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[Conaill]

Ah, dungeons... such a staple of fantasy roleplaying, right?

And yet, when you look at classical fantasy fiction, where are the real dungeons? Sure, you get the abandoned dwarven mines in Tolkien's work, or the occasional cave complex, or the medieval prison the heroes need to escape from. But where are the underground complexes with corridors and rooms that need to be explored and searched one by one, with danger lurking around every corner? It seems like the standard D&D dungeon was hardly a strong theme in fantasy literature before D&D became on the scene.

So why *is* it called Dungeons & Dragons, and not - say - Castles & Dragons, or at least Dragons & Lairs? My suspicion is that the dungeon is really a holdover of D&D's early origins in wargaming. A dungeon provides a nicely delimited area so the players aren't going tow wander "off the map", rectangular structures which are eminently adapted to drawing on a grid, a high density of encounters so the players can spend a lot of time on the same map layout, but convenient separations between the encounters so the players don't get overwhelmed by opponents and can somewhat choose their own pace. Notice how almost all doors in a dungeon are closed? Heck, you'd think they're even sound-proofed to judge by how some DM's play them...

Now, whereas these are all still eminently practical reasons for having dungeons in a comabt-oriented roleplaying game, I would hope that the hobby has evolved far enough from its wargaming roots that we can start dealing with dungeons in a somewhat more believable manner. Why are the inhabitants of the dungeon where they are? Why would they even bother to keep *any* doors shut? What do they live off, what do they do all day, where do they live? Why are there so many traps everywhere, why haven't they been set off by those wandering monsters, and who comes by to reset the traps when the have? You know how much it *costs* to install one of those traps? In some dungeons, the traps are worth more than the treasure they guard. Which dungeon owner in their right mind would bother with such a costly an ineffective method to keep people out? Unless they get some perverse pleasure out of wasting lots of money to torture hapless adventurers, that is.

Granted, modern-day dungeons like the WLD are getting a lot better at providing some sense of justification for the dungeon, its inhabitants and other features. But in the end, it's still largely a matter of "open the next door, defeat the monsters, loot stuff, rinse and repeat..." No thank you.


[Edit: Steam & Steel, please! ]

 

[Sigurd]

"open the next door, defeat the monsters, loot stuff, rinse and repeat..." No thank you.

While I agree that they are not always imaginative or refreshing some of my players absolutely thrive on them. Its sort of like playing several hands of poker one after the other -- sure its not a rich storyline but sometimes thats ok.

I'll include a 'dungeon' or two with players at least to see if they like them. Part of me can't get around the false logic of it all but the game is also about bums in seats.

Sewers
Strongholds
Mines
Graveyards & Mausoleums
Abstract Planes
Battlefield Trenches - I think it'd be great to have an adventure in a surviving battlefield.
Ruins

All of these are not more lucrative than say pillaging a town, but they have appeal because players like dungeons. Many of our skills are designed to be tested by\in them.

Sigurd

 

[demiurge1138]

What is a dungeon, anyway? If we are to believe the American Heritage dictionary, it is "A dark, often underground chamber or cell used to confine prisoners". Now, when was the last time a PC's spent a long period of time in a real dungeon? Only if they got captured or are going to rescue someone who has.

The term "dungeon" in Dungeons and Dragons is a figurative one, at best. A dungeon in the classic sense is an underground complex, laden with traps and monsters. Why it exists doesn't have to be clear, as long as there are monsters to be killed and treasure to be looted. But even in the old days, this wasn't exactly always the case. The names of old modules reflect this. Keep on the Borderlands. The Palace of the Silver Princess. The Tomb of Horrors. Any place where the PCs can roam around and kill monsters, even if it's not underground, is a dungeon in this sense.

Eventually, we get to where we stand today. Any single adventure site is a dungeon, in some sense. Previous posts have mentioned that 3e made a mistake in going "back to the dungeon", as if infinite staircases weren't good enough. But I think it's worth noting that that infinite staircase is a dungeon in its own right. It should also be known that the "back to the dungeon" motif didn't last very long at all. Although there's a lot of 3rd party game publishers working on old-school dungeon crawls, Wizards of the Coast's own modules didn't do so well. We're finally starting to see modules come back in a big way, due partly to the good work Paizo Publishing's been doing with Dungeon Magazine, and partly because WoTC is making modules that aren't just wading into a dungeon and killing everything (the Fantastic Locations, Sons of Gruumsh, the Eberron modules).

As for the literary origins of the dungeon, although the Mines of Moria have been brought up, a very important predeccesor has been forgotten. Much of The Swords of Lankhmar, takes place in the palace of Lankhmar's Overlord and in the tunnels of the wererats below the city. Neither of these are literally dungeons, but the feel of the book is very much like the site-based adventures we all know and love.

Demiurge out.

Oh, and the Libram Equitis compilation looks good.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Ah dungeons.
After the last campaign ended I took some time off while someone else ran games. I handed out a player survey and took a hard look at what my favorate sessions had been over the previous year. To my suprise all but one were dungeons - underground dwelling areas, filled and controlled by a single predominate creature, frequently but not always responsible for creating the complex. There were few traps, mostly around the treasure vault. There was always a door guard, and the dungeon would respond to raids reordering defenses and making foreys against the players camp.

One was a multilayer warren of ratmen with very few doors, and lots of twisty passages.
It was run by a necromancer and built ontop of a large cavern. On the second raid the master was killed and his apprentice set a trap, leaving a door or two open and drawing them forward with noises and shadows - in the cavern below, they were caught in a crossfire of ratmen archers, a few apprentices with wands and a flesh golem blocking thier escape. The ratmen were afraid of the fleshgolem and only used it when all else failed.
It was'nt the climax of the campaign, but the Necromancers records shed light on much of the game and hinted at the name and history of the BBEG.

Dungeons serve a place in a fantasy society - with wandering monsters, flying creatures, and Dragons, an underground base with controlled access points, and a partially concealed entrance is a great defensive measure. Burrowers are rare and with near 0 visability underground they are far less likely to drop by uninvited. Really your only problem is adventures.

Dungeons should have
1. dominant species
2. History or purpose
3. Escape routes
4. living quaters for noncoms and young.

As for traps, I like cheap, low magic traps - which relay in simple triggers and are built from muscle power. One of my favoriate tactics is to place inactive traps on the entrance, and activate so they catch people leaving, or people coming back for a second raid.

Puzzle and high magic traps are saved for special occasions and divine sponserd trials or quests. Two players really enjoy them, so they go in where I can manage it.

 

[RangerWickett]

. . . Excuse me for a moment. I typed a long post last night, and lost it. It was about my favorite dungeon ever.

So I'll just move along. Alzrius and IcyCool won.

The next topic will be the final topic of this thread, since Thanksgiving is coming up for Americans like me, and I probably won't be able to devote the time to the topic. I'll keep this topic open until Monday night, and I'll be giving out a pdf to up to four posters, one for each day.

The topic shall be: Memorable scenes. Share stories from your games that make for the most iconic scenes from those games. I am not concerned so much about the over-arching storyline, just the specific scene. If you can't have good scenes in fiction, you can't have a good story. Feel free to focus on combat, puzzles, narrative, or whatever else you can think of.

 

[IcyCool]

...

 

[RangerWickett]

Actually, the store should have sent a link to whichever address you entered when you signed up at EN World. It didn't send the file itself; you download the file. Check your email, and if it's not there, I can send it to that address.

 

[IcyCool]

Actually, the store should have sent a link to whichever address you entered when you signed up at EN World. It didn't send the file itself; you download the file. Check your email, and if it's not there, I can send it to that address.

Ah, well now I've got to remember which email address I used...

I won't be able to check them until tonight or later this weekend.

 

[sydbar]

Man i have so many, but here are a few

1- We made a deal with a green dragon to slay a shadow dragon, and he gave us each a magic item, one character was given a magic bow, and asked the dragon "what does it do", which the dragon repled with "for firing arrows".

2- We were hiking through the wilderness, when we were attacked by rats. Half the party went down, and our only cleric had his throat ripped out, and couldn't talk for 1 month.(in that game we used crit & fumble tables)

3- I told a stone giant trader named cashnew that bakatari means lots of cool stuff, so he decided to name his vehicle bakatari, and was heading to the orient. A few months later he came hunting for me since he was attacked because of the name, so he asked me if i knew what it really meant, and i stared the dm in the eye and said "I thought it meant lots of good stuff" keeping a straight face the whole time, and when rolling a wisdom check to see if he believed me, he rolled a 20(2nd ed campaign).

4- We were in a bar run by a purple dwarf named Malachite borf, when we were attacked by a group of pissed off gully dwarfs, during the combat i was blinded. I had an item called W.H.A.M. bubble gum(the prop was a round plastic container full of bubblegum balls of different colors, and to activate it i had to actually pop the bubble gum ball int my mouth in real life) and closing my eyes i openend the canister and grabbed a random gumball(white), which i showed to the dm than ate it, which caused my character to start belching a horde of soapy foam, which cleaned the bar and the gully dwarfs saving the whole party, but got me banned from the bar for a month.

5- My 2nd edition monk was on a set of slimy stairs with a torch in 1 hand, and my other arm in a sling, when the stairs started to collapse, so i used my tumbling skill head back up the stairs, and rolled a 1 on the tumbling check and made it back up the stairs while still holding the torch.

6- We were in an old dwarf city, being chased by a group of drow, we were able to lift up a portcullis in our way, and after we got through, i cast invisability on the portcullis to give us some extra time to escape, while climbing up an old well i heard a THUNK(drow flesh running into a portcullis). After climbing up the old well, we decided to attack the drow, and when the 1st drow head popped up, our dwarf grabbed a shield and belly flopped right on the drows head, knocking the whole group back down the well, and gave us enough time to escape.

Those are the ones i remember right off the top of my head, enjoy everyone.

 

[Wystan]

My Story:

Setup: Nightbane, a bunch of college students suddenly discover that they are not human, not only that, but in Nightbane you usually end up being either angelic or demonic to look at. We were all new at this and my character had been knocked out in a prior fight and was being carried by another player.

Setting: Top of a building looking for the people that were chasing us.

Antagonist: a sparrow.

The Gm states that the players see a sparrow sitting on the edge of the building watching us. They decide to leave it alone and keep looking for the bad guys. The GM then tells them that the sparrow appears to have moved towards them and appears to be slightly out of focus. All of a sudden (and without warning) the sparrow turns into a huge plant/animal creature that is bent on destroying the party. It rolls an attack on the guy holding my character and hits. The player states that he would like to parry and rolls the dice and succeeds. At this point the GM gets an odd look in his eye and asks "With what do you parry?" The player looks down, gets a horrified look on his face as he realizes that the only item he is carrying is me. He looks at the GM, looks at me and states "I guess I parry with Bill." The GM grins again, looks at me, describes me being torn in half and the party flees. His next words are..."OK Bill, roll up a new character."