Dungeon Crawling: Difference between revisions

'''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.

 

 

The term comes from early [[RPG]]s, such as ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', that often had the player characters exploring some wizard's dungeon. "Dungeon crawl" is analogous to "pub crawl," a continual stroll from dungeon to dungeon to dungeon.

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.

* As its title suggests, the majority of the plot of ''[[Percy Jackson and The Olympians|Percy Jackson and the Battle of the Labyrinth]]'' is Dungeon Crawling.

 

* ''[[Hercules: The Legendary Journeys]]'' gave us the [[Made for TV Movie]] ''Hercules in the Underworld'', which was inspired by the story of Hercules' twelfth labour (see Mythology below).

* In the ''[[Angel]]'' episode "Awakening" has Angel and his friends travel to hidden subterranean caverns to find a mythical sword, the only thing that can kill the [[Nigh Invulnerability|Nigh Invulnerable]] Beast, who had [[The Night That Never Ends|blocked out the sun]]. {{spoiler|The find the sword, kill the Beast and bring daylight back - unfortunately, it's [[All Just a Dream]] to give Angel a moment of perfect happiness and make him lose his soul}}.

 

== [[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.''

 

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[[Category:Dungeon Tropes]]