Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Shadowslayer" data-source="post: 3363372" data-attributes="member: 8400">NOTE: this is hopefully going to be a discussion on the nature of dungeons for people who use them and like them. We know there's a segment of gamers who don't like dungeons, think they're stupid, and don't use them in their games. If this is you, all I ask is to please try and respect the nature of the thread.So, I've spent a week going through my copy of Dungeonscape, and I've decided I'm glad I bought it. Its just a neat book, and the sections of dungeon and encounter design are first rate IMO.I notice that in this book, they really lean heavily towards the dungeon as an exotic location, with a heavy nod to the fantastical. Maybe a little too fantastical for some...I don't really know. But having read it, I was wondering about the nature of dungeons in other people's campaigns.  My dungoens have, in the past, normally been of a somewhat mundane origin. (Mundane for D&D, anyway) Either a cave complex, abandoned mine, Dwarven stronghold, haven-for-mankind-during-some-great-cataclysm-that-drove-people-underground-thousands-of-years-ago, or simply an underground portion of a long gone aboveground complex, such as a keep or a temple. I think I was heavily influenced by the 2e sourcebook "Dungeon and Catacomb Guide" that gave samples of these types of dungeons.  In any case, its always been a fairly mundane origin made fantastical by the fact that a millenia of strange monsters, demihumans, cults, and whatnot, have laid claim to the dungeon at various times over the years.In Dungeonscape, they offer up a couple of ideas for fantastic origins. There's the tried and true cliche of the Mad Wizard's maze. There's also an idea that, in a certain type of campaign, that a sentient evil at the core of the earth creates the underdeeps itself to house its minions of evil...and the closer to the core of the earth you get, the evil-er, and weirder things get. (The book explains it better...these are my words) Part of what they seem to be doing is trying to create a justification or an explanation for a truly alien dungeon that's actually engaging and entertaining, should you wish to include one in your game. I find the idea intriguing, in that I've always held forth a niotion (again, stemming from that 2e sourcebook) that a dungeon should be somewhat believeable, and now they're saying in effect "well, in the D&D game, you can create a justification for pretty much anything...here's a couple of the more far out ones" Its actually a bit liberating.My question is: How have YOU explained the existence of dungeons in your game? And have you experimanted with dungeons that have more magical, alien or just really, really strange origins?</blockquote>

Verification