Dungeon crawl adventures

[DarkStar]

I was wondering, how do you see the (un)popular dungeon crawl type of adventures in FG? Wouldn't it be too slow for an Internet play? I assume, we're only using text chat, no VoIP. There's usually a lot of fighting in this genre plus some mazes and logic riddles.

Would you play/run a dungeon crawl using Fantasy Grounds? Maybe you did already and can tell me of pros and cons?

[richvalle]

Oh man. I'm all over this one! I'm running The Worlds Largest Dungeon in FG! :)

I think it works great. Doing combat by chat is actually much easier/faster then trying to do a lot of role playing. There is no substitue for having voice though.

Pro: You can use the maps provided right in FG. I realized how great this was when we got together for a face-to-face game and I had to start to draw the map. What a pain! In FG I can just unmask the hallway as they move. Any funky twist and turns or odd shaped rooms are not a problem.

I've not had the party run into any mazes yet. One thing you can do is wait till they get part way in and then remask the image so they lose what they have already seen.

There is going to be one drawback with this... there is a part of the dungeon where going though a doorway teleports the party to random places on the map. Basicly, you open the door and at that point you roll to see where the doorway leads too. Once they walk though they are telported, without them knowing it, to another part of the map. That is going to be tricky in FG. I think I might have to hand draw the maps for that section.

Pro: being able to have an image for each creature you fight. Seems kind of a small thing but I like it. I just grab the image off the WoTC website for that creature and use it as an image to show the party what they are fighting and then use a smaller image for the token.

Its also a great effect when you drop a 10x10 creature onto the map to show a larger critter (as I did last night. "Is that really how big that is!?").

Pro: its a nice simple game where you don't have to do a lot of prep work. Its not 0%. You have to get the map, tokens, images, story pages ect all ready.
Oh...

Pro: You can type in all the room descriptions in before hand and then just drag and drop them in the chat window when you need them. Much easier to do this with a dungeon crawl then some dialog that you don't know which direction the players will take it.

Con: It might be just us... but fights do take a long time to go though. Had a fight last night: 6 5th level characters vs 7 Bagrests. Fight took about 3 and a half hours! (Do others see this as well or is it just my group? And this is with voice chat.)

Pro: you don't have to worry about the party heading off in an unexpected way. You know... you have everything set up for the party to go to x town to do your adventure for the night and they deside they want to head into the mountains to look for gold. Ummm...
With a dungeon crawl their options are more limited (left or right at the T?). Not to say they won't go a direction you are not expecting... but you have the story already laid out so you can just roll with it.

rv

[DarkStar]

Thank you for the quick response, richvalle. I'm happy to hear (read) what you have written here. And even though I haven't DMed here yet, I'm pretty sure the long fights are not only your party's problem. But the essential question is - was this long fight boring or enjoyable? If it's the latter, then I wouldn't really care about it.

[mr_h]

I just started my first FG adventure last night with a group and we're about to head into the dungeon for some fun. It's a small group (two people and me), but with voice comms so far everything has gone VERY smooth.

The ability to have maps and add tokens to them makes handling combat so much easier in my opinon. We've done two battles so far (one in the woods, one inside a building) and it's been fast and flawless in my opinon.

I do think that voice comms are essential for this sort of stuff though, I've played on D&D MU*s and text only takes a long while.

[John_Geeshu]

Con: It might be just us... but fights do take a long time to go though. Had a fight last night: 6 5th level characters vs 7 Bagrests. Fight took about 3 and a half hours! (Do others see this as well or is it just my group? And this is with voice chat.)rv

D&D's combat system isn't geared towards quick battles. The problem is that 1st level characters with a longsword deal 1-8 damage against critters that have anywhere from 3 to 7 Hit Points, so one to two hits usually do it. When that same character get's to 8th level they get two attacks a round with a +1 longsword dealing 1d8+1 twice, but their enemies have 40, 50, or more in the way of Hit Points. So its takes for freakin' ever to kill em. I scale the damage for my player's weapons so that in proportion to their level and the average HP of enemies they do as much damage at 10th level as they do at 2nd. Makes combat mo better and faster.

[gurney9999]

The way I view it heavy combat sessions do not 'play to the strengths' of using FG (or any other virtual table app). Combat using FG slows the action down to a greater degree than it does during a table session.

That being said, if you have a good group of players that are ready to go when it is their turn and you are ready as a DM for the combat itself, it doesn't ever get boring and can be just as fulfilling as a game with less combat/more roleplay. And if you are running a group that desires a combat heavy campaign, it could be even more fulfilling!

[DarkStar]

Well, voice communication is out of the question for me. Unless everyone starts talking in Polish. I don't feel that comfortable with English language to run a game using VoIP. With text communication I can at least have an online Polish-English dictionary open all the time and look up some words quickly, there's no pause. This won't do with voice comm.

I think I'm the only Pole in these forums, btw. ;)

[richvalle]

Thank you for the quick response, richvalle. I'm happy to hear (read) what you have written here. And even though I haven't DMed here yet, I'm pretty sure the long fights are not only your party's problem. But the essential question is - was this long fight boring or enjoyable? If it's the latter, then I wouldn't really care about it.

Thats hard for me to say. It was fun for me but I had a lot going on. I THINK its fun for the players as well... at least they keep showing up each week. :)

One thing that helps (I think) is to show the init order to the players. FG does not do this right now. This way the player can see when his turn is coming up and start to 'get ready' and plan what his move is going to be. It makes them more involved then just sitting and watching till their bell goes off saying its their turn.

rv

[mrannah]

my exposure so far has been limited, but i haven't seen a problem yet with anything, as long as the dm stays up to speed. people's typing speeds will drag the combat slightly, but at the same time, since each party member is trying to do something, you won't have a problem with 'dead time'. because of mapping display and token placement options, you have all of the benefits of mapping and tactical (miniatures type) display, so you can all explain what you are doing and intending. it may end up a fair bit of typing, but that's far from insurmountable

[Paradoxic]

I've got a psionics game going, three players and one NPC level 13 characters... there are two 'biggest problems' I run into during my combat heavy sessions:

The psion has, like, 35 powers and he'll spend a good 10 minutes pouring over books and lists to find the power he wants to use (and then longer dealing with the boosting of the power, but that's besides the point). The other is a soul knife with two weapons... both are mind blades (one is the Mau'jhe from Weapons of Legacy) and the first has three forms and he'll swap out which is primary in his full attack sets... this is addition to the ability to throw either (point blank shot if in range), shoot out a beam of fire (pyromancer), and several 'next attack' ability. He's also not too hot on the rules.

FG will be very useful for both of them; the first because he can have windows open for all his powers that he is considering side by side and thus not have to skip around the pages of the handbook; the second guy can use all the different hotkeys to set up all his attack and damage bonuses so he doesn't have to look at the character sheet Every Single Time (gah) he has to roll a die.

Between those two benefits, I imagine the dungeon crawling will speed up. This is, of course, in addition to all the benefits that Richvalle listed (especially the 'already drawn maps' and easy fog-of-war stuff).

[Cantstanzya]

I have a psionicist in my campaign as well. When 1.06 comes out I plan on implementing a "deck of cards" that my psionic players can choose from as to what power they will be using. They will display the card on their initative of what power they want to use. If they take too long, they will be skipped. I will give them another chance to go in the last round. If they still are not ready they essetially lose their turn. This will go for all characters. As much as the DM has to juggle in a battle, the players could have at least have typed out what they are going to do that round. I have too many players that wait until I call that it is their turn to start typing what they are going to do. I am hoping that some of the stuff implemented in 1.06 will help speed up battles.

[freckle_smoker]

the game I have been in lately imo is a dungeon crawl , and I love it cause it keeps thing enteresting .