How nonsensical can a dungeon be without your players complaining? I don't mean having goofy monsters or comedy, I mean things that are illogical: a Giant creature in a room with no doors big enough for him to get out of, an animal locked away in a room it can't open a door to that somehow hasn't starved to death, a dungeon that had been completely sealed for 10000 years that somehow has a bunch of non-undead intelligent monsters just living in it, a mishmash of creatures living right next to each other without killing each other, etc?
Do they allow a certain amount of irrationality? None at all? Or do they really not care about this kind of thing?
I don't recall it ever coming up. As a player some of my favourite games were 'irrational' like Land Beyond the Magic Mirror.
I prefer there to be a reason. But I'm not one of these knuckledraggers online who cant "believe" in a dungeon unless every little damn thing is explained to them.
Ok so this place is sealed and yet there are monsters here? Is it some maniacs tomb? Then guess what? MAGIC! Even if they don't say it. Yes you morons it was MAGIC!
So the monsters are living in proximity when they normally shouldnt. So? Probably its either at this state for survival. Or its at this state through force of will of someone powerful, or it is imminent to collapse and the PCs just happened on it just before. Or... MAGIC!
Yes there is ventilation even if its never mentioned. Even if its as simple as MAGIC! Don't be stupid. Do we have to also explain to you that a boat floats on water or else "it makes no sense!". Guess what? It floats by... MAGIC!
Etc ad freaking nausium.
I like there to be some pattern to it. Even if that pattern really is just "A crazy wizard did it!" or "That mighty chief told us to work together!" or "If we don't then adventurers will massacre us!" and so on. If there are orcs and lizard men working together then I expect some sort of valid reason. If there is a sealed dungeon and there are monsters there I just assume its kept that way with magic. If its not sealed then there is likely some sort of ecosystem going on that the PCs might notice. Might never know.
Though one of my favourite old dungeons I created had the PCs open it up and discover a-lot of dead monsters. And at the end its dead creator. He had failed to take into account that little breathing thing and they'd all suffocated. The players were edging room to room wondering what the hell happened and where the heck whatever killed everyone was. No wounds. no signs of violence or foul play.
In answer to this and your other threads: nobody cares, so long as the players are all fun.
Just imagine Jeff Goldblum as your DM, and Christopher Walken as the paladin.
"You're covered in the stench of goblin blood."
"I really don't care. It smells like money."
https://jasonsvoices.com/dungeons-dragons-dorks-episodes-1-5/
My players, both sets, could not care less because they would likely fail to notice. Someone might make an offhanded quip on the rare occasion as he throws them bones, but otherwise the ecology of the dungeon remains a graduate level course and the "classroom" is filled with kindergarteners.
Personally, in my old age, I prefer a dungeon to make some sort of sense. I'd prefer to investigate a lair or cult's haven.
But it only has to work with its own internal logic... So if the game is somewhat 'gonzo' then one could expect some kind of strangeness and that works for me too - because it works in the context of the game.
IME it's only a problem if it bugs the GM and affects his/her ability to present the dungeon effectively.
Very much. They need some sort of internal (if twisted) logic. In fact, they'll try and rationalize what makes sense to pre-plan for any surprises and ambushes. After all, in D&D each monster race has it's own methods of dealing with problems.
I run for players that really enjoy digging into secrets, mysteries, and other hidden things. They like being able to make informed guesses and sometimes deduce successfully from incomplete information. So there has to be enough internal logic to make that work. There can be some things that make no sense, but they really stick out in that environment, since the players are actively looking for patterns.
I usually have some kind of oddball facet of the campaign that can account for things initially not making sense, something a little more focused than "magic did it." The erratic portal travel in my current campaign is an example of that. In fact, the players just found one of the erratic portals because there was a lot of large gears and machinery in a cave with entrances too small to accommodate it. After searching for secret doors and coming up short, they eventually activated the portal.
This tendency does not generally extend to trivial stuff that isn't the focus of the campaign. No one is going to look for a portal because the goblins apparently have no latrine nearby. I'm probably not explaining it well, but I'm in sync with the players enough that it works.
My players always notice, always assume there is a logical (if magical) reason for any situation, try to guess the reason and how the DM intends it to work for or against them, and care not one whit if they come up blank for answers to any of those questions. "It's a mystery!", they shrug, shiver with the sense of the Unknown, and carry on.
Quote from: RPGPundit;995084How nonsensical can a dungeon be without your players complaining? I don't mean having goofy monsters or comedy, I mean things that are illogical: a Giant creature in a room with no doors big enough for him to get out of, an animal locked away in a room it can't open a door to that somehow hasn't starved to death, a dungeon that had been completely sealed for 10000 years that somehow has a bunch of non-undead intelligent monsters just living in it, a mishmash of creatures living right next to each other without killing each other, etc?
Do they allow a certain amount of irrationality? None at all? Or do they really not care about this kind of thing?
Depends on the player, but in general, they care and expect things to make some sense. Usually the way I present a game world, it conveys that things have a reason and make sense at least on an "it exists so it existed before and came from somewhere and that implies other things, unless it was conjured from thin air by some powerful specific in-game wizard (if those spells exist in this campaign, and BTW where do summoned creatures come from?", and so if something doesn't, they're not so likely to complain as to try to figure out why something seems to not make sense.
The examples you mentioned were are well past the line of obvious "this shouldn't exist, or it has to be magic/illusion" for my players, and for me creating stuff. I want stuff to have reasons for being there and a past and cause & effect and side-effects, even if it is entirely plausible that it's there.
Depending on the campaign, there may still be things that are hard to justify that I put in without realizing there were logical reasons why not. When/if I realize there are reasons why not, I tend to either think of a reason how/why, or put in a past event that changes it. i.e. if I've got two groups living right next to each other (either at a wilderness/dungeon location or hamlets in march distance), either they need a context that has them co-exist, hopefully an interesting one that can provide some fun play, or actually one was there before the other showed up and they fought and one won and the loser is either a ruin or a dependent/imprisoned group.
I often wonder where to draw the line on the ratio of population to military and adventurers and violence to support the amount of combat PCs/adventurers should see without it being a wild exception, and/or the population be dying off and/or the culture be adventurer-dominated. It bothers me when I notice that the death rate around the PCs implies that the population should be much higher and/or the local authorities should probably be regarding the party as an (invading or rogue) powerful military unit.
I like adventure locations such as a dungeon to have a history of why the place is laid out as it is, what groups may live there or visit there, what their goals and ways of doing things are, and then I want to keep track of what's going on as the PCs visit it. So not "when you get to room 14, there will be some guards just returning from patrol" but what are the guard/patrol patterns, if the guards start getting attacked how will they and the community respond, etc.
(And, I tend not to buy published modules/adventures/settings.)
Q: How Much do Your Players Care if a Dungeon "Makes Sense"?
A: A lot. But I wouldn't be using it if it didn't so the point is moot.
Edit: I haven't bought a module in decades, though, so what I prefer may not be relevant.
Quote from: Zalman;995141My players always notice, always assume there is a logical (if magical) reason for any situation, try to guess the reason and how the DM intends it to work for or against them, and care not one whit if they come up blank for answers to any of those questions. "It's a mystery!", they shrug, shiver with the sense of the Unknown, and carry on.
On top of that, sometimes the answers players come up with are so good, I'll include them in the game:
"How did the dragon survive in this cave for so long? How did it eat? I don't see an entrance big enough for a dragon. Why didn't the locals mention this, don't they know a dragon lives just a few miles away?"
Now as a DM, I might have forgotten theses details or simply not given a shit. HOWEVER, the imaginations of the players not only bailed me out, but set up future adventures:
"There must be a huge entrance concealed by magic.""The dragon must fly out in search of prey. Since the local villagers never mentioned it, the dragon must roam far afield for victims."
Incoherence bothers the majority of my players (and myself) a lot. Unless it is deliberately a breach of the setting's default reality, I'd rather not bother with that material. It'd end up defaulting into Monte Python Holy Grail response about Camelot, "Let us not go. It is a silly place." They'd likely walk and let it be someone else's problem. Oh sure, you could "consequence them" and have the madness leak out and chase them across the world. But by then you should have the Buy-In Talk instead of railroading your players into an unwanted adventure.
Quote from: RPGPundit;995084How nonsensical can a dungeon be without your players complaining? I don't mean having goofy monsters or comedy, I mean things that are illogical: a Giant creature in a room with no doors big enough for him to get out of, an animal locked away in a room it can't open a door to that somehow hasn't starved to death, a dungeon that had been completely sealed for 10000 years that somehow has a bunch of non-undead intelligent monsters just living in it, a mishmash of creatures living right next to each other without killing each other, etc?
Do they allow a certain amount of irrationality? None at all? Or do they really not care about this kind of thing?
None at all. They assume things make sense, and if they see any of your examples, they'd try to find out how that works, and probably a way to turn it to their profit:).
If they see the animal or giant creature, they'd want to know who put it there, and who feeds it.
If they see the non-undead in the sealed dungeon, they'd want to find the stasis pods or conclude it has been breeched.
If they see the mish-mash of monsters living next to each other, they'd try to sic them on each other.
So, you'd better have an answer to all of the above;).
They don't care much, though they may ask questions about inconsistencies after the session (to which I often reply, "Yeah, I'm just stupid."):-)
Quote from: AsenRG;995202None at all. They assume things make sense, and if they see any of your examples, they'd try to find out how that works, and probably a way to turn it to their profit:).
If they see the animal or giant creature, they'd want to know who put it there, and who feeds it.
If they see the non-undead in the sealed dungeon, they'd want to find the stasis pods or conclude it has been breeched.
If they see the mish-mash of monsters living next to each other, they'd try to sic them on each other.
So, you'd better have an answer to all of the above;).
^-- This!!! Exactly this!
Some of that depends on the dungeon and its nature. If they're exploring a very weird, magical kind of dungeon, players seem to be more accepting of that kind of thing, and will often assume there's a "magical" explanation for any oddities (and there usually is). If they're in a more mundane kind of "lair" dungeon, such oddities might attract attention and questions.
In general, I take that approach that weird and fantastic oddities might be present, but should make some sort of sense within the framework of the game world and the specific dungeon/site (so "verisimilitude within the game world" rather than "realism"). My players never complain about this kind of thing, so I guess whatever I'm doing is working fine.
Quote from: The Exploited.;995097Personally, in my old age, I prefer a dungeon to make some sort of sense. I'd prefer to investigate a lair or cult's haven.
But it only has to work with its own internal logic... So if the game is somewhat 'gonzo' then one could expect some kind of strangeness and that works for me too - because it works in the context of the game.
This. "Internal logic" is the key. My players expect that, almost always have. Except for Mary Ellen. She just wants a pet dragon.
Quote from: RPGPundit;995084How nonsensical can a dungeon be without your players complaining? I don't mean having goofy monsters or comedy, I mean things that are illogical: a Giant creature in a room with no doors big enough for him to get out of, an animal locked away in a room it can't open a door to that somehow hasn't starved to death, a dungeon that had been completely sealed for 10000 years that somehow has a bunch of non-undead intelligent monsters just living in it, a mishmash of creatures living right next to each other without killing each other, etc?
Do they allow a certain amount of irrationality? None at all? Or do they really not care about this kind of thing?
They tend to care a lot. If something jars then they coment on it, if it continues to jar they hate it, but if something then happens that makes it fit they love it.
Quote from: AsenRG;995202None at all. They assume things make sense, and if they see any of your examples, they'd try to find out how that works, and probably a way to turn it to their profit:).
If they see the animal or giant creature, they'd want to know who put it there, and who feeds it.
If they see the non-undead in the sealed dungeon, they'd want to find the stasis pods or conclude it has been breeched.
If they see the mish-mash of monsters living next to each other, they'd try to sic them on each other.
So, you'd better have an answer to all of the above;).
So yes, but you let the players do it for you? Fair enough.
Zip a dee doo dah, zip a dee ay...
OD&D is the game of "Explore the Fun House from Hell," and I wallow in it.
Now, I try my best to make sure players know BEFOREHAND that's what they're gonna get; the key to success is proper management of expectations.
Also, if somebody has an idea that might lead to a good adventure -- "Hey, I have an idea, if we can figure out how that gang of giants is getting their food..." --- I will HAPPILY come up with something "logical" or at least plausible enough for the purpose of an adventure.
But if somebody is busting my nuts because it's "unrealistic," I'll put a McDonald's on the seventh level of the dungeon. "The monsters eat FUCK YOU, Phil, that's what they eat."
Though I did take the last step recently of setting it up such that Lord Gronan has deliberately built this nightmare dungeon complex as a Darwinistic training ground for heroes.
"There are Things trying to eat this world. I don't want this world to be eaten; I'm not done living on it. If I were immortal, and could travel through space and time, I'd travel the time streams looking for the greatest heroes of all time. I'm not, I can't, so I don't. If you can thoroughly explore this entire dungeon over the next five years, you'll be good enough to be worth talking to."
It matters to me, a little (I accept that clearly monsters don't need to eat/drink anything like biology would require), but my players don't seem to notice. It may as well all be random.
In the last adventure, there was an intelligence draining trap. The players walk into the room, and there are a pair of troglodytes, standing right in the middle of the room and using poor camo, even talking "they can't see us, hur hur hur."
"Free Eeepee!" cry the heroes, who slaughter them. They go back and rest, and come back to the room...another trog, also acting stupid. "Free eeepee!" say the heroes as they slaughter another trog.
They hit the IQ-draining trap, but never make the connection...
My players probably wouldn't care if they knew what they were getting into in the first place. But I care, and I wouldn't get much enjoyment out of running an irrational dungeon. I didn't have a problem with them when I was 12 - but that was more than 3 decades ago, and hey, tastes change.
The person running this website is a racist who publicly advocates genocidal practices.
I am deleting my content.
I recommend you do the same.
I as a DM expect a Dungeon to make some sort of logical sense and the people I run DnD for expect that as well.
I'm not saying a whole ecology of the Dungeon has to be perfect, but at least some sort of effort for it to make sense it expected and required.
Quote from: Justin Alexander;995581And this is the reason why: "LOL NOTHING MAKES SENSE!" holds up in actual play right up until the point where the players decide they want to do more than just wander aimlessly from one room to the next, caving in the skulls of meaningless monsters with no purpose or reality beyond standing in those rooms waiting to get their skulls caved in.
Well, we're talking about dungeons, after all. Wondering the rooms can be taken for granted:).
The meaninglessness, however, isn't part of the deal;).
Quote from: RPGPundit;995084How nonsensical can a dungeon be without your players complaining? I don't mean having goofy monsters or comedy, I mean things that are illogical: a Giant creature in a room with no doors big enough for him to get out of, an animal locked away in a room it can't open a door to that somehow hasn't starved to death, a dungeon that had been completely sealed for 10000 years that somehow has a bunch of non-undead intelligent monsters just living in it, a mishmash of creatures living right next to each other without killing each other, etc?
Do they allow a certain amount of irrationality? None at all? Or do they really not care about this kind of thing?
They comment on it. I think a certain amount of gaming involves abstraction, and so some illogical stuff crops up. The more obvious stuff I try to avoid, but sometimes I bow to the logic of gaming over the logic of the "real world". It's a lot more fun to have a giant dragon on the bottom of the dungeon, and how he got in there is a mystery (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fq3abPnEEGE).
For me the dungeon needs to make rough sense or it feels too video gamey.
My players expect my dungeons to have some kind of reason for being as they are. I mean, "making sense" is an extension of the rule of thumb here: it's just like real life, except magic.
I make dungeons based in weird arcane shit all the time. But the pcs can figure out the underlying principles if they work at it.
Now that I'm think on it, I don't think I'd consider a dungeon successfully designed if it didn't make some kind of sense.
Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;995505Zip a dee doo dah, zip a dee ay...
OD&D is the game of "Explore the Fun House from Hell," and I wallow in it.
Now, I try my best to make sure players know BEFOREHAND that's what they're gonna get; the key to success is proper management of expectations.
Also, if somebody has an idea that might lead to a good adventure -- "Hey, I have an idea, if we can figure out how that gang of giants is getting their food..." --- I will HAPPILY come up with something "logical" or at least plausible enough for the purpose of an adventure.
But if somebody is busting my nuts because it's "unrealistic," I'll put a McDonald's on the seventh level of the dungeon. "The monsters eat FUCK YOU, Phil, that's what they eat."
Though I did take the last step recently of setting it up such that Lord Gronan has deliberately built this nightmare dungeon complex as a Darwinistic training ground for heroes.
Yea, this...
That isn't to say that sometimes logic won't play a part, it's just with the game OD&D, I don't feel obligated to make any specific thing logical or not.
Actually, the same even applies to my Classic Traveller game. If I want a giant vacuum breathing squid...
Frank
Quote from: Elfdart;995167On top of that, sometimes the answers players come up with are so good, I'll include them in the game:
"How did the dragon survive in this cave for so long? How did it eat? I don't see an entrance big enough for a dragon. Why didn't the locals mention this, don't they know a dragon lives just a few miles away?"
Now as a DM, I might have forgotten theses details or simply not given a shit. HOWEVER, the imaginations of the players not only bailed me out, but set up future adventures:
"There must be a huge entrance concealed by magic."
"The dragon must fly out in search of prey. Since the local villagers never mentioned it, the dragon must roam far afield for victims."
I always love it when my players come up with something and I can go, "sure, that works." :-)
First and foremost, it depends on the game. If I am playing a space faring sci-fi, things generally should make sense (within the genre conceits of the specific sci-fi universe. Yes, future tech is conveniently anthropo-convenient, etc.). For a D&D-style games with actual dungeons, my players generally understand that the dungeon exists for me to run their characters through and that the entire game-universe exists to facilitate that. They tend to scrutinize the dungeons existence and population with the same fine toothed comb that allows them not to care that the economy of the town where they buy their gear doesn't mathematically add up.
The level of verisimilitude that tends to break for them is usually the same as for watching television-- you know that in the show nothing that doesn't actually appear onscreen actually happens, but it would be nice if the show doesn't advertise that fact (unless it is a comedy and it is deliberately subverting that).
Example: you know how occasionally in shows the primaries will talk about someone or something like they weren't there, because they aren't onscreen. And then the camera will pan, and show said person reacting to what they said, and the primaries are surprised, even though
they should have been able to see the character in question? That's what I try to avoid. So if you make a big enough sound in a dungeon, the creatures behind a simple wooden door are going to hear it. That's the kind of realism I enforce. Where the denizens of the dungeon come from or how they eat (or where they poop, unless it'd be funny) are not of high concern.
Quote from: ffilz;995996Yea, this...
That isn't to say that sometimes logic won't play a part, it's just with the game OD&D, I don't feel obligated to make any specific thing logical or not.
Actually, the same even applies to my Classic Traveller game. If I want a giant vacuum breathing squid...
Frank
I find the key is to just assume and imply it makes sense and let the PCs do the work of figuring out how, if they care enough. Players can rationalize almost anything if they think it actually is supposed to make sense.
Quote from: Dumarest;996105I find the key is to just assume and imply it makes sense and let the PCs do the work of figuring out how, if they care enough. Players can rationalize almost anything if they think it actually is supposed to make sense.
So the answer is 'Yes, it DOES matter to your players'. I would think, and I'm not being sarcastic here, that if the players make an effort for a Dungeon to make sense to them, ergo, they care. As I understood the original question, it's not whether or not the players succeed at it, but rather that they find a need for the locale to make sense to them.
I could, of course, be wrong.
My dungons always make sense. If there are traps some one put them there. And that some one is either obsessive compulsive and increadibly disaplined. Or has an easy way to avoid the traps. Everything that eats has a food source. Every inteligent, and semi inteligent creature knows about every other creature and has a plan to deal with it. It could as simple as the cat knowing there is a rat living under the shead and planing to eat it one day if it gets a chance. Or it could be a formal written alliance between Orc's and Gnolls.
Even eleamentals, deamons and undead come from some place.
As a player I expect everything to make some kind of sense. I will start to have a bad time if it doesn't. Gonan I think you would find me insuferible in your games. I would have a real hard time controling my frustration with the random illogic of your dungeons. Until I found the MacDonalds. That would solve it all for me. That would be the key. Actually that would just help me aligne my expectations with the game we were playing. I would put aside a whole section of problem solving mental activly and just kick down the doors to bash in some monsterskulls.
Actully I would propose we set up an ambush out side the Micky D's. Everything gotta eat right?
I care a lot so my players really don't have a choice. I want it to make sense so it's easier for me to get into the game. When things are so out of control and don't make any sense within the context of the game world then it starts to bother me.
Quote from: RPGPundit;995084How nonsensical can a dungeon be without your players complaining? I don't mean having goofy monsters or comedy, I mean things that are illogical: a Giant creature in a room with no doors big enough for him to get out of, an animal locked away in a room it can't open a door to that somehow hasn't starved to death, a dungeon that had been completely sealed for 10000 years that somehow has a bunch of non-undead intelligent monsters just living in it, a mishmash of creatures living right next to each other without killing each other, etc?
Do they allow a certain amount of irrationality? None at all? Or do they really not care about this kind of thing?
I just realized that my previous answer ignored one thing. The players seem to spend a lot of time thinking about the logic of my campaign world. However,
once they go underground into the caverns and the excavated and constructed areas that we infest about ten percent of the time, they are pretty accepting of the common game conventions. On the other tentacle, I remember a PC explaining to the other PCs that an area that they had entered
was excavated long ago by Trolls and that she, as a Dwarf, would know that kind of thing. I had never told the player that and they had not encountered any of the clues about the area yet. The other PCs accepted her pronouncement because she is a Dwarf and should know these things. The scary thing is that she was right.
Quote from: Headless;996206My dungons always make sense. If there are traps some one put them there. And that some one is either obsessive compulsive and increadibly disaplined. Or has an easy way to avoid the traps. Everything that eats has a food source. Every inteligent, and semi inteligent creature knows about every other creature and has a plan to deal with it. It could as simple as the cat knowing there is a rat living under the shead and planing to eat it one day if it gets a chance. Or it could be a formal written alliance between Orc's and Gnolls.
Even eleamentals, deamons and undead come from some place.
As a player I expect everything to make some kind of sense. I will start to have a bad time if it doesn't. Gonan I think you would find me insuferible in your games. I would have a real hard time controling my frustration with the random illogic of your dungeons. Until I found the MacDonalds. That would solve it all for me. That would be the key. Actually that would just help me aligne my expectations with the game we were playing. I would put aside a whole section of problem solving mental activly and just kick down the doors to bash in some monsterskulls.
Actully I would propose we set up an ambush out side the Micky D's. Everything gotta eat right?
I have no problem with the fact that some people don't like that style game. Also, I try my best to make sure people know what they are in for before the game starts.
I'm in the dungeon needs to make sense camp. I like a little weird though, but too much weird ruins it for me.
I'm mostly in the 'don't care' slot myself. Except when it's something extremely absurd in a campaign that isn't supposed to be totally absurd (for example, a creature too impossibly large to leave the room it's found in, with no explanation of how it got there or how it's still alive).
But I definitely don't need to explain the subtle details of the ecology or sociology of a dungeon. And I DEFINITELY don't need to have a product do that for me.