Summary
While dungeons are a big part of, well,Dungeons & Dragons, like anything, if they are used too often, they can lose their impact. However, it’s such an effective way to lock your players into a location with a story arc and challenge them with puzzles, combat, and all the joys of D&D.
So what’s the alternative if dungeons are so important but can’t be used too often? Well, many environments lend themselves to mimicking the make-up of a dungeon while feeling and looking completely different. Whether your players are trekking through an urban backdrop or looking for shelter in a mountain pass, here are some ways to create a dungeon where it’s needed.
1Hollowed Forest Canopies
Many media sources have created villages and towns that wind through ancient, hollow trees. Whether people are currently living in a space like this in your campaign, or if your players stumble acrossan empty forest stronghold, you can treat this place like a massive, above-ground dungeon.
Each tree could be like a separate chamber with different levels, making up rooms your party can explore. Being in a forest also allows you to use a completely different pool of monsters than you might in an underground environment, as it would make sense that these creatures have reclaimed parts of the woods for themselves.
2Catacombs
While catacombs may feature in different dungeons, or at least a room with coffins holding secrets or treasure, a large catacomb can, itself, serve as a dungeon. It could be the resting place of giants, a place to mourn royals or heroes of the past. And there can be various rooms tacked onto this, housing their horrors or an explanation as to why so many are dead.
Doing this can also mean your party will have to facehordes of undead. The bad guy of this dungeon-like catacomb could be a necromancer who comes to the place often to resurrect the most powerful of corpses that threaten to bring the party into the undead fold.
3A Prison
Sticking still with some of the usual suspects within a dungeon, a prison can create a dungeon-like setting of its own. Instead of having one room or a few small cells tucked within a dungeon, a massive prison with rooms filled with occupants, or now barren stalls could create an interesting challenge for your players.
If there are other prisoners, it allows your party the opportunity to gain allies, all working toward escape or overturning those that kept you all locked away. Or, if it’s empty aside from the party, it could instead be filled with traps and mechanisms that have killed all the others who have passed through.
4A Castle
All you really have to do when using a castle as a dungeon is ask yourself, how many rooms are in this place? It could be crumbling ruins your party is tasked with clearing out. Or they could be overthrowing the powers that be. Regardless, a castle is an excellent backdrop for a dungeon.
It is also so highly customizable. Are there rooms filled with hordes of treasure, mimics hiding among them? Is there a room filled with guards, ready to attack? A room that houses decorations, among them animated armor and weapons that activate when strangers pass through? Literally, so many options.
This castle can be placed in any setting, opening up your options for some of the hazards and monsters your party might encounter while exploring.
5A Clock Tower
The heading for this section is a bit misleading as it can really be any kind of tower. A lighthouse, a lookout, but the idea is it’s less about occupying a vast amount of area. Your dungeon can be vertical in design with ten or more floors to explore and multiple rooms on each level.
However, a clock tower has the added benefit of having these large mechanisms constantly at work, giving your players the sense that the structure is alive. Not to mention, it can hide the fact that there are manytechnical puzzles the players have to figure outto surpass. Or, at the very least, they can use the gears and moving parts to their advantage when in combat.
6The Belly Of A Beast
Talk about the structure being alive. Why not have a massive beast swallow your players whole? To escape, they have to wind through the insides of this monster and come across other beasts and creatures that have been eaten before them. This also introduces your players to the idea they only have so long to make it out before digestion starts.
This isn’t really the option if you’re going for realism. But if you’re looking to have a good time, have your players stumbling around inside this living lair, find treasure of what’s been processed before them, and allow them to use their tools in this very reactive environment.
Adding time to what the players have to consider while in any combat or exploration is a way to interject urgency into the scenario. This will force players who otherwise would take their time and be safe to make faster and, potentially, more dangerous decisions.
7Intricate Mine System
Abandoned mine shafts would make for fun dungeon diving. Some of the natural wonders of the cave can be plentiful, like gems and ores the party can sell and have smelted down into gear. But they’ll first have to find out what made the miners flee from these caverns.
And, like the clock tower example, if you’re dealing with limited space, you can instead make the structure more vertical than horizontal in dimension. Added hazards like the lift system being broken, crumbling walls, and even pits of steam, acid, or magma can add to the danger if you decide to rely on methods beyond throwing monsters at your players.
8Purple Worm Tunnels
Granted, these underground tunnels might look very dungeon-like if you’re trying to avoid dungeons, but this has an underlying threat inherent in them: is the worm coming back? Whether you want that threat to make your players move through the space quickly, or you instead want them to be met with scavengers looking to feast on whatthe worms have left behind underground, this can be a funky, fun alternative to a dungeon.
Not to mention, it has something vastly different. There are no rooms. No humanoid-built structures. Nothing but open space that could end in the party facing off withthis gargantuan monster. Or, like with the tree canopies, perhaps more humanoid monsters or villains could start to move into the tunnels, claiming them for their hideout.
