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I think the previous posters encapsulated all that is good and bad about dungeon crawls. Just thought I would throw in my 2 cents...
Non traditional dungeons can be a nice change of pace-- instead of a standard 10 foot wide hall below the ground with stone rooms, doors, and beasties living in there... come up with an alternative that fulfills a similar purpose.
Some dungeon substitutes that I've used in the past, that give a dungeon crawl feel to a session without using the standard dungeon props:
A mansion within a major city (usually to locate and steal a specific high value item) -- this adds good RP elements to the pre-planning and aftermath stages of such a session (plus -- did somebody call for the town watch?!? Did a magistrate come sniffing around 2 days later asking questions about the missing item?!? etc)
An overgrown temple/ ruins area deep in jungle or forest (90% or more above ground) good for outdoorsy types, while still keeping most of the feel and layout of a traditional dungeon
Pocket dimension/ sucked through a portal-- must find the exit! (make up new physics for fun)
Treasure hunt -- dungeon, but with competing parties trying to beat the players to the loot!
Treasure hunt -- sunken ship (underwater adventure time)
Prison Break -- players captured, and must escape from prison complex/ actual dungeon (torture)
Crossing a warzone -- requires mapping, scouting, lots of combat, and has large loot/ rewards potential depending on the backstory of the factions fighting. Generally open air, but still has a lot of the same challenges as a dungeon adventure-- not getting lost, finding an efficient route to the end, a good bit of combat, and of course loot. Terrain can also be a major factor, just like in a dungeon crawl-- being forced along one path via terrain or via a dungeon hallway are very similar in the end.
Underdark -- pretty much like a dungeon, but MASSIVE in scale. I usually had an uber scary encounter ready to let the players know when it was time to turn around and head back to the surface. Usually having them discover an ongoing fight between two juggernauts does the trick (drow raiding party vs some Kuo toans shamans, etc) -- when they see that they realize they have gone too deep. The plus side of an underdark dungeon is its a spot players can keep going back to if they want-- and you can always add side passages, deeper tunnels, new races or factions to add politics/ territories to the underdark dungeon zones, etc
I don't want to give a lot away about the upcoming dungeon, but I will say this... "Night at the Ancient, Ruined Museum."
I have a folder filled with various documents and pdfs that are nothing but adventure seeds to jog my brain into saying "Hey, that would be cool...", and then I'm usually off and running.
A fantastic resource for this is : Eureka: 501 Adventure Plots to Inspire Game Masters. You can read more about it, as well as their excellent website at: http://www.gnomestew.com
I have learned so much from you guys. You are truly inspiring.
The PnP group I just signed on with has just started meeting (3 times so far), and we are trying to finalize a good time interval. Although the idea of every week was floated, in my experience it is really tough to organize something that frequent (even if people really want to do it). I suggested a target of once every two weeks. Our sessions run about 3.5 to 4 hours. Anyone have an opinion on optimum interval between game sessions? Enough time to let people recharge, but not enough time that half the party forgets what the hell is going on.... especially interested in hearing what works for people in current campaigns.
As to session length, our group typically plays on Wednesday or Thurs. Since most of us work 8-5 jobs, we have a pretty strict end by 10 rule. So, we usually only get 3-3.5 hours of actual game time in a week.
Edit:
One thing I will say is that having 2 weeks off does tend to make players forgetful. However, we have one player who has memory/attention issues anyway, so since I would have to do detailed recaps for him even in a weekly game, it doesn't make that much of a difference. I've also gotten pretty good at timing the big breaks between adventures so they fall on our weeks off.
Also, on the original, topic, the flow chart idea is excellent. I've basically used the same method for years running various Mind's Eye Theatre chronicles. The benefit there, however, is that they don't need to be as detailed as more conflict comes from the inter-player relationships than does the effects of the game world.
To add another idea to the thread, what I tend to do is after each session is write a brief recap of the major events. If there were any unresolved events, I make an extra note within a log of those type of events. Then, when planning side quests. events, random encounters, etc, I draw from that log. For instance, an unimportant NPC escapes a fight in which the party pays no heed to his disappearance as they are fighting a more immediate threat. In the aftermath, they decide against trying to locate and confront him. I may then use this guy as more powerful foe for the group down the road. He may be motivated by revenge, or perhaps he wants to recruit the PCs based on their earlier demonstrated fighting prowess for his own schemes. Overall, it has caused PCs to be kinder to the NPCs of the world as they never know when one may come knocking at their door down the road.
I once had a clone of one of the PCs leading a team to track and kill the 'original', the party was on the move but there would be periodic assaults when the party was least prepared for it. It was fun to see how the clone and the original diverged as they each gained levels and powers, but along separate paths. One major skill of both was animal control/ experimentation. The original ended up creating self roasting chickens, while the clone created homing geese that helped track the pc across vast distances. The original escalated by developing ducks of insanity, and the clone came back with suicide pigeons (explode upon divebombing target). But the origins were similar-- something the PC should have foreseen coming or could have easily avoided, but once set in motion it was too late.
He was a favorite villain in that campaign, not the main villain, but a reminder of a mistake made by the PC very early on in the campaign that served as a recurring episodic challenge for the group, and some comic relief.
I do like your twist of keeping a log though, to incorporate this more frequently and with more consistency, and to police the party's actions a bit more.
I have spent the past two weeks doing very little in the way of actual game prep. My next session is this Thursday. Then, this past weekend, I picked up Sly Flourish's e-book "Dungeon Master Tips":http://slyflourish.com/book/ I don't know why I find it so helpful to have ideas presented to me in writing, but I found this book very helpful/inspiring in terms of how I prep my games. (I read through it in a couple hours)
Anyway, his section on planning for speedy combat convinced me to launch a little exercise of my own in order to determine just how long combat encounters should take in my game.
Now I'm gonna get all mathy on you.
My group is a bit of a challenge, because it is almost twice the size of a "standard" party at 7 PCs.
I decided to figure out how many rounds of combat I should expect in a given amount of time in order to extrapolate about how many combat or other scenes I should expect to plan for a given night.
So with 7 players taking 1 minute each to decide and resolve their rolls we're at 7 min./round. Give me an additional 3 minutes to resolve npc & monster rolls, plus wiggle room and I get a satisfying 10 min./round This means a half hour encounter will have only about 3 rounds of combat and an hour long encounter will have 6 rounds.
Since my group typically starts playing around 6:30 and tries to end by 10 at the latest, we should figure that a 5 scene night will average about 40 min. per scene while a 4 scene night could stretch to 50 min. per scene.
So how will I use this to help my planning?
* Well, I think I will try to limit my combat encounters to 1 or 2 per night, and will pick enemies &/or out conditions that will allow them to end after about 5 rounds of combat.
* I will enforce our turn timer rule a little more... we have a 30 second sand timer that works more like the Oscar music at the moment. It starts running after people are already hesitating... I think I should actually start using it. (Note: the timer only limits how long people can think about their move, not the time taken to resolve rolls.)
* The NPC & Monster turns are the ones I have the most control over. I have already developed several techniques for improving my timing on these, but can always tighten things up further.
* Non-combat encounters are where I can really control my pacing. If I keep an eye on the time while my players shop or talk with the orcish chieftain, I can do my best to wrap those encounters up in the given time limit. For shopping trips, I can even say, "You have 45 minutes to select everything you want to buy and then we're moving on."
Anyway, I found this little exercise enlightening and thought others who find themselves struggling with pacing might want to give it a try.
I usually feed people prior to starting, and do the drinking during. Food and or eating while gaming can really slow things down imho
As to the question of breaks & food:
Our game nights typically begin with dinner from 6-6:30 as people are arriving, so everyone usually has a chance to eat by the time we get rolling. Even then, we are pretty loose about having food at the table. I admit, it can make things feel a bit cluttered, but my group is pretty casual/social and I think implementing food on the table restrictions would turn people off.
I do try to work in a quick break or two during the course of the night. This usually happens as I set up a battle mat or new scene. When we are playing, it really isn't a problem for people to get up and grab a drink or an extra slice because the kitchen is right next to our play space and within line of sight of the table.
Anyway, last week's experiment seemed to work quite well. Granted, I made heavy use of "The Out":http://slyflourish.com/designing-30-minute-skirmishes-in-4e/ as discussed by Sly Flourish in order to wrap up combats in time. By tying an out condition to the next scene, I found that the players did not feel cheated out of a fight, but rather felt the pace of the night drove forward and kept them guessing. The specific example was a fight that occurred on a natural stone arch over a canyon. As the players were crossing the bridge, a herd of aurochs came stampeding their way followed by the two bulettes that were chasing them. The fight with the bulettes ended with the arrival of the lizardfolk who kept the aurochs as herd animals -the out. The lizardfolk were then lead the group into the next scene which was their request that the party meet their master.
Even just keeping an eye on the clock in order to pace my own action helped to tighten the gaps and drive the session forward.