TheRPGSite

So my party is about to go into the wilderness looking for the source of evil or whatever.

They have done a couple of dungeons already. I guess I find writing dungeons boring and don't see how players could have fun with them week after week. Here is a maze. Here is some shit to kill. MAYBE if I'm really clever I can come up with a puzzle, but most people don't like puzzles anyway.

Assuming you feel the same as me, or better still, if you are so sweet at writing up dungeons that it isn't boring, how do you keep it fresh? What do you give them to think about besides move forward and chop?

A dungeon is a locale no different than a village, forest, mountain, ocean, etc. It sounds like you are focusing solely on the "physical" challenge i.e. the layout and the "monsters". What you need to add is history, NPCs, and how it ties into the larger events of your setting. It helps that the player have a natural reason to be at the locale.

For example in my recent S&W Campaign one of the character was a member of the Order of Thoth. By 5th level he needed a dissertation on something he discovered. The player picked exploring old ruined circle of another order of magic. So half the low level adventures involved finding out where these circles are and exploring them.

Environmental changes are one idea.

For example, one of the dungeon adventures I'm planning once City of the Ghoul King finishes up is to head out to an abandoned monastery in a mountain valley. The valley has a river running through it which is flooding due to rain and runoff from the mountain.

After the PCs arrive in the valley, there's a chance of mudslides and floods. The chance grows over time. The monastery is the only good place in the valley to get away from the flood waters, but they will slowly grow over time and wash out even the bottom floor if the PCs don't hustle.

Meanwhile, the monastery is built next to the mountain, which means that any mudslide is going to come down from the north and dump a couple hundred tons of mud through the windows and up against the building's north face.

The monastery itself is really simple - a three-storey stone structure with maybe 16 rooms. The main enemies will be gargoyles inhabiting the monastery roof, who can fly over the flooding and mud, and a devil in the basement whose containing circle may be disturbed by the flood if the PCs don't find a way to stop it.

Also, steal floor plans for dungeons off the internet. For example, I have a whole bunch of "spooky castle" plans that I can just pull out of my duotang whenever I need one. I only draw out the ones with really specific requirements for whatever reason.

God.

Recently, on the CBG, people were talking about the need to create new settings.  The raw creative urge.  I have used the same setting for decade after decade, but then I realized I do the same thing with dungeons/adventures.
I just dig myself right in.  I like to create where it fits in the world, where the major players were, the different layers of history (If I repeat myself, it is in this trick) etc.  Then I start deciding about size and where things fit in.  
I get a little nutsy.  

Somehow, the other stuff has always fallen into place.  But then, I like to make large adventures that take months to make.  So this might be the wrong answer////;)
(recent Nebler's Shield Mountain (http://celtricia.pbworks.com/w/page/14955870/NSM-Adventure%20Page-DM%20only))

Besides not using them very often, I treat dungeons as "archaeological ruins". Players are there on an expedition to discover or retrieve something. Or y'know rescue someone. I also try to think of dungeons as a way of conveying something about the setting to the PCs.

Regards,
David R

I don't know how to run dungeons. I guess I'm just so used to cutting dramatically from scene to scene and GMing through NPCs I just can't get the pace and rhythm right of going room by room and describing everything, even when the room itself is of little interest. It's like a whole different skill set.

I was reminded of this last week while running Necessary Evil (a supers game). One of the Savage Tales I ended up using has the heroes (well... villians) discovering the hidden base of a deceased evil master mind. The premise was great, everything that led up to was really good, but when we actually got there the scenario had small map with a few keyed encounters and even the equivalent of magical treasure. I just found it really hard to switch GMing gear and frankly it all seemed very artificial and gamesy. In the end I just sort compressed it all. Not my finest moment but at least the rest of the game was pretty good.

Not sure this helps, but at least you are not alone.

This is one aspect where I think playing World Of Warcraft aided my GMing... the dungeons in that game are not bland mazes full of random/idle monsters waiting to be killed... they're always alive/active and the focal points of legends and rumors and dozens of plot hooks. Something is always happening there... some plot is underway, some entity being summoned, army being assembled, renegades hiding out.  They always have a 'theme' of some sort... a unique look and population and story to them... the environments within can be quite varied. One of my favorites starts at a quarry... that leads to a prison... that leads to a subterranean city... that leads to deep canyons full of volcanic chaos, each area having it's particular flavor/occupants/conundrums... parts are tight and claustrophobic and others are vast open spaces with vistas of an expansive urban areas. Obviously not designed on an 8x11 sheet of graph paper.
A number of them are open air cities/complexes. A few are home to rival factions that are actively at war with each other.
There are often plenty of things to do besides fight... various paths to take... 'individuals/events/environments to interact with.
I guess I'm saying is that the dungeons themselves are characters... in a way... hard to confuse with one another... each with its own mood/atmosphere. Rather than being lost/forgotten/abandoned most of them are infamous hubs of lore, with an environment around them that is enough to scare off the locals.

I never used dungeons much in my games but after playing WOW I saw a lot of potential for how they could be more than some random maze in the ground.

Quote from: Soylent Green;484995I don't know how to run dungeons. I guess I'm just so used to cutting dramatically from scene to scene and GMing through NPCs I just can't get the pace and rhythm right of going room by room and describing everything, even when the room itself is of little interest. It's like a whole different skill set.

I was reminded of this last week while running Necessary Evil (a supers game). One of the Savage Tales I ended up using has the heroes (well... villians) discovering the hidden base of a deceased evil master mind. The premise was great, everything that led up to was really good, but when we actually got there the scenario had small map with a few keyed encounters and even the equivalent of magical treasure. I just found it really hard to switch GMing gear and frankly it all seemed very artificial and gamesy. In the end I just sort compressed it all. Not my finest moment but at least the rest of the game was pretty good.

Not sure this helps, but at least you are not alone.

Yeah, I'm exactly the same way.

Quote from: Simlasa;485001This is one aspect where I think playing World Of Warcraft aided my GMing... the dungeons in that game are not bland mazes full of random/idle monsters waiting to be killed... they're always alive/active and the focal points of legends and rumors and dozens of plot hooks. Something is always happening there... some plot is underway, some entity being summoned, army being assembled, renegades hiding out.  They always have a 'theme' of some sort... a unique look and population and story to them... the environments within can be quite varied. One of my favorites starts at a quarry... that leads to a prison... that leads to a subterranean city... that leads to deep canyons full of volcanic chaos, each area having it's particular flavor/occupants/conundrums... parts are tight and claustrophobic and others are vast open spaces with vistas of an expansive urban areas. Obviously not designed on an 8x11 sheet of graph paper.
A number of them are open air cities/complexes. A few are home to rival factions that are actively at war with each other.
There are often plenty of things to do besides fight... various paths to take... 'individuals/events/environments to interact with.
I guess I'm saying is that the dungeons themselves are characters... in a way... hard to confuse with one another... each with its own mood/atmosphere. Rather than being lost/forgotten/abandoned most of them are infamous hubs of lore, with an environment around them that is enough to scare off the locals.

I never used dungeons much in my games but after playing WOW I saw a lot of potential for how they could be more than some random maze in the ground.

Excellent advice!

Quote from: David R;484986Besides not using them very often, I treat dungeons as "archaeological ruins". Players are there on an expedition to discover or retrieve something. Or y'know rescue someone. I also try to think of dungeons as a way of conveying something about the setting to the PCs.

Regards,
David R

This is good, too.  Use them sparingly.  Create a smaller map that is part of a larger scenario and has a specific purpose instead of a sprawling two page deal that is just rooms and hallways.

Quote from: Pseudoephedrine;484976Also, steal floor plans for dungeons off the internet. For example, I have a whole bunch of "spooky castle" plans that I can just pull out of my duotang whenever I need one. I only draw out the ones with really specific requirements for whatever reason.

I have folders on the lappy full of these.

Also, does it hurt to pull things out of your duotang?  :)

Quote from: estar;484974A dungeon is a locale no different than a village, forest, mountain, ocean, etc. It sounds like you are focusing solely on the "physical" challenge i.e. the layout and the "monsters". What you need to add is history, NPCs, and how it ties into the larger events of your setting. It helps that the player have a natural reason to be at the locale.

And we will wrap this up with an Outstanding!

Yeah, in relation to the WoW advice, make it a living, breathing ecology. Just like above ground regional geography has its own character, so should large subterranean geography. Have rooms with wonders or ruins. Let the wandering monsters have preferred regions for their lairs. Also, every now and then make the PCs do some spelunking where they have to take their armor off -- you'll be surprised how quickly other pressing matters are found.

Everything's more interesting with a personality. If you find it particularly hard, look at a few Castlevania maps and note how they thematically break up regions. That might inspire you.

I find the best thing to do is make the Dungeons feel organic.  I seldom have 'dungeons'  they are crumbling ruins, forgotten cave systems, buried over cities, castles that have sunk into the swamp and have been tilted on their sides etc...

Then I fill them with creatures that would make that home and use a less is more approach.  I seldom have the creatures waiting for the players to come to them.  I try and always make it feel like the inhabitants are there stocking the characters and never the other way around.

But a good dungeon is like any other set piece use them when appropriate and never return to the well to many times.

One thing a GM did to us lately (using a dungeon from the original Fighting Fantasy book with the new Advanced Fighting Fantasy) was to have a changing layout: there was a set of rooms that pivoted so that the layout of the dungeon changed. I found that really intriguing - reminded me a bit of the pyramid in the first Alien vs. Predator movie that constantly changed its layout, or the original Cube movie - the only problem being that I'd not sure how you could use the idea outside of the 80s-style "A Mad Wizard Built It" dungeon setup, instead of something naturalistic.
(we got gassed and woke up somewhere else in the complex at one point, as well...)
 
I don't know if this is helpful, but as well as "move forward and chop" the PCs should be thinking how best to progress through the dungeon. Important to procide clues instead of having "you go left or right" be random decisions. Contextual clues ("this wall is covered in an organic residue")/"that tunnel appears to have been carved out with disintegration", "the shattered skeleton has a black onyx in one eye socket") can be valuable. Monsters they parley with/capture can give useful information too; for wilderness "dungeons" I'll sometimes provide an incomplete map of the area one way or another.
 
Ideally I think you want a dungeon setting to be a location that's itself interesting and evocative. The treasure and monsters are just the mechanical side of things.

Don't make the dungeon the focal point of the adventure, make just one part of a larger whole. Maybe the dungeon is just one segment of an enourmous contraption designed to act as a multidimensional gate or a focusing element for an abandoned teleportation circle transport network around the world.

Dungeons are most interesting to me when I don't have time to clear them out completely. There's a sort of illusion of scale and complexity that I feel when I'm scurrying past locked doors, long winding stairs, and tunnels of ancient construction. But once I actualy map the whole thing out, it loses it's alure.
 
JRR Tolkien got alot of millage out of his antagonists by putting them strongholds where they couldn't be completely rooted out. I like to do the same trick by putting stronghold for the giant bats on the other side of a chasm, the goblin stronghold in a very defensive position and so forth. The intended result is that the players can never exterminate everything in the dungeon and the wandering monsters are always wandering in from the strongholds.