In a recent article, I discussed the joy I had been having returning to the player seat after over a decade of being a “forever GM.”

In that article, I talked about how important it is for GMs to be able to sit on the other side of the screen as it were and experience the game from the Player’s perspective.

And while that’s all extremely true, I’m also very happy to say just the other night I got a chance to GM a game for the first time in almost a year.

The game in question was a Shadowdark RPG game, playtesting an upcoming adventure that I’m working on titled Delvers of the Sinking City (more about that in future articles.)

Like many excellent Shadowdark adventures, the PC’s play the role of treasure hunters and explorers, plumbing the depths of unknown dungeons and dark locales.

The dungeon I had designed was a two story dungeon, hopefully being well “jacquaysed” with multiple paths through multiple entrances and exits and overlapping areas of connectivity between the two floors.

My initial assumption was that my PCs would spend a lot of time exploring the ground floor as that is sort of the entrance level of this druined edifice in the city they were exploring. Eventually I expected they would find their way down into the basement below.

However, as luck should have it, the first room that they entered on the ground floor (by crawling through a window, which was also a method of ingress I had not considered prior to sitting down to play) ended up having a trap door down to the basement. An access they found in short order.

Immediately they decided to plumb the basement rather than explore the rest of the grounds of this complex above.

In doing so, they went from a larger, more wide open exploration experience into a traditional dungeon crawl through cramped underground corridors.

What I hadn’t realized in the design of this dungeon is that the denizens that inhabited the main floor of this dungeon actually comprise most of the adventures combat threat.

There are quite a number of viperians that inhabit this upper floor, engaged in different activities, as they have sort of established themselves in residence in this ruined structure.

But they haven’t spent much time exploring the basement below, if they even really know it exists.

In the basement, there are only a handful of encounters that would lead to combat, and by design only one specifically does.

The rest of this cramped basement is really an exploration encounter, but what I witnessed in my playtesters was a growing amount of dread around each corner as if they were expecting a shoe to drop and some horrible combat encounter to break out that almost never did except for a laughably easy encounter with a skeleton missing a leg.

The tension became palpable even playing over Zoom like we do. As the play progressed toward the end of the evening, I realized that atmosphere, and how we populate our dungeons, can really impact the experience players have at the table.

Trying to remember my recent experiences as a player and exploring a wilderness that neither my character nor I had any familiarity with was an interesting encounter, an interesting experience.

It reminded me of how we as players oftentimes engage in these exploration activities with a healthy amount of caution and trepidation.

I witnessed that in full display, and was kept  aware of it during this playtest.

I had thought this playtest would be one of daring, almost swashbuckling encounters with these horrible snake-headed monsters inhabiting this ruin. Freeing captives that they have taken, making allies of them, and then perhaps scouring the dungeons below for lost treasure instead immediately turned into an intense room by room, foot by foot crawl through dank, sunken hallways in the dark, where threat was perceived to lurk around every corner.

I honestly don’t think I could have done that better if I tried.

And to realize thematically, that in the same dungeon we can have very different experiences in different areas, was a real eye-opener and reminder of how we can cultivate feeling and experience through play. We can also cultivate it through prep: through the design layouts of our dungeons and then what things we populate those dungeons with.

A great example of this is in a chamber in the basement that by the design of its creators, was never meant to be accessed.

However the ensuing cataclysm that ruined the structure that was built beneath permitted an imprisoned creature to escape. This imprisoned creature was a very large serpent and an intelligent one (it was a naga in case you’re wondering.)

In the room description, the shed skin of the naga lies coiled up in the center of the room, resembling a gigantic, unmoving, ghostly white snake.

Though of course this “serpent” was not alive, a fact that anyone who dared to get close enough would realize automatically.

But to be able to determine this from a distance requires a keen eye and a successful wisdom check.

My playtesters’ faces visibly changed when they saw the large token of a giant snake monster sitting in the center of this room on the VTT we were playtesting on.

Immediately, they stopped and began to strategize as to what to do.

They both stopped and said, “We’re going to wait to see if it moves.” And after two Shadowdark rounds of nothing happening, they slowly began to inch their way into the room, keeping to the perimeter.

They ultimately found a very important treasure housed within this room, but did so while never putting their backs to this pile of desiccated snake skin.

The potential terror of what this giant snake represented, and the lack of any meaningful combat encounter prior to its discovery, put them on edge waiting for this snake to spring into action and for combat to be joined.

That payoff never came for them.

And so they left to explore more of this basement, now constantly looking over their shoulders, waiting for the serpent to show up behind them.

That kind of atmosphere, that kind of horror or psychological pressure to place on them is beyond anything I had conceived of when writing the adventure.

But in play it landed so well.

So why bring all this up? Why share this story with you? Again, it’s just to be cognizant of how the kinds of encounters and the threats that we do, or don’t, populate a dungeon with can really impact the experience for the players, both positively and negatively.

Too much combat can be a real grind and really slow things down. It’s entirely possible the upper floor of this dungeon is just a grindy slog. I don’t know, we haven’t playtested that part yet.

But now I’m very eager to see how that floor of the dungeon plays out and start to contrast it with this “on the edge of their seat” exploration that my playtesters engaged in.

Whenever we get around to continuing this playtest, and play through the first floor, I’ll let you know how it goes.

And if you need some more Shadowdark adventures in the mean time, check out my adventure Petra Serpentis on DrivethruRPG now!

That’s all for this week. See you next time.
– Mike