At first I just thought my problem was technique. So I looked up everything I could on the technicals of dungeon design, castlevania design in particular. And I learned a thing or two that I know will work down the line. But when I showed some of my designs to Andy he responded back that they felt hollow, more like a bad video game level than a dungeon. I knew it wasn't the principles that I had grabbed from what I had read was the problem, because I had noticed those principles (guiding by making soft keys, layout, using mechanics to lay out a theme for the dungeon) were also in good TTRPG dungeons. There was something ephemeral that I was missing, and I knew it. So I shelved the designs (especially Kobold Hall, a place that I will return to) and sat on it for awhile. I had Burning Wheel games going on and knew that I needed to keep my focus there. I figured the answer would present itself in time.
It didn't. I grew impatient.
At one point Thor and Luke ran an AMA on Reddit, so I thought I would ask for the Torchbearer equivalent of The Adventure Burner, hoping that I could get the insight from it that I had originally gotten for Burning Wheel. Thor, understandably, told me that wasn't much of an option and that he thought Mordite Press had it covered.
I devoured their articles. I was still stumped.
Now, at this point I'm sitting there going "Jeez, it's not these people, it's me!" There was some unspoken experience of a dungeon that they had that I was simply not hearing. Like with Burning Wheel before it, there was something crucial missing in my own experiences that meant I could not hear what they were telling me. I could feel a part of me not hearing them. And it frustrated me. I stopped reading. I went back to Burning Wheel, focusing on the narrative that I knew how to do. I figured the answer would present itself in time.
Oof, I would have to wait awhile. Fortunately Andy, Ryan, and Bryna are awesome gamers and I got lost in our campaigns. And who can blame me? They're friggin' awesome games and I'm ridiculously proud of them. I personally think a good GM takes their inner darkness, channels it, and makes it something constructive, something that others can interact with in a meaningful and positive way. And I feel like I'm finally starting to do that: make problems that are personal, important, and human. I've a long way to go as a GM but I'd be lying if I wasn't actively improving because of those three games. But my failure at making good dungeons just kept poking at the back of my mind. I ignored it, focusing on what I knew how to do.
And then just earlier today, at the time of this writing, it just dropped into my lap.
Someone on Reddit linked to a dungeon generator, which he claimed to be pretty good. I started looking through it. Maybe I could get inspired! And I was, but not in the way the dungeon generator intended. There were two major features of this generator: the mission statement and the layout. The mission statement grabbed me: it always stated what the place was, and then stated who was just then occupying it and why. And it clicked. I don't know why it did, but it clicked!
Dungeons are the intersection of the past and present.
Someone built the structure. Their story, and its downfall, are part of that structure. Maybe someone ran in and killed everyone and you see bodies everywhere, or skeletons, or what have you. But there is a story, a narrative, about that place. It's why I find Dark Souls so interesting, because as you walk through its dungeons you can feel the history, the story, about that place. Most of the important items are placed on corpses, or in chests that were clearly meant to be guarded by the creatures in front of them. But the original people are lost to memory. All you have about them know are the buildings that they left behind. What they valued, who they were, are a part of the structure. They were made in response to certain problems they were facing at the time. All of those things at that time are gone, or usually are, and just the structure remains, now archaic and mysterious. Why did they design a staircase that turned in the Lakebed Temple in Twilight Princess? Or the Duke's Archives? What function did it serve? Whatever it was, it's not what it's used for in those games.
But then there's who's in the structure now. The previous story, the dungeon, has something in common with the new story. The new folks may or may not know what caused the previous story to end so badly, but they're here now, trying to adapt the structure, the old story, to their needs. How and if they are accomplishing that is part of the structure now. And that's before we get into how long it's been since the structure was initially abandoned. You apply these two narratives (time passing and what the current inhabitants are doing with it) on top of the old one, and presto! You have pressure cooker that blows up when the players wander in, trying to survive. And, in their attempts to just get a quick buck, they have to become heroes. They need to end the conflict that they had no part of.
The players enter a secret world, one which very little to do with the one where they were outcasts, and become something far more. But they still have to eat. And the outside world doesn't know what they're turning into, and they don't care, not one bit. Overtime a NeverWhere effect is achieved; you become the heroes of this Old London of sorts, with its own ecosystem and stories and all things that have fragmented, corroded, rotted away. And, by coming and making peace with those things, you make it into something new, whether it that you are allowing it to pass peacefully, murdered, or to integrate with the world above.
Funny what one can get out of just a few lines of text, ain't it?
Please don't ask why the hell it took me over 15 years to figure that out. Just don't.
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