D&D General The senseless achitecture in most official products

[Imaculata]

I've tried to do something similar with my own maps. I separate the various floors into maps of their own, but I'll show an outline of the floor above. This can get very important in regards to taking cover from enemy fire that is coming from a higher level, or when tossing an opponent down to a lower level.

It can be difficult to illustrate just how floors line up with one another, and as a DM you might have to clarify it to your players. It might be a limitation of the medium.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Inspired by @Kris thread about him trying out the rolled up random dungeon i want to start a discussion about the annoyance that many official products cause in me about the seemingly totally senseless architectural features of the dungeon maps.

With some absolutely marvelous exceptions so many dungeon maps presented in official products, be it PnP or also many computer games, have floor maps which commonly lack one thing: Any connection to realism purpose or aestethic.

A building or structure should be desigend to serve a purpose, even a mine has some regularity in it, although here you can argue that the diggers followed some ore vein. But how is it that every temple floor plan looks like it is dedicated to the gods of chaos?

I mean:

- Would even orcs like to inhabit those strange zig zag corridors?

- Is a normal building with one or two quirks so boring?

- Or is it so difficult to build some quirk into a normal building like a secret tunnel or chamber or a trapdoor?


I often rework or replace official maps, if they do not make sense to me.
And by that i mean sense in purpose, inhabitants and structure of a given dungeon map.

It is one of the things i really like when DMing PnP, that i can rectify the mad labyrinths.

If it would make sense like a madmans dungeon e.g. Undermountain then ok, and every now and then there might be another explanation to a highly unlinear structure, but it seems to be the rule and not the exception.

What are your opinions on that?

I think there is a place for more real-world-like, plausible, dungeons with a purpose and the more chaotic dungeons. I don't know that real world dungeons ought to be linear, but probably simpler. Yes, a real world building or structure is designed for a purpose, but a game structure also has the additional purpose of entertaining players in a game. So I think at the end of the day, entertaining the players is what matters. I go on tours of historical places and houses a lot. Those places have a clear sense of purpose and are practical, and do offer a lot of inspiration for game locations, but I don't think most players want the experience of touring a realistic spot. They want something that is gameable.

You also need to leave room for imagination. I spent the last couple of years working on maps for locations that were meant to be more realistic models. They still added in gameable content, but I was trying my best to adhere to the historical details as much as I could. I discovered real world architecture is very difficult. It took a lot of additional time, and I wasn't as free to invent things. So it is a trade off, and it isn't one every GM or designer is going to want to make. Just to give an example I read at least three books on the architecture of the period and place I was interested in, and still had to consult people with more knowledge to get things right.

There are plenty of great simple dungeon structures out there that are plenty of fun though. A Bushel of Rye for HARN has an excellent one (and it is fairly minimal, but still very engaging. I think that is the key, if you are going to go more simple and practical, you need to find a way to make the place engaging for the players when they explore it.

 

[jasper]

They kind of do. They're set up to allow cross ventilation if the front and back doors are open at the same time, something New Orleans is in sore need of without central air conditioning.

Groan. Shotgun shacks, houses, etc are NOT ONLY Orleans. I have never seen a shot gun house which is only 12 feet wide. In fact I never knew they could be that small. We here in the south have something called SCREEN DOORS. Great for letting the air in bad on submarines. My point I was trying to make was some architecture gets created because the house or in this topic is built over time.
What is interesting is seeing a shotgun house and being able to tell how rich/poor the family was when they were adding the extra room. Different building materials. Different paint jobs. ETC.

 

[jasper]

how far would the kitchen logically be from the food supplies or the dining area? “BUTLER IMACULATA BUTLER IMACULATA My food is cold. Dock your pay a day and beat the servants!
Butler, “But the servants have a long way, “
Lord Jasper, “This castle was design by the famous Frank Lloyd Wright. Move the servants out the house and into the outer bailey!” PSS some castles the servants had their own buildings.
Square rooms, round rooms, squiggly line rooms, does it make any MAJOR difference during combat. If not then why bother, it not like your dungeon is going appear on “Lifestyles of Rich And EVIL!”
I do agree with Imaculata more dungeons should have different elevations. But how this is noted will depend of the map drawing skills of the creator.

 

[Imaculata]

how far would the kitchen logically be from the food supplies or the dining area? “BUTLER IMACULATA BUTLER IMACULATA My food is cold. Dock your pay a day and beat the servants!
Butler, “But the servants have a long way, “
Lord Jasper, “This castle was design by the famous Frank Lloyd Wright. Move the servants out the house and into the outer bailey!”

This reminds me of the time one of our players wanted to check the king's throneroom for traps, and we all joked about how inconvenient that would be to the king and his messengers.

Messenger: Your worship, I have important-- THOOONK -Ack! - drops dead

If not then why bother, it not like your dungeon is going appear on “Lifestyles of Rich And EVIL!”

But you ask, "why bother?". Well, I'm not suggesting that your dungeons should be absolutely realistic. But when some degree of thought leads the design, this leads to better design. It also means you are less likely to leave out important rooms. It would be odd for example to have a large castle that does not include a kitchen or bedrooms. But I think more importantly, when you think about how the location might be used, you're more likely to connect the various spaces in your dungeon in a way that also serves game play better.

For example, a throneroom should probably have more than one entry point, and possibly a special entrance for the king that connects to his private rooms. This then effects the flow of combat, and how enemies might enter this space and from what angles of attack. It also helps with immersion, when the dungeon seems like a series of believable spaces that could exist. And it allows your players to navigate your dungeon with a better understanding of their surroundings.

I'm often reminded by the Half-Life 1 level, Residue Processing, where the player navigates an extremely far fetched obstacle course that seems to only exist to make the player jump a lot over hazardous nuclear waste. Not only does it look absurd, but you don't feel for a moment that this is an area that could actually exist in any secret underground laboratory. I think when you're designing a dungeon, you have to seek a balance between believability and gameplay. Not everything needs to be realistic, but it helps if some semblance of believability guides the design process.

 

[jasper]

True some rooms don't make sense. But real life example of not making sense. During my honeymoon, we went on a house tour of Memphis. Saw Graceland from outside, saw the pink house of Elvis' mother. Saw one house in which the dining room had 3 doors on the back wall. Left door lead outside. Center door lead to kitchen. Right door. To A WALL.
YES it was build that way. Because at the time of building. Memphis TN, had a door tax. So to show off his wealth; the rich guy had extra doors leading to walls in the house.
Edit to add
On the side facing the wall the door had the names of all people who built the house. And important guests.
Dungeon idea. After a extra long wandering corridor the hallway ends in a very nice door. DC 25 thieves tool to open. On the back of the door is all the workers who built the dungeon. And a magic mouth gives the name of designer, buyer, and ruler at the time of creation. For an extra 2 silver pieces and 5 copper pieces the door sings the favor song of the buyer.

 

[Bohandas]

I'm often reminded by the Half-Life 1 level, Residue Processing, where the player navigates an extremely far fetched obstacle course that seems to only exist to make the player jump a lot over hazardous nuclear waste. Not only does it look absurd, but you don't feel for a moment that this is an area that could actually exist in any secret underground laboratory. I think when you're designing a dungeon, you have to seek a balance between believability and gameplay. Not everything needs to be realistic, but it helps if some semblance of believability guides the design process.

I'm not sure I remember that specific level but I do recall that the premise of Half-Life 1 was that the lab compound had been wrecked by the teleporter accident at the beginning of the game as well as the subsequent alien invasion and hamfisted military response. The implication throughout is that the layout would make more sense if there weren't piles of rubble blocking most of the hallways, the containment vessels for hazardous waste hadn't been breached, and there wasn't an alternate universe impinging on the fabric of spacetime.

 

[Imaculata]

I'm not sure I remember that specific level but I do recall that the premise of Half-Life 1 was that the lab compound had been wrecked by the teleporter accident at the beginning of the game as well as the subsequent alien invasion and hamfisted military response. The implication throughout is that the layout would make more sense if there weren't piles of rubble blocking most of the hallways, the containment vessels for hazardous waste hadn't been breached, and there wasn't an alternate universe impinging on the fabric of spacetime.

And for most levels this holds true, except for Residue Processing. Which is an absurd gauntlet of jumping challenges that in no way resembles any plausible waste processing facility. With giant crushers and mixers that exist only to turn Gordon Freeman into little bits.

 

[Oofta]

And for most levels this holds true, except for Residue Processing. Which is an absurd gauntlet of jumping challenges that in no way resembles any plausible waste processing facility. With giant crushers and mixers that exist only to turn Gordon Freeman into little bits.

Still better than a mod I played ... oh a few years back. It had a "river of blood" and a literal "lake of blood". I couldn't help but laugh. I mean, how many creatures would you have to drain to get that much blood? An ongoing river? Are you, what, killing dozens of cow sized creatures per minute?

 

[Beleriphon]

Groan. Shotgun shacks, houses, etc are NOT ONLY Orleans. I have never seen a shot gun house which is only 12 feet wide. In fact I never knew they could be that small. We here in the south have something called SCREEN DOORS. Great for letting the air in bad on submarines. My point I was trying to make was some architecture gets created because the house or in this topic is built over time.
What is interesting is seeing a shotgun house and being able to tell how rich/poor the family was when they were adding the extra room. Different building materials. Different paint jobs. ETC.

I kind of assume screen doors would be used, not that the front and back doors would just be left wide open for anybody or anything to stroll on through. And some of the houses were built in the three room staged format from the ground up, rather than rooms being added ad hoc.

As for New Orleans the city is chock-a-block full of them, and they're one of the cities more interesting bit of architecture, but yes they are common throughout the South. My point about air circulation still stands though.