D&D General How often do you use or encounter Dungeons and/or Dragons in your games?

[Reynard]

The name of the game is Dungeons and Dragons. personally, as a GM I am a fan of both: I love little tombs and ancient ruins and weird science fantasy laboratories, so my campaigns are chock full of dungeons; I also adore dragons, especially city busters and malevolent manipulators. So in my games, both almost always feature prominently.

What about you? When running or playing D&D, how often do you use or encounter Dungeons and/or Dragons? Do you like them? Do you prefer other kinds of adventures or adversaries?

And, just for fun, if you had to rename the game with your favorite sort of adventure location/structure, and your favorite adversary, what would the game be called?

 

[DragonLancer]

I love dungeons but sometimes they can get a little dull and repetitive. Dragons I like to use sparingly so they don't get too overused.

And, just for fun, if you had to rename the game with your favorite sort of adventure location/structure, and your favorite adversary, what would the game be called?

Mimics and Mazes.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

When I started my long-running Ptolus campaign, I intentionally set it up so dragons and dungeons would be part of it, since I had new players. So we had a mountain looming over the home base that had, until about a decade ago, been the lair of a green dragon, and kobolds trying to summon an aspect of Tiamat to conquer the local barony, which involved getting chromatic dragon scales and both the kobolds and PCs encountering several colors of dragon along the way. And I'd say about half of the adventures in its first iteration were site-based ones that could count as dungeons.

There will be at least two dragons in the second half of the campaign, including a visit to a dragon graveyard and then, eventually, meeting up with that missing green dragon and finding out what her evil plan is.

I do think it's nice to give the people what they want, and picked up Dragon Delves so I could always have a dragon adventure in my back pocket, if someone wanted to play a one shot game.

I just started running Heroes of the Borderlands and, as the box art hints at, there are actually two wyrmlings in the adventure, which feels like a lot for my money, but I suspect the designers wanted to make sure that, given the sandbox nature of the adventure, there was a decent shot players would eventually encounter a dragon.

I'm more of a nut for goblins and kobolds, myself. My game would more likely be called Catacombs & Kobolds.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I tend to regard any location as a dungeon but even with in the traditional view, I use them a lot. I use dragons a lot less, but I have used them, particularly at higher levels.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

Pretty much any location can be seen as a "Dungeon", even if it's not literally a dungeon. The same could be said for Dragons, but I don't think I agree with that comparison in the same way. I like to include Dragons where appropriate, but no where near as often as Dungeons.

OTOH, there were years and years where I avoided both.

 

[Cergorach]

'Dungeons' are often in our games, be it a cultist hideout in an abandoned tomb, an actively occupied tomb, a cavern, a wizards hideout or something huge like our current track through Undermountain. I suspect that it's somewhere in every adventure, whether it's labeled as a dungeon or not.

Dragons are a bit more rare, sure we've encountered them over the decades, but it can easily a year or two before one shows up again...

Do I like them? Yes, we're still playing after decades. 'Dungeons' are par for the course, sometimes we try something different for a while, but we tend to come back to 'dungeons'. But to be honest, It's been probably 35 years since I last run a BIG dungeon-dungeon, and now I'm probably running one of the largest. We're having a fun! Dragons can be a LOT of fun, but you need to do them well, either as a huge bossfight, a smaller deadly encounter with a young one that will leave a lasting impression, or as either the benefactor or as TBBG. I also love the old Draconians! Still, it's an enemy type I don't want to overdo.

I just thought of a very naughty game title! But maybe just Huts & Hags...

 

[Lanefan]

Dungeons: constantly.

Dragons: not so much.

Around here, sometimes the biggest obstacle to play is food/snack preparation and consumption, leading to the alternate game name "Feasts and Foodies".

 

[Jefe Bergenstein]

Our current 5E game is a heavily modified Abomination Vaults campaign and the party is 6th level and has dealt with 3 dragons/dragon kin. A mutant green dragon they faced at 2nd level, a river drake they fought around 4th, and a young black dragon they freed from a bullywug lord at 6th level and left as frenemies.

So about one every other level for dragons.

 

[AlViking]

I don't really use dungeons in the traditional sense although of course sometimes encounters happen in ancient ruins or caverns. The whole insane wizard constructed dungeon never felt particularly compelling to me, I'd rather build my campaigns around factions and enemies. A lot of my games are urban by nature and so in a sense I guess the entire city could be considered a dungeon if you want.

Dragons are used sparingly for a couple of reasons. First, most of the bad guys are humanoid. But there are a couple more reasons I don't use them often. If you use the default age categories an adult dragon is at least a hundred years old and an ancient is more than 800. There are old dragons, there are bold dragons, there are no old bold dragons. Just about the last thing a dragon wants is to get into a fight and if they do they're going to fight dirty and rarely to the death which can be less rewarding to the players.

 

[Gorck]

And, just for fun, if you had to rename the game with your favorite sort of adventure location/structure, and your favorite adversary, what would the game be called?

Barrows and Bearowls

Wait, I think that one has already been done