A Method to My Madness

All dungeon-based adventures occupy a place on a continuum running between two extremes, the "rational" or "coherent" dungeon and the "irrational" or "incoherent" dungeon. For many years now the rational end has been getting a lot of good press. People designing rational dungeons worry greatly about things like ecologies of monsters, who designed the dungeon and to what end, and stuff like that. These are good things to think about and I applaud anyone who can construct a fun dungeon crawl in the coherent style. That's not my cup o' tea. My dungeons are intentionally less coherent. Consider for a moment the psychological implications of the dungeon crawl, by plunging the depths of the dungeon we explore the alien landscape of our own Unconscious Minds. In the realm of myth descending into a dungeon is no less than a descent into hell itself. Upon entering the dungeon we set foot into a dream-like world where everyday notions of logic or plausibility are insufficient to describe our experience. A good dungeon crawl should have some of the qualities of the drug-induced vision. Steve Jackson called his first role-playing game The Fantasy Trip for a reason.