Keep Dungeons Weird!

You know that Dungeons & Dragons is weird, right?

Think about it: You’ve got massive underground complexes designed to funnel adventurers through fights with monsters that exist because “a wizard did it” to find some gold and gain experience. The denizens of the dungeon ecosystem are strange and alien to the surface world, and they only get stranger the deeper you go.

However, modern D&D specifically seems to have dropped the weirdness. Why is that? Why not embrace the strangeness of a subterranean environment overflowing with magic?

I’ve got a theory on this. In an attempt to draw in a wider audience, D&D turned down the weird and turned up the Ye Olde Fantasy dial to eleven. If you’re trying to attract people with zero exposure to fantasy roleplaying games, what’s the more relatable monster: A huge chitinous insectoid creature that tunnels through dirt and stone and hypnotizes its prey, or an orc?

Even folks who hate fantasy know what an orc is. How many people outside of your regular party know what an Umber Hulk is?

I’ve been sitting on this post for a few months now because I can’t think of an instance where I encountered or used the really weird monsters in my games. Most of the games I’ve run use pretty standard Western fantasy monsters (orcs, goblins, dragons, etc). This applies to the bulk of games I’ve run a PC in too, whether those were published campaigns or homebrew. I don’t think my parties have ever encountered an Umber Hulk – Land Sharks are the weirdest thing I’ve fought in recent memory.

I think this adherence to familiar fantasy monsters is a double-edged sword. Yes, these monsters are iconic, but problems arise because they’re iconic. Take werewolves: everyone and their aunt knows you need silver to kill a werewolf. A party that encounters a werewolf will probably bring that fact up, whether they intend to act on that information in-game or not. There’s no mystery here, and while some players will be able to act outside of that knowledge, not everyone will.

This is why I like weird monsters. Creatures like Umber Hulks and Water Weirds, Cloakers and Ropers are way more interesting than goblins and kobolds. Some of these are designed to thrive in dungeon environments – Cloakers and Ropers blend into dungeons and cave systems through natural camouflage and act as ambush predators to pick off unsuspecting creatures and PCs. They’re utterly alien to the surface world. Hell, Cloakers are indistinguishable from a leather cloak when they’re motionless; in what other scenario besides a dungeon where loot-hungry players tread would this creature exist?

Water Weirds also fall into the “inanimate object that kills you” category. They’re elemental creatures, but aside from that there’s not much else to say about them. They seem rather simple at a glance, until you realize that they’re ideal for laying traps in a dungeon. Imagine a font of “holy” water in the halls of a convoluted maze. Your players approach it, desperate for something to aid them in their fight against the undead roaming this dungeon. Suddenly your cleric gets grabbed by the water!

As I get older, I find myself seeking out games that embrace their weirdness. 5e has a problem of taking itself too seriously, giving everything a reason to be and justifying things that don’t need explanation. I don’t need a reason for this room of magic circles to exist, I just want to jump in and see how encountering that weirdness turns out. Maybe one circle brings the party to the end of the dungeon, and another circle turns you into a cricket-man. Things can be weird in our fantasy elf-games for the sake of being weird, and experiencing them is what leads to some of the most memorable games. I couldn’t tell you how many times a party has saved the world from a demon, but I will always remember in exact detail how my party first dealt with the Froghemoth in Expedition to the Barrier Peaks.

I don’t have advice for you today, but a call to action. In your next game, regardless of what system you’re using, try adding in some weird or strange elements and don’t explain their inclusion. Throw in an Umber Hulk in your dungeon crawl, some mysterious green ooze dripping down the walls of a spaceship in your sci-fi game, or an interdimensional salescat that has the best deals on equally strange and unexpected magic items.