D&D 5E Building a dungeon that Meta-games

aco175 said:

The problem is to keep the players from figuring it out until the end. Once they figure it out they can react to it and stop it.

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Why is that a problem? That sounds like fun to me.

Croesus said:

Yeah, this sounds an awful lot like the early D&D I played, which was very much in the Gygax DM vs. Players style. I personally wouldn't enjoy it. After all, if there are no limits, the dungeon (GM) can win every time, and any player victory is only because the GM allows it.

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That's not Gygax style.

That's 'back when gamers were mostly people with inadequate social graces, bullying issues, or in an unfortunate adolescent phase of development' style.

schnee said:

That's not Gygax style.

That's 'back when gamers were mostly people with inadequate social graces, bullying issues, or in an unfortunate adolescent phase of development' style.

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For better or worse, that's what's often meant by the term "Gygax DMing" even if it's not how Gary himself ran the game. I'm a big fan of Gygax, but when people talk about "Gygax D&D" they're talking about overtly arcane combat rules and S1 Tomb of Horrors-like dungeons lampooned by Knights of the Dinner Table and HackMaster. It's not a huge jump to straight DM vs PC thinking.

Bacon Bits said:

For better or worse, that's what's often meant by the term "Gygax DMing" even if it's not how Gary himself ran the game. I'm a big fan of Gygax, but when people talk about "Gygax D&D" they're talking about overtly arcane combat rules and S1 Tomb of Horrors-like dungeons lampooned by Knights of the Dinner Table and HackMaster. It's not a huge jump to straight DM vs PC thinking.

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(sigh)

Yeah, I guess you're right. It's a bit depressing though, when you hear people that literally work in the industry using it that way in podcasts. Like, they don't even understand or respect where this came from and can't understand nuance.

So few people realize Tomb of Horrors was made the way it was for a very specific group of people - extremely experienced gamers - to be run as a tournament competition. That dungeon being put into the hands of stupid 8th graders in the 80's was like giving an idiot a loaded gun.

There was a 3e Prestige Class named something like Dungeon Master. I wish I could find the reference again.
In short, BBEG for that dungeon is attuned to it. He knows when something is moved / taken, traps set off, &c. He already knows the place by heart so he can spy on the PCs at will. HE can be the intelligence behind the dungeon, that gradually changes the innermost depths to become an optimized anti-PC trap. He probably won't mess with the entrance (much) because he never knows when random 'somebody elses' will walk in.
Potential goals:
- complete privacy
- be left alone
- he might be trapped and want out - but it takes a blood sacrifice to escape. (He is trying to capture a lot of random hero blood, or may need to kill somebody horribly in a ritual chamber.) As a plot twist, if you kill the BBEG you become the next victim of the curse.

aco175 said:

I like the idea of a living dungeon. The problem is to keep the players from figuring it out until the end. Once they figure it out they can react to it and stop it. Not much different from a lich scrying all the time, a ghost flying through the rooms to spy on them, or a series of halls along the rooms where the BBEG spys through peepholes.

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GX.Sigma said:

Why is that a problem? That sounds like fun to me.

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Yeah, seconded.

If you make those specific mechanics, provide the right information to the party, narrate them in relatively dramatic ways, and even have different floors have different sets of them to overcome, then it becomes a very interesting 'puzzle' overlaid onto the usual things.

HUGE flavor.

I'm totally going to rip it off.

iserith said:

I'd delve that.

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I'd delve that for a gold piece.

I really like the idea of a living dungeon or at least a malevolent intelligence inhabiting a place. I think it's a variation on stocking your dungeon with inhabitants that try to actively thwart the PCs.

Some questions that come to mind:
- how quickly can the dungeon make changes?
- what senses does the dungeon possess and is it possible to fool its senses?
- how many changes can the dungeon make in a given time-frame?
- does anything prevent the dungeon from creating/summoning extremely deadly traps/creatures/effects whenever it wants?

MonkeyWrench said:

I really like the idea of a living dungeon or at least a malevolent intelligence inhabiting a place. I think it's a variation on stocking your dungeon with inhabitants that try to actively thwart the PCs.

Some questions that come to mind:
- how quickly can the dungeon make changes?
- what senses does the dungeon possess and is it possible to fool its senses?
- how many changes can the dungeon make in a given time-frame?
- does anything prevent the dungeon from creating/summoning extremely deadly traps/creatures/effects whenever it wants?

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1- I was thinking that it might be limited to being unable to change the current floor, but can change a bit of it's layout over a long rest. It requires a longer time to fully change its layout.

2- sight (Darkvision) and hearing. No truesight, so you could be invisible and be fine. You might also be able to fool it with an illusion.

3- Unsure. Maybe something like 1 major change per hour? So, given an hour, it could place one trap that wasn't there before, or make a few slight changes to 2 traps.

4- It isn't all-powerful, just really powerful within its space. It is limited to making things out of itself, so it could only make Constructs and traps. As for traps, it is limited by its creativity and time. The later floors might be traps that have sat the same for decades or centuries, as they have been reliable in keeping the adventurers out, or floors that have slowly evolved to include traps to kill every adventurer who has entered in the past several centuries.

I have been thinking about the story of the dungeon, and think it might be either a Prison for something, or a security system.

Prison: Much like the Minotaur in its labyrinth, something lies at the center of the Dungeon, something old and deadly. The dungeon uses the powers of the many adventurers as examples of things it has to protect against, in case the Prisoner gained such a power.

Security: Mighty wizard or secret society sits at the center of the dungeon, well known because their name is on the front door of the dungeon. They use the dungeon for two reasons.
1)Keep unimportant people away from them, because they don't want to be troubled by the locals who need a solution for their problems.
2) Test new initiates, who are trained away from the dungeon, and brought to it to reach the center.

Lanliss said:

I had an idea a couple days ago, and decided to post it here now that I have my thoughts straight. Has anyone seen a Living Dungeon? It is sentient, it is intelligent, and it can see and hear everything the heroes are doing as they progress through it. By the end, it knows every power they have used, and has probably planned accordingly.

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Nah, that's just your run-of-the-mill sentient dungeon! It's only meta-gamey (and trolly) if the dungeon always waits til hour 7 of the long rest to send monsters against them

Extra points if a thunderous voice booms "Ha ha, suck it noobs!"