Is "A Wizard Did It" Acceptable Worldbuiling?

[the Jester]

My question is this: Do you need backstories and explanations, or are you OK with “a wizard did it?” Do you like dungeons that “make sense,” or are you alright with the occasional bout of silliness? Can both styles exist comfortably within the same campaign, or does an element of nonsense devalue the internal consistency of the setting?

Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes- but neither chaos magic nor 'a wizard did it' are necessarily nonsense elements.

 

[Tonguez]

I did a mega dungeon once that was a Ruined temple that had been built above a ancient cave system at the bottom of which had been buried an ‘Ancient Evil’ whose corruption had been seeping upwards from its tomb. Between the Temple ruins and the deep cavern were:

1 the Temple ruins had become a camp for goblins and random vermin
2 crypts where the former temple priesthood had been interred as mummies (many now undead)
3 below the crypts were a series of tunnels and caves that at one time had been collapsed by a former adventuring party to ‘seal in the Evil’ - the collapsing tunnels give me an excuse to reconfigure the dungeon for repeat use.
4 the collapse had opened up these tunnels to some natural sea caves
5 the sea caves also let me add an underwater section in which lived a Vodyanoi
6 the Vodyanoi had dug through into a smugglers tunnel which ran from some sea caves on the coast inland to a nobles manor.
7 eventually PCs might reach the deep cavern and the burial site of the Ancient Evil

Anyway as a mega dungeon it had some logic to it, was reconfigurable and had 3 entrances, 4 ‘bosses’, multiple themes and allowed for an aspect of ‘magic’ seeping up from the Ancient Evil.

Ive also got entire landscapes created by battles of ‘gods and ancient Titans’ so ...

 

[Fanaelialae]

I generally prefer a dungeon to make sense, but I'm fine with a wizard did it. Crazy wizards doing weird things is basically intrinsic to D&D. Look at owlbears.

In the case of "a wizard did it" though, I would lead with that. If you put together a dungeon that makes no sense, and don't reveal until the end that a mad wizard was behind it, you may lose your players to incredulity before they make it to the reveal. Better to be up front about it so that they go into the scenario expecting it to be somewhat nonsensical.

Unless your players really love funhouse dungeons, I'd use them sparingly.

 

[Nagol]

I appreciate a well-thought-out explanation as much as the next gamer. The dungeon was built by such-and-such a person for concrete reasons, and its inhabitants have a reason to live there. That's satisfying worldbuilding. However, I think that phrases like "chaos magic" and "a wizard did it" were invented by GMs tired of sane and orderly dungeons. There's a certain appeal to a funhouse environment with nonsensical inhabitants. A dragon lurks in a tiny broom closet. Doors open for monsters but not PCs. The random marble trap in Dragon's Lair.

My question is this: Do you need backstories and explanations, or are you OK with “a wizard did it?” Do you like dungeons that “make sense,” or are you alright with the occasional bout of silliness? Can both styles exist comfortably within the same campaign, or does an element of nonsense devalue the internal consistency of the setting?

Does the world contain the possibility of PC wizards? Are they going to be given the same flexibility?

If the answers are yes and no respectively, I hate that particular form of hand-waving.

 

[Davinshe]

In my world I actually canonized "a wizard did it" as an in-game phenomenon. The stress of pushing ever more arcane power into one's head had a tendency to eventually cause the mind to snap in a phenomenon called "mage madness". Such mages had erratic and unpredictable behavior, and it commonly manifested in a paranoia that caused the mage to construct elaborate death traps in an attempt to protect themselves from threats real or imagined. However, such mages are oftentimes more magically inventive in this state than when they were sane, and more than their fair share of new spells and magic items are created by such wizards. Players who wanted their character to push the limits of magic knew that failure would likely edge their character closer to this result, lending a feeling of magic being risky and unpredictable that isn't normally present in D&D.

 

[Doug McCrae]

Not just a wizard, a mad wizard. A sane wizard would have potentially comprehensible desires and rational plans. You don't want any of that as an old school dungeon master, it constrains your hand far too much. As OD&D Book I Men & Magic says, the dungeon should be constructed "by generations of mad wizards and insane geniuses."

 

[Shiroiken]

Some aspects of the world aren't necessarily going to make sense, as the DM isn't likely going to have all the knowledge necessary. In these situations, it makes sense that the gods or magic might have caused any oddities that crop up. In dungeon design, unless a magic user was actually involved in the design (Castle Greyhawk, Ghost Tower of Inverness, Temple of Elemental Evil), then most aspects of life should be taken into consideration (water, food, movement).

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Can both styles exist comfortably within the same campaign, or does an element of nonsense devalue the internal consistency of the setting?

The latter. A setting is only as consistent as its weakest element.

 

[Todd Roybark]

The Winchester House in California exists. There are many examples of massive compounds being created by the powerful in real life human history.

It would be inconsistent to not have at least, one rambling mega dungeon, in a world with no shortage of immortal(ish) Wizards.

Let alone complexes made by Gods or Beholders.

Human Common Sense is a poor guide when positing a D&D world that teems with intelligent species and worlds are ageless creations of the Gods.

Elves, Dwarves, Mind Flayers, Gith, Dragons....why do structures made by these have to make sense to humans?

It is called imagining, folks!

 

[S'mon]

Dungeons - the Underworld - are the Realm of Chaos. Chaos doesn't make sense.