D&D Dungeon Crawling! Explore Darkness RIGHT!

Dungeon Crawling is a procedural system for exploring and mapping a large dungeon complex. These D&D dungeons can be boring if run improperly, but when you add in wandering monsters, environmental effects, and looping layouts of a dungeon and the factions which live within it, the dungeon suddenly comes alive!

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Here is a great article on time tracking!

[TheRedneckGamer]

As someone who used to have to use NVG's I can tell you for a fact that you do not get a clear picture, sure it's better than being straight up blind or giving your position away with a light source, but you do not have a clarity of vision, and you damn sure can't read with it. I dunno though, maybe the technology has gotten better since the late 90s. If dark vision is that, then yea your assesment of it makes a lot of sense, having someone with dark vision do your scouting is probably a good idea but they are going to need a light source for any kind of precision work.

[KnarbMakes]

Oh man. The mall to dungeon comparison is sweet.

[colbyboucher]

*YES.* The lack of procedure in modern D&D for dungeon crawling, despite it's implied prevalence, is such a huge source of problems.
"Don't let them try the lock more than once!" Don't need to be that artificial if you're tracking time in 10-minute chunks and there's a potential consequence for taking too long.
"How do I distinguish between perception rolls and people specifically looking for things?" Perception roll is for *immediately noticing* things and if that doesn't work they can spend time looking in more specific spots.
"Randomly walking into traps is annoying, but constantly saying "I check for traps" is also annoying!" Assume the party is moving slow enough to check for traps (if they have the right equipment) and they *will* notice them. Slow enough that the timer ticks as they traverse the dungeon. If they want to get a move on to avoid encounter rolls, THEN passive perception comes into play and you can get "Click! What do you do?" moments. This way the party actually has a choice to make rather than just being *subjected to* traps regardless of their input.
"Why are times always expressed in 10 minute chunks, and who cares how long a torch burns for?" This is why. There's still this weird vestige of dungeon procedure in the 5e books but the procedures themselves are gone.

[kevingriffith]

Time cost is another way to make sure that failed rolls punish the players without derailing your campaign. If the party rolls poorly on their investigation checks that would lead them to a critical plot element then maybe instead of "you don't find it" the result of the investigation check simply determines how long they have to search the room before they find it... when left unattended in any space for long enough, even the least perceptive person will eventually find everything in the room. The same can be done with lockpicking, survival for tracking, and other tasks that could lead the character to just keep trying until they succeed.

It's also valuable for working with monsters that are intelligent and have a sense of self-preservation. Monsters that retreat from the party can short rest just like the party can and come back rejuvinated and ready for round two. They can get reinforcements, loop around to get behind the party or flee the dungeon with a portion of the treasure, assuming the party is taking too long.

[StepBackHistory]

This is good. As someone who entered the hobby in 2017, dungeons feel like a weird appendage, and much DM advice either tries to make the dungeon trivial, or exploration meaningless. I really liked the advice about the layout, and would love more on that topic, as well as a step by step procedure for making a proper dungeon.

[huhhhhhhhhhhhh]

The dice clock is such a simple idea that I am in awe that I never thought of it before. I will absolutely implement this in the future.

[supinearcanum]

Thumbs up for the encumbrance love. I've been a strong proponent of how encumbrance is a balancing mechanic to keep the classes in check and it's refreshing to see someone else recognize that too.

[YouTube]

just here to comment on how professional your setup looks!

[godsamongmen]

This sounds like good advice. The one fatal flaw is that even low-level magic renders resource use and hostile conditions trivial. Light cantrips have unlimited use, and goodberry can be cast day after day. Prestidigitation or Create Bonfire can keep characters warm, and Alarm can warn of approaching danger.

With a couple full casters in the party, exploring a dungeon is no more dangerous than checking out a house under construction.

[patrick.s]

Yes! The idea of using a D6 to tell time, ticking it down for every ten minutes is such a good idea! Then you could also have another D6 allocated for hours, love it

[colbyboucher]

5:55 Just to clarify this statement if anyone doesn't know, the rules for darkvision are scattered *all over* the 5e player's manual, and it turns out that things being "lightly obscured" in dim light (what darkvision gets you) equates to a huge hit to your passive perception score. Off the top of my head I think it's -10? But since the book doesn't contain that information in one place most people don't notice, so we get demihumans with NVGs.

[maskedbandit]

I'm a recent subscriber after finding one of your videos--I've binged just about the whole lot. Love your content and your explanations. Hope you do real well on YouTube.

[marccaron]

Yep, that is exactly how I used to do it in the early 80s. Thanks for the d6 clocks suggestion. Very good visual idea. Haven't done a large and layered dungeon in a very long time. I'm currently reading Castles & Crusades (8th printing). Feels like the right time to return to the dungeon.

[nikster]

These were the exact procedures for dungeon crawling in all D&D editions prior to 3E. Great to see them being adopted again by the 5e community

[samchafin]

I had an errant thought: ditch the random encounter table, and replace it with a series of escalating encounters which the party experiences in order.

[thechaotimagnet]

You are taking a lot of info from the osr systems, and applying it toward the 5e scene with the mechanics you are referring. It really is great to see those two mend. I wonder if you are pulling more views from the 5e crowd, the osr community, or those in both like myself.

[kelath]

Thank you, this gives me a lot of ideas of how to make a dungeon module a lot more interesting. I'm new to DMing, and it's been really fun, but I don't know enough to get really creative on my own yet. This helps a LOT!

[LecherousCthulhu]

You should definitely look to the dritz books when thinking about more advanced darkvision. The drow don't have what we would consider darkvision, but instead a version of infrared vision. This allows them to see their surroundings as they are heated instead of as white outlines. This helps them read, not by torch, but by having the text itself be warmer than their surroundings. It's an interesting system and would allow someone to heat up dungeon walls if there was text on it in order to read it, but he process would become complicated if you haven't done something like that before. Most elves on the surface have no real use for their dark vision as they are not nocturnal, so the average elf wouldn't really be used to this system of reading. A dwarf on the other hand lives in an underground tunnel and could use stonecraft knowledge built up over his life to read runes the same way someone would read braille.
This all still makes an interesting and fun way to turn the idea of darkvision on it's head in ways the players wouldn't expect

[mikegould]

The aspects of light, sight, breathing, hunger, thirst and even gravity are often overlooked...unless you played the original Saltmarsh series in the 80s. I promise you, meaningful underwater dungeons will change your outlook.

[ontaka]

There is a Japanese Manga called "Dungeon Meshi", meaning "Dungeon food".
The adventuring party, for the purpose of cutting provision fees and encumbrance, would cook and eat the monsters they would kill inside the dungeon as they venture through it. It's a comedy with good laughs.
The author has totally ignored "Lighting Conditions" inside the dungeon though, as the rooms seem to be always brightly lit by some unknown light source.