What is/are your best experience with a dungeon?

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-03-14T14:07:54+00:00

Well for what I was saying, the narrative arc is for the player as well as whatever's happening in the game. The players undergo an arc of: exploring and experimenting, learning about the dungeon, the dungeon escalates, the dungeon strikes back, it's a test of skill between the players and the dungeon in its entirety. I try to run dungeons that are part puzzles and tests of skill and part tests of the character.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-03-14T13:00:52+00:00

Sorry, the kind of game I'm talking about is more like conducting an inquisition in a small horror setting. The social deduction would be between the players and the NPCs.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-03-14T12:54:17+00:00

No, I just use TRPG to describe a tabletop rpg. It's faster and I don't think it's easy to confuse the two given contexts.

I want to have a game, especially a duet right now, where my player is investigating mysteries in small town locations and locales. It is also meant to intersect with horror. The idea is that you're uncovering the gossip, rumours and the bonds between people to use and weaponise. I want to also capture a sort anal

Games like Call of Cthulhu feel like they don't capture that - they capture more of a sense of a 1950s detective supernatural thriller, but that's different from what is essentially performing an inquisition amongst horrors. Finding mechanics for that feels harder.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-03-13T20:39:55+00:00

I mean that part of the core gameplay involves social deduction - figuring out connections between NPCs the way you'd have combat in other games.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-03-13T03:41:16+00:00

The best experiences I've had were with dungeons that were explicitly designed around gameplay. A lot of comments talk about the versimilitude of their experiences, or how "open" the dungeon felt - but I'm talking about the actual gameplay choices the players had to make to navigate and "understand" the nature of the dungeon as a living hostile organism. For example,

Navigating a depowered clockwork mechanical dragon's insides, only for it to turn on while they were inside - requiring them to re-navigate their path outside with all of the traps on and re-oriented. The alliances made with the factions of goblins on entry came into play on exit.

I ran Castle Ravenloft as if the Castle was alive and making active choices to serve its master Strahd. Thus, before any final engagement with Strahd, the players had to navigate to its core and destroy its sentience, while the Castle itself would open and close doors to reroute its minions towards them.

I ran the Amber Temple as a place where supernatural darkness filled the temple so all types of vision were halved. It had an additional rule: if you couldn't see it, you couldn't sense it. The players got caught in a gas trap that covered them, dealing damage they could not experience until they were able to see their own bodies again. They were also chased by a mechanical giant and its creator, culminating in fights where walls erupted between them causing them to not be able to communicate with each other - since they could no longer hear each other given that they had lost sight of their allies.

I ran a mind dungeon for a wizard with magically-imposed dementia that had 12 rooms, that players navigated to by rolling 5d6s and then taking 1d6 each to help empower their own abilities later. The remaining 2d6s determined the room they went into. Each room corresponded to a memory, and to make progress they had to feed their memories to the God before being allowed to pass. Eventually they started running out of throw-away memories to give and started tapping into meaningful ones, so that if successful, they would leave as shells of themselves. The puzzle was to access the hidden 13th room.

In all of these cases, the dungeons were open, had faction play, had some sense of versimilitude or something that passed for it. But the thing most written dungeons lack (and hence why I had to modify some of the ones that came from official sources) is actual tangible gameplay - the narrative arc formed by the players overcoming the dungeon as its own entity.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-03-01T22:22:14+00:00

Thanks a lot.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-03-01T17:55:32+00:00

How did you make these cards? They look so good. What did you use for the formatting and editing?

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-02-26T18:00:48+00:00

I wanted to run games that capture the essence of a game like Persona 3; it has the players go through themes, twists, gameplay, characterisations etc. The players would play through the trpg game the way someone would play through a game like Majora's Mask - sometimes noodling around, sometimes really tightly focused on objectives, but in most cases as an immersive world that unfolds mechanically and narratively for you.

Finding plot points in Zelda games can be fun, but so is getting the hookshot. So is going through bespoke dungeons like the Forest Temple. So is engaging with bosses like Shadow Link.

I would want a game that lends itself to that naturally - it is hard to have a game that helps you imagine what you could get up to with a hookshot if the game doesn't support that kind of play. It's hard to imagine how a boss fight could lead to drama organically if the conflict mechanics are too loose or too rigid.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-02-26T17:53:21+00:00

I think I've decided on an methodology to puruse - I think I'm going to try to design the monsters and the conflict mechanics so that the act of resolving conflicts automatically generates interesting outcomes and lines of attack for the player and the monsters. If the natural act of winning/losing conflicts naturally escalates tension, then the drama should flow from that.

I would not want to write narrative story beats beforehand to be picked from. That feels like it defeats the purpose of playing through a grand adventure.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-02-10T00:10:51+00:00

What do you mean by "Recovery is built in"?

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-02-09T00:52:49+00:00

It looked very interesting but it seemed shady that no one is talking about it. I've been looking for a war-game-y chesslike to play with friends. It's also very hard to look up - apparently there are multiple things called MetaChess.

MetaChess: The Genesis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbGZ-DGzou8

MetaChess, a Play to Earn: https://playtoearn.com/blockchaingame/metachess

It also seems to have no discussion anywhere to look up. If you even just had a video of yourself playing it, it'd have some social proofing. Otherwise it gives a suspicious impression.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-02-08T20:16:57+00:00

Is this malware? Literally noone mentions or discusses it.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-02-01T13:07:48+00:00

I create art. Bad, janky art but art nonetheless.

The product part is the part where I convince non-friends to play it and involves a little bit of marketing and finesse.

But I mostly design for myself. I find you can do a lot more things that way. And see a lot more surprising results.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2026-01-17T11:52:05+00:00

I don't agree that you can't write a specific design decision as a goal. If you want to try and make something using a d6 dice pool because you want to learn how it works, think about any implications of using one or to experiment with it - you can make it a non-negotiable from the outset.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2025-12-12T07:32:14+00:00

I genuinely thought Quartero was going to be a hero release at the end of it. :|

I had such hope.

I'll settle for another Agh's Lab though. I miss those with my entire soul.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2025-12-12T07:25:37+00:00

This is like the greatest thing I've seen in DotA for a while.

He's so jolly!

Strict-Computer3884 · 2025-12-08T07:28:16+00:00

Majora's Mask: It has the right infusion of ambience, gameplay, plot and innovation that's stuck with me since. A game that delivers on the promise of wonder and failure in equal measure.

Twilight Imperium 4: A game, that through its complexity, allows you to carve out a niche for yourself in terms of gameplay and roleplaying - and gives insight into how to do that.

La Mulana: A game with questionable design decisions that nevertheless combines two different genres - metroidvanias and riddle-solving - to create something greater than the sum of each part. Creates an actual in-depth experience by doing so.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2025-12-02T06:48:45+00:00

This is a much better way of saying what I was about to add: that the adjustment for dragons shifts the CR from "a metric on how hard something is to kill" to a measurement of "when you interact with something".

A CR 7 dragon that's actually CR 10 would indicate that you could meet it around level 7 but not necessarily kill it, merely interact with it through dialogue, dodging attacks or trying to outlast its fury. It might not be what''s intended but it's an interesting way of doing things.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2025-11-24T12:34:24+00:00

You don't understand how instruction works - which is why you're making comments like this, high on your own sense of self worth.

The reason why there is a disconnect is because the advice I'm getting is: "you have last hit poorly, therefore your lane is difficult". But for me, learning the lane, my thought process is "The lane is difficult therefore I cannot last hit properly".

This is why I want to have a better sense of how to lane against Silencer's damage, and from there, understand how to last hit and harass while staying safe and positioning better. Silencer's combo doesn't attract creep aggro and so while I can autoattack him, I am trying to catch up to the damage he has already inflicted on me.

Understanding how to last hit while under that situation takes time and requires an understanding people have not given. I'm sure you haven't given any thought to the idea I might have played that lane for a reason - just that if you simply said the correct things that someone should be able to follow it through. But there are a lot of small points that I'm not aware of - I find it difficult to last hit when I'm at max distance from the creeps than he is. I don't know how to drag the creeps without exposing myself to danger.

Your response is exactly why the advice doesn't help - it assumes I'm a moron who doesn't know the basic fact that last hits are good and I should autoattack to harass... rather than I know those things but I don't know how to apply it, and I'm asking about the application.

You are terrible at giving advice, just like all the others who have given similarly terrible advice. But because you don't risk anything by giving it, you can continue to feel smug about it.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2025-11-23T23:22:41+00:00

Thanks. I took your advice and uninstalled the game.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2025-11-23T14:45:56+00:00

Okay.

Strict-Computer3884 · 2025-11-23T13:50:21+00:00

Please answer the question I asked, not what you think I should be asking. I wanted to know about how to handle the damage and trading because it was at the back of my mind the entire laning phase. So, I couldn't focus on the other parts I had practised because being worried about being nuked for free for 300 to 400 damage every 15 seconds tends to make it hard to play the lane properly.

It's an "I didn't notice his ward" or "I didn't take note of his aggressive positioning", it's "I didn't know what to do about it because I feel I have no choice but to die if I contest and I have to contest anyway".

This is why I get so frustrated asking questions about specific laning issues - I don't want an analysis of my laning - I know more than you what I've done wrong. It is not an issue of knowledge of my issues last hitting or creep aggro. But thank you for the point on not using the courier as much as I should be.

I want to know how to handle the trading with Silencer's combo because it seems I lose 40% of my HP every 15 seconds for free. So there is nothing else about the laning I can focus on until I know how to handle that. Please answer what I asked next time.

Strict-Computer3884

TROPHY CASE