D&D General The senseless achitecture in most official products

[Oofta]

No Prize: It chews up the stone into gravel, combined with various fluids/chemicals from its digestive tract, and the leavings are left compacted like an aggregate cement along the walls of the tunnel. Either that aggregate is more dense than the original stone, or perhaps some of the mass escapes as vapor in the chemical reactions.

Purple worm ... err ... flatulence might explain some of the rock disappearing. But even compressing sandstone into granite would only be about a 14% reduction in volume (based on weight per cubic cm). So unless it's very porous rock it's not going to buy anything.

I'm okay with just chalking it up to magic. Or extreme flatulence. The smell would explain why they don't ever go back to their old tunnels.

 

[pemerton]

No Prize: It chews up the stone into gravel, combined with various fluids/chemicals from its digestive tract, and the leavings are left compacted like an aggregate cement along the walls of the tunnel. Either that aggregate is more dense than the original stone, or perhaps some of the mass escapes as vapor in the chemical reactions.

The system is designed for fairly pulpy adventure stories. While you of course get to pick what annoys you... this seems like one of the least constructive hills to die on.

Given your (very true) second statement, I'm not persuaded we need to worry about what happens to the stone that is eaten by a purple worm. (Or Xorn, or whatever.)

 

[Fenris-77]

Not really no, unless what happens to it is that it gets teleported into your living room.

 

[Tonguez]

Personally what I do is only draw out significant areas and leave the sausage-making parts of the buildings down to narrative most of the time.

this is the approach I take too, especially now that Ive adopted the ‘five room dungeon design’ Model -
just describe the areas that are important to the characters and leave the connecting details to narrative. If the players want maps they can draw it up themselves.

 

[Umbran]

Given your (very true) second statement, I'm not persuaded we need to worry about what happens to the stone that is eaten by a purple worm. (Or Xorn, or whatever.)

Need to? Of course not. I need air, water, food. I don't need anything in a luxury hobby entertainment.

But, for some folks, a handy narrative helps them get past cognitive dissonance, or just their own player's questions.

Plus, sometimes if it fun to think about possible solutions to the issue of the missing rock. And that's what it is about, right? The fun?

 

[Todd Roybark]

Not to be too crass, but in the parlance of our times, the unrealistic maps are Boring as F$$K, as well, (in the parlance of our time). The Underhalls of Halaster excepted.

Now that said, I have been to Actun Tunichil Muknal, and that cave system is rather vast, and the Maya traveled the length of it, and used huge areas, so fantasy Norad could plausibly be a limestone cave system.

 

[Sorcerers Apprentice]

The rock eaten by a purple worm goes to a pocket dimension linked to the elemental plane of Earth, where it's eventually used to make up the extra mass gained when a creature is turned to stone. (Note that flesh to stone doubles a creature's weight)

If there aren't enough purple worms in a region, wizards may find that Flesh to Stone sometimes doesn't work.

 

[Coroc]

Well i guess most dungeons with circular horizontal diameter of the tunnels were created by beholders using their disintegration ray maybe
But purple worms digesting the stones somehow also could make sense, maybe they use up most of the material and just grow in length, and leave only fluids and gasses behind like some suggested.

Some of the comments i really liked is how about those necropolisses which in RL also are kind of chaotic, check out catacombes in Rome or Paris e.g.

Also the thing with a regular structure e.g. dwarven stronghold, made into something chaotic by cave ins is a very good idea, also the adding up according to needs of different occupants over time is fine.

A good guideline to make them dungeon maps more realistic would be to use natural formations or some of the examples above if chaotic design is desired somehow. Also sewer systems following a natural grown city map might give inspirations.

 

[Tyler Do'Urden]

*purple worms leaving behind tunnels has always been weird too. It's not dirt. They can't just push it aside, they have to actually somehow destroy the rock or send it to another dimension. Maybe the purple dimension with purple rain?

Where dwelleth the Prince of the Purple Worms?

I think I just found my newest high-level BBEG.

ducks

 

[pemerton]

In a fantasy game where purple worms eat rock, why would we assume that conservation of mass over the course of digestion applies? It's not like other salient parts of the game (eg spells) are consistent with real-world conservation laws.

If people want to "scientise" D&D of course that's their prerogative, but it seems odd to take purple worm digestion - rather than, say, fireball spells, teleportation or druidic shapechanging - as the first case study.