Deterministic competitive crawler about competing teams of heroes. Seems inspired by Mage Knight: heroes actions are based on cards drawn from deck with deterministic attack/block/movement/healing, and deck can be improved by buying cards for experience gained from slaying monsters. Both less (heroes have basic attack/block/movement, so dont depend entirely on cards) and more random than MK (without help from action cards only basic monsters can be slayes - and not fast enough. But the problem is most cards can be used effectively only by a single hero in the team, so if your hero has activated already and only then you got good cards for him... tough luck). Less decision space because of tying cards to specific heroes, faster gameplay (only 4 rounds), more active monsters (actually pursue heroes). I really liked it at first but eventually sold it because choices which cards to use are usually too obvious (due to restrictions on usage of most cards - only with specific hero/race/class), and because monsters dont feel really threatening - just a punching bags which usualy gets taken out by first strike, and even if they manage to kill hero, he just respawns with few victory points removed from you; there is no real feeling of threat in this dungeon.
Well, this game does have random output, but still not much random compared to most dungeon crawlers, and more decision space because actions are card-based instead of a small fixed list. Supposedly great experience but fell flat for some reason. Not terrible, just... boring. Maybe thats because abilities are not thematic at all (use frost armor as ranged attack? come on) or because monsters always behave so similar or because campaign is too long and scenarios feel samey. Not quite sure.
Competitive Japanese mythology-based dungeon crawler. Again it does have dice-based combat and ameritrashy look, but feels partially like euro since players spend quite a lot of time managing their boards: using collected resources to craft weapons and other useful items.
One of the quickest and most compact card-based dungeon crawlers. Simple randomless combat. Other actions are controlled by cards as well. There are only 4 of them in hand, but they switch sides for different action after being used, and also can be empowered with precious fate cards - so there is some space for planning/thinking, although game is by no means deep. Boring flat art, and weird monsters which move randomly and bump into the walls frequently...
Sorta like big Andor: a puzzle masked as fantasy adventure, too. Less random (deterministic combat) but also much more random (monsters consist of randomly drawn abilities and can be ridiculously weak or overpowered. Gathering resources - which are neccessary to win in some scenarios - is random, plus there is random chance of monster appearing). Many various levelups for characters, but at the start they all are the same. Overall... too many "buts". Not atmospheric enough for adventure, not predictable enough for puzzle.
However, being that it is a fixed value, it is deterministic. My party, for example, has passive perception scores of 20, 19, 16, 15, and 12. My issue is that, when building a map with traps, I'm basically determining who will see them and who won't (unless they actively look for traps). The PC with 20 passive perception will notice everything the others notice. However, I don't like this system, I'd prefer there to be some randomness in it.
The second part of this is my favorite. A PP check might just reveal they notice "something" or "something" draws their attention. They may not know exactly what, just that it's in that square or over in that direction. When they search an area, ask them how and where they search (and be sure to note where you are putting traps and the like). This can reward them for paying attention. Say the first trap in your dungeon is located on the ceiling. If they specify they are looking at the ceiling, they are more likely to find future traps that are there. However, each additional place they are searching takes more time (see 1) so they have to be tactical about their search patterns.
The people who build traps in dungeons don't want them spotted and know there are people out there who look for traps in dungeons. Be tricky with them. Hide triggers in one trap that, if it is disabled, triggers a second trap (higher Perception/Investigate check to notice that trigger). Hide traps in the doorframe, so if they aren't careful opening the door, they trigger it (better if it is not visible from the other side of the door). Rig traps that are just decoys and alert guards in the dungeon something is up. Have traps that are on a delay, waiting several rounds to trigger. The sky is the limit.
If you have a party in which some characters have Darkvision and others don't, you can make use of dim lighting. Everybody can still see in dim lighting, but those without Darkvision have disadvantage on Perception involving sight. If the characters who usually have the best passive Perception scores don't have Darkvision, their scores will be reduced in dim lighting. Since many dungeons are dimly lit anyway, this allows those with Darkvision to pick up the slack.
I have applied this technique in most dungeons I have DM'd across several campaigns. I have found it much simpler than rolling active Perception checks on a regular basis. Generally the player with the highest passive Perception score will be somewhat surprised the first time they are not the first to notice something. Usually the only overt confusion is due to players being unaware of the rules for dim light, an unrelated issue. In either case, once players understand the rules, they tend to take the technique for granted and respect the results, so things go smoothly.
So your party might notice something unusual in the corridor ahead - it could be a unusually wet part of the dungeon floor - but they will not exactly know what causes it. If they stop and search further, they might, or might not, discover the trap. If they don't, it is possible they will decide to move on and trigger it.
You should also regularly have them detect suspicious stuff in the dungeon but which will turn out to be nothing dangerous (no trap). Eventually, it will keep them on their toes. They will perceive suspicious stuff but they will have to figure out if they will spend time and search the area every time or not
Using procedural generation in games had origins in the tabletop role playing game (RPG) venue.[4] The leading tabletop system, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, provided ways for the "dungeon master" to generate dungeons and terrain using random die rolls, expanded in later editions with complex branching procedural tables. Strategic Simulations under license from TSR released the Dungeon Master's Assistant, a computer program that generated dungeons based on these published tables. Tunnels & Trolls, published by Flying Buffalo,[5] was designed primarily around solitary play and used similar procedural generation for its dungeons. Other tabletop RPGs borrowed similar concepts in procedural generation for various world elements.[6]
Prior to graphically oriented video games, roguelike games, a genre directly inspired by Dungeons & Dragons adopted for solitaire play, heavily utilized procedural generation to randomly produce dungeons, in the same manner that tabletop systems had done. Such early games include Beneath Apple Manor (1978) and the genre's namesake, Rogue (1980). The procedural generation system in roguelikes would create dungeons in ASCII- or regular tile-based systems and define rooms, hallways, monsters, and treasure to challenge the player. Roguelikes, and games based on the roguelike concepts, allow the development of complex gameplay without having to spend excessive time in creating a game's world.[7]
No Man's Sky, by using procedural generation, is the largest video game in history, featuring a universe of 18 quintillion full-sized planets across entire galaxies, and these galaxies can be explored in flight inch-by-inch, or on foot after a landing. The planets all have their own uniquely diverse terrain, weather, flora, and fauna, as well as a number of space-faring alien species. The same content exists at the same places for all players (thanks to a single random seed number to their deterministic engine), which enables players to meet and share discoveries.[15][16][17]
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