"How much roleplay in your dungeoncrawl?" Topic

Do you prefer your dungeoncrawls to have an element of roleplay in them, or do you prefer purely tactical combat missions?

A bit of both hopefully. Pure combat can be fun but I prefer to do some character development in a campaign. There are other games for pure tactical combat (40K, Tractics, FOW, etc).

I turn most every game into a roleplaying game of sorts, which is why I generally don't care much for Euro-style boardgames: very little theme pasted on to an abstract game mechanic.

My favorite is Dungeon Quest, which has very little roleplaying, and not much in the way of tactics either!!

I'm of the same ilk as Darthfozzywig… I can't much help but roleplay in whatever game. Even in Monopoly.

My group play 3.5ed with miniatures and dice…

I try and avoid things like 'Diplomacy Checks' to encourage the group to roleplay… but its hard with my group… they kill drow spies on the spot and use speak with dead as their main information source!

Swordlord – Does the group hear such useful info, as

"Oh just press the buttons randomly, one of them's bound to unlock this door"

"I'm sure I've got an antidote to that somewhere in here"

And "Ouch that hurt"

We still roleplay Warhammerquest even travelling between quests.
Whoever plays the chaos warrior brings us a few laughs especially when he/she gets a really mental mutation or gift.
We did have two players that made it a very enjoyable RPG with one as a noble and the other as an elven mage.Both became very aloof dury games and the banter between them had us in stitches.We did not use the roleplay options very much at all which were an added extra .We went about the mission hacking and slashing even cursing the dice rolls in character.

Pure dungeon bashing games are roleplay light. Get in character and kill things.

Games where you do dungeons as part of the job, among other things, then I roleplay.

Dungeon bashing is fun, but only for short periods. The roleplay is the thing for me.

Roleplaying is what makes it interesting.

Boardgame type dungeon crawls are nice because you can pick up and play quicker but what makes them fun is the roleplay element, even if it's just in your head.

I find that if I don't include some kind of moral decision making or conflict worthy choice in my fights, that my players get bored with trying to optimize their actions in combat.

Of course, the role playing section doesn't have to be "is it right to waste this target?", and is often instead "Will killing this NPC cause any backlash from the rest of the group… and will they let me loot the body".

As a general rule, I like some roleplay. This will include acting out good or bad interaction rolls.

When I am doing any 1:1 with a group and just a few figures under my control I tend to role play, generally aiming for comic effect.

With my son grown and gone I find myself a solo dungeoneer. With that said I enjoy some roleplay but have to keep it lite with my hack-n-slash.

If I can find a group I enjoy roleplaying much better than just kill everything in sight and count the loot.

We've been running our "ultimate dungeon" on the con circuit for a few years now. Folks who sign up are in for pure dungeon crawl, but we make them choose their own fate as a party. They know the deeper they go, the worse its going to be (but the better odds of treasure).

Once folks start running low on Wounds (hp as D&Ders would call 'em) and Spoints (mana in other games)it leads to some interesting debates (in character and out). The brutal nature of the dungeon itself galvanizes them as a team. They really don't stand a chance to venture off independently.

I love seeing the clash of rp and h-n-s.

Never a dull moment!

Larry

ps – if anyone's going to Origins, GenCon, etc, look for us for a dungeony good time. Event will be called "Dingbitt's Dunge O' Doom".

we played advanced hero quest as a dungeon crawler, but it got a bit boring

so we then started with warhammer fantasy rolelay 2nd ed. using more or less the same dungeons, but there are more options like hiding, talking, tricking npc's, and anything you can think of. thats why i like roleplay.

I run a D&D 4e game and play a 3.5 Pathfinder game, and both are a decent mix of dungeon crawling and roleplaying. I have found that it depends on the group. Some guys in our group get bored with too much roleplaying while others enjoy it.

I also find some personality types just aren't going to talk much either way. It is always interesting when the quietest player is running the bard with a 20 Charisma. He can make the rolls but doesn't play the role very well.

Personally I like a good mix of both as I enjoy talking and dungeon crawling.

You can read about my PCs exploits at play-board-games.com

Does anyone else here blog about their D&D sessions? I'd like to see how other people do this.

Great thread for some good discussion.

Dungeoncrawl campaigns are really the only kind of rpg I like. I like to include some amount of role-playing, but it's generally an exercise in tactics, resource management, and long term strategy.

There are occasional interactions with NPCs, and players always have the option of parlaying, but for me the fun is mostly found in the mechanics of the game and the roll-playing.

That said, interesting and fun things tend to happen when the PCs try to talk to the monsters.