Have we lost the dungeon?

[S'mon]

The notion of 'maturity' or 'sophistication' in D&D/rpgs is oxymoronic, and anyone who thinks otherwise is either very naive or delusional. If anything, devoting countless hours to detailing fictional worlds, characters, and adventures in a 'realistic' or 'sophicticated' manner is generally a sign of less maturity than someone hacking his way through a randomly-generated dungeon, because the person doing the latter has much more free-time available to devote to other, truly mature and sophisticated, activities than the person wasting his time and efforts on the former.

What activities are "truly sophisticated" (in your NSHO)? :\
If I'm not running D&D or reading D&D materials in my leisure time, I'm, er, reading Internet message boards or novels, going for walks/exercise, drinking/parties, watching TV, going to the theatre or musuems... I don't see any of those as necessarily more 'mature' or 'sophisticated' than my D&D game; many (certainly most TV) much less so. Some theatre can be sophisticated, but so can some RPGS; much of it definitely isn't.

 

[S'mon]

I see the communications problem - many people are using words like "evolved" in a teleological sense, so that "more evolved" = "better", the 'Ascent of Man' type idea (which leads to fantasies about humans 'evolving' into 'beings of pure energy' in supposedly scientific fiction) while Joshua is using it in a scientific sense of simply 'changed'. So eg Donjon is 'more evolved' than D&D, because Donjon has changed/deviated/progressed farther from the original roots of the RPG hobby. Doesn't mean Donjon is better (or worse) than D&D though, just different.

 

[darkelfo]

I can't play in a dungeon I can't believe in. If we're storming a fortress buried deep beneath a mountain, I have to believe in why some nitwit put a fortress under a mountain such that I'd have to go there to whallop their heiny. But figuring out why some nitwit would put a fortress under a mountain is where the DM has to do some significant work. So having a primal rallying cry of "Back to the dungeon!" supports the "DM is optional" at the cost of also supporting "More Roll than Role".

If I wanted a roll-playing game, I'd be playing Yatzee.

I agree completely. Non-sensical dungeons are a real drag. Not only that, but it takes a while to draw them up on a playing board so moving through them is inthe game can be tedius and repetative: "You approach a door. I check for traps. There are no traps. I peak in and do spot check. There are three orcs. We kill them. Ok, you approach another door. I check for traps..." and so on.

That said, I love a good dungeon. An enclosed space with a purpose and a sense of history. An ecology really helps. How did that gelatinous cube sit inside that room with a LOCKED door for so many centuries? How come the orcs in the other room didn't come rushing in when we were killing the orcs in this room?

A good GM will keep these sorts of things in mind. It's not rocket science either it's just plan "fanstastical" sense. Don't put a turtle dragon with a 30' wide shell in a 30' wide room. Perhaps the dungeon started off as a series of sewers that were expanded upon by squatters, drilled into by the drow and connected by accident to the catacombs of a surface temple. Add a rogue's guild for some flavor and a mad wizard looking for some privacy and you're good to go.

As the PCs travel, they discover the history of the "dungeon" by the GM's description: "As you turn the corner, its obvious that whoever created these sewers had no idea how deep the catacombs of the temple above ran. Ancient bricks lie broken and the cobwebs have recently been cleared in a hole in the sewer tunnel. The distinct smell of brimstone wafts from a dimly lit room filled with coffins. What do you do?"

 

[DonTadow]

I agree completely. Non-sensical dungeons are a real drag. Not only that, but it takes a while to draw them up on a playing board so moving through them is inthe game can be tedius and repetative: "You approach a door. I check for traps. There are no traps. I peak in and do spot check. There are three orcs. We kill them. Ok, you approach another door. I check for traps..." and so on.

That said, I love a good dungeon. An enclosed space with a purpose and a sense of history. An ecology really helps. How did that gelatinous cube sit inside that room with a LOCKED door for so many centuries? How come the orcs in the other room didn't come rushing in when we were killing the orcs in this room?

A good GM will keep these sorts of things in mind. It's not rocket science either it's just plan "fanstastical" sense. Don't put a turtle dragon with a 30' wide shell in a 30' wide room. Perhaps the dungeon started off as a series of sewers that were expanded upon by squatters, drilled into by the drow and connected by accident to the catacombs of a surface temple. Add a rogue's guild for some flavor and a mad wizard looking for some privacy and you're good to go.

As the PCs travel, they discover the history of the "dungeon" by the GM's description: "As you turn the corner, its obvious that whoever created these sewers had no idea how deep the catacombs of the temple above ran. Ancient bricks lie broken and the cobwebs have recently been cleared in a hole in the sewer tunnel. The distinct smell of brimstone wafts from a dimly lit room filled with coffins. What do you do?"

I think you hit the nail on the head. When I have used the world evolved or seen it, I see it not as better or levels of hierchy but of something turning into something else.

 

[Desdichado]

I see the communications problem - many people are using words like "evolved" in a teleological sense, so that "more evolved" = "better", the 'Ascent of Man' type idea (which leads to fantasies about humans 'evolving' into 'beings of pure energy' in supposedly scientific fiction) while Joshua is using it in a scientific sense of simply 'changed'. So eg Donjon is 'more evolved' than D&D, because Donjon has changed/deviated/progressed farther from the original roots of the RPG hobby. Doesn't mean Donjon is better (or worse) than D&D though, just different.

Exactly. And I use "mature" based on my business background; i.e., an emerging vs. a mature industry. There is not value judgement inherent in those terms, they just describe the types of conditions present.

Note that by this point, the hobby is already about 1/6 to 1/5 its current age. It's already evolving by the end of the 70s and beginning of the 80s. And the hobby has continued to mature since then, adding a larger variety of styles to play and drawing more adherents to the styles that were beginning to appear 5 years into development. Development of specialty niches and differences in approaches are definitely signs of a maturing hobby.

That's true, but it very much was still an emerging industry at that point. It wasn't until, what, the early 80s that the real expansion of D&D happened? Prior to that, it was an obscure game played by a few wargamers; after the initial media and PR hype it got, when it became something that everybody had heard of, is what really launched the industry into a phase it which it could evolve rapidly, identify, seize and fill multiple niches, and so on. Granted, it most certainly did evolve from the old OD&D of 1974 to the AD&D and BD&D boxed sets of 1980 or so, but the evolution was constrained by the fact that it was still a small, obscure industry, relatively speaking.

 

[diaglo]

I see the communications problem - many people are using words like "evolved" in a teleological sense, so that "more evolved" = "better"

most mutations lead to extinction. d02 is a mutation. give it time. it will lead to its rightful conclusion.

 

[PapersAndPaychecks]

D&D circa 1978-1981 was almost entirely dungeon-based, and it was big business. Some modules had a wilderness area but the wilderness was basically a setting and framework for the dungeons.

I'm trying to remember the first module that didn't have a substantial ruins/underground setting as its centrepiece, and thinking the answer must be UK1 from around 1982. By this point the bigger selling dungeons had sold something like a quarter of a million copies.

 

[Henry]

Exactly. And I use "mature" based on my business background; i.e., an emerging vs. a mature industry. There is not value judgement inherent in those terms, they just describe the types of conditions present.

(Henry looks in his Yearbooks, then in the mirror...)

Yeah - changed and got older. We can all hopefully agree that the hobby has done those.

 

[MerricB]

I'm trying to remember the first module that didn't have a substantial ruins/underground setting as its centrepiece, and thinking the answer must be UK1 from around 1982. By this point the bigger selling dungeons had sold something like a quarter of a million copies.

Let's not forget that the first adventures came out in 1978.

1979 was "Village of Hommlet"; a dungeon, but mainly an urban setting.

The big one was in 1981: The Isle of Dread.
1981 also has L1 which begins by describing the wilderness.

UK1 (1982) is very atypical, and a great adventure.

By 1982, the hybrid wilderness/dungeon adventure becomes commonplace, with I2: Tomb of the Lizardking, and I3-5: Desert of Desolation.

Even D1-3 aren't entirely dungeon modules...

Cheers!

 

[MerricB]

Dungeons are great for the inexperienced DM because they limit player choices and are easier to design and run. I hope we always have inexperienced DMs.

Dungeons are also fun for all "maturities" of players. However, D&D is more than just the dungeon.

Cheers!