Dungeons are the antithesis of the “real” world in D&D—the
world of plowing crops and brewing beer, where cattle and horses are valuable
commodities. Once the PCs enter the
dungeon, they walk willingly into the Unknown, into Otherness—into another
world that is out to get them, and from which they may never return.
Dungeon dressing sets the tone for the dungeon overall, but
also plays to variations within sections of levels and sub-levels, and helps
each to define and retain its own unique flavor in play. Consider Dave Cook’s A1 Slave Pits of the Undercity, with its reeking sewers level and
the orcish water-dripping drum beats resonating as PCs slosh through foul
waters, desperately trying to be quiet.
Contrast that with Lawrence Schick’s A4 In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords, where inbred kobolds and
stranger creatures stalk the crumbling caverns, and players must be ingenious
to create light, to find arms, and to
escape before the earthquakes and burgeoning volcanic eruption claim their
lives. Each differs strongly from the
other, and these nuanced differences can be reinforced by a Dungeon Master who
employs dungeon dressing to good effect.
Dungeon dressing breathes life into the empty rooms and
hallways that occupy roughly 60% of any given dungeon level’s space. Dungeon dressing punctuates the otherwise
drab 10’ x 10’ x 10’ cube with hints of something mundane or mysterious, of the
magical, or the odd, or the out-of-place.
Something that will, hopefully, pique the players’ curiosity, whet their
appetite, and fire their imagination with possibilities: will the old boots in the corner be
mismatched and rat-gnawed, or contain gems in a secret compartment in the sole;
be riddled with rot grubs, or be boots of
elvenkind?
Like the use of verticality in the dungeon environment in
general, dungeon dressing should not always be placed at floor level: the aforementioned boots could be hanging
from a peg on the wall or sit on a shelf 18’ up, and dungeon graffiti may be
scrawled on the ceiling or floor, as well as the walls, or even hang magically
in mid-air (in which case, it may reveal a different message if read from the
back instead of the front!). Driving
vertical challenges to the players at the local level of a room or a wall or a
hallway, in addition to the verticality of large-scale features, helps to
ground players in the need for climbers, multiple lengths of 50’ rope, 10’
poles, iron spikes, pitons, hammers, and the quotidian utility of movement and
exploration spells like feather fall,
jump, levitation, rope trick, and spider
climb.
Similarly, the style, frequency, and types of dungeon dressing
should vary depending upon the tone that the level sets. Through taunting riddles, strange portals,
the sheer busyness of its elaborate frescoes and bas-reliefs—and hideous death
traps, of course—S1 Tomb of Horrors
builds an overwhelming feeling of dread in PCs (and players, perhaps!), and of
ancient, undisturbed secrets best left unsought. In S1,
there is no surety—of return at all, of return via the same path trod entering,
of exiting with any possessions at all, of being the same
sex/race/alignment/class upon exit.
Dungeons like S1 change
adventurers, one way or the other. In
some cases, such changes are obvious (change of sex or race), others are
more-subtle, but regardless none who enter the Tomb of Horrors and similar environs, who partake of its dark
feasts and then return to tell their tales in taverns—none are the same, ever
again. In S4 Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth the details of battling Drelnza within
her opulent and spherical lair—and desperately trying to kill her without destroying the
treasures she guards—stand in stark contrast to the odious and oppressive depths
of Greater Caverns, and their myriad of strange portals and warped
inhabitants. The siren call of such dungeons
lure explorers into change from which they will only truly escape in death, and
their dungeon dressing acts as the foci around which the mood of the dungeons condense
in slow, rippling evil.
Some mysteries of dungeon dressing are not meant to be
solved immediately, if ever—otherwise they’re not mysteries, right? The whys, wherefores, and whens of who
created a shelf 18’ up the wall are best left unsolved for some time, especially
if players grow paranoid about flying creatures, giants, wall-crawlers, and
such in the meanwhile! That admonition applies
to both sides of the screen: DMs can and
should seed hints that raise player curiosity, that can blossom into future
encounters—or not—based on player activity in response, and leads that are not
followed-up on are sometimes more interesting than ones that the players latch
onto, as well…. When the players imbue minor
elements of dungeon dressing with greater significance as a result of their
attention, they are driving the game forward in the direction they desire,
which makes the game easier to manage and run, bridges the gap between
encounters, and makes D&D more fun for all of the participants.
Levels of Player Engagement with Encounters
In my campaign dungeons, encounter types typically span four “levels” of
player engagement (I used to use five levels, but combined two
levels of dungeon dressing into one after feedback):
- Nothing:
literally nothing to see here—search for secret doors and move along; I
try to insure that that a number of seemingly-empty rooms are, in fact,
empty, to help dungeon dressing stand out further
- Dungeon
dressing: spot color to maintain the game’s flow, provide distraction,
and avoid player boredom; some dressing will be simple spot color, while
some will be “special” dungeon dressing---dressing with inspirational
potential that could build into a something of significance, and perhaps
even a true encounter, depending upon the players’ actions in response
(i.e., when I'm winging it); in general, dungeon dressing should also
highlight the unique aspects of a level in the small, details that make
A1 differ from A4 (I dislike the term “special” so if you think of a
better adjective, please let me know!)
- Encounters: the usual
mix of monsters, treasures, traps, hazards, riddles, puzzles, tricks,
enigmas, and other dungeon features that wreak havoc upon PCs
- Centerpiece
encounters: the unique and distinctive encounters that resonate with
players across the years of a campaign, like the Black Reservoir and
Great Stone Face of Castle Greyhawk, and the Unopenable Doors and
Terrible Iron Golem of Maure Castle
Special dungeon dressing offers players spot color that
contains an order-of-magnitude-more potential than standard dungeon
dressing. Dungeon strangitude is when the dungeon background foregrounds, and
intrudes into the PCs’ reality — lacing it with mystery and madness, marvels
and mayhem. Dungeon strangitude defines
Zagig’s whimsy and Halaster’s cruelty—where the surreal and the anachronistic
are living, breathing laws of the land.
When I use standard dungeon dressing, it’s mostly scenery,
with some interesting bits thrown in for variety. With dungeon
strangitude, the monsters and environment often play dirty. For example, the PCs discover staked corpses
set before the dungeon entrance, to warn away potential invaders (or deeper
within, at a hallway eventually leading to the lair of an intelligent and
puissant foe). The corpses span local PC
and monstrous races: an elf, dwarf, and human,
side-by-side with a kobold, bugbear, gnoll, and ogre. Any creature who cares sufficiently about
their own kind to remove the corpses from their stakes to provide a proper
burial, may—in the minds of those issuing the warning—also be a credible
threat. So they infested the corpses
with rot grubs or yellow mold, covered them with contact poison, or turned them
into buboed incubators for disease. The
noble few who not only ignore the warning but act against with compassion can hopefully
be slain with little to no risk. That
said, special dungeon dressing must not become a “Special” detector: for special dungeon dressing to be unique and
interesting, dungeon dressing should usually remain mundane: most of the time, corpses are just dead
bodies rather than trap-laden warnings.
When special dungeon dressing appears too frequently and is overdone—as
with any element in a dungeon’s environment—it spoils the encounter, ruins the
mood, and detracts from the tone of the entire level.
Example of Dungeon Dressing:
Doors
Consult this table when you want to insert some colorful doors
into your dungeon; the table mixes together what I consider levels 2-4 of
encounter types:
d100 Result
01-08 Door
is wizard locked at level (roll 2d6):
2: Dungeon
level – 2d4 (minimum, level 3)
3-4: Dungeon
level – 1d4 (minimum, level 3)
5-6: Dungeon
level (minimum, level 3)
7-9: Dungeon
level + 1d6 (minimum, level 3)
10-11: Dungeon
level + 2d6
12: Dungeon
level + 4d4
09 Door
is held (hold portal; roll 1d10 on the table above for wizard lock to
determine level of
the caster, and wing the remaining duration; given the
short duration on hold portal, the caster is either
nearby, or likely already
in flight….)
12-15 Door
is one-way
16-22 Door
is locked
23-27 Door
is barred (roll 1d6: 1-3 singly, 4-5
doubly, 6 triply)
28-30 Door
frame is present, but the door and its hinges and hinge pins have
been removed
31-40 Door is trapped (DM to provide details)
41-47 Door is of special construction (roll 2d6):
2:
Door is metal, air tight,
and looks and functions like a
submarine hatch
3-4: Door
is a Dutch door (split in half horizontally; each half
opens and locks
independently)
5-6: Door
is equipped with a covered aperture (which may
or may not have a grille on the
other side of the cover to prevent passage of objects through the aperture when
open)
7-9: Door
is equipped with a peep hole (that may be obvious or
hidden, one-way
or usable from either side)
10-11: Door is created from an interesting but non-valuable
substance: steel bars, stone, blood, mercury, magma,
moonlight, flesh, etc.
12: Door is a composite, whether a mosaic,
jigsaw puzzle, or
simply created
from multiple substances, and may or may
not be complete, and may open once
complete (or when
made incomplete)
48-50 Door
only opens to (roll 2d6):
2: Creatures
from its home plane (not the dungeon’s plane)
3-4: Monsters
only
5-6: Creatures
of a particular class
7-9: Creatures
of a particular alignment (could be an particular
alignment like LE
or a general ethos like “any Neutral”)
10-11: Creatures
of a particular sex
12: Creatures
of a minimum level or HD
51 Door
is intelligent; DM will have to create its personality and
motivations, which
will influence whether it allows PCs to pass, as well
as whether and how
it can defend itself
52-53 Roll
1d6: 1-3 Door is a teleporter, 4-5 Door is a gate,
6 Door is a teleporter or
gate and functions only after 2-5
characters pass through the door
54-57 Door
is monstrous, or has a monster bound within it or nearby (roll
1d12):
1: Demon/devil/guardian
daemon/deva or other outer-
planar monster
2-3: Undead
(shadow, wraith, spectre, etc.; the infamous
“Dread
Portal” from Undermountain)
5-6: Mimic (roll 1d6: 1-4:
intelligent mimic, 5-6: killer
mimic)
7-9: Ear seekers have infested the door
10-11: Yellow or brown mold has infested the door
12: Door is a golem, and will animate to
attack PCs
58 Door
is made from a precious metal, gemstone, or some other valuable
substance, and is
worth a fortune; it presumably cannot be removed for
some reason, or else it would
probably be gone already
59-63 Door
is written upon (roll 2d6):
2: Nonsense verses (I recommend Lear or
Carroll)
3-4: Dungeon
graffiti in a PC language
5-6: A palimpsest of overlaying graffiti, much
of which has
been rendered
illegible over time
7-9: Dungeon graffiti in a monster language
10-11:
Door depicts some scene or map, whether
drawn,
painted, gouged,
carved, etc.
12:
Magical writing (explosive runes, sepia snake sigil, confuse
languages, symbol, glyph of warding,
wizard mark, etc.), or
other effects (magic mouth, secret page, maze, sanctuary, etc.)
64 Door
only opens upon the proper answer to a riddle, or when told a
story or sung to,
or when kissed by a virgin, or when fed, etc.
65-72 Door
is concealed
73-82 Door
is a secret door
83-86 Door
is a false door (roll 1d6: 1-3 Door is
false, 4-5 False door is trapped,
6
False door conceals a secret door)
87 Door
can only be opened (or unlocked) from a remote location
88-92 Door
is scarred by (roll 2d6):
2: Acid
3-4: Scored by monstrous claws, hacked by axes,
pitted, etc.
5-9: Fire
10-11: Water (water marked and swollen, rotten wood,
etc.)
12: Door has been warped (if wood) or stone
shaped in some
manner, to enable
passage in (or out)
93-94 Door
is features bas-relief or is sculpted to resemble some creature, scene,
object, person,
etc.
95 Door
is invisible, ethereal, out of phase, a
shadow door, or otherwise not-quite-
there (and may be
periodic, in the manner of variable
features)
96-97 Door
is open (roll 1d6: 1-4 Door works
normally, 5-6 Door won’t remain
closed unless
spiked)
98-99 Roll
twice
100 Roll
three times
Enjoy!
Allan.
"Dungeon Strangitude: Variations on Dungeon Dressing and Setting the Tone" first appeared in Knockspell Magazine #2
(Spring 2009). This version of the article includes the errata
published in FKQ#3 that fixed the entries for 31-40 and 41-47, which were dropped from table when originally published. I've also collapsed the original five levels of encounter engagement down to four after feedback from readers.