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I'm also running some D&D 4e now, so for what you're talking about, I would use these as either Advantages or "Special" in skill challenges and not implement critical success or failure outside of them. These would apply to skill challenges of Complexity 3 or higher only. As an example, you...

This is actually the name of the yuan-ti faction in my Archipelago Isles island-hopping sandbox. The largest of the islands is dominated by them and their city is built on a megadungeon. And yep, I got it from that song!

Only magic rings are destroyed in lava.

I would say the game design is done and for this it's now adjusting dials or turning options on or off.

Possibly, but I think the source material we have for D&D 5e contains a lot of different examples of dungeons, what they were built for originally, and what they are used for now. From even just there, the mind races thinking of all sorts of other fantastical possiblities - a manifestation of a...

Where I find these sorts of concerns curious is that in a game based on make-believe, we can just make up how the dungeon got there and what it was once used for (or anything else about it), so isn't this sort of admitting to a failure of imagination?

Random encounters are definitely covered in the DMG. Time is somewhat lacking in rules depth, but only to the extent that they leave it to the DM to decide what is important to them there. (I run exploration in 10 minute turns, for example.) For spells, it's as easy as removing the ones that...

That has not been my experience. Some dials need to be adjusted on occasion to fit the experience you're going for (more survival horror or less), but D&D 5e does dungeons just fine. I find the rules actually work better, particularly around the 6-8 encounter workday in a dungeon environment...

:unsure: Dragons aren't natural creatures and it's a game based on make-believe. Dragons also appear in both the Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury, two pretty good dungeons from D&D 3e that was updated to D&D 5e. How about a white dragon in a series of glacial ice caves and ruins from a...

I support anything that uses more dungeons and more dragons.

For those, I often put a long wooden plank nearby amidst some rubble. It looks kind of like something fell away from the ceiling perhaps, but the plank is used by the denizens to cross the pit safely. Smart PCs figure it out. The rest? Well...

Same dungeon as the mimic I mentioned upthread, the PCs come across a pentagram of cold green flames in the middle of a wide hallway leading to other parts of the dungeon. At the five points of the pentagram are funeral urns. Five shadows spawn here and attack the living, respawning after 1d4...

Yeah, I mean, we wouldn't want a dungeon to be fun.

If you ask this question in ChatGPT, you will get good answers and can ask follow-up questions that make a lot of sense to me. I'll add to those answers, read the DMG! (ChatGPT agrees with this too.) You can use this tool to help plan your games, too. It saves a LOT of time. Good luck!

I was thinking back to my most recent use of these monsters. A fun little exercise. Black Pudding: A guardian of the vault of Mazhug, the Last King of the Orcs in a dungeon. It first appears as inky darkness when the vault door opens. Once touched, it awakens to attack. Under the floor of the...

My very first character ever died to a carrion crawler in the very first encounter. So I'm happy to inflict that pain on others whenever I get the chance. One of them appeared in a dungeon that I'm running for a group right now - the very same dungeon my character died in back when Milli Vanilli...

Sure, that was the expectation of those editions of the game. The adventuring party was much bigger than what we see nowadays, so some of the people were expendable. Having them die in hilariously complicated ways was part of the fun.

Careful exploration doesn't necessarily take a lot of time or need to be a slog either. I'm running a dungeon now that involves careful exploration, social interaction, high stakes, drama, and character development. I would bet that group sees more action in 3 hours than many see in several...

My point being I still don't think this is "meta play." It's not a default position that one should create a backstory beyond what the rules describe, nor be attached to the character, nor is carefully exploring necessarily "meta play." It's just play, and reasonable play in a dangerous...

I don't make "insta-kill death trap dungeons" and I still don't encourage players to create backstories for their characters before play. I prefer they do only as much as is necessary to define their concept, then add to it when inspired to do so during play. Also, I can imagine a situation in...