Here is a TL;DR preview so I can get the bulk of it out of my system. Ideas that wander in your system for too long, well, a) are exhausting and b) probably deserve to get out there.
On to the point.
Dungeons are :
1- enclosed units, space delimiting gameplay (you're in the dungeon or not, if you cross its borders, you get out of it or your GM needs to expand it)
2- given visual representation (typically : a map, whatever form it takes)
3- filled to the brim with three things : a) dangers, b) weird stuff, c) opportunities (for treasure, adventure, story, advancement, etc.)
4- given procedures to travel in them and interacting with them.
Based on this definition, it appears that :
1- dungeons are dungeons (no joke ?!)
2- megadungeons are dungeons (no joke ?!)
3- overworld spaces and maps are dungeons
4- cities are dungeons (the "safe havens" just being particulary sleepy dungeons).
Corollaries :
5- overworlds and megadungeons differ mainly in their presentation (map, outside or subterranean...) and choice of travel procedures
6- you can treat any type of dungeon as any other type, and use procedures as you need them. Your dungeon is actually a forest or an island ? Okay. Your megadungeon is actually a lost valley ? Okay. Your overworld campaign world is actually underground, or is a single city ? Okay. Your gloomy city of thieves is so dangerous that some of its neighborhoods need dungeon procedures to be traversed ? Okay. (I've got references for most of these examples already, especially in video games.)
Final points :
- some games understand this very well already. I have not played it yet, but I understand that Electric Bastionland takes the "borough as a dungeon" approach quite seriously.
- you can use the same, or almost the same, universal basic procedures to fill your dungeons. Just change the content of the tables a bit. I have a d6 table that I use to fill any kind of dungeon.
- inversely, it can be interesting to taylor the travel procedures, and think about which you want to employ and why (to what effect).
- you can rename "dungeons" in my expanded meaning as "adventuring locales", "dungeon units", "gameplay units" or what have you. They still need a better name. Something with "blocks"?
- your can view your game world / campaign milieu as a landscape of fractal Legos. All your campaign is composed of dungeon blocks within blocks within blocks, arranged with all the variations you can imagine.
And that's all folks. Now to see if I can finish the detailed post(s) sometime in the summer. But you can share your thoughts already !
No comments:
Post a Comment