As I've said before (and any of the players will tell you) West Marches was dangerous by design. Danger encourages teamwork because you have to work together to survive. It also forces players to think: if they make bad decisions they get wiped out, or at least "chased into the swamp like little sis| ars ludi
The dungeon is the primordial ooze that tabletop RPG’s wriggled out of. There is something elemental and powerful about a mysteriously connected location to explore with treasures and dangers hidden within. It’s just plain fun game design. Many of the layout and design elements that make a dungeon great can also be applied to the sandbox region around it in the form of a point crawl where paths connect locations just as hallways connect rooms in a dungeon. | Silverarm
