I just looked up the castle you mentioned. Veste Coburg has never bsuccesfully been assaulted. However, during the 30 years war the attackers managed to capture it by forged letter that told the defenders to surrender the castle. The pen is mightier than the sword!
Years ago I made a maze dungeon out of permanent walls of force all in one big cavern. There were occasional low doorways or raised ledges to trip on, and a pack of invisible stalkers inside moving around invisible chairs and tables for people to run into. Add more invisible monsters as needed.
Kudos to Kelly. Over the years enjoying your channel watching Kelly grow has been a joy. At first he was quiet and often fumbled words and so on. Now he projects his words and speaks with such confidence. Also his personal style has evolved and really reflects who he is. Kelly your growth and evolution has been a joy to watch and an inspiration. Thank you.
Right off the bat, before even really starting to watch the video, 100% agree with the title. After watching the video, YES this is all so important. Something that didn't come up directly but was implied is the whole "Function Dictates Form" aspect of designing these things, which doesn't just say what rooms are there but how they're arranged. A factory's workspaces might be to have the start and end of the process right next to each other to make sure that materials can come in and products can be sent out using the same carts or boats, unless there's another distribution system that wants it to go the other way. A hospital or sanitarium might have distinct departments which coul be organized based on how connected their work is, may have a direct route between operating rooms and instrument cleaning areas if the setting has any kind of infection control knowledge, and may generally be organized like a set of interconnected flowcharts to be able to move patients, staff, and equipment from one location to another as efficiently as possible. University campuses, also great dungeons, probably have buildings arranged by faculty and have distinct sections for faculty offices, administration, lecture halls, and practical study areas (labs, rehearsal spaces, workshops, etc.), including buildings that are much more or much less one or more of those things. Once you've figured out what it is/was for, try to figure out how it was expected to work! It can basically plan your maps for you!
Natural tunnelers can inspire unique layouts, eg: anthill, prairie dog colony, termite hill, worm tunnels, spiderweb collections in a forest, aquatic spider air bubble traps. Breaking away from the grid adds flavor.
My favorite dungeon was an alien spaceship that crashed a long time ago and got buried, to the point that everyone thinks it's just a hill. It's also upside-down, but the artificial gravity still works, so when the PCs find the entrance and go through, they flip to the ceiling. (It's also fun if they deactivate the power reactor and immediately splat onto the ceiling.)
It’s interesting that you mentioned using a theater as a location. I’m currently running a Curse of Strahd campaign, and one of the players died, so I created a side quest for them to find an Essence of the Eternal Echo as a component for a resurrection spell ritual. This led them to the Old Barovian Opera House, which is not in the adventure. I had them locate a script of the final act, locate and arrange musical instruments for the ghostly conductor, and then perform the final act for an audience of ghosts. It then spawned a boss fight, and the boss imploded into the essence they were seeking upon its demise. It was a fun little unexpected side quest that I had a blast writing.
I've thought of a couple of dungeons, similar to the one mentioend of a Deep Gnome mine used to farm gems to feed Xorn protectors of their village and have accidentally unnearthed a colony of Kruthiks, so the players can try to save any remaining miners and gain the villagers trust. Another would be an abandoned Mind Flayer research lab that was half destroyed and now only the Kuo-Toa that were experimented on thrive, worshipping the Neothelid that destroyed the base as their liberator and God.
I think my most unique dungeon was one I called "Dungeon of the Mimic". It was an ancient dungeon that the inhabitants rightfully feared and would not go near. For a bit of context my party is a group who got sick of me overusing mimics in my last game. I did the usual thing like making chests, doorways, ladders, at one point or another mimics. I even got creative and made other things into mimics. Swarm of mimics disguised as gold coins inside a chest (they killed a mimic that was a chest and i bent the lore a little bit and made the gold coins inside her babies). I made health potion mimics (that one was just evil I will admit). I made suits of armor and weapons that were mimics. I even put a mimic disguised as a bar stool at the yawning portal a mimic. So back to the story at hand. I told my players that in this setting there will only be ONE mimic in the entire world. The last of its kind. So when I told threw that big meaty plot hook in their face they took the bait. Hook line and all. They wanted to slay the last mimic. They get there and its the typical dungeon crawl. They are smashing everything. It wasn't until they finished the dungeon that they realized I kept describing every room as being smelly and sticky (like glue) that it stuck (pun intended). They realized the whole damn dungeon was one large mimic.
This video made me create a new playlist to save this video into : "inspiration homebrew". I'll need to rewatch this a few times as I continue creating my world.
I did a play on the well of souls in a homebrew, those imprisoned in the well, their souls fed the dark lord's power for all eternity and the prison had hundreds of occupants, all powerful warriors rogues and wizards, heroes of forgotten ages The endgame of the campaign was to destroy the well, the source of his power, leaving him weakened enough, but still terrifying for a boss fight, to defeat the deceiver in the ruins of the well, his soul was trapped in the ruins, haunting them for a future return The party got rewarded bonuses in xp for the number of souls they saved, providing a final level up, and ready for a harder, second campaign
Excellent advice! A dungeon planned out with critical thinking can lead to a very valuable world-building exercise for your whole setting! For further research on the topic, both Matt Colville and Runehammer have videos
I know that everyone does it differently, but I'd love to a video about note-taking and similar behind the screen DM stuff. For example, how you keep track of ongoing events in the world, things to look out for when taking notes, ways to put options/obstacles in front of players without railroading. Things you might prepare for a situation where players go in the exactly opposite direction than what you thought they would. Would one keep some generic maps and monsters at the ready just in case? Or maybe ask for a long break to throw together something more finely tuned?
I made a dungeon that served as a laboratory for magical experiments too dangerous to be done near towns, which was later turned into a vault for dangerous artifacts and eventually closed. Then, i made a secret underwater tunnel leading to an interdimensional bank controlled by a dimension hopping lich funding other villains throughout all the realms and used it as a starting point for a bunch of one shots and interactions between my diffrent groups that i play with.
this whole last series of videos you’ve done make me feel grateful that the 2 DMs I play with most often are so thoughtful and good - they’re always offering up variety, bringing the players into the world, and connecting the encounters to the story. Hope other DMs are paying attention!
A personal favortie of mine in a realm jumping campaign included a dungeon that was an assembly plant for creating mechanisms that was no longer in service. In the deeper levels existed a "child" which held the plans for everything manufactured at the plant and many that were never developed. This needed to be retrieved as part of a contract. It allowed for difficult traversal and some mechanical traps on the way in and abanded machanical creatures on the way out with escorting this "child".
This is something that I figured out when I was 14...almost 40 yrs ago. I still run into DMs that have no explanation for me when I try to use the functionality to figure out where traps would and would not likely be... So a rare useful tip by the Dudes.
My favorite kind of dungeon is the one that is a trap or a test. Something that *wants* you to go in. Like a kobold dungeon that advertises free gold inside, or a vault from an ancient civilization that is looking for a worthy champion to bestow a quest (and powerful artifacts) upon
I think the craziest dungeon I came up with was due to the players searching for a shortcut pass a lake, the lake was in a desert, very little trees and no boats nearby, but they did find a passage that lead underground. I measured out approximately how many miles the dungeon should be to find an exit on the otherside, I used one of my favorite stories as inspiration, journey to the center of the earth, I then watched every movie ever based on it that I could find streaming for free and took a bunch of notes. In world time the players were trapped underground for a year, in game time it was like 6 months, we were playing every other Saturday for at least 5 hours a day. But what really got me was that I had one player that was begging to experience claustrophobia and another when they got to the magma area, he was drinking ice cold drinks and he was still sweating up a storm, my players said that they actually felt like they were trapped down there. I apologized to the players for making them feel uncomfortable and offered to end it early but my players are the types that like those extreme horror house experiences where they grab you and touch you so they were like its fun cause we're getting scared, its like a virtual haunted house attraction. So that really boosted my ego on that and I try my very best to put the same level of dedication and creation into each game experience.
I’ve been watching D dudes for months now Finally made it to shadows of drakenheim lol. Also their advice made me comfortable going from just a PC to a first time DM in a long term homebrew campaign (all their content is gold)
Labyrinths and asylums are a personal favorite of mine. Back when I played WoD. The reflection of the ruins of assylum on the spirit world was a labyrinth. The manifestation of the emotional turmoil, torture or deprivation tried to get to the players emotionally. If it was successfull the labyrinth became more difficult or could isolate a player, their fears made manifest. There was more to it, but that's all I'll tell.
I ran a one (turned into a three) shot last year, where the dungeon was the buried remains of an ancient, gigantic sized steel automaton on the outskirts of Sharn, that was entered through its hand which was unburied, reaching into the sky. The arm became a tunnel filled with small devils, which led to a huge torso inhabited by abyssal demons. The dungeon finished with the lower bowels becoming a portal to the Abyss, containing dozens of laughing imps, tortured poison-trolls, more medium level demon minions and a gate to the Abyss ultimately guarded by an Ancient Sibriex. The adventurers began as lvl10 dwarves (with full magic options encouraged thanks to the Eberron setting), on a quest to find the ancient Axe to progress their families fortunes in Sharn. To their credit, as the party delved deeper, they began to realise this was no ordinary dungeon, and was becoming more 'Abyssal'. And yes, after succeeding to claim the Axe of Dwarven Lords, their only exit was.... through the Giant Automatons 'lower portal' ! Lol The best part for the players was when they came across a group of heroes doing battle on the way to the first scene at the hand, and realised this was in fact a battle they had played-out as well loved characters in the previous 2-year campaign! They loved the story, the setting, the theme and the cross-over, and it really showed in their game play! Thanks dungeon dudes, all those videos I watched over the years; they really helped me make something memorable for my party!
I designed a palace that had been mostly buried. The entrance was through one of the escape tunnels built for the royal family and a blue dragon had taken over since they often like to make their lairs underground. Many of the original traps and defense systems were still armed.
My first dungeon was an abandoned fortress built in the dome of a presumably dormant volcano. It was my first attempt with this crazy set of rules I picked up at GenCon in 1974
This has been BEYOND helpful. I've been struggling with creating a certain dungeon for my campaign, and this video dropped at the exact right time! Your prompts have been incredibly helpful and really got the creative blood flowing. Hats off. I can always count on you guys to inspire me
Some really good dungeon inspirations we’ve seen -Persona 5 palaces for an urban dungeon that’s still occupied for its original purpose -the divine beasts from breath of the wild. The main problem with them is that they are dull after the first but they do work really well -dragon quest series dungeons. We really distinctly remember some of the ones in 9 like the hexagon or the one from the all trades abbey and contagion arcs. Can work really well for the monster infested dungeon - Take minor inspiration from roguelike dungeon crawlers like darkest dungeon to spread various small interactibles, seeing those scattered throughout tells a great story -there’s a level 1 adventure in princes of the apocalypse I run for level 3 characters as a get to know the party adventure. It’s a classic necromancer’s lair but they learn all the basics -Myst’s sub areas are great for a more puzzle focused dungeon and you can even make a really good campaign based off the game -Ankhmorpork from discworld is a great city dungeon There’s probably more we’ve missed but it’s a good start nonetheless
i think this is why the singular dungeon of Dungeon Meshi hasn't gotten old and repetetive: it has history, it has reason, each level is its own district, and each district has its own reasons for having its own creatures. aside from flashbacks, our main crew have LITERALLY not gone above to the surface since episode 1, but i doubt anyone's really noticed
Whenever I need a dungeon, the first thing I do is think about what is the purpose of the place. It really helps to give it life and to create what will have inside
I took the concept of Alcatraz as the unescapable prison, and turned it into a floating island. The floating island was the remnant of a manor house from the Second Age. The campaign is in the Fourth Age. It's kinda wild.
I have to say, I'm planning a huge campaign. I have been listening to your videos while driving and have gotten amazing tips for my next campaign. I think my players are im for a great time, and the Dungeon Dudes deserve a lot of thanks for their great DnD content.
You guys mentioned the Elder Scrolls as inspiration for Dwemer ruins, but I’m surprised you didn’t mention the Telvanni wizard towers when talking about magically sculpted places for creatures that don’t need to walk on the ground. They’re giant, living mushroom wizard towers sculpted by magic and grown to enormous size by thrumming purple crystals, and all the corridors are vertical and can only be traversed by magical levitation. They’re so cool!
As for the forest as a dungeon, I remember a scenario in an old Dragon magazine.. Wandering Trees? Whispering Trees? It's been a while. Anyhow, the paths were the 'corridors' and the clearings were 'rooms'. And trees moved, changing the paths. Pretty cool.
When Monty talked about the theatre, it reminded me of the time my players were sent to Liberio, they found and visited this theatre I created. There they saw a play called the Hafling's ring, which told the dramatic story of two haflings fishing and what happens after one finds a ring at the bottom of the river. They also encounter one of the queen's men, under a disguise, who was trying to gain information on what they were up to. What an interesting place for bringing your players in contact with NPCs. It was cool to imagine it all, and I thought Liberio would be the place to have theatre. Thanks for all the inspiration you send our way, it's been sustaining me for 5 years at least now...
In one of my first campaigns as a gm, I designed a dungeon whose purpose was basically to help an ancient revenant kitsune find vengeance against the bbge and to tell the story of how his people were wronged. Basically the revenant had a prophecy he was hanging on to of how adventurers could one day take down the bbeg. So he gathered really powerful weapons over the centuries and he has his undead minions slowly carve out the caves into this labrynth with murals that showed the party scenes of the bbeg from when he slaughtered the Kitsune. The dungeon also tested the party to see if they were worthy because they had to fight through the undead. By the end of the dungeon if they made it the revenant would basically swear them to vengeance against the bbeg (who all of them desperately hated anyways) and gave them really cool weapons
First dungeon I made I knew it needed a reason to exist. Sure, it served as (railroaded) shortcut to skip the inhospitable desert my party needed to cross but it needed to have a life of its own. So I started with an underground Gnome city that eventually turned into a research facility. I christened it: Ravengnome. (Why yes, I had just replayed Half-Life 2.) A clan of Gnome scientists and engineers had hired Dwarves to dig the place out and over time, went from legit to nasty. Documents speaking of inhumane experiments, old journals from research "patients", the corpses of some cops that failed to serve their warrants and so on and so forth. The enemies inside were pretty standard fare, including some bandits. This was to make my party think this place was just a bit... off. But it all came to a head when a crazed Gnome scientist unleashed his abomination, a mashup of a Steampunk lookin' nightmare of a Gnome-human hybrid, called "Killboy Powerhead" for my party to takedown... that eventually turned on its creator. My players (friends I've known for years) thanked me for giving them Ravengnome to explore and be creeped out by. My advice for making a dungeon or even writing a campaign, is to not be afraid to beg, borrow or steal from cool things you know and love. Your job is to have fun.
Hello ! just saying, I love your videos ! I've just received my "Sebastian Crow's" pledge, and it's one of the densest, most replete supplement I've ever seen ! The gazeteer is amazing, and the gameplay elements are extraordinary. The art has wowed my players, too ! Even though I won't be playing in that particular universe, I will be plundering every idea in there, incorporating Delerium-like effects and substances as well as the Apothecary in all of my games from now on ! It is simply sublime. Bravo !
My favorite dungeon to run is an intelligent puzzle-heavy dungeon. The lore is a famous artificer was trying to build an evolving playground for his only daughter after her mother passed away in child birth. He started making deals with a devil to obtain knowledge he didn't have to make this playground, but he ended up promising more than he could deliver. In the end, the devil cursed the man and the girl, forcing the inventor to watch as his beloved daughter had her memories erased and then her consciousness placed into the now dungeon as its keeper. Over time, she learned the limits of visitors and has since become a popular tourist attraction, acting as a constantly changing escape room. The idea came from my personal love of puzzles and the inspiration for MIRA (the young girl's new personality as the dungeon core) from everyone's favorite homicidal testing AI, GladOS.
You hit a ton of my favorites. Another angle on cities and even some of these others is that very often construction is simply overlaid on existing structures. Given that, there are a huge array of options for how those layers may intersect, both overtly and covertly. Thanks again gents.
I’ve best described a dungeon as a bounded set of explorable sites of interest. You might not even need walls or barriers to separate these sites, so long as you can’t interact with the entire dungeon all at once. Open markets, excavation sites, and battlefields make great dungeons without walls.
I've been loving this channel so much and I've recently started watching season 1 of the Drakenheim campaign series and right now Sedatian is my favorite character
Made a dungeon where the central map area was 9 rooms in a 3x3 pattern, but any time you went through a door, the entire mechanism of the dungeon shifted and randomized, so going back out the door you came in would take you to a different chamber.
While most dungeons are thought to be underground, there is nothing that stops them from being either on the surface or above, say a floating dungeon. another possibility could be that everyone gets ported to some other reality or time for the dungeon.
That's funny I'm currently drawing the map for my 3-level arcane department of waste management in my current campaign... Also, have a player running a Reanimator and one that's an Urban Ranger, so thanks for those!
I run a 5e campaign which is no prep, fully improvised. I draw the maps as we play, using some tools to help with randomising things. Even I don't know what's going to happen before it does most of the time (which is real fun). This can result in some real weird dungeon design though.
I used "secret laboratory" dungeon once, place, where necromancers tried to fuse their monsters with demons, lot of very precise spell circles and such, different types of undead/demon hybrids in a stasis... It was fun.
You quickly pointed out the one thing I learned the hard way. When players explore a location, they are on the lookout for anything that might help them decide what to do next. Every branching path in your dungeon is like a question, and nobody likes answering a pop quizz at random. Don't give players lore and vibes, give them knowledge they can put to use!
Friend ran a 'dungeon' in/as HMS Titanic; we had to find the Captain (who was a 'wandering monster') so he could order a change of course. If we didn't find him in time, well.... Most, nearly all, was social interaction except the 'stowaways' and 'steerage passengers'.
My favorite dungeon ive made was a manor house that was sucked mostly underground by a natural disaster during a massive party. The owner was a mage and he turned into an undead spell caster and was resurrecting the partygoers and wait staff as minions as he excavated the parts that collapsed
For a Hunter: The Reckoning game, our GM gave us a three-dimensional speargun shootout against scary merfolk in the saloon of the underwater ghost town of Alamo Lake. Real place. Why hide behind the bar when you can hide in the chandelier?
As an approach to the Tall ore Deeps and the cave known as the woomb of Gods I found schematics for the cave of winds and several others which I populated with lore candy, challenges and treasures then began DMing as The Terrors of Taurau.over 500 miles of caverns and vaults. I'm working toward publication under OGL.
A few things which I use to make 'dungeons' interesting for my groups. 1. It should have a purpose to the PCs other than holding monsters to kill. Players should need a reason to be interested in it itself. My favs... a castle set in the middle of the lake which (unknown to the players) was formed by a meteor impact. They are looking for the source of some mysterious metal and rune in the basement finally let them know the origin of the place so they can figure the metal comes from a meteor. Another good one, players find small fort where everyone is killed and then have to defend it against attackers. 2. You don't need dungeons. Fight one moving boats, private houses, a park, a stable, a tavern, etc. can be equally fun. 3. Make them dynamic so the goal isn't necessary to defeat the bad guys, or it isn't the only goal. A fight on a ship, is just a fight. A fight on a sinking ship... that different. Same with a burning stable, a runaway wagon near the edge of a cliff, an elegant ball where you are trying to uncover someone despite a distraction, or even a fight where a group of thugs think one of the PCs got his sister pregnant. In these cases, the fight is often secondary to another goal -- not drowning, saving the horses, not going over the cliff, etc. 4. Make the terrain dynamic. Use stairs, walls, cover, areas where you can't get into melee, traps, oil being poured down, areas shifting, etc.
The term Dungeon is outdated and a misnomer. They aren't dungeons, those are for keeping prisoners in. What we think of as a Dungeon are actually, Gauntlets. A series of deadly obstacles like traps and monsters. All with the intent to guard treasure, secrets, or other important things of value. My new OSR retro-clone, goes into great detail on this subject. Great stuff Dungeon Dudes! Love your content.
My favorite "dungeon" recently is a ruined mining camp that fell/was sucked (didn't actually decide) to the bottom of mountainous lake hundreds of years ago. Now an Aboleth and an allied "water vampire" live there and are gathering their power. Primarily occupied with (buffed) Giant Octopuses and Water Elementals. The first time the party checked it out, they got *Wrecked* because they didn't have a swim speed, and Water Elementals are invisible when underwater. The second time, they all had Magical Swim Speeds, and casting of See Invisibility, so were able to go head to head with the occupants... but part of the ruins was narrow corridors breaches an inch to a foot across. The enemies could move freely through the holes, but the party could only see brief glimpses of what was behind... the Barbarian rolled really low on a Grapple check, was grabbed by a Giant Octopus and dragged far into the Dungeon to be eaten 😲 Luckily the Barbarian had the Artificer's Homunculus with it, so until the thing got busted by an AoE, could pump in UA Cure Wounds to keep the Barbarian standing until the party caught up 😺
A museum with a t-rex skeleton that has been reanimated... Dresden has been here, hasn't he? The building isn't on fire, but this has his fingerprints all over it
I made a Tesseract for a dungeon. I had to map out how each room connected to which other room. It is not that hard. I used 8 different colored dice and made the 3d model. The one necessary rule is the direction of down is always towards your feet. The second necessary rule is have a defined North for all the rooms. It does get tricky where you eventually have to cross the fourth dimension in how some rooms connect. This leads to a situation where you leave one room by its South door but entering the connecting room you do so by its East door.
This is so true... also true for traps. I can't tell you the number of times I've seen posts about "cool traps" and it's just a nonsensical rube goldberg thing for dumb trick for DMs to feel better than the players.
Great reminders here! What comes to mind is someone in particular entering a new area and saying, “Hey! This part of the hallway is really clean. I want to see there it goes.” … only to be eaten by a gel cube. 😂
I think that forrests and other open areas are underrated and should be used more often, sure, the classic dungeon is an enclosed space, but realistically, most battle were fought in the open, how about a vast plain that's a battlefield with armies numbering in the thousands clashing? you'd have to get from your side to the opposing commander, evading all the small fries, corpses, projectiles, craters and spells flying around, not something I hear much about on RU-vid, but it would still work and be a dynamic type of dungeon to go back to the forrest, it could be filled with lots of animals and mostrosities and you're hunting for one special kind that's going to be defended by many if not all the animals, even if they'd normally run away instead of attacking humans, so you have to track the main target and try to avoid most of the other inhabitants 31:29 didn't expect you to actually go there at the end, but since it's still a slightly different kind, posting my comment still makes sense
I guess I'm overly creative with my ideas. My big thing is I like making the place from the PoV of the architect. That wizards tower took a month of Fabricate to make the tower and just as long to disintegrate the tunnels below but it is a new construction so he hasn't gotten all the Arcane defenses established.
I love mixing sci-fi elements into fantasy. I see your "dwarves did it" and raise you "Noldor elves did it, but they did it in Art Nouveau instead of Art Deco, and the power source is singing."
I once ran a dungeon which was the (sort of) insides of the god of death of our previous campaign. The final boss was a fetal version of said god. The players ended up here due to a carelessly worded wish granted by an incomplete deck of many things granted by a chaos god. Once the players exited the "dungeon", they found themselves in Faerun... Voila... New campaign
I made a cave inhabited by barbarians who were resurrecting at a totem near the entrance. Farther in was an alien xenomorph queen laying eggs occasionally getting a barbarian infected. The two sides locked in eternal fighting. Enter the party.
Dungeon Dudes! oo woo oo Every day they're out there making Dungeon Tales! oo woo oo Tales of optimizing and good DM tips too! whooh ooh Everyday they're out there making dungeon Tales! oo woo oo Dungeon Dudes! oo woo oo
I think after 80 or more videos, the only thing that drives me nuts is how he says -ern as -ren. That's my only consistent note. Tavern sounds like Tavren, modern as modren, etc etc. Drives me nuts tbh but I know that's a Personal qualm thing. Otherwise though I absolutely love these videos!!!!
