I want to know what you guys do for making actually Interesting dungeons when you run D&D or other similar systems.I've been running games for a bit over a decade now and one piece of advice I've gotten a bit annoyed with is the idea of just doing the five room dungeon. D&D has become about the narrative a lot, and I don't mind people who prioritize that, but it bums me out that there aren't more people pouring love into what the players actually explore.I attached an image of a 3 floor dungeon map I made a whole back, and I can include room descriptions if anyone is interested, but the whole dungeon has channels running around it that allow the players to direct water to different locations, and drains that flow out to the lower floors so that they need to actually think about the verticality a bit to progress. I like having different moving pieces and I'm always a bit surprised more people don't do this.I've also made one where the dungeon is split into three wings that can raise or lower separately, and I'm working on one that is floating and has parts that can move float around to different areas a bit.Anyone else do stuff like this?
>>98851020I haven't done many setups like the dungeon has puzzle pieces players fiddle with to make different areas accessible as a cohesive whole or theme. I like having parts that can be changed or interacted with that effect the rest of the gameplay but don't have enough faith in my player's mapping or puzzle solving skills to throw something at them where they need to solve it to keep exploring the dungeon, too likely they'll fuck it up and get stuck. Things like a paddle wheel on the outside with a skeleton of a saint on it that if buried properly removes some of the ghosts and undead random encounters or an escaped monster plant growing through sections that can be followed back to the root work, or tidal timing.
The vast majority of dungeons I've created in the 20+ years of me DMing have been practical. What I mean by this is the structure is designed realistically for the purpose it is suppose to fill. So if it's a Kobold lair it will have rooms and corridors sized for small creatures, etc. My players have never complained.
>>98851575This is pretty fair. I've never had players complain about simple dungeons, but I've always felt like it should be the emphasis of the game. If it is complicated, I usually give it a reason to be complicated, but for it to be worth having a bunch of adventures delve their way though I feel like it is more interesting if it is a real labyrinth.
For the past week or so I've been theory-crafting a way to make an upside-down ruined city, hidden underground for the party to uncover soon.The idea is that the party is going to have to rely on things like plant overgrowth, gutters of buildings and the bottoms of bridges to converse and find the treasure that they were told down there.I've make a couple mock maps to try to make the area clear for the party to plan out, but because its like a 3D space, it's been a little tricky.
>>98851020As far as D&D editions or D&D-likes go, no dungeon is going to inherently interest me; game rules and character building mechanics do more to interest me than any other aspect of a game, and D&D has always been, to put it politely, bereft of anything that interests me.I love tactical fantasy combat in dungeon environments, and D&D or D&D-likes just wouldn't scratch that itch for me without endlessly asking for favors from the DMs.
>>98851020I love making my dungeons some level of gonzo or zelda inspired if its supposed to be a particularly memorable part of the campaign.I love collecting any adventure i can find like this so please share your notes!
>>98852731I need to turn my notes into a pdf or something at some point because I have full room descriptions for each room. For starters, there are two portions of the map that rotate, the bridge across the pit on the top floor and the round chamber near the bottom of the middle floor. When actually running the game I use blue plastic bingo chips to represent the flowing water. There are also a few puzzles that use the water in different ways, like one on the middle floor where the central pool needs to be filled up and then the statues tipped into the water to displace the water level, one where the players have to fill a room with water to reflect light onto the ceiling to reveal a clue to the location of a hidden room, and one near the beginning, shown in the image, where the players have to get water into the room with the big wheel in order to free up the gunk that is preventing it from moving, which turns out to be a dried up old ooze that attacks them.
>>98851175You are a literal nogames tho
>>98851921Worthless, moronic vaguepost designed to kill interest
>>98853599What a funny thing to say.
>>98851020>Anyone else do stuff like this?I once did a dual hypercube dungeon. It was kind of a trial thing to enable access to a literal fountain of youth on a secret island. At the entrance there was a sign>AS ABOVE, SO BELOW, TO REACH OUTSIDE, GO BEYONDI think I was under the effects of temporary insanity when designing this.
>>98853599So what's it called when any discussion of D&D's mechanics is shut down with "rewrite what you don't like" or "you don't need a book to hold your hand" or "just find a new group lol"?
>>98853461>which turns out to be a dried up old ooze that attacks themthats so clever actually, good job
>>98853849
>>98853849also
I've always wanted to run a multi-floor dungeon centered around a single magical elevator in the middle. Each floor would have several blocked corridors, so they would be split into parts that cannot be accessed from the same floor. At the same time there are multiple stairs connecting each floor to the ones above and below it. The only way to easily access every floor would be using the elevator, but the elevator itself would be stuck at the bottom, so the party would have to delve all the way to the bottom before being able to access the entirety of the top floors.
>>98853849This is kickass.
>>98855306This one actually come up again. Once the players get down to the second basement floor they realize large grates on the first floor drain down to the second. So after beating the ooze and washing away it's remains, in the similar room directly below they find that it ate some other creatures down there to revitalize itself a bit.
>>98851020I steal the conceits from old video game levels, and that seems to work for my players. The main feedback I've gotten has been that they prefer short one-session delves, and the few "big" OSR style dungeons I've tried have all gotten complaints.
>>98857543Same here, they get bored of it unless you have a new adventure to throw them into every single chunk of the megadungeon they enter. That gives me burnout fast.
>>98853849Is this BESTOW?
>>98851921OK askers
I want to run cool concept dungeons but players are too dumb
>>98860518sorry to hear itit sounds like they have tik tok brainskinda dampens my mood since im working on a megadungeon of my own :(
