D&D-style dungeons persist because they are superb vehicles for fun fantasy role playing.  They work.  They're fun.  They help facilitate a manageable structure and a good ongoing game.  They're fun.  Did I mention they're fun?

I agree there's also some "founders' effect" in there.  But you know why the "founders" used a lot of dungeon play?  Because dungeons work and they're fun and they help facilitate a manageable structure and a good ongoing game.

I'll say one thing, the new Judge Dredd movie is an awesome dungeon flic.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;582818D&D-style dungeons persist because they are superb vehicles for fun fantasy role playing.  They work.  They're fun.  They help facilitate a manageable structure and a good ongoing game.  They're fun.  Did I mention they're fun?

I agree there's also some "founders' effect" in there.  But you know why the "founders" used a lot of dungeon play?  Because dungeons work and they're fun and they help facilitate a manageable structure and a good ongoing game.

Two responses to this:

1) *BEEP BOOP* WHAT IS FUN? *BEEP BOOP*
2) But man, like...what's so deep about fun, man?

Seriously, though, as somebody who likes thespy storytelling crap, and somebody who's played some really friggin' pretentious White-Wolf games in high-school (It's about ~real~ role-playing, screw dungeons!), I do not get why other people don't get dungeons.

They're exotic locations of any construction type the GM can come up with filled with baddies that want to kill you and traps and puzzles and wondrous unexplainable things and treasure and it's basically everything adventures are made of in a format any Joe can put together and have fun with.

It's not the only way to play, it's not necessarily a better way to play, but it's a structure that has worked for years and been ported over to board-games and video-games with great success because it's such a solid, game-able concept.

Quote from: Soylent Green;582833I'll say one thing, the new Judge Dredd movie is an awesome dungeon flic.

The Raid.

Quote from: The Traveller;582719Expedition style is a mountaineering term for setting up a series of camps on a mountain.

It has nothing to do with this:

Another term saved from hapless hijacking. What you're describing is colonisation, as I said. And what happens when colonisers meet resistance is they pile on more and more troops until the resistance goes away.

It is also used for caving expeditions and how they explore cave systems. For example the Krubera Cave in the Caucasus explored by the  Ukrainian Speleological Association or Cheve Cave in Mexico explored by Bill Stone's team.

Also various Arctic, Antarctica, African and South American expeditions were organized like this.

Do some reading before making pronouncements from on high.

Dungeons are like pizza.

Quote from: The Traveller;582700Moria's actually a good example of what I'm talking about. It didn't exist as a place to explore and plunder,

It was for the goblins when they killed the dwarves and took over.

Quoteit was the route you took when a panopticon-guided army of mutant psychopaths on steroids armed with sharp metal infection delivery systems was waiting for you on the alternate road. It was very much a theme based dungeon, with the theme being "get out the other side as fast as possible".

Many parties have had to run for their lives. What's your point?

Quote from: jibbajibba;582805I hate dungeons as well but Aliens is a great dungeon adventure.

Raiders of the Lost Ark is even better: it has traps, treasure, creepy-crawly things and magical shit that shouldn't be disturbed. Harryhausen's Sinbad movies are also great dungeon adventures.

Quote from: Spinachcat;582872Dungeons are like pizza.

Putting pineapple on them makes you retarded?

Quote from: Spinachcat;582872Dungeons are like pizza.

Yes. Some of them can be world class. Others are crap. There's a whole fast food industry built around them, but also some real good stuff, including the Italian home made variety which, when you've tasted the stuff, really makes you want to home cook pizzas yourself. There are actual restaurants that cook the real deal based on granma's recipe with a twist, and these are really worth checking out. But then there's always those dudes who only tasted the frozen stuff who come at you to rant about how much pizzas suck and they're unhealthy next to 'real food', you know, while in fact they don't know anything beyond the carton boxes and Pizza Hut and that asshole who kept delivering the stuff one hour late so of course ALL pizzas in the world are all delivered late and taste like crap, right? Right. Not a bad analogy now, all things considered.

I tend towards smaller, more realistic/plausible dungeons.  That's in no small part due to Rolemaster's thirty second adventuring day.  Crippled people and their friends in comas don't handle the second level of the dungeon very well.  

Quote from: Benoist;582885pizza analogy

Surprisingly accurate. A vicious circle of low expectations --> low effort --> low reward.

WRT pizza-related epiphanies, a few years ago, I was in Pistoia, a small town between Pisa and Florence, and at the end of our project meeting, the reception included a pizza-like delicacy that was perfection in simplicity. It is hard to express how much it was above other pizzas, even very good ones. Maybe they put cocaine in the flour or something. But those Italians knew something others don't.

Quote from: estar;582861Do some reading before making pronouncements from on high.

I've done some mountaineering if its any good to you. Are you trying to say that Dwarven colonist-invaders are going to use the same tactics as spelunkers?

Quote from: Elfdart;582879It was for the goblins when they killed the dwarves and took over.

The Balrog kicked out the dwarves in the first place. The orcs and goblins just made it their home after that. In the latter case it was a war.

Quote from: Elfdart;582879Many parties have had to run for their lives. What's your point?

The point is that they didn't go in to find fortune and fame, the role of Moria was to provide a terrifying minefield for them to navigate as rapidly as possible.

Quote from: Elfdart;582879Raiders of the Lost Ark is even better: it has traps, treasure, creepy-crawly things and magical shit that shouldn't be disturbed.

Yes, mentioned that already.

Quote from: BenoistYes. Some of them can be world class. Others are crap. There's a whole fast food industry built around them, but also some real good stuff, including the Italian home made variety which, when you've tasted the stuff, really makes you want to home cook pizzas yourself. There are actual restaurants that cook the real deal based on granma's recipe with a twist, and these are really worth checking out. But then there's always those dudes who only tasted the frozen stuff who come at you to rant about how much pizzas suck and they're unhealthy next to 'real food', you know, while in fact they don't know anything beyond the carton boxes and Pizza Hut and that asshole who kept delivering the stuff one hour late so of course ALL pizzas in the world are all delivered late and taste like crap, right? Right. Not a bad analogy now, all things considered.

Should I have put *TRIGGER WARNING* in the title? I haven't seen this many sandy vaginas since my beach porn phase.

Quote from: The Butcher;582816Black Vulmea is a bit over the line . . .

A bit?

Quote from: The Butcher;582816. . . but he does have a point. Most "What's the deal with dungeons???" threads consist of someone asking what's so fun about dungeoneering, and then shooting down all arguments presented.

Yeah, reading this thread on top of another thread elsewhere about how random chaacter generation is 'stupid' and another about how character death is 'boring,' and it's the same thinly veiled excuse for pissing all over someone else, instead of just saying, 'Here's what I like and why.'

I'm reaching my fill of it.

I've had this out w/ Benoist before and came to peace with his conception of 'dungeons.' It's not a form of the word I'm used to, but since I'm relatively new here and it's a regular lingua franca jargon around here, I use it here. The concept he refers to is something that I understand and use, but never termed it as such as dungeons had a more concrete understanding and set of tropes around it for me and most of the other people I played rpgs with.

Basically Benoist talks about how dungeons are a macro-to-micro matrix framework. This template can then be used to structure setting for various premises. Thus you can use 'dungeon design' to create the political framework of a nation, the social network of a high school, or the varied environs of a subterranean space.

As a concept, I've been using this 'since forever'. However I just used the terms macro-network & micro-network (or similarly termed). To use the term "dungeons" caused/causes ambiguity with me and people with which I game. So I just learn which groups to use this jargon.

As for my conception of dungeon? It's usually a moderate-sized underground prison with multiple jail cells, interrogation rooms, and possibly an oubliette or two. Otherwise it's a very lethal subterranean complex, sometimes fashioned by intelligent beings (often ruins), sometimes naturally developed (caves), with it's own ecosystem (as life exploits any space it can, right?). They can be large or small, and generally a siren call to adventurers with lures of great treasure.

It's a far more concrete setting understanding and carries with it the baggage of previous play experience, naturally. It's not a playstyle I enjoy anymore because of my sheer ennui due to its oft repetition. It's like asking me to play an rpg and the first thing that lands on our group's plate is a winding quest to Save the World, again. It's just not fun anymore because I don't feel like I had a choice on what to play.

Now if I had a table explicitly state "we're going to clear out dungeons for fame and fortune!" I'd be cool with that. If I had a table explicitly state "in this sandbox we're going to use a matrix framework to emulate living world dynamism, just like a D&D dungeon!" I again would be cool with that. But to offer D&D without an explicitly stated premise and get the too familiar "go kill the goblins in the nearby cave... uh-oh, you've learned they're merely pawns in a plot to End the World!" I'm ready to leave. Had my fill of that, want to do anything else.

I'll also point out that from a 'the world is a real thing, with predictable responses', dungeons tend to make sense.  While in the medieval world, we see a lot of castles, we know that they're vulnerable to artillery and aerial assault.  Both of those things are easily replicated in a fantasy environment.  

A team of adventurers on griffon mounts or a flying dragon poses a real risk to a castle - but can largely be defended from a 'dungeon'.  In this sense, a dungeon is more like a World War II era bunker or the Maginot Line.  These are defenses that are hard to remove by traditional offenses, so require 'siege warfare'.