D&D General How do you like your dungeons?

[Corinnguard]

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.

Well someone has to build the place that later becomes the dungeon. Then they either stock it with inhabitants, traps and puzzles before advertising it's location to attract several someones to entertain them (the adventurers). Or they let the place to go to ruin and let nature take it's course when it comes it being populated by monsters and such.

 

[Crimson Longinus]

And yeah, I really want dungeon to make at least some modicum of sense. Why does this thing exist, who build it? What do these creatures eat? It can be weird, but there needs to be some logic to it.

 

[el-remmen]

Big.

Not the dungeons.

The rooms.

Almost every published adventure has rooms that are way, way too small. Like, too small to hold 4-6 PCs and an equal number of monsters in a fight on a grid.

Think bigger, people!

I do often find myself either having to make rooms bigger or smaller.

 

[Aurel Guthrie]

With dragons

 

[Corinnguard]

Minotaur character: "A-maze-ing"

 

[Ancalagon]

One of my favourite dungeons of all times was the adventure (which is 90% dungeon) Gates of Firestorm Peak. Here are some of the features that made me like it so much:

1: Not too big. It is a large dungeon (125 rooms!) but not quite a megadungeon. Near endless dungeons that never end are boring

2: Variety: The dungeon had roughly 4 "sections", each with different monsters, design and general feel

3: Made sense: the later end of the dungeon is fairly "gonzo" BUT the "nonsense" was explained, it made sense within the context - far realms contamination.

4: Factions: This dungeon had various groups inhabiting it, with different goals and motives. Some of these factions were hostile, some could be turned into allies etc.

5: a "tough entrance" - it explained why few outsiders were in there, and also made it difficult for the PCs to retreat - they had to survive in there for a while! I'll note that I don't find it fair to a party to "force" them into such a situation - they knew what they were getting into (sort of... but at least they knew to get provisions etc).

Another fun one was published in Dungeon Magazine, a 2e adventure by Perkins, called "My lady's mirror". This was a 70 ish room "dungeon" that was actually a castle, with several floors. The absent owner of the castle, a powerful mage, had trapped many foes in a magical mirror. The mirror was broken, releasing a flood of foes. This resulted in a very, very dynamic environment, with lots of RP possibilities, and provided creative PCs many options on how to enter the castle etc.

 

[Quickleaf]

That's a nice list @Ancalagon !

One thing I forgot to mention, and it's just a little thing but it was a lot of fun, is including little moments of discovery that go from the micro to the big picture of the dungeon.

One I ran in a small-to-medium size homebrew dungeon was a rusted locked iron gate with perforated sheet metal covering the center of it, and two alcove rooms to either side. Within the alcoves were angled torches in sconces and arrow-slit style "windows" facing the backside of the iron gate. Players figured out to clean rust off the gate, then light alcove torches while extinguishing their own lights, and the perforated metal became backlit, revealing a little luminous dungeon map.

It was a totally optional thing - a group playing in a different style may have searched for traps, found none, then broken or picked the locked gate, and gone on their merry way - but it added a lot to our enjoyment of the dungeon.

 

[Lanefan]

Just about all of the above, over the course of a campaign. Ideally, every dungeon is different; where one might be a non-linear trap-filled funhouse the next might be a small realistic castle with a foe in every room and the next a massive mostly-abandoned labyrinth of Jacquaysed caverns.

It's easier to list off the things I don't like, because there's way less of them: overly fantistical (as per the examples listed), linear (booooring), or overly-crafted. The rest - even the other things I didn't vote for - I can live with now and then.

 

[CreamCloud0]

i already made my picks but if i was getting specific to an 'ideal' dungeon the two specific points i think i'd most state as my priorities in it's creation.
-on the larger side, non-linear/jaquayed, not a megadungeon but takes a significant amount of exploring, and for exploration to be as freely traversable as possible
-strong theme, carefully crafted, puzzle focused, for the dungeon be more than a damage endurance gauntlet (not to say there shouldn't be monsters/traps)

 

[Retros_x]

I clicked almost everything because all of these can work depending on the campaign. I even use linear dungeons from time to time with good effect (if you want to have a sort of gauntlet or trial situation). I had dungeons as the main focus of the adventure. I had adventures that had barely any dungeons in them except for maybe real small contained ones with less than 5 rooms. I used random generated ones if I just quickly needed one or felt creatively dry. I have no strong focus because I believe it completely depends on the atmosphere and the gameplay I try to achieve.