Dungeon Crawling: Difference between revisions

{{trope}}

 

'''Dungeon Crawling''' is the act of exploring a dungeon (or other dangerous area) while looking for treasure or [[Plot Coupon|some other]] [[MacGuffin|important object]]. The characters must [[Everything Trying to Kill You|battle enemies (usually monsters)]] and use their [[Video Game Items and Inventory|skills and equipment]] to negotiate obstacles (usually [[Booby Trap|traps]]). Usually, but not always, there is a [[Boss Battle]] at some point, and a [[MacGuffin]] or [[Plot Coupon]] at the end.

 

 

 

Note that in [[Real Life]] a "dungeon" was a type of prison, often in the lower parts of a castle, but the games expanded it to mean "any ruins or subterranean area." In fact, the term is used today for ''any'' dangerous area in an RPG, even open-air ones, as long as the same fight-your-way-across logic applies to it. This is usually to distinguish it from the two other kinds of locale in such games, [[Thriving Ghost Town|towns]] (generally defined as anywhere that has [[Talk to Everyone|peaceful NPCs]] or [[Adam Smith Hates Your Guts|businesses]] like [[Sorting Algorithm of Weapon Effectiveness|stores]], [[Trauma Inn|hotels]] and [[You All Meet in An Inn|bars]]) and [[World Map|the overworld]] (which, in most cases, is exclusively for getting between towns and dungeons, with the only real obstacles being [[Random Encounter]]s.)

 

 

With the increasing trend towards [[Wide Open Sandbox]]-type game designs, the term "Dungeon Crawl" has taken on a certain derogatory connotation when used to describe a game. It is usually synonymous with [[The Maze]], which not only represents the opposing [[Sliding Scale of Linearity vs. Openness|linear]] game design tradition, but also implies developer laziness. The ease with which a dungeon generally forces players to follow [[One True Sequence|one path]] through a game and [[Fake Longevity|keep them tied up for a long time in a small space]], all without having to [[Insurmountable Waist-Height Fence|resort to illogical barriers]], is all too easy for developers, and annoying to players. Dungeons, after all, are reasonably expected to be fully enclosed structures whose walls are well reinforced—often by the very earth itself, if located underground, as they often are—making a single, static path through them more or less "justified". Dungeon Crawls often cheaply limit options for traversing them using a spaghetti strand of enclosed corridors, keys and doors, and other barriers requiring unique items to surmount them—all of which are less realistically implemented in a wide-open setting.

 

 

Not to be confused with the game ''[[Dungeon Crawl]]'', though it is a good example of this trope.

* The main point of ''[[Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic|Magi Labyrinth of Magic]]''. People seek to conquer the dangerous dungeons that have started appearing all over the world for fame, glory, and power.

 

* Done in ''[[The Dresden Fillies]]'' when Harry and the mane six enter {{spoiler|Trixie's}} castle to rescue Spike.

 

== [[Literature]] ==

* One early fantasy depiction of Dungeon Crawling was the Fellowship's passage through Moria in ''[[The Lord of the Rings|The Fellowship of the Ring]]''.

** The [[Lord Dunsany]] story ''The Hoard of the Gibbelins'' is one of the earliest examples and is close to an [[Ur Example]] of the genre.

* There are some scenes reminiscent of this trope in ''[[Dracula]]'', although they omit the "and take the monster's stuff" step once the monster (Lucy) has been tracked to her underground crypt and dispatched. Later vampire novels have added other elements of this trope, like death-traps (''Salem's Lot'') and guardians to protect the sleeping undead.

* Seems to be given a knowing nod in the ''[[Dragaera]]'' story "The Desecrator", in which desecrator is the Dragaeran term for archeologist, but the job has the typical fantasy cast of raiding ancient structures for treasure and having to fend off magical barriers.

 

 

== [[Mythology]] ==

 

== [[Tabletop Games]] ==

** And there is also the old TSR board game 'Dungeon', which literally is "Wander through the wizard's dungeon picking up treasure."

** Interesting to note is that when Gary Gygax started making fantasy rules for Chainmail, D&D's precursor, he moved the action from standard tabletop war game battlefields to underground dungeons so he could save time and money on designing maps.

* ''[[Mage Knight]]'' had a variant called Dungeons which pitted teams of heroes against each other as well as against the monsters and traps.

* The Games Workshop boardgame ''[[Space Hulk]]'' is basically this genre [[Recycled in Space]] liberally crossed with the [[James Cameron]] film ''Aliens.''

** Global A has done a couple of other games like this, such as the ''Dungeon Maker'' duology (which has a similar premise), and ''Adventures to Go!''

* Ubiquitous in ''[[Final Fantasy]]'' games, but [[Final Fantasy I|the original game]] has some of the most basic examples. Not surprising, considering how much it owes to ''D&D''.

* ''[[World of Warcraft]]'', along with the bulk of its MMO kindred, buries most of its best treasure in various dungeons.

* As mentioned above, the [[Roguelike]] ''[[Dungeon Crawl]]'' is [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin]].

* Parodied in ''[[Planescape: Torment]]'' with the Rubikon Dungeon Construct. The Modrons, beings of pure Law, are trying to study dungeon crawls in order to understand them, so they create a simulated dungeon with randomly generated rooms, filled with identical constructs that drop "loot" which looks valuable but is entirely worthless, even as [[Vendor Trash]]. Somewhere in the dungeon is the Evil Wizard Construct, who is a [[Card-Carrying Villain]] that you have to fight because that's what evil wizards are for.

* The many, many caves you have to explore in the various [[Pokémon]] games. Places like, for example, [[Pokémon Red and Blue|Silph Co. and the Pokemon Tower in Lavender Town]] also count, as they both have stuff to find and are crawling with enemies to defeat, and usually contain one final Boss.

 

== [[Web Comics]] ==

 

== [[Western Animation]] ==

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Action Adventure Tropes]]

[[Category:Tabletop Game Tropes]]