Alternatives to 'Dungeons'

[mearrin69]

In a sense, the old computer-based text adventures were like dungeons. "You are in the desert. To the north you see some mountains. What do you want to do?" You could go any direction, but the only real destination was the one given in the clue...or back the way you came. If the grasslands, from which the player came, are to the south and the mountains are to the north, those are pretty much the only directions that "do anything". Go east and you find more desert. Maybe you start running out of water.

From a data structure point-of-view, you could draw out the worlds as circles denoting locations and lines indicating connections between the locations. Now, of course, this is very limiting (mainly because the technology of the time wasn't going to support something like the new Black Isle CRPGs) but you can do something very similar in pen and paper RPGs.

Imagine a scene with a chase across rooftops. There's no map, just some circles that identify areas and the lines connecting them. So, the PCs start out at the window of their tavern room. The thief has just jumped to the rooftop of the next building over. He has a head start. As they follow, they have to make skill checks (Climb, Balance, Acrobatics, whatever) to try to move from area to area and, hopefully, gain on the thief before he can get away. If you have enough areas he doesn't have to take a predefined route. Maybe he can press an advantage that develops during play.

Hopefully this makes some kind of sense but maybe I can try to post a better example if you're not following.
M

[Ascension]

I'm partial to shrines, temples, ruins, warehouses, ships, and other such structures as those are very common. Sewers are good. Swamps can be limiting for those in medium or heavy armor as they can only go so deep and have to stay on the hillocks and high spots. Narrow paths around cliffs are good. Parties without rangers or other woodsy types will have to stick to easily-defined paths in the woods or get totally lost and spun around or entangled. Cramped city streets, markets, and alleys are also good. An outdoor space with large boulders can be constricting. Basically, I'm just thinking off the top of my head about obstacles to keep people in a defined space.

If you want to get exotic then you start getting into Super Mario world by having to jump around on mushrooms and moving blocks. In The Princess Bride there was the fire swamp and that can keep them on their toes (along with the ROUS's). Also, there was that little space where the dudes let each other know that they were not left-handed. There are lots of things and I'm just flowing here so I'll stop and let you get on with some flow of your own