Why fantasy dungeons are stupid: FANTASY RE-ARMED

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This video is about the many elements of the classic fantasy tabletop pen and paper dungeon where heroes and adventurers battle monsters and traps to find treasure, doesn't make sense and how to make them more realistic.
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[@Lintary]

Dear shad, I am addressing you in the name of us adventures with a kind request to cease making these videos. You are I assume well aware that we do a lot of good work for the people who are often left to the wayside by those in power. However the rewards they can offer are almost never enough for us to make ends means. Hence we are in dire need of these easily obtained treasures to keep funding our expeditions to fight evil. We sincerely hope for your consideration before we are all, broke or death cause evil has learned how to ward itself against a small group of daring adventures who naturally never would stand a chance against the full power of these evil foes at once. Sincerely, Marilion 'Carde' Artorium PS: I would have send a gift with this dire message, but sadly our most recent expedition did not plan out well. PPS: If you know any willing adventures we do not however have some open spots.

[@thepurehealer1279]

I love the fact that you exist SO MUCH

[@cheesaliciousable]

*BLACK GATE OF MORDOR-ESQUE CASTLES INTENSIFIES* *Edit:now With Machicolatiooons* "Heros are SO annoying"-every villain ever...

[@cheesaliciousable]

@@frankg2790 Of course... i mean the heros need an easy mode... i mean if you had an actual competant army and stuff... overlord etc... the good guys could never win... and that's just BORING... Gotta give that hero that slim ray of light or it's just too easy and everyone gets dominated... resulting in basically Bolshevik russia

[@frankg2790]

You prefer villains that follow "The Code" (dimwitted guards wearing helmets with face concealing visors, a grim and imposing palace/fortress, escapable dungeons, booby traps, escape tunnels, gloating and evil laughter, being dreaded by everyone, etc.) over ones that break with tradition, Carde. That is neither bad nor surprising, as every generation of heroes is used to dealing with a certain type of villain and both sides expect the other side to act a certain way. However, I do agree that adventurers are in dire need of easily obtained treasure and fighting through dungeons are a fun way to gain easily obtained treasure.

[@frankg2790]

Defeating a competent overlord is one thing, but I doubt that even the most powerful adventurers could defeat an army without another army at their back, competent or not.

[@insane_troll]

As an evil overlord I found this information very useful.

[@SkyForceOne2]

You might want to play Dungeon Keeper ;P

[@LordDamo]

@@SkyForceOne2 I wish there was a good remake/remastered or a sequel and not that Mobile game BS of Dungeon Keeper...

[@SkyForceOne2]

@@LordDamo Yeah, dunno why they decided to go for a mobile game when people are even willing to buy (bad) copies of the game JUST to get to play something similar. And it's not like it'd take alot of money to develop, i mean, no large open world, no excessive graphics...

[@randomperson4198]

dungeon will never work because all the the monster i put ,keep dying of starvation. only the undead still there every time i get back :p

[@randomperson4198]

@Ad Lockhorst i guess he is UNDER presure when making the comment

[@AusFin316]

"...because what you don't want is to have to go through every single room..." So IKEA is like a historically inaccurate fantasy dungeon! 🤔

[@Technotoadnotafrog]

Stores are often laid out as confusingly as possible in the hopes something you didn't come to buy will catch your eye, so that you'll buy more things than you planned to.

[@FurchtbaresGaming]

xD

[@Mr_Bob84]

@@Technotoadnotafrog Could you overcome all these bargains if you faced all of them in one room? Including traps!

[@d.aardent9382]

It does have short cuts tho. "Secret passages" was the first thing i thought of when i was in a ikea first time or like how there was another set of passageways outside the customer zone that employees used so kinda like how the indwelling dungeonkeepers can still have an advantage over the hapless outsiders as they have easy movement around the perimeters and can control things more conveniently. I also thought of the ikea as like a "funhouse" in a circus sideshow, but also it made me think of in the idea of the classic labyrinth of Minos sort of.

[@ballelort87]

Complete with undead and goblins!

[@Alkixkix]

"Put all your defenses in the same room." Bold statement against a party with a sorcerer who took fireball.

[@Marinanor]

Forget that. It's a bold statement for a sorcerer who took fireball three or more times.

[@azh698]

Acid rain, cloudkill, ball lightning, ice ball, wof, Otto's sphere of dancing...

[@morrigankasa570]

@@azh698 Blight, Sunbeam

[@socipathicgaming5914]

Ever heard of Negate Magic?

[@ErichZornerzfun]

So funny thing about the etymology, while dungeon comes from the French Donjon, Donjon comes from the proto-germanic word dungijo which refereed to an underground chamber usually one that served as a vault or treasury. That in turn derives from the proto-indo-european word which means to cover or hide. So oddly enough the usage of the term in DnD, an underground location to hide things, is actually much closer to the old meaning than the derivatives.

[@codysonic1]

Huh…the more you know.

[@corvus4489]

Thank you, absolutely correct. That really bothered me.

[@BeenADrill]

The word dung is also etymologically related. You always want to cover your dung. Edit: Come to think of it, you usually want to cover your dong as well. I wonder if that could be etymologically related?

@@BeenADrill Pretty dick move, or a very shitty take, I can't be sure.

[@CepheusTalks]

ya had me at funny, lost me with everything else

[@cernfoxtail6305]

Shad, I don't trust people with graph paper. They are always plotting something.

[@Roescoe]

Don't let any math teacher get a hold of this.

[@LiEnby]

I'm stealing this

[@Platypi007]

To the dungeon with you!

[@silvertheelf]

😂

[@m.a.packer5450]

I found this punny

[@Priyo866]

14:27 Actually, D&D began that way. They were playing a realistic medieval miniature wargame called Chainmail - with a scenario of a castle under siege. They decided to create a very small storyline with limited rules where the knights and soldiers (the players) would have to sneak in through a hidden path below the castle. They decided to give it dice rolls like the usual wargames...but they found that playing in that "dungeon" section was actually hugely fun. They made it longer, and kept adding elements and rules, and found it to be even better. Then they added fantasy creatures as enemies, and the game became so fun they made it separate from their wargame and made a prototype of its own tabletop game. Gary Gygax refined it further, compiled the information and Dungeons and Dragons was born.

[@peoplearemessedup]

This isn't even close to accurate. Dave Arneson had kinda stumbled into using referees for wargaming. Chainmail had a fantasy supplement divorced from any singular game, and the idea for single combat kinda came from chainmail but not really. Arneson would then run Blackmoor which is probably the first TTRPG campaign ever by any reasonable standard on which D&D was then based.

[@StrewthStoatPirate]

"Put all the resources in one room is more effective!" Adventurers: Stinking cloud, fireball. We're done here.

[@samwisegamgee6532]

Dungeon keeper : have you ever heard about protection spells ? And the huge advantage to have had plenty of time to make them persistent while waiting your pathetic one time assault.

[@guilhermerafaelzimermann4196]

*Chad:* "In most cases you generally don't go through a room to acess another room, sometimes there are, but that would be considered bad architectural design" *Most minecraft builders:* _scratching the back of their heads_ Oopsies!

[@miguelsuarez-solis5027]

Catacombs are good dungeon replacements... They are very laberinth like.... I once went to the catacombs in the Vatican and they told us not to even think about leaving the tour because we'd likely never find our way out lol.

[@fabiandonvil]

what i was thinking about after the video was the pyramids. doesn't a pyramid kinda look like a very small dungeon? i mean there is a huge room full of valuebles at the end just like the fantasy dungeons.

[@1Maklak]

With catacombs in an unhallowed ground, you'd even have an excuse for unintelligent undead sticking to their assigned locations instead of putting up a coordinated resistance. The bypass for people who bury or visit the dead could be a holy item or a magic item with constant effect of "invisibility to undead". Mines, caves and even some cloister cells can be pretty labyrinthine too. Heck, with caves, you even get the feature of having to go through multiple "rooms" to get to the end.

[@jons_7402]

That's basically the approach in Skyrim. Most dungeons are actually burial grounds or ancient temples where things have gone really wrong.

[@hothoploink1509]

They just don't want you to find their golden buddha statues ^^

[@SonofSethoitae]

@@fabiandonvil the Pyramids' systems of halls are actually relatively small.

[@gitchyboi1962]

Me: *just trying to play D&D* Shad: *kicks in the door and slams an axe on the table* EVERYTHING HERE IS WRONG

[@scottmantooth8785]

backing away slowly hands raised in a non threatening manner...."allllrighty then...i'll just take my dragon skin bag and just slip out this side culvert and leave you to alone...how's that one?

[@chrisc7265]

technically speaking, the trope of slamming an axe into a table to emphasize a point does not have much real world application. First off, most modern tables are simply not built to withstand an axe blow. Secondly, one must question whether the emphasis gained is worth the financial loss in terms of furniture repair. In conclusion, the use of a blunt or crushing weapon such as a bat would prove a far better compromise between dramatic impact and practical concerns. After all, once the dust settles, we still need something to eat dinner on.

[@gitchyboi1962]

@@chrisc7265 congratulations on over analyzing a joke

[@gemgem24able]

@@gitchyboi1962 Congratulations for not understanding that he was just playing along

[@Betrix5060]

@@chrisc7265 I mean lets face it, cracking your table in half with an axe would definitely make a point effectively.

[@timkramar9729]

If I walk up to you, and say, "Hi, I'm a pickpocket," and you reach for a pocket. Then I know what pocket I have to pick. In the same way, if you put all your defenses in one room, I only have to make it through that room. But if you spread your defenses, I don't know exactly where the prize is, and any of those defenders could potentially end me.

[@Akranejames]

... I'd rather have a battery of defenses with a theoretical 95% chance to repeal an invader than a bunch of scattered defenses with at best 30-some %. Plus, I think most BBEGs should be more concerned with actual invasion forces - and thus standard-ish sieges - than a plucky bunch of 3 to 7 adventurers. And honestly, it should mostly work at being convenient and effective; dungeons actually are decent enough as unmanned defenses imho but still aren't amazing as all the ill-equipped adventurers armed with poor planning skills and heavy plot armor managing to get through prove to me.

[@MegatronYES]

@@Akranejames but how are you expecting to get gangs of wicked and opportunistic brigands to follow you so faithfully? The context of MOST dungeons is going to prevent its denizens from being able to organize a coordinated defense

[@rc5452]

@@MegatronYES That, as an evil overlord, some of your defensive forces do not play well with others. I'm not sticking my oozes in the same room as my goblins, they'd end up killing each other. Have to have some degree of separation between your non cooperative evil forces. Managing a evil organization occupied by forces that hate each other is a lot more work than the adventurers give us credit for. And, contrary to popular belief, HR departments do not like working with us, so us evil overlords have to do all that work ourselves. We usually spend more time keeping our minions from killing each other than we do trying to take over the world!

[@roguecloud5674]

But by following that logic I could just put a whole lot of guards or traps in one room to make it look like there's something of high importance on the other side and instead trap the room. And put said important thing an unguarded spot that you wouldn't bother going in.

[@timkramar9729]

@@roguecloud5674 precisely why it's safest to hide things on plain sight.

[@Default78334]

When the game Oni was released back in 2001, Bungie touted that the buildings in the game had been designed by real architects. Unfortunately, it turns out that architecturally realistic office buildings with big open spaces and identical floors are not necessarily the most interesting spaces from a gameplay perspective.

[@Hyper_Drud]

I loved that game.

[@tiberiu_nicolae]

@@Hyper_Drud Oni was a cool game but man the maps were big and empty

[@BrazenBard]

"The King was interred in the heart of this labyrinth, surrounded by an undead honor guard regiment, with great rivers of mercury flowing through the complex, and dozens of incredibly lethal traps, both mundane and magical." "Wow, you really wanted to protect his grave goods, didn't you?" "Oh, screw the grave goods, we just didn't want him to get out. He was pretty peeved when we stuck him in there in the first place!" ;)

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

That sounds like a nice setting for a campaign. The heroes accidentally try to plunder the wrong crypt and unleash the undead king's fury onto the land. Now they have to find a way to banish him again!

[@fuferito]

I was so ready for your punchline. "This dungeon is absurd!" _“Actually, this is, literally, the tomb of the first Chinese Emperor, if the_ undead _are substituted by an honour guard of terracotta soldier golem.”_

[@BrazenBard]

@@fuferito Oh, I know - I'm fairly familiar with the legend of Qin Shi Huang's tomb. :)

[@Mnnvint]

Alternatively, oglaf.com/labyrinth/ (this particular comic is SFW, most of it isn't)

[@BrazenBard]

@@Mnnvint Ah, yes, I, too, check Oglaf daily. :)

[@Cruentus]

Maybe a Dungeon is designed like that, so the "evil" Overlord can spend some time with his Friends every time he get's into his home? Who are just living there in their own room? Maybe they are not protecting the treasure, but they *are* the treasure, which should be protected in the dungeon? Did you ever think about that? No. You only think about gold!

[@mikomikasa3958]

Underrated comment!

[@HoundofDarkness]

As an overlord, the real treasures are the minions you employed along the way.

[@jstitus916]

I just bought a dnd starters set a while back and did a dry run by myself to get myself familiar with the rules. You're comment makes me feel like I was the monster all along

[@innocentbystander3317]

Boss: Hey Bill, how's the little wraithlings? Bill: It'ssssss LICH Massssssster to you, ssssssmellly adventu-- *AHEM* Oh, hi Boss! Oh, you know, always hungry! Hey, speaking of which, any word on adventurers coming by? Boss: Yea, seen a couple of noobs on my way in. Let the rest of the staff know that Hero-Tendies are back on the menu. Bill: Oh goody! This is going to significantly improve morale around the office! I'll get HR to post a memo in the break room. I want a campaign where adventuring demons go out to stock and feed monsters in a dungeon, entice heroes to attempt to plunder without running into GOOD heroes that might actually succeed, deal with their overlord's moods, compete with other dungeons for funding and favor... Force players to really flex their role-playing over stat-building and combat (unless some Epic adventurer does storm the gates with an army as an end-campaign type of boss-encounter.)

[@MrMaxtf2]

Evil overlord just wants to hang out and chill with his dungeon homies. They didn't have anywhere to go so he rents out his dungeon to them.

[@DraconimLt]

Seeing as we are considering things logically here...I would guess the monsters are kept away from the traps to stop them walking into them and separate from each other to stop them killing/eating each other - can you imagine this conversation? Dark Lord: where the #### are all my warbeasts, goblins and animated skeletons? And why do I only see one Firedrake? Grunt: well... we put all the monsters and boobytraps together... Dark Lord: Yes...? Grunt: well... the Firedrakes ate all the warbeasts, used the skeletons for toothpicks and the goblins ran into the traps trying to escape them, then the drakes got territorial and started frying each other and erm that one won... Dark Lord: I'm surrounded by Idiots! Note to self, separate everything next time (walks away grumbling)

[@Unelith]

Then use monsters that actually make sense as guards and that don't sabotage everything when left unchecked

[@DraconimLt]

@@Unelith thats my point though, they never do 😄 - so what would you use that wouldn't need separating and be a useful defence?

[@Unelith]

​@@DraconimLt That depends on what the universe could offer in terms of both minions whom I could bend to my will and the types of threats I'd be defending against. Assuming a stock TTRPG fantasy world, I'd probably use something like golems - they would not cause trouble as they don't really have primal instincts or free will. And they are usually pretty strong as well. Actually any army composed of consistently just *one* single type of creature should do the trick. If they *are* an army, that means they are able to function as one and would be disciplined enough to follow a simple order of "guard this place" without killing each other. Otherwise I wouldn't have bothered to employ them in the first place. Most importantly, only I would have the key to the vault and I would keep it exclusively on my person at all times. I definitely would *not* give a copy to one of my lieutenants who's perpetually sat in their room by their lonesome waiting to just get slain 4vs1 by any random band of "heroes".

[@DraconimLt]

@@Unelith have you been reading the 'evil overlord list' by any chance? Cos thats just not giving the hero's a fair chance... lol Fair points 😀. However there is one problem with using all 1 type of monster as gaurds, what if they have a specific weakness? Golems for example can be undone, perhaps by a certain spell or element, or by killing the creator, then you have nothing left. As for the key, what if a hero/team member has lockpick skills or spells, then it doesn't matter if you have it. While good ideas, thay can be got around, I believe that is the idea behind the 'variety' of monsters, if the heroes are good at beating the first few thay may not be able to take down the next, or simply be too exhausted to. Also, if you have an entire Army guarding that location, you are either a) giving the location away or b) not having them defending your base/castle/home or out keeping order. Now, you may have other armies and a way to hide this group, but the idea of big monsters or lots of useless 'goblins' is so you aren't using an entire army that is needed elsewhere. Heck if its gonna take that much to guard whatever it is why not keep it with you or in your own room in your castle, which is surely better gaurded in the first place? Funnily enough they very rarely think of that... 😀

[@Unelith]

@@DraconimLt I did read the list a few years ago. I also *did* assume the entire dungeon was my home. There is no reason for why I should live anywhere else and split my defenses like that, and not splitting the defenses is the main point here. Even in the typically encountered scenario, I'd have to be somewhere in that area in order to be the "final boss" of the dungeon. However, instead I'd just coordinate the defensive effort with the rest of my forces. Dungeon crawl gameplay really does call for some ridiculous story/worldbuilding choices if there is an evil overlord in charge of the thing. It takes a few minutes of brief thought in the middle of the night to deconstruct the entire concept. Let alone if someone actually thought about it properly for a longer period of time. Hell, in some dungeons you have as much as 3+ lieutenant sub-bosses that *would* totally work together if put in the same room. And each of them is difficult to beat even 4vs1. They'd absolutely smash the heroes if they teamed up instead.

[@magister343]

Now I'm imagining Shad publishing a more realistic version of D&D called Donjons and Dragoons.

[@Technotoadnotafrog]

He actually did! It's called Cogent Roleplay.

[@thomasvertommen9526]

"Put all your things in one room" *laughs in fireball*

[@QuintarFarenor]

Especially in older editions where the damage accumulated in smaller rooms when the fireball was cast at a bigger scale.

[@SupLuiKir]

Well really, the idea would be most of the monsters would be in lots of small rooms attached to the main hall, so that when the adventurers are found, the building is alerted and the entire defense force converges on them from all directions.

[@cheesestyx945]

Still most likely won't work. Especially since you may not ever get to the level to use fireball enough times to kill everything or even get the spell. but idk for sure cause my dm has always avoided classic dungeon scenarios.

[@christopherhuang9501]

Also bear in mind that: 1) Not all the creatures you have available to put in the defences might care to play nice with each other, and might kill each other long before the adventurers even arrive. 2) Putting all your traps and creatures in the same room means the adventurers will arrive to find a bunch of triggered traps and dead creatures. 3) There are only so many creatures that can attack an adventurer at once. Any more than that and you have a bunch of creatures just hanging about in the back trying to find a clear shot, and possibly deciding they might as well just fight each other instead. I'd actually like to see an adventure where the most efficient solution is to trigger the alarm to release the monsters, then hide as all the monsters converge onto the main hall and kill each other off.

[@cheesestyx945]

@@christopherhuang9501 Why would they not get along? They all follow the same bbeg and if they don't want him to kill them they'd follow his instructions.

[@KingQwertzlbrmpf]

I remember once really pissing off our GM when he tried to funnel us into such a classical dungeon. The conversation went something like this: GM: "You approach the gate. It's ten meters high, three meters wide and made from solid gold. As you ..." Us (interupting the GM): " Wait a second, How high is the gate again?" GM: "ten meters" Us: "And how wide?" GM: "three meters" Us: "And how thick is the gate?" GM: "about half a meter" Furious calculating Us: " That's 15 cubic meters of solid gold, that's worth about a hundred billion goldpieces, we take the door and go away." In the GMs defense, he was still very green as a GM^^

[@marfin4325]

If I was GM I would be really impressed and so captivated by the turn of events I would try to design around that choice, however that is a lot of work and your poor GM prolly already spent hours designing that dungeon =(

[@KingQwertzlbrmpf]

@@marfin4325 Well, he had made us explain to him how exactly we planned to take this door and how to transport it^^ But we did it^^

[@kindredtoast3439]

Did you calculate the weight of that thing, too?

[@johndough8699]

I hope someone had a Potion or Girdle of Giant Strength.

[@scottmantooth8785]

obviously

[@Fwufikins]

I have a feeling that the biggest inspiration for fantasy dungeons as we know them probably stems from Ancient Egypt. The tombs of the pharaohs were legendary for their defenses. Between the myriad of fake passageways and dead ends, the absolute darkness, risk of mold and disease, and of course the Curse of the Pharaohs... Top it all off with a huge treasure horde and it's no wonder people would incorporate that into an adventure story.

[@markharc7615]

The minotaur's labyrinth would be the most common basis. It matches much closer.

[@antoinelachapelle3405]

@@markharc7615 Orcs and Goblins and such are also often depicted living inside cave systems where they wouldnt have the luxury of designing their base. Natural cave systems are alot of twisty corridors and isolated "rooms" so in that case it kind of makes sense to make a dungeon like that

[@joshuacain9845]

The only treasure in the Minoan Labyrinth was death.

[@rorschach775]

@@markharc7615 I was looking for this comment. Most dungeons that are fortresses or little hideaways actually tend to sorta follow fortress principles, and the rooms have purposes. The dungeons Shad is talking about though are mazes or thieves guild type things. And mazes don't really exist outside of rich gardens so this whole thing is very obviously invented to be fun which I find annoying about these videos. A world where you could go to college to learn how to kill people with a thought would make swords more obsolete than they are in the world we live, but he has like hundreds of sword videos because they're fun. It's almost like fantasy games are a fantasy to be fun.

[@Eirkyr]

@@rorschach775 Fat nerds on the internet have to make pointless videos to feed the algorithm to feed their fat bodies.

[@aptom203]

I will tell you the exact reason most dungeons are linear: Giving your players a crossroad is a guaranteed way to make the session take four hours longer, split the party, or cause infighting.

[@phill6504]

My favorite dungeons are usually things that weren't necessarily a "Dungeon" most dungeons are things like temples that sunk into the ground, abandoned mines, giant homes or underground cities that were abandoned or taken over, or things of that nature. Very rarely should a "dungeon" be just "This is an underground complex designed as a dungeon from scratch".

[@schwarzerritter5724]

Dungeons don't get "designed" anyway. They start out small and new rooms get added as needed. That is why there are no central corridors.

[@jdfullerton5187]

Big armies with big seige weapons would still be the biggest threat to dungeons and as such dungeons would be designed to force small engagements in chokepoints where numbers matter less. adventures are like special forces, and dungeons are made to counter massive armies, and adventuring parties are made to counter dungeons

[@Bloodletter87]

Good Point

[@nexuzz1]

I always thought of it like the denizens of the dungeon lived their lives normally and the adventures took them by surprice. thats the reason the guardians dont rush to one big room all at once. They dont all just stand in one room every day, all day. They have stuff to do besides guarding the treasure. The layout of the dungeon is kinda immersion breaking still though.

[@TheGenericavatar]

Regarding Shad's architectural training, the Hallway is a fairly recent-ish development. Rooms were historically connected to each other directly, and you walked through rooms rather than hallways to get where you wanted. This is why the royal bed chambers had a 4 posted bed with curtains - privacy from all the people walking through the chamber on their way to elsewhere.

[@ToxicBastard]

can someone please animate a vid of some dark lord walking thru his dungeon, sipping coffee as he disarms traps, dodges swinging blades, lazily does puzzles and waves hi to the trolls and goblins?

[@FurchtbaresGaming]

Just to get to the bathroom xD

[@johnrogan9729]

Hahahaha

[@balijosu]

Sounds like a good VLDL sketch.

[@deathtoad88]

Actually the big baddy is just running an elaborate hardcore amusement park. He's a really nice guy, he likes to entertain the guests and build their confidence by giving them a challenge to overcome. I may have stolen the idea from Darklord of Derkholm.

[@Bird_Dog00]

Kinda sounds like the Leviathan Raid in Destiny 2, only that it is clearly for the Emperor's amusement, not the Guardians'. Didn't like it, as it feels like assault on Takeshi's castle designed by a complete psychopath.

[@dediguise0018]

Man I haven’t read that series in years

[@overlordgaming4839]

Me *designs mega dungeon* My players “THE PAIN TRAIN STOPS FOR NO ONE” Me “oh man smells like a tpk to me”

[@superfire6463]

“Go through the dungeon, bad guy, bad guy, bad guy, fight, *win* “ You have clearly never played tomb of annihilation

[@skeletalobserver406]

Puzzle, trap trap trap trap enemy, trap puzzle puzzle, mindfuckery, magic traps, puzzles, traps, Anoying skull that talks too loud and alerts the enemy, insta-killtrap

[@thomasedwardlawrence9775]

@@skeletalobserver406 Sounds like Legend of Zelda to me

[@johanrosenberg6342]

Tomb of Annihilation is also a great example of logical design I seem to recall. The purpose of that place is to kill people, right?

[@skeletalobserver406]

@@johanrosenberg6342 oooooooh yeah, you make a small mistake, your character gets bent over and proverbially taken without lube. Played the 5e version (not nearly as harsh as earlier editions, granted) But it has changed my play style, and i made only a single mistake. A one minite trip to grab broken glass on my own. And I nearly got killed for my troubles. Tomb of Annihilation is NO joke. The entire purpose of everything there is to kill you and make you stronger so it'll feel better for the final boss to see you fail after you meticulously work through all the traps and encounters, just to get shit on. Most stressful campaign i ever did, somehow not a single one of us died but there were 7 times where we SHOULD have eaten dust

[@johanrosenberg6342]

@@skeletalobserver406 What I meant was that wasn't the entire place built by a lich or something specifically to kill people so said lich would gain strength? I have never played it myself (or any pen & paper D&D actually), but the fact that it's really good at killing players I knew :)

[@WarriorVirtue]

Evil Overlord 101: Do not hide your most precious treasures in the Pit of Despair beneath the Fortress of Terror. Hide them in your safe deposit box.

[@DarthBiomech]

If you can't, hide them in a room labeled "main cesspool"

[@chengkuoklee5734]

Evil Overlord 101; item 52: I will hire a team of board-certified architects and surveyors to examine my castle(or dungeon) and inform me of any secret passages and abandoned tunnels that I might not know about.

[@livedandletdie]

Weaklings. Who stores their most precious treasures in their castles or dungeons, no say I, when the local bankers are even more corrupt than us.

[@Hiraghm]

Where the bank can deny you access to them because you voiced the wrong opinions on social media...

[@abj136]

Alex Jones reference.

[@TheMinskyTerrorist]

Dungeons spread the defenses out and try to get the adventurers to get lost for a few reasons: 1. To waste their resources. Food, ammunition, and spells are all limited resources that force the adventurers to weigh the costs and benefits of trying to sleep in a dirty monster-infested cave or retreat back to town. 2. To not put all the eggs in one basket. Related to #1, it's better to have the magic users waste all of their big area spells (fireball, lightning bolt, cloudkill, etc.) on one room of your henchmen than lose your entire army in one engagement. It's better to wear them down through attrition so that you can finish them off if they make it to your big boss room. 3. Traps will get in the way of your own monsters if you put them together. 4. It's easier for upkeep to have your monsters spread out with their own habitats so that they take care of their own food, don't fight each other, etc. 5. You might want to capture the adventurers rather than kill them for some reason, maybe to feed them to monsters or harvest their souls or something.

[@MrHarumakiSensei]

6. You can't keep all the monsters in one room all the time. They have to live their lives, they've got stuff to do. Theoretically, the adventurers should be infiltrating the dungeon when the monsters are unprepared and just going about their daily business in various locations. If the adventurers trip the alarm, THEN a large force should quickly gather to protect the main door.

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

I see people have Dungeon Keeper experience. But yeah, most "dungeons" are not designed as such, they just became what they are over time. They used to be something else. Rarely can one see a lich make their own maze instead of just occupying a prison or crypt or garrison or mine that was already there.

[@frogocric]

Excellent comment. Things are not as simplistic as shadiversity puts them. Also similar to dungeons are something called caves, which can be natural or dug, or even dug tunnels connecting natural "halls". There are many of these all over the world, and they have been used as places of refuge for populations, highwaymen, etc. Especially in man made cave complexes it is pretty normal to have one tunnel going through various rooms, just like a "badly designed dungeon" would have.

[@InfernosReaper]

There is a matter of how raising the alarm almost never happens, how traps can hurt your own minions regardless of where they're positioned, or how making stuff a relatively linear path allows players to more easily hold up and eventually block access to huge portions of the base. Those things need to be handled better in tabletop RPGs.

[@nevermore7285]

It’s also a lure some times. Liches eat souls for example, so they set up Dungeons that are meant to lure you in and kill you. The fact that it’s possible means some people will get out, and they will have gotten treasure and valuables and spread rumors about the Dungeon, luring even more people. It’s like a casino but a death game instead. It lures in a lot of people who know it’s dangerous but want money, and a few of them will get it but most of them will die, which is what undead, necromancers, and devils and such want. Even a dragon would benefit from this, as all the would be heroes will have treasures and more valuables to increase their horde size even if they lose a little to few successful.

[@bananajoe9951]

I designed an accurate "dungeon" like you said. Enemies were in two rooms, which were at the ends of the halls so they could see everyone in the hallway, which was also well lit. I made two pairs of roaming guards who would patrol outside and inside. My party had such a hard time and ended up retreating because, like you said, all the monsters piled into the hallway when they got caught. They told me I wasn't allowed to think like an evil overlord anymore.

[@KairuHakubi]

I remember finding it so unique when the final dungeon of Twilight Princess was just.. the castle. And just like any castle (in fact Ocarina's evil twisted castle dungeon still had this) everything was connected to a central courtyard. There's no problem with backtracking through that area, in fact it makes for fun setpieces if you sneak new encounters in there based on your progress. of course there are plenty of valid excuses for weird path-y dungeons. natural caverns, trains, giant insect nests, deliberately constructed labyrinths, cisterns/sewers/qanats... not to mention anytime you're meant to be storming a sort of fortified area, it makes sense you'd go from barrier to barrier that the opposing force has set up along an access point, basically tower-defense shit. But yeah even if it's based on a prison, a prison has central halls and whatnot. I'm so with you on not forcing paths for paths' sake. even in videogames, those are annoying. they make backtracking much less pleasant.

[@eddardstark6554]

“I work for Belethor, at the General Goods store!”

[@eccoeco3454]

What do you have for sale?

[@eddardstark6554]

Ecco Eco Oh, trinkets. Odds and ends. That sort of thing.

[@qwertyuiopaaaaaaa7]

When I run dungeons I use them in the following ways: 1. Natural caves that low intelligence monsters inhabit (goblins) 2. An ancient burial site protected by undead, that explains why there’s only one entrance: the undead aren’t coming and going past traps. 3. Intelligent flying monsters build vertical passage ways that they can easily move through but are a credible trap for adventurers. 4. ONLY CREATURES WITH DARKVISION LIVE UNDERGROUND (or creatures magically commanded to stay there)

[@sam-ds3nh]

An evil overlord trying to break into his own overcomplicated dungeon sounds like an awesome story idea! I might write something around that

[@lackoflogic6496]

"Why non of those evil overlords think of that?". Because rigging one room so that everyone inside dies isnt as much of a problem as you think dear Shad. Sure doing it often gets expensive and takes a lot of time, but one room? No probs. You would basically close your entier army in a death trap. God have mercy on your henchman if the party have a high level wizard... Edit: If there is only one part of castle/dungeon the BBEG have to protect its a poorly desinged dungeon anyway.

[@LilyNaikiir]

a great way to make a more traditional dungeon from a realistic central hallway design is to simply "collapse" some of the hallway, forcing them to move through more rooms. or by collapsing staircases. Designing a functional building and then ruining it (as in, making it a ruin) is the way to go in my opinion.

[@nithia]

I totally agree if it is filled with lesser creatures, monsters, bandits, or undead. Any kind of sentient creatures be they magical or not would likely not use a ruin as a base unless it was some kind of temporary hide out or they had arrived to get something before the party showed up.

[@phoephoe795]

An alternate approach could be to have the 'boss' monster patrol in the main hallway. The boss itself is an unwinnable fight- forcing the players to take to the side rooms and sneak past. (thinking along the lines of a large plate-armoured Minotaur with a door sized shield).

[@jeremymullens7167]

Goblins are a bit like red caps. Ruined buildings are exactly where they stay.

[@SageofCancer]

So The Big Bad goes around jailing monsters in dungeons, and the heroes are the murderhobos who kill the already-imprisoned monsters? There should be no treasure at the end, just a dusty letter of reprimand from Big Bad about the morality of taking life.

[@RJALEXANDER777]

...if I ever run a DnD night, I'm going to use this. XD

[@inienthelonewitch6745]

I'm so doing that

[@MeepChangeling]

Oh yeah, because THAT'S fun... You seem to fail to understand the basic idea of fantasy. Fantasy is supposed to be fantastical, not realistic. It's in the name. The thing is what it's called.

[@UltimateKyuubiFox]

Meep Changeling Subverting expectations is also fun. Mainly because it makes new kinds of stories that aren’t boring and predictable.

[@tiagodarkpeasant]

in dungeon keeper they are just workers, and the gold is for paying them for their services, trolls are crafters, warlocks are students and librarians, orcs are just guards, and they like working as guards

[@cecilrhodes2153]

Fun note, a lot of buildings used to not have hallways, so rooms just connected into other rooms.

[@corvus4489]

"Yes, put all your defenses in one place..." says the wizard with multiple fireballs prepared.

[@dilen754]

All the shamans, sorcerers and warlocks in the room: okay, lets see who's got more spell slots...

[@soanalaichnam344]

7:55 Oh well, my school was structured like hell in this case. We had to use the second floor to get to the stairs that leaded to the third and fourth floor. So when you had a lesson in one room in the fourth floor and than had to change rooms to get to the second lesson you had to go down to the second floor to the other side of the building and than back up into the fourth floor, everything in under five minutes... And the building was structured like an H, so the stairs were at the points of the H.... yeah...

[@cardboardbox191]

Make the dungeon a school for some reason and then every flaw could be explained by what you think schools can get anything right?

[@tompatterson1548]

What school? I would only need to add the traps...

[@monolilith1678]

In Skyrim, most of the “dungeons” are usually Nordic ruins. It makes sense in these to have traps and multiple rooms. Traps to protect the graves of whoever was buried, and rooms to wrap those who’ve died,

[@dorianrobinette9712]

Indeed

[@dsheshin]

Though those dungeons get so boring after 40th of them

[@louisvictor3473]

Not only that. They weren't designed to keep humans out or make it hard to reach the offerings to the dead, but to keep the dead in (and making the layout easier to put them down again if needed even more sense).

[@kindlin]

Shad also gave the great example of an old dead emperor who believed in some kind of afterlife that had his body and worldly positions buried underground with traps, etc. to stop any of the living from taking his riches. That is literally a dungeon if ever there was one, and could theoretically happen; Egypt had a lot of this vibe going on.

[@theblackknight101]

But on the other hand you also have dwarven "cities" in that same game where dwarves supposedly lived (at least nordic stuff are tombs).. imagine living in a place where a small misstep could kill you by activating a pressure plate.. Even some of those "tombs" were called ancient nord "cities" like labyrinthian and saarthal..

[@splendoragaming1575]

The first Legend of Zelda has very good reasons for it's dungeons, apart from the final dungeon. Many people never read the lore behind the game in the instruction manual, but the person responsible for the first 8 dungeons was Princess Zelda herself. She foresaw Ganon coming to kidnap her and steal her triforce, so she broke her triforce (of wisdom) into 8 pieces and hid one piece in each of the 8 dungeons. She knew that a destined hero would come and these dungeons were designed to strengthen him and give him the tools needed to defeat Ganon. Level 9 was still a typical game dungeon like the first eight, even though lore wise this one was presumably built by Ganon, though I like to think that it was build by Zelda as well as a place to 'hide' from Ganon, and when he caught he there he just stuck around and claimed it, making it just another part of the MC's trials to overcome and gain the skills to beat Ganon.

[@edwarddeguzman3258]

and in Zelda 2 the Palace "dungeons" were designed by her ancestors to protect the 3rd triforce

[@splendoragaming1575]

@@edwarddeguzman3258 I am not as clear on the lore surrounding Zelda 2: the adventure of link. I played it and even beat it, but it seemed more lik a chore to do as it wasn't my normal style of game and wasn't what I expected. That being said, the triforce pieces that zelda broke into 8 pieces and that were collected in Zelda were of the Triforce of Wisdon, whileGaon had the Triforce of power, thus making the triforce collected at the end of Zelda 2 the Triforce of Courage.

[@dannyzwolf4546]

In Skyrim the “backdoor”, is always bared from the inside and is there so you don’t have to make a very long and boing trip out.

[@dannyzwolf4546]

@@stephengarforth2753 okay but if game mechanics were only realistic you wouldn’t want to play, it’s about balancing realism with fun and challenging.

[@Slender_Man_186]

@@dannyzwolf4546 if game mechanics were realistic, I’d just mine through the fake stone door that connects the start of the dungeon to the end of it. Also, every dungeon effectively being one giant donut is bad design.

[@Ensensu2]

@@Slender_Man_186 What if there's gold in the middle of that donut?

[@davidjohnson6665]

BBEG: Gets smart and places all resources into one room. Druid: “I cast erupting earth.” Rest of the party who happen to be Rangers and gunslingers: “Let’s go turkey shooting...”

[@cheesestyx945]

Depending on how often you use dungeons, you'd never get to that level.

[@Kiamors]

My earth themed dwarven cleric and the sorcerer proceeded to earthquake and control weather to sink and fill with holy water a lich/vampire underground base and when the local resistance fighter asked why we didn't just do that in the first place I said ”well then we wouldn't have got all the treasure.”

[@3vil3lvis]

Putting all your monsters in the same room would be a logistical nightmare....how would you keep them from eating each other?

[@elana1463]

I don't know..in dungeon keeper that was never a problem. just put them into a big training room and have a chicken farm at hand. (Just make sure the spiders and flies can sleep in different rooms)

[@EloNaj]

One Fireball solves the problem... , which is the reason you would not do that. XD

[@nickm5647]

You're looking at it from the wrong perspective. It's a means to finding out which of your monsters are the toughest. Natural selection.

[@EloNaj]

That is an interesting concept use the heroes to train your Monster and be somewhere else XD

[@sevenproxies4255]

@Fuath: Sounds like almost the exact same premise as the Dungeon Keeper franchise.

[@flasher702]

@6:39 Having lived in an actual 15th century castle with a "dungeon" (Burg Ludwigstein in Germany) I can promise you that this "very illogical design" of rooms being inter-linked to other rooms is totally normal. To get from my room to the lowest level of the castle: door1, room 1 (kitchen-esque room with 3 doors), door 2, room2 (no clue what this is supposed to be. It has 4 doors), door 3, stairwell (has 3 doors and a landing), door 4, room 3 (office), door 5, room 4 (foyer with 3 doors), door 6, courtyard (with 9 doors), door 7, room 5 (dining hall with 3 doors), door 8, room 6 (again, no idea what this is supposed to be, but it has 3 doors and each one of which is labelled as the emergency fire escape route, I tried in vain to convince them that this couldn't possible be right), door 9, hallyway/bridge (connects 2 buildings, one door at each end, one of the few rooms that truly made sense to me), door 10, stairwell (like 6 doors? and two landing), door 11, hallway with 3 doors), room 7 (2 doors), door 12, room 8 (3 doors), door 13, room 9 (2 doors), door 14, room 10. I actually spent a lot of time in room 10 and took this route almost daily. It was the shortest route.

[@StateBlaze1989]

There is a manga I read that put a nice spin on the purpose of fantasy style dungeons: they were built as safeguards and strongholds to imprison god-like demons, and their labyrinthine structure is to confuse and keep the Demon from reaching the surface and outside world. Even all of the fantasy monsters typically found in dungeons are spawned from the otherworldly magical influence their demon prisoner radiates throughout the dungeon.

[@nameless-sn3tj]

DM: You find a castle. Me: I sneak in through the... MACHICOLATIONS!!!

[@leehodges1484]

The dungeons that always annoyed me were those with a skeleton in one room, than goblins in the next, demons in the next. Really, they are all happily sharing this confined space underground and haven't wiped each other out yet? Maybe they never leave the room they are in, and that opens up loads more questions.....

[@smontherun1430]

That sounds like school in a fantasy version-

[@crimsoncutz8430]

It was a bit rough when they first moved in, but eventually it turned out they actually get along pretty well. Someone was planning on making a sitcom about their lives, but then some jerk went in and murdered them all.

[@KairuHakubi]

One of the oddest "oh well it's a game" moments was realizing in Metroid Prime that you can just leave a room and be safe, because enemies don't ever use doors. Like even the intelligent ones, on space pirate turf.. they stay within their nicely segmented (easier to load one by one) rooms that you have to go through one by one..

[@BloodyBay]

That was one of the details I fixed as soon as I started _really_ thinking about the typical dungeons in my D&D modules and such. "So the party kills the goblins, goes one room deeper into the castle and meets ghouls." "That's right." "Don't ghouls make it through each night by eating living flesh?" "Living, dead, undead...whatever. If it's flesh, ghouls will eat it." "So what's to stop these ghouls from simply waiting until the goblins next door are asleep, clamping their hands over the nearest goblin's mouth to stop him from screaming - in case he passes his Saving Throw and resists their paralyzing touch - and waking the others, dragging that goblin into _their_ room and devouring him at their leisure? How long will it be until either the ghouls devour all the goblins, the surviving goblins move out to cut their losses, or the goblins wage open war on the ghouls to avenge their fallen, which would end in the extinction of one tribe or the other?" "Uhhh..." "And there are two _carrion crawlers_ in the corridor beyond the ghouls, with only an open archway separating the two? Carrion crawlers can eat ghouls, ghouls can eat carrion crawlers, they both eat the same creatures through the same "paralyze, drag off, kill and eat" tactics...I smell a turf war brewing here." So since then, I've tried to make a bit of sense with which creatures are neighboring which other creatures. "Minotaurs living next to ogres?" They tried running each other off once, both sides gave as well as they got, and they ended up fighting to a draw with losses on both sides, so now there's a grudging peace between the two...a peace which a party of clever adventurers could disrupt and turn to their advantage. "Ogres living next to goblins?" The ogres have bullied the goblins into submission, so now the goblins try to keep the peace by bringing food to the ogres, paying the ogres off with a portion of whatever they fleece from the local travellers, grovelling and flattering the ogres every time the two meet, and so on. "Why don't the goblins leave the dungeon to be free from the ogres?" Because the surrounding forest is teeming with wolves and bears, and the goblins would rather not risk meeting the wildlife by being out in the woods for too long. "So why don't the ogres send the goblins to attack the minotaurs?" Well, the ogres mentioned that idea to the goblins once, but the goblins immediately convinced the ogres that the minotaurs would flatten the goblins in half a second, and _then_ the ogres wouldn't have their servants anymore, _plus_ the peace would be broken and the minotaurs would be on the ogres' case again. Plus, the minotaurs have a few spectres working for them. "Why _do_ these spectres work for the minotaurs, instead of immediately trying to eat their souls?" Because one of the minotaurs is a priest to the God of Death, and he's the one keeping the spectres dominated and under his control; if the minotaur priest were to _die,_ of course, the spectres probably _would_ immediately try to kill the minotaurs along with anyone in the same room...the party of adventurers who just killed the minotaurs' death priest, for example. Stuff like that. :-)

[@Mnnvint]

My players managed to get out of the goblins that there was a red door they had been warned to never go through (there were skeletons behind it). They also explained that they had been hired by a mysterious stranger to guard this abandoned dwarven mine because in a few days there would come a couple of adventurers, so they hadn't been there for long. (See, I have a plan!)

[@HoleyMoleyAlex]

I don't know some of those maps can be quite realistic depending on the setting for example the stone mines near me actually look like some of these maps, full of rooms separated by collapses causing lots of dead ends etc. It would make a good "dungeon". There is no central pathway in there and if there is its blocked as the roof is so unstable.

[@Sylfa]

Fun fact, the Swedish translation of D&D was "Drakar & Demoner" - "Dragons & Demons".

[@silverbackwrites]

*sees title* You are playing a very dangerous game, Shad.

[@LuxxyLux1]

You could say... Dungeonerous. Ah ah get it

[@LuxxyLux1]

@@jjtomecek1623 no masa not in the hole.

[@isitnotwrittenthat1680]

He is

[@TheDOS]

TLDR: “Dungeons” in games should really be called “Labyrinths”.

[@XX-sp3tt]

But it doesn't sound as cool.

[@rachelwhite8022]

@@XX-sp3tt Labyrinths & Lizards?

[@christopherfleetwood5252]

So Labyrinths & Lawyers???

[@valenting3183]

I've got it! Labyrinths and Lizards!

[@frostbite5081]

Labyrinths and Lochness Monsters

[@Nezalu]

I so love this mixture of blade weapons in the background in the wall... with light saber causually hanging there

[@markbrown2784]

This was a great episode. Since I was a kid playing d&d going back to 83', I too have wondered about the "dungeons" we were going through. That some of them "architecturally" made no sense...

[@JohnA...]

So what you are saying is that something like "Castles & Creatures" would have made more sense.

[@irispounsberry7917]

Except that taking into consideration the historical origen of the word makes dungeon a better word, both for towers and underground labyrinths. In the games, dungeon is just used as a label for any space the heroes have to navigate and expect resistance.

[@irispounsberry7917]

@Ad Lockhorst Polymorph self is available and dragons are well known to use it in D&D

[@3dmaster205]

Given what Dungeons usually are, "Catacombs & Creatures" would be a more accurate name.

[@Beanzoboy]

Ogres & Oubliettes.

[@captainplaceholder4482]

I feel like catacombs and creatures might be more commonly accurate.

[@masonlacour1982]

So, in DnD, dungeon design doesn't make sense... But what about Dragons?

[@danhedman8515]

They do make more sense than most dungeons. Dragons and magic and such are unrealistic and would not make sense in the real world but in a fantasy world it can. But just because you have dragons and magic and such in a world it does not mean all logic should be thrown out of the window

[@masonlacour1982]

@@danhedman8515 so, physically impossible but logistically reasonable, whereas DnD dungeons are physically possible, but logistically stupid?

[@danhedman8515]

@@masonlacour1982 Basically in a fantasy world magic and dragons make sense. Same does common sense. Just because you have a world where monsters and magic is a reality does not mean all logic and common sense have to be thrown out. I still expect people to in general do things that make sense in the world they live in. unless they are mad. Like Halistar Blackcloak, the Mad Mage. In that case it make some sense. A really powerful person with almost unlimited resources building a dungeon. It still makes no real sense but the fact a mad person doing something that does not make sense do in fact make sense :) Someone that builds a Classical dungeon to protect his treasure does not make sense. because it is a pretty crappy way to protect your treasure to build something that is designed like most dungeons. So some dungeons DO make sense but many does not

[@willmiller7641]

The other 3 replies: r/ whoosh

[@Ersdown_Liberia]

@@willmiller7641 r/ihavereddit

[@MistaOppritunity]

Another thing to remember about the spreading out of minions is that depending on the setting of the dungeon, there might be multiple locations and items that you want defended. And on another hand, a lot of the potential enemies might not be there to guard it specifically. Maybe the party is attacking or assailing the bad guys barracks and there are people in their down time in their bunk, or in the mess hall eating. For the sequential rooms as well, that's a lot more likely to occur in a cave setting.

[@jones95jb]

Such a great video as always! You make such amazing content!

[@JRMcCarroll]

In about a decade of D&D (although I haven't been DMing that whole time since my group rotates DMs), I can only think of three times when I've done something that could properly be called a dungeon crawl. Once it was an underground maze followed by a wizard's tower, but the illogical nature of the whole thing was literally explained by the phrase "a wizard did it." Specifically, this wizard was obsessed with the idea of being an evil overlord and having heroes try to fight their way through his dungeon. The second one was a giant ant hill. It didn't have a classic layout, exactly. I modeled it more after what and tunnels are really like, so it was a maze of corridors, with rooms off the sides, and lots of ants coming and going everywhere. The heroes had a magical device that masked them from the ants' senses, but it would fizzle out periodically and have to be restarted, which is when they'd have random encounters. The third one was a Dwarf mine overrun by rust monsters.

[@BloodyBay]

I did the ant hill dungeon once, only it wasn't for Dungeons & Dragons. It was a GURPS Sci-Fi campaign, the ants were the size of cattle, they had broken out of the military laboratory where they were being genetically engineered as shock troops for the front lines in the Middle East, they were taking over Chicago, tearing down buildings and trying to turn the whole city into one big ant hill, and the players were playing high-tech National Guardsmen sent on a seek-and-destroy mission to sneak and/or fight their way through the city, sneak and/or fight through the ant colony, kill the queen and kill all the larvae, thus neutralizing the colony. Of course, detonating any explosives inside the ant hill would likely have caused a tunnel collapse, so they had to be _very_ careful with their grenades and detpacks. The giant ants' unstable genetic code also lent the ants an ability to adapt and mutate rapidly, as the players learned once their soldiers started running into ants who could spit globs of digestive acid, ants whose exoskeletons functioned as ablative body armor (meaning that they could stand up to withering barrages of bullets and plasma shots), ants who could disrupt their concentration with hypersonic screams, and so on. Their "liquid genetics" also shortened the ants' lifespans considerably, but they adapted to _that_ problem by breeding more rapidly, making them even more of a problem as they consumed more and more of Chicago's resources and expanded their colony more swiftly than the National Guard first expected. That campaign was fun for a little while. Too bad GURPS has a very tedious system; none of us liked it much. We ended up dropping GURPS and alternating between a long-standing D&D campaign and a long-standing Marvel Superheroes campaign after that.

[@nctpti2073]

100% this. It is simplistic and hard to even call 'old school' since even the majority of published modules aren't like this.

[@FurchtbaresGaming]

@@BloodyBay Sounds pretty exactly like the story of the Shadowrun book "nuke city"

[@BloodyBay]

@@FurchtbaresGaming I've never played it. So that Shadowrun module was similarly inspired by a bastardization of "Them!" from 1954 and "Aliens," I take it? ;-)

[@FurchtbaresGaming]

@@BloodyBay nah man, Nuke City is one of the novels and it was written by me in 15k bc by the time i spent in Mu. Obviously you wouldnt know ;D so the books youve mentioned were all copycats of my early works.

[@psychodrummer1567]

Biggest fault of underground dungeons? They lack Machicolations!

[@andersengman3896]

But what about DRAGONS?!

[@toboterxp8155]

Oh, sometimes dungeons contain some really large caves, with defensive works inside. Including machiocolations!

[@rikremmerswaal2756]

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaacccccccccchhhhhhhhhhhhhhiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicccccccccccccoooooooooooooooooooooooooollllllllllllllllllaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaattttttttttttiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiioooooooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnnnsssssss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[@LarsaXL]

Want to find dungeons that works and are fairly realistic and sensible (within context) Fallout Bunkers. STALKER and Fallout New Vegas have good examples.

[@andraskovacs5431]

If you make some place over the roads(sorry english is only my second language and this is the closest to the word I want to say) and put golems there you can make death holes or you can make larger walls on the two sides and there can be machicolations.

[@ashtongiertz8728]

The purpose of dungeons is quite simple: weeding out the brave warriors who would otherwise thwart monster raids. Once a week, a krew of kobald kontractors go into dungeons to reset the traps, feed the monsters, and loot corpses of anything valuable to add to the treasure hoard for future dungeons. The treasure is bait to lure people to their doom.

[@bdemaree]

Fun fact: D&D was originally gonna be "Castles & Kitty Cats" but Dave finally convinced Gary that not all cats are as scary as ones at his mom's house.

[@figo3554]

Lol

[@draegonspawn5361]

I have on multiple occasions just used the blue prints of real castles as my dungeon layouts. (Evil temple, fortress, etc) I did this because those designs include important realism elements. Like where the bathrooms, kitchens, and bedrooms are. Ogre butler needs a place to lay his head. One group that included onto this trend when a player recognized the layout for Neuschwanstein Castle.

[@user-ft3jq5vi2l]

Don't look at Neuschwanstein, it was designed as a palace for a crazy bavarian king in the 1800s. Look at real medieval castles, a lot more realism in defences, size of rooms...

[@thechloromancer3310]

@@user-ft3jq5vi2l, not every target for adventurers is going to live in a defensive structure. Hell, not every target is going to be non-human in the first place.

[@tashkiira7838]

Neuschwanstein is pretty famous, though, it's the model for the 'Disney' castles. that's one I personally would never use just because of that.

[@davidmorgan6896]

If you are running a low-magic game this is fine, in fact, why do it any other way? In a high fantasy setting, castles would have to have developed differently. No castle's gate could survive a giant attack (see Game of Thrones), dwarves would make superb "sappers", high walls would not stop a stinking cloud etc.

[@jeremymullens7167]

Lol 1st edition DnD gave dwarves a sapping bonus and Ogres were really strong mobile siege weapons. There was more focus on army scale combat though and the game as moved away from that. You used to be able to do cool things like raise griffins and train soilders to ride them then after a long time you can field a unit of Griffin riders. I think a lot is missing when we moved away

[@silvertheelf]

Cthulhu Mythos:”You cannot comprehend this universe...” Dungeons and dragons:”hold my dice.”

[@jamoecw]

keep in mind that i am not over 40 years old, but if memory serves the early dungeons were sewers of old medieval cities (and thus there are underground rooms based on old bath house sewers and such), or an old tower that you had to fight upwards to the top to a boss that was busy with something else. sometimes it was in mines as well, which were when underworld things mined up and met the mines that people mined down towards.

[@bknwuzheer1]

Love the steady escalation of kind of normal-looking dungeons to straight-up Minotaur labyrinth at 6:06

[@timothymclean]

I find it amusing how one game designer's attempt at making a catchy name had such a large effect on how we use the word "dungeon" today.

[@shadiversity]

Indeed ^_^

[@basedeltazero714]

From my understanding, Dungeons & Dragons actually originated from a module for the wargame Chainmail in which a team of elite knights snuck into a castle via a sally port leading through the dungeons, or something like that. It was originally a small-scale indoor combat mod for a medieval warfare game. (And then dragons were added because, well... *of course*.)

[@ianpage2509]

that is true the guy also got the name because he made a list of places and a list of mythical creatures he ran them by his kids and they liked Dungeons and Dragons.

[@brainunboxinghypnosis1986]

The guy? That guy has a name. It wasn't simply that Gary Gygax decided to put the word "dungeon" in the name of the game: he was ripping off another author. If you want to blame anyone, blame Tolkien. Gygax was attempting to recreate the iconic underground adventures in Middle Earth. Perhaps some DMs do use the Monster in a room sequence described, but it was not there in the beginning. I started back in '79, and didn't design my dungeons that way, either. Critically, neither did Gary Gygax. Most early dungeons did actually feature the more realistic system of corridors and rooms. If you need an example, look at the map of the Tomb of Horrors, which Gary Gygax ran at Origins 1 in 1975. The most perplexing problem for most dungeons to me is usually ecological. What does a food web in an underground place full of predators look like?

[@ianpage2509]

I had to go to work so I made a quick post here is my source Ewalt, M. David. Of Dice and Men. Scrinbner, 2013.

[@HuevonMakor]

There was a manga ( I cant' remember the name) where they explained some of these things. The protagonist, the one that built the dungeon, could use his magic to teleport inside the dungeon. The thing was that you had to know the exact location you are teleporting to for the magic to work (Videogame checkpoints?). Also he "invited" a lot of monsters to live inside to serve as guards without them knowing. He did not pay them, he just allowed them to live there so the monsters saw the dungeon as an aparment building and each of them wanted their own space, that's why all the monsters were not concentrated in a single room. For example, the goblins were comfortable around other goblins but they didn't want to be near, let's say an ogre or another goblin tribe. Also, he built it underground because he wasn't hiding treasure or anything like that, he was protecting some sort of magic fountain where many "magic rivers" converged because it was the source of all his power. There were many reason that the dungeon had an entrance to begin with, but the main one was that he wanted people to try to take that magic fountain, he wanted to kill some adventurers and let others escape so they could tell people about him and fear him, his plan was to be feared so he could collect tribute from the small towns (He also wanted female adventurers to go inside... it was a harem manga, I leave the rest to your imagination)

[@thiagobessa6932]

That's not a harem manga at all. It was full ERO Smut novel, where he wanted to make an sex dungeon haha.

[@RustyMerc4Hire]

Maou no Hajimekata - The Comic There, the name of said Manga for anyone who wants the source.

[@boygenius538_8]

Thiago Bessa bruh. It sounded like a cool concept but it’s just a porno

[@Mnnvint]

It's easy to come up with excuses for old school dungeons. It's a good thing to do too, because old school dungeons can be a lot of FUN!

[@an3582]

"it was a harem manga", well that just killed any and all interest I had.

[@jeffumbach]

9:45 funny you should mention that about the secret tunnel Shad, in the "Hordes of the Underdark" expansion for "Neverwinter Nights" the dungeon with the fighting factions of golems has a locked door near the entrance. After completing the dungeon you can find a lever that unlocks a door and lets you travel out through this very door to escape, but if your player character has a high enough lockpick skill it is possible to unlock the door from the outside and skip most of the way to the end.

[@BestFriendsWhoLiveTogether]

There’s a castle near where I live that has a dungeon, it was a single room and you could see on the doorframe where they would have put a large piece of wood to barricade the door shut

[@alexp5461]

Why should we have a dungeon as a base, when we could have a castle with MACHICOLATIONS???

[@Resistant396]

That reply is underrated.

[@giantflamingrabbitmonster8124]

And Grotesques!

[@nithia]

Than get your own dragon to defend from other dragons? Or create giant crossbows with nets to bring down any attacking dragons?

[@seigeengine]

A castle is arguably also a dungeon.

[@alexp5461]

@@seigeengine Not always. Castles are also where nobles used to live, at least in the early period.

[@jamesofaustralia8193]

Shad: buy this game about dungeons! Also shad: listen to me for 15 minutes about why dungeons are stupid

[@robertnett9793]

He has a point - as in many DMs simply put their effort in make a dungeon fun and challenging - but then don't go the few extra steps to make it plausible.

[@platinumsun4632]

@@robertnett9793 Exactly.

[@jeremymullens7167]

Naw, DM’s should embrace old school dungeon design. It’s the mystical underworld mortal minds can’t hope to understand it. Don’t try to dungeonfy everything. A fortress is a fortress not a dungeon and approaching a fortress should alert an army unless you have a plan to bypass detection. Encounters don’t always have to fit the party. Sometimes the ogre lives in that cave and the party isn’t strong enough for the ogre. Let the party learn the hard. And really the most important rule. Don’t give much exp for combat. If you do your incentivizing combat. Encounters should be avoided but things that give exp encourage it. Every fight should give you something valuable other than exp. any other encounter should be avoided. Exp for combat makes players seek out encounters and this is unrealistic and meta gaming(don’t blame them but this is why rules should be different)

[@noahnaugler7611]

I can see some of the somewhat larger dungeon layouts arising from underground iterative construction across many different generations of inhabitants. Example: an underground criminal hideout that begins as a single room below a house or five bar, but then is expanded as a storage room after the criminals are cleared out. Later, some secret rooms are added in to hide criminal dealings behind the storage. Follow ad nauseum until you have a network of rooms and hallways below a house or tavern or whatever.

[@minkeyandzomble6206]

See I use the whole winding tunnel layout for 'dungeon' (dungeon here simply being a word a place the party goes that isn't a safe town) generally only when I'm doing city ruins (at which point the streets and rubble from the ruined buildings are/create the winding paths) or in a cave system where it's gonna be winding and twisty to begin with

[@DesolatorMagic]

Shad DMing be like: the spell fails because magic isn't real

[@FirstLast-fr4hb]

that sounds like him

[@orbitalvagabond3297]

This is the briefest explanation I've seen of why criticizing the 'realism' fantasy architecture is fucking stupid.

[@Bluecho4]

Just because magic exists in a setting doesn't mean logic is automatically discounted. And there are logical reasons why any organized force would design their structures one way, rather than another. Even if the organized force has magic at its disposal, it only gives as much license to break normal logical rules for base design as the magic allows according to its _own_ rules. By default, assuming low to no magic, there are certain ways a base will function according to the needs of those who inhabit it, and what resources they have at their disposal. Unless the DnD world functions on entirely different internal logic, parts of normal human experience are going to come into play. Because if the DnD worlds _were_ running off entirely different rules, it would be unrecognizable to us, and there'd be no point in game systems that simulate the real world.

[@Sgrunterundt]

You don't understand him at all. It is fine to have a fantasy about a world where magic is real, but a world still need internal consistency to work well.

[@KuK137]

Kasper, you're completely wrong. Internal consistency? He fails to contemplate it for even a single second. In a world where any town wizard (and certainly any evil mastermind wizard, if town one is too weak) has 'sculpt earth' or even better, 'sculpt stone' spell, the dungeon is NOT the expensive affair it's in real life. It's something you can buy with month worth of wizard wages. They are bigger? Of course they are, the building technology is far better. Conversely, long and convoluted dungeon? Doesn't work in real life. It works perfectly well if you can 'dimension door' through a few meters of stone to the other end. He fails to consider that too. Small groups of guards? Doesn't work in real life. In D&D? Massing minions in one room means they all die to fireball. GG, no RE. But, if you split them, the adventuring wizard needs to prepare a lot of small spells to fight them, something they are very bad at (wizards don't typically have staying power, which is why you need meatshields to deal with small fry) meaning the most dangerous enemies are most disadvantaged. Internal consistency doesn't need to be anything like real life consistency, you know...

[@skipperg4436]

There is a castle (more like a palace) in Russia (St. Petersburg city) that was built SPECIFICALLY with the idea of whoever enter it will get lost. The king who ordered its construction wanted it to be built that way because he was afraid of being assassinated (and his eventual death was rumored to be an assassination so probably he wasn't paranoid). Its called "Engineer's Castle" (aka Mikhailovsky Castle). If you'll ever be in St. Petersburg (Russia, not USA) pay it a visit.

[@e17171]

An exception that proves the rule. It’s famous because nearly every other Castle in Russia was NOT designed like that.

[@LuisAldamiz]

The Wikipedia entry says nothing about that, just that its facades are different for aesthetic reasons and that Paul I was assassinated in it soon after it was built. :/

[@LiliaArmoury]

my favorite take on the whole secret entrance or locked door to the strong room is in the spoof series senile squibbles where the dragon born and jizargo are in a dungon and looking at a map and db is like "okay but why should we go the long way where there is a short route right here?" and when he finds the door is blocked he bangs on the door and shouts "hay open up" and the dragon priest goes "nah may you gotta go the long way"

[@chrismanuel9768]

How the evil Lord gets into his evil lair: Teleport 60' down from a specific place in the forest above

[@un-capital3666]

"Just put all of your defenses in one room!" Two words: Maginot Line.

[@un-capital3666]

@Kyle Duncan The flaw of the Maginot Line wasn't that it was too thinly spread out, it was that it put all of the resources into a position where they could be bypassed. What I'm suggesting here is the same issue, in that if those who are attempting to raid this dungeon find some method with which to avoid this one particular room, then all of the defenses have gone to waste. There are also a number of other issues with this setup, such as: If your guards aren't all the same species, then how do you prevent infighting? What if the explorers come armed with some sort of explosive(s), would they be able to instantly kill near, if not everything? And finally, you have spacial issues- how big is this room? Would the possibility of friendly fire be a real issue, would there be any breathing room at all?

[@LuriTV]

@@un-capital3666 Yeah that was the same thing I was thinking too. Especially in D&D when you have an experienced enough wizard you can totally wipe out the whole defence with one or two casts. Also it shouldn't be too hard to bottleneck the defenders in this setup.

[@Rannos22]

That's not anywhere close to where the French put all their defenses Pop history needs to die a painful death for false "historical" lessons like this

[@un-capital3666]

@@Rannos22 Sources?

[@kazineverwind5267]

One word: Fireball.

[@pisoprano]

While I was still in school I played a Pathfinder campaign that was set in a post-apocalypse version of the school’s campus. Loads of fun, especially when our characters were in the room that we the players were actually in.

[@nymalous3428]

That sounds like a neat idea!

[@cobraglatiator]

huh, meta.

[@saber1epee0]

We Staff ran a zombie-based campaign every summer at my Boy Scout summer camp that took place in the camp-

[@VegetaLF7]

We did a similar one where our DM only told us that we were in a post-apocalypse setting but as the game unfolded and he revealed more and more details about our location, we eventually realized it was the ruins of Disney, with the final boss residing in Cinderella's Castle at the Magic Kingdom. We wound up having a dragon fight down Main Street USA and is honestly one of my favorite encounters we've ever done.

[@ismu34]

That would be cool, with multiple buildings and facilities you could clear and fortify etc

[@crimsonraen]

In the Dungeon Keeper video game series, when adventurers come into your dungeon, you drop every single one of your monsters into their path so they have to try and face them all at once. ;P The dungeon serves as their living and training quarters. Doing it right since the beginning they were! haha

[@Gottaculat]

Something I rarely see in games that I really enjoy is when getting to your objective breaks from the typical gauntlet of enemies, but instead there are no, or maybe just a couple of enemies, maybe some traps, but for the most part getting to the objective feels too easy. Once you get to your objective, you realize it's a trap, and now you need to fight your way out against an onslaught of enemies, sometimes to the point it's truly challenging as you have no where to fall back to. Couple this with a timer event, such as the place is collapsing or about to self-destruct, and it really brings about the sense of urgency and peril. Games need to do this more often, I think. Clearing rooms one by one with the ability to fall back whenever you need to, and having no resistance once cleared is pretty boring. There's also the times when you don't know if there are enemies or traps, everything is too quiet, and you're on edge the whole time, second-guessing yourself, even passing up loot because of your anxiety. DayZ is a great example of this, as raiding a city or military base is incredibly nerve-wracking because while the zombies are easy enough to evade or dispatch, players could be watching you through a rifle scope, and/or they could have setup land mines to booby trap hallways or even loot itself, and it's very easy to die, but very time consuming and risky to gear up. I think more games need that kind of gameplay, as it's far more rewarding than feeling like an unstoppable god that's never really in any danger of loosing your loot. I haven't played Escape from Tarkov, but that game looks to have that feeling of high stakes. The original Bioshock had some of those times when you get through an area too easily, but you end up having to fight your way back out. I think Far Cry 5 had a level like that, too, where a bunker was self-destructing. Perfect Dark on the N64 had one of my favorite mission arcs, the infiltration of Area 51, then being disguised as a scientist in the Area 51 labs walking among them like you belong there, and finally an action-packed escape from Area 51 with literally unlimited enemies spawning. Made for some awesome gameplay.

[@willm1115]

There was one setting I found where the D and D style of dungeon did make a bit more sense. In that setting the various gods would make dungeons as elaborate obstacle courses for mortals to prove their worth.

[@nyankers]

That's also how the anime Magi does it. Dungeons are even accessed via a magical portal, and the things within are often completely alien to the otherwise fairly realistic world outside. I think that was also sort of how Ultima did it if I recall. The dungeons there weren't made by Gods, in fact I'm not even sure who they were made by, but they were there for more spiritual (or magical) purposes than anything else, and just so happened to contain monsters and treasure. Given said treasure was occasionally on dead bodies, you could assume that a lot of the treasure came from other adventuring types.

[@jeremymullens7167]

That’s what a dungeon is. A mystical underworld. It’s more akin to a fae realm. It’s a magic place. A fortress is a fortress. Walking up to a fortress should get an army to come out. You attack a fortress with an army not adventurers. It’s modern game design that dropped miniatures and focused on narrative based game play(good narratives are good). The evil overlord in his fortress used to be a culmination of the campaign. You had to prove your worth in dungeons and come out with fantastic treasure and holy relic swords. Then, warriors would flock to your banner. You use your treasure to build your fortress. Engage in politics to convince the nobles/king of the danger of the evil overlord. Uncover insidious plots. Make an alliance with the elves by convincing the nearby townships to stay out of the forest.(this will require an adventure most likely. Maybe multiple.) When you feel prepared(or maybe the forces of evil attack your fortress or the fortress of a noble benefactor.) you launch attacks on the evil horde’s strongholds. It turns into a miniatures battle campaign with asides for politics and dungeon exploration if need be. Your estate is many people many with character levels that you can send off on adventures while you conduct war. Or be drafted to lead battalions. Logistics and battle plans are important. Not everyone likes to play that way. But it allows for far more player motivated plots. The warrior can try to take over the kingdom. He would just need to win nobles to his side. Maybe he bribes them, maybe he murderers one and insures a puppet takes their place, maybe he recovers a priceless family heirloom from some dungeon. When the warrior is satisfied or when his plot is uncovered it’s battle time. Either his estate is destroyed (and most likely game is over please reroll) or he is the new king of the realm. You can play that plot with another noble. Don’t push just make the king kinda evil. The players might eventually look for nobles wanting to off the king. Or a noble is evil and offers the players riches if they help his plot. All the while the evil overlord grows more powerful. Maybe the warrior becomes the evil overlord. You build up your army but you know what can make you stronger? Orcs. Orcs love to fight. Convince orcs to fight for you and it’s even easier to take over the kingdom or course orcs aren’t very nice to the citizens of the cities they take over but it’s the price of victory. Really I see that as the job of the DM. find out what the player wants. Find out what their values are. They try to get them to sell their soul for it. It will separate the good from the bad.

[@douglasdea637]

I admit when I first learned to play D&D back around 1980 I created all sorts of dungeons with elaborate layouts and rooms filled with random monsters, much like some of the maps featured in this video. Then I read an article, somewhere, perhaps in Dragon Magazine, which questioned this type of scenario. "What do the monsters eat?" it asked. "What do they do in the average, boring day?" It questioned the logic of having a Black Pudding in one room, a couple of Owlbears in the next and a half dozen Ogres in the third. "Why hasn't the Pudding eaten the Owlbears? Why haven't the Owlbears snacked on an Ogre or two?" That sort of thing. This article had a profound impact on how I designed caves, "dungeons" and other layouts. I put far more thought into they Whys and Wherefores of the environment. How do things eat, breathe, bathe, etc. I started to justify, to myself, why a creature "lives" in a particular location and how it functions there. Why everything around it hasn't killed it, or stolen it's loot. Consequently my designs became smaller, with more cave entrances and natural features such as flowing water. Creature selection became far more logical too. If I did use a Black Pudding and there was a Vampire nearby you can bet there was a method the Vampire used to keep the Pudding at bay, and the Ogres, and the Rust Monster. (Sex, can't forget sex. Everything in nature loves to mate and will spend large amounts of time attempting to do it. Why have one Rust Monster when you can have a mated pair with a few offspring?)

[@gabriel300010]

and then there is a huge bunch of invertebrates who spend their entire adult phase looking exclusively for mates.

[@mikefule330]

I remember having similar conversations, thoughts and doubts, once the initial excitement of "listen at door, try lock, break door, kill monster, take treasure, repeat" had died down. However, I also had doubts about one character having 8 hit points and another starting with only 1 - and the character who started with with 8 still being able to fight when he was down to 1, and nobody ever getting peritonitis after a stab wound, and armour not making it easier to close with someone and hit them, and... and... etc. Fond memories of those times, but the whole concept was deeply flawed, really.

[@alexandrbatora9674]

@@mikefule330 Your answer to an already brilliant post was itself brilliant! When MINE thrill of exploring mines died out, and when I also realized how stupid the dungeons are, I started to make them absolutely different. In fact I might have gone into another extreme. The ones with dozen of "rooms" filled with two or three monsters (one big grumpy boar-like animal, a group of goblins that protect themselves from the boar with a fire) were on the more conventional side, but an underground sea with a small island hosting an uninhabitated lighthouse/teleport was a bit silly. Except that the group really loved it, and they had, believe it or not, quite some fun navigating the starless sea, catching fish in the absolute darkness, listening to the echoes coming from a roof half a mile above their heads, and paddling their way towards a lighthouse on the horizon. Thise were the days... :-)

[@mikefule330]

@@alexandrbatora9674 Thank you. I remember the first time that I realised that all of our group of friends used to design dungeons which had rooms with round numbers of orcs in them, and always told the characters the exact number at first sight. Example: "You open the door and see a room 40 feet by 30 feet with 10 orcs in it." I saw the inconsistency and thought, "Aha! Let's be more imaginative and realistic." The next time I was DM, when the situation arose, I said, "You see a large room with between 10 and 20 orcs in it." My friend responded, absolutely deadpan. "OK, so there are 15 orcs." (He is now a professor in a probability and statistics department at a university!)

[@DolFan316]

I believe this school of thought is referred to as Gygaxian Naturalism. It's also what I always constantly wondered about as well, and TBH when I clicked on this video I assumed that's what would be discussed. Then again if you start thinking too much about that sort of thing you'll just drive yourself mad. How do the neophyte/newbie/rookie adventurers even find out about the big, bad dungeon teeming with monsters? If they hear about it from a random resident of Podunk Village X in the local tavern that happens to be just a few miles away, how did that person find out? If there's this big base of monsters so close to civilization, why hasn't anybody tried to deal with this situation before? How does the trap situation work? If this place has been visited before then surely some traps have already been triggered, right? Do the monsters just re-set them every time for the next batch of adventurers? Personally the only real explanation I can come up with is that a Big Bad has set up this dungeon as a way of discovering future threats. If the characters conquer it, then he (or she) will know that a potential threat down the road has just materialized, and then further "tests" can be arranged until the group gets powerful enough to fight the Big Bad directly. This gives the random dungeon an actual and long-term purpose above and beyond the usual.

[@B-Lux]

11:01 That remind me of a D&D adventure we played, its called Dragon of Icepire peak. In the particular mission of Axeholm my players decided to go straight in the front door and break it which lead to alert all the monsters in the castle, so they had to fight against a big horde and barely survive xD

[@TheOystei]

I see the escape from boss room thing in many other games too, at least some of them makes it like that it is a natural one way or something that could only be opened from the inside.

[@krebward]

I've DM'd for over 20 years. I've always had a problem with the standard dungeon you get in the official adventures. What I do is instead of 1 dungeon I set up adventures that take place in multiple places. So for me my "dungeon" may start in a forest transition to a cabin then they find a cave that may have a clue that leads to somewhere else. Large complexes make no sense. Anyone saying they have real world counterparts are crazy and deluding themselves. Plus, how do you keep monsters fed over long periods? There are so many problems with the logistics of a dungeon it just breaks the immersion. If anyone made it to the end of my rant. Thanks for reading.

[@Medhusalem]

But magic and dragons are no problems? The logistics of keeping monsters alive is where you draw the line? ^^... I mean come on, you can have magicians conjuring enough food, you can have beasts that rely on magical energy etc. etc., goblins that are in elaborated cavern systems and so on. Large and complex doesn't necessarily mean impossible or illogical.

[@phoenix55755]

Sounds similar to what I do.

[@slyswat231]

Or you could just have an individual that's part of the dungeon faction go around feeding the monsters/animals? Just a thought. They dont exist in isolation for God's sake

[@HominidMachinae]

Even old-school D&D gave a LOT of attention to the ecology of dungeons, some of their most iconic monsters are iconic because they were designed to fill a niche in the dungeon food chain and make it more realistic-- gelatinous cubes prevent mold from overrunning everything and keep plant growth in check, and keep the vermin down. The vermin are a food source for larger creatures and eat off what plant life there is, carrion crawlers subsist on unlucky adventurers and can hibernate long periods, ditto for lurkers and mimics. not to mention they can always set up a way to feed the creatures if aa dungeon is purpose-designed.

[@kingmasterlord]

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Derinkuyu_underground_city

[@Obversechaos]

Dungeons & Dragons is called so because it originally was all about going through huge dungeons, which were easy to get lost in, and at the end was a great treasure guarded by a dragon. The game expanded to more than just dungeons and many great monsters other than dragons. The navigating a gigantic dungeon idea largely disappeared when there became much more to do in the game, but they kept the name because it became so iconic.

[@animehuntress9018]

I'm watching this while making a cave system in RPG MV... so very glad that 1. I watched this 2. That my system is actually just a pass to the "base" (which is really a hidden town) 3. I just came up with a few new Ideas.

[@velkonemriam1935]

As a DM, I totally agree with you. I would always look at classic dungeons and think, "But, why would they do that? This is unrealistic," etc. That's why I never used a pregenerated dungeon Lol They always broke my immersion, even as a DM. As a world builder, I want my players to immerse themselves in the world. So I wanna give it a general sense of realism. Loved the video! 😄

[@wojciechkowalski8061]

Same here. The only way I've figured out to do a fairly realistic "dungeon" was a derelict military vault/underground base in a sci-fi/postapocalyptic setting. Players had to get to the central computer (so logically something secure and hard to get to) to recover some valuable data. I've made a quite realistic multi-level layout and then started adding cave-ins, jammed doors, weakened walls and ventilation shafts and such to create a labirynth coupled with automated defences, turrets and mechs in key rooms, halls and junctures AND an enemy party also exploring said vault. It was a TON of work even compared to some other sessions, and it took almost fifteen hours for the players to get through it, but it was really worth it.

[@tesnacloud]

Same. The DM for my group works hard to create realistic dungeons, typically made from other types of buildings. Like an aqueduct system that had fallen into disrepair and was now the lair of several amphibious creatures

[@peterosborne8315]

Velkon Emriam the only actual stereotypical dungeon I've ever used was created as a test by a necromancer

[@velkonemriam1935]

@@peterosborne8315 Nice! 😄 I think that'd be the only time I'd use a classic dungeon, when a wizard or necromancer would test or toy with his opponents.

[@lewistranmer2399]

The fact you call yourself a DM really highlights the virginity shield surrounding you

[@AEB1066]

I think Shad kind of missed the point on this one - very few dungeons in fantasy are the purpose-built strongholds of some leader. Also, many real world "dungeons" were built to contain and protect treasure. What it comes down to is what is a dungeon. Clearly in D&D a dungeon goes way beyond an underground section of a castle or fortress (although some are). Moria from Lord of the Rings is probably closer to what they were after. In fact id you look at the classic D&D modules you have cave systems, mines, tombs, dwarven strongholds, ancient cities, even spaceships, and all are treated as being a dungeon. Plus there are plenty of real world example. Shad touched on the Terracotta Army. The army itself was buried in pits surrounding the Mausoleum of the First Qin Emperor, which is believed to be a vast underground complex containing fantastic treasures including the jade & gold covered body of the Emperor. And it is full of traps. In fact the mausoleum is thought to be so dangerous that the Chinese will not open the tomb until the technology to safely explore and preserve what is inside becomes available. In fact many Chinese emperors were buried in underground complexes. As were Pharaohs and other god-kings. And they were buried with their riches, and their tombs were protected by traps. And how about more general types catacombs and necropolises. I have been in the catacombs of Rome and they are literally a series of chambers connected by narrow passages that also extend over a number of levels. Then there are barrows and other types of Neolithic burials that also consisted of smaller but still underground complexes. Then there are underground cities. In fantasy you have races like the dwarves who live underground by preference. In the real world you have underground settlements like Derinkuyu in Turkey that could house 20,000 people and had defenses to protect the city from attack. So, in a fantasy world, you are going to have many underground structures and complexes. Most will be abandoned, forgotten, and or overrun by monsters like the Dragon Smaug. The occupants that the players are adventuring against probably didn't build the complex they inhabit, they took it over and adapted it to their purposes. So if you view the concept of the Dungeon as created by Gygax and others as being more than just the basement of a castle, it actually makes sense.

[@ubernerdlucas1]

Agreed. It's also important to note that a lot of fantasy dungeons are designed by a "mad wizard" cliche and are knowingly unrealistic.

[@Hirome_Satou]

I also disagree with his conception that dungeons are places where the overlord lives. Sure, in some cases you can say that's the case, but it's usually much more than just a series of rooms leading to other rooms, it's a whole fortress. The typical dungeon in things like D&D are much more akin to a tomb or treasury where curses or riches lie in wait, rather than the home of the bad guy. When the tomb is being used as a home, it's usually inhabited by lesser creatures that took it over or a group of bandits, like you mentioned. I agree with Shad that there are bad examples of the way some games use dungeons or design them, but I feel like those examples are much fewer than the good ones.

[@HaganeNoGijutsushi]

True, good games usually handle that well. In Skyrim, most of the dungeons are indeed just tombs of a similar type to the one you mention here. In the first Diablo, it's the unusually deep crypts of a cathedral (that then morph gradually into caves and finally into Hell). In this case there was no straightforward attempt to "protect" anything - the monsters roamed them because the evil influence of Diablo spread them around. It was less of an organised guard and more of an infestation.

[@casimiriii5941]

AEB1066 i think theres another point, or story rather that he missed. Theseus and the Minotaur. Theseus the Greek hero fiɡhts the leɡendary creature in a labyrinth, a maze like structure. This isn't just some ɡaminɡ mechanic.

[@Zonalyre]

@@HaganeNoGijutsushi Yes, and also the fact that in Diablo we are talking about demons and such that don't have much organization. I believe in the lore it's stated or hinted at some point that some sort of weakness the forces of evil have is their chaotic nature, which makes them less effective.

[@thefastsnake3015]

9:26 you can actually take that entrance in most dungeons, tho most of those times you need to use a plate or something to run through a wall, like in labyrinthia where the door at the exit is barred

[@bunkersnail9531]

I dont enjoy designing dungeons but I have run them and when I do they usually have multiple paths that lead to multiple locations. However I did do one that was indeed just a long hallway with rooms along the walls leading to the big bad evil boss. Thing is even with a direct path to the boss they still check every single room before hand.

[@BaileyBecca]

The dungeons in Skyrim always annoyed me especially the ones that were supposed to be lived in like dwemmer ruins for the reasons listed in this video

[@tuseroni6085]

i always like to imagine the dwemer disappear not because of the gods but because they all fell into their own exposed machinery. those places are just one huge OSHA violation.

[@Qwerds7]

@@tuseroni6085 they disappeared because oh one dwemer using his tools on the heart of lorkhan one of the original Aedra/"benevolent God's" who had been killed by the others.

[@patrickholt2270]

But they're ruins. You're only seeing the bits that are accessable. Plus Falmer be crazy.

[@BaileyBecca]

Patrick Holt the falmer being crazy have nothing to do with poor city planning on behalf of the dwemmer

[@rowanhollingsworth5231]

Dwemer cities with none of the features of a city, like houses.

[@gyrosphinx]

I have this kind of problem with traps. Who in their right mind would trap their own wardrobe or living room?

[@bosinclaire7670]

To be fair if I was a humble pot merchant in hyrle I would trap my pots to explode if they got smashed. Mayhap theres a serious looting problem in the world?

[@arjunchoong8012]

Or doors that only open if you solve a puzzle. Why would you do something like that? It's like using a combination lock on your bike and then leaving a clue to the person who might want to steal it!

[@pRahvi0]

Arjun Choong, That makes sense because if the bike gets stolen, every insurance company will explicitly ask you if it was locked, but not many will ask if you had left clues around for anyone to easily open it. :D But honestly, if the evil overlord/overlady is immune to the traps, they won't hinder him/her. Like an incarnation of a fire demon will probably be immune to any flamethrowers and lava showers along the main corridor. And the other passages, which are designed for the mooks, can be equipped with other kinds of traps. The minions can spend half an hour evading traps every time they need to sleep, and they are are expendable anyway.

[@schwarzerritter5724]

Arjung Choong Don't you leave clues around how to, for example, log into your KZbin account? In other words have a password book?

[@archive4058]

Me

[@XansStuff]

I had some fun with the dungeon trope. I ran a game once with no monsters. 500 traps 8 treasure rooms with one chest each. The "loot" in the chest teleported randomly to one of the chests via d8 roll every 5 min. Nobody took a thief but at least someone had a kinder. When they finally found the small box in the chest, it contained a note stating "The object you seek is behind the bush next to the entrance.".

[@michaelzimmer9973]

Well Shad, it sound like you and I would get along well in at the very least a D&D session. When I direct I don't use traditional dungeons and only include them if it is relevant to the story. Even then I design them with a sense of purpose to what they were built for, not how many geometric shapes can I vomit onto the page and fill with dangers. I find it much more enjoyable.