Late to the party, but I find myself coming back to these posts since I want to move away from detailed (and prep heavy) osr dungeon mapping.
Do you find this type of play contrasts with tactical decision such as flanking enemies through side hallways, exploiting bottlenecks or using adjacent rooms to set up ambushes?
In my case, my players are still making those kinds of decisions! They use rooms that are described as small or narrow as chokepoints, and they use the node layout of the dungeon to perform flanking and set up ambushes all the time!
As a follow-up do they take care of mapping and note-taking themselves or do you give them a map where you scribble room information as you go?
I play mostly on VTT and I feel like this style of running a dungeon would fit a lot better with it. Right now I use the boardgamey setup of a pre-prepped old school dungeon map, and my players are basically playing like in a videogame. Maybe something like Miro would encourage them to take notes and map instead lol.
I get them to do all the mapping and note taking themselves! And yes this works really well with avoiding that boardgamey/video game feel that you can end up having with VTTs!
Question specifically for pointcrawl campaign maps; how do you handle "secret locations"? Do you mark them on the overland map in a different way or add a note to an existing node saying "Oh, yeah, there's a secret location, here"?
I'll mark them on nodes! Either describing them as secret in my notes or using a dotted line to indicate a secret path. I tend not to use secret locations all that much so didn't address that here!
Yep, very solid timekeeping, reminds me of Mausritter (rolling for encounter on "dungeon turn 3") -- I'm working on something similar right now. But the ascending dice by level is a particularly elegant edition! Great series you're writing.
Thank you so much! Mausritter was an inspiration for sure! It’s one of my favourite NSR games. Glad you like the ascending dice, I’m a little bit proud of it (hehe). Be sure to send what you’re working on my way when it’s out!
Do you show the players the map? I'm planning to use your posts here to make and run a simple pointcrawl dungeon on Friday, and that's my main question. If so, do you reveal the map to them one point at a time? And if not, do your players feel "lost" playing through a large complex without a visual aid?
(To date, I've only run Dyson Logos style representational maps.)
Great question! I haven’t addressed this because it’s often so table specific. At my table, I don’t give my players the map, they make their own version as they go. It works very well, it’s actually easier for them to map in some sense because they are just noting rooms and connections, rather than trying to make a detailed map. You could absolutely reveal the map as you went though. Also, let me know how that session you have planned goes!
Late to the party, but I find myself coming back to these posts since I want to move away from detailed (and prep heavy) osr dungeon mapping.
Do you find this type of play contrasts with tactical decision such as flanking enemies through side hallways, exploiting bottlenecks or using adjacent rooms to set up ambushes?
In my case, my players are still making those kinds of decisions! They use rooms that are described as small or narrow as chokepoints, and they use the node layout of the dungeon to perform flanking and set up ambushes all the time!
This is cool, and thanks for the answer!
As a follow-up do they take care of mapping and note-taking themselves or do you give them a map where you scribble room information as you go?
I play mostly on VTT and I feel like this style of running a dungeon would fit a lot better with it. Right now I use the boardgamey setup of a pre-prepped old school dungeon map, and my players are basically playing like in a videogame. Maybe something like Miro would encourage them to take notes and map instead lol.
I get them to do all the mapping and note taking themselves! And yes this works really well with avoiding that boardgamey/video game feel that you can end up having with VTTs!
What did you use to generate the point crawl map example? What program, specifically? Thanks.
I used Affinity Designer, but you'd probably find that any dungeon mapping program (maybe dungeon scrawl?) with an isometric function will do the job!
Thank you. The map you generated looks great. I guess I should start with pencil and paper first though.
Isometric graph paper is great if you’re doing it by hand!
Question specifically for pointcrawl campaign maps; how do you handle "secret locations"? Do you mark them on the overland map in a different way or add a note to an existing node saying "Oh, yeah, there's a secret location, here"?
I'll mark them on nodes! Either describing them as secret in my notes or using a dotted line to indicate a secret path. I tend not to use secret locations all that much so didn't address that here!
I see! Thank you for the answer.
Yep, very solid timekeeping, reminds me of Mausritter (rolling for encounter on "dungeon turn 3") -- I'm working on something similar right now. But the ascending dice by level is a particularly elegant edition! Great series you're writing.
Thank you so much! Mausritter was an inspiration for sure! It’s one of my favourite NSR games. Glad you like the ascending dice, I’m a little bit proud of it (hehe). Be sure to send what you’re working on my way when it’s out!
Do you show the players the map? I'm planning to use your posts here to make and run a simple pointcrawl dungeon on Friday, and that's my main question. If so, do you reveal the map to them one point at a time? And if not, do your players feel "lost" playing through a large complex without a visual aid?
(To date, I've only run Dyson Logos style representational maps.)
Great question! I haven’t addressed this because it’s often so table specific. At my table, I don’t give my players the map, they make their own version as they go. It works very well, it’s actually easier for them to map in some sense because they are just noting rooms and connections, rather than trying to make a detailed map. You could absolutely reveal the map as you went though. Also, let me know how that session you have planned goes!