I'm an amateur writer and I have incorporated the idea from my writing into the years of running games. It's what I tell my players that have branched off to run their own games: try and use as many of the five senses as possible when setting up the scene or the setting. I use it when describing combat, etc. "As your sword passes through the goblins stomach, you feel the warm splatter of blood spray across your face and the foul stench of bile assaults your nose." Or: "As you step into the room, the damp chills your skin, the soft tap of dripping water echoes your breathing. You feel the hairs on the back of your neck tingle...something is off." Now please roll for initiative.

I love it when RPG mainframe drops.

My players are currently going through the Fortress of Sorrows. What they know is that it is a ziggurat-like temple built atop the mass grave of some ancient apocalypse nobody really understands. While it's a 'typical dungeon', they have crawled through rooms of statues that come alive and attack if anyone makes too much noise, living quarters of priests hideously warped into emaciated half-crocodilian zombies (They've met one before, they put him to sleep and the demon possessing him assumed direct control, very spooky), a room with an onyx statue of some vague dark shadow man god of the forest and blood sacrifice, and they recently bumbled into a chapel with a wooden balcony for sermons with a huge yellow spiral of bricks on the floor and taxidermied animals with gold coins (with the spiral pattern on them) replacing their eyes and that have been animated by some dark presence. They're literally just trying to get out, to see if they can meet a blind princess that supposedly might be in the nearby town. But they decided to be teleported into the dungeon knowing the risks instead of the forest that would risk maybe 2-3 encounters in the forest travelling and use a 3-4 more days of rations. They literally chose to save rations, I'm so proud.

What an intro

with your timeless advice it truly is the podcast made to last

I like the way you set this up a lot. Also, Speaking of someone who has just started using terrain in my games, you Made a really important point about how much of Dwarven Forge looks identical

Over the years all the way back to drunkenness and Dragons, I have looked to this channel for inspiration and insight and you never cease to deliver sir. I ended up doing that video introduction and whatnot for the War Pigs scenario back in the day and it looks like many people have used it for their game which is awesome... I know that you have a more professional version of it available that I do intend to grab sooner than later

Excellent video, thanks. Liked and subscribed. Exactly: a dungeon shouldn't be a static place.

Hey I know this an old podcast, but it’s the first time I’ve run across it. I’ve also been thinking along some of the same lines, and wanted to take a moment to add to your collection of thoughts. In regards to your “changing the music”, to change the mood from scene to scene, one way I’ve done this is by the set pieces or the possible monsters I use. For example, I ran a game where I wanted to add that creepy feel and increase tension. It was a chapel of sorts inside a dungeon that they needed to go through to get to a treasure area. The chapel had rows of pews and shoulder high candelabras at the end of each pew. Then sitting in the rows of pews were about 16 cloak wearing skeletons randomly spaced in the 8 rows of pews. My intention was to merely increase the tension as the party moved from a relative safe area to different area, but I didn’t want to just attack with a monster, I wanted the PCs to start feeling nervous. This was also an area for the mage to shine since there were spell scrolls in the podium at the front of the chapel and a fireball spell would do big damage to the skeletons. I did two very intentional things to increase that mood of foreboding. 1st - The cloaked/hooded skeletons, seemingly heads bowed in prayer DID NOT MOVE. They stayed completely still. The activation trigger for them was loud noise. The PCs on their own started to move slow and speak in hushed tones, because they didn’t know what would trigger the skeleton, or even if the skeletons were just skeletons or actual undead. 2nd - the next thin was the candelabras at the end of each pew. They were essentially traps. As soon as a PC passed by a candelabra I made a secret roll for DEX to see if the PC would inadvertently bump into a candelabra causing it to tip over. This inevitably happened as a PC passed by the fourth candelabra. I then had the PC make an EASY DEX check to see if they could catch the candelabra before it crashed to the ground. This of course heightened the tension as everyone held their breath to see if the PC was able to make their roll to catch the candelabra. Earlier I used another similar situation to “change the music” or increase the volume. The party entered a large cavern area with a chasm, with a bridge that needed to be crossed to combat a guardian at the other end of the bridge. I filled the cavern with dangling spider webs that shifted with the breeze and extended up into the darkness of the high ceilinged cavern. Later in an earthquake damaged treasure room with cracks that connected with the earlier chasm (and home to two mimics one posing as a door and the other posing as a pile of treasure), I also scattered the area with the remains of spider carapace parts. The PC party never actually saw a single spider during their time in this essentially 7 room/scene dungeon, but it sure put them on edge always checking for spiders and looking into dark corners. This “changing up the music” can be done effectively with failed or malfunctioning traps that have no chance of harming PCs but are intended to merely put the players on edge. A spring spiked-door trap that slams down onto a PC that attempts to open the door. Just finding one of these door traps with it caught in the down position because it still has a decomposed adventurer stuck to the spikes causing the door to periodically shimmy as it tries to return to the reset position can change to tone putting the PC party on edge. Of course the mood can be switched back and forth by interjecting a “random” encounter of some silly little creature that lightens the mood, say some Don Quixote little sprite that challenges the PC party to a duel because one of the PCs clumsily stepped and crushed his Sancho. One final thing I purposely did in this dungeon was change the environment as a clue. The whole dungeon was your standard boring stone dungeon as was described in the podcast intro (except for the cavern/chasm/bridge scene). But there was one area that was different. There was a long wide stairway finely worked in rich hardwood. Upon closer inspection, and looking from the bottom of the stairway (looking up the stairs), PCs had a chance to notice a sectioned rod made of brass connecting the bottom of one step to the top of the next step. This turned out to be a hinge with internal (under the stairs) counter-weights, that allowed the PCs to merely lift the stairs to reveal a passage that lead to a room that held the artifact they were searching for. So these are some of the ways I’ve changed the “music” in my dungeons.

I have to say I have listened to a fair amount of your content over the years, but have not been a huge fan. Not criticizing, just not my style. This podcast, however, is pretty genius!. You really hit the nail on the head, and pointed out a deficiency that I think everyone needs to stop and think about to make their games better. Impressive!

Wow 4 years... Love the RPG mainframe, thanks a lot Hank for your wisdom.

Been a minute since I spent some time with ol' Hank. Glad to be back and happy as shit he's still doin' his thang!

I like the idea of making the dungeon more informative. I tend to be too cluttery and am afraid of writing a three paragraph description of each room that isn't that important. I will mix up temperature and from rotting to intact. But you have to keep it simple or it gets ridiculous. Smell and Lighting I try to switch up. Though I don't use smell as much. Tegel Manor from Judges Guild(1980ish) had one of the all-time best parchment like maps for a haunted house. The room descriptions in this module are very minimalist. Supplementing these were the map with corridors and rooms that had sounds and smells or lighting effects written on them. Dragging chains, giggling, thunder alley, a distant sneeze, light through disturbed dust. You would hear crackling like a fire at a door and when you entered it was a web shrouded room with a long disused fireplace inside. There was a singing swordsmen's hall. You hear a pitiful meow just before you entered the abode of a giant cat. They were tiny indications on the map that gave you information, some of it useless, some of it tied directly to what you would encounter next. Nice economical way to create interest in the environment. Riotous laughter, mumbling, clanking, mice, just something that changed up your old dilapidated haunted house. They have a pool where the deck is covered in slippery condensation. Thanks. Interesting. Undermountain was like second edition, 1991.

@GIJoeFactotum

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I love the map idea with the descriptors. When putting in room descriptions I try to just use bullet points with descriptor words. -slimy moss stones -dripping water - puddles/pools w/ little egg clusters - thin stalk white mushrooms that glow. Using bullet points gives me the feel and details I want to convey, but it forces me to fill in the details according to the map I'm linking the information with. This puts me in a position where I'm not just reading from my own text making it sound rote, but actually describing it as I would see it. So it ends up being different if I run a different party through the same area, but that's okay, because it sounds like being there in the present.

@biffstrong1079

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@@GIJoeFactotum Still my Favourite DND map and fifty years old. Bob Bledsaw wrote it I believe.

@biffstrong1079

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@@GIJoeFactotum Something that gives it character and something you can play with without devolving into a travelogue. I have that travelogue problem. One of these advice sites suggests if it's not important stop talking about it.

There is something I think you may be missing, or I should say something that I think is largely overlooked in TTRPG dungeon design, and that is connecting passages. What I mean is that in most TTRPG mega-dungeons the rooms are essentially just stacked up next to and on top of all the other rooms. This makes it quite difficult to give each room a totally different theme/style without it seeming weird or jarring when the rooms completely clash and being so close to each other. It seems that in many real world examples of this type of things it’s usually a cluster of a few rooms and then passage ways that lead to another cluster of rooms. I’m trying to incorporate this in my dungeon map designs. This is what it would look like: 1) You have a cluster of 2-5 rooms. These rooms are all considered the same scene and close enough that PCs can move between rooms for combat, possibly making monster more fun with PC moving from room to room attempting to get behind the monster or lure it into a trap. This allows you to “split” the part without really splitting the party since your all within shouting distance of each other. 2) Then that cluster of rooms might have one or quite possibly more exits that lead to other room clusters. This can easily facilitate a different theme, from room styles, to different monster groupings. 3) These room cluster (and their exits) are connected to passage ways that could be quite lengthy, requiring the PC party to a 30 minutes or even up to a normal day’s travel to reach the next cluster of rooms. These passages could wind, bend, and intersect, around and with other passages. Think of it as a bowl of spaghetti and meatballs. The meatballs are the room clusters and the spaghetti are the passages connecting the room clusters (maybe with less spaghetti). The passages could all have their own themes, such as: 1) A lava tube with a lower section for travel, and an upper area that has overhangs great for ambushes or even retreating to in order to hide and rest. 2) Dwarven highways - Large stonework corridors with pillars and side rooms. Maybe even with stairways and waystations along the way like the Mines of Moria. 3) Cracks and tunnels created by earthquakes or older cave networks. 4) Underground rivers (or narrow lake) either in their unaltered state, or prepped for travel by earlier civilizations with iron rings set into the walls, and chains or ropes connecting the rings, so the PCs can pull a boat along the river either downstream or upstream. 5) General long strait dungeon corridor with some other distinguishing feature such as: intermittent caved in areas the PCs have to pause and dig through a few feet of soil and rocks, or magically lit torches along the route, or any other interesting feature like lichen covered floors, dripping water from the ceiling forming large puddles, or goblin graffitied walls. With the passages all being fairly long and each being their own scene with their own style, this serves a few useful purposes: 1) They become like long large rooms with interesting set-ups for creature interactions and/or battle. 2) This cuts down on the need for mapping because the players start associating the theme of the passages with the themes of the room clusters. “Oh yeah, I think I know where we’re at. This is the lava tube with the blue glowing mushrooms, if we head due North we should come out at the area that has all the sacrificial hieroglyphs/pictograms on the walls, and the one large tomb with the skeleton we killed.” 3) These long connecting passages between room clusters allow the PC party a little down time if they can find a good hiding place or an area that can be barricaded. For in-game management this also works as good stopping points since these passages are fairly empty except for being used by infrequent underground travelers. OR maybe not - maybe theirs a tool booth halfway along manned by some enterprising orcs that would rather keep the 3 mile long passage clear of vermin and charge a toll for their effort than having to deal with the more dangerous possibility of being in an orc war band always looking for combat. 4) This also makes it more easy for PC parties to get out of a mega-dungeon if they need to so as not getting stuck in a giant overcrowded maze or a confusing empty labyrinth that boringly needs to be meticulously mapped so you don’t get lost. “Don’t worry lads. If we take this unground river with the planked walk-way downstream, and don’t take any of the side-tunnels, it eventually comes out at Umnoth waterfalls. Then its just a two hour hike back to Gloomshire, and we’re right as rain.” So - just a few ideas.

Thanks for the vid! Mood music can certainly highten the scene, be it action/battle, tense chase, horror, somber, etc. Having those moments to shine that spotlight on players given their skill sets is an awesome way to pull them in and make them feel cool and proud they made those investments in skills/feats, etc. The cut away is a great way to remind players of their goals/mission of the session. It's also a great way to give players lore, about the world...factions, history, religion, monster lore, etc. Definitely want to ensure you do the cut away at the right moment as you don't want to kill the momentum say during a battle.

Best intro yet 👌

oh SHIT!! Greetings, Program! Been so long since I heard that one!

Most dungeons are too monotone or too disjointed. Balance is key. Each component should be differentiated, but it should also contribute to the overarching tone and atmosphere, rather than subtract from it.

Great ideas here

Some fantastic observations here. Agree with music on Roll20. Thanks for sharing!

Awesome. Great length also 😊

Good stuff. Very practical and useful ideas. Thanks!

I'm hoping I can use this advice to improve the experience for one of my players who seems to get lost in the weeds and lose track of what's going on and why they're doing things and why it matters.

Awesome episode - thank you!

Thanks for a great video. ✌🏻😁

This was the topic I needed for my game!!

Spectacular video. Really good stuff within regard to challenging the senses and actively attempting to capture a different "vibe" per room or area. I've been having a lot of trouble lately making my first town on the outskirts of the city have a certain aesthetic but still have a reasonable amount of differentiation, and while I know it isn't exactly a dungeon, there are definitely parts of this video which I can work on to actively apply or reskin onto the locale. Thanks so much!

Interesting! I'll try to remember

"Meanwhile back at the Ranch"

I like this mainframe

M I N D F U L L Y

just before 21:30, I don't think it has to be meta (although I understand many people will define it that way)it is just skipping over confusion to the interesting game and tactical choices. I could make a longer argument that this is abstraction rather than meta gaming. The info represents what they would know without simulating each sense. I get that some game styles want to test that listening skill and that is ok, they are just different games.