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Message: <blockquote data-quote="demiurge1138" data-source="post: 2727492" data-attributes="member: 7451">What is a dungeon, anyway? If we are to believe the American Heritage dictionary, it is "A dark, often underground chamber or cell used to confine prisoners". Now, when was the last time a PC's spent a long period of time in a real dungeon? Only if they got captured or are going to rescue someone who has.The term "dungeon" in Dungeons and Dragons is a figurative one, at best. A dungeon in the classic sense is an underground complex, laden with traps and monsters. Why it exists doesn't have to be clear, as long as there are monsters to be killed and treasure to be looted. But even in the old days, this wasn't exactly always the case. The names of old modules reflect this. Keep on the Borderlands. The Palace of the Silver Princess. The Tomb of Horrors. Any place where the PCs can roam around and kill monsters, even if it's not underground, is a dungeon in this sense.Eventually, we get to where we stand today. Any single adventure site is a dungeon, in some sense. Previous posts have mentioned that 3e made a mistake in going "back to the dungeon", as if infinite staircases weren't good enough. But I think it's worth noting that that infinite staircase is a dungeon in its own right. It should also be known that the "back to the dungeon" motif didn't last very long at all. Although there's a lot of 3rd party game publishers working on old-school dungeon crawls, Wizards of the Coast's own modules didn't do so well. We're finally starting to see modules come back in a big way, due partly to the good work Paizo Publishing's been doing with Dungeon Magazine, and partly because WoTC is making modules that aren't just wading into a dungeon and killing everything (the Fantastic Locations, Sons of Gruumsh, the Eberron modules).As for the literary origins of the dungeon, although the Mines of Moria have been brought up, a very important predeccesor has been forgotten. Much of The Swords of Lankhmar, takes place in the palace of Lankhmar's Overlord and in the tunnels of the wererats below the city. Neither of these are literally dungeons, but the feel of the book is very much like the site-based adventures we all know and love.Demiurge out.Oh, and the Libram Equitis compilation looks good.</blockquote>

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