To be fair, Texas is bigger than most countries in Europe. I actually live near Abilene. What neck of the woods do you live? Love the video.

Japan has only semantically not been colonized. Im sure an Ainu person would have a particular opinion about this.

House of leaves was life changing for me

"war" could be defined as "the U$ Colonial legacy" and most modern wars would be covered.

great announcer voice

Great video. I didn't expect to enjoy it as much as I did. Although, am I slightly suspicious about the true legality of your Kimchi. I shall investigate more videos before coming to a full conclusion.

Gee pop, it's the tardis.

omg. I never thought of House of Leaves as a specific dungeon but it's utterly perfect ;D

Loved this.

I remember the moment I thought, 'Hey why are we killing these goblins'. It was like 25 years ago and we were playing the Sunless Citadel. We had just started playing D&D again after years of Champions, Shadowrun, Vampire, ect ect... I just thought, what the hell did these goblins picking mushrooms do to us. The Kobolds attacked (after walking into their home uninvited, but you know...). I've almost gotten rid of evil races completely from Fantasy games I run (no D&D for me, for other reasons). There are bad guys, groups opposed to the PCs, and monsters certainly. Having a people that are just allowed to be killed, just isn't satisfying anymore.

Certainly that was the most provocative quote by Tolkien about orcs, but he wrote pretty extensively on orcs. He was pretty explicit that orcs were not intended to reference any group of people on planet earth. He was also explicit about their mythological purpose in the story which was to showcase the worst and most evil behavior of man (in LOTR, orcs are fallen and fully corrupted by evil magic, and consumed by the worst impulses--this corruption is magical in nature). He was also known to have called members of his own government and that of South Africa "orcish."

Loved Ultima Underworld... Just saying...

That's it, I need to make A Star Wars Campaign taking place in the deep levels of the city world of Corisaunt.

Star Wars canceled game 1313, was such a missed opportunity. 1313 was located in the deep depths of Corisaunt's deep underground.

I ran a dungeon once in DND that was styled as a trip into the underworld - the players kept going down, down, down, falling down enormous chasms to hit water underneath and crawling down tunnels, chasing ghosts from their pasts. when they eventually arrived at the very bottom, they had to dig even further, and then found themselves climbing out of a hole in the top of the barrow they'd gone down in the first place. that moment of down-is-up got an extremely rewarding "what the fuck".

Is it racist that Dwarves are usually shown as Scottish?

Check out my Conan audio books, they have a pretty good voice cast. My early dungeons are of Adventure 2600, Dragon Warrior, Lord of rhe Rings and Conan.

This video left me wanting more on the topic. There was a perfect opportunity for a segway into the Fear & Hunger franchise. Maybe a part 2?

I missed out on DnD back in the day, was an electronics nerd in high school who went straight to computer gaming. Today, 40 some years later I'm doing RPG in Skyrim.

Another self-loathing white liberal fool. Now, I will not deny how many mechanics he created and now wide-spread in all TTRPGs.

As someone who's doctor sometimes prescribes therapeutic phlebotomy I feel attacked! 😅 These phlebotomies are pretty specific, though definitely not for a flu or pain in the knees or anything like that.

So what is the point that we're supposedly missing? What is your point? Jesus

The Etrian Odyssey series has my favorite dungeons. The UI includes some tools for drawing your own maps, which drives home the fact that you're entering literal uncharted territory. There are dozens of monsters that will flatten the party if you face them head-on, but can be avoided by observing the layouts and movement patterns. And all your equipment is crafted by bringing back materials found in the dungeon. You're not just making it deeper into the maze, you're actually advancing your civilization's armaments.

I've moved between MERP, Rolemaster, Burning Wheel and now to Mothership, and for me the latter captures the magic of early D&D dungeons. Except in a sci-fi setting, but nevertheless, only the threat of imminent death makes decisions meaningful. Otherwise, what is the point?

In a story, which is only fiction, imagination and fantasy, what harm is there in misogamy and racism? Other than in the mind of the reader? There lies the fault.

The environment which has taken over the ecological niche formerly occupied by dungeons is today known as The Backrooms.

3:51 YOOO!!! House of Leaves!

masterpiece of a video

3:15 META in gaming isn't about meta-gaming, strangely. It is an Acronym standing for Most Effective Tactic Available. The META weapons, equipment, tactics, skills, characters, etc.

I never played d&d so I always associated video game dungeons with the legend of zelda

Having a Japanese-Chinese mother and Irish-mixed-Anglo-French-Italian father has shaped how some people have treated me all of my life as well-from childhood through the present day, some people have felt a need to ask me “where are you from?”, in a way that the objective answer (“Southern California”) leaves them dissatisfied (“no, where are you really from?”). The first time I was on national TV, a stranger tracked down my work email just to ask about my ancestry. I’ve gotten tired of it the older I’ve gotten. I’ve also come to understand that racial classification is something a lot of people are unthinkingly curious about, and that they don’t think about how they wouldn’t bother (or even care) about such questions with people who fit their phenotypic categories. Ultimately, it’s a trifling irritant, not a hill where I see any positive personal cost-benefit to telling thoughtless people off. As for “mongrel”-it’s not a word that gets used much anymore, at least to describe people. Decades ago, I used to make jokes about myself as being a product of the “mongrelization of the races” because that phrase seemed so obviously associated with Nazis and American white supremacists that it could only remind people that race really belongs in the ashcan of history. I never called anyone other than myself such, and never heard anyone use it to describe me. So when I read AD&D module I-1 back in 1980 or 1981, I wasn’t bothered by the mongrelman appearing in its new monsters, alongside the yuan-ti and the aboleth. The game had “Men, Dervish” as a monster type. The description of the mongrelman, with patchwork body parts, seemed like Frankenstein’s monster or the experiments of Dr. Moreau. No thought that mongrelmen were anything like me ever occurred. Even if I had connected them, their depiction was sympathetic-that is, like Moreau’s creations, they were outcasts and non-malicious, if odd-looking-almost like gamers! As for the various “half-“ races in D&D: that is a legacy of Professor Tolkien’s use of the word “race” where we might speak of “species.” Even JRRT acknowledged the existence of Elrond and his other half-elven characters implied that elves and humans were not, in fact, “biologically” distinct. That Tolkien also used “race” to describe different ancestral groups within his imaginary Men (“Numenoréan blood,” etc.) is an unfortunate vocabulary showing the pervasiveness of race-talk among European elites and their imitators in the fin-de-siècle period. By embracing Tolkien’s treatment of elves, dwarves, halflings, and humans as “races” (rather than traditional mythic treatment of these groups as monsters or supernatural categories like trolls, vampires, ghouls, kami, etc.), the ugly real-world associations of race became embedded in fantasy.

14:28 Some of the narrative structure and outline elements here are an artifact of that the pop magazine based narrative structure as opposed to the long form bookbase narrative structure. You get a similar effect on the foundation original trilogy. On the other hand you are very much too kind to talkin on the primary subject of this video. Michael morcock has probably the most balanced view of token on this subject, despite all the criticism of people who share tokens moral weaknesses. Specifically, tokens, writings and some of the base trucks we use from d and d derived from them, we're intended or at least designed to promote racism. 21:49 Generally different species of the same genus cannot nor breed, but they're often staral look at the mule and the liger. 23:48 I would have thought of you as Astronesian. The philippines thing does suggest that, but is further off. Just to make sure we're clear native taiwanese, indonesian and malaysian people, people are at the top of what I mean when I say astronesian. Whereas the filipinos are much more of a mixed with east or southeast asian or spanish for that matter. 30:41 It always sees to me like the argument you're addressing ears, not actually the honest argument, and that the real arguments is for is that they like the ability to embrace, at least in fantasy, the racial bioessentialism and racism. And now, sometimes that means what they're trying not to say is that they're engaging in cathartic racism in fiction to avoid doing so in real life, as violent video games can prevent mass shootings.But more often, they're hoping that the games will make people more racial.Essentialist

Definitely a theater kid

Man, the intrusive thoughts in this one were heavy. Good video, though. Brought up some stuff I hadn't though of before. Now to make use of it.

And suddenly house of leaves is everywhere

1) The (sub-)thesis that dungeons have fallen out of favor is an odd one. Modern D&D is replete with dungeons. The procedures have been lost, the dungeons function very differently, but they're still abundant. 2) I fail to understand why you invoke the image of dungeons as torturous prisons when it doesn't impact the argument of what dungeons are good at or bad at. You go on this aside on how the word "dungeon", like other words in English, can change its meaning, sometimes without clear guiding intention. But you say this pretty much alongside explaining how Arneson guided the word dungeon to its current meaning very intentionally. Both are true pieces of information, but structurally it was odd to convey them back-to-back. 3) There's a weird aside on how Howard comes across as racist and misogynist, but not as bad as Lovecraft (who also hasn't come up at all in the video essay until this very moment), and how Howard was provincial and small-town and hadn't met any of these exotic people except to read about them in books - a very strange statement considering women occupy around 50% of most provincial and small-town areas. I dunno. It just felt a tad sloppier than past video essays of yours.

I don't think it's sensible to have the word "medieval period" refer to regions outside of Europe (and, ironically, you could make the case that that is eurocentric). The Periodization of European history into classical antiquity, middle ages and modern period works fine (with the problems that any periodization of history has), but for places outside of Europe, it seems so arbitrary to use periodization that uses dates like "fall of the Western Roman Empire".

So I watched this video with my friends because we are big enthusiasts of dungeon crawling and old school dnd, here is the comment of each of us about this video. Revan: Damn man if everything can be a dungeon then your video is a water dungeon in which I fucking drowned from your meaningless talk. Monolith: If you watch this video called "You're Missing the Point of Dungeons", you will still be "Missing the Point of Dungeons". Satsebeli: We don't understand dungeons but your video didn't explain what a dungeon is either.

My wife is a dungeon. I loot her booty every day!

The dungeons on my homebrew world are basically puddles of magic left behind by Abonea the traveled, a now dead goddess in my pantheon. Her jump points across the universe leave a small bleed in reality sometimes causing a "dungeon" thats usually weird. Ladt time my players found a gnoll sex cult, a plesiosaur that they tamed, a amethyst dragonling and 50lbs of Rosantiam. A rosy fools gold like mineral that heals instead of doing damage all in one large cavernous maze.

I expected this to be about the general thematic design of dungeons in art and media. Disappointed.

Frost/stargrave has amazing female kits, perfect to kitbashing

Well thought out. I would be interested particularly in a deeper take on the military industrial complex. You just got a lifetime subscriber.

I play with two tabletop groups, one of which started as an osr dungeon crawl group and now also play games that lean fully on the 'roleplaying' side, and the other of which formed around modern d&d superhero fantasy hijinks but has shifted towards lovecraftian horror games. It's a broad scope of styles and game systems I've played between the two, but always what makes the truly great sessions is an understanding of genre and inspirations. Maybe this video could even sell some of the dungeon-haters that I play with on the appeal XD

In Ultima III, I got to the bottom level of a dungeon and, after I worked my way back to the surface, I emerged on a different continent. All eight dungeons linked at the deepest level and I didn't realize that I had taken a different door out on that deepest level than I had come in through.

I honestly feel like video games ruined dungeons as the rise of video games seems to match the rise of disinterest in dungeons when it comes to Dungeons & Dragons. Over the last 30 years, when it comes to media surrounding it, it seems more focused on world exploration with very little actual dungeon interactions (I'm also including everything I've seen of Critical Role in this, which does have some very unique 'dungeon' situations but not much compared to the rest, which is fine but bear with me here)... My theory is that as video games have gained popularity, those that have dungeons have made them synonymous with 'baddie farming'. Whether you're going into a dungeon to complete a quest or not the place is almost always some kind of dank, labyrinthian structure that's full of mobs. You're meant to slaughter your way through the area to the final boss of the dungeon, slaughter them as well, and then you get the 'end of dungeon steamer trunk' style reward and leave. That's it. Go in, slaughter, destroy boss, get chest of goodies, leave. Yes, there are some games that include puzzles and crazy stuff in their dungeons. Yes, there are games that have dungeons that are ONLY puzzles or ONLY crazy stuff. Yes, looking at this through an obscure 'but what counts as a dungeon?!' lens makes it lose a lot of credibility... But most people don't think of Stanley Parable as a dungeon crawl despite it being its own 'House of Leaves'esque experience. The fact of the matter is people these days equate dungeons with boring mob farming and intense boss battles, not puzzles or madnes... because video game dungeons that are easily recognizable to everyone are exactly that. As a lifelong gamer, myself, it sucks that it's done such damage to the creativity of the experience and it's always a treat when I stumble across a game that understands that they're more than that. I really hope that people recapture the possibilities of dungeons in fiction eventually and that the public as a whole rediscovers the joy of looking at experiences through abstract and interpretive lenses as the black and white thinking that's become so pervasive in the last few decades is doing nothing but harm to society both creatively and otherwise.

I'm just starting this video but whip out old school 1981 Moldvay Basic/Expert it has some of the best Dungeon exploration rules. It also has the best Dungeons in its pre written modules. After watching the video. Wow very thought provoking and intriguing, it felt like I was exploring some ideas as if they were some kind of underground cave or cavern or perhaps another fitting word. I like that it wasn't aimed at a particular system just the concept in general and I think people miss out on how some of the ideas are universal and can help with many games.

It's so good to hear the way you care for pronunciation in other languages, and you say foreign names and expressions in a natural and respectful way

“The ceiling is the floor, the stones are made of wood and where torches burn are instead burning stones. Theres a question in the air but the air is like jelly so the question just sort of floats and the jelly monsters are like air. Nothing makes sense, just because”.

“Being technically correct the best kind of correct.” Didn’t expect to hear a futurama quote but I should have.