Justification for "The Usual Dungeon"

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I remember there was this one guy on the ENWorld forums who created a world where dungeons were collectors for magical energy, and that the energy formed into creatures while in the dungeon and you killed the creatures to harvest the energy in a physical form.  Or there's always stuff like "super-illusion", "psychic reflection", any sort of dream-like stuff.

The whole point is that it's okay if you stock it full of "unrealistic" stuff, nothing in it is real anyway.

[Steerpike]

[blockquote=Silvercat Moonpaw]The whole point is that it's okay if you stock it full of "unrealistic" stuff, nothing in it is real anyway. [/blockquote]While I think that's true to an extent, there's a big difference between offering a fantastic explanation for strange and incongruous stuff in dungeons and offering no explanation.  Personally, I find most of the best worlds in fiction (roleplaying, literature, movies, whatever), while obviously "unrealistic" have their own internal logic or mechanics giving them some kind of cohesion.  Even really bizarre and out-there stuff like Carrol's Wonderland or the widely diverse universe of Dr. Who or the bathhouse in Spirited Away impose some kind of order or logic on their elements; just because it's strange and not "real" in our world doesn't mean it can't have verisimilitude.

Suspension of disbelief may be able to weather such things as gibbering elder gods, anthropomorphic animals, fireballs, hyperspace, and gnomes, but it can do so precisely because in well-crafted worlds those fantastic elements are made to seem real.  Otherwise what you come up with is a kind of cartoon-caricature of a world, a mishmash where absolutely none of the elements work together as they logically should.  There's a difference between presupposing that a bloodthirsty and hostile ogre tribe lives in the foothills above a setting (obviously fantastic but we can suspend our disbelief) and stating that those same ogres don't attack the settlement (without a very good reason why they don't); likewise while DnD monsters and dungeon-complexes are superficially unbelievable we  can buy that they exist in a fantastic world; but verisimilitude is broken if those monsters don't have a good reason for being in the dungeon, especially if they're in a bewildering profusion of species which don't interact together as one imagines they should.

To me, the best roleplaying experiences, like the best novels (fantasy or otherwise), hinge on some sense of verisimilitude, on suspension of disbelief, as you temporarily accept on some level of your brain that yes, Faerun does exist, and yes, I am an elven bard...

Not to say you'd disagree with those statements, Silvercat, I was just using your comment as something of a springboard for a rant.

Back to the actual subject at hand and the mention of tests, I remember a campaign world my friend set up where one quadrant of the world, ruled by a chaotic god, had been set up as a series of floating islands, each with a dungeon inside them.  Anyone who made their way through the dungeon, defeating the guardians and bypassing the traps, would be bequeathed the island by the deity, having proved their merit.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

Not to say you'd disagree with those statements, Silvercat, I was just using your comment as something of a springboard for a rant.

:wtf: I'm confused now.

I was just saying that you could provide a logical explanation for why a dungeon has illogically-placed residents.  Or, at least, the logic is dream-logic or something like that.

[Steerpike]

I guess I'm saying that dream-logic doesn't mean no-logic; fantasy logic isn't an absence of logic.  Your suggestion of making a dungeon and expressly psychic/dream reflection does work, what I'm saying (I suppose) is that that explanation has to be made clear to the players - that the dungeon they're descending into will reflect their fears or whatever.

I was more taking issue with your second statement, the idea that nothing in the dungeon is real.  Perhaps I was misinterpreting; did you mean "real" within the game-world or "real" outside of it (obviously nothing in any campaign is ever real because it's wholly fictional...).

[Nomadic]

I guess I'm saying that dream-logic doesn't mean no-logic; fantasy logic isn't an absence of logic.  Your suggestion of making a dungeon and expressly psychic/dream reflection does work, what I'm saying (I suppose) is that that explanation has to be made clear to the players - that the dungeon they're descending into will reflect their fears or whatever.

I was more taking issue with your second statement, the idea that nothing in the dungeon is real.  Perhaps I was misinterpreting; did you mean "real" within the game-world or "real" outside of it (obviously nothing in any campaign is ever real because it's wholly fictional...).

I think that he meant not real at all. As in it is an illusion even in the game world... a dream that the character is having perhaps (correct me if I am wrong).

[SDragon]

Steerpike, i have to give you major credit for mentioning Carrol in a rant about internal consistency. I've always felt that the "oddness" of Wonderland (and the chess board, assuming Looking Glass took place somewhere else) was a direct result of the level of internally consistent logic. In fact, it's even made me question, to some degree, the believability of the this world.

[Steerpike]

Which would be fair enough, and is definitely one way of justifying unlikely logic in a dungeon.  I was really just using Silvercat's comment to ramble about verisimilitude - there is a tendency for some to blandly state "it's magic" and not care about the illogic, but I realize that Silvercat wasn't necessarily arguing for that statement.

[SilvercatMoonpaw]

I think that he meant not real at all. As in it is an illusion even in the game world... a dream that the character is having perhaps (correct me if I am wrong).

You can have that too, but the idea is that in-world it isn't "real" in the sense that it doesn't have physical substance (or in the case of "magical energy collectors" it's not real in the sense that it isn't an authentic article).

[LordVreeg]

You know the type of dungeon-- a twisting, turning mass of corridors that just happens to look barely the like the relic of some civilization, but not really. It's dark, dank, and abandoned by now. It's also populated with every sort of creature you can imagine: usually in combinations that would realistically make no sense. Why have all of these different types of monsters, most of them territorial and intelligent enough that they might be afraid of each other, all taken up residence in such a confined space, just waiting for some adventurer to happen along?

Basically, I like a good old fashioned hack and slash "D&D dungeon" every once in a while, but I'd like to have some justification for why this atrocity exists. The old "an evil wizard just put them all there" is almost as trite as the dungeon itself, so-- no. Any other thoughts? :D

Sorry.  That type of dungeon belongs in diablo and the games we play wehn we first start gaming.

Creatures there don't have any reason to be ther and not enough food to survive?  

Look barely like a bygone relic?  Sorry..it is a relic, or else it does not belong.  Sounds to me what you are saying is that you enjoy the simplicity and fun of the kind of adventure that won't exist in  amore sophisticated game.  Fine, we all enjoy this kind of thing once in a while, it tickles differfnt nerve-centers.  Just don't ask for it to make sense in the logic of a more sophisticated setting.  You're asking for the orange juice to taste good with the toothpaste, or a mornay sauce to go with zin.

( I still remember the kid who back in high-school who had 4 pc's fight a roc in a 30'x30' room...)

[Polycarp]

( I still remember the kid who back in high-school who had 4 pc's fight a roc in a 30'x30' room...)

"Make a Fortitude save.  Against suffocation."

[sparkletwist]

Creatures there don't have any reason to be ther and not enough food to survive?

You're asking for the orange juice to taste good with the toothpaste, or a mornay sauce to go with zin.[/quote]
I don't think it's that impossible, and some of the good ideas posted here already seem to back up my view.

[Llum]

I still remember the kid who back in high-school who had 4 pc's fight a roc in a 30'x30' room...

Ya that is kinda dumb. Unless the room has no room, and mario-like platforms, which the PCs can jump onto. Like I said, you can rationalize anything given the slightest chance.

[LordVreeg]

[blockquote=ST][blockquote=Vreeg's Coachwhip].Look barely like a bygone relic? Sorry..it is a relic, or else it does not belong.[/blockquote]

What I meant was that it has decayed to the point that it looks barely like anything that civilization could have created, any more.[/blockquote]

Hey, I got that one wrong.  I thought that was part of the whole 'doesn't really make sense' theme.
"a twisting, turning mass of corridors that just happens to look barely the like the relic of some civilization, but not really. It's dark, dank, and abandoned by now.", is what you said, and it sounded to me like that was more of the whole adventure not worrying overmuch about internal consistency.


[blockquote=ST][blockquote=Vreeg's Coachwhip].Sorry. That type of dungeon belongs in diablo and the games we play wehn we first start gaming.[/blockquote]

That type of dungeon belongs wherever players feel like playing it. You can spare me the elitism.[/blockquote]  The elitism went along answering the question you asked. Sometimes elitism is just people answering a question the way it should be answered.  Of course, I could just especially hard to get along with today.  It honestly struck me as an asinine question, "please help me find logic in the illogical."



However, you have at least convinced my mental gears to take a bit of a spin.  I owe you that much after being cranky.  Let's go create some logic.

Could you not place an object or creature at the basement level of said complex (as this type gets more dangerous the lower you get)  That could be calling or attracting them?  An imprisoned para-god, buried in his ancient temple complex by worshippers of newer gods, half slumbering yet calling out and snaring priests of tribes in the areas, convincing them they must dwell in a place nearer to his ancient glories, and maybe calling other, more powerful creatures as well, as pets and even a few very powerful ones at the bottom that were former servants...?

A Jewel-beacon of antiquity, that all raceds think belongs to them, rumored to be somewhere at the bottom, an ancient relic-gem that all races think belongs to their culture and their culture alone...yet it really is a sentient bloodstone, whispering in the dreams of tribal leaders, yet it really just basks in death...

[limetom]

Usually, sprawling underground complexes in the real world arise in one of three ways:

Somebody built it that way.  Places like the Catacombs in various European cities like those under Paris were actually built specifically like that.  Haphazard construction over a few centuries, with many areas not matching up in terms of architectural design.
*It was asploded.  Or, to be more serious, the surface structure was destroyed, but the underground portion remains.
*Somebody built over it.  Similar the previous, and sometimes overlapping, this is also really common in cities.  Mexico City, for example, is built over the ruins of the Aztec cities of Tenochtitlan and Tlatelolco.  Archaeologists recently excavated the Templo Mayor, the largest temple in the cities, around and under a modern Catholic Church.  This is probably the most common of any of these.
*Bees.  BEEEEEEEEEES![/list]
Note that all of these could overlap.  The lowest portions of a dungeon could have been intentionally built haphazardly over several centuries, as a city was built over top of them.   Cue a shift in cultures, and the city could be built again on top of the old city.  Then a war, and the new city is destroyed, but the two older sites are still there.  Rinse.  Repeat.

[Drizztrocks]

Something I did, just cause I love pet beasts, is have a standard dungeon, but then have {place a standard humanoid monster species such as goblins, kobolds, orcs, etc.} ruling the place, but have them loving pet monsters, and having many huge room sized cages and large rooms full of smaller cages housing the monsters and exotic animals. Something happens, and the monsters break out of the cages, killing some of their {insert humanoid} masters, but the rest of the {insert humanoid} going into hiding in many places around the dungeon.

     Or you could have the same scenario, except instead of having hostile creatures housing beasts in cages, you could have friendlies like humans, elves and gnomes having an underground zoo gone wrong {Jurassic Park with fantasy monsters}. All the zookeepers go into hiding in random safe points around the zoo, and the PCs have to go in and save them.


          I also love the dungeon arena idea, i'm going to run a campaign where my PCs are gladiators.


       Oh, and we use the term dungeon so loosely. Why don't have an actual torture dungeon. Have {insert humanoid hostiles} having various torture chambers and deadly puzzles {think the movies of Saw} and torture chambers with deadly creatures and horrid abominations created simply for torture.