- Claustrophilia
- an abnormal desire for confinement in an enclosed space
Introduction
The point of this article is quite simple. I intend to demonstrate to you that all campaigns set outside the dungeon are rubbish. I know this may seem slightly disingenuous, given that I've written articles about cavalry, contradictions like that are the stuff of life, or at least the stuff of this site. But then you should know that by now. I shall demonstrate the innate seniority of the dungeon above all other settings by playing every cheap trick that occurs to me. I'll provide examples of the dungeon-crawling experience par excellence from film and fiction and show how resituating them outside the dungeon would ruin them. If that won't work, I'll resort to outright bribery to shut all those players who whine Oh, no, not another dungeon!
as soon as they set foot in a ten-foot-wide corridor.
Still: only the dungeon is any good. All other settings are rubbish. Why? Metagaming, pure and simple. Sure, we all like to pretend the game is about teamwork, co-operation, storytelling and suspension of disbelief, but let's drop the arty-farty notions for a millisecond. The essence of most RPGs (or at least, the only ones that are any good) is conflict. Characters triumph over or collapse under adversity. They strive; they try to achieve things, despite the machinations of monsters, corporations, the government, evil wizards and horrible multi-dimensional squidge-beasts from between the spheres we know, or even just the fickle tides of Fate. And we all know who's in charge of all that, don't we? That's right. It's that smug bastard at the far end of the table; the one lurking behind the cardboard screen, with the notes that determine your characters' fortunes and hardships. The one who tries not to giggle whenever your character gets a lightning bolt up the arse, but doesn't try very hard.
Hello.
What is a Dungeon?
Let's start with the real basics, shall we: what is a dungeon? Well, the simple, cop-out answer is 'a maze or labyrinth', but it's only half right. Although mazes and labyrinths make good dungeons, not all dungeons are mazes or labyrinths. The dungeon is a microcosm. Its passages and rooms are there to be explored, mapped and negotiated. Its denizens can be fought or reasoned with -- it's a world, shrunk down to a manageable size and delimited within neat parameters, so your long-suffering GM doesn't have to worry about his or her blood pressure when you decide to stray off the map and reduce all the material he or she blew so much time designing to so much worthless paper1.
Simply put, a dungeon is a bounded space containing a number of encounters. The encounters may be static and pre-set, or they may roam. The pathways between each encounter may be direct and linear, or labyrinthine and multifold. The important thing is that there are boundaries and pathways: at the most basic level the PCs' fates are determined by their decisions, and because their options are a little more limited, their choices are a little clearer to them2. A turn to the left or a turn to the right could have drastically different consequences, and thanks to some carefully placed barriers, there's little danger of seeing more than one consequence at once. In a dungeon, you have to think constantly about what you're doing, where you're going, because every step is dangerous. The only real restriction on a dungeon is that restrictions exist; physical barriers keep everything from happening in plain view, allowing plots, intrigue and the like to develop. Size doesn't matter: you can make dungeons with corridors wide enough and ceilings high enough to allow riding; you can even remove the ceilings altogether and allow your encounters to swoop in.