The Outdoor Dungeon: Intro

I’ve been obsessed with the idea of an outdoor 'wilderness dungoen.’

Allow me to channel my inner Ron Swanson for a bit.

I’m worried what you just heard was, ‘I’ve been obsessed with the idea of a wilderness hexcrawl’ or ‘wilderness pointcrawl’ or more generally ‘wilderness adventure’ of which there are several excellent examples. But what I said was, “I’ve been obsessed with the idea of a wilderness dungeon.”

You know the room by room, moment by moment, suspense-packed crawl through the depths of a dungeon? Where there’s time for the dungeon master to really get across the sense and feel of the rotting mansion corridors, or the musty undisturbed in a century halls of a crypt? Where there’s that joy of poking around at a setting detail and discovering something hidden? Or the sense of victory you get when you navigate a trap or terrain hazard?

Yeah, all of that. But outside.

I heard somewhere that Shigeru Miyamoto, when he created the Legend of Zelda, was trying to recapture the sense of wonder he got from exploring as a child, straying from the beaten path to discover secret caves, or rounding the bend to find a hidden lake. (I also heard that he didn’t think he achieved that with his early Zelda games, but hey, we try and try some more. I wonder how well he thinkg Breath of the Wild hits the mark.)

So I’ve started designing one, and for my own sake as well as anyone else’s, I’ll be chronicling the journey, writing down any insights I gain as I go. I’ll say right now I don’t know if it’s even possible to do in a fully satisfying way. There’s a reason (multiple, even) that hexcrawls and pointcrawls have become the standard way to structure adventures outdoors. But they’re not quite scratching the itch. And I have some thoughts on how it might be possible. 

The plan is to take a look at some basic elements of 'normal dungeons' like doors and rooms, and consider how we might, and more importantly, why we should, translate them into a form that works for dungeoncrawling in the outdoors. Let's call it... a terrain-crawl for now.

So hang onto your cloaks. Wouldn’t want to lose them in the woods. If I suddenly stop posting, assume that the experiment was a failure and you can go back to your regularly scheduled hexcrawls and pointcrawls.

New posts every week. Or so.