Musing about Interactivity in Dungeons

Aesthetic details can make a room stand out in player memories, even if they don't have any significant effect on the adventure. (...) These decorations can also offer easy roleplaying opportunities.
(James L. Sutter)

This weekend, we made an outing to Legoland. But the back of my mind was somehow still at work on the dungeon, even while we were hurling through the roller coasters and other rides at the fun park: the LEGO Temple X-pedition made me think about interactivity in my dungeon.

In the Temple X-pedition, you sit in a small vehicle^[1] which is drawn through an Egyptian-themed temple with skeletons, mummies, etc. But you are not only watching the scenery, you get a sort of pistol looking a bit like a flashlight, with which you take aims at colored dots. Successfully "hitting" such a target gives you points, so you can play against your partner in the vehicle (I lost big time against child #1), and of course there is also a list of high scores.

Disneyland in France has a similar ride in Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin, whereas the already mentioned Haunted Mansion or the Pirates of the Caribbean rides do not give you any interactivity, but "merely" allow you to experience the scenery around you.

Both types of rides have their place in amusement parks. If you don't offer any interactivity, you must make sure that what the visitors get to see and hear (sometimes also feel) is truly engaging (which is certainly the case for the Haunted Mansion or Pirates of the Caribbean). If you add interactivity such as shooting at things, not only is there not so much need for a spectacular scenery, it might even be wasted on the visitors: I must confess that I don't really remember much about what I saw in the Temple X-pedition, so focused was I on shooting colored dots with my flashlight.

What does this have to do with tabletop roll-playing? I always try to add interactive elements to dressing: at the very least, there should be something interesting to discover in every room. But the interactive element of discovery is a weak one: allowing the characters to actually do something or being challenged by something (even if it is just a small challenge) is even better. I don't think, one can "overdo" the possibilities for interaction: the lesson to be drawn from the fact that I cannot remember what the inside of the LEGO Temple X-pedition looks like is not that there was too much interaction, but that the offered interaction was too monotonous. The equivalent for a tabletop RPG would be to have a fight in every room.

Last week, I had been writing a room, in which I made sure to add an interactive element. But once the interaction had happened, I had degraded the characters once more to mere spectators, writing the following:

The characters cannot interact with the . It does not react to anything the characters do, nor can the characters touch it.

Obviously, I will have to change this ... and review other locations for missed opportunities for interaction.

Last week's progress

Progress on Release from the OGL Vault has been slow in the past week, due to a very full work week -- and the outing to Legoland hasn't helped, either:

Also, on the Trello board, there has been only moderate movement: