Quote Originally Posted by Kaptin Keen View Post
That is just patently wrong. On so many levels.

For one thing, complexity does not make a dungeon. Being underground is the essential quality of a dungeon. Complex often just means boring.

For another, there simply isn't any connection between number of decisions to make, and size or complexity of a map. Seen only in isolation, a complex map makes for more decisions on which path to take - but that is the only thing. Number of enemies, challenges, moral choices and so on are entirely disconnected from the size and complexity of the map.

But hey - you can test me on this.

The fortress on Kelsen's Fist, the chasm below it, the waterfall in the chasm, the chamber at the bottom where the wyvern lairs, the river that leads from there to the original orc settlement - now dubbed Underbrook - the mind flayer colony in the old silvermines connected to by yet more tunnels.

None of it is mapped. Not an inch of it. All part of the same dungeon, even if only the chasm fits what we discuss here: Vertical dungeons.

Absolutely any detail you want for it, just ask. It's all there. What was the original purpose? What lives there now? How did the ecosystem work? I know pretty damn near everything you could ever possibly want to know about this place.

This single dungeon held spirits of the dead, wyverns, undead orcs, living orcs, url-gech (sentient hive-mind beetles of necromantic disposition), spiders, some sort of blind, poisonous eels I haven't named yet, humans, mind flayers. It held moral decisions concerning a dead elf girl, about the wyvern, the url-gech, mind flayers, the local cleric, the local orc tribes. There were any numbers of skill challenges.

Go ahead and ask me the most devious question you can think of =)
I think a dungeon is the style of adventure, not a descriptor of any place underground. It's secret doors and hidden treasures and monster lairs and traps. Players making their own maps so they can find their way out.

Moral decisions are obviously not the sort I'm talking about, but exploration decisions. Decisions about which path to take are the main sort of decision I mean. Knowing the purpose for everything and a sensical ecosystem is nice, but not the essential component of making it a dungeon.

Knowing that you have no map, asking any question is pointless. You just make up the answer however it suits you. Of course you have all the answers, it's all in your head. I'm not saying that it isn't possible to do things without a map, just that it is essentially a different kind of game than the classic dungeon adventure.