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<blockquote data-quote="TheClone" data-source="post: 5337302" data-attributes="member: 90399">I'm not really fond of dungeons in general. But that isn't the problem of dungeons themselves, but of the writers. Often dungeons are just a mindless collection of encounters and traps with a big treasure or goal at the end. But they are &quot;dead&quot;. If a dungeon is made for my taste, it has to be &quot;alive&quot;. It needs a cause for it's being there (apart from &quot;the great wizard mrflyx created this maze to test adventurers&quot;), it needs real inhabitants, not only a collection of all monster from monster manual which happen to have the right level. Maybe there are even underground settlements, economy and stories to uncover. More than just &quot;You are here (red button) and need to get to the end of this&quot;. You know, I love to have it filled with background and life. And it needs to make sense.I think the idea of &quot;abstracting&quot; the dungeon with skill challenges that bring up encounter is also a good way to play a dungeon. It gets rid of the - for me - boring &quot;hack'n'trap&quot; play. You can focus on story elements and combine them with nice combat encounters. And since you don't have that much combat encounters you avoid the awful repetition. So it would be more of a &quot;hack'n'tell&quot; (even if &quot;storytelling&quot; is a polluted term).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="TheClone, post: 5337302, member: 90399"] I'm not really fond of dungeons in general. But that isn't the problem of dungeons themselves, but of the writers. Often dungeons are just a mindless collection of encounters and traps with a big treasure or goal at the end. But they are "dead". If a dungeon is made for my taste, it has to be "alive". It needs a cause for it's being there (apart from "the great wizard mrflyx created this maze to test adventurers"), it needs real inhabitants, not only a collection of all monster from monster manual which happen to have the right level. Maybe there are even underground settlements, economy and stories to uncover. More than just "You are here (red button) and need to get to the end of this". You know, I love to have it filled with background and life. And it needs to make sense. I think the idea of "abstracting" the dungeon with skill challenges that bring up encounter is also a good way to play a dungeon. It gets rid of the - for me - boring "hack'n'trap" play. You can focus on story elements and combine them with nice combat encounters. And since you don't have that much combat encounters you avoid the awful repetition. So it would be more of a "hack'n'tell" (even if "storytelling" is a polluted term). [/QUOTE]

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