Don't Punish Exploration

In Exploration-focused games.... maybe don't punish  exploration and progress

it's kind of a paradox at the heart of dungeoncrawling games


Telegraph traps, and/or don’t spring them without warning

Lay off of ambushes, alarms

Don't impose penalties for merely opening doors, or players will hesitate to open new doors

• interacting with doors is often like 80% of bigger dungeons in OSR D&D 
• make it either simpler or more interesting than it usually is

Give monsters a wider variety of non hostile behaviors, default activities, and reactions

Favor slower, louder, individual monsters over quicker, sneakier, groups/swarms

• This makes it easier for players to judge the difficulty of an encounter
• Easier to see coming and prepare for, or run from
• Turns the challenge into one of outmaneuvering in the dungeon rather than a tactical combat puzzle in which you're likely to misjudge relative power levels and where the outcome is swingier
• Also big monsters are just fun. They can be more unique, and you can invest in portraying them as individuals without wasting it on something readily slain

in other words, when designing monsters:

• Quick, Sneaky, or Numerous, choose one at most
• (or)
• Slow, Conspicuous, Solitary: choose two

Challenge - yes - challenge should be there, obstacles blocking progress, but it doesn't need to be literal punishment for curiosity, and that's often what traps and encounters end up being

...how? 

how is blogger editor formatting this horrificly user unfriendly

maybe this is why i stopped blogging