Tricks and Empty Rooms

[Filcher]

Ugh, too true ... I once spent an entire session attempting to disbelieve a series of encounters.

 

[valis]

Thanks for all the great responses and comments! I hope everyone is getting some use from this.

 

[Mark CMG]

One of the most disturbing trends of the ‘new-school’ gaming philosophy was the inordinate focus on having things “make sense”. Creating dungeons that only have realistic ecosystems of magical creatures is an exercise in futility glorified by those of small imagination and little creativity. There are several factors that address this very issue and more.

• The high number of empty rooms addresses the large predator issue directly.

• Part of the cultural zeitgeist of Dungeons and Dragons was the mystique of the dungeon or underworld as the unknown. When playing the brave heroes who leave the realm of the known world and travel past the threshold to unknown depths, anything is possible.

• Monsters, humanoids and magical beasts in particular are not just animals or men with different hats on. They are the physical manifestations of our fears and risk. You don’t have to worry about what they eat or how they live. Orcs are the ancient ancestor with superior physical strength and squad tactics who we ran into extinction, vampires our fear of rape, the lich our fear of ancient rulers imposing their unending rule upon us, flesh golems the fear of what might come back if we were to raise the dead, skeletons and zombies our fear of the relentless nature of what is to come. To acknowledge a fireball, yet express disbelief that the owlbear can’t live off the caloric content of vermin on dungeon level two is petty indeed.

Remember, it is a game. There is no need to waste time wondering why there’s a flaming vent trap here, who cares why it’s set or why it’s still working. The dungeon itself might be hundreds of thousands of years old! Just think of who could have owned it during all that time.

I bolded a portion of a section a thought might be worth discussing further and quoted the full section for context. I like how this is put but admit that I also prefer if something makes sense to me as a DM even if the players never have the total knowledge of why, for instance, a particular trap is somewhere. I might merely, offhandedly decide that something is the way it is because of some reason and I might never even jot it down but my brain does tend to move toward having some sort of narrative solution or explantion. Are other people like this?

 

[valis]

I bolded a portion of a section a thought might be worth discussing further and quoted the full section for context. I like how this is put but admit that I also prefer if something makes sense to me as a DM even if the players never have the total knowledge of why, for instance, a particular trap is somewhere. I might merely, offhandedly decide that something is the way it is because of some reason and I might never even jot it down but my brain does tend to move toward having some sort of narrative solution or explantion. Are other people like this?

I would just say that assuming a naturalistic explanation is the only kind of explanation that is valid (i.e. makes sense) shows a lack of imagination.

I discuss that here in the context of Race as Class.

 

[Shadowslayer]

I bolded a portion of a section a thought might be worth discussing further and quoted the full section for context. I like how this is put but admit that I also prefer if something makes sense to me as a DM even if the players never have the total knowledge of why, for instance, a particular trap is somewhere. I might merely, offhandedly decide that something is the way it is because of some reason and I might never even jot it down but my brain does tend to move toward having some sort of narrative solution or explantion. Are other people like this?

I'm with you. That paragraph jumped out at me too. Dungeons have to make a little bit of sense, but no, I don't try to constrain myself too much in the name of realism. Hell, just the dungeon itself is a pretty unreal place.

 

[Mark CMG]

I would just say that assuming a naturalistic explanation is the only kind of explanation that is valid (i.e. makes sense) shows a lack of imagination.

No doubt that the cause and effect of a situation need not be engendered naturalistically. Your caution is well noted.

I discuss that here in the context of Race as Class.

Could you expound more fully on the relationship of that blogpost to the tangent I am fostering? Although the dwarves in that blogpost are not natural in the same manner as humans are assumed (in that blogpost) to be natural, there does seem to be a naturalistic explanation of their inherent imparatives.

 

[Mark CMG]

I'm with you. That paragraph jumped out at me too. Dungeons have to make a little bit of sense, but no, I don't try to constrain myself too much in the name of realism. Hell, just the dungeon itself is a pretty unreal place.

Indeed, and I love the approach of beginning with a mindset that the challenges be some embodiment of fear. Stephen King made a very healthy career off that approach and with good reason, if you'll pardon the pun. It taps into the primal essence of human nature. It exploits our most basic instincts and inner conflicts. It's not only a good design concept but also a touchstone of a quality DM's frame of mind.

 

[valis]

No doubt that the cause and effect of a situation need not be engendered naturalistically. Your caution is well noted.

Could you expound more fully on the relationship of that blogpost to the tangent I am fostering? Although the dwarves in that blogpost are not natural in the same manner as humans are assumed (in that blogpost) to be natural, there does seem to be a naturalistic explanation of their inherent imparatives.

Absolutely.

It is actually in this case (the gradual elimination of race as class, first by instituting level limits, and eventually by the removal of said limits) that the 'make sense' paradigm is most blatantly displayed.

First, in the assumption that since human intelligence is the only one we are familiar with, anything intelligent must be intelligent in the same way. This leading to the eventual situation of humans in funny hats, and a bunch of people running around lacking the imagination to accept race as class, because they can't conceive of anything but a naturalistic (i.e. modern and science based) conception of the world.

Basically, the assumptions a hypothetical you (and me - when I was 14) were making about the way things had to make sense were in fact, only the most basic and limited way that they could.

This is a fantasy game - of the fantastic.

I, upon a closer examination of your original point, see that the problem is I failed to communicate clearly in the original document. I should replace the phrase "make sense" with what I really intended, which was the focus on things being designed and created from our limited naturalistic modern scientific viewpoint. I didn't elaborate this, because I assumed that the example about the caloric content and larger predators, plus the examples of thinking behind the general conception of the underworld made it clear. Clearly I overestimated my audience. Two failures on my part I will be sure to correct in an updated release.

As far as a direct response to your comment - in the same breath I say it doesn't matter the reasons why, i provide several examples that show that it's trivial of anyone of any degree of imagination to come up with an explanation to sustain the suspension of disbelief. And I quote:

"The dungeon itself might be hundreds of thousands of years old! Just think of who could have owned it during all that time."

 

[Ranes]

I just want to thank you for the work you put into these pieces. They're not just useful, they're a joy to read.

And I like where you're head's at.

Thanks again.

 

[Heathen72]

I think it's important to note that the OP is essentially discussing dungeoneering, almost a subgenre of gaming, which has a long and storied history. And I think the point that these environments need not represent some natural order is well made. The dungeon can be a game within a game, where players suspend their disbelief for a while to enjoy the puzzles and combat found within, even if the world outside the dungeon is one of politics and intrigue, or romance and deep narrative.

It doesn't have to be just dungeons, either. The Rule of Cool has been used in a few threads recently (Piratecat's "look ye mighty" thread, and fireinthedust's "frozen oceans" thread to name a couple) to counter advice from some posters that the GMs' ideas would benefit from being more in line with the natural or sociological order. Sometimes people seem to forget that it is a fantasy game we are playing, and that too heavy a reliance on real world facts can actually get in the way of telling a fun story. *Cough* Encumbrance *Cough*

Things don't have to be explainable to the nth degree, and in any case, GM's don't always know in depth botany or anthropology. So if you are bothered that the GM referred to the dungeon supports as "balsa wood" when he described the two headed Ogre crashing towards you, perhaps you are focussing on the wrong thing!* Sure, it's wrong -laughably wrong - and sure, it breaks your suspension of disbelief. But dude, there is an Two headed Ogre swinging a Club at your face. Stop nitpicking.

That said, just because a game doesn't need to follow natural order doesn't mean that it shouldn't follow any sort of logic at all. It doesn't matter how fantastical or magical your world is if the story you are telling doesn't hang together well. People like to look for patterns. We want to find reasons when something is really odd. So there should be some sort of internal logic to your game. This applies to dungeons too. People will happily player through a random dungeon, but if you put a werewolf, a vampire, a flesh golem and a lich in rooms next to each other, your players will start looking for Abbot and Costello.

And to be fair to the those who want more reality in their games, without you we might still be playing in worlds consisting of nought but dungeons, savage wildernesses and village taverns. It's nice that our game worlds are a bit more real. We just need to acknowledge that our character's don't live on earth. And even if they do, it's still a game.

*admittedly, if my GM says a supporting beam is made of balsa wood, I will want to figure out why! But you get my point