Are "Pretty" Dungeons Better?
the Jester
Legend
It depends on what you mean.
"Should I have a place for the residents to pee, throw their trash, cook food, etc?" YES. This is something that makes a difference as far as the players' ability to suspend disbelief.
"Should I worry about calculating the load-bearing weight of the bridge in area 12?" NO. Because unless it's relevant to the adventure, it doesn't matter.
"Should I have a place for the residents to pee, throw their trash, cook food, etc?" YES. This is something that makes a difference as far as the players' ability to suspend disbelief.
"Should I worry about calculating the load-bearing weight of the bridge in area 12?" NO. Because unless it's relevant to the adventure, it doesn't matter.
each household within the dungeon (that is entities that live together as opposed to live near each other) will have:
place to sleep (territorially, 1 place per entity)
place to eat
place to cook food
place to dump waste (usually away from the sleeping/food areas)
so a group of orcs might share 1 dungeon room with a bed roll per orc. The head orc might get his own room.
there's probably a room for cooking and eating.
the orcs might do all of this in one room.
the orcs will have a latrine bucket and dump their waste down a hole (the ladder hole to the next level?) Or they might just do their business over the hole.
With this model, even a random dungeon may be made sense of from a living quarters perspective.
place to sleep (territorially, 1 place per entity)
place to eat
place to cook food
place to dump waste (usually away from the sleeping/food areas)
so a group of orcs might share 1 dungeon room with a bed roll per orc. The head orc might get his own room.
there's probably a room for cooking and eating.
the orcs might do all of this in one room.
the orcs will have a latrine bucket and dump their waste down a hole (the ladder hole to the next level?) Or they might just do their business over the hole.
With this model, even a random dungeon may be made sense of from a living quarters perspective.
I'm going to break the mold here and say: No, verisimilitude is not necessary for a dungeon. There are some cases where it will help the game feel more immersive and add fun details, but it is generally not required and in extreme cases can even detract from the storyline.
In almost all cases, the purpose of a dungeon is to give the characters a setting and background for the adventure. This is an important and asymmetrical relationship; the adventure should not be the background for the dungeon. As a DM, if you ever hit a point where the players are more interested in the buttresses that the butt-kicking, you have probably made a mistake somewhere (or you're DMing for a party of wandering architects and contractors).
If you are designing a dungeon and find yourself getting extremely involved in the dungeon design, at some point you should step back and ask yourself "are these details more important than other details that are directly related to the story?" Is it more important to add extra bathrooms to a dungeon, or to add extra locations in the town for the party to collect information? Is column design more important than NPC character design? The answers will vary based on the case and campaign, but they are important to ask.
In almost all cases, the purpose of a dungeon is to give the characters a setting and background for the adventure. This is an important and asymmetrical relationship; the adventure should not be the background for the dungeon. As a DM, if you ever hit a point where the players are more interested in the buttresses that the butt-kicking, you have probably made a mistake somewhere (or you're DMing for a party of wandering architects and contractors).
If you are designing a dungeon and find yourself getting extremely involved in the dungeon design, at some point you should step back and ask yourself "are these details more important than other details that are directly related to the story?" Is it more important to add extra bathrooms to a dungeon, or to add extra locations in the town for the party to collect information? Is column design more important than NPC character design? The answers will vary based on the case and campaign, but they are important to ask.
I think that dungeons, considered as a whole, are primarily illogical gamist constructs (conventions) designed to offer the players a particular set of rewards (gold, magic items, plot-critical dinguses) and obstacles (monsters, traps, trap-like monsters). That said, I do believe there should be a little logic behind these inherently illogical locations. A few nods to realism/verisimilitude, especially in places where they relate to meaningful play choice and puzzle-solving.
Dungeon realism for dungeon realism's sake is unnecessary, a waste of the designer's time and/or hilarious (too much logic applied to a nonsensical premise results in... well... Lewis Carroll).
However, enough realism to make the whole dungeon one big logical puzzle --ie, to enable smart play-- that's golden.
Dungeon realism for dungeon realism's sake is unnecessary, a waste of the designer's time and/or hilarious (too much logic applied to a nonsensical premise results in... well... Lewis Carroll).
However, enough realism to make the whole dungeon one big logical puzzle --ie, to enable smart play-- that's golden.
HandofMystra
First Post
I once had a (RL) architectural engineer in our party. He was great (and he played the dwarf). Especially when we got the wand of stone to mud.
David Howery
Hero
I always wondered if EGG designed the gelatinous cube just for 'logical' dungeons... they eat everything organic, but can't eat stone. So, put one at the bottom of a deep shaft, and voila, garbage disposal in a dungeon.
IMO, a dungeon should stand up to basic tire kicks by the players. That means it must be able to fulfill whatever function it was designed for. If the dungeon is a ruined castle, there should be a kitchen someplace--or a heap of rubble where a kitchen used to be. If the players concoct a plan based around "Okay, this was a castle, there must have been a kitchen, so let's find it and do X," they are entitled to find either a kitchen or a good reason why there isn't one.
That said, you don't need to go deeper than the players are likely to dig, and it's okay to say, "Look, guys, I appreciate your devotion to detail, but maybe you shouldn't rely too heavily on your calculation that the arch I described holding up the ceiling is architecturally unsound and therefore a powerful wizard was secretly involved in building this place. It's just a 15th-level arch with the Defy Nitpicky Engineers feat, okay? Hey, look, a monster!"
Much also depends on how much you want the players paying attention to dungeon detail, and how much they enjoy doing so. If you reward them for noticing the little things, they will look for little things. If they like looking for little things, and you like putting them in, great! If not, perhaps you should start glossing over some of this stuff.
That said, you don't need to go deeper than the players are likely to dig, and it's okay to say, "Look, guys, I appreciate your devotion to detail, but maybe you shouldn't rely too heavily on your calculation that the arch I described holding up the ceiling is architecturally unsound and therefore a powerful wizard was secretly involved in building this place. It's just a 15th-level arch with the Defy Nitpicky Engineers feat, okay? Hey, look, a monster!"
Much also depends on how much you want the players paying attention to dungeon detail, and how much they enjoy doing so. If you reward them for noticing the little things, they will look for little things. If they like looking for little things, and you like putting them in, great! If not, perhaps you should start glossing over some of this stuff.
Aeolius
Adventurer
When I was designing my interpretation of the Jungle of Lost Ships (World of Greyhawk), the current region where the party is adventuring, I began with the sparse information written in the ’83 Glossography. From that point forward, I looked to nature, to gauge the feasibility of such a site.
I came across seamounts , which “Because they project out above the surrounding sea floor, they disturb standard water flow, causing eddies and associated hydrological phenomena that ultimately result in water movement in an otherwise still ocean bottom.”, seemed a perfect natural explanation for the slow rotation of the Weed-Sea.
From that point, I looked over drift seeds , to see what a population of humans stranded on the dense floating island might have to eat, in addition to fish, mollusks, and migratory birds.
Recalling the immense about of debris generated by the Tsunami in Japan, including whole structures torn from the land and washed out to sea, I imagined such a supply of timber available to the residents of the Weed-Sea, to supplement the wooden ships already entrapped within the seaweed. I used Popeye Village , the Sweethaven set erected for the movie “Popeye” in 1980 and still in used as a tourist attraction today, as the template for the ramshackle village that might arise from the debris.
I suppose it may add a degree of realism and thus believability to the adventure in hand, but truth be told I enjoy seeing the bits of research come together as a whole.
In the undersea reaches where the party will be traveling I envisioned three undersea shelves upon the seamount. The first overgrown with a kelp forest , the second holds a massive forest of tree-sized coral , and the third holds mysterious ruins tended by a tribe of water dwarves (who in turn were inspired by tube worms ).
Upon the seamount are the ruins of a forgotten temple guarded by a beastie inspired by sea salps and giant siphonophores .
I have too much fun, for people.
I came across seamounts , which “Because they project out above the surrounding sea floor, they disturb standard water flow, causing eddies and associated hydrological phenomena that ultimately result in water movement in an otherwise still ocean bottom.”, seemed a perfect natural explanation for the slow rotation of the Weed-Sea.
From that point, I looked over drift seeds , to see what a population of humans stranded on the dense floating island might have to eat, in addition to fish, mollusks, and migratory birds.
Recalling the immense about of debris generated by the Tsunami in Japan, including whole structures torn from the land and washed out to sea, I imagined such a supply of timber available to the residents of the Weed-Sea, to supplement the wooden ships already entrapped within the seaweed. I used Popeye Village , the Sweethaven set erected for the movie “Popeye” in 1980 and still in used as a tourist attraction today, as the template for the ramshackle village that might arise from the debris.
I suppose it may add a degree of realism and thus believability to the adventure in hand, but truth be told I enjoy seeing the bits of research come together as a whole.
In the undersea reaches where the party will be traveling I envisioned three undersea shelves upon the seamount. The first overgrown with a kelp forest , the second holds a massive forest of tree-sized coral , and the third holds mysterious ruins tended by a tribe of water dwarves (who in turn were inspired by tube worms ).
Upon the seamount are the ruins of a forgotten temple guarded by a beastie inspired by sea salps and giant siphonophores .
I have too much fun, for people.
