure from a kill she dragged back to her lair.

The journey rules I disliked and liked. It felt less like an 'exploration turn order' set of rules and more a video gamey 'push the button to get the reward' feel. But my players are engaged in the travel roles at least, and I've rolled survival and intelligence so much more since I started using it. So I've tweaked it. We're gonna continue it with the new game, also in Droaam, my first Monster/Antihero campaign. We're also considering making a survival game out of it so we'll likely look at survival again, but I didn't much like Hunger or Thirst. I might use the diminishing dice trick for rations and arrows.



2) Inventory rules
It looks really cool, and it inspired me to try a simpler version: basically, separate what you carry into containers and we'll see what sounds reasonable. But since we never really bother with inventory, I hadn't implented.

3) Injury and death rulesnaw, had my own. They never worked. I'd created it for yoyo healing, but my players don't play like that so neither my version nor Darker Dungeon was really necessary here.


4) Mental stress rules I'd do it for a game like Cthulhu, and I really like how it weaves into the camping, hunger, thirst rules, but I just don't need it in my game.


5) Long rests requiring a week, and down time activities.
No, I had my own rest rules, and my players seem utterly uninterested in downtime.

6) Equipment wear and tear. this is gonna effect martials more than casters, I think, but honestly I dislike the idea so much I might be mixing it up with another houserule or something.


Thanks in advance,
Kol.

Honestly, if you're a newbie to 5e, I'd consider avoiding houseruling. Because I added a million houserules when I started DMing. I still have a lot. But basically, I was adding things that weren't really as broken as the forums said. Now I Marie kondo the heckin' heck out of those rules, keeping only the most useful and perfect ones.

I have a downtime system, a crafting system, an unarmed combat expansion to grappling system, and they're not even touched. But they love the journey system, the random enouncters are layered and interesting and make sense from an engagement and a verisimilitude perspective. They really delved into the lore to make their new monster characters.

It's gonna be mostly about what works for your table. There's nothing wrong with Indiana Jonesing the travel montage. I'd ask your table if they're interested in travel rules, camping, or survival. Only if the table agrees would I introduce that at this point. On the other hand, the inventory and diminishing dice rules are easy to insert if you keep track of that at all, so better to start right away than switch later.

[Kane0]

Honestly, if you're a newbie to 5e, I'd consider avoiding houseruling.

I'd ask your table if they're interested in travel rules, camping, or survival. Only if the table agrees would I introduce that at this point. On the other hand, the inventory and diminishing dice rules are easy to insert if you keep track of that at all, so better to start right away than switch later.

This is worth seconding

[Eldest]

I'm especially asking about the folllowing:
1) Travel and survival rules (Journey phases, hunger, thirst, fatigue and so)
2) Inventory rules
3) Injury and death rules
4) Mental stress rules
5) Long rests requiring a week, and down time activities.
6) Equipment wear and tear.

Thanks in advance,
Kol.

1. Breaking these apart, travel rules slowed the game somewhat, but made getting to the dungeon a little more of an adventure in it's own right. I'd call this a wash overall, because it did lead to a couple of cool moments (we were teaming up with a group of outlaws called the Exterminators to fight giant demon-insects that they were dedicated to stopping, and because our group's ranger made group travel easier through the swamps we got there without any fatigue points, where as normally the Exterminators got there with one at the start of the underground raiding, which lead to a notable improvement in their fighting). Hunger, thirst, and fatigue I think were genuinely cool: you rarely had them come into effect, especially since I got into the habit of carrying two waterskins and two food pouches with me instead of one, but when fatigue hit it was scary and being mindful about food made staying fed while traveling interesting instead of being narrated past.

2. I would strongly recommend the slot-based inventory system, with a buff to how much strength lets you carry. Once or twice our caster, who was in robes and had a spell component pouch, ended up the party pack mule instead of the 20 strength fighter, because of how much additional stuff the fighter had to carry. I might also add in a ritual kit that takes up space to give some weight to being able to cast rituals on the road.

3. Injuries made going down into more of a deal, since we couldn't cure them till we got back to civilization and slept for a week. I don't remember any difference with the death rules.

4. Mental stress was interesting and it's something the GM has to lean into, both negative and positive stress ticks. We were running with the seventh stat that helped you survive stress: I personally would instead have had everyone define a few tags based on their background for stuff that bothers them less, bothers them a lot, cheers them less, and cheers them a lot. An example would be my fighter, Mia, was not really bothered by killing people. She was incredibly bothered, however, by seeing somebody corrupted into a plant-monster and not being able to die properly.

Something my gm went further to add to this was to add afflictions, various ways being at max stress messed with your head and gave you penalties. They also gave you ways to lower your stress, by doing something in character to the affliction that was objectively a bad idea.

5. So I'd wholeheartedly recommend this system, with the caveat that I'd still keep close to the expected number of encounters per long rest, approximately. I'd also point to a few classes that are more sad than the others getting fewer long rests: sorcerer, bard (till level 5), and paladin all have a rougher time with resources not recharging as often.

6. Frankly this wasn't super fun to play through: it felt nitty-gritty without being fun. I'd suggest instead something like just saying an item is "damaged" on some triggers (crit on you? massive damage? falling unconscious?) and that the item being damaged gives disadvantage on one type of roll that you use that item for. I'd also avoid having this happen to magic items.

[Witty Username]

I think long rests taking a week could be better handled by long rests not providing a full heal. The variant in the DMG where you only get back expended HD on long rests with no full heal keeps damage from disappearing to easily but doesn't change much else about the game structure. It also encourages use of spells and rest abilities to prevent excessive damage which will likely lead to more interesting combats.

[Kane0]

I think long rests taking a week could be better handled by long rests not providing a full heal. The variant in the DMG where you only get back expended HD on long rests with no full heal keeps damage from disappearing to easily but doesn't change much else about the game structure.
I would rule something like 'long rest lets you recover your current/max HP or recover Hit Dice, not both'
Though thats an eyeball with no math behind it