Thread 96367297

how do you make a fun dungeon?

interactions
opportunity
consequences

Add characters played by fun players

>>96367297 (OP)
>make a dungeon
>add the fun
Easy.

>>96367297 (OP)
"If you keep the reader aroused and horny, he will be interested, engaged and entertained." -- Samuel "Mark Twain" Clemens

What is fun anyways

>>96367297 (OP)
Dungeons being "fun" isn't that hard. Don't make them too long. Include loot the players can fight over, story elements that don't take very long that they can discover and investigate if they want to, and a variety of monsters and maybe some traps, some of which they must encounter and some of which they have to decide if they wanna encounter.

The players will make it fun, or not. Your dungeon is there to give them stuff to do. So make sure you include stuff for them to do.

>>96367297 (OP)
>ball pits
Not spike traps
>pie throwers
Not arrow traps
>jello cubes
Not gelatin monsters

Voila, fungeon

>>96367557
clown monsters that make a honking noise when hit?

Have fun players, NPC-wannabe normoids cannot into dungeons

>>96367586
Anyone who uses the term "normoid" is most likely not a fun person to play games with

>>96367577
>>96367557
You can't run forever Joker!

fun to who?

>>96369070
the players and GM obviously

1. Wandering Monsters and repopulation rules
2. Reaction and Morale rules
3. Broad monster tables, including monsters that speak the same language as your PCs
Done. If your dungeon takes more than one trip to clear (and it should) then the rules of the game will make your dungeon dynamic and your players will do more than just splatter sacks of XP.

>>96367297 (OP)
Make them take a long time in game. Darkest dungeon does it well by having some of the longer dives take 3 days.

>>96367297 (OP)
Kobolds make dungeon fun.

>>96369070
Your dead relatives forced to watch over you

>>96367297 (OP)
>the hook
Why are is your party entering?
While "get paid to kill things" always works, it can help for your players to have a slightly more IC reason to enter, like to recover someone's family heirloom

>the challenge
Enemies filling it, traps inside
Generally you dont want each individual encounter to be a slog and you dont want to keep repeating encounters
Basically dont just have 3 rooms in a row filled with skellymen
Instakill traps that can only be found with a PER check are not exactly going to be fun for your players, so instead of saying "roll for perception, you fail, you get hit with a flame trap" describe the room as having black scorch marks and the smell of pitch in the air and see if they are on their toes
And let your party come up with alternatives, if they want to sneak instead of fight, that should be a possibility

>the gimmick
Doesnt have to be huge, but just change up their usual approach
Describe furious winds that make flying, climbing, and long range arrows useless
Or describe thick, acrid, smoke that requiees everyone to wear filtered cloth (cant cast spells that need magic words, cant drink potions, and cant communicate past X feet)
Maybe some developments can help instead of hinder the player, maybe there are open vats of liquid that can be toppled to slip baddies

>personalities
Dont just fill dungeons with enemies
Maybe have a a non-combatant who will ignore the players if they ignore him
Prisoners to talk to and free
Or arrogant enemies who feel the need to banter first

>>96367557
Don't forget the bouncy castles!

I think context and setting/theme matters a decent amount too. Like, just going to some random cave or crypt is kind of whatever mostly. But if instead you're plundering some forgotten kingdom, or a massive tricked out mansion? That's potentially more interesting in the kind of things you can include there.

>>96376009
I think you mean the jumpy keeps

>>96376009
How would you mechanically represent bouncing?

>>96369507
How would we know what's fun to people we've never met?

>>96378287
DEX save to avoid being thrown X tiles in one direction and knocked prone if you are not aware of the trap. WIS save to avoid going back to the bouncy castle if you are aware of the trap. Effect nullified if you are wearing spiked shoes.

>>96367297 (OP)
>dungeon
>fun
Another 10 goblins for your level 3 characters to fight in a generic room somewhere underground sir. Mayhaps we will fight the dragon in another 2 sessions. Mayhaps.

Cool encounters within

>>96367297 (OP)
List things that are fun and find a way to string them together semi-coherently.

>>96367297 (OP)
To be honest. Play a few Zelda games and make a dungeon inspired their dungeons. Though to be helpful here what I do to make a fun dungeon

>Make a big main puzzle to get to the boss room. Often encompassing the whole dungeon
>Smaller puzzles in a few rooms that help those who character isn't too active in the moment so they can feel like they did something other then be led around in said dungeon.
>have a key item or two that your players need to use to navigate the dungeon. Bonus points if they had to do a quest to get it before hand over finding it there.
>Would suggest a dungeon shouldn't be a simple ruin just outside of town that everyone can get to. Make it hidden and you have to go on a quest to find it to begin with as well as have a "time limit." Maybe you only have 3 days worth of food and water to explore it. Maybe you need the beat the BBEG in there before something bad happen, etc. Don't let the player take a short or long rest every encounter to stay at 100.

>>96367297 (OP)
Make it fleshy and meaty
Fill it with slime monsters
Have high end loot dangled in front of the players to get them to keep wanting to crawl deeper into the dungeon. Key jangling does wonders like you wouldn’t believe.
Also branching pathways but nothing too out there, a room with a cool set piece can also make the dungeon more memorable.

>>96386958
This but meat and flesh is too common a trope now
I have dreams where if I go too deep in caves I see surreal monsters that have heads of things I vaguely recognize and when youre too deep there is the portals room and maybe Hell

>>96369941
>Repopulation rules
Oh yes, very important to keep these around for the TPK session.

>>96367297 (OP)
Branching paths, interconnected design, good variation, tough challenges and cool rewards

For further information, google "tales from the yawning portal free pdf" and read through the Forge of Fury chapter.

>>96386973
>This but meat and flesh is too common a trope now
Yeah true. I would bring up catacombs as inspiration but I think they also are a common trope.
I think catacombs are as close as you get to dungeons in real life.
Wine cellar dungeons with brick walls and lots of caskets also may be fun to do, even if they probably fit a more early modern fantasy setting with bards, musketeers and rogues.

>>96390271
>enter wine cellar dungeon
>take the wine, leave and sell it

You would have to curse the wine or something.

>>96392156
Have high value wines be stored much deeper in the cellar along with having particularly rare kind of wine be a drop from the boss of the dungeon. Basically like what you'd do with ores and a mineshaft dungeon, but with wine instead of high value ores.

>>96370510
>crimson court
>good

>>96390271
I don't think anybody does caracombs as cramped and boney as irl though

>>96367557
Seltzer elementals and a faction of unicycle-riding beastmen too. Scrolls of Endless Hankerchief and maybe even a Portable Fart.

>>96367297 (OP)
Create urgency with
1 inevitable threat (rising water, blood ritual, something happening that puts a sense of urgency into actions)
1 stalker (something you have little to no chance of defeating that could be anywhere but doesn’t seem too clever or too quick)
1 fun room (puzzles, hard to reach loot, a main area with multiple points of entry on multiple levels that makes for a good trap or brawl)
Multiple- weak but clever enemies who are defending this place like the Vietcong (tuckers kobolds)
1 mystery (a dark hole in the wall that you can hear a stream through, a bottomless pit, a wall full of strange runes with a big handprint in the middle of it to tempt the curious)

Can’t go wrong with at least 3 of these.

>>96367297 (OP)
A fungeon?