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Dungeon Crawlers - What you love and what you'd change!

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Michael Melkonian
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Joined: 12/19/2015

Hey all,

probably my favorite genre of game is the Dungeon Crawler. The whole concept of working through a confined space, taking out monsters, finding loot, all while completing a quest, just really appeals to me. However, there are also a lot of problems I see over and over again that I'd love to have tweaked. I want to open this thread up for people to express what they love about the genre, what they think needs improvement, and what you wish would be taken out all together. Full disclosure, I'm designing a dungeon crawler myself, so part of my inspiration for this thread is to see what some common complaints from the fan base are.

I'll go first.

Strongly Implied Class/Character Combinations - Some dungeon crawlers allow you to choose a character, then a class that is available to that character. For example, both Hero A and Hero B are characters that have access to the Thief class as well as the Ranger class. However, the artwork and design of Hero A is very clearly that of a Thief, while the artwork and design of Hero B is very clearly that of a Ranger. I dislike this because even though I have the option to pick either class, it will feel weird thematically. This leaves me with the choice of either always going with the implied character/class combination, or going a route that makes the game feel awkward to me from a thematic perspective. I don't like being forced to make that choice. To resolve this, I feel like there should either not be character/class combinations, meaning that each character is, in essence, its own class, or design the characters with sufficient generality to fit either class.

Shop Items and Loot - Many dungeon crawlers have a "shopping phase" between quests, where players can buy new weapons and upgrades before delving into the next quest. While I don't have a problem with this in and of itself, I do have a problem with shop items having the BEST items in the game. Thematically this doesn't work for me, because if there's some all powerful demon plotting the world's destruction from within a castle up in the mountains, I shouldn't have to dish out gold at some old man's shop to get the most epic item in the game. No, those kind of items should be found during the course of the quest, I believe. That doesn't mean there isn't a place for shopping phases. However, the way I see it is that the loot you find IN the dungeon should be something like 80% common and 20% epic, and the shop items are somewhere in between... so if you're just getting common items in the dungeon, at least you can sell them and upgrade to something better, but those will never be better than the epic loot that actually drops in the dungeon.

A revealed map from the start - One of my favorite things about dungeon crawling is revealing one room after another and finding a new surprise in each one. But dungeon crawlers that have the entire map set up from the beginning feel more like skirmish games with the dungeon master player rather than a true dungeon crawler. Instead, I would rather the game start with a single room, the one you are in, being revealed, and all other rooms being revealed only as you enter them. Descent 2E's Forgotten Souls expansion handles this very well, in my opinion.

Those are just some to get the topic started. I'd love to hear your thoughts as well!

Zag24
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Joined: 03/02/2014
My issue: There are two

My issue: There are two styles of dungeon crawler. Either it's a static map which is always the same, or else the map grows with tiles and it doesn't matter if the players go left or right, they were going to get the same tile and the same encounter.

Michael Melkonian
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Joined: 12/19/2015
Zag24 wrote:My issue: There

Zag24 wrote:
My issue: There are two styles of dungeon crawler. Either it's a static map which is always the same, or else the map grows with tiles and it doesn't matter if the players go left or right, they were going to get the same tile and the same encounter.

What if there were different colored doors and tiles? For example, a room you are in has a green door and a yellow door. Going through a green door means laying a tile from the green deck while going through a yellow door lays down a tile from the yellow deck. You know that green rooms are relatively safe, but yellow rooms have a 50% chance to be harder, but also have better rewards. Would this kind of decision making start to solve that problem?

Totally hypothetically of course, it's not like designing a game with that as the central mechanic or anything.... *whistles*

Michael Melkonian
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Joined: 12/19/2015
Another complaint about

Another complaint about dungeon crawlers: the disembodied Overlord. Usually, the overlord player is not represented as an actual character in the dungeon. The overlord may control monsters on the board, but they themselves cannot be fought or killed. Personally, I'd prefer it if overlord were actual figures on the board that the players could confront.

tophatpainter
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Joined: 01/07/2016
Sounds fun so far.

I like the idea of the different tiles being an option in the rooms. Maybe have it a random green/yellow etc and removal of those that are entered so it's not repetitive (unless this is already an idea).
I would say I agree about not being able to fight or challenge the Overlord in games like this. You could simply add that as an option - your crawlers can challenge the big bad guy any time they want but then there would need to be real consequences if they fail (of course there should also be a random chance that this overlord can also pop in any time).
I love dungeon crawler style games from what I have played though I've never really gotten a sense of leveling up or the character becoming better - it's always about the loot improving your character. It'd be nice to see actual progression, however small, throughout.
It would be neat if there were a random chance of a boss battle either through dice roll or card pick, something along those lines.
I also dislike being penalized for not having a healer or rogue or etc. Nothing is more irritating than having to talk someone into being the 'missing' class because it's required to make it to the end. While a rogue can get more loot from lockpicking a chest he/she should not be the only way into that chest.
I like the points you bring up. I look forward to seeing more about your game.

Soulfinger
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Michael Melkonian

Michael Melkonian wrote:
Another complaint about dungeon crawlers: the disembodied Overlord. Usually, the overlord player is not represented as an actual character in the dungeon. The overlord may control monsters on the board, but they themselves cannot be fought or killed. Personally, I'd prefer it if overlord were actual figures on the board that the players could confront.

I think I have a good miniature for this, it is a slouchy guy with glasses and a beer gut, holding a soda can in one hand and a rulebook in the other. It came in a set of "gamer" figurines from maybe 20 years ago. I guess I don't really get your complaint though, as it seems sort of like criticizing D&D because you can't fight the Dungeon Master. The Overlord is a role, just like "Player," but whereas the players are represented by a single miniature, the Overlord is represented by several. Past that, there are plenty of games with a boss monster represented on the board, like Descent or Super Dungeon Explore.

TMH_Games
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Joined: 01/14/2016
Dungeon Crawler AI

Perhaps the tile laying could be designed to be something that is randomly drawn at the start of the dungeon, like doors line up with like doors, but you have a randomizing mechanic that maintains a fog of war until the players enter the room. Once revealed, the players see what the monster count/treasure level is in the discovered room. Thoughts?

let-off studios
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Dungeon Crawler: Likes

Things I like about them:
- Potential lethality of each encounter
- Variety of loot available
- Awareness that there could be a tough monster through the next door
- Variety of challenges that cater to different play styles and skill sets: direct combat, traps/tricks/puzzles/locks, magic abilities, etc.
- linked campaigns/adventures/scenarios, and even recurring antagonists
- unknown map layout

Many of the issues listed in previous posts have been solved as of Hero Quest back in the day: a skirmish game with a facilitator that reveals the map and dungeon contents piece-by-piece as doors are opened. Generally speaking, there's a referee to facilitate the scenario (including map generation) and player immersion. If you remove that, there's a high probability of the player turns going WAAAAAAAY too long, or you'll find yourself streamlining the game to the point of re-creating DUNGEON!. There's a place and time for everything, and depending on the audience you want you'll need to change things and make design choices. But trying to do it all in one game is paving the way for failure.

From what I see above, it seems to me a lot of you like games that cater to the player's need for material success/positive feedback and perhaps instant gratification. There seems to be a substantial market for that (and also to me it seems like it's a younger audience). I personally prefer games that center on exploration, variety, storyline, and risk. Again, seeking a middle ground between all this isn't necessarily the most effective track, as you'll be criticized from both ends about not being enough of one camp or the other.

I have my own list of things I dislike about the genre, but I'll save that for an additional post later when I've more time to think about it.

roger
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Strongly Implied Class/Character Combinations

As Non-Player-Character NPC, it is better to fix class because abilities and a lot of stuff is determined.
As Player-Character PC, it depends whether you want the freedom to customize, with added markers, tokens, boards, cards, or whether you want a pre-built pre-determined character immediately playable with a career path already set in stone, like cards of ability to come, like in Arcadia Quest I think.
The picture or figurine can always be changed one way or another. Anyway, if it does not represent your character exactly, remember it is just a representation, approximate by definition.

roger
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Shop Items and Loot

I totally agree, in my prototype, the Village Merchant offers only basic gear, like torches, food. All the good stuff is in the rooms of the dungeon. You have to fight to get some, risking your life. In my prototype, 800 items are mostly epic and found only in the dungeon. Around 100 are food, lanterns, basic potions from the Village. The shop should never have anything uncommon. One particular point, in my prototype, is that the Good items can be sold double price at a merchant found in the dungeon, as well as an evil item can be sold at double price if sold in the Village.

roger
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A revealed map from the start

Yes, I agree, discovering Rooms as they go is better than revealing it all at the start. That opens the possibility to go in a dead-end or discovering an alternate route later down the road while exploring. In my prototype, players build each their own dungeon then connect it to a central staircase going to the surface. The difficulty is to place a tile without the other player seeing it; I place a "mask", a "cover" to hide the tiles the other players should not see, as long as they do not have a creature to reveal it. But this mask is cumbersome.
After a while, the whole dungeon is revealed anyway and logistics, path optimizing, strategy take place naturally.

roger
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different colored doors and tiles?

It is a very interesting decision, yellow or green. But it still is quite random and not "man-designed", meaning you could end up with frequent dead-ends, lava connected to Water, 5 times in a row with difficult encounters... This is the normal issue with (semi-)randomly generated dungeons.
I pretend there are several styles, one of them is when players make their own dungeon that the other players can invade. This way, it is "human-made", with a thought behind the design. The invaders know the layout has been thought out by a real brain. Of course, the player who designed her/his own dungeon cannot invade it.

roger
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disembodied Overlord

Well, I agree, like in Ages of Empire #1, the king had its own figurine. It was fun to have him run, or to protect him.
In a dungeon crawler, the Overlord should have its own figurine, but should it be killable? I don't think so. I think it should be able to show up and boost things around but should not being chased in fear of losing the game.

Lowenhigh
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I find the 30-minute set-up

I find the 30-minute set-up and high barriers of entry (aka high requirement of technical understanding to play) for the “good” ones to be difficult. Thus, most great dungeon crawls aren’t as accessible as Eurogames, for example.

Second, I find most enemy turns take a long time.

Third, I find most enemy HP is limited to 1-3 to allow for tons of enemies with simple HP tracking. It’d be nice to have lesser numbers but stronger enemies overall.

All things I am working on in Deliverance, my Heaven vs Hell dungeon crawl!

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