Quote from: Simlasa;443414I agree that 'dungeons' can be every bit as varied/sophisticated as cities or wilderness settings... but one reason I often think less of them is because the people playing them/creating them don't exert those potentials... and leave them as combat-oriented game shows.
A well designed dungeon with the right group can be a glorious thing though.

I agree with this. You could have a dungeon that did something different. I tried to create a gormenghast like dungeon complex for a game where there were factions at war in the dungeon as well as lots of politics (it turned out to be too ambitious for where it came in the campaign which was a multiverse quest which each plane riffing off another fantasy trope, this one being The Dungeon but others being Faerie, The Three Musketeers, Lanhkmar, etc).
However most often there is none of that the dungeon becomes a structure that breaks immersion. How can there be a bunch of trolls in this room when the entrance is trapped and no one has been down here for 40 years... etc etc .
The tradditional Dungeon only works if you treat D&D as a boardgame with fancy pieces and I think that is why you find people grow out of it because as you develop as a role player you want to explore the wider world and you want it to make sense.

Quote from: jibbajibba;443523However most often there is none of that the dungeon becomes a structure that breaks immersion. How can there be a bunch of trolls in this room when the entrance is trapped and no one has been down here for 40 years... etc etc .
The tradditional Dungeon only works if you treat D&D as a boardgame with fancy pieces and I think that is why you find people grow out of it because as you develop as a role player you want to explore the wider world and you want it to make sense.

The wilderness and city can break immersion just as easily if they are done in a half-assed way, which I have certainly seen. Obviously I'd rather play in a well-done wilderness or a well-done city than The Woild's Woist DungeonTM.

Quote from: ggroy;442936http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Many_worlds_interpretation

(It's still a controversial interpretation of quantum theory).

It's only controversial for the retards that fail to grasp the finer nuances.
Quantum theory is incomplete at best, however that doesn't automatically invalidate all of the premises or conclusions.

The cat in the box is dead.

The cat in the box is alive.

You only get to find out for sure, when you open the box.

Given an infinite number of timelines in a universe of the infinite, at least one timeline will have the cat being alive when the box is opened, and one will definitely have the cat being dead... Being infinite, there will be a bunch of other interesting results as well including, the cat is mostly alive... The cat is mostly dead. It's not a cat, it's a dog, and so forth... Being infinite, every probability is true in at least one instance, and some probabilities are infinitely true.

Quote from: Aos;443395I like dungeons, when they are done right. Taking a note from Earthdawn, I think it's really key to have a believable reason for the dungeon to exist.

My thoughts almost exactly... Dungeons should have at one time in it's history some purpose... It's even better when the true purpose is a secret, especially from the original inhabitants.

Earthdawn dungeons are pretty damn awesome. I'd love to see the idea of Horrors imported into the D&D mainstream.

Quote from: GameDaddy;443550...

The cat in the box is dead.

The cat in the box is alive.

You only get to find out for sure, when you open the box.

...

I thought the state of Schrödinger's cat is exactly alive and dead until you open the box and the cat is observed to be either alive or dead?

Quote from: Phillip;443403Presumably, you mean as 'believable' as the reasons for the monsters, magicians and superheroes populating the surface world.
.

Of course, they are all part of the same thing as far as I'm concerned.

Quote from: Aos;443637Of course, they are all part of the same thing as far as I'm concerned.

I do think it's reasonable though, in one game, to have some places make familiar rational sense, some places make only a kind of symbolist sense, and some places to be twisted and only follow their own ideosyncratic "sense" that may be very difficult for an outsider to accept or relate to.

Quote from: Cole;443641I do think it's reasonable though, in one game, to have some places make familiar rational sense, some places make only a kind of symbolist sense, and some places to be twisted and only follow their own ideosyncratic "sense" that may be very difficult for an outsider to accept or relate to.

Sure, I just like coming up with reasons that work for me as to why the dinosaur and the cowboy live down the hall from one another. And even when I go the symbolic route, say, I usually have a in game rational for why things are the way they are. For example the dungeon is built over the body of dead god and the reality of the place is altered by his dissipating spirit.  

Here is an example of what I mean...

The combined cavern/room complex beneath the Tower of the Changer was constructed in stages. During the waning epoch of the Minotaur Empire, a disgraced imperial aristocrat and his retinue came to the Crumbled Mountains looking to create a new summer labyrinth far from the intrigues at court. Unfortunately, the aristocrat in question, a min whose name has long since been forgotten by history, had in his employ a shae sorcerer, who, not long after the completion of the complex, manifested an unexpected desire for power, coupled with a previously unexpressed talent for necromancy and a rather excessive amount of bloodlust. Anyway, good times ensued, which ultimately resulted in an empty complex- empty of the living, that is.

The next to come were a group of reptarch farmers from Ssaur who were trying to create a utopian colony. Although they installed many grow-vats and laid the foundations for a bitchen’ subterranean ecosystem, they were eventually, after a years long battle driven out or destroyed by the undead. The undead, however, were decreased in number by this conflict, and since that time, as a result, several attempts have been made to re-inhabit the complex; a few groups, as well as many animals (eager to access the food that grows within) have made some headway, but no one controls the space.

There are four basic varieties of Architecture- natural, reptarch, minotaur and lich; although, some other groups and individuals have made modifications as well. Minotaurs like to decorate, so there are a lot of minotaur busts, murals, busts bas-reliefs. Minotaurs also like to bathe, so there are lots of baths, some of which were converted into vats or something else by the reptarchs. Furthermore, the reptarchs planted a lot of food fungus and algae on the walls, they also seeded pools with plankton, algae, fish and other stuff. They constructed mostly with metal and plastic, their machines are everywhere. Strangely, enough they were also fond of murals.

That's from here, btw.

Anyway, recently, I replaced "reptarchs" with  lizardmen.

Quote from: Aos;443644Sure, I just like coming up with reasons that work for me as to why the dinosaur and the cowboy live down the hall from one another. And even when I go the symbolic route, say, I usually have a in game rational for why things are the way they are. For example the dungeon is built over the body of dead god and the reality of the place is altered by his dissipating spirit.  

Good stuff.

Quote from: GameDaddy;443550It's only controversial for the retards that fail to grasp the finer nuances.

Also every retard knows:

"I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics".

(From page 129 of "The Character of Physical Law" by Richard Feynman).

:rolleyes:

I don't; that's for sure.

Everything I know about quantum mechanics I learned from watching John Carpenter's The Prince of Darkness.

The thing that always sets me off about posts like the OP here is that all too often they seem to stink of a kind of "wish fulfillment fantasy" reflecting the fact that those interested really hate D&D as it turned out and wish they could have made it somehow either not exist, or have been "proper" by being more intellectual, artistic, no halflings, whatever the fuck it is they don't like about it.

RPGpundit

Pundit,
It was just a what-if. You're the one who's taking this way too seriously. I just wanted to have a fun thread. Don't you have any friends who just BS about things like this?