Dungeon Crafting: Fantastic or Realistic?

Dungeons are the meat of many D&D campaigns.  Hell, it's half the name, and I'll bet you've seen a lot more dungeons than you have dragons.  The nice thing about dungeons and why they're used so much is because they're the DM's ultimate playground.  In the dungeon the DM can really throw the kitchen sink at the party and really challenge them, because in a dungeon the DM is in the most control.  The only choices a player has is to leave the dungeon or to press forward in an attempt to clear it.



There are a couple different schools of thought when it comes to dungeon design, and chances are pretty likely that you'll lie somewhere in between these two.

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The Fantastic Dungeon
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One way of looking at dungeons is that they're completely alien entities, places for the ancient evils to lie in wait for some hapless adventurers to set them free and wreak havoc.  As a result, as the DM you give yourself carte blanche over any design decisions you make.

Why is the entire floor in that room made of fire?  Dungeon.
Why is that glass wall harder than steel?  Dungeon.
Why are there demons here?  Dungeon.

Nothing needs to be explained, because the dungeon's purpose is for the DM to get away with unbelievable, fantastic situations.  The dungeon is another realm, it's a thing not "connected" to the rest of the place, in a sense.  There are examples of this all over the place.  Play the original Diablo some time, and tell me how much sense it makes to have a cathedral on the outskirts of a little tiny village that has a dungeon so deep it stretches into hell itself.

Warning: Epic Run-on Nerd Rant Sentence
Remember that part in Fellowship of the Ring where the fellowship was running through the Mines of Moria and they were running away from that huge horde of orcs and trolls and then they ran across that bridge and they were like holy shit it's a Balrog and then Gandalf did that thing where he was like "You shall not pass" and then he shoved his staff in the ground and broke the bridge and the Balrog was like "aw, fuck" and fell off but then the Balrog said "screw you anyway" and pulled Gandalf down with him and Gandalf was like "Fly you fools" and then fell and then they had an epic fight and Gandalf won but still kind of died but didn't because plot and now he's white?
End Epic Run-on Nerd Rant Sentence

You want to know why all that happened?  Of course not.  Nobody cares WHY it happened, just that it happened.  Because it was awesome.  I mean damn.

That's the essence of the fantastic dungeon argument.  It doesn't need to explain itself, because it's too busy being awesome to care about realism.

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The Realistic Dungeon
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This is the sort of dungeon you probably make most of the time whether you realize it or not, because realism keeps popping up saying "this needs to make sense".  I originally titled this type of dungeon the "Mundane" dungeon, because the traps usually involve more mundane things, like spikes, pits, natural fire, cave-ins, and big rocks.  I went with the "Realistic" dungeon, though because really that's the heart of the argument; would something like this realistically exist?

Making a dungeon in this way is easier in some ways and more difficult in others.  It's certainly easier to sell the environment on the players, and once you've got it in your head what can go there, you've limited your options to what makes the most sense thematically, so you're good to go and can quickly work on what goes where.

Example: an old abandoned keep has been repurposed by a necromancer and some of his minions, and he's raising an army of the dead to terrorize the nearby townsfolk.  Let's not concentrate on his motives and ambitions right now (although that's a good topic for a future post).  Instead, concentrate on the place he's chosen.  A keep.  There's probably a garrison, a larder, a kitchen, audience chambers, watchtowers...these are all great places for encounter ideas, and tying all of this together gives you a "dungeon" to work with.  Each room you can approach from the perspective of what came before to inform the size and design of the room, and the theme of the dungeon (undead) means your monster choices are basically done for you.  Hurray!

The essence of the Realistic Dungeon is all in the planning.  In the Fantastic Dungeon, all you're planning are the encounters, really.  You're thinking about what kind of awesome crazy shit you can put in a room to challenge the players.  In the Realistic Dungeon you have to ask yourself all the questions first.  What is this place?  Why is it there?  What monsters have taken up residence there?  How have they defended themselves?  How do they survive?  What kind of place was this before it was infested with monsters?  All these questions help you form an idea of how the rooms should be shaped and filled (kobolds making lots of mundane traps, for example, or having an encounter in a room that used to be a dining hall).  In addition, this makes it extra cool when your party finds a secret door into a room untouched by the years of disuse and monster infestation, and lets you have a cool "lore moment" where you can show off some of the world-building you've been working tirelessly on.

This is, honestly, a great way to approach your dungeons.  I don't want it to come across as Fantastic Dungeons = cool, Realistic Dungeons = shit.  As I noted above, it really helps to immerse your players, because everything...makes...sense.  It also helps with making things cohesive with the rest of the world.  Honestly, everything else in your world should make sense, so why not the dungeons, right?

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Blending The Two
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What about a dungeon where it makes sense on paper, but then things just get completely fucked?  Take the keep idea, above.  Going through some of the outer areas, you fight zombies, skeletons, the usual.  Then you get past the outer defenses and attack the central building where the necromancer's hiding out.  Once you get in, a ghostly voice calls out "You didn't think it would be that easy, did you?" Okay, actually, that's just me.

Suddenly, all the lights go out, and when you light a torch, the walls seem to have shifted.  Okay, maybe he picked up a few illusion spells.  Then you open the nearest door and catch yourself just before falling off a cliff on the other side.  We aren't in Kansas anymore.

When you can start with something grounded in realism, then find areas to just completely throw out the playbook, you will make your players stop, stand up straight, and PAY ATTENTION.

These are the dungeons that are truly great.  The ones that settle into the lore of the world, give you clues to the world, but still manage to have some really incredible, fantastic areas built in.  People remember that dungeon you sent them into in search of an ancient relic, sure.  But I'll bet they really remember that room just before the relic where the floor, walls, and ceiling were made of illusory fire even more.