RPGs are a strange conceit, a party of adventurers, usually in a fantastical but semi-medieval setting working together to fight monsters and get loot. This often involves delving into implausibly deep dungeons, scattered around the world and bustling with monsters and forgotten treasures. These dungeons have excellent natural lighting and indeed some have lit torches to help guide your way. Recent RPG dungeons lean more towards a Disney-world attraction, there’s one goal, one golden path, a miniboss and a reward in form of some loot or a quest McGuffin. When you’ve completed the goal of the dungeon you’ll find yourself right back at the entrance so you can walk out without having to laboriously retrace your steps.
RPGs are a popular genre but as a designer it’s always fun to find some space to push your game into a place that hasn’t really been explored before. But how do you find the unexplored spaces? Well, one way is to consider how the current crop of RPGs are warped by the norms of the genre compared to something that could make more real world sense or have better and more consistent internal logic. A good starting point is to ask “What do RPGs choose to not simulate?”
Disney World Dungeons
But, before we address that question let’s take a critical look at the dungeon-as-a-ride trend. The most notable example of such dungeons is Skyrim. In these dungeons you follow a mostly linear path, with a few simple puzzles, fighting trash mobs until you kill a miniboss and then you find a shortcut back to the entrance.
It’s quite nice in a way, it’s a clear signal that this dungeon is “done” and you can immediately exit and find the next one. If you play the game you’ll certainly appreciate the first time this happens and think that was pretty clever but as you find this same loop-shape in every dungeon you encounter, it’s hard not to be consciously aware of it and that the geography of the dungeon is concession to game design. Do I still feel like a grizzled adventurer exploring an ancient underground temple not knowing what I’ll find? Or do I feel like I’m on an Old Mill Ride being dragged through a theme-park adventure with little agency, anticipating every event and clearly seeing the hand of the level designer who authored this adventure for me?
Why this design? It’s to stop “boring” back-tracking and communicates to the player there’s nothing more to be seen here by clearly signalling the end. But is that the only way to achieve this?
In the long long ago Ultima Underworld had a system where the player could drop a special item called a moonstone in the world and then cast a spell to teleport back to that location. This was a nice way to allow players to easily exit dungeons yet feels consistent with the internal game logic, the hand of the game designer is less obvious. But that’s just one idea.
Consider the reasons Disney world dungeons exist and how they benefit the player and see if you can come up with a different solution. Also look to how other games have solved this. For instance consider how, a more action RPG, like Dark Souls approached this.
Problem: How do you signal to the player that they’ve completed a dungeon? As a player you want to be pretty sure you’ve exhausted the content of a dungeon.
Problem: How do you avoid having the player walk back up through a now empty dungeon to get to the entrance?
Deep Dungeons
Implausibly deep dungeons are a mainstay of RPGs and have roots that go back into the literature. Many early games have used Moria as a title, taken from Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings “an ancient subterranean complex in Middle-earth, comprising a vast labyrinthine network of tunnels, chambers, mines and halls under the Misty Mountains”. But deep dungeons also lent themselves to the constraints of early computers, it’s hard to have a unique fantasy world full of interesting locations, it’s relatively easy to continually generate a random dungeon level and tell the player that each time this happens they’re descending deeper and deeper.
As deep dungeons are not unique to computer games but also appear in table top table roleplaying games there’s a lot of commentary in magazines, books and the web. One of the common takes is that if your world can justify these deep dungeons and dungeon itself has a history and place in the world, then that works better than just anonymous dungeons distributed evenly across your world map. Again one might also question why these dungeons are stuffed with treasure, how these monsters survive and so on.
Again Ultima Underworld solves this by having the entire world be in the dungeon. Planescape Torment solves it by having a world covered in magical portals that take you to other places to explore. These games have excellent in-world justifications for why their dungeons exist and how they function and it makes playing either a joy.
But there are other solutions like rearchitecting the entire concept. What if dungeons weren’t old but recent, a castle that had been lost to a demon invasion, or warped in from another realm etc. Or a dungeon that doesn’t go down but goes up like the magic tower in Azure Dreams. Are other there ways to package up small adventures than the standard RPG dungeon? Consider why people enjoy dungeons and if anything else might also fill those wants.
Everyone is an Orphan
In most RPGs the adventurers do not have a family or relatives. Rarely do they have friends or old acquaintances. In the case of the protagonist this is often so the player can assume the characters identity. But what if the player or at least the party members were more enmeshed in the game world. These relations could give the game more emotional depth and stakes, if you can get the player to care.
Consider why family is rarely mentioned or used? Is it because many games are catering to a more adolescent fantasy where the player wants to strike out, on their own and make their mark on the world. Their real life might lack agency because they’re restricted by family rules or expectations. In a computer game they don’t want to be reminded of their family, they want to be free.
We Live in a Society
Not only family but the protagonist in an RPG is often “outside” the game world they’re experiencing.
Take serfdom, if you’re a serf, that’s really going to impact your experience of the world:
The essential additional mark of serfdom was the lack of many of the personal liberties that were held by freedmen. Chief among these was the serf’s lack of freedom of movement; he could not permanently leave his holding or his village without his lord’s permission. Neither could the serf marry, change his occupation, or dispose of his property without his lord’s permission. He was bound to his designated plot of land and could be transferred along with that land to a new lord.
It’s likely you’ll know your Lord by sight, you certainly have an opinion of him.
Even if you’re the lord - you own this land and the land has the serfs, you’ve probably got responsibilities to the king and bloodline and so on.
Often in a game you’re some quite well off wandering warrior, how did that happen?
NPCs aren’t important
Assuming your not a sophist, in the real world everyone has a life as rich and precious as your own. That random person on your commuter train has friends, family, hobbies, secret dreams, shames and routines. In games NPCs can be as little as a text box.
How about a game with fewer NPCs but they’re all incredibly important and realised. Or a game that simulated their lives. Take yet another Ultima game, Ultima 7, the NPCs have daily routines and if you talk to them they’re like a real person, they live somewhere, they have some job, there’ a history to them. Shenmue is another example of the game that leans more in this direction.
Insects, disease, famine, serious injury
Lice aren’t fun but could they be? There’s many a grimdark world but few that deal with body lice, tape worms, pox or leprosy. I refuse to believe there isn’t a way to make such things fun. A resource management type game or a system in game to keep a group of fighter relatively healthy.
Early games like Oubliette and Moria did track age, hunger - both water and food, disease and wounds. But for most modern games all we’re really left with is a poison status effect. Though hunger went on form a new genre of survival games.
These are all “bad” things, is it possible to create a game where bad things can happen and you still want to play? Again this territory the Dark Souls series explored a little.
Multiple Languages
Most games have a homogenous western fantasy world with English spoken everywhere. But in the real world, everywhere has different cultures and you need guides to translate. Is there a way to evoke this wonder without tedium? Heaven’s Vault might provide some directions. But it’s good just to try and imagine from first principles - how would that work and what would that mean for the game design.
A static world
Fantasy worlds don’t change. If there’s a village it’s usually the same all the way through. People could build new buildings, the landscape could be drastically altered by an earthquake, a statue could be erected or torn down. A season might change and the city is covered in snow or spring flowers. Seasonal events such as Saturnalia. No one really dies of natural causes, or you rarely see a child born, a birthday held and so on.
Elden Ring has a nice section where a star falls from the sky and changes the world map to show the crater and from there you access a new area.
No going back
Similar to the above, but most RPGs have no back tracking. You clear out a dungeon and it’s cleared out; a pack of vampires don’t move in. Some gamers seem to resent the reuse of areas in the game but I think it can be quite powerful and nostalgic to return to some areas and see things have changed.
Cliches are not inherently evil
Be careful not to take away the wrong lesson here. Cliches on the whole are good. I like choosing a party, exploring a dungeon and dispatching the undead. I like actions films with wildly improbable gun fights and a healthy amount of defenestration. Many people do, which is why so many games and movies cater to these tastes. The danger is when the medium becomes boring and predictable. It’s less enjoyable if you can anticipate every beat of the experience. Better to be lulled in the feeling of dull familiarly only to have your expectations subverted a little.
There are few thoughts about what games don’t do. I hope that’s sparked your creatively a little. After reading these examples I’m sure you can come up with a lot of more. If you discover one that’s good please share it @HowToMakeAnRpg