Settingfags are the worst. Gimmie a dungeon four floors deep with some treasure at the bottom.

>>96280091 (OP)
Hey is that the cronchy cat

>>96280091 (OP)
you enter the forbidden labyrinth of the accursed mage from legends past!
as you decend into the crypt, your eyes adjust to the dimly lit surroundings.
what; pay tell, could this ancient labyrinth of forbidden magics hold!!!
you see before you plain brick walls! with some basic bitch enemies, just kinda wandering around aimlessly!!!
oh what horror what splendor!!!
you see a staircase on the back wall, a sign above it reads: floor 1 of 4!!!!!
what pray tell can be beyond this humble first floor.....
more plain brick walls!!!! and basic bitch enemies haphazardly wandering around!!!!
oooohhhhh what majestic majesty it tis to behold!!!!!

>>96280091 (OP)
I too demand other people run the game I want to play and then wonder why I remain nogames

>Rollplaying Gamer
Based

>gimmie gimmie gimmie
The eternal chant of the playoid

>>96280091 (OP)
I'll give you this, instead:
*rips a greasy pepperoni fart in your mouth*

>>96280091 (OP)
Why not both?
Look up Wilderlands of High Fantasy and the Book of Treasure Maps for some examples.

100% agree. Nothing kills my interest more than a game where the GM has a giant lore document and map handed out to the players at the start.
Like come on man, nobody but you actually gives a shit about that yet. Players will not care about the setting until they actually play the game, piece the setting together in between each session to coincide with the actions of the players. If you want to do that degree of worldbuilding go write a novel.

>>96280091 (OP)
Faggot. That's STILL too much setting.
My players interact with pure numbers. There's no need for "rooms", "monsters", or "treasure".

>>96280091 (OP)
>>96281158
What people keep misunderstanding with pen and paper worldbuilding is that you're not writing a novel, you're supposed to be designing a game setting. That means making interesting monsters, NPCs, plot hooks, locations and objects for the players to interact with.

Lore dumps about your cosmology, the tax policies of your kingdom and what colour shirts the peasants wear don't help with this at all.

>>96280293
>gimmie gimmie gimmie
some time to think

>>96281285
"interesting" NPCs need to have motivations, desires, etc.
>hmm i wonder what those motivations could be
>cosmology, governance, the loyalties and allegiances of the populace
>no, expanding on any of those things would make me a settingfag lorecel, /tg/ is always right

Based. Fuck storyshitters.

I think board games are more your speed, then

>>96280091 (OP)
You're welcome to run any kind of table you please, OP.

>>96281834
this is pure low-functioning autism

>>96281852
Autists deserve to have fun, too. They can get a table together. That's what's great about ttrpgs: you get to play them entirely your way.

>>96280091 (OP)
>settingfags are the worst
>gimme a (setting)

>>96281859
They do not.
t. Autist

>>96280091 (OP)
Yeah but I like to know what's waiting for me when I do return triumphant and laden with treasures well gained!

Also behooves one to know any context to the dungeon itself. If we can gather information on who made or had it made, or if it's natural geography. Who or what might be in it? It's well doing to go in prepared after all. And if we do find something interesting among the spoils, if we knew more about the world we're in we could potentially make best use of it!

>>96281158
>New player joins
>Libtard faggot asking questions
>Shut the fuck up and play the game
>Shuts up and rolls a total of a half dozen dice
>Five rooms later dies
>Spend the next 20 minutes while the players die and or kill things

>Get bored and decide to do something else
>"WhY aReN'T yOu PlAyInG?"

Or

>Join party as a random ass hireling and live till about 2/3rds the way through and die again to a tiny ass random creature or stray missile
>Repeat till dead or out/finished a dungeon

>Clapclapclapclapclapclapclap Wow I'm having sooooo much fun! That was epic!

>>96281834
Beer and Pretzel shitters are why the game is like it is now.
You used to create the roots of a story and then it told itself through the actions of the player characters and the reactions of the world around them.

Now it's silly voices and manbaby toys on the table and if you take any of it seriously you're a loser because it's been taken over by normies and clout chasers on the next hot thing looking for consumerist nerd cred and corporate identity politics.

>Just here for some brews bro who cares if I'm on my phone and talking to the MtG guys instead of paying attention. Just yell at me when combat starts and uh, which dice do I roll again? Haha. Spell Slots? Nah I'm keeping track in my head bro. We're just here to roll dice right? You think it's more? Maybe you're not suited to this hobby dude.

>>96281942
>he thinks you need 500 page lore documents or else nobody will roleplay and the GM will be unable to describe the current room and answer player questions in the moment

>>96281957
>TTRPGs are srs biznis guis
Faggot

>>96281827
If your NPC requires a lore binder of context to work, then it's a shit NPC and you should go back to being a failed novelist.

>>96282039
you're right, my party should exclusively oppose Moustachetwirl McEvilguy whose motivations can be boiled down to
>nyeh heh heh

>>96282039
It takes one paragraph worth of notes to do that

>>96281997
>It must be one extreme or the other
Signs of autism yknow.

>>96280191
Vgh... Based... Retvrn to tradition...

>>96281572
>gimmie gimmie gimmie
a man after midnight

>>96281285
I agree. If you want to build a world it's better to show not tell. Don't do lore dumps about everything. Give bites here and there about the village you players are staying at, maybe them overhearing the farmers complaining about the lord's new tax when getting a drink, kids sing a song about a local legend of a monster in the area, etc.

>>96281859
>Autists deserve
Nothing. Except to die.

>get everyone roughly on the same page during character creation
>run first session with vague idea of what the world around them is like
>answer every question with improvised details
>everything the PCs say in character is canon if it isn't contradicting something that has already been established
>flesh out the setting later around what has already been established
Shrimple.

>>96280091 (OP)
>dungeon four floors deep with some treasure at the bottom.
That's still too much of a setting for me. We need less.

>>96280191
I pulled a funny one on the party once.

>You enter the ancient catacombs.
>A voice speaks from the wall, as spectral fog briefly manifests.
>"These are the testing grounds where aspirants prove themselves worthy to be seekers. Do you wish to be tested?"
>Party says yes.

>One entire dungeon later, meet a necromancer, friendly.
>Appoints them honorary seekers after learning they're randos.
>"By the way, if you just said no you could've passed freely."

>>96280091 (OP)
Genuine question: when was the last time you enjoyed the advantage of a dungeon crawl in an rpg over, say, a dungeon crawl in Rogue or fighting fantasy?

>>96283908
I have a sneaking suspicion OP won't be able to answer that

>>96281934
Even if the game were just dungeons, that raises the question: Why are there so many dungeons? What has stopped others from raiding them first? Who, or what, built so many dungeons? Why do people know that the dungeons exist and have treasure in them, but they don't value it enough for stronger warriors or armies to take it first? Start answering these questions and suddenly you've got a setting.

>>96281957
>t. retard who never played any tabletop game.

>>96280191
hey retard, you already forgot to use the rules.
probably why you think it's so boring.

retards will really never actually run the game rules as written but dismiss it as boring because the rules don't support their sparkledog power fantasy

>>96280091 (OP)
Ta-Da!

>>96281834
I remember playing games like this and imagining the world in my head. Can't zoomers do the same nowadays?

>>96280091 (OP)
Gamificationfags are the worst. Gimmie a sequence of algorithmically generated statistical challenges with a ≥95th percentile difficulty rating.

>>96282437
kek

>>96281158
The trick is that instead of giving out a lore document you give a brief, like 1-2 sentence explanation of the general idea your going for with the setting to let them come up with character ideas.
Then if they say something like "I want to be a squire for their backstory and the don't want to bother making their own set up, you can give them some basic examples to pick from and some basic traits of the knightly system. But no more than 1-2 note cards worth.

>>96280091 (OP)
Here you go OP this is something you might like

>>96280091 (OP)

I'm not convinced anyone actually plays this way in 2025. It strikes me as a nostalgic circlejerk.

Like I get needing to pass a lot of time if you were a nerd in the 80's because there's nothing but Cagney and Lacey and The Cosby Show on TV.

But now people are lucky to play 4 hours every other week and there's constant distraction from everyone's phones and half the players are looking forward to going home to play vidya.

Getting through a multi-level dungeon would take months, especially with the oldschool deadly traps leading to players going around in paranoia mode(poking everything with 10 ft poles etc).

>>96280191
>
If you think you explaining the socioeconomic circumstances that led to the BBEG turning evil (or did he? teehee) is what makes a dungeon interesting and not the stuff in the dungeon that's there to be interacted with then you are a great example of the problem

>>96289813
That is the modern zoomer playstyle
>We have to get to the next miniboss
>Each of you tell me how your special snowflake helps the party get to the miniboss
>Fight the mini-boss
>Now you need to get to the next miniboss

>>96289813
Megadungeons were designed for open table play, so you could do it much more than once per week, just with rotating/varied groups each time, including newbies who had no idea what D&D is; the point of the dungeon being so big was to avoid this huge mass of players exhausting it.

>>96283908
there are board games that are way better than rpgs for dungeon crawling and anon will demand their friend or worse a stranger to make a board game for them to completely gameify while they slavishly function as a computer for them

>>96280158

>>96289844
>If you think you explaining the socioeconomic circumstances
uhhhh anon, op said he wanted an incredibly basic 4 level dungeon. at what point do you think I would want to describe the socioeconomic and political environment that lead to the construction of said dungeon? the description is focused solely on the dungeon itself. is it ornate? or possibly filled with strange and ancient architecture? not a fucking history lesson. what fucking group do you play with that brought you to that gay projection?

>>96282447
Suicide isn't the answer, please consider alternatives

>>96280091 (OP)
>i hate settings. Gimme a time and place with plot elements and an implied history, and then have events occur in that location

You are boring.

>>96280091 (OP)
I will give you 40 floors, with societies and kingdoms in the dungeon and some non-physical treasure like friendship or the memories and experiences you had along the way.

>>96280191
Hell yeah, doesn't get any better than this. My barbarian straps on his horned helmet, adjusts his ragged red loincloth and swings his gleaming battle-axe at the nearest aimlessly wandering enemy.

>>96295882
This. My cleric stands behind the barbarian ready to support my martial ally, as a party of brave adventurers we shall reach floor 4 of 4!

>>96281188
You should check out NetHack. It sounds like your kinda game.

>>96281188
sir, craps is not a ttrpg
or is this still too much setting?

>>96281834
Beer and Pretzel syndrome:
>the game is meant to be fun! that's why we can't spend ANY time talking to NPCs in funny voices or screwing around.

>>96280191
Hell yeah brother