What Pointcrawl is or isn't?
Answer for oldhawkeyes's post here: https://unturnedhovel.bearblog.dev/gradient-descent-is-not-a-pointcrawl/
The main thesis here is that Gradient Descent - a dungeon adventure for Mothership system - is not a pointcrawl even though it is presented as such. From my side I need to clarify that I did not buy or even seen Gradient Descent at all and have no stake in this. I also don't think I need it for this discussion, since right after the beginning we're going into the abstract.
Original Points
To summarise oldhawkeyes's points from the post:
- Gradient Descent is presented like a pointcrawl.
- Rooms in GD are connected with spatial logic.
- There are no rules for travel between the nodes nor any hallways are described.
- A person can accurately map the dungeon out based on the description and connections between rooms.
- Pointcrawls usually mean cost or whole procedure to travel.
My First Instinct Node
When I read the post I was very much interested and confused. On one hand it really speaks to me, as a fan of pointcrawls in OSR-adjacent games. On the other it kinda questions what pointcrawl even is or how to define it. I've never seen a situation where this distinction would be anything less than obvious to me. Yeah, I don't buy many adventures and am not well versed in OSR/NSR products but I tended to encounter stuff that either was hexcrawl, pointcrawl or regular dungeon gridcrawl. Even very modern stuff for systems that don't measure speed usually have grids, I own some adventures for DURF or Knave-adjacent things and rooms have squares on the floor. I understand it is for inclusion of systems that measure speed in feets or squares, I have no issue with it but that also means these are regular dungeons on a grid. They do measure somewhat physical space.
And so I thought at first "I don't agree". What I meant by that is "I don't agree that you need cost or procedure for travel between the nods in pointcrawl or that it cannot lead to physically accurate mapping". Something like that. And this could be the end of this post. Thank you, everybody can leave... But I cannot. It was haunting me, why couldn't I just simply decide.
So what does constitute pointcrawl?
I don't actually know. I understand the idea, there are nodes, points of interest, sometimes put in flux spaces, sometimes connected via paths, and you map a place with it in order to ease the use of the map. It usually stands in opposition to hexcrawls or gridcrawls but doesn't have to. The oldest thought about it online that I found was Hill Cantons blog https://hillcantons.blogspot.com/2014/11/pointcrawl-series-index.html and there it was used as a simplification and more abstracted view of wilderness as well as for crawling ruins or cities. But even there we can see examples of dungeons and megadungeons mapped with points and paths and... they technically also fill in logical physical space? You could map them somewhat accurately if you wanted (though you'd need to improvise distances and other measurements).
The Clue of the Argument
I think the questions here goes like this: Is "Presentation is not final authority"? as oldhawkeyes argues in the post? For this whole time I thought I agree, I thought in the end I will need to agree that Gradient Descent is not a pointcrawl but something else and I'll move on. But actually looking at the points made AND considering I mostly interact with pointcrawl as a way to map wilderness and not a dungeon it requires another check up.0
Gradient Descent is presented like a pointcrawl. - I cannot comment on it from experience but I haven't seen any mention of grid or measurements given so it does seem to look like a pointcrawl.
Rooms in GD are connected with spatial logic. - Here is one of the clues. Does pointcrawl imply or require there is no spatial logic? I don't think so, it is a way to map something that simplifies and abstracts but zoomed in a lot it might actually be used to map thematic things as they stand. There is just a little less abstraction but it still doesn't make you count grids or move in hexes.
There are no rules for travel between the nodes nor any hallways are described. - As it is in other types of dungeon crawling. I think we both went to the topic with an image of wilderness travel in mind but it is a whole different thing. Rules for moving between rooms in a dungeon are there usually because there are mechanics for speed and there is grid but making it a point-and-path and removing such rules is the abstraction that kind of constitutes a pointcrawl. In wilderness every -crawl type needs travel and cost rules between nodes, be it hexes or whatnot. But in a dungeon?
A person can accurately map the dungeon out based on the description and connections between rooms. - I think so, and again, as long as the rooms don't require moving on a 5 foot by 5 foot grid I think no one will map it out as the old dungeons used to be presented and mapped.
Pointcrawls usually mean cost or whole procedure to travel. - yeah, again, I think wilderness and exploration implies procedure or cost to travel but I don't think in a confined space of a dungeon with rooms being close to each other it does serve the same. I played A Rasp of Sand which has a procedurally generated dungeon with rooms having specific amounts of doors and hallways and being in specific places on the map so you could jaquasingly loop around them but I still think it follows the logic of pointcrawl. Do I wish it had anything mentioned about the hallways, corridors and such? Yeah, because we spent some time in them but it still had rooms-as-points on the map. It was like an early hillcantonesque maps.
The Verdict
To my astonishment I do think that Gradient Descent is a pointcrawl. It feels like it shouldn't because of rigid structure of room placement but in early history of pointcrawl projection (XD) there were also such situations. It stems more from the place that dungeon is than from projection used. And so our minds, used to it for wilderness exploration, would like a dungeon mapped the way we do wilderness to offer some of its openness and wilderness and abstraction but our minds manipulate us and deceive us like eldritch machines put in our bodies to steer them in ways we do not and cannot understand. Pesky minds!
I put in this post as many terms like pointcrawl, point, path, crawl and node. I don't know if it will affect SEO in any way but it was fun for me to consciously review the text and put more gibberish there XD