Most of my early fantasy rp was in MERP, whose modules typically had lairs and abandoned keeps over inexplicable labyrinths. Moria is about the most dungeon like you got. But dungeon crawls can be fun, so I try to make a reason for a few to exist in my worlds.

Quote from: TristramEvans;802270If an Umberhulk, Giant Crab, Hook Horror, Tribe of Gnolls, Gelatinous Slime, and Wight King all decided to live together in a place where they could gather treasure and wait patiently for groups of adventurers to come by every few years, the result would be

http://youtu.be/Af1h4ibpKJA

I instead used dungeons that make sense, as in utility minded first, and then run with all the loops and alcoves and lighting issues that'd normally be there.

The wacky dungeons were a trope all their own, which carries over in to video game weird big boss lairs. The sheer inconvenience of it all, especially the multipart, synchronized split-group, magical, color-coded traps/locks, makes me laugh. I just imagine a delivery guy jumping on floating platforms and dodging rays of incineration all for a bad tip.

Unless it is a well done Metroid/Vania, I don't even bother with them. Underground or abandoned cities and the like I will make time for, as seats for holders of power. Otherwise, I have no interest at all in running modern dungeon conceits.

One of the selling points to me for Empire of the Petal Throne was the tearing down cities and rebuilding on top that was included in the setting.
Another thing was that underground was a free-for-all zone.
Since groups spent a lot of effort over time building their facilities, they would defend them. Special locations separated by labyrinths and long tunnels made sense as did descending depths.
=

I build a design with the cool shit that is fun to play.  I don't have enough time nor concern to tinker around with ensuring that my dungeon is architecturally or ecologically sound.  

That doesn't mean that I don't pay a modicum of attention to those features - I'm not going to put an ancient red dragon in a 10x10 room - but anyone who would be unable to enjoy the tower of the elephant because they can't figure out where the kobold takes a dump is someone who's absence at my game table will go unmourned.

Dungeons are for a fun game to me; no need to 'make sense.'

Of course, the real universe has often enough been said not to make sense. Play on!

Quote from: RPGPundit;802219The layout of almost every dungeon in almost every D&D adventure module ever made makes no sense at all (with the exception of a very few historical-accuracy type adventures, and a few where they were semi-credible cave complexes rather than 'intelligent design').

That is, if you look at real "dungeons", real burial chambers, real tombs, even mines, catacombs or ancient sewers, NONE of them look like the often seemingly-random spattering of corridors, rooms, and multiple levels that you see in a D&D dungeon.  They make no sense even from a construction perspective; and of course, most of the times the ecology of the dungeon makes no sense at all (sometimes this last note is worse than others, like dungeons that have giants or dragons that literally couldn't fit through the door out of the room they're found in, or ancient sealed dungeons unopened for centuries that somehow have contemporary equipment, groups of randomly-placed goblins, etc.).

So how do you handle all this?

Do you just not give a shit, and not address it at all?
Do you create some kind of flimsy justification for it ("a crazy wizard did it. Yes, all of them!")?
Do you actually make some kind of effort to at least try to have your dungeons be internally logical to the setting somehow?

Anyone actually want to try to defend the dungeon with some argument other than "fuck you, it's fun and I don't need to think about it"?

RPGPundit

In my Amherth campaign, most dungeons lie amidst the ruins of more advanced civilization. There are some notable exceptions, the most prominent being the floating islands of the Kingdom of Pax. The dragon riding knights live on the surface and wage war against the wizard alliance who dwell in deep dungeons, mainly for practical reasons: dungeons are a lot harder for dragons to attack.

Quote from: RPGPundit;802219The layout of almost every dungeon in almost every D&D adventure module ever made makes no sense at all...

So how do you handle all this?

...
Do you actually make some kind of effort to at least try to have your dungeons be internally logical to the setting somehow?

Anyone actually want to try to defend the dungeon with some argument other than "fuck you, it's fun and I don't need to think about it"?

RPGPundit

Yes. I like to have some internally-plausible reason there's a huge underground structure. One "wizard's monster garden" would be fine, just not all of them. The "old long abandoned Dwarven fortress" is also useful (especially in mountains).  I like the "city that sank beneath the ground" stick as well. Also, Dark Elves or other races/societies that build underground purposefully can work well, especially if they've been overrun or abandoned.

Quote from: Justin Alexander;802334...

4. Catastrophes on the surface world that prompt people to flee underground are also a great explanation for underground complexes. (See Earthdawn. Or just an Age of Dragons.)

...

Quote from: Majus;802359...

Earthdawn rationalised dungeons as the Fallout-style vaults in which populations hid from the apocalypse. That made a degree of sense to me and allowed you to have long term communities or halls full of gibbering nightmares, depending on your mood. Good times!

...

Earthdawn had a delightful reason for them and it also injected a nice horror element into the game. I like this approach.

In the setting I'm writing, all the dungeons are simply long lost ruins of a many worlds spanning magical empire that met some unknown ruin.

I want Dark Portals to have some "plausibility" in regards to a large number of different species working together and to encourage exploration and discovery in far off lands seeking knowledge, magic and treasure in strange forgotten ruins. It will be my Earthdawn - Star Gate fantasy heart breaker. :-)

Quote from: Simlasa;802259In the old days I never ran dungeons and thought most of the published ones read as ridiculously random treasure hoards.
This is one of the things of value I took away from World of Warcraft... the 'dungeons' there are always living places that have an extended presence in the areas surrounding them and lack that random element of old D&D modules... instead there's always a strong story behind what the inhabitants are doing there. The architecture might not always be plausible but it's never just a sprawling maze of rooms without purpose.
They DO have a lot of monsters just standing around... waiting... but there's always the sense that they have a purpose there beyond being killed by PCs.
 
My main homebrew setting is low magic and pretty low on anything that looks like a traditional D&D 'dungeon'... but it does have places that resemble those WOW instances... fortresses and ruined monasteries and cavern systems... old mines where bandits hide their loot.

interesting...that is what I consider a traditional dungeon.

Quote from: LordVreeg;802711interesting...that is what I consider a traditional dungeon.

Yeah, I didn't express that well. What I'm thinking makes them different than the old dungeon modules I've read is the how and why of the inhabitants. They're more like villages/towns/cities... less like zoos with treasure lying around.

Back in the early 80's when I was first learning to play AD&D Dragon Magazine had some articles about the logic of dungeon and wilderness design. Those influenced me quite a bit in how I thought about such places, how they are laid out, inhabitants, etc. There really is no reason why an owlbear is 400 yards underground, or a gang of gnolls is living peacefully with some gelatinous cubes. I did begin to put consideration into what everyone eats, what they do, how they coexist. Such thoughts put large restrictions on design but makes them better overall.

I remember reading through some of those modules from the 70's and 80's and many were a mess that needed editing. I must admit, Gary Gygax was the worst designer of such stuff. Most of his modules really were random creatures in random rooms with random treasure. His "Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth" is a prime example of this. The Dungeon Geomorphs supplement probably did more harm than good for the hobby as it game really bad examples of designs.

Part of my "make it weirder and less rational" approach is to assume that the vast majority of monsters are not biological creatures, but some sorcerous mockery of life, taking " wizard did it" to its ultiimate conclusion. Spells like Monster Summoning create monsters out of nothing, and on occasion they linger after the spell expires; that's the origin of most of the monsters in the world. So, that dragon stuuck in a room with a doorway it can't fit through? Maybe it was summoned there. And since my monsters can eat and drink, but they don't have to... they just get horrifically hungry, which could explain why that dragon is so hostile.

I figure a lot of other irrational elements, particularly in megadungeons, could be set up in the same way as side effects of spells and magical experimentation. Perhaps sorcerers and wizards create dungeons not to harvest body parts, as ACKS explains it, but to exploit the effects of the deep underground on magic.

I like the Underdark concept more than miniature dungeons. Purple worms or beholders or umber hulks dig tunnels where there weren't any before, drow or dwarves mine or create magic treasure down there, succeeding generations of monsters migrate around and whatnot...I think it works ecologically as long as you have some magic fungus or whatever they can eat. Mind you, my dungeons are often more dispersed than a traditional adventure - can be miles of caves or multiple hours travel between encounters.

Dungeons are the concentrated essence of what fuels fantasy heroes.  They are drugs that PCs can't stay away from.  Best to keep them delirious and unearthly.  A hero should breathe a sigh of relief along with his first inhalation of outside air afterward.  Made it again, they should think, even as they are starting to plan their next fix.

I keep dungeons small and themed, so they make the most possible sense.

I do not see the game's underworld as a mere hole in the ground, any more than Annwn or the Sidhe is just that - or the caves of Ningauble or the Sea King's harem, or those of the Seven Geases, or the Fishing of the Demon Sea, or the Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men; or the domains the Quest of Unknown Kadath, the Fortress Unvanquishable Save by Sacnoth, or the Tree of Swords and Jewels as mere suburbs subject to the civic laws of Materialists.

Arneson, Gygax, St Andre, Stafford, etc., were naturally not informed by works derived from nothing but the games they had yet to publish. What they had at hand was a heritage of myth and folklore, and modern fantasy by writers drawing from those same wellsprings.

What is the appeal of fantasy for a game, if not its boundless possibility? To reduce it to 'sensible' wizards and dragons standing in for cannons in a replay of the War of the Roses seems almost pointlessly thin gruel. Even thinner was the Deryni series, a dynastic romance with "psychic powers" that got medieval costuming but missed the medieval mind by a mile.

D&D and T&T were created not to simulate a particular fictional world, but to evoke the whole ocean of story involving dark labyrinths, fearsome monsters, cunning traps and puzzles, and wondrous treasures won at great peril. Faery and Dreamland, heavens and hells, do not "make sense" the way a Burger King in Poughkeepsie does - and those who love to fare Beyond the FieldsWe Know treasure that.

I find it hard to understand why anyone who accepts the guise of Beren and Luthien as werewolf and vampire to infiltrate Angband should suddenly expect Morgoth's fastness to be 'sensible'.