Estimated reading time: 4 minutes
This week’s post will be a short one. Not that I have nothing to write about, but I really want to focus on finishing a few things, while I’m distracting myself with swords.
Digging Better Dungeons
Those who visit this site regularly might have noticed my interest in dungeons. That’s nothing rare among Dungeon Masters, Game Masters, and other suchlike individuals. There are many approaches to creating and playing dungeons, and none of them is wrong, as long as everyone’s having fun. Some people like their dungeons to be challenging first and foremost. Others want an engaging story, brimming with emotions, that somehow takes place in a dungeon. Some want their dungeons to make sense.
You probably already know I belong to the third mentioned group, and I’ve started a series of articles dealing with various aspects of dungeons. There are still topics I want to look at, but I’ve set this series aside to work on other stuff. You can have a look at what I’ve finished so far on the list below:
- How to Behave – Reasons for entering and what to do next
- Size Matters – How large should a dungeon be?
- Palimpsest Dungeon – Dungeons with history
- (Un)Broken Environmental Puzzles – Design with magic in mind
German Inspiration
Recently I’ve had some contact with tiny fragments of the German role-playing scene. I’ve mentioned Roland several times already, and his feedback is one of the things that make me return to the dungeons. He also gives a lot of thought about the dungeons he’s designing, and it’s very interesting to see the process.
The other German blog I’ve started following is Kritischer Fehlschlag. It’s operated by a group of TTRPG enthusiasts, and there’s a lot of stuff in there. What caught my interest immediately is the Erde & Wasser megadungeon project by Rackhir. My first contact with it was a newsletter email about the second zine being published, so I looked it up, and it’s looking great. Check out the Design Principles and you’ll see why I like it. There’s lot of overlap between our views, mainly in that the dungeon has to make sense. This is definitely something I’ll be watching closely and looking forward to updates.
What to expect?
I’ve already advertised it somewhere, but now it’s official – Digging Better Dungeons is the new name of the series. I’m really bad at giving estimates and promises when it comes to publishing schedule, but there are at least five articles I would like to add to my series. Two of them are in draft stages, the rest is just in side note stage for now. But I will finish them somehow. The first on the list is an elaboration of the Palimpsest Dungeon, a case study.
Video Game Shorts
This will be very short as well, it’s called “video game shorts” for a reason. Anyway, there’s one thing that’s extremely common in one video game genre, and I think underused in TTRPGs. The genre is platformer, and the thing is that enemies often send you towards doom. Without touching your HP, at least not in a significant way. Whether it’s by actually pushing your character off a ledge, or by one-shotting you and the in-game explanation being this.
By having the enemies use the environment in this way you can create danger where there normally would only by little of it. Small goblinoids get trivial at higher levels no matter their numbers. But if they throw you full-plated paladin into a pit, they’re much more dangerous now. Ogres are formidable foes for a low-level party, but later they’re just a large nuisance. Let your ogres fling the high-level party around and suddenly they’re another thing.
As with all things use hero-tossing enemies with moderation. And if your players take a liking to doing this to their enemies, maybe change the scenery a bit. Don’t let your campaign become Jedi Academy with force choke. But that’s another story.
Final Remarks
Once again I have to state that I’m not affiliated with any of the mentioned entities, and I receive no compensation for any promotion.
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