Turtle's Dungeon Interface

These principles are the foundational behavior for all of the rest of the instructions in this document. When attempting to ponder, implement or rework this framework, do so within the bounds of these principles.

Convey Your Theme

A dungeon should present a unified aesthetic, idea or lesson.

Leverage Your Group’s Interests

Relate the challenges and topics to your players’ and characters’ interests

Respect Your Players’ Time

Do not present meaningless choices. Don’t be coy.

Reward the Characters’ Work

The characters are confident, bold and enterprising people who are usually capable and deserving of being here. When they put in the hard work, reward them.

Building a Dungeon

1. Determine or affirm the reason for the player characters to delve the dungeon.
2. Name three or four aspects of theme, mood or imagery to evoke in this dungeon.
3. List out primary character goals that could possibly relate to the dungeon
4. List out primary character interfaces to the world -- tools, capabilities, skills and proficiencies that they like to use
5. As appropriate, present theme or challenge.

Presenting Theme

Presenting theme is the aspects of “free play” dungeon delving where there is no active danger, tactical combat, or meaningful choice. During these moments, the GM’s priority should be to focus on making play thematic. Look to the player characters for characterization. Look to your theme, mood, and imagery to set the stage.

• When the theme is presented without challenge or obstacle, merely narrate.
• Ask meaningful questions with clear risk and reward. Don’t force players to make meaningless choices like going left or right on identical passageways
• Leverage your chosen theme, the principles of the game and the setting of your world.
• Ask questions of your players: What do they discuss, what do they recognize, how do they travel safely? Wrap these questions into the theme.

Some examples of presenting themes include narrating days of long travel, traveling to the next room or sailing down a river toward a destination. Affirm that your players are progressing without exhausting them with non-decisions.

Presenting a Challenge

Challenges contain all the moments

• Challenges must be shown through the lens of a dungeon theme

  • Trap + factory could be a dangerous machine where trap + sacred tomb might be something more traditional in the dungeon world sense
• Challenges should be focused. Don’t present too much at once. Focus on a single danger, problem or hard choice.

• Challenges must have a clear or available character interface.

  • Do not obfuscate that there is a challenge. Let your players know that there are hard or dangerous choices to make.
  • Clearly telegraph the levers and tools that characters may use.

• Challenges should not have fixed solutions, but possibly have bounded difficulties.

  • Allow your players to get around the challenge with tools including:

    • Dice
    • Player creativity
    • In-game cost such as time, supplies or health.

An Example

Ancient Abandoned Space Structure created by an unknowable alien species

Please note that this example is a bit of a case study from a recent experience. It is paraphrased, summarized and imperfect. In particular, I feel like the dungeon lacks character goals and balanced character interfaces. Many of the interfaces available repeat and fail to provide enough variety.

Character Goals: Greed, ambition Character Interfaces: Alien Tech mastery, scouting, brute force, combat, a spaceship Themes: The unknowable, silence, vastness Mood: Loneliness Imagery: Octahedrons, mercury

Presenting Theme:

• Silence, Vastness: Interface: A spaceship. Entering into the star system, an abandoned planet laced in strange superstructures sits dark. An object drifts far outside the gravity well. Do you take any precautionary steps before you approach your destination station?
• Unknowable, Vastness: Interface: A spaceship, alien tech. Entering into a massive chamber relative to the side of the abandoned structure outside, your space ship drives to a halt surrounded by 8 shimmering walls of mercury. How do you continue onward?

Presenting Challenge:

• Unknowable, silence, mercury: Interface: scouting, alien tech. There are no clear ways into the station through the shimmering mercury-like walls. How do you detect the way through?
• Loneliness, Vastness, greed: Interface: scouting, alien tech, persistence. The passages beyond the mercury are vast with numerous branches in every direction. The chambers are littered with fragments of valuable alien tech. How do you avoid being lost here?
• Mercury, unknowable: Interface: combat ability. Three figures of an unknown species are held in mercury and unmoving at the path to exit to this octahedron. What do you do?
• Mercury, silence: Interface: Alien tech, A strange animated lump is traveling through the mercury walls and attempting to engulf you. What do you do?
• Octahedron, Vastness, ambition: Interface: Endurance. You have made it to a giant octahedron kilometers across. Your target object is contained in the center of the room and radiating with dangerous energies. This is the artifact that overseers pay you in gene mods for. How do you safely retrieve it?