Dungeons That Make Sense
I view the phrase "make sense" with suspicion. Because at the end of the day, what it's always really going to be is "make sense to my puny human brain," and I don't think anything, in the real world or fantasy world, is obligated to make sense to puny human brains.
In fact, I've done some experiments in creating dungeons straight out of Appendix A. What I found is that in designing dungeons that way, you take on something very similar to what the first-hand experience of players going through the dungeon will have. By not knowing from the start what this dungeon is supposed to be, I found my mind constantly working to figure it out. In other words, the dungeon didn't have to "make sense"--my brain would try to make sense out of it.
At first, things wouldn't make sense at all. Not enough information to draw any conclusions. And this had me endlessly curious to find out what was behind the next corner. This is HUGE. You read any advice on putting together a great adventure--or even if you were to pull your thoughts on the matter off the top of your head--it's going to be encounters, challenges, and rewards. Be that monsters or traps. Gold or friendships. Whether ir requires puzzle-solving, role-play, or combat to resolve. Here, what I was finding, is exploring this dungeon was a lot of fun, even if I never fought a single creature, contended with a single trap, solved a single riddle, or found a single copper.
Sooner or later, I had enough of the dungeon mapped out where it started to look like something. And actually all the random twists and turns that we'd normally say don't make sense coalesced quite eerily into a definite theme. Some dungeons took a lot longer than others for me to reach this point. In one case, it was very obvious half way through mapping the first level that this was a church basement or crypt. My first one took mapping out 6 dungeon levels, in some cases lower levels going to otherwise inaccessible areas on the upper levels, before it became clear to me what it was. Granted, this was all cloud gazing. But it was still a pretty awesome payoff.
Once I figured it out, it continued to be fun to explore for a little bit. But the fun fades soon after. The dungeon had lost a lot of its mystique now that I knew what it was. New twists and turns either fit exactly what I expected and were therefore predictable and boring. Or they went against my expectations, which is a lot like releasing new Star Wars movies decades after the original, when fans had a lot of years to internalize it, and now the new stuff wasn't syncing up with that image held as true for so long. I would grant at this point and beyond it may be better for things to make sense, but it matters little since it's no longer fun and time to wrap up the crawl.
My conclusion is not only is making sense not necessary--it's going to make sense regardless. But making it fit into your tiny human brain is actually a negative in that your dungeon will be easier to figure out and will lose its mystique a lot faster. So please, be humble. Recognize your puny human brain is insufficient to grok the real world at times. The fantasy world should be at least as mysterious.
In fact, I've done some experiments in creating dungeons straight out of Appendix A. What I found is that in designing dungeons that way, you take on something very similar to what the first-hand experience of players going through the dungeon will have. By not knowing from the start what this dungeon is supposed to be, I found my mind constantly working to figure it out. In other words, the dungeon didn't have to "make sense"--my brain would try to make sense out of it.
At first, things wouldn't make sense at all. Not enough information to draw any conclusions. And this had me endlessly curious to find out what was behind the next corner. This is HUGE. You read any advice on putting together a great adventure--or even if you were to pull your thoughts on the matter off the top of your head--it's going to be encounters, challenges, and rewards. Be that monsters or traps. Gold or friendships. Whether ir requires puzzle-solving, role-play, or combat to resolve. Here, what I was finding, is exploring this dungeon was a lot of fun, even if I never fought a single creature, contended with a single trap, solved a single riddle, or found a single copper.
Sooner or later, I had enough of the dungeon mapped out where it started to look like something. And actually all the random twists and turns that we'd normally say don't make sense coalesced quite eerily into a definite theme. Some dungeons took a lot longer than others for me to reach this point. In one case, it was very obvious half way through mapping the first level that this was a church basement or crypt. My first one took mapping out 6 dungeon levels, in some cases lower levels going to otherwise inaccessible areas on the upper levels, before it became clear to me what it was. Granted, this was all cloud gazing. But it was still a pretty awesome payoff.
Once I figured it out, it continued to be fun to explore for a little bit. But the fun fades soon after. The dungeon had lost a lot of its mystique now that I knew what it was. New twists and turns either fit exactly what I expected and were therefore predictable and boring. Or they went against my expectations, which is a lot like releasing new Star Wars movies decades after the original, when fans had a lot of years to internalize it, and now the new stuff wasn't syncing up with that image held as true for so long. I would grant at this point and beyond it may be better for things to make sense, but it matters little since it's no longer fun and time to wrap up the crawl.
My conclusion is not only is making sense not necessary--it's going to make sense regardless. But making it fit into your tiny human brain is actually a negative in that your dungeon will be easier to figure out and will lose its mystique a lot faster. So please, be humble. Recognize your puny human brain is insufficient to grok the real world at times. The fantasy world should be at least as mysterious.
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