D&D 5E Building a dungeon that Meta-games

[UnknownDyson]

Warning: I know of at least one user on here who's head might explode if you read this. It is about Meta-gaming, so consider yourself warned.

I had an idea a couple days ago, and decided to post it here now that I have my thoughts straight. Has anyone seen a Living Dungeon? It is sentient, it is intelligent, and it can see and hear everything the heroes are doing as they progress through it. By the end, it knows every power they have used, and has probably planned accordingly.

Also, it has control of itself. If the heroes pull out of the dungeon to rest, the traps and enemies (all constructs) reset and move, or entirely new ones spawn in. The longer you spend fighting this dungeon, the harder it gets to win.

Thoughts?

You just described any layer of the Abyss.

 

[Warmaster Horus]

I believe that dungeon is called 'The Overlook Hotel'.

 

[Croesus]

I realize as I am writing this that it is coming off as adversarial style, but I am honestly just thinking of possibilities and examples. Not sure if I would actually do something like these specific traps.

Yeah, this sounds an awful lot like the early D&D I played, which was very much in the Gygax DM vs. Players style. I personally wouldn't enjoy it. After all, if there are no limits, the dungeon (GM) can win every time, and any player victory is only because the GM allows it.

That said, you can somewhat have both. Don't make the dungeon omniscient - it doesn't know the party has a wizard able to cast feather fall until it actually happens. It doesn't know the party has trouble with traps until they fail to locate/disarm a few. In other words, it learns as the party pushes deeper. That's much more reasonable and will force the players to try different solutions (and possibly hold back on some capabilities) in order to fool the dungeon.

The key is to create a situation where the players can succeed based on their decisions, which means there have to be limits on what the dungeon can do, and why. Give it a personality, or a directive, which can be deduced by the party and possibly used against it. Give the dungeon tendencies, just as characters have, so the players can game-plan against the dungeon. Give the party clues, whether through research or within the dungeon, so they can craft strategies. Then it's not GM vs. Players, it's Dungeon vs. Party.

As I constantly tell my players, I (the GM) will never try to kill off their characters. However, the NPCs and monsters will, to the best of their abilities. Plan accordingly.

 

[Blue]

13the Age explicitly has the concept of Living Dungeons as frequent PC adventures. The bore their way up from the underworld filled with magic. Each is unique, magical, and not necessarily needing a balanced ecology to exist.

When I run them, I give each a theme that I expand on.

 

[MNblockhead]

I guess I meta game a lot then. I write my adventures and alter published adventures with my players in mind.

By "Meta-game" I mean a few key things that are usually considered metagaming. Planning ahead based on the players powers, attacking specific characters first, without any obvious sign of who they are (How do you tell the difference between the Paladin and Cleric?The dungeon has seen the difference. It knows who heals better, and it will target them.), and possibly putting an obstacle or two in their path that is damn near impossible for their skill set.

For example, a party with no thief, or otherwise designated-trap-person. Lay a whole floor full of deadly traps, and watch the party throw themselves against it. They pull out to rest? Move the traps up to the floor above that, but leave it looking exactly the same. Move triggers to traps, meaning that different tiles are safe now, while previously safe ones will trigger it. Remove the traps entirely, and watch them waste their time checking the whole floor over again, believing that it has reset.

Make traps for specific party members. Wizard has feather fall? Make a trap that triggers when a spell is cast above it, at which point it opens into a pit. The catch? Immediately below the door is an anti-magic Zone. Barbarian is strong man? Place two traps in positions where they are likely to trigger at the same time. Both of them require a great deal of strength to open, meaning he must choose one of his party members while the other suffers, and potentially dies depending on the trap. The kind of planned rooms that you probably can't get away with without your players calling BS.

One of my players likes climbing things. Constantly, he climbs something and jumps off like he is playing Assassin's Creed. This Dungeon would place traps that activated when he climbed on conveniently placed decorations. Maybe one that launches him straight up 20-30 feet, at which point all but one right within his reach pull into the walls (maybe make it look a little rusted or something. That would be a clue, since everything else in the dungeon is clean). The catch? That one is also trapped, and does the same thing. Now he faces 60 feet of fall damage.

I realize as I am writing this that it is coming off as adversarial style, but I am honestly just thinking of possibilities and examples. Not sure if I would actually do something like these specific traps.

 

[aco175]

I like the idea of a living dungeon. The problem is to keep the players from figuring it out until the end. Once they figure it out they can react to it and stop it. Not much different from a lich scrying all the time, a ghost flying through the rooms to spy on them, or a series of halls along the rooms where the BBEG spys through peepholes.

 

[Lanliss]

I like the idea of a living dungeon. The problem is to keep the players from figuring it out until the end. Once they figure it out they can react to it and stop it. Not much different from a lich scrying all the time, a ghost flying through the rooms to spy on them, or a series of halls along the rooms where the BBEG spys through peepholes.

Not sure what they would be able to do to stop it, unless they spent all hours within the dungeon under a Greater Invisibility spell. but then it would probably just figure something magical is happening, and have a floor full of anti-magic fields.

 

[Sunseeker]

I meant to run a horror version of this by converting the layout of the Event Horizon into a dungeon.

 

[Chryssis]

When I read this the first thing that popped into my mind was Vast: the Crystal caverns https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/170416/vast-crystal-caverns
You could essentially model the dungeon as the boardgame, as long as the dungeon has rules/a goal. ie it wants to collapse and kill everyone, in order to do that it needs to do XYZ. The party needs to take certain actions that will help the dungeon, ex open doors, break magical locks. if they don't do these things they can't progress/leave the dungeon/make it to the dragon to kill. Would be a little tricky to gauge the requirement for the dungeons vs the requirements for the party to succeed to not make it either a roflstomp for the cave, or a walk in the park for the party, but could be super fun. Party doesn't know what the dungeons goal is, or what helps it out, but the dungeon knows what it and the party wants.

 

[MNblockhead]

Yeah, this sounds an awful lot like the early D&D I played, which was very much in the Gygax DM vs. Players style. I personally wouldn't enjoy it. After all, if there are no limits, the dungeon (GM) can win every time, and any player victory is only because the GM allows it.

Not fair to call it the "Gygax" style. If I were to characterize Gygaxian 1e D&D DM style it would be "a confident and assertive DM fairly refereeing players through challenging scenarios." He didn't make things up on the fly, but he expected players to thoughtful and clever problem solvers.