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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Riley37" data-source="post: 7426635" data-attributes="member: 6786839">You're still discussing motivation as if there were no distinction or relationship between player motivation and PC motivation. I doubt you're going to reach a satisfying answer, until you do. If there IS an answer, which satisfies you, and which doesn't examine that connection, then hurray; I'm just saying, I think you'll get better results, for YOUR purposes, if you engage that topic.Well, you can do that, if you like. That's not an accurate description of the foundational examples (so to speak) which put "dungeon" in the name of the game. The first dungeon, so far as I know, was the basement and sub-basement levels of Castle Blackmoor. The Baron's hired wizard had abruptly quit his job and vanished into the basement of the Baron's castle. The Baron was not comfortable with that happening *under the place where he lived*. The Baron therefore sent soldiers - the first "adventurer" player-characters, some of whom advanced to Hero - down into the dungeon, to find out what the wizard was up to, and to identify and neutralize any threats *to the Baron's home*. This is not going off into the unknown, like Starship Enterprise wandering into the Sigma-Phi Quadrant; the Call to Adventure was coming from within the house. Did I mention that the Baron had a direct, personal, immediate motive?Also, it was literally the basement of David Arneson's house. Be careful in the laundry room! Traps!The Steading of the Hill Giant Chief was not just a dungeon; not on the surface level. It was a base of operations, from which some hill giants were raiding farms. Those farms were part of the local nobility's vassal population, and thus their tax base. The hill giants are not just minding their own business when the PCs show up; they are part of a long game plan against humanity, and there's an evil mastermind directing their operations. Gygax doesn't decide player motives nor PC motives, but he DID write motives for the NPC nobles who recruit the adventurers, for Nosnra the hill giant chief, and for Nosnra's sponsor. Gygax did not write "Steading of the Hill Giant Chief" merely as "here's a place where you can kill people and take their stuff, if that's your purpose in life".</blockquote>

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