Quote from: Sigmund;584341The sources of my fascination with "dungeons" in RPGing, other than the great fun of the RPG dungeons themselves are:

- The movies Alien and Aliens
- Much of the Raiders of the Lost Ark franchise
- The invasion of the Death Star to free the Millennium Falcon
- the Mines of Moria
- numerous James Bond film segments
- parts of the myth of Perseus
- Labyrinth
- Hogwarts
- the hedge maze in Colonial Williamsburg
- ACC's Rama books
- many other mythical, literary and cinematic sources who's specifics I can't currently remember but that I'm sure exist (such as parts of the Thieves World and Fritz Leiber stories and the Beowulf saga).

You forgot Big Trouble in Little China.  

Also, my perennial favourite Platonic Ideal of how a AD&D session should go, Conan the Destroyer.  Hell, after Conan was released from the gladiator pits, the rest of Conan the Barbarian would make a pretty damn good AD&D session, too.

Quote from: StormBringer;584343You forgot Big Trouble in Little China.  

Also, my perennial favourite Platonic Ideal of how a AD&D session should go, Conan the Destroyer.  Hell, after Conan was released from the gladiator pits, the rest of Conan the Barbarian would make a pretty damn good AD&D session, too.

Totally.  I actually really liked CtD.  Yeah, it's cheesy, but if you watch it the way it was meant to be, and appreciate the cheesiness of it as intentional, it's a great movie, and an awesome one for a typical D&D adventure party.  It was a much more accurate movie of a D&D session than the actual D&D movie was.

Speaking of D&D movies, Wrath of the Dragon God was pretty good, and 'felt' like an adventure to me.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;584346Totally.  I actually really liked CtD.  Yeah, it's cheesy, but if you watch it the way it was meant to be, and appreciate the cheesiness of it as intentional, it's a great movie, and an awesome one for a typical D&D adventure party.  It was a much more accurate movie of a D&D session than the actual D&D movie was.

No kidding.  When I saw the first D&D movie, I was like "Have these people even heard of D&D prior to this?"  The second one was a little better, but somehow those crazy de Laurentiises got it exactly right almost two decades earlier.

Quote from: RPGPundit;584329I've seen plenty of D&D dungeons that really make no sense when you think about it. Just a big mess of corridors and rooms that go on for level after underground level with no better explanation of why they're there other than "a wizard did it" (which still doesn't explain WHY he would do it that particular way).
Which is all fine, if you decide in your setting that this is just something that happens; insane wizards making vast multi-level dungeons with no apparent coherent plan or concept.

AFAIR, in Skarka's urban fantasy RPG Underground the layout of subway lines was not because of transportation needs but because of something similar to "ley lines". The numerous trains and people traveling along those lines constantly recharge the "supernatural battery" of the city.

Maybe mystical hot spots require the weird architecture of classic AD&D dungeons (Temple of Elemental Evil, Tomb of Horrors) for an unhindered flow of magic.
That would open up new possibilities of dealing with dungeons - what happens if the characters disturb the pattern by causing cave-ins? Is the dungeon layout deducible by a magic-user? ("Can I make a Spellcraft roll to identify the rune this dungeon layout is similar to?")

Quote from: Peregrin;582844I do not get why other people don't get dungeons.

Because most people play in "clear the dungeon" mode, and that's boring. And, because it's so prevalent, that's what most people think dungeons are, and they think it's all dungeons can be.

With no goals, there's no investment, with no investment, the dungeon becomes a meaningless series of combats, which can happen anywhere. The same thing would be true of a city: if your only goal was to "kill everything in the city", and all you did was raid one static room after another, you'd be fucking bored.

Adding goals makes a difference. There's a reason you're there, some motivation to fight through the place (or sneak through or negotiate passage, or whatever).

But there's also a different mode, the "fantasy fucking Vietnam" mode that's by itself alien to me. I understand why dungeons can be fun, but the dungeon-as-a-raid mode is alien to me. I've never had a chance to play that way, and I'm interested in learning more about it.

Quote from: Doctor Jest;582785You plotted expeditions, brought lots of people with you, and retreated or laid low when things got too hot. It wasn't so much an "invasion" as it was a "raiding party". Get in, grab the goods, get out.

Cool. Yes. That's exactly what I'm talking about. Give me some more of this.

What did you do, why did you do it, and what about it thrilled you?

Assume I know nothing about the Gygaxian mode, start with the most elemental, simple pieces and explain it to me. That's the kind of article I'm looking for.

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

And that's NOT what I want to do. This isn't a "convince me you're really having fun" question, it's an actual "I've never played that way (FFV), what's it like?" query.

All this recent talk of dungeoneering has got me hankering for a serious dungeon crawl. None of this namby pamby mincing around checking for traps and prodding doors open, I want natural caverns with irregular blasts of boiling steam from a nearby geyser system which heats some caverns enough to support a natural ecosystem such as appears around marine lava vents.

I want steep inclines slick with lime deposits, crawlspaces so narrow that characters have to divest themselves of their equipment including armour to get though, and some of those underwater, bubbling mud pots containing god knows what. I want denizens that know how to use these natural features for attack and defence.

The ruins of ancient temples that subsided aeons ago half calcified and overgrown with stalagmites wouldn't go amiss either. Cracks and crevices, howling ravines and thundering rapids in the deeps with damp ridges for the group to edge along, toxic and flammable gas pockets, earthquakes and inclines, inexplicable ice. The very environment itself should be among the worst dangers.

Quote from: The Traveller;582521Correct me if I'm wrong here, but basically dungeons are normally seen as a more or less disconnected series of rooms with increasingly more dangerous challenges as groups progress.

Whence the notion of disconnection?

Apart from Ken St Andre's Dungeon of Gristlegrim, I have a hard time thinking of things fitting that description; it's not usual in my experience.

QuoteAs a video game, that works great, which would have been interesting if we didn't have video games.

We certainly didn't have D&D-ish video games until after we had D&D to imitate!

Some people happen to enjoy playing games with human beings, not just with computers. Why is that hard to grasp?

Quote from: StormBringer;584343Also, my perennial favourite Platonic Ideal of how a AD&D session should go, Conan the Destroyer.  Hell, after Conan was released from the gladiator pits, the rest of Conan the Barbarian would make a pretty damn good AD&D session, too.

Conan the Barbarian is a great model for a first adventure. The foray into the tower of serpents feels like d&d to me. The destroyer has pretty classic set-up as well (i remember at least one fo my GM's using that premise).

Quote from: Phillip;651095Whence the notion of disconnection?

I think he meant "discrete", in the sense that most young DM's ran "clear the dungeon" campaigns, where things in Room B seldom changed, no matter what players did in Room A, next door. Ran it right off the key, in other words, and didn't evolve the setup.

Quote from: Black Vulmea;582909A bit?


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.

Wait...how the hell can a character death be boring?

Quote from: Bill;651103Wait...how the hell can a character death be boring?

I assume people were saying that frequent character death is boring. If you die once or twice every 6-8 hour session, well not everyone likes that kind of game.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;651101I think he meant "discrete", in the sense that most young DM's ran "clear the dungeon" campaigns, where things in Room B seldom changed, no matter what players did in Room A, next door. Ran it right off the key, in other words, and didn't evolve the setup.

Well that and commenting on the op without reading the intervening hundred and thirty odd posts is a bit silly, there was some good discussion amidst the rageposting and personal abuse.

"Why the Underworld?" is like, "Why the starship Enterprise or the Stargate?"

It's a conceit for having myriad possibilities within easy reach!

The structure of 'levels' provides a rough guide for assessing risk and reward.

The DM can provide the kernels for all sorts of interesting situations. The players can seek what happens to interest them without much worry that they're on a road to nowhere. Whether the branches are marked by subterranean or submarine tunnels, forest paths, rune-covered plinths, different kinds of cloud, or what have you, they always lead to adventure of some sort.