DUNGEON CRAWL - Terrible Writing Advice

[@gabrielrussell5531]

Please do an episode on computers, hacking, and how much people misunderstand those things.

[@philips315]

Can't wait for him to tear that trope to pieces.

[@macoppy6571]

*types furiously* must prevent JP from revealing hacking secrets *typing intensifies*

[@mariustan9275]

Yeah. I'd liek to see him show how actual hacking works and looked hothing like hollywood hacking. What, you think actual hackers invade your computer with popups? Or whatever "mainframe" even means?

[@stevemc01]

pffffft You really need something like that? Useless. Just use the classic: *mashes active strobe light into face* *has total seizure on keyboard* "I've entered the US Department of Defense archives. Now time to end that War Thunder argument once and for all."

[@michimatsch5862]

"Hacking is used like modern magic. A magic gesture is made and locks are opened, the world changes, and secrets are learned."

[@cara-seyun]

I love how his side characters have better continuity than most TV show characters

[@catosbobu1239]

wdym?

[@richardarriaga6271]

Rian Johnston definitely followed his advice.

[@teddyhaines6613]

Rebel Freedom Force: Are we a joke to you?

[@Gabrong]

for me the dark empire background stuff is the reason I rarely watch the episodes. is just too much, too long for my taste

[@QueenAleenaFan]

He's actually a writer. Most tv creators have no writing experience judging by the crap they spew

[@ianyoder2537]

One of my favorite DND stories is about the 3.5E wizard player who bought a keep to store all his loot, hid it with illusion magic, filled it with traps and summoned monsters to protect his stuff, and than in real life woke up in a cold sweat 2 months later realizing what he had dun. So yes, dungeons simply existing is actually realistic. I mean think about real life dangerous locations like Chernobyl that high ranking scientists regularly visit to study, do that but magic. Or go a step further and look at real life abandoned military bases that have become tourist attractions. Look to real life for inspiration for fiction and realize just how strange real life is.

[@macoppy6571]

A WWII era aircraft carrier is strangely built like a dungeon. The Final Countdown vs. Dragonheart.

[@mariustan9275]

That's actually a cool idea, for qizards to go to a place where a magical nuke detonated and they are studying the magical radiation everywhere. That could be a cool landscape, a sort of apocalypse zone inside of a fantasy world populated with magically transformed animals.

[@cara-seyun]

Do you remember what the story was called?

[@filmandfirearms]

The fact that you wrote "lute", as in the instrument, instead of "loot" makes me imagine a greedy wizard/bard multiclass with a massive lute collection

[@Calebgoblin]

Dang that's a lot of lutes

[@Ironysandwich]

You know, oddly enough the Skyrim puzzles being super easy makes a lot of sense. You always find them in tombs with draughr and the like, so an easy explanation is that they are there to prevent them from moving around. They're deliberately dead easy for anyone with a functioning brain because they're only meant to stop things with non-functioning brains.

[@YEY0806]

That is canon actually

[@ReidMontgomery95]

Games need multiple difficulty options. For example, having a separate selectable difficulty for combat and puzzles.

[@maallos334mi8]

And what I think gets glossed over a lot, a lot of the Drauger traps can be used to kill enemies, so having them easily identified to the player is a great way for them to feel smart getting enemies to trigger it. Which is why I hate mods that cheat and make the pressure plates almost completely invisible, replacing the model with stock pebbles that look like normal floor, with no unique identifier (like… have a rock be a darker shade or something, any indicator for an observant player to see and recognize) and tripwire that’s just… invisible, unable to be broken by an arrow and cannot be triggered by enemies.

[@michaelbuckers]

Oh boy. I still have PTSD from Oblivion when you make your way through a dungeon and pick the hardest lock just to find a singular shovel or something.

[@msf2000]

​​@@michaelbuckersMaster level locked chest in Skyrim with only 3 coins and a minor healing potion

[@ShadowDogProduction]

I crawled through a dungeon once. Its hard on the knees.

[@freetoplayking7362]

at least it wasn't one of those which are lined with arrows

[@PrismTheLoser]

@@freetoplayking7362 You think arrows are the worst? I once crawled through a mimic dungeon. It was made of mimics. I don’t have a tongue or tentacle fetish.

[@YEY0806]

​@@freetoplayking7362 or bars of soap

[@J0hnHenrySNEEDen]

I wemt to a dungeon once and i couldnt sit normally for weeks

[@iliadnetfear2586]

I go to the dungeon every week. What? You think those snakes in the snake trap have been alive for centuries or can go without food? And that skeleton you found riddled with arrows warning you of the pressure plate arrow trap? How do you think more arrows got in there? My family has been on retainer maintaining the dungeon for generations. It's a family bidness.

[@FirstLast-cg2nk]

Here's an idea: A fantasy world with tons of inexplicable dungeons that always restock with monsters and loot turns out to be the long abandoned fantasy theme park of an intergalactic empire, and the residents are descendents of all the staff members and tourists who were trapped there when the empire collapsed.

[@johnsayles8032]

What if there was a place with all the zip of Nuka cola? Wouldn't that be the cheer cheer cheeriest place in all the world?

[@michimatsch5862]

Oh, that's neat. Have them ritualistically restock everything. Not knowing why it is done but that it was always done and thus must be done moving onward. Throw in a pseudo-religion about that as well (maybe they think that the people from the stars will visit them if they keep fulfillfing their duty. Missunderstanding old fliers talking about the tourists from across the galaxy).

[@FirstLast-cg2nk]

@@michimatsch5862 Or just have it all be done by automated systems that no one understands, and even the descendants of the staff are only able to do very basic, surface level maintenance. You could have the plotline be that things have started breaking down and suddenly the dungeons are spawning monsters incorrectly, either placing monsters from the wrong random encounter charts, items from different loot tables, or having them spawn... incorrectly. Every wonder what Missingno would look like if it that corrupted code was converted into flesh and blood? Or if someone used the warp point at the end of the dungeon when the warp function wasn't working properly? Ever wonder what it would be like to experience a NoClip in real life with no Backrooms to catch you? You could have a legit horror story.

[@carolinelabbott2451]

Colossal Cave. ❤😊

[@blshouse]

See classic AD&D modules Dungeonland and Castle Greyhawk.

[@antoinelachapelle3405]

Quick historical correction : A dungeon originally meant the tallest, largest tower of the castle, sometimes also known as the keep. It became associated with prison because if you want to keep a prisoner in a castle, atop the highest tower is the best place because if he breaks free from his cell, he has to go through more of the castle than anywhere else to fully escape !

[@willmako5009]

If I remember my middle school classes on the topic the dungeon would have the center of command of the castle in it, specifically because of its "master tower" role but I may be misremembering

[@kerwinbrown4180]

There is that story of some prisoner letting down her hair.

[@gdragonlord749]

Technically that was the donjon which is a french word but the name kind of stuck once moved underground

[@schwarzerritter5724]

I thought that is called a "donjon". EDIT: Oh, I get it.

[@antoinelachapelle3405]

@@gdragonlord749 When William the conqueror and the Normans took over England, they brought alot of French words with them that then became English through local interactions between the English people and the now French nobility, as opposed to the traditionally more Germanic root names the English used Donjon - Dungeon instead of Keep Boeuf - Beef instead of cow/ox Porc - Pork instead of Pig, etc Funnily enough, those last 2, you can see the French influence on the **food** made of those animals, versus the germanic influence on the actual animal -because the English peasants worked with the animals where as the nobility only ever bothered with the prepared food

[@Technobabylon]

We lost the dragon model, so the boss of our last D&D dungeon ended up being a giant pineapple that needed defeating.

[@VicStrange9]

High AC, tons of acid damage... I've had worse

[@mrlaz9011]

the king of all fruits

[@Superkid33]

LOL! A giant pineapple ?! That’s amazing! XD

[@YukaTakeuchiFan]

Did its challengers wind up with scarred faces as a result of the battle?

[@ArachD206]

As someone who absolutely hates pineapple, doesn't sound too bad of a villain.

[@otaku-chan4888]

This is why I love love love Delicious in Dungeon! It's literally a manga about the most classic dungeon crawl setting, made by a wizard- but EVERYTHING has worldbuilding it's amazing. The mimics really are gotchu monsters, but the reason they're shaped like treasure chests is because they coexist with treasure coin monsters- which are bugs that look like gold coins for camouflage. The coin bugs prey on the treasure chest and eat it out from within, but for as long as the mimic is alive, it gets more adventurers-sorry, prey- to approach because they saw the peek of gold coins through the holes in it. Thanks to this symbiosis, the coin bugs don't make a meal of the mimics too fast and help the mimic lay bait. this is just ONE example of Ryoko Kui's incredible creativity with typical dungeon monsters! the story's hook is actually about the cooking technique and tasty monster food recipes, but there's also eldritch demons and a grimdark curse in the lore background along with messed up human characters so yay!

[@davibrelazdealbuquerque5766]

I know, I was thinking about that when he mentioned the Ecosystem of the Dungeon 😄

[@BigWorm2077]

The darkest dungeon monologue at the opening made me crack a wide grin. The more TWA in my feed, the better

[@shouryuuken4147]

Also "Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer" at the end!

[@adriftinglink]

Yeah man. I caught it too. I should really just jump in and finish that game. It’s so good.

[@Thatguy-fp7rh]

If you haven't already a darkest dungeon revamp came out called black reliquary, it's very good

[@ConnanTheCivilized]

I didn’t even know what it was from, but now I’m interested, thanks.

[@kinghunter736-g2o]

As a big Darkest Dungeon fan, that intro bit put a smile on my face. :)

[@victoriouswinner7745]

why does this series have such consistent characters, they're used everywhere 😭

[@cara-seyun]

He’s flexing on other writers being unable to keep continuity

[@maxwaspace5348]

Easier than making new sprites

[@mochaleo3115]

A clever way to spice up asset reuse!

[@myboatforacar]

Also comedy

[@Ultrox007]

re-using assets saves on art time.

[@keylimepython641]

You could make a dungeon with incredibly counterintuitive solutions needed to get anywhere, unavoidable death traps that you can stumble upon with no warning, treasures with horrible secrets, and other random crap everywhere. Oh wait, that's tomb of horrors.

[@offandsphere6788]

wasn't tomb of horrors made by a guy that said something along the lines of "if a player is being a problem, drop a 10d10 lightning bolt on them as a DM"

[@ScorbunGame]

That could actually work if in universe the dungeon is made by huge dick trickster who wants to make the most frustrating, dangerous dungeon possible just because he gets a kick out of making adventurers rage quit.

[@michimatsch5862]

I mean. That thing was specifically created to murder pcs. If everyone at the table wants that...

[@tomkerruish2982]

​@@offandsphere6788Sounds like Gary.

[@RayPoreon]

@@offandsphere6788 Pretty sure it was made by Gygax himself. So yeah, probably.

[@pillarnexustheancientgladiator]

Speaking of mimics, one of the most evil things I've ever encountered in a Final Fantasy game was the save point mimic for FF12; they introduce the concept early with something obvious, but then there are two more elsewhere to mess with you when you're least ready for it.

[@rocketslime5772]

I was so glad those things turned into actual save points after they died, pure evil creatures

[@MusicoftheDamned]

Yeah, the Crystalbugs suck, especially since unlike most regular mimics, they look like the things you prioritize going to when you're already badly injured instead of your greed doing you in. In that sense, their form makes far more sense than usual mimics' forms usually do as well.

[@alixmalone19]

That IS evil

[@Okada_Caelun]

I saw you had "Fantasy Maps" on your to-do list. Remember, your fantasy map MUST include every known biome within it: grassland, forest, mountains, winter, desert, and maybe a swamp. It doesn't matter if geographical formations would hinder such a diverse arrangement, your map must include them (or at least include enough room for them to be included in the future). Furthermore, and even more importantly, the hero's party MUST visit every corner of the map by their journey's end. Even if our hero's goals are noticeably small scale, such as an exiled prince who simply wants to reclaim his throne, he must visit every city, every biome, and every continent before he can at last confront his evil usurper uncle. What's that? He could have just asked his childhood-friend, the princess of the neighboring kingdom, to have her country lend their armies to fight the Uncle's weakened rebel forces and put the Prince back on the throne? But then how would we have the love-triangle with the elven princess?!

[@Cloven_Leaf]

I've noticed TWA has been posting much more recently. I feel good!

[@blshouse]

Greed is an excellent motivator. ;-)

[@Cloven_Leaf]

​@@blshouse This is true, and will always be true. Destroying the world is so easy to motivate for.

[@jingbot1071]

The troll cave story makes me want to make a recurring dungeon that's nonsensically following the party wherever they go...

[@Fluffkitscripts]

Curse: door to doom. Whenever the afflicted person or persons pass through a doorway, that doorway instead leads to a dungeon of the caster’s construction, set apart from space in a manner similar to a bag of holding.

[@ViirinSoftworks]

There are a lot of Dungeon Core stories out there, but not one like that as far as I know.

[@velkonemriam1935]

“I’m being cancelled!” is a nice addition to that “Apology” video trend 😂

[@peterwindhorst5775]

Funny thing - my party did the British Empire thing on a dungeon with cursed mirrors. We sold the mirrors to a merchant that screwed the party. We departed the merchant's manner leaving him under the curse of "vanity" - anyone who looks into the mirror is cursed to look into the mirror seeing the best of themselves, (it is a will save to look away from the mirror), they only think of looking at the mirror, not eating or sleeping... so the merchant died starving to death, but he thought he looked like the most handsome man in the world while doing it.

[@markbo3251]

Sounds like the Greek myth of narcissus.

[@zinkheroofyoutube8004]

@@markbo3251Probably what the spell was based on

[@marctaco2624]

Nice Darkest Dungeon callout: for when a game about dungeon crawling requires as much patients and stress as an actual job.

[@adriftinglink]

For real

[@MiguelMorales-cs1mn]

That's supposed to be the point though, lmao

[@stevenmarshall653]

Yay! We getting stressed up in here! 🎉🎉🎉

[@RayPoreon]

And considering how often your characters catch mental illnesses or diseases, 'patient's seems like the right word.

[@shaeby8123]

With how cynical Jp is in these episodes, you call this The Darkest Dungeon Video

[@thisgoddamusernamestoodamnlong]

sometimes I actually wonder if he's ok. he seems to hate anything and everything

[@ponponpatapon9670]

@@thisgoddamusernamestoodamnlong from the bottom of my heart, i sincerely apologize that some of us are critical of the media we consume 😢

[@notproductiveproductions3504]

Can you do one on sympathetic villains? Cuz I don’t wanna make something that challenges the audience when I can do it wrong

[@unicorntomboy9736]

Not a villain per say, but the character Takuto Maruki from Persona 5 Royal comes to mind

[@mariustan9275]

@@unicorntomboy9736 He is technically an antagonist, but not a villain. He just wants to eliminate sadness permanently, but that's impossible without vastly changing some people. In one instance he changed a person's hobby because he thought it would suit him better. At that point he may as well make people stuck in an endless haze of happiness. It's technically happiness, but is it truely?

[@cara-seyun]

Barbarossa from Pirates of the Caribbean

[@EternityKingdomsHeadHoncho]

Goldi from The Last Wish!!!

[@33pandagamer]

Here's some terrible advice! Have the villain do absolutely despicable and horrific things, but whenever they are called out for their actions claim that it's ok because the villain has a tragic backstory or is grieving.

[@ScorbunGame]

Environmental storytelling if done well is a fantastic way to make what would be a bland dungeon into a remembered and beloved one. Describing details of how theirs's strange crystals on the walls, having seemingly random objects that if your paying attention are connected to a much larger story of the dungeon's past and how it became like it is now, monsters and vengeful spirits infecting the dungeon because of a horrible accident or experiment that took place here long ago. Dungeons don't have to be just generic labyrinths full of monsters, they can be locations that tell a story of the past.

[@YEY0806]

Reminds me of Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen's BitterBlack Island.

[@cae2212]

That's what I love darksouls for

[@balsamon69]

The Souls series took that to heart

[@Chinothebad]

​@@YEY0806 that on to of the dungeons from Salt & Sanctuary. Both being a place that shouldn't exist built. Latter differed though in being built from the memories of people lost at sea rather than the memories of a man that warped into something vile.

[@unicorntomboy9736]

Komoshida's Castle in Persona 5 Royal comes to mind

[@Pancasilaist8752]

dungeons in pop culture: booby traps, spikes, arrows that still function after hundreds of years of being abandoned, bursts of fire, etc. Dungeon in reality: the best I could come up with was a fake door and some curses (except at that time there was a tomb curses that threatened the whole country)

How does a tomb threaten a country?

[@Pancasilaist8752]

​@ there is a story where Soviet archaeologists excavated the tomb of tamerlane or also known as timur lenk. when it was excavated, there was an inscription on the tomb which meant "whoever digs Timur Lenk's grave, will release invaders who are more cruel than himself". Timur Lenk was once a Central Asian Muslim ruler who was known to be cruel and even many Muslims themselves hated him because of his cruelty. This person once piled up the skulls of victims and then stacked them to resemble a pyramid. Not only that, he had also promised that there would be no bloodshed on the townspeople he besieged if they surrendered, the townspeople believed, But then they were buried alive by Timur Lenk because Timur Lenk only said there would be no bloodshed, not pardoned and allowed to live. Back to Soviet part, after Soviet archaeologists excavated the tomb of Timur Lenk, three days later, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union and caused the Great Patriotic War or what we call it Eastern front Which is the bloodiest front in the second world war. The oddity was not finished, Timur Lenk's body was then reburied in his grave with an Islamic funeral ceremony. One month later, the Soviet Union won the battle of Stalingrad which was a decisive victory and a turning point in the eastern front.

[@eeg-rh7jv]

​@@Pancasilaist8752Timur is op

[@SupremeViola]

Traps are my biggest pet peeve in dungeon crawls. I know they're a genre staple by this point and shouldn't be questioned, but my brain keeps getting tripped up over the fact these places are usually both trapped AND STAFFED. Are all the dungeon guards dodging all of these traps on a daily basis to get their job done? There's ways to get around it: "dungeon staff" consisting of zombies that don't mind standing in one room for decades at a time, traps that can read some kind of RFID chip that dungeon staff have and therefore don't go off (could be a puzzle opportunity for the party to try to get one), having the traps only in unstaffed areas so the players have to choose whether they want to pick between staff or traps while fantasy OSHA is kept happy, etc.

[@bobbybooshay5388]

Interesting thing about the cliche fantasy dungeon is it was originally supposed to be this weird wondrous DnD dimension that was just a ridiculously large dungeon. Somehow it became the standard idea of fantasy dungeon.

[@prasetyodwikuncorojati2434]

And dungeon which full of traps too already become a very cliched fantasy setting

[@velkonemriam1935]

That and also Gary Gygax likes the idea, partly because you could control where your party goes. I don’t know if he had trouble handling where the party wondered off to, but “open world” DnD was a very new, not well-grasped concept yet. Ttrpg has evolved a LOT since then haha

[@Wyattporter]

Could the purposelessness of dungeon architecture be used as part of a deconstruction of RPG/fantasy worldbuilding and tropes? Nah, too much work! I designed it randomly because that’s easier!

[@andrewmcguinness1845]

A few days ago, I was bored, and so I designed a mega dungeon made almost entirely out of liminal spaces. The purpose is for people to become lost and go mad, slowly filling it with angry, confused ghosts who can't even conceive of an exit.

[@Petrico94]

1. The dungeon is just a carnival attraction with minions that set up each challenge room after each team wanders through. It has no purpose other than to be stomped through (until a part malfunctions and they backtrack into a room they just cleared?) 2. The dungeon is just filler, actually just a place with the thing and the villain wants the party to get in place for what they want. It's purpose is set dressing and feeling like they accomplished something. 3. It could be a forest/cave or natural structure. It's not made by people for a purpose it's just how nature grew around it. Maybe that's cheating since it's purpose would be to foster life, a coincidental arrangement of minerals or act as it's own organism but whatever. 4. It's less a fortress or dungeon and more a tunnel network to key underground items. It wasn't built for anything in between these locations besides connecting them or getting from the entrance to each. Sort of like a mine but instead of tunneling through veins of resources it's all just dirt between a dimension portal and endless fountains of energy that could sustain it.

[@majorblitz3846]

@@andrewmcguinness1845 Certified backroom classic

[@marocat4749]

Make it as a weird hobby of a weird noble that also was extremely paranoid. So he turned the cave into a livin deathtrap with mad riddles youneed to get into it. Also why its, really odd hhe wanted everything,and ended up extreme disjointed with bad architecture. Maybe dead workers skeletons can lay around as itwa that trange and chaoticto built it,leaving it unfinished. And that noble used forbbidden magic to havve the infflux o monsters whose corpses lay around too.

[@dumb214]

@@andrewmcguinness1845 uses a thread

[@figo3554]

All you need is an incredible amount of goblins, questionable architectural designs, and a little bit of sadism on the DM's part. And you have a dungeon.

[@Cloven_Leaf]

The subtly of RNG gods is killing me in laughter lol.

[@craigandahalf]

I don't know if it's lit RPG, but Delicious in Dungeon has a really well designed Lore. The biology of the dungeon ecosystem is so well thought out that it feels like it could be real. And still, the author manages to weave in a plot that makes it not feel like Lore dumping, despite it being broke adventurers who brave a dungeon while living off the land to save a companion that's already been eaten. One example is the treasure insects. They crawl into mimics and eat them, hide as treasure, get picked up by adventures, get carried to another part of the dungeon, sting the adventurers to knock them out, and find a new mimic to eat. If you don't want to read the manga, there is an Anime by Trigger coming in the future. Probably next year I guess.

[@Bicornis]

Like most Japanese fantasy I think Delicious in Dungeon could be called litRPG-adjacent - it is definitely heavily influenced by RPGs but stops short of actually putting game mechanics into the story. It's also very good; the first thing that came to mind when JP mentioned studying dungeon ecology.

[@DonVigaDeFierro]

@@Bicornis Getting rid of references to game mechanics is honestly a very good decision. When there's a mention of "levels" or, god have mercy, "Hit points" in medieval-land, I lose an IQ point.

[@nekopuppet]

16:35 "I got my humble start working at a bootstrap factory." i don't know why greed working at such factory made me laugh so hard

[@charmyzard]

The Sonic illustration at 4:03 could not be more perfect for how it feels.

[@LendriMujina]

I like the in-universe explanation the Skyrim dragon claw "puzzles" have that you can find in a couple of the in-game books: they aren't to keep adventurers _out,_ they're to keep the Draugr _in._

[@glowstickofdestiny1290]

My favorite part of Final Fantasy VI was when Terra recovered from Esperitis and followed the party all the way to the Magitek Factory just to debate Cid on the semantics of what counts as a dungeon Oh, and the "Forgotten Temple" Template not having an associated image is a very nice mildly amusing detail

[@AmericanBrit9834]

Love the Darkest Dungeon opening. Overconfidence is our worst enemy.

[@AmericanBrit9834]

@@martinthewarrior6887 Another soul battered and broken, cast aside like a spent torch.

[@nont18411]

Please make an episode about redemption arc. How the villains (mainly villain protagonists) committing atrocities for 20 years straight, abusing, torturing, genociding people and stuffs but once it reached the third act of the final episode, he suddenly did one act of kindness and this act somehow cancelled out every evil deeds he had done his whole life and he became a good guy in an instant.

[@cara-seyun]

Is this a reference to a specific character?

[@nont18411]

@@cara-seyun THREE specific characters. One is a guy who got all of his limbs chopped off and then got grilled super crispy and had a breathing problem. Another is a prominent lawyer in Albuquerque who helped a chemistry teacher with lung cancer become a drug kingpin. The last one is an incel wizard who had a hot for the mother of the protagonist of his franchise.

[@cara-seyun]

@@nont18411 not sure who the last one is, and I haven’t seen the second, but I doubt there is anyone claiming that Anakin’s one act of goodness fully erased all his evil deeds. Even in the next trilogy, he’s still a symbol of evil.

[@nont18411]

@@cara-seyun The fact that he became a force ghost said it all. He didn’t deserve that victory.

[@YEY0806]

​@Carson Lawler, the last one is about Snape from Harry Potter

[@murpyh4002]

i like how this series has increasingly become about giving a sequence of actual tips by suggesting the oppsoite

[@jeremymott]

And thus the reason why I love this channel

[@Zulk_RS]

"Become"? I thought this series was always about giving actual tips by suggesting the opposite.

[@stevemanart]

@@Zulk_RS Correct, that has always been the mission statement. JP's just been getting better and better at it as time as moved forward.

[@rumblebird9888]

That’s the entire point of this series

[@magicball3201]

It's always been satirical. Every time he has 3 green question marks appear around him, before giving a thumbs down with a red X, that's been just that

[@dunderbaer2430]

One thing for LitRPGs is to always keep in mind that the RPG aspects should always take over the entire "Lit" part. So make sure to have giant charactersheets on every single page that shows every single stat every single time. Trust me, it's very crucial information to know every single one of the thousands of skills your MC has. Alternatively, remember to introduce a RPG-like system that never matters at all. Your character had a strength stat of 200 last chapter? Well, he got 2 more now, so clearly he has 1023 now, just the amount needed for whatever challenge you just made up to show just how powerful your character has become. Inconsistency is perfectly fine and there's no chance any reader might actually like the numbers that basically make up the entire genre

[@oritimesthree]

that darkest dungeon reference was on point oml

[@DoctorSpacebar]

I feel like I should bring up one of the "dungeons" in my RPG Maker project. In the setting, the Mimics mostly live in a pirate cove. As expected from place called "Mimic Moorage", it's chock full of Mimics. Yes, there's even Door Mimics there! Running into them willy-nilly will result in the Door Mimic starting the battle with a bonus to its action meter; Brill can examine them instead to avoid this. Besides them and the classic Treasure Mimics, there's dagger-spitting Cloak Mimics, volatile Powderkeg Mimics, magic-wielding Spellbook Mimics, and oil-spitting Jar Mimics- and they leave harmless items lying around that, for all you know, COULD BE a Mimic, so you have to plan a route around walking next to as few of these as possible. Now, a lot of gotcha monsters are pretty silly when you think about it, and I leaned into that; Mimic Moorage is the furthest thing from Grimdark you can imagine. There's plenty of silly moments (the "are ye pirate enough to enter" quiz stands out), and Brill actually ends up on good terms with some of the residents, even as she retrieves all the stolen goods in the cove. (Including some guy's lunch. Yes, it never got eaten and now it's rancid, but the bag is a collectible!)

[@goodboi6329]

Where can I find this project?

[@Xavier-the-voodoo-king]

I have a couple of video suggestions Time travel Redemption arcs Reverse Redemption arcs Magic systems and just magic in general Western stories Space opera Space adventure stories Utopia The trope where a hero loses their powers Amnesia plots Tournament sagas Alien language and culture Magical otherworlds Betrayal The villians realize their villians Cursed artifacts Ancient superweapons Edit: I really hope you do time travel, amnesia, Redemption arcs, reverse Redemption arcs, Space adventures, and tournaments sagas first

[@CompletelyNewguy]

a couple of suggestions huh? XD But if you're interested you should watch Overlysarcasticproductions. They touch on alot of the things you mention while sprinkling in some cynicism.

[@mariustan9275]

Didn't he already do dystopia? That was the first video he did.

[@Xavier-the-voodoo-king]

@@mariustan9275 yeah my b I might have forgotten about that

[@reubenoakley5887]

Trope Talk on the channel OverlySarcasticProductions has covered several of these. You should check them out if you haven't!

[@balsamon69]

Amnesia is a good one. I hardly see that trope used in a good way, let alone realistic

[@cupidsfavouritecherub9327]

Defiance of The Fall is like the Platonic Ideal of litrpg tbh, whether you like it or hate it, it's one of the seminal works in the genre

[@whocares5946]

Never got past book 3. I like the world, hate the prose and characters.

[@joshy541]

Positive recommendation for Literature RPG: The manga called "Dungeon Meshi" or "Delicious in Dungeon" Good world-building, strong team dynamics, and a well-focused theme and storyline. it's basically an entire manga centered around a single long dungeon crawl.

[@Halloweenish]

Idea: A dungeon that *is* the final boss. As in, the whole structure is made of organic matter. The tunnels are veins, the doors are mouths, etc. The final enemy is the dungeons beating heart, which our heroes must kill to stop this eldritch monstrosity from growing bigger and consuming more land. Thoughts?

[@MarioFanGamer659]

This has been done in some way or another for Metroid Prime 3 where the final planet (and thus, dungeon) is a living organism, though you don't fight it directly and the boss is instead merely tied to the planet.

[@draxiss1577]

We like a good Darkest Dungeon reference.

[@tinyetoile5503]

The bit about dungeon ecosystems reminded me sharply of Dungeon Meshi, which is an incredible take on a literary dungeon crawl that I highly recommend for being one of the best stories that has ever graced my eyeballs.

[@Krowuss]

yk, jp really cracked the code with having end of the video segments. not only does it make a viewer interested in completing a video, but also forces new viewers to watch his older videos in order to gain context for the end segments. kudos to you, jp

[@e.sanghvi5657]

The Final Fantasy VI reference was beautiful. I'm so happy to see the game get a shout.

[@adolphaselrah9506]

There’s a final fantasy 6?

[@michiganscythian2445]

@@adolphaselrah9506yes and it’s considered one of the best games

[@Dommhammer721]

Apologies if this is a very long comment but LitRPG is my preferred genre and I’ve read a TON. LitRPG would technically include Isekai light novels but I won’t list those because they aren’t really the same IMO. Both often have cross over to the Xianxia (cultivation) genre so some familiarity with that would also help. LitRPGs so good that I subscribe to them on Patreon to make sure I get updates. These are also considered some of the most popular. (They are in general order of how much I like them): - Beneath the Dragoneye moons - He who fights with monsters (lighter game presence but still counts IMO) - Primal Hunter - Beware of Chicken (not directly a LitRPG, more Xianxia, but is so absurdly good I included it) - An outcast in another world - Salvos - Defiance of the fall - The Calamitous Bob - Jackal among snakes good ones that I always read when new ones are released (often due to them not having a patreon to subscribe to): - The Wandering Inn (often considered the exemplar of the genre) - Apocalypse Redux - Portal to Nova Roma - Solo leveling - Fates Anvil - A not so simple fetch quest - the devils foundry - Beastborne - Pyresolus apocalypse - an unbound soul - Virtuous sons - the beginning after the end - Artifical jelly (this is a fucking trip) Weird/super generic/bad that I dropped after 2-3 books for various reasons (can elaborate on if asked): - End of the World by Aaron oster (my most hated.) - system reborn (near beat for beat sololeveling ripoff) - Eternal dominion - chrysalis - battlefield reclaimer - fragment of divinity - red mage - badges of dorkdom - wrong divinity - the ten realms - a snakes life - isekai monster (made it to book 9 before losing interest.) Dungeon core books (a genre in of itself but are VERY HEAVY LitRPG even if they aren’t necessarily classified as such) weren’t included in this list. They can be kinda samey due to the nature of the premise, but some of the absolute best are: - dinosaur dungeon - the crafters dungeon - factory of the gods - the dungeon of stories - dungeon born - blue core I can list another 30-50 different series if you want but these should be more than enough lol. There is also a Ton of LitRPG smut that is actually good but I didn’t include those. HMU if you want those too 😏

[@magicboxhead9448]

Opinion on "The Land" ?

[@AlgaeNymph]

0:36 - Instant thumbs up for Terra! : D

[@Crystal_Remorhaz]

Bro, absolutely loving the chaos gods! Really has me feeling the call of the void and tempting me to abandon sanity in search of randomly generated treasure.

[@TeguTheJester1954]

Your commentary on writing tropes gives me so many ideas to use in stories to make them better

[@friendlyspacedragon7250]

A Factorio dungeon where the adventurers come in and steal all the green circuits? That's good enough reason for the dungeon to use lethal force.

[@Tetra_Seiya]

Dungeon Meshi is definitely my favorite dungeon crawler. It treats its dungeon not as something to conquer but as an eco system

[@robinthrush9672]

Try Level Up or Die! for a poor dungeon crawl example. Guy gets isekai protag powers because he is stuck as a healer. Why is he broken? Because his heal spell gives him stamina, so he can solo stuff for days without getting tired because he's constantly recharging.

[@incognito200]

Doesn't it sound a bit similar to *sigh* ReDo of Healer?

[@robinthrush9672]

@@incognito200 Never saw it. Heard "weird things" about it. There's no "weird things" in the first book og Level Up or Die!

[@Babbleplay]

Dungeon Crawler Carl series is my favorite Lit-RPG. Great characters, great humor, and all that.

[@robinthrush9672]

Add on Everybody Loves Large Chests. The Rogue Dungeon for an interesting take on dungeon crawls built to grief.

[@junconglin]

Does twi count?

[@cmjd8265]

The Awaken Online series is pretty good, though book one had some grammar issues.

[@bloodywilliam3083]

I could ask about some LitRPGs I've heard of but haven't read, although they are pretty much smut so I don't know if that is something you might want.

[@MDchainsaw]

DCC is the GOAT. Matt's other books are solid as well.

[@AtelierPhos]

When it comes to LIT Rpg Stories, my highest recommendation goes to NPCs, an audiobook series where normal human players in the real world get caught up in a set of modules for their favorite tabletop. little do they realise that these modules are connected to a real, alternative world out there, and are actively influencing the dice rolls and and contents of the books. the story mostly follows a set of NPCs that happen to be there when the party wipes, and because of shenanagins have to take up their mantles. the story does the classic role reversal "ooo the pretty noblewoman is the barbarian and the handicapped gnome is the paladin, bet you weren't expecting that!" song and dance, but the characters are themselves so much MORE than the tropes they slot into.

[@ctorres9552]

Really good series

[@fluffbot3000]

@@ctorres9552 anything by Drew Hayes is amazing

[@boobah5643]

While _Spell, Swords, Stealth (NPCs_ is the first book of the series) has audiobook releases, it's a normal book; it's even got a dead tree release. It's also pretty much the least crunchy story you could imagine that _might_ fit the definition of LitRPG. It's also worth noting that the story _also_ follows the players (and GM) of the TPK'd party that set the premise in motion, as their successive characters interact (often unknowingly) with the main cast.

[@unicorntomboy9736]

Not related to this video specifically, but your Deconstruction video got me thinking of the late 2000s anime School Days, which I found was meant to be a deconstruction of the haram anime genre, and tried to be a darker take on the sub-genre that portrayed how a haram and love triangle would realistically play out. It's most well known for its infamous and controversial ending. On a side note, please do a video on Historical Fiction next. The Assassin's Creed series is the best example of the genre/trope, as well as the TV series Bridgerton and the recent movie The Women King

[@cdru515]

Ah, yes, the Nice Boat ending

[@denseaf1582]

The expanded lore is something wild for School Days and the rest of 0verflow’s visual novels. Put very bluntly, the main character of School Days (Makoto) is actually the half-uncle of one of his main love interests (Sekai).

[@GeneralDragon011]

Greed is now my favorite villain of the TWA universe.

[@adriftinglink]

The Darkest Dungeon intro is great. “Ruin has come to our family”

[@diablo.the.cheater]

I like when there is the twist of dungeons being living beings themselves that attract monsters with pheromones or magic and binds them making it so that they do not need to eat as they are maintained by the dungeon but they are compelled to protect the deepest part of the dungeon where there is the weak point of the dungeon, its heart. This is interesting because the dungeon doesn't want intruders as they could kill it, specially if this heart is a huge gemstone or smth, but needs intruders for it needs to eat them, and the more monsters(protesters) the dungeon has, the more it needs to eat, as it basically eats for all its inhabitants. This makes for interesting settings, like a dungeon being enslaved by an empire to force it to convert the lives of their enemies in to treasure, or to serve as a prison, or as a training baracks. Or a dungeon making a deal with a great demon, where the great demon will protect the dungeon last chamber before its heart and in exchange the great demon will get the souls of those killed in the dungeon. You can even make a friendly dungeon that instead of creating a cave, creates a casino with the monsters acting as the staff, and feeding in more abstract concepts like the high emotions that occur in a casino. You can even make a friendly dungeon decide to create a big ass city and pay adventurers to go out to hunt monsters and offer them to the city in exange for rewards, with the dungeon eating the mosnter corpses for a reversal of the normal dungeon, in this case adventurers are the protectors and the ones that feed the dungeon and monsters are the prey. Maybe two dungeons were expanding their domain and they end up with their domains touching. Will they become good neighbors or even allies? or will they go to war with each other? Maybe the boss monster and the dungeon are in love with each other and are married. Maybe a dungeon has expanded its territory so wide in the surface that just the natural animal/monster deaths that occur on it and the magical energies of the huge ass land is enough to feed itself so it stands as a neutral entity that hides its core in a cave in that territory with 0 monsters, 0 treasure and a shit ton of traps since it doesn't want to lure anything. The dungeon can be the center of a religious organization with the dungeon feeding up from the intense emotions from prayer, making with the most ardent believers the same covenant that a dungeon makes with monsters, converting those ardent believers in to "heroes" or "paladins". Making a dungeon a living organism, mostly of magical nature that can exert its will over a territory make for a good story and makes too much sense, it explains the weird loot, the dungeon just creates it as a lure to attract prey, it also explains why weaker stuff is on top and stronger stuff is at the depths, the dungeon wants to kill prey but it still wants prety to actively enter inside, but the deeper it goes, the more dangerous it is for the dungeon so it needs stronger protectors to defend itself, the rooms also doesn't need to make much practical sense, those are just the creating of the dungeon, for the whole purpose of attracting and killing adventurers. It also solves the problem with the monster inside eating, the dungeon just feels them, they become symbiotic, they feed the dungeon by killing adventurers and the dungeon feeds them by sharing its energy with them. And all of this also leads to a lot of variety, once you have your average dungeon you can very easy use this setting to create variety. Maybe an evil wizard has used necromancy to ressurrect a dead dungeon heart to create an artificial dungeon for its tower and is using the quasi godly dungeon special magics that it has over its territory to enhance its magic powers trascending the limits of wizards. Maybe the dark lord that the heroes have to defeat and the goddess that blessed the heroes are both secretly massive dungeons the size of countries that have been on a battle for thousands of years and have been fooling humans and demons to fight this war for them and when the heroes find out they find themselves suddenly in a war against the whole world, having to kill their way trough hordes of those they want to liberate from the dungeons control to be able to reach both dungeons.

[@dashiellgillingham4579]

Here's a dungeon idea for free: a native people want their holy artifact back, but the empire won't return it, so that night, the party has to break into the empire's national museum (which may or may not contain things a bit more dangerous than all of the traps) to steal the artifact and return it.

[@multilad816]

So it is like a heist

[@marocat4749]

Thats a heist. Through it can twork as dungeon crawl too.

[@anarchistscum6090]

Great idea! Thanks random guy!

[@platinumchromee3191]

Imagine DM'ing that and your party decides to buy a bunch of clown masks

[@ChaffyExpert]

Isn't that just National Treasure but medieval.

[@cardescomedioses3674]

12:00 another alternative I thought is to accept that nonsense as intentional like: something is very wrong here, no matter how much we try escape it forces us to advance the dungeon and after beating a scary eldritch boss in a cave where nothing makes sense and once you win the dungeon it turns out it was all a gen jutsu errr I mean ilusión, you see what you traversed as simple scarecrows, but the loot is real since you survived what many adventurers died of heart attacks, as the loot you got was from them, whadayathink?

[@TheFireHawkDelta]

Solo Levelling and The Gamer are very influential manhwas that you should definitely check out, they aren't particularly good but they have so many clones that it's like you've read hundred LitRPGs once you've read them. Bofuri has a lighthearted case of one of my favorite tropes in the genre: the protagonist breaks the game and the game's developers nerf them to keep them from being too strong. In stories where the game mechanics are part of reality, replace developers with deities.

[@boobah5643]

Only really familiar with _Bofuri,_ but it has the problem where the author doesn't know/doesn't care about the game making sense as a game.

[@generalrubbish9513]

11:03 Quantum Ogre, we meet again! I first heard of the concept through The Alexandrian referencing another blog called Hack & Slash. The Hack & Slash article, titled "On How an Illusion Can Rob Your Game of Fun", criticizes the practice of preparing encounters by retroactively placing them wherever the players choose to go, thus creating the Quantum Ogre, who always blocks the party's path no matter WHICH path they choose - he just enters a state of quantum superposition where he blocks EVERY possible path until defeated. This is a form of railroading, because it negates player choice and forces a predetermined sequence of events. You decided that they're going to fight an ogre, and by God, they're going to fight your damn ogre.

[@last_surprise9507]

Chrysalis is one of the best litrpgs I’ve read. Its one of those “isekied as a monster in the dungeon” but actually good. The world has so much personality, history, and mystery. Each level of the dungeon has so much character, as do the monsters that live there.

[@intergalactic92]

Assuming you are referring to 'the antventure begins' by RinoZ, because there are a few books called Chrysalis out there.

[@willw6504]

A game I had recently didn't have any traditional dungeons - the entire thing, except for one brief aside, took place in a large, hostile city. Encounters could happen any time the party left one of the safe havens they established for themselves. All of the 'dungeons' were buildings in the city - a prison, an inn, a guild hall, a church, a castle, a government hall - and were populated by a mix of townsfolk (some hostile, some not) and the strange creatures that some of the townsfolk were beginning to transform in to (and that the other townsfolk seemed weirdly unbothered by).

[@JeffandBCProductions]

The ending of this one (before the post-credit scene) was a delightful turn! The inclusion of Darkest Dungeon at the very end of that monologue was great too! Feelsgood when we can see JP’s writing prowess flex from time to time

[@ed-gaming9786]

For literary RPGs, I would recommend some commentary on trips such as Using a system that’s over complicated, using a system that’s too simple, lines and veils, scheduling, finding a group, every new game beginning with the same variety of summons from the king

[@forabug594]

The Wandering Inn (trying to be objective, but this is my opinion) is not only excellent writing, character voice, and world building, but it also is one of the best examples of taking the usual "rules" of LitRPGs and telling a story that is enhanced by superb writing. Also, its a FREE serial online so accessible to just about everyone on the internet.

[@d4arken3ds0ul]

How does it work? Is it like a story with rpg stuff mixed in? Or does the reader “play” it like a choose your own adventure novel?

[@cf6755]

LitRPG list - The Crafting of Chess - Life in the North - Dungeon Crawler Carl - The Way of the Shaman

[@cf6755]

my dad doing some self-promotion and yes i am using his account because you i am his son.

[@AMNG1994]

A friend of mine was smiling widely when we last read each other's works. Apparently, he was feeling triumphant because his dragon didn't hoard your stereotypical gold and gems but rare crystals. He was sure he broke the stereotype. :D

[@youtubeuniversity3638]

5:00 Idea: World where the "Chestbeasts" (mimics) *predate* container chests, and in fact treasure chests are made from their corpses.

[@JohnSmith-nd5yc]

For a recommendation probably the best version of lit RPG is going to be "everybody loves large chests" For the best recommendation of the worst version of lit RPG in its raunchiness and it's harem and just everything that is wrong with this genre in general I recommend "everybody loves large chests"

[@MDchainsaw]

Lol facts.

[@JacOfArts]

I will now use "Rivald", "Norgath", & "Grimvir" in any fantasy context I can

[@tuskinekinase]

The amount of Darkest Dungeon refs is making me happy.

[@KillerKelMega]

Honestly, the mention of mimics, mixed with the description of a living breathing dungeon at 14:20 gave me an idea of a dungeon that has an unusually high population of mimics and the when you finally get to the boss it's revealed that the entire dungeon has been, itself, a giant mimic, and then thinking of all the ways you could build up to that reveal.

[@blshouse]

I highly recommend Zee Bashew's "Befriending Mimics in 5e D&D" video for more, entertaining information and ideas.

[@cwovictor3281]

I like the thought that the dungeon is alive, and its inhabitants, treasures, whatever, are all exotic biologic processes. Somehow, it turns oxygen and carbon dioxide into gold, which is stored away in lumps, like tumors. The monsters are actually its immune system. If you want to get real spooky, make it feel pain when a part of it is struck.

[@sarahvunkannon7336]

@@cwovictor3281 Ooh, but how do you get the characters to attack what they think is just a wall? This is the sort of plot that's great for attentive players who like to notice details; the looks of horror dawning on their faces, one of them finally tries to attack the wall, has their worst hypotheses confirmed...

[@KillerKelMega]

@@sarahvunkannon7336 I was thinking it would start with errant perception checks. "You have the uncanny feeling of being watched" and then nothing else is detectable in the room with them. Then perhaps a missed Sword swing or errant arrow slips through the cracks in the bricks, causing what seems to be a quake. Bricks shifting with no apparent cause in rhythmic pulses. The further they get the more puzzle solutions seem to become less well thought out gauntlets and more cause and effect biological reactions. At this point, should they try backtracking, they will find that the layout has changed. Pathways have shifted directions. Rooms they've been to are gone, and new ones appear where there wasn't before. Eventually they reach the penultimate room. An old abandoned wizards lab with his notes detailing his.experinents with mimics. Behavior, biology, breeding, and now the players know that the unusually high mimic count is no mistake, and they finally know what they've already suspected. They pass into the final room, the boss chamber. Filled wall to wall with writhing flesh, like a horror from a resident evil game, the party now sees television dungeon for what it is. A massive mimic! Here at its most exposed point they could hope to fight it, but that may risk a collapse of the structure it is now supporting. They could attempt to flee. The beast would try to stop them but at this point they have become adept at manipulating its biology to progress, though they forfeit the potential rewards it may still be guarding.

[@PengyDraws]

I recognized that soundtrack at the end! Military police by max anson, what a nostalgia trip. The animations you've been doing are quite awesome as well. Back when I first started watching there's no way I would've guessed that you'd reach this level of production quality.

[@thecatinthefedora1201]

One of my favorite dungeons I never used was basically an icy biosphere constructed by the shiekah (it was breath of the wild themed). In the center of the starting crater was an ancient furnace, as well as a number of cyborg ice lizalfos. Closer examination reveals that they're all dead from starvation. Once they reach the ancient furnace, they will have to fight a miniboss, an ancient tech darknut with an ancient flameblade. Once they defeat it, all light but the blue flame and the flameblade goes out, and they hear a distant inhuman scream. It quickly turns into a game of cat and mouse with an unknown adversary as they struggle to bring the power back on. As they go, they discover fractured logs which begin to tell the story of this place (I'll explain it at the end). At one point, their npc guide vanishes, and her body is later found in a cave on a pile of blackened bones, gaunt and shriveled. They are then pursued out of the cave, and are forced to fight a frost talus titan in the dark to gain access to the control room. They turn on the lights, revealing the monster pursuing them, a gaunt horned humanoid with sharpened teeth. It is an embodiment of starvation, and attacks them with a ravenous fury, its bites immediately causing withering damage. It also is entirely immune to mental effects and pain (although it does take damage) due to being insane with hunger. Upon defeating the creature, the adventuring party finds a cache of ancient weapons, parts, and the logs which complete the story of the dungeon: In the days before the Shiekah advanced so far that threats became obsolete, a monster stalked the lands of hebra, devouring any living thing it came across. It was known simply as "The Hunger", and as soon as shiekah tech was developed, this beast was their first target. They managed to trap it in a suit of armor temporarily, long enough to move it to the dungeon. They placed mind controlled ice lizalfos and the ancient tech darknut to guard the creature and prevent its escape. As an emergency override, they made sure that the dungeon would go into full lockdown if the darknut went down, and installed a frost talus titan over the manual override to the override. The final log ends abruptly. The blackened skeleton propped against the interface makes it clear what happened.

[@YEY0806]

Dude, that sounds brilliant 👏

[@MF-dd9fx]

This is truly the Darkest Dungeon crawl video.

[@Sonicracer100]

The best part about dungeons are they can serve as self contained little pieces of worldbuilding. My games usually start out as "Go in to get treasure" with layouts often random generated to some extent, but what makes the dungeon come alive are the interactables. The context, the factions! This random generated dungeon is no longer just a series of windy corridors with rooms and traps, but with the monsters also randomly generated i concocted a multidomain ancient dwarven settlement that has mostly collapsed exposing further caves mined out below, with break offs of the monsters worshipping a chaos beast that is having it's second coming, twisted followers driving the 4th group of inhabitants deeper into dungeon, and rivers that move periodically with time. Context, factions, interactables, those can make a dungeon into something players can latch onto. Perhaps venture further for more lore? To help other monsters? For the treasure? Dungeons can be great for your game. Certainly don't shy away from it.

[@PrinceTrillian]

For anyone who wants the whole "the dungeon is the monster" thing in a ttrpg, 13th age has a great mega dungeon about that.

[@ajardoor]

Eyes of the Stone Thief, yeah?

[@antongunther3977]

best way to do a puzzle is to flush out a solution before hand (yes. A ton of toxic DMs will make puzzles without a solution). Than you want to give the PCs like 5 mins to solve the puzzle. If they are still stumped let the characters roll intelligence or a skill that's relevant to their line of thinking. Give them a big hint if they FAIL (fail it forward, more people should try this), but add a consequence like increased time pressure. If they succeed just tell them the solution. If you want to do a story roadblock with "consequences" than you can let them fail the puzzle (or time out after 10 mins of trying). But have the failure be a fail forward situation. You can let the story advance, but at a cost. Like a player takes some damage from the trap going off. Or you can add time pressure like "you now have a limited number of turns before you all suffocate from the poison gas that's started to fill the dungeon" (time given should be reasonable, like maybe only enough to just accomplish some of the party's goals rather than 100% of them). Keep in mind this should be a spectrum.

[@Rotom2304]

Ooh, what if there was a dungeon full of mimics, but the whole dungeon was designed around that and the treasure hoard WAS the dungeon boss? Like "the mother of all mimics" or something. Then the real reward is something that lets you tell what's a mimic on sight alone.

[@MrocnyZbik]

I had an idea for a world that is nothing but one big Dungeon and Cave system. The idea behind it was that whole plane was a prison for some SuperMegaUltraPowerful Being and it just grow and expanded. In time there where breaches in a plane to other planes and people start coming in, they found out that you can travel to other planes through this plane (teleportation spells and other transportation did not work there, it is a prison plane) and cities start forming around the breaches, caravans starts travelling from breach to breach and vagabonds, exiles and other groups start filling the plane.

[@RevengeofGothzilla]

As a LitRPG connoisseur, I can wholeheartedly recommend Vainqueur the Dragon by Maxime Durand, Dragon Hack by Andrew Seiple, Queen In The Mud by Maari, and Rouge Dungeon by James Hunter. Don't know if they're the height of the genre, but they're among my personal favorites. As for the bottom of the barrel, try The Dwarf, the Mine, and the RPG Apocalypse by Constantin Step, Into the Light by Christopher Johns, and A Snake's Life by Kenneth Arant... there are much worse out there, but I don't know them by name as if I see the word "harem" anywhere in the description I immediately pass on it.

[@kismete6921]

“Dungeon Crawler Carl” by Matt Dinniman and NPC by drew Hayes are great LitRPG books.

[@ZenekMetalGuru]

The Darkest Dungeon reference from the start kept me hooked up till the end. Wonderful job!

[@Galimeer5]

I was going through Skyrim, collecting the dragon priest masks. So a lot of dungeon crawling. For whatever reason, this time around I realized that these structures, which were supposed to be crypts and temples, would never have been used by people for normal life. They're built like an IKEA: one way in, one way out, occasional shortcuts between sections. Can you imagine if office buildings or schools had that same design philosophy? Point is, if your dungeon architecture is supposed to be a place where people once lived and worked, don't map it out in such a bizarre and artificial way. IKEA is designed to make sure you go the long way. Don't build your ancient city ruins like an IKEA.

[@biblicallyaccuratecockroach]

A justification can be made if the structure(s) is old enough that parts have collapsed and nature's taken over, and the originally livable floorplan has become blocked by rubble and plants and the travelers have to take whatever corridors are still usable. But that would require knowing how to build a good original building that'd be usable before and after being destroyed, THEN knowing how to destroy/weather it in a believable way that's neither too easy to just climb over a pile of bricks nor so hard the party may as well just hire an excavation team to clear the debris first. But most game devs (or even most people in general) don't really know how to build believable houses, or even good looking houses in general, so the first point is already compromised. Then again, do the old archeology trick and slap an "it's ceremonial" on it and suddenly everything is now permissible. Maybe the one-way temple is meant to represent the bowels of Omnoma the Devourer or some deity like that, who knows.

[@Frendlu]

For that, Morrowind, had a bit more real dungeons. If you enter to a cript, you gonna find a couple of rooms, some skelettons, and thats all. If it was a Daedra temple, you gonna find a big room, with an statue inside. Maybe some more little rooms and thats all if it was a cave, long corridors with a couple of "rooms". Morrowind had, the most Real dungeons from all the TES saga. No laberinthic like daggerfall (you love or hate it), not and bunch of rooms one followed bu another that they re there because RPG, f*** you. And the reguard/danger element was on tone. (Near the place that you started in Morrowind, you found a very powerfull item, an enchanted ring or something like that, usefull until late)

[@Drakescythe9]

Listening to him rattle off dungeon types made me think about the Forest Temple from Ocarina of Time. Man was that place cool. It has atmosphere, awesome music, and a fun boss at the end. Good stuff.

[@ZowiChan]

As someone who wants to make a dungeon crawler comic, this video was very insightful. Thank you!

[@777omen]

11:26 - Slay the Princess reference

[@emperormegaman3856]

That troll cave fork should be used as the set-up for some twisted campaign with some horror element. They found one, not interested. went another way, there is another, ok, make sense, if there are Troll living around there it's possible there are a few troll caves. But then they went back from where they came from, where they know there wasn't a Troll cave, since obviously they were not coming from a Troll cave. And yet... a troll cave is here. For a second, they wonder if they just got lost or accidentaly took the wrong path, so they went back on their way again, and ends up in one of the previous Troll cave. Now they're sure of it, there is something fishy. One player tries marking their path to be sure, but when they stry following the trail they left behind, it just stops at some point, and the path again, lead to a cave. No dout possible, theses woods are not hordinary, it is haunted, maybe even sentient, and they must find a way to escape it. as the campaign goes on, they discover that it wasn't just the woods, there is a powerful, terrifying entity, twisting the world around them for purpose they don't know yet...

[@Andrewtr6]

Fun fact, the word dungeon comes from the term donjon which typically referred to the highest tower of a castle. I've been working on the worldbuilding and storyline for my own fantasy story for a while now. It has gone through many changes. At some point, I was inspired by D&D to make dungeon crawls a part of it and I'm still trying to decide the best way to incorporate this. The characters in the story are young adventurers. I was inspired by Harry Potter and Percy Jackson to have my characters be around the same age as those characters so I could show them grow over the course of the story. There is an in-story reason for why children are allowed to go off on adventures despite the risk that comes with it. The dungeons won't be the main focus of the story they just exist as a plot device really. My idea for them is to treat them in a similar way to the labyrinth from Greek mythology- a maze designed to stop people from getting to the center. The reason these dungeons are filled with monsters is because at the heart of them is a portal to another realm, a realm full of monsters, thus these dungeons are a problem because these monsters can leave the dungeon as they please. I haven't worked out exactly why these dungeons generate around these portals. One possible reason is the portal and dungeon are created by a dark sorcerer, a god, or a devil. It might be called generic but with how my magic system works, only a powerful magic user could wield the magic to create something like this. After playing the game Valheim, I'm thinking of having smaller dungeons unrelated to the labyrinth type. These would vary a lot from being a burial tomb that is haunted and has been corrupted by the restless spirit(s) within the tomb, a forest that has been warped by a witch or warlock into an inescapable maze that you don't even know you've entered until it's too late, or a mineshaft that is being guarded by draugrs who are the reanimated remains of miners that died in the underground and now they guard the gold and gems they mined. These dungeons will be themed in accordance to the biome they're in.

[@redscyther7725]

"Monster shaped like a door" I died to that in Cave Story first time I played it

[@koimonsterkhaos6329]

How are your videos always lining up with my life?

[@nottherealpaulsmith]

gotta love how regardless of the fantasy setting, ancient egyptians will randomly show up somehow specifically old kingdom/ptolemaic egyptians (the weird hybrid that every hollywood movie depicts) too, not from pre-unification, the other two egyptian golden eras, or literally any other period in egyptian history (god forbid you throw a MODERN egyptian in there, the bedouins would just look out of place as desert nomads in this desert full of desert nomads)

[@AzoozAlAhlawi]

Immediately liked and favourited because of the perfect Darkest Dungeon reference

[@Boss-ks8vt]

Sick darkest dungeon opening. Makes my day to hear someone just talk about it at all, even the smallest look at the game

[@evinonhalsmark2534]

"Remind yourself that variety is a slow and insidious killer" - The ancestor, probably

[@mooms4138]

One of the best dungeons I've seen comes from a manga called Dungeon Meshi, and basically hits all the points talked about in the video. Its a vast ecosystem with lots of variety and rich hidden history, and the main premise is about them surviving off of eating the flora and fauna of the dungeon after a terribly failed dive. The art style is really unique for a manga and the characters and writing are top tier (imo). Its almost finished so its ripe for the binge reading and I think an anime is in production for it, would really reccomend it.

[@sammysandy]

ITS VERY GOOD!!!