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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Visigani" data-source="post: 5604545" data-attributes="member: 6676235">A Flowchart, a Rollercoaster, and a Wal-Mart. Just about every dungeon can be summed up as being a version of these things.The flowchart reference is obvious... a dungeon IS a physical flowchart... you make X choice to move in y direction.Rollercoaster a little less so. A rollercoaster isn't just "nonstop thrills and spills"... it has luls and then screaming craziness and then the loop and screaming craziness and lull and screaming craziness and so forth. The "flow" of the rollercoaster is what you want to mimic... seriously. Visualize a rollercoaster when you're determining the "path" your adventurers are most likely to take... when they enter room X will it be screaming craziness, lull, or curved loop? Too many lulls in a row? Too many thrills? You get my point.The final means to describe a dungeon is "wal-mart". Even if a dungeon doesn't have a variety of eco systems (though some certainly do)... they're frequently broken down into "departments".This is the Kobold Management Department, and this is the Kobold Arts and Crafts Department. This department is where Kobolds buy their shotguns made in Grand Rapids, Michigan. See what i'm getting at? Treat it like a department... and then determine what where and who would be found there.... and why it's put there. Is this the Medusa lair? Well why the hell is there a medusa living here? Is it because she's taken command of the nearby trog den and they do her bidding and bring her "food"? What sort of things decoarate this department? Why would she choose that?That's the "basics"... what you want info on are "puzzles". One of the best "puzzles" I've ever encountered in fiction was in the Dark Tower IV: Wizard and Glass.SPOLERZ, YO... MAHFAH SPOILERZ!!!---------------------------------The Gunslinger and his companions must board a monorail train that is both sinister and sentient. The monorail... named "Blaine the Mono" strikes up a bargain with the travelers. He agrees to take them across the wasteland to their destination, and the cost of passage is "Riddles".While traveling the companions must continuously riddle Blaine the mono... who possesses all the evil intelligence of a vast and centuries old computer network. There's a catch, however. Blaine is not only evil, he's both insane and suicidal. This run will be his last. If the companions want Blaine to stop at the end of the track they must, using their riddles, stump the machine. No mean feat as Blaine the Mono has endless recorded data and row after row of lightning fast dipolar processors.While traveling the leader of the group, Roland, tries to remember every Riddle he can think of, from his youth until now. None stump the machine.And here's where things get important.In the end it is the groups jokester and prankster of sorts... Eddie Dean... who fells the machine. The machine, quite capable of processing the logic of the Riddle is completely unable to process the connections found in jokes.And this is how Eddie Dean fells Blaine the Mono... through jokes.Good "dungeon puzzles" are like good riddles. And I don't mean they're just riddles... I mean they bear the characteristic of a good riddle.The above example illustrates how the riddle is in the action itself. The ultimate need for the group is to kill blaine the mono because even if they "win" he's going to kill them anyway. Consequently the 'answer" to the riddle of How does one survive a trip with Blaine the Mono during a riddling contest? is "tell him jokes"... which is entirely NOT obvious in the beginning.Stage your dungeon 'puzzles" in a similar fashion. Simply having a collection of levers to pull sucks.... but let's take that premise.We'll start with "Must pull levers"... well, why are they pulling levers... what's something interesting those levers could be attached to.Robot immediately springs to mind, a mechanical construct of sorts.... well, what does the Robot DO... it could be anything from walking "through" a wall, to stacking blocks to performing a complex series of movements at the correct time. That's all for you to decide...</blockquote>

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