How dungeons have changed in Dungeons and Dragons

[Shroomy]

Site-based adventuring is still the foundation of most D&D games, even if the "dungeons" do not happen to be underground, feature "logical" ecologies, and have a more dynamic set-up. I think what you are seeing is the evolution of the game and that evolution was driven by the expansion of campaign settings. Once players moved from Dungeon A to Dungeon B, it wouldn't take long for someone to realize that you could have an "adventure" during this actual trip instead of handwaving it; that moving around could introduce variety to the types of dungeons explored; and that spending time in a city or village could be more than a place to heal, buy/sell stuff, and train.

As campaign settings became more and more defined in this manner they tend to develop meta-narratives, more defined NPCs, and ecologies that would influence the placement and design of dungeons (you can't have kobolds in the Caves of Evil, the dwarves killed them all in the Great Kobold-Dwarven War!), which in turn further drove the expansion of campaign settings. Eventually, the need to address the setting elements, the story, NPCs, etc. put pressure on dungeon designers. If you only had so many pages to work with, then something had to be cut-out or the project had to be expanded. So you end up getting smaller dungeons (in terms of room, not description) and larger/linked adventures. Once you get to larger/linked adventures, you have all kinds of room to expand the campaign setting, etc.

Taken to extremes, you end up with adventures which are almost all story and which player action is either rail-roaded to serve the story or has no real effect on the larger story. This is a charge often leveled at late 1e and 2e adventures, which, not coincidentally, coincides with the greatest expansion of campaign settings during the TSR years.

I actually find 3e adventure design to be a nice hybrid of 1e and 2e style; IMO, the sometimes maligned mechanical aspects of 3e hark back to the game's tactical warmgaming roots while taking up much more space than their antecedents, thus paring down excesses in narrative. Modern adventures have story and setting elements, but I don't feel like I'm reading a short novella just to get the background information for that night's game!

 

[Wik]

Y'know, Dungeons are still pretty big. Just open up Dungeon Magazine - every adventure has one dungeon or another in it. Case in Point:

While running the Savage Tide arc, the group went into one dungeon that had something like 30 rooms in it. Now, it took them two whole sessions to explore it, especially considering that one of our players (the "leader") is a completist - "leave no corridor unchecked" and all that. This was the third "dungeon" in the adventure - the other two were smallish things, though.

After that dungeon, there was a little break... and then the group was in another dungeon. And after leaving that dungeon... there was a scene in a "dungeon" (someone's house).

The point is, even in a swashbuckling, pirate-themed campaign, there were plenty of dungeons present. What is odd is that Savage Tide is the first time we've really used a published adventure as written, and the whole group was surprised at the amount of time they spent in a dungeon setting.

Seriously. Before I started running Savage Tide, our group might see a dungeon once every nine months or something like that. The last dungeon we explored was in a one-shot (we all played halflings!) in a kuo-toa cave.

 

[Vuron]

Y'know, Dungeons are still pretty big. Just open up Dungeon Magazine - every adventure has one dungeon or another in it. Case in Point:

While running the Savage Tide arc, the group went into one dungeon that had something like 30 rooms in it. Now, it took them two whole sessions to explore it, especially considering that one of our players (the "leader") is a completist - "leave no corridor unchecked" and all that. This was the third "dungeon" in the adventure - the other two were smallish things, though.

After that dungeon, there was a little break... and then the group was in another dungeon. And after leaving that dungeon... there was a scene in a "dungeon" (someone's house).

The point is, even in a swashbuckling, pirate-themed campaign, there were plenty of dungeons present. What is odd is that Savage Tide is the first time we've really used a published adventure as written, and the whole group was surprised at the amount of time they spent in a dungeon setting.

Seriously. Before I started running Savage Tide, our group might see a dungeon once every nine months or something like that. The last dungeon we explored was in a one-shot (we all played halflings!) in a kuo-toa cave.

While dungeon often has substantive dungeons in thier pages there is a substantial difference in scale between something like a 30 room dungeon and the 15+ level monstrosities like Undermountain and Castle Greyhawk.

I'm not saying that old school dungeons like those are out of favor (look at Rappan Attuk or World's Largest Dungeon) but that those no longer represent the vast majority of dungeon design.

 

[Wik]

While dungeon often has substantive dungeons in thier pages there is a substantial difference in scale between something like a 30 room dungeon and the 15+ level monstrosities like Undermountain and Castle Greyhawk.

I'm not saying that old school dungeons like those are out of favor (look at Rappan Attuk or World's Largest Dungeon) but that those no longer represent the vast majority of dungeon design.

True enough.

Personally, I don't like dungeons that are any bigger than 10 rooms. I think if you can't explore a dungeon in one go, it's probably too big. But that's my personal design philosophy, and your campaign may differ.

Really, I think dungeons in the old days were just a good place to start, and now that wilderness and urban adventuring has become more accessible to the DMs of the world, dungeons see less of the spotlight. There's a widely held belief that dungeons are more or less a GM's "Training Wheels" - and I think the DMG reinforces this, with it's focus on dungeon adventuring (since that's where the newbie GMs will be placing their games).

 

[Johnnie Freedom!]

In another thread concerning artwork, something interesting was brought up: that the focus on dungeons in D&D has changed over the years (from OD&D/AD&D to 2E, and now to 3E). It seems to me the amount of time the typical player spends underground has been reduced (maybe 20% top side and 80% down below with 1E; to one of about 60% top side 40% below with 3E). It was suggested that the artwork of these different editions reflects this switch in focus.

You see that progression even within AD&D 1e. Wilderness Survival Guide and Manual of the Planes were both late in 1e's life (and though many 1e purists hate them, they *are* canon); both took adventuring well outside the dungeon.

The same progression exists in Basic/Expert D&D. Basic began in the dungeon, Expert took it to the "wilderness", followed by Companion and Masters, where the focus expanded further to running a kingdom, planar travel, etc.

I would say that it is simply a logical progression of the idea of exploration. Computer games have nothing to do with it. In fact, the same progression took place in computer games as well. From the completely arbitrary dungeons of Wizardry or Zork in the 80s to today's sophisticated online RPGs.

 

[Johnnie Freedom!]

I actually find 3e adventure design to be a nice hybrid of 1e and 2e style; IMO, the sometimes maligned mechanical aspects of 3e hark back to the game's tactical warmgaming roots while taking up much more space than their antecedents, thus paring down excesses in narrative. Modern adventures have story and setting elements, but I don't feel like I'm reading a short novella just to get the background information for that night's game!

Your experience is the opposite of mine. I find that 3e adventures have far more story and setting information than 1e stuff ever did. Tomb of Horrors basically starts by saying, "There's a horrifying tomb of horrors. You are at the entrance." By contrast, adventures in Dungeon feature literally pages of background story and character sketches intended solely for the DM's consumption as a prelude to actually running the thing.

I'm not saying this is bad, but the phrase "reading a short novella just to get the background information" describes my experiences with 3e, not 1e.

 

[Vuron]

Your experience is the opposite of mine. I find that 3e adventures have far more story and setting information than 1e stuff ever did. Tomb of Horrors basically starts by saying, "There's a horrifying tomb of horrors. You are at the entrance." By contrast, adventures in Dungeon feature literally pages of background story and character sketches intended solely for the DM's consumption as a prelude to actually running the thing.

I'm not saying this is bad, but the phrase "reading a short novella just to get the background information" describes my experiences with 3e, not 1e.

I think the poster was comparing many of the 3e dungeons to both the 1e and 2e counterparts. In comparison to some of 2e modules and boxed sets the 3e dungeon and module seems to be a compromise between the two extremes.

As to this point I'm not sure I 100% agree as there were still plenty of relatively plotless 2e modules.

 

[Shroomy]

I think the poster was comparing many of the 3e dungeons to both the 1e and 2e counterparts. In comparison to some of 2e modules and boxed sets the 3e dungeon and module seems to be a compromise between the two extremes.

As to this point I'm not sure I 100% agree as there were still plenty of relatively plotless 2e modules.

Yep, I was comparing 3e to 2e modules in that regard, and I was making generalizations which probably do not hold in all circumstances.

 

[Johnnie Freedom!]

Yep, I was comparing 3e to 2e modules in that regard, and I was making generalizations which probably do not hold in all circumstances.

With all this talk about 3e, 2e, and 1e, I think it's time for Diaglo to come in and say, "OD&D (1974) is the one true game . . . "

 

[MerricB]

If such a shift truely did occure, why? If you read the modules from the 70s and early 80s and compare them with those written today, seem to be a difference...not just in length of story, but in actual adventuring going on in city and even micro-lairs. So whats the deal with the shift? Did 1E's dungeon crawl focus just get boring and too linear (as in this room is connected by a hall to that room) for todays crowd saturated with computer games that encourage you to go anyware...?

Do you want to ask about why the shift away from dungeon-crawls and to more variety in adventures, or insult people who play computer games?

Because, if you just have a look at published adventure modules, you'll discover something very interesting: the shift occurred when TSR started publishing adventures that weren't designed for tournaments.

Dungeons are great because its easy to constrain the actions of the PCs; they're easier to write and to run. They also fit the needs of a large part of the player base. A political thriller, great though it may be, has trouble in being presented as a D&D adventure.

This isn't to say that they haven't tried. The primary non-dungeon adventure goes to X1: The Isle of Dread. A political thriller was attempted in B6: The Veiled Society. Wilderness adventuring makes up a large part of Dungeonland and the Land Beyond the Magic Mirror, as well as the Dragonlance series. T1: The Village of Hommlet devotes a large part of its text to the village, not the dungeon, and N1: Against the Cult of the Reptile God again has a large part of investigative adventuring in the town.

Computer games? They weren't even in the frame when the shift began to occur.

Ultimately, megadungeons have a problem. They have a limited appeal. If you are delving into Castle Greyhawk, why are you there? The answer was (and may still be): to kill monsters to gain XP and treasure. You "win" as long as your character keeps progressing upwards.

There are players for whom that is enough. However, as the various analyses of D&D players tell us, there are more types of players than that! Storytellers, roleplayers, tactical gamers, problem solvers, and more! As the types of players increase in the game, so too must the experience broaden, as the DM needs to accomodate each type of player!

Dungeons are still part of the game - and they will remain so - but not to the exclusion of all other forms of play.

Cheers!