Next session I'll be running my first large dungeon, and looking for a few tips on how to run it. More accurately, how to handle player turn order / moving. Using Roll20 everyone had control of their token, and using dynamic lighting.
The last ones I ran I couldn't keep up with them and they rushed through it, due to not seeing anything important. forcing me to backtrack them for traps, but it became a pain trying to determine who wouodnhave triggered it. I had them roll initiative at the start for the next one to prevent this, but don't think it went to well. They couldn't have the travel order they wanted, and some turns took way to long for no reason. The table got bored.
I was thinking for this to use a single token to represent the whole party as they move throughout it, and keep initiative going for when they find encounters. Keeping combat theater of the mind rather than sticking to the map. If they split the parry then they take turns with a second token, with an assigned leader for each. The goal is to speed up travel times, without just skipping the entire thing, or moving at a snaila pace
Any tips, tricks, and stories are appreciated. Thanks in advance.
The current dungeon is 4 levels, and the maps are 100x100. The total thing is over 100 rooms (many of them small) and each one was rolled for the chance of loot, and I built a small story around it if the roll was positive. There are things to find, from loot to lore. Using Gritty rules too so its less forgiving if they don't tred carefully.
First of all congratulations on your first dungeon! This is by far the most important part of being a DUNGEON master by a long shot. Creating discrete environments with various challenges and rewards is what makes D&D an actual game. What I would do if I were you is document your thought process in a step-by-step format so the next time you make a dungeon, you have that to go off and continue tweaking as you get better.
It seems you primarily have questions about the pacing. So, remember The Door is a critical object that acts as a speed bump to control pacing. When a player reaches a door, they must wait for you to enter the dynamic lighting level and remove the obstacle to let them through. You can do this at your leisure.
I wouldn’t force them into a perpetual initiate, save that for combat. Let them move their tokens about as they wish, and pay the most attention on the character(s) leading the way, because they are the most likely to trigger new encounters. Also, keep in mind the phrase “Everybody pause”. Say this when you want the players to halt and give you a chance to narrate, advance monster patrols on a circuit, or anything else you wish to do behind the DM screen before giving them the ok to begin moving again.
I only recommend the single token party representation/TotM combat for general overland travel and a random encounter en route to the dungeon, Seems a bit bland and lazy for an actual crawl though.
Who would have triggered the trap? If they're all rushing everywhere as a group and all pass the area, perhaps they all do?
Maybe you could have a sound effect that you can simply press when the players have discovered something (bad or good) - and establish that if it's been pressed, everyone has to keep their tokens where they are until say "continue" - this could be initiative, this could be a trap, this could be you pausing the game to tell them something (lore, history, descriptions of what they see, what treasure they find), this could be an npc being discovered?
I don't have the same problem, but there's also potentially saying "wait" if the sound effect option isn't available.
There's also - if your players aren't able to be trained, the possibility of you drawing many black boxes over the map as tokens and then deleting them as the players find new areas? That means that they can't explore an area without you actually deleting the black box first, which means they have to wait for you. Essentially the door function as the person above expressed, but with areas instead.
I (mostly) get around this by asking for a 'marching order' as they enter the dungeon, and then tell them to move only up to their single round movement speed (e.g., 30' walking speed) and then wait until each other member of the party moves. Once each character moves I give them any relevant details and they go again. This prevents everyone from taking off in different directions at once, revealing huge sections of the dungeon in 20 seconds or running through traps that should impede them (e.g., a pit) and I can just stop a character if they trigger something or some event happens. If, for any reason one or more of them want to change the order at any point, I just let them decide amongst themselves and then do it.
Hope that helps. Good luck with the crawl!
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Next session I'll be running my first large dungeon, and looking for a few tips on how to run it. More accurately, how to handle player turn order / moving. Using Roll20 everyone had control of their token, and using dynamic lighting.
The last ones I ran I couldn't keep up with them and they rushed through it, due to not seeing anything important. forcing me to backtrack them for traps, but it became a pain trying to determine who wouodnhave triggered it. I had them roll initiative at the start for the next one to prevent this, but don't think it went to well. They couldn't have the travel order they wanted, and some turns took way to long for no reason. The table got bored.
I was thinking for this to use a single token to represent the whole party as they move throughout it, and keep initiative going for when they find encounters. Keeping combat theater of the mind rather than sticking to the map. If they split the parry then they take turns with a second token, with an assigned leader for each. The goal is to speed up travel times, without just skipping the entire thing, or moving at a snaila pace
Any tips, tricks, and stories are appreciated. Thanks in advance.
The current dungeon is 4 levels, and the maps are 100x100. The total thing is over 100 rooms (many of them small) and each one was rolled for the chance of loot, and I built a small story around it if the roll was positive. There are things to find, from loot to lore. Using Gritty rules too so its less forgiving if they don't tred carefully.
First of all congratulations on your first dungeon! This is by far the most important part of being a DUNGEON master by a long shot. Creating discrete environments with various challenges and rewards is what makes D&D an actual game. What I would do if I were you is document your thought process in a step-by-step format so the next time you make a dungeon, you have that to go off and continue tweaking as you get better.
It seems you primarily have questions about the pacing. So, remember The Door is a critical object that acts as a speed bump to control pacing. When a player reaches a door, they must wait for you to enter the dynamic lighting level and remove the obstacle to let them through. You can do this at your leisure.
I wouldn’t force them into a perpetual initiate, save that for combat. Let them move their tokens about as they wish, and pay the most attention on the character(s) leading the way, because they are the most likely to trigger new encounters. Also, keep in mind the phrase “Everybody pause”. Say this when you want the players to halt and give you a chance to narrate, advance monster patrols on a circuit, or anything else you wish to do behind the DM screen before giving them the ok to begin moving again.
I only recommend the single token party representation/TotM combat for general overland travel and a random encounter en route to the dungeon, Seems a bit bland and lazy for an actual crawl though.
Who would have triggered the trap? If they're all rushing everywhere as a group and all pass the area, perhaps they all do?
Maybe you could have a sound effect that you can simply press when the players have discovered something (bad or good) - and establish that if it's been pressed, everyone has to keep their tokens where they are until say "continue" - this could be initiative, this could be a trap, this could be you pausing the game to tell them something (lore, history, descriptions of what they see, what treasure they find), this could be an npc being discovered?
I don't have the same problem, but there's also potentially saying "wait" if the sound effect option isn't available.
There's also - if your players aren't able to be trained, the possibility of you drawing many black boxes over the map as tokens and then deleting them as the players find new areas? That means that they can't explore an area without you actually deleting the black box first, which means they have to wait for you. Essentially the door function as the person above expressed, but with areas instead.
I (mostly) get around this by asking for a 'marching order' as they enter the dungeon, and then tell them to move only up to their single round movement speed (e.g., 30' walking speed) and then wait until each other member of the party moves. Once each character moves I give them any relevant details and they go again. This prevents everyone from taking off in different directions at once, revealing huge sections of the dungeon in 20 seconds or running through traps that should impede them (e.g., a pit) and I can just stop a character if they trigger something or some event happens. If, for any reason one or more of them want to change the order at any point, I just let them decide amongst themselves and then do it.
Hope that helps. Good luck with the crawl!
Much that once was is lost.
Objects in Mirror Image are closer than they appear.