Would you rather...

[squeen]

On a main blog review, DP made a comment about 5 room dungeons that I found interesting.

Specifically,

Way back when, 5-room-dungeons were the big fad for adventure writers, and everyone thought it was sooo clever and suuuch a good system. What they didn’t realize was the it was only ever suitable for making improvised dungeons when you go “Oh shit, I guess the party wants to walk into this random burial cairn on the side of the road after all – I didn’t prep anything for that!”.
5 rooms does not a dungeon make. A suburban bungalow has more than 5 rooms, and you’d be hard-pressed to spend any longer then 10 minutes “exploring” it.

To which Dave responded and listed the platonic 5 rooms:

1. Entrance with Guardian​

2. Puzzle or Roleplaying Challenge​

3. Trick or Setback​

4. Big Climax​

5. Reward, Revelation​

​

Ironically, I was in the middle of making a lair for a water spirit that just happened to have 5 rooms. This was an attempt on my part to flesh out an area that I had only previously alluded to in the text (because I was starting to think there was a decent chance the party might decide to go there).

The question I have for grand Game Design Theory is the poll (above).

Where the first option causes bloat (and might tend toward the generic), the second is less product---and hence more work for the DM.

I will try to think of some good (and bad) examples of the latter.

 

[squeen]

How about B2 as an example that kind-of straddled the fence: the encounters on the region map with the lizard men, spiders, and hermit.

Would they have improved the module as 5-roomers instead of the paragraph or two that was published?

As a counterpoint, consider Deep Carbon Observatory. Almost the whole beginning of the adventure is a of series encounters described (in prose) in a manner that sparks game-play with very little mundane detail. Yet DCO is quite highly regarded.

 

[DangerousPuhson]

I've always been of the mind that it's better to have something and not need it, than to need something and not have it. Fully fleshed-out room keys are no different.

I don't use adventures to "spark creativity" - that's why I buy from creative authors, so that I am not the one who always needs to be creative. Sometimes you just want good ideas to use without having to think up a dozen different good ideas, especially on the spot when it has the potential to stall gameplay or go wonky. The number of times I've improvised something only to realize that I had nowhere to take it, that it wasn't as clever as I thought, or that it didn't fit with everything else in the adventure is too damn high.

The side benefit of designing something with more detail rather than less is that it helps new DMs, which is very important when you're trying to pitch an adventure to a group that is NOT 20+ year experience grognard veterans. People around here seem to forget that the biggest product market is NEW gamers, not old ones.

It's not foolproof - if you have to look something up then yes, gameplay will slow down. But you know what also slows down gameplay? Having to go "ummm, a bed with red blankets, uhhh a footlockers with hmmmm... clothing in it? ... uhhh a dresser, I guess with more clothes... um what else... a candlesticks on a night stand... let's see...I guess some kind of green rug...? Oh yeah, there's also a hairy black insect leg sticking out from the bed" when the players ask "what's in this bedroom?"

Yes, most people can tell you what's in a bedroom. But unlike some folk, I see no harm in having that stuff listed out - I can gloss over it, or even omit it if I want to, and frankly I find entries like "Area 2: Bedroom - fully furnished and well-kept, giant spider under the bed" to be horrifically lazy writing.

That being said, I don't find much benefit to including mundane furniture on a map, unless the table is in a spot for a specific reason like it's a sign that someone stood on it to open a trapdoor in the ceiling or something.

 

[Malrex]

I usually always map out and key the side elements. Why? Cause every time I DM, the players get attracted to the side elements and I got to work off a sentence or 2 and make stuff up on the fly...which can be fun sometimes, but after 2-3 hours of constant DMing, I get lazy and just want to see what the author was thinking. So as a publisher, I feel its my duty to provide more than just a few sentences for a possible cave area.

So for your example above--I would of LOVED to have a 5-10 room Lizardmound dungeon in B2, a 2-3 room area for the spiders...the hermit, maybe what they did was ok, but could of been a little more interesting with a 1-2 keyed area.

For me personally, I only add a few sentences to spark creativity for: 1. collapsed passages--may say a few things so the DM could take off the area (remove the blockage and add on to the map) and 2. Future adventures in the area.

Yes, most people can tell you what's in a bedroom. But unlike some folk, I see no harm in having that stuff listed out - I can gloss over it, or even omit it if I want to, and frankly I find entries like "Area 2: Bedroom - fully furnished and well-kept, giant spider under the bed" to be horrifically lazy writing.

I agree with this...in my opinion, since there is a spider in that room (i.e. something the party can interact with), it doesn't hurt to describe the room in a little more detail. If the room was empty of interaction then Area 2: Bedroom might suffice for me.