D&D General How do you like your dungeons?

[Fifinjir]

Fantastical and Strongly Themed: these two are linked. When I think of an RPG dungeon, I think not of a natural place but something like a genius loci with its own set of rules.
Non-linear: I need room to breathe.
One of many locations: you’re fighting the enemy on their own turf now, contrast with other locations makes that more apparent and climactic.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

I voted limited in scope, strong theme and just one location in the adventure. Other stuff is fine, but not mandatory. But basically what I mean by these three, is that I like dungeons to be small, have a clear role and that they're just one adventure location among many. I like dungeons well enough, but I don't want the game to be all about them, and I don't want to spend in one dungeon more than a session or maybe two. This necessitates the dungeon being rather limited in scope. I really am not interested in endless megadungeons which the entire campaign in is focused on.

 

[Corinnguard]

I voted for Expansive, Realistic, Trap-filled, Monster-Filled, Non-Linear, Occupied, Carefully crafted, Just one location in the adventure and Puzzle-based. I voted for Puzzle-based because visiting a dungeon should be mentally challenging as well as physically challenging. Back in the 90's I played games such as Wizardry 7 and 8, Wizards and Warriors, and Elder Scrolls (Arena and Daggerfall) where the character or characters had to solve a puzzle or a riddle in order to get a treasure or to get into another part of the dungeon. A dungeon should not be a walk in the park.

 

[Reynard]

What even is a dungeon? I understand what it means in day-to-day language, a underground prison most often in a castle, but in the context of D&D I have a much broader definition. The entirety of Castle Ravenloft is a dungeon in my opinion even though the bulk of is isn't underground. A 24 room haunted mansion, a temple, or even a large ship could all be dungeons for the purposes of D&D games in my opinion.

I totally agree that "dungeon" means "contained adventure location" and can range anywhere from subterranean caverns to the wreckage of a crashed spaceship to a castle in the sky and more.

Meaningful not an option? Like, serve a purpose? The most important thing about any dungeon is that it provide a reason for being there and make the adventurers motivated to explore more. I get that the question assumes that this most important thing is already provided, but in practice I think it’s the one thing most forgotten.

Interesting question. I guess my natural inclination is to say that anything we put in the game is at least potentially meaningful. Why does it exist otherwise. But I also wouldn't want to erase dungeons that exist just to be explored. it is a game after all, and it is called Dungeons and Dragons, and there should be nothing wrong with including either of those things imply because they are fun to interact with.

 

[RoughCoronet0]

A dungeon is whatever crazy haphazard conglomerate, misshaped amalgamation I have created at the spur of the moment that changes between session as new ideas that I like better then my original ones forms in hindsight. The last large dungeon I had (on Roll20) used a good….eight already existing crystal dungeon battle maps that were connected in janky ways to form an underground cave system that led to a corrupted underground temple.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Anything but a realistic castle-like, where there's dozens of small rooms and cupboards, so you're not going to open all of them, but in one room there would be an interesting feature and now you missed it because you didn't spend the session grinding on doors.

That said, the dungeon should be realistic enough to be believable, so no 20-meter empty corridor deadends that are hewn into solid rock for no reason. Or putting a hydra into a room with one tiny door that it would have never fit through, with no food source in sight.

 

[Oofta]

What even is a dungeon? I understand what it means in day-to-day language, a underground prison most often in a castle, but in the context of D&D I have a much broader definition. The entirety of Castle Ravenloft is a dungeon in my opinion even though the bulk of is isn't underground. A 24 room haunted mansion, a temple, or even a large ship could all be dungeons for the purposes of D&D games in my opinion.

I guess that's kind of my thought as well. Is a city just a big dungeon? After all it has rooms, locations, neighborhoods that have distinct feel to them. They happen to be populated by potential enemies and allies.

But there is a certain style of play that is very location based. Build the location first, make that location interesting in and of itself and then populate it once you're done with that step. That's how I first started playing D&D back in the day and there's nothing wrong with it. But if the setting is a city that happens to be underground carved out of a soft rock, it's still a city. It's how you populate that location, what motivation the PCs have to be there and what their goals are that matter more than anything to me.

So I guess what I mean when I say I don't do dungeons is that I don't do location based adventures. I don't build a location as the main attraction, the location adds flavor and color to the story and the antagonists and goals the group is pursuing. I want to make those environments interesting, sometimes challenging in their own right, but who is there and why is just going to be supported by where the encounters happen. The where can include locations some people would consider a dungeon. Like a (potentially mostly abandoned) city.

 

[Corinnguard]

Is a city just a big dungeon?

What about the layer of a plane such as Avernus? It's location based, it has challenges for the players to deal with, and it's populated by potential enemies and allies. It's also expansive enough to be considered a megadungeon.

 

[Oofta]

What about the layer of a plane such as Avernus? It's location based, it has challenges for the players to deal with, and it's populated by potential enemies and allies. It's also expansive enough to be considered a megadungeon.

Yeah. Maybe a better question is what came first? The chicken or the ... umm ... the dungeon or it's inhabitants and reasons to go there. Because I know there are people that are vehement that D&D only really works as a location based game. While I haven't had that spin on it for most of my years of DMing.

 

[Reynard]

I guess that's kind of my thought as well. Is a city just a big dungeon? After all it has rooms, locations, neighborhoods that have distinct feel to them. They happen to be populated by potential enemies and allies.

What about the layer of a plane such as Avernus? It's location based, it has challenges for the players to deal with, and it's populated by potential enemies and allies. It's also expansive enough to be considered a megadungeon.

I think we should be careful not to use terms so broadly that they become meaningless. A living, working city has very little in common with a dungeon. Similarly, a large region full of sites and terrain has little in common with a dungeon. These are all adventure sites, but the defining features of dungeons IMO is that they are contained and inherently hostile (that isn't to say there aren't occasional non-hostile elements within). There is of course some fuzzy areas. Is the underdark a dungeon or a region? Is a orc city a dungeon? But generally I think we can comfortably put dungeons, settlements, and wilderness in different categories.