A different take on dungeons here, I used this method to set up a several million square kilometer dungeon with thousands of levels.

Quote from: Daddy Warpig;651105I 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.

If you die that often, its not really an rpg to me.

The reason I say this is that long term character developement is what defines an rpg to me.

A character that dies after one day of existance had no chance to develope the magic of his existance.


That being said, the real risk of loss and death is very important to me in an rpg.

A quick death every day does not really work for me.

Quote from: Bill;651721That being said, the real risk of loss and death is very important to me in an rpg.

A quick death every day does not really work for me.

I agree with both these points.

Quote from: Phillip;651121The 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.

I think a part of what gets some people is the straight-laced ten foot wide corridor feel to many dungeons. A far more hair raising and interesting exploration game for me would be something that captures this:







Note that has nothing to do with resource management, it's about a completely arbitrary 3-D environment where you might have to crawl for hundreds of meters with your back rubbing the roof and your belly on the floor. Maybe part of that would be submerged, and you've no idea how far underwater you have to go. That's a dungeon crawl, and good luck keeping a torch lit. Scattered about the place would be artifically or naturally widened caverns and so on as well.

Now mix that in with standard dungeon monsters and traps and you have a truly terrifying experience, the stuff of legends. Dealing with monsters who live in that environment most of their lives and know it back to front would be tough going even for the mightiest adventurers. I mean two orcs would be enough to hold off a large force, they just stand outside a crawlspace and poke the bits that emerge with spears. It's the kind of game that would reward cunning tactics.

Variety is key. Apparently, you've somehow encountered only a 10'-wide-corridor environment. If all you had encountered was a crawl-on-your-belly environment, no doubt that would be stale.

QuoteNow mix that in with standard dungeon monsters and traps...

"Standard?" Wherever you're coming from as same old same, maybe it would be a change of pace for me, because the very notion of 'standard' is pretty antithetical to my dungeoneering experience.

I would hazard a guess that if you play for a few years, then even your quaint notion of the underworld as only a literal hole in the ground might wear thin.

Quote from: Phillip;651943"Standard?" Wherever you're coming from as same old same, maybe it would be a change of pace for me, because the very notion of 'standard' is pretty antithetical to my dungeoneering experience.

Surely though that's why the minis and dungeon tiles are so wildly popular, that's the standard mode of dungeon play?

Quote from: The Traveller;651947Surely though that's why the minis and dungeon tiles are so wildly popular, that's the standard mode of dungeon play?

While the tools might be standard, the characters and places these tools symbolize in the game world might be far from standard.

I mean, these ...







... use standard miniatures props and tools, and yet the places depicted are not exactly what you might expect in whatever you define as your "standard" fantasy fare. I know, because my wife (third pic) and I came up with them.

Quote from: Benoist;651958While the tools might be standard, the characters and places these tools symbolize in the game world might be far from standard.

I mean, these ...

... use standard miniatures props and tools, and yet the places depicted are not exactly what you might expect in whatever you define as your "standard" fantasy fare. I know, because I and my wife (third pic) came up with them.

I see what you're saying and having read your megadungeon thread appreciate the awesome, but how would you encompass the kind of spelunking experience depicted earlier?

I mean you run into ten orcs, kill one, and the combat is over since you have to haul the body back through a tunnel for thirty minutes to get past it, every crevice holds a potential horror, some chambers are only a meter high but much wider so all you see is Rec2-style glimpses of the goblin archers firing at you sidelong, severe claustrophobia, that sort of thing.

Quote from: The Traveller;651962I see what you're saying and having read your megadungeon thread appreciate the awesome, but how would you encompass the kind of spelunking experience depicted earlier?

I mean you run into ten orcs, kill one, and the combat is over since you have to haul the body back through a tunnel for thirty minutes to get past it, every crevice holds a potential horror, some chambers are only a meter high but much wider so all you see is Rec2-style glimpses of the goblin archers firing at you sidelong, severe claustrophobia, that sort of thing.

Role playing. I mean this is really the key. It's about the description of the environment and ensuring that it provides a variety of threats, situations, decors that keep the exploring party on its toes. If the party plays a bunch of sessions thinking it's all "same old same old" and they basically play it on automatic pilot like it's a piece of cake they've seen before, then something's gone wrong IMO, because that's not how the underworld is supposed to feel in an adventure game like Dungeons & Dragons.

1 meter high ceilings, areas of the dungeon taken over by dangerous fumes, a vertical passage having to be climbed over hundreds of meters... hell yeah! See, when I read this:

Quote from: The Traveller;651090All 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.

I think you'd enjoy playing a game at my game table. And when you're passed the gas pockets and ravines and crawled your way through hundreds of meters of tight underground rapids to emerge in a man-made labyrinth sprawling before you, you should feel like it's just the beginning of the adventure now, and not the end. It's not going to be a piece of cake, and those orcs? People say they tatoo their flesh with acid and build statues out of the body parts of the slain, friend and foe alike. There's one such horrors with a skull set into a mound of severed, rotting arms and legs intertwined just in front of you as you emerge from the stream, as a matter of fact, with a centipede coming out of its dead, dislocated jaw bone right now...

What do you do?

I'm working on a new megadungeon, based on what I've leaned from my current one, and one of the design goals is to turn the spelunking up to 11.

Quote from: Benoist;651965Role playing. I mean this is really the key. It's about the description of the environment and ensuring that it provides a variety of threats, situations, decors that keep the exploring party on its toes.

So the tiles are representative of irregular cavern areas where appropriate?

Quote from: Benoist;651965I think you'd enjoy playing a game at my game table. And when you're passed the gas pockets and ravines and crawled your way through hundreds of meters of tight underground rapids to emerge in a man-made labyrinth sprawling before you, you should feel like it's just the beginning of the adventure now, and not the end.

I'm more talking about the confined spaces and dripping deathtraps being where the monsters and money are, keeping the more regular areas to a minimum. It sort of makes sense when you consider the probable prevalence of natural cave systems over man made underground constructions.

Quote from: Benoist;651965It's not going to be a piece of cake, and those orcs? People say they tatoo their flesh with acid and build statues out of the body parts of the slain, friend and foe alike. There's one such horrors with a skull set into a mound of severed, rotting arms and legs intertwined just in front of you as you emerge from the stream, as a matter of fact, with a centipede coming out of its dead, dislocated jaw bone right now...

What do you do?

Gently grasp the worn leather grip of my short falchion which is known as make your mark, and pull it from my yellow grin before I emerge dripping from the chill underland waters, moving silently forward, of course! That's fantasy fucking Vietnam.

Quote from: Planet Algol;651971I'm working on a new megadungeon, based on what I've leaned from my current one, and one of the design goals is to turn the spelunking up to 11.

Yes! Load it up here I'd love to see some interpretations of the nightmare that is caving, aka heavy metal dungeons.

One of the things I like about spelunking dungeon sections, as well as the LOTFP encumbrance systems that tracks bulky/oversize objects:

A descending tunnel stacked with tight turns that you have to crawl on your belly through? So much for your tower shield, long bow, 10' pole, spear/polearm, zweihandler, mule, portable ram, etc.

Even fancy plate mail might be a problem squeezing through some of the crevices in the deeps. You'll have to leave your armour of continual light +5 behind, oh ice-eyed paladin! Cavers have a fairly minimal amount of equipment in real life, pretty much clothes, lights, and rope along with a few other bits and pieces. It might be interesting to work out what caver-dungeoncrawlers would carry.

Light:

• magical light sources, prone to antimagic zones or dispels
• infravision spells
• biological light sources, some kind of fantasy fireflies in a jar
• chemical light sources
• and good old fashioned lanterns, torches and candles

The latter might present some problems due to the omnipresent moisture, plus torches are very smoky and eat up the air, but if there was a light source that could be quickly reignited after being dampened that would do it. Some sort of a flintlock/lantern maybe.

Rope: lots and lots of it, some knotted, along with tackle and climbing equipment, iron spikes, spiked boots etc.

Breathing straws, magic to allow one to breathe underwater. Magic in general would be very handy, size shrinking or polymorph spells, gaseous form would be ideal for getting around.
EDIT: right up until you ran into a submerged passage. Damn this is a hardcore environment.

A budgie to warn against dangerous gases.

Weapons: short stabbing weapons would be best, shortswords, spears, crossbows since they can be fired and reloaded on your stomach, which could be handy for crossing wide gaps by firing grapnels over. Bows could be fired sideways but it wouldn't be easy. Longswords and polearms would be right out.

Armour: chain and leather at most. Chain would probably be better since it wouldn't get heavier when wet, although it is noisy. Shields are a non starter. Helmets with some sort of inbuilt candle or lantern might be handy.

Non flammable oil for getting through tight spaces.

Quote from: The Traveller;651976So the tiles are representative of irregular cavern areas where appropriate?

Absolutely. One of the things I do when I start using this sort of terrain in a game is tell the players "whatever you see on the table, this might not look *exactly* like this in the game. A pillar might be alive. A wall might curve differently. You don't see the ceiling heights. What you see is a space representation, an approximation, not an exact replica of what's going on in the game. Don't count squares. Just look at the set up and imagine it all moving in your head. Trust the descriptions rather than the pawns."

It's incredible how easy it is to then "switch" your mind to the appropriate frame so you can enjoy the game as a role playing game, instead of a tactical skirmish game, and it really doesn't take much more than that with most players, in my experience. It's like switching a light bulb on and off, really.

Quote from: The Traveller;651976I'm more talking about the confined spaces and dripping deathtraps being where the monsters and money are, keeping the more regular areas to a minimum. It sort of makes sense when you consider the probable prevalence of natural cave systems over man made underground constructions.

That's why I alternate set-ups in a game between full-blown 3D, 2D tact-tiles where I can draw whatever I describe however I see fit, and not using mats at all. I can basically select the appropriate aid or tool for the right job or area depicted in the game.

Quote from: The Traveller;651976Gently grasp the worn leather grip of my short falchion which is known as make your mark, and pull it from my yellow grin before I emerge dripping from the chill underland waters, moving silently forward, of course! That's fantasy fucking Vietnam.

You see an exit into a man-made corridor leaving this area towards the south. It is located behind the grotesque mass of body parts you just noticed. The centipede crawls away, eastward, and doesn't seem to pay you any attention. There is a smell of burnt oil in the air. You hear a low growl at a distance, echoing from somewhere to the south through the corridor. It seems far away, and yet is perfectly audible. You hear drops of water hitting the surface of the still waters. This place is awfully quiet. This might explain it...