Weird Wonder - Amanda P.'s Website

Opposed themes and natural tension

Conceiving a dungeon involves injecting spaces with barely contained energy that yearns to explode, impacting the surrounding area. One way to develop natural tension is through creating dungeons that hold opposed themes1.

On Opposed Themes

First: choose a conceptual theme for your dungeon such as fire, love, fear, greed. Consider how it manifests. If fire, what is burning? What is the fuel (literally and figuratively)?

Then, ponder the theme’s opposite e.g. fire and water, love and hate, fear and courage, greed and generosity, rot and health.

Questions to Consider

With the theme and opposed theme chosen, determine the answers for the following questions:

  1. How are these themes immediately obvious and accessible through the five senses?
  2. How do these themes come into tension with one another physically in the space?
  3. How can the floor, walls, decorations, denizens embody the theme or opposed theme?
  4. Where can this tension be dissonant, obvious, and unsubtle?
  5. What are opportunities for smaller resolutions?
  6. How can obstacles or puzzles involve both themes?

Subtlety is overrated. Dungeons are intended to be explored.

Footnotes

  1. This dovetails with Sean McCoy’s recent writing Write Rooms in Pairs. Building themes directly opposed creates natural tension and prevents stagnant dungeons. Doing this on the room level creates natural connections and consequences.