Stupid dungeons are not "mythic", though they can have their place, just like "naturalist" dungeons; but in this video I talk about what real Mythic dungeons would look like.
�#dnd� �#osr� �#ttrpg�

The whole "mythic" term is stupid and misleading anyhow.

These jokers dont even know how those random gen tables were used which tells you that they never actually red the rules they are pushing. Those tables were meant for when the DM was drawing a blank and just wanted to pull something up quick and random. The AD&D book gives alot of tools for that which 2e and on got lost more and more. 5e is surprisingly a return of some of those tools in the DMG.

And as you note, they are pushing this fake narrative. And it feels to me they are doing the same damn thing the storygamers did and still do.

Also aside from the usual rev-up at the start, you "uh"'d very little through the first half of the vid.

Plus the OD&D rules were dumb shit anyway:  Doors have to be forced open for PCs but open automatically for monsters, all monsters can see clearly in the dark but no PC can, just primitive stupidity because the game was brand new, very clearly not thought out much to get a product out.  If I want that experience today, games like Diablo do it much better than D&D.

There's a reason that shit stopped after 74.  Half the people saying how great the concept is and it's "how Gary intended" probably never even played then, they picked up a PDF or copy of the white box and thought they know how the game was.

Quote from: Omega on August 22, 2024, 06:26:20 AMThe whole "mythic" term is stupid and misleading anyhow.

These jokers dont even know how those random gen tables were used which tells you that they never actually red the rules they are pushing. Those tables were meant for when the DM was drawing a blank and just wanted to pull something up quick and random. The AD&D book gives alot of tools for that which 2e and on got lost more and more. 5e is surprisingly a return of some of those tools in the DMG.

And as you note, they are pushing this fake narrative. And it feels to me they are doing the same damn thing the storygamers did and still do.

Also aside from the usual rev-up at the start, you "uh"'d very little through the first half of the vid.

I pushed for random dungeon generation tables for the 5e DMG.

Random dungeon tables are fine as a tool.  But not as "Let me do zero prep and run everything from random charts".  At that point I'd rather play Diablo.

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 22, 2024, 09:50:01 AMI pushed for random dungeon generation tables for the 5e DMG.

  Random dungeon tables can be found in the 3.5 and 4E DMGs as well. It's 2E that's the real outlier here.

Quote from: Armchair Gamer on August 22, 2024, 01:55:11 PM

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 22, 2024, 09:50:01 AMI pushed for random dungeon generation tables for the 5e DMG.

  Random dungeon tables can be found in the 3.5 and 4E DMGs as well. It's 2E that's the real outlier here.

The 2E DMG, was such a strange bird.

Quote from: Nobleshield on August 22, 2024, 08:23:10 AMPlus the OD&D rules were dumb shit anyway:  Doors have to be forced open for PCs but open automatically for monsters, all monsters can see clearly in the dark but no PC can, just primitive stupidity because the game was brand new, very clearly not thought out much to get a product out.  If I want that experience today, games like Diablo do it much better than D&D.

There's a reason that shit stopped after 74.  Half the people saying how great the concept is and it's "how Gary intended" probably never even played then, they picked up a PDF or copy of the white box and thought they know how the game was.

Yeah, it's a game. This is not an interesting and/or valid complaint.

I will say I have always hated the idea of, as a guy in my years long discord games put it, "Monster Motels" for dungeons.

I have no problem with dungeons having a large number of various monsters but they have to be realistically interacting with each other in that microcosm

Because of that, over the years, I have tended to avoid the glorious megadungeons - if you know of any that do a good job of it let me know & I'll check them out - that were not a 'city based type dungeon.

Now I have used a lot of those old dungeons but modified them or used them as idea mines instead of btb. A good example is the ole Keep on the Boarderlands. I don't think you can get more classic than that as an adventure/dungeon. However, like I said I hate the idea of monster motel and having all of those tribes there in caves so close together - at least there is implied interactivity between them (the hob-goblins stealing from the goblins & the goblins bribing the ogre as extra protection comes to mind)- so, when I ran it for my daughters, as a Tolkienesk adventure, I modified it that each caves was in a different location. They were ALL in the same general area and withing at least a day to 3 days walk of each other. I also had the Tolkien version of the kobolds (the weakest most abused slave goblins) make a deal with the players that they would tell the players where the other tribes' caves were (inn stupid goblin directions soooooo not the most accurate or easy to follow) if the players would promice not to attack and kill them in their pathetic little camp.

I also remember an adventure where one of the adventure encounters in a grave yard is a random group of Drow in a crypt with a stairway and then cave into the underdark. Unfortunately the whole adventure had NOTHING to do with the Drow or underdark. Of course when we found that after killing the drow, we wanted to abandon the adventure to go into the underdark (what is a better adventure and an opportunity to do more heroic things than quest into the underdark) It got to the point to where the DM had to go "Ok wait on that. This isn't the adventure and I don't have anything at all ready for that, so stay on track for the adventure and we can come back to this later when I have something ready". It is like there was a checklist for an adventure, Drow are cool and popular and to have drow you have to have the underdark, so it has to be mentioned somewhere in the adventure.

The two core objections this video brings up is:

Issue 1: Guilt by association, because a certain group proclaims the virtues of the Mythic Underworld dungeon it therefore earned your ire.

Issue 2: It's not as coherent as Gyaxian Naturalism, and thus lends itself to less real or coherent design


-

I'll touch on point 2 first as it is much less of a loaded subject. Anytime I've ever heard the Mythic Underworld as a dungeon design concept in OSR circles, it is typically presented as a "livng" or hostile dungeon, a place with a supernatural  malevolence, often a place built by a petty wrathful deity or a dwelling of demons, the dungeon itself actively repels intrusion and does cheeky little things, such as doors always being locked for players but not monsters, or traps never being set off by monsters only players.

The incoherence or "randomness" so to speak is a known element, the players understand on some level this place is actively out to get them, and thus the sort of Gyaxian Naturalism goes out the window.

To me it seems you've confused a Fun-house/Challenge-Dungeon for a Mythic Underworld, or have been mislead by some rando twiiter person you probably argued with that those were one in the same.

They are simply not and that should have been the sum and total of your rebuttal.



As for issue 1, I'll be upfront in stating I don't really know or care about your history regarding other internet personalities, but whoever Jeffero is he clearly got your fucking goat good. cause he basically lives rent free in your mind, I literally didn't about this three-piece-chicken-mcnobody until you more or less declared him Satan-incarnated, which seems antithetical to your goals towards him.

I'm sure nobody would know anything about him had you never mentioned him. Apathy has killed more carers than the most virile-hatred could ever dream of doing.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on August 22, 2024, 10:30:24 PMThe two core objections this video brings up is:

Issue 1: Guilt by association, because a certain group proclaims the virtues of the Mythic Underworld dungeon it therefore earned your ire.

Issue 2: It's not as coherent as Gyaxian Naturalism, and thus lends itself to less real or coherent design


-

I'll touch on point 2 first as it is much less of a loaded subject. Anytime I've ever heard the Mythic Underworld as a dungeon design concept in OSR circles, it is typically presented as a "livng" or hostile dungeon, a place with a supernatural  malevolence, often a place built by a petty wrathful deity or a dwelling of demons, the dungeon itself actively repels intrusion and does cheeky little things, such as doors always being locked for players but not monsters, or traps never being set off by monsters only players.

The incoherence or "randomness" so to speak is a known element, the players understand on some level this place is actively out to get them, and thus the sort of Gyaxian Naturalism goes out the window.

To me it seems you've confused a Fun-house/Challenge-Dungeon for a Mythic Underworld, or have been mislead by some rando twiiter person you probably argued with that those were one in the same.

They are simply not and that should have been the sum and total of your rebuttal.



As for issue 1, I'll be upfront in stating I don't really know or care about your history regarding other internet personalities, but whoever Jeffero is he clearly got your fucking goat good. cause he basically lives rent free in your mind, I literally didn't about this three-piece-chicken-mcnobody until you more or less declared him Satan-incarnated, which seems antithetical to your goals towards him.

I'm sure nobody would know anything about him had you never mentioned him. Apathy has killed more carers than the most virile-hatred could ever dream of doing.

If you watched my whole video you'd know your analysis isn't accurate. I talk about contest/funhouse random-dungeons, naturalist dungeons, and REAL mythic dungeons, and I point out that all three can have their legitimate places. I'm not condemning the idea of playing in the Mythic Underworld in the least; I CREATED a Mythic Underworld generator in Arrows of Indra. I'm condemning the idea that some people (mainly in the BroSR) have tried to argue (mainly on X) that the early D&D dungeons were not in fact awkward and irrational because they were an example of early random-generator design that had not yet developed (because they can never claim that any part of AD&D1e is flawed in any way), but that it was somehow representative of the "mythic underworld", which it is not.

I'm not the one that's confused about the difference between a real Mythic Underworld emulator and early-edition D&D random dungeon generators. I'm CORRECTING the confusion that others are intentionally trying to cause.

And as for not calling out Jeffro & the BroSR, pointing out how they're wrong or intentionally deceptive, or their political agenda, because it will just give them attention, would you be saying the same thing when I or anyone else calls out Woke nonsense in the OSR/D&D world too?

This whole thing is confusing due to the use of terminology.

This faction identified with the brOSR is clearly confusing Mythic Underworld with Funhouse Dungeons.

Pundit is using Mythic Underworld specifically in the literal sense.

But typically "Mythic Underworld" is in reference to a living dungeon as a hostile entity which is not purely naturalistic as first coined by Philotomy's musings which was very well circulated in the OSR. You can argue the name is a misnomer, but I think not mentioning the origin of the term damages the video. My bad if you did but I missed it.

Quote from: WERDNA on August 23, 2024, 01:11:36 PMThis whole thing is confusing due to the use of terminology.

This faction identified with the brOSR is clearly confusing Mythic Underworld with Funhouse Dungeons.

Pundit is using Mythic Underworld specifically in the literal sense.

But typically "Mythic Underworld" is in reference to a living dungeon as a hostile entity which is not purely naturalistic as first coined by Philotomy's musings which was very well circulated in the OSR. You can argue the name is a misnomer, but I think not mentioning the origin of the term damages the video. My bad if you did but I missed it.

This exactly. You summed up what I was saying much better than I

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 23, 2024, 10:50:07 AMAnd as for not calling out Jeffro & the BroSR, pointing out how they're wrong or intentionally deceptive, or their political agenda, because it will just give them attention, would you be saying the same thing when I or anyone else calls out Woke nonsense in the OSR/D&D world too?

I guess the difference between the woke and the BroSR is the woke are in power.
Ignoring them is simply letting them continue to abuse institutional power, wokeness in games is a symptom of larger political issues.

Jeffro is one dude who to my understanding has a small following of crusty grognards who think AD&D/OD&D is the end all be all?

Stupid? sure. but pointing him out in impudent rage isn't going to dislodged him like the bloodsucking tick he is. He feeds on the attention and drama no?

Then logically you starve him of relevancy and watch him wither on the vine, he's a dying breed of gamer anyway.

Discretion is the better part of Valor.

Quote from: Socratic-DM on August 23, 2024, 01:42:04 PM

Quote from: WERDNA on August 23, 2024, 01:11:36 PMThis whole thing is confusing due to the use of terminology.

This faction identified with the brOSR is clearly confusing Mythic Underworld with Funhouse Dungeons.

Pundit is using Mythic Underworld specifically in the literal sense.

But typically "Mythic Underworld" is in reference to a living dungeon as a hostile entity which is not purely naturalistic as first coined by Philotomy's musings which was very well circulated in the OSR. You can argue the name is a misnomer, but I think not mentioning the origin of the term damages the video. My bad if you did but I missed it.

This exactly. You summed up what I was saying much better than I

Quote from: RPGPundit on August 23, 2024, 10:50:07 AMAnd as for not calling out Jeffro & the BroSR, pointing out how they're wrong or intentionally deceptive, or their political agenda, because it will just give them attention, would you be saying the same thing when I or anyone else calls out Woke nonsense in the OSR/D&D world too?

I guess the difference between the woke and the BroSR is the woke are in power.
Ignoring them is simply letting them continue to abuse institutional power, wokeness in games is a symptom of larger political issues.

Jeffro is one dude who to my understanding has a small following of crusty grognards who think AD&D/OD&D is the end all be all?

Stupid? sure. but pointing him out in impudent rage isn't going to dislodged him like the bloodsucking tick he is. He feeds on the attention and drama no?

Then logically you starve him of relevancy and watch him wither on the vine, he's a dying breed of gamer anyway.

Discretion is the better part of Valor.

When the BroSR promulgate public statements on X that are visible enough that I end up seeing them, that means other people might see them, and think that these guys are in some way authoritative, because like Al-Qaeda to the Koran, they have claimed that they are the true interpreters of D&D.  So I think I will keep calling them out.

Quote from: Nobleshield on August 22, 2024, 08:23:10 AMPlus the OD&D rules were dumb shit anyway:  Doors have to be forced open for PCs but open automatically for monsters, all monsters can see clearly in the dark but no PC can, just primitive stupidity because the game was brand new, very clearly not thought out much to get a product out.

It's actually genius.

In OD&D, the dungeon exists in the Underworld, not the normal world. The Underworld has its own "physics" so things like Doors and Darkness exist to confound invaders, but not hinder the denizens.

AKA, the deck is stacked against the Heroes, and the players need to embrace that fact and not linger too long.