Articles designed
to help Event Holders with common event pitfalls and problems.
Tricks
of the Trade:
Dungeon
Crawl tips: Making Scene Changes work for your event.
Unless
you are fortunate enough to have both a really large dungeon, such as the
Citadel, or a large mowed field of tall grass or corn, and a huge amount of NPC’s to staff such a large area full time,
most Dungeon Crawls will involve scene changes as the next ‘room’ is set up.
What
generally happens is the players have two types of ‘area’ to play in for these
events – the Main Dungeon Room(s), and the ‘Holding Area(s)’. The ‘Holding
Area’ is where the PC’s end up waiting for the scene change to occur, while the
Main Dungeon Room is where the PC’s face whatever encounters the plot of the
event is based on…
Generally
speaking, most EH’s fail to plan for anything occurring in the ‘Holding Area’
and due to poor time management, the players spend most of their time at the
event there, rather than in the Main Dungeon Room!
Highly Recommended
to Must Have
in the “Holding Area”:
It
is always a good idea to have food, water, and a Magic Marshal available to the
PC’s during the ‘scene change’.
(Honestly, it’s a good idea to have a Magic Marshal available ALL the
time!) This allows the players to learn about the plot in a ‘less hectic’
environment than the main combat floor (which is not the best environment to be
casting divinations or Call Soul anyway), and allows them to rest and refresh
while not in combat mode.
The
Dangers of Down-Time:
One
of the biggest challenges for an EH in most Dungeon Crawls is keeping the
players occupied or entertained during scene changes. Generally speaking, any
Down-Time in any event kills the momentum of the Event Flow, and usually leads
to bored players.
Here
are some tips to manage the Down-Time in a Dungeon Crawl Scene Change:
Keep the Down-Time
brief:
An
EH should do what they can to limit the amount of time it takes to set up the
next scene and inform the NPC’s of their roles.
Making
complete, descriptive handbooks for each planned room is a good way to do that.
If you can do a complete description, and know who your Staff and NPC’s are
going to be, get that information out to those key people well in advance of
the actual event, so they have time to go over the information before arriving.
On the day of the event, however, most NPC’s don’t have the time or inclination
to read walls of text, so try to also have a ‘short form’ version: be succinct
or use pictures/maps, and lists where you can. This allows the NPC’s to act
autonomously without you needing to go over everything at every turn, saving
huge amounts of time, and therefore, lessening downtime.
Another
way to do cut down on time is to have at least one or two ‘rotating’ NPC’s that
are sitting out of the current room to learn what is needed for the next room,
and getting all the props, costumes and briefings ready for the next room while
the current room is in progress. As NPC roles end in the current room, have
those NPC’s filter back to the NPC staging area to get ready for their new
roles.
Make the Holding
Area part of the Event:
Since
so much time can potentially be spent in the Holding Area, make it part of the
Event! Don’t throw that time away.
Here
are some of the things that I have seen used successfully to keep players doing
things:
Puzzles to open the
next level:
Whether
its some sort of cerebral thing to get a few thinkers busy, or a co-operative
challenge to get the whole questing party to work together, puzzles are a good
way to allow a less combat oriented person time to shine while letting the
(hopefully tired) combative types time to rest until the next battle.
Role play!:
We
sometimes forget that this is also a role playing game. Allow role-play to
happen by engaging the players with some sort of NPC to negotiate with to get
to the next level, learn about the plot, or otherwise make the event more than
just some kind of weird tactic-based practice.
Travel Time:
While
it’s not my favorite tactic, you can get the players to walk around the
building, or something similar, in order to simulate ‘moving to somewhere else’
in a more realistic fashion. The common problem with this is that it gets
boring if it is done too often, of if there isn’t any interesting scenery or
interaction on the way. So, if you
choose this, make sure to throw at least one interesting something along the
way: an easily solved puzzle or physical challenge (such as jumping over a
‘pit’ from stepping stone to stone, or getting through a ‘fence’), role-playing
encounter, fun music, weird artwork… something to make it more than a useless
walk around the building.
Make a ‘Rotating’
Main Dungeon Room:
If
your Main Dungeon Room is large enough, split it in half. Instead of having a
‘Holding Room’, split your NPC crew as best you can and set up the second half
of the Main Dungeon Room while the first half is in use. This allows the action
to keep going all event long without long stretches of Down-Time.
