I have to tell you how much I appreciate your camera work! Just changing the framing and amount of zoom adds so much to your production values, avoiding the constant jump cuts that we see so much in YouTube videos. Then you add in cuts to a different camera angle and the moving shot of the columns and altar...

High production values and solid content make you a "must watch".

"Given the opportunity, players will optimize the fun out of a game." Well put!

I just wanted to take a moment to appreciate how the sidebar camera angle has a background with a contrasting hue to the main angle, making the sidebars feel more distinct. It’s a very good effect, love it. Apart from that, fantastic video as always, you quickly became my favourite dnd creator.

"Your excitement will be your players' excitement" - I think that's why this is my favorite dnd channel, you sound so sincerely happy to talk about the things you talk about

Great video Mystic Arts! Glad you liked my TUNIC video.

Perhaps the real dungeons were the friends we made along the way

You are the only youtuber who can upload a video arguing for dungeons, something I do not use, and I will still click because I know you're going to juce my brain on some incredible artistic truth.

“-which I frankly find dull,” Daði self-interrupted in a conspiratorial aside…

You are delightful. Keep up the great work.

Hey Daði and AB! Yesterday I showed my friend your videos on hexcrawls (because he wants to DM something for me and our mutual friends) and he just went "wow, this is really high quality" and instantly subscribed.
He couldn't believe you had only been a channel for 6 months. And to be honest, neither can I! Your stuff has been so consistently awesome, you've fast become my favorite D&D channel. And yes, that means I'm on the Patreon now. Happily so.

Me, reading the title of this video: "I thought you said Hexcrawls were the heart of the game?"
Me, after watching the video: "Wait a second, this is just a Hexcrawl on a square grid!" ❤

I find a good trick for designing an inhabited dungeon is to reference the 2002 Stronghold Builder's Guidebook as a basic template for which locations the intelligent denizens of said dungeon will need - a few oozes or giant insects might not care, but a gobling tribe, or a hobgoblin clan, or a bandit gang, they're all going to want somewhere to sleep, a place to prepare and eat food (ideally separated), somewhere to do their... opposite business, maybe a small treasury, some tool stores, pantries, et cetera... The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook is a good rough guideline for how much space each space is going to need for the denizens in question.

Add defenses, rooms built for the original purpose of the dungeon, perhaps what the rooms may have been repurposed for, add secrets, traps, et cetera, but start out with "What spaces do the denizens need?" and "What spaces do the place's concept require?" - a dark temple will have very different rooms from an underground illicit booze distillery, or a secret alchemical lab where people have been trying to make gold for decades...

I really enjoy the format of skit Dadi turn-cut-transitioning into talking head Dadi. It's all so smooth 😌

My party decided to long rest inside a dungeon where they were supposed to rescue civilians. A few of them died in the mean time, and it gave the enemy more time to fortify and prepare

Long dungeons with limited rests are where the martial classes really shine, it's such a shame they are so rare these days.

@8:07 ALL HAIL THE SCREAMING MASS

When you mentioned the DM’s confidence during your Constraint pillar, you reminded me of AD&D’s Ravenloft and its use of isolated locations to reinforce horror. Over time, I discovered that using isolated horror locations also allowed me to keep players on track.

Players aren’t tempted to suddenly announce, “While the rest of you are going shopping, I go to the tavern, get drunk, and pick a fight,” when the nearest tavern is a three-day journey and this haunted mansion is under a fierce snowstorm. Early in your video when you were describing that a dungeon doesn’t have to be an undergound jail with stone corridors, you showed a seaship, and I agree!

I have yet to hear, “I want rum!” while a PC jumps overboard to swim over the horizon back to a port city. “Do you really want to roll hundreds of tedious Athletics checks for swimming while the rest of us enjoy solving the case of the mysterious cursed cargo?” Mischievous players can’t pick pockets of the town guards or rob the blacksmith if all the encounters in tonight’s dungeon involve a swarm of rats, a chest with a poisoned needle lock, two pendulum scythe traps, and a gelatinous cube.

Wow! I'm only halfway through this video. You could stop right now and this is a 10 out of 10 piece of content right here. I'm currently sharing this with my RPG friends. Thank you for making this!

Commenting for algorithms. But I've rewatched a bunch of videos this morning as I'm starting my next arc tonight. Your videos have inspired me to give hex crawls a shot in this arc and I'm super excited to give the overland travel/resting rules a try with it. Keep rocking Dadi and A.B.! Ya'll are the best!

I find it interesting how you mentioned that dungeons have fallen out of favor and don't get much of a spotlight in APs. Because while that's certainly true, Critical Role's dungeons (when they happen) have been some of my favorite episodes. I think about the Folding Halls of Halas a lot. They are one of Mercer's underappreciated strengths, far better than the actual bossfights I'd say! Some of my best sessions have been crawls as well. The dungeon may have lost the spotlight, but in darkness, it yet lives...

24:38 Where my Tomb of Annihilation game finally buckled was in the Eponymous Dungeon. The group felt like it had turned into a slog, and honestly, we all were no longer having fun.