>make dungeon for game>part of the lead-up to it is finding the magic item that opens the doors>this means it's a sealed tomb and the doors can't be opened otherwise>meaning nothing leaves or enters>meaning that the only monsters can be undead, constructs, and maybe oozes>90% of the monster manual is now useless\How do you cope with the fact that it makes NO SENSE for most dungeons to contain anything that isn't an undead or construct, or maybe an ooze? They're the only things that make sense being able to live in a dungeon for hundreds of years, due to having low/no metabolism, and being mindless.
>>98930981I'm fully allowed to put the entirety of the paranoia setting behind any sealed door.
monsters and other animals can just dig into the tomb from down below
>>98930981>Apparently the dungeon has to be completely sealed from the entire world>Can't design a dungeon that has its own internal ecosystem>Can't have the remnant of failed expeditions that have gone insane or degenerated into troglodytes>Can't have otherworldly/extraplanar entities summoned into the dungeon>Can't just have some terrible beast that eats cave vegetation, corpses, rocks or iron>Can't have other hostile explorers tackling other possible entrances that became unsealed at the same time>Can't even utilize the magic that seals the tomb also temporally lock the interior, allowing servants buried with the tomb's master to still live in the present dayHow do you cope with an astonishing lack of creativity, OP?
>>98930981>How do you cope with the fact that it makes NO SENSE for most dungeons to contain anything that isn't an undead or construct, or maybe an ooze?>>98930981And yet it does. How do (You) cope with that fact?
>>98930981The image is kino but that second image is not matching the first. It's from Quinta Regalia in Sintra, Portugal. Highly recommend going, it's a fantasy park built in the 18th century IIRC but there's also this Moorish fortress, a palace and it's all in this national park so you are are surrounded by beautiful nature.>>98930981>TQDon't make it a locked dungeon, it could have been but now it's a monsters lair due to its defences failing
>>98930981Depends entirely on how magical things are.>A band of troglodytes descended from tomb robbers who thought they'd struck gold before realising their entrance was a one-way trap. They consume and worship the miraculously regenerating flesh of mummies.>Sacred slave-workers so lost in sacred geometries that they fought to remain in to tomb daubing scenes on the wall even as it was being sealed. They're reduced to working with their tears, blood and faeces now but eagerly butcher any flesh they can get their hands on for rarer pigments (green gallbladder bile they prize especially) and feast on drawn food that they pluck from their paintings.>The glory of the afterlife experienced by the sainted dead seeps from their corpses, sheafs of wheat from the elysian fields crack through the flagstones about them while drops from the rivers of paradise condense on the ceiling. The goblins have become pious on this diet of sanctity and seek to convert adventurers as much as expel them.>>98931074It obviously doesn't match the first, it's far more elaborate and goes deeper than the lake's water level. Ace low-key eerie dungeon design! Thanks for identifying it btw.
>>98931089Theoretically you could make it work, but would require a shitload of engineering, either building it in a large pit, then rediverting a river to fill your new man made lake.There's a lot of good shit to inspire you out there. Best part about travel
>>98931104I still remember a chapel with overflowing catacombs in south Portugal I went to as a kid. They'd made the bones into a mosaic, the skulls amid rosettes of tailbones were especially beautiful. It'd be a treasure trove for any necromancer so it's a good thing that consecration would delay any attempts at reanimation!
>>98930981when you have a problem with a dungeon just think about these two words "mythic underworld" and all your worries will disappear
>>98930981This problem was entirely self-inflicted by your decision to have a dungeon that's been sealed for hundreds of years. Why do you think the issue is anything other than your own retardation?
>>98930981>>this means it's a sealed tomb and the doors can't be opened otherwise>>meaning nothing leaves or entersAs far as players know. Was there a point somewhere in there?
>>98930981In your scenario yes, but who the fuck says every dungeon needs to be hermetically sealed for gods know how long?A cave system or other lair of whatever type of monsters or creatures can be a dungeonA place that has been taken over by something dangerous only fairly recently can be a dungeonI once ran a megadungeon that was pretty much just a huge forest with dense vegetation leaving only narrow paths and clearings to move though and a bunch of old buildings, ruins and cave systems with all sorts of shit inhabiting them scattered throughout it and it had a huge enemy variety depending on the areaAs usual OP is gay, unimaginative and comes up with problems where there aren't any
>>98931109Sedlec ossuary in Czech Republic got those too
>>98931381Exactly that kind of thing! I imagine they crop up anywhere there are lots of bones, a bunch of clergy with too much time in their hands and a little divine inspiration.>>98931345Also magic. The underdark makes fuck all sense according to irl trophic webs so if you want hooked horrors and illithids cook up some weird calories sources and go wild. OP is the most pitiable of retards, the hankering for "consistency" could be a spur for creativity but instead he'd rather wallow and whine.
>>98931381Been in this one! The whole town is absolutely stunning and just a short train ride from Prague, was so glad I decided to visit.But there's a decent bunch of ossuaries like that all over Europe. Mostly Czech Republic, Italy and Germany I think, but some in Poland and western Europe too. Very cool in a morbid way
>>98930981From "Tricks, Empty Rooms, & Basic Trap Design""One of the most disturbing trends of the ‘new-school’ gaming philosophy was the inordinate focus on having things “make sense”. Creating dungeons that only have realistic ecosystems of magical creatures is an exercise in futility glorified by those of small imagination and little creativity"- Courtney C. Campbell
>>98931456At least attempting to make things make sense can often serve as an inspiration for new cool elements that you wouldn't think of otherwise. Like, for a simple example some time ago I added a section of a dungeon inhabited by a monstrous and deadly magical fungi colony purely as an answer to the "wait a minute, how the hell would they survive locked down there for so long without food" question. And it made the whole place way more varied and interesting, while also providing another piece of a mini-backstory to it that players could deduce.But it's important to not overfixate on it and provide just enough of an explanation to handwave any questions from players trying to act smart. The more you overanalise it, the worse the outcome tends to be
>>98931456Ouch, I felt that one. I help a friend with a ... kids hobby activity session is probably the best way of putting it, and while they're technically crap, the colour choices, patterns and, well, blood splatters have such fire and energy about them, it's making me feel even more old and jaded than I actually am.
>>98930981If it's a COMPLETELY sealed dungeon with no other way in our out, no random holes leading to somewhere or other, then sure, but keep in mind that most ruins suffer the effects of time. Walls cave in, ceilings fall, holes appear or are made by creatures, or hell, considering its a magical world, even portals can be made to get in or out of it.Even if not, you can have a slumbering beast (usually as the boss of the dungeon) that sleeps for years on end, magically or naturally, and awakes when the adventurers arrive.
>>98930986huh.
>having a dungeon whose traps haven't long since deteriorated is fine >having a dungeon you can't easily traverse without an organised defence to stop you is fine >Having a dungeon that doesn't reek of feces and pee is fine >Having a dungeon that doesn't have someone already claiming it even if they can't get inside is fine >whAt dO tHeY eAt
>>98931327>Was there a point somewhere in there?It's just basic attention whoring. Post something stupid and the nerds will come out in droves to point out how you're wrong.
>>98930981Don't make dungeons that are closed systems? Shit's not complicated. Include things like internal factions, deeper depths evils can spring forth from as subtellurian malevolence left over from the creation of the cosmos the forces of light and the sun are in constant metaphysical war with because it hates all things, other groups of adventures, cults and surface dwellers poking around, run it in a game that actually works for large scale dungeons instead of 5 room dungeon garbage.
