I’ve played a lot of D&D over the years. Hundreds of hours.
But these so-called “dungeons”? No captives. Not even any cells. That’s not a dungeon. that’s a glorified cave.
And don’t even get me started on the dragons. Dragonborn? Sure, I’ve seen plenty. Heard my fair share of Draconic. And wyverns are fairly common I suppose but that’s like pointing at all the dogs in the world and saying “we’re infested with wolves!”
I’m beginning to feel like I’ve been lied to all this time.
I started a campaign where, after 20 years of gaming with this group, we were finally going to have a dragon for a big bad. Then my entire country collapsed irl, destroying the game. It’s like the universe abhors actually having dragons in your D&D game.
Caverns and Critters?
Funny story, it’s to fix the second half of this complaint that TSR got Dragonlance going
The Dungeon is YOUR MIIIIIND. The Dragons are the friends we made along the way. At least I assume so. I don’t play Dungeons & Dragons, I play Deeandy Fivey.
Oubliettes and nebbishes?
Be the change you want to see
My players have finally encountered a dragon for the first time last week. They managed to resolve the situation peacefully and have taken up a quest to do for the dragon. Currently they are being mogged by a Blob of Annihalation instead. Fun times.
It really depends on who your DM is.
I have not yet played a campaign without either dungeons or dragons. A gold dragon is typically the one giving us quests, which requires delving into dungeons or we end up being captured and thrown in one by the BBG.
Protect that DM at all costs. They truly understand what it means to create a D&D campaign
Oddly enough, they’re pretty much the only Steam friend I still have that reguarly comes online other than my sister. It’s the other 3 players that have fallen off the face of the earth that keeps us from playing again 😔
…ngl I’ve been looking for a campaign to join 0_o Just saying :D
Just saying twice over, for good effect, you know?
AND MY AXE.
Alright, let’s just forget blue name dude, and grab you, me, and blue name dude #2 and get something rolling. It’ll have dungeons, and it’ll have ‘dragons.’ Oh yes, ‘dragons’ muahahah!
Tell your DM you have a fever, and the only cure is real dungeons and dragons with cowbells.
Seasons don’t fear the Raven Queen
As someone who has played alot of Call of Cthulhu there is a distinct lack of Cthulhu. But I am presently playing Traveler and let me tell you something - there is A LOT of traveling.
It’s called “Call of Cthulhu”, not “Sighting of Cthulhu”, forehead
DM: “The phone rings.”
Player: “I pick it up.”
Cthulhu: “Wasaaaaaaaaaaaaap!”
Player: *Cries blood*
Cthulhu: “Wasaaaaaaaaaaaaap!”
Definitely one of the Great Old Ones.
Player: *Cries blood*
Awh, didn’t know they were missing Cthulhu that much!
For a game called “GURPS” it certainly is a Generic Universal Role Playing System
Best part of Traveller is character creation.
Not always the best, but often a lot of fun
Did anyone die in character creation?
No but I always end up in super-debt
You made me realize Balder’s Gate 3 does in fact contain ample dungeons and even multiple dragons.
Truly worthy of GotY
But these so-called “dungeons”? No captives. Not even any cells. That’s not a dungeon. that’s a glorified cave.
I’ve always wondered how the term “dungeon” as it’s used in RPGs came to be. a lot of appendix N literature had locations we would now consider dungeons, but were they called that at the time? and then the first RPG dungeon was the literal dungeon under Blackmoor Castle, but very early on we had dungeons that stopped being literal dungeons- didn’t B1 and B2 exclusively have cave “dungeons?” and the Ruined Tower of Zenopus in the first Basic book had underground portions but I think those were caves too!
If you compare it with most other rpg:s there’s actually a lot of both dungeons and dragons in DnD.
Dragons are pretty high level-threats in D&D, which most players rarely get to fight because most campaigns don’t last that long. Which does make it a bit weird to name the entire franchise after such a rare enemy.
FYI: you can throw a dragon at any party at any time as a non-combat encounter or as a natural disaster they aren’t supposed to be able to fight or control
Good point.
Counterpoint: Many groups have trouble discerning between a regular encounter and an encounter they aren’t supposed to fight.
Yeah, my DM threw a young white(I think) dragon at us pretty early in the campaign. It wasn’t meant to be a fight we won, we were only meant to drive it off and possibly have a sidequest type thing to go loot it’s lair later.
It tried to fly away. We teleported into the air after it, and I clung to it’s back and kept dropping divine smites in it until it died. Was fantastic.
On top of that old dragons in disguise meddling with human society make good NPCs… which the players will not find out until much later.
So even when they meet Dragons -even ones not antagonistic- early on they will rarely realize it…
There’s pseudodragons and whelps that can easily be low level encounters. I threw a green dragon and a bunch of flying kobolds at my level 3 party and they easily won the fight.
Like you said, it’s been around for a while, so most of the actual dungeons have been picked clean and all we’ve really been left with over the last 30-40 years barely fit the legal definition!
All the good dungeon real estate got bought up by early adventurers with their collected loot, so now they are located in gated communities or expensive adventuring resorts. Everyone else gets the roadside discount dungeon experience with plastic monster chotchkes for loot drops and pugs and chihuahuas dressed up in skeleton and dragon costumes.
