Classes of Dungeons
I liked Dungeonscape. For some reason, I never hear anyone reference the book unless they’re talking about the Factotum class. As cool as the Factotum is, there’s some good stuff in this book. But then, I liked Cityscape too.
Dec. 2013
Link: Dungeon Classes
Link: Dungeons As Characters
Jan. 2014
Link: A New Breed of Dungeon
—
As you can see, this has been a comparatively recent effort on my part to codify some “dungeon classes” — eight months is pretty recent in the lifetime of this project — and this week I started hacking together some actual classes.
Instead of relying on powers like a character, a dungeon relies on rooms. Like the turn undead power helps to characterize the cleric (or priest, or exorcist), a torture chamber helps bring to life a certain kind of dungeon.
Somewhere between the ridiculous over-proliferation of rooms produced by Paizo in their Campaign book and the modest thematic rooms of Dungeonscape, I came up with four basic dungeon types — camp, fort, hall, and vault.
Each dungeon has a purpose, even if it’s no longer fulfilling that purpose.
Furthermore, a dungeon is at least partially defined by either its inhabitants or its creators. A mine is not, in and of itself, a dungeon. A haunted mine is a dungeon. A dwarven mine is a dungeon. A dwarven-mine-cum-dragon-lair is a dungeon.
Now because of this relationship between the location and its inhabitants, I found a way to group the various “room” types described into the above dungeon types — camp, fort, hall, and vault. Each has a specific purpose.
A camp is a dwelling-place — but as a dungeon, rather than a settlement. If you need a tribe of lizard-men, a nomadic orc clan, or a goblin war-party — use a camp. Camps are based around the needs of the living, and as such incorporates areas for food storage/preparation, sleeping, waste disposal, and a water supply.
A fort is a defensive structure designed to keep enemies out and/or prisoners inside. A fort might have an armory, barracks, and stuff for entertainment. Probably where you’ll find the torture chamber mentioned above.
A hall is a kind of dungeon — perhaps the least “dungeon-like” of all — designed specifically to be accessible. Halls often incorporate courtrooms (even throne rooms!), libraries, museums, and workshops into their design and layout.
Finally, vaults are designed specifically to be secure. Vaults may have a single purpose (like serving as a tomb), or may be multi-functional as in a necropolis. Crypts, labs, temples, and treasuries may all be incorporated into vaults.
Now that these most basic classes of dungeon have been defined, with rooms as their defining features — hybrids and “multi-classed” dungeons may be designed. Any time you find a community of demihumans squatting on an ancient tomb, it might well be a dual-classed camp-vault dungeon.
There will inevitably be more to this system, but that’s where I am now.
Dungeons are interesting because they have a high-level purpose that is formed from components which each have their own purposes. Differing dungeons may have overlap on similar rooms (like torture chambers and prisons, which could be found in any number of wizard towers, forts, or temples, but would be less likely in an abandoned mine or natural cavern), but the composition of those rooms and the ratios which they represent could be significantly different.
I think that every dungeon and every room would have as a characteristic, Purpose: Original/Current
Dungeons could either be defined by the make-up their component rooms, or a Dungeon’s definition could determine the ratio of various component rooms.
If you were defining dungeons as though they were character classes in something like 3e, the rooms would be like proficiencies: while there would be overlap between the classes, some classes would have more of one kind than another.
Or rooms could be like Skills, based on points for whatever the dungeon level and type is. Being one type of dungeon would not preclude a certain type of room, but would make it less likely (a cross-class room, if you will).
I think, however, that Camp might not work as a dungeon type; it would be a Purpose: Current, but because any dungeon type could serve as a camp for monstrous humanoids, it doesn’t strike me as a class of dungeon unto itself.
My proposed dungeon types would be:
Fort – as per your description
Hall – as per your description
Cavern – Maybe with a different name, but this would cover caves and mines.
Vault – Similar to your description, but I would make Lab a room class or purpose and split off temples, because temples can be either ruined or active
Temple – If the Fort, Hall and Vault are the Fighter, Mage and Thief of dungeons, the Temple would be the bard. Various elements of all three could be mixed here.
State:
Fallow – abandoned and occupied primarily by monsters/animals
Occupied: Original purpose – the original inhabitants or new inhabitants are there using the dungeon for its intended purpose
Occupied: Repurposed – new inhabitants are using the dungeon for a purpose other than originally intended and have ad hoc set up defenses/laboratories/libraries/prisons/etc. Camp style occupation would fall under this.
Purpose:
Militarized – rooms made up primarily of barracks/quarters, armories, defenses, mess, prison. Libraries, labs, and amenities would be few if at all present.
Occult – rooms made up primarily of labs, libraries, shrines, and quarters. There would also likely be more amenities and less defensive capabilities.
Sealed – the overall setup is to keep whatever is inside in and whatever is outside out. heavily trapped and impractical for every-day living, this would be a purpose behind treasure vaults and crypts.
Settlement – Rooms may have some defenses and some amenities, but would be characteristic of camp style occupation. The area is purposed for day to day life with no particular arcane or military strategic goal in sight.
All dungeons would have some sort of mix of rooms that met those purposes.
A ruined castle inhabited by a goblin tribe not currently at war would be:
-Type: Fort
-State: Occupied: Repurposed
-Purpose: Settlement
The make-up of the rooms would be:
Primary: Recreation & living areas
Secondary: Stores & Goods
Tertiary: Defenses
While some rooms initially used for defenses or training may remain, others have been repurposed for leisure or crafting.
If the castle were occupied by a tribe at war, the purpose would be Militarized, and would therefore be more likely to retain the original uses of rooms that may have been armories or defenses.
Long comment is long. Apologies if I miss something.
RE: Camps vs. Mines
I actually started with caves/mines as a dungeon type, and found that they weren’t broad enough (and yet not focused enough!) themselves to justify being a dungeon class unto themselves.
An interesting point which may not be readily apparent is that none of the ‘dungeon classes’ are necessarily above, nor below ground. Bank vaults (and mausoleums?) can just as easily be built above ground as below. They’ll lose some “otherness,” but that’s how I got camps.
A camp may be in a mine, but a mine is restricted to the place where the resource is… a fort may be in/on a mine. A vault may be in a mine. Also, there can be a hall in a mine — so this suggests to me that a “mine” (or a cavern) may be a dungeon “race” … another avenue to explore.
Ultimately, ‘camps’ are perhaps the most foreign of these concepts to D&D proper — but they are present in RPGs descended from D&D, particularly those belonging to the “Action RPG” genre of video games.
Diablo, Fallout, Borderlands, Gauntlet, and so forth — all feature humanoid “camps” for players to cut through.
RE: definition of a dungeon
I’ve been wrestling with this for a long time, and my idea of what specifically constitutes a dungeon has changed a great deal. Two important things I think every ‘basic’ dungeon needs are treasure and monsters.
If a dungeon lacks the former or the latter, it’s more a “specialized” type of dungeon — perhaps something in the vein of a Prestige Class.
Exploring a cavern or an abandoned house then wouldn’t constitute an ‘adventure’ — they must include BOTH monsters AND treasure to be proper dungeons. A trap-laden, but otherwise empty tomb containing treasure — would not be a ‘basic’ or ‘typical’ dungeon.
…
Now, exploring the ‘dungeon race’ concept may give us some of the things you describe, and will provide even more flexibility in dungeon generation.
camp, fort, hall, vault
– Bandit Camp, Mining Camp
– Undersea Fort, Tree Fort
– Cavern Hall, Town Hall
– Haunted Vault, Mana Vault
http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=383008
Oh, and I have a proto-dungeon-“character sheet” that I think I will send to you. It’s totally like, super pre-alpha and would require way too much explanation to put on the blog — but it might help explain some of what doesn’t make sense here.
Sweet! I can’t wait to see it.
Also, I see your point about camps, after you mentioned Diablo. I still don’t know if I’d consider them a dungeon type, if only because in the diabloid and roguelike games I’ve played that do have them they still have a very different feel from the indoor dungeons.
If you ever get a chance, you should find the module Terror in the Gloaming; it’s free for download. It’s fascinating because the ‘dungeon’ is above ground and the ‘town’ is below.
Hopefully, this system will allow for dungeons across the entire spectrum of static/dynamic designs.
A camp would be an example of a highly dynamic dungeon where you may bring down upon you every encounter simply by approaching it — and unlike many other dungeon types, would be highly susceptible to the time of day (nighttime raid!), terrain, or inclement weather.
It will also — hopefully — help to provide a solution to the problem of dungeons being inappropriate for 1st-level PCs while wilderness crawls appear to suit them much better. The camp offers a middle-of-the-road option, and (but wait, there’s more!) with the modular nature of this style of dungeon generation, could lead into another dungeon.
Perhaps the humanoid camp is on top of an old necropolis, or is parked at the entrance of a haunted mine? Maybe there is a chain of camps, serving part of a much larger humanoid horde?
Terror in the Gloaming looks interesting. I grabbed it on DriveThruRPG at your suggestion. I will look at it when I get the chance. :)
But if camps lead to cascading encounters, maybe they DON’T solve the 1st level pc problem.
From my own recent experiences, small groups or 1st level groups do well in small dungeons or dungeons that emphasize exploration and puzzle-solving over fighting. And ultimately any dungeon that doesn’t have thick doors or really long corridors can lead to massive encounters. The module I just finished running had something like 11 keyed rooms, most of them with monsters in them, and it ended up being 3 big and brutal encounters.
One of my regrets with this campaign, though, is that I didn’t better flesh out humanoid races with more camps. They’re there, I just haven’t developed their home territory.
Hang on a second there…
Depending on what you want to put in the camp and how big you make it, could mean all the difference between whether the camp is appropriate for 1st-level characters.
What an above ground humanoid camp has, that your typical (let’s say underground, most are) dungeon doesn’t have, is the option for the PCs to observe it from a distance — maybe hundreds of feet, or more if they have enhanced vision, and plan how they want to attack the camp.
PCs can set fire to tents and create diversions, they can attack under cover of night — especially if said humanoids lack darkvision/infravision — and get up to all kinds of shenanigans. They may disguise themselves and sneak into camp to slaughter the chief as well.
All these things are a lot harder to do when all the information you have is your Listen check at the door. Most low-level PCs won’t have access to Divination magic, but they should be able to count enemy tents and watch guard shifts safely from a distance.
They teach you that kind of stuff in Boy Scouts. ;)
I’d imagine a 1st level camp might be something like bandit or ashlander camps from TES.
Really, though, I still think that camps are fundamentally different enough from dungeons that you could create a camp generator based off a variant of your dungeon creator, simply because there are so many different types of camps.
Traveler Camp
Bandit Camp
Mining Camp
Army Camp
Nomad Camp
Trading Camp
Summer Camp
Also, you’d have a use for Hornung’s Guess, one of the crappiest Divination spells ever written!
Now, that said…
I absolutely agree with your point about low-level dungeons emphasizing puzzles and exploration over combat. That’s how I get most of my groups started, and it’s worked out pretty well so far — the ‘camp’ may simply offer an intermediate opportunity for a mix of combat and social or wilderness encounters.
I think that Camps fall under the old wilderness encounter. The original idea was that if you had an encounter with anything in the wilderness, if it is an animal that is not migrating, it will have a lair, or if it’s an intelligent creature that isn’t travelling, it will have a campsite nearby, whose components (including sleeping bags, tents and crockery) are what largely make up the treasure value from the table.
In those cases, creatures do not emerge from a camp, but rather the camp emerges from the creatures.
Lol, it’d make the 3e gnome’s SLA “speak with burrowing mammals” a really effective spy tool. ;)
Also, after what you said the other day, I dusted off Diablo 2 and rocked out on that for several hours on sunday.
Amazing how much of a game they were able to wring out of the “if you see a skeleton, click on it” mechanic.
“In those cases, creatures do not emerge from a camp, but rather the camp emerges from the creatures.”
I’m going for the inverse of this — creating camps from which creatures emerge. Like spawn points, I suppose.
Consider it this way: the players want to go out and fight something. Kill monsters and take their stuff. What you need in this case, are some monsters or whatever for them to fight, right?
Why then, would you assign some *random* chance for them to get what they want? The players all ready know what they want, they want to fight monsters. What you need then, is a procedure to make monsters.
I believe Camps (as dungeons) are the next logical step in this line of thinking. Yeah, they are effectively “spawn points” … which I think is an acceptable break from reality when you consider the function it fulfills.
What’s needed FIRST is that monsters exist, for the PCs to fight.
If this procedure for generating dungeons does its job well, then you also have hints (hopefully more than just a hint…) as to WHY those monsters were there to begin with — rather than justifying the existence of a dungeon with the opponents you encounter, you create the dungeon to justify the existence of opponents.
Creating dungeons (including camps) is time-consuming and somewhat contrived, so the idea is to establish a spectrum of possible dungeons to create expectations.
It may well be that ‘camp’ is the weakest of the dungeon classes listed, but its existence helps in part, to justify the existence of the other three — some dungeons are homes, some are workshops, some are places of security, and some are bustling meeting-places.
In this case, though, we may be in agreement, if not on the exact wording. For a camp to exist, it would be necessary for there to be monsters. The difference between a camp and other dungeon types would be the agency of the inhabitants. You can have a dungeon without inhabitants (though it would be a rather dull dungeon), but for there to be a camp, monsters must have been there to set it up.
In fact, if players were wanting to hunt monsters, then camps (above or below ground) would be a better place to look even than other dungeons.
Even included as a dungeon class, inhabitant race would certainly be a factor modifying the ‘dungeon stat’.
So if, as you say, monsters first need to exist, once they exist, they need a place to live, hence their camps. It may be a chicken/egg paradox, only with orcs and orc warrens.