how do you design your dungeons? do you make a lot of rooms with puzzles and backtracking (kinda like zelda's dungeons) or do you just make 2-3 rooms relevant rooms and a boss chamber?
Randomly using provided tables, then I ask ChatGPT to give me a backstory for the dungeon
I go with an organic approach, largely inspired by how 3.0's Lords of Darkness handled its strongholds.The buildings look less like dungeons and more just like... buildings. Rooms that exist just because they would be neccesary to exist, not because they hold a particular encounter or treasure or puzzle. Traps in places people would put traps, and not in convoluted GOTCHA locations that ask the players to try and be constantly reading the GM's mind.I always want my players to be able to use their own intelligence and logic, and if the dungeon makes sense, they won't have to use Early 90's Point-and-Click nonsense thinking in order to progress. Less "I need to combine the Skeleton Finger with the Rusty Key in order to make the Skeleton Key to open that door" and more "The guards on patrol have to be able to get inside somehow, let's try observing them and see how they do it."
>>94380711Since TTRPGs aren't a video games and since my players are retarded I mostly focus on capitol directions with different things in the rooms. The biggest puzzle they will come across will be "Find a obvious key" or just the sole navigation, as I like to make my dungeons 'Non-Euclidean' some times. In my opinion dungeons are a lot more about exploring and resource management. Traps are there to deplete resources. The goal of all encounter rooms are to make the characters weaker until they can get to the Boss or some other objective.
>>94382616You were pretty close to getting it right. The "boss" isn't the objective, the gold is.
>>94380711I try to give each room a raison d'être, but beyond that ive been making fairly linear dungeons based on each room offering a specific mechanical challenge. Its not the most creative, but im making them to stress test a homebrew system, so...
>>94383111Nta, but wouldn't it depend on the setup?While dungeon crawling in hope to find abandoned treasures is common, specifically going to a dungeon to kill some guy is also a trope (and someone might even pay you after for proof you killed said guy).
>>94383111I mean the obj can be gold. It is, in classic dungeon crawls. Unfortunately these days thats not the most common way to play the game.
>>94380711I get into the mindset of the original builders and think of what I'd need to protect my XYZ. Then I add a few centuries of decay and a monster infestation or two.
>>94383111Logically, the most powerful denizen of the dungeon will have acquired the most valuable items within it. Getting the valuables will require going through the boss monster or getting them to leave their inner sanctum unguarded.
>>94383610This is what I also do but usually, while it leads to realistic dungeons, It doesn't really make them more fun. Players get stuck in bathrooms. What, in my experience, is a better idea is to put the dungeon design first and then designate some of the rooms with a certain functions. The remaining rooms whit no logical purpose? Who cares! The players will only pay attention to the rooms with a given purpose
>>94380711Usually skim through a few folders of saved dungeons I've collected for years until there's something that catches my eye or fits a theme in motion. Then I modify the map any if need be, extra rooms to bring numbers up, connection if there aren't enough, additional entrances and surface surroundings. I pick a few tables for inspirational material, details, features, etc and set them aside. Then I use the ad&d dmg keying for room contents for the whole thing, add up overall treasure, traps, specials, monsters, etc. and make sure its not too strongly weighted in one way, filling in bits and pieces as it catches. Next I add/use the more thematic tables for the dungeon and area, reskinning as needed. After everything's been gone over once and a wandering monsters table made I put together a rough rumour table and let it sit for a few days. Then I go back and edit it, clean up irregularities I didn't notice that seem like they'll be a problem, tie in ideas that come together. Make a nicer map and try keying it as minimally but effectively as possible. Generally I'm going for a large area with varied inhabitants and terrain, some hostility and conflict and a few puzzles/traps. Keep a good mix of risk reward, social rp and combat. Back tracking less so. I tend to aim for more than 30 rooms for a dungeon but have found my players aren't usually interested in exploring more than 30 so there's going to be some missed parts, areas and encounters. Sometimes that ends up being restocking and dungeon inhabitant reactions, sometimes its just not a bit that gets used. Spreading the rooms out over a few floors seems to be more interesting to them so sometimes I do that. Verticallity can add a lot. >2-3 rooms and a boss chamber Not a gameplay style I like or want to run. Having a few very dangerous monsters in the dungeon is enjoyable though, especially if they're wandering around, the other locals are aware of them, there's rumours of it, etc.
>>94383657Dungeons aren't always logical places. Weaker groups with hidden areas, secret doors, or a simple lack of interest in varieties of treasure can all be good reasons for it to be spread out or otherwise distributed.
>>94383565Diablo 1?
Deeply interconnected rooms just leads to backtracking, indecision, and flood filling; I prefer mostly linear dungeons with parallel byways that weave into the main path in interesting ways.The objective of the dungeon is to tell a story about itself and the boss that lies waiting at the end.Encounters should start by introducing the creature types and environmental hazards of the dungeon, then gradually combining and composing them together until finally the climactic encounter at the end where the elements you introduced before and now totally combined and scaled up.Along the way you should be foreshadowing a grand twist that turns the boss fight on its head once its bloodied.
>>94380711I built a network graph of boxes. Being able to make meaningful decisions by picking routes, and finding how routes cross-connect and loop back to create an interconnected space is what makes dungeons interesting.Unlike most other adventures, dungeons have a 1-1 mapping of narrative and physical space.
>>94383111No, the way I play is the correct way, and the way you play is wrong.
>>94383565Fortunately, you mean.
>>94384874How do you fill the rooms in a dungeon this big?
>>94385324Just go alphabetically down the list of monsters in your monster manual of choice.
I come up with a gimmick for the dungeon. It's usually something simple but significant, for example:>the boss is protected by a forcefield that has three focus points that need to be destroyed to weaken the shieldThen I draw the important rooms that are relevant for said gimmick, for example:>a central boss room, three smaller rooms for the focus points evenly spaced from the central roomThen I connect these rooms drawing floors and other rooms using essentially this guy's method: >>94380787So basically, I come up with an important thing, then I draw the necessary rooms for that important thing, then I organically draw the rest of the dungeon around that important thing's rooms, and fill those secondary rooms accordingly.Not every room will have combat, usually only about a quarter to a third of them. But we are not playing a system completely focused on combat. Most rooms will have puzzles, environmental hazards/obstructions, or just general points of interest.
>>94385324Helps a lot when your game isn't built around combat encounters that require a lot of DM busywork. Rolling on the room contents with the AD&D dmg is pretty fast. I tend to roll physical dice because I like em but you could just get a generator to do it and read from the top of the list. I roll about a dozen rooms at once for general content, then cycle back around and fill in the rest in >monsters & treasure >treasure >Tricks traps and specials >'empty' which doesn't mean nothing is there just nothing immediately hostile Then circle back around and flesh those out with a few tables I like and reskin to the tone of the dungeon themes. If I were trying to make shit with 3pf style stat blocks I would not advise this sort of dungeon, its not made for that kind of game.
>>94380711I typically do 5-room dungeons that are disguised to not be that. Like often the 5-room dungeon starts before you approach the actual dungeon. One thing I'm curious to hear is how others justify massive dungeons. Tomb of Annihilation, for example, is really weak IMO. >It's a big square with off-shoots going to smaller puzzle rooms. >The offshoots are guarded by tough guys or floor traps or both. >At the end of each off shoot is a combat encounter with a magic item and a spirit that gives you a buff>There's 5 levels of this and 9 spirit rooms, plus more lost treasures specific to the local culture, plus big puzzle rooms that block progress. >But also, you need to explore every room because hidden around the dungeon are living skeleton keys you need to kill that actively run away from you, and you won't know how many skeleton keys you need until you reach the room before the final boss fight.
>>943877265 Room dungeons are newdnd goyslop. How are you supposed to drain the players resources to force them to make thought choices? When did a parys going trough a 5 room dungeon say>Ok we can't continue further, lets leave gets some R&R and then return and finish this placeNever>Tomb of AnnihilationI disslike it too but for different reason. Instead of 5 levels, treat it like the 5 rooms thing. Literally apply the 5 rooms rule but on a level base and you'll get something thats best of both worlds
>>94387726Like how to justify it in 5e or original context? 5e is just to sell nostalgia. iitc the original tomb and many similar targets of misunderstanding are intended as convention modules run as a contest to see how far you can get. They're not suppose to be deeply invested in a setting or anything like that. The puzzle solving and exploration to defy death is the game part rather than character arca which are better suited to your 5 beat challenge style.
>>94387828One of the best tricks you can pull is to fuck with the sense of progression. Have a teleportation trap or a pit fall send the players to level -3, suddenly they can't retreat when it seems convenient, they have to figure their way out and fight their way back
>>94385561Jesus Christ why did it take this long for a good post to come along.
>>94380711I just copy the floor plans of nuclear bunkers or the doomsday bunkers sold by contemporary architects.But I play a post apoc game.I imagine you could copy those plans.
>>94380711I like messing with secret passages and tunnels too small for most characters to go through. Places that you have to swim through places to get to. Stuff, depending on what the players try to do, they might figure out, that really has no other reason than to make them feel clever or rewards them in someway. You can rig it so the challenge kinda rewards the one who gets it, like say the thief is lagging behind. Fighter found a sword, mage found a book. Next item is a dagger that the thief could squeeze through a locked passage to find. Who knows, who cares. Thief is challenged, gets something if they win, fighter guards the passage, mage can support with magic. Everyone has fun.So, I guess I just flavor the place for my PCs with stuff like that, with the 'main' dungeon being to setting. A den of bugbears is going to have different stuff than a necromancer's tower, after all.
>>94390813Welcome to Costco, I love you!
>>94387726İmagine playing dungeons and dragons but not even wanting dungeons big enough to have dragons.
>>94389233Because /tg/ is full of bad GMs and I halpen to be a good GM.
>>94385172No, there are different kind of games out there, and classic dungeon crawls are rare
>>94380711>be twelve years old>get pencil>get graph paper>draw maps like op pic>be half a century old>smoke weed>imagine drawing maps like op>smoke weed>fall asleep>dream of drawing maps like op>wake up>smoke weed>draw maps like op but better>smoke weed
I like to some-what recreate maps from video games. Especially the dungeons that lead to bosses, they are usually the best because they don't just go in a simple path, they meander up and back down and backtrack around and have generally confusing map layouts.
>>94380711I like to draw my dungeons out as being massive and hugely complex but I often struggle to justify the scale and complexity I want, so it usually just ends up being a sort of disappointing middle ground.Pic related, it's a single segment of a larger dungeon I made that's probably the most mazelike. I really struggled to fill up the environments with interesting stuff to see or interact with because if you just run endless piles of loot or endless hordes of enemies in every room it gets boring. You need to pace your dungeons with moments of peace and simple exploration, and then dot around high-octane moments of difficult encounters.But if the dungeon is going to be so big, what do you fill all that empty space with? There can only be so many storage rooms and dinner halls and bedrooms and whatever else for your players to snoop around in. Especially when the players are the kind to move every piece of furniture and open every random barrel to find whatever they can get their grubby hands on. Especially when you aren't very good at drawing random clutter onto maps like me
Drew this for my former DM for a place from my character's backstory that I was hoping we could have our first dungeon experience with.Basically the canyon was used as a trap by a cartel of mercenaries and bandits who would pose as guides and guards then lead caravans up the bank of this particularly difficult river, promising a safe crossing further up. The path is narrow enough that the caravan would have to travel single file with no way to turn around once inside, so they'd be easy pickings. My character in her past was a Wizard posing as a Bard who was fleeing with stolen artifacts after sabotaging a ritual. She was trying to cross this region to get to somewhere that might be able to help destroying the artifacts or at least be beyond the necromancers' reach (a Fey run territory that famously does not tolerate necromancy in this homebrew). Instead her and her companions were led into this trap and she resorted to using the artifacts to try to turn the tide of battle.What ensued was a blight of necromantic magic turning the dead into zombies that she lost control of and who were bound to the foci rather than to her own will, as the foci was most likely the unfinished process of raising a cult leader as a Lich.What she didn't know was that in the caves of the canyon there was an entire complex housing members of an organization that the necromancer cult she fled from was merely a branch of, as well as bodies from their experiments. She escaped across a rope bridge she burned down, and some of the evil organization escaped through tunnels and collapsed those behind them. Everyone else died.Her new companions were to clear the place out for a leader of a faction who are opposed to the one that does Necromancy, whom she joined.The DM was free to do what he wanted with the horrors he'd find inside but the DM got bored after clearing the one big chamber and sidetracked us completely. Would have been fine if he didn't abandon the campaign a sesh later.
>>94380711usually by the seat of my pants as we go.
>>943807112-3 relevant rooms and a boss chamber is some low-effort zoomer shitthats a "mini dungeon", and "boss" could only be a relative termsome dungeons should be just static locations (ruined monastery or something) where stuff is and stuff happens, but a proper "dungeon" should be a system (like a medieval castle), but unlike in zelda they should actually make sense
>>94380711I don't.NEXT!
>>94399121>-3 relevant rooms and a boss chamber is some low-effort zoomer shitNigger, this is literally how things were UNTIL zoomershit. Thanks for sharing that you are utterly fuckling clueless about the hobby at large and dungeon crawling specifically
>>94380711I make my own tables for room-by-room generation, and play as I go. I also have mechanics for repopulating a previously dungeon revisited in the future.
>>94399562This is one of the most ignorant posts on /tg/ today. Good job.
>>94399562>>94399598yep, talks like a leftist reddditor
>>94399598He's not wrong, frankly. Plenty of Keep on the Borderlands is empty, dull, or otherwise without merit. It might accidentally become interesting, but the actual module only has a handful of places where anything actually happens.
>>94399976>thinks 'empty' means 'nothing in it at all' >doesn't understand exploration >hasn't actually read kotb Yeah, nah, you're an idiot.
>>94400188Empty means no enemies, loot, traps, or features. Sure it's got rats, weird smells and graffiti but so does your house.
>>94400295>Or featuresWrong again. The entire point of the description is to add connect players can engage with so they have both a world to explore and have to find out what a trap, trick or special is. You're flat out wrong and sound like your rental is gay and sterile.
Flowchart. Dungeons don't need detailed floor plans of the whole thing, just a way to keep track of which rooms connect to which.
>>94403182The worst take on /tg right now.Congrats, you were against some stiff competition.Now, you still need detailed maps for players - can you generate them on the fly?If no, you'd have to have drawn detailed maps of areas beforehand - and have a separate flowchart on how they connect.Wow.Much desing.Very handy.
>>94406292>Now, you still need detailed maps for playersWhy?
>>94406651Feeding the obvious troll, but bored, so...To show their characters in relation to the area, incase they are:a) ambushedb) in a battlec) set off a trapd) get fragged
>>9440671390% of the average dungeon doesn't need a 5ft scale map because nothing tactical is likely to happen there, and you can sketchmap a corridor onto a drywipe map in seconds.A flow chart with rough instructions on room size, type, and features is easy to make, and you only draw the detail when you need it. Admittedly if you know ahead of time you're going to have a showpiece fight you can prep that area in detail.
>>94380711IMO, the worst thing you can introduce to a dungeon is predictability. If players feel like the are 'supposed' to go somewhere, or do something, they will not develop any agency. Player agency is what makes the game fun for both the player and the DM.A dungeon is not 'supposed' to have a 'boss' at 'the end'. Entering a dungeon should not be done for the completion of some 'quest', like collecting a specific item or saving an NPC. You might think: "well if the players don't have an end goal, what's the point of them going in the dungeon?" And the answer is to fulfill their natural desire of gaining dominion over a space and acquiring power.By telling your players they are treasure seekers and that for every 1 gold value of treasure they bring out of the dungeon they gain 1 XP and eventually level up, you set the premise for them to set their own goals. The players can go into any room they like, run away from any danger they might find, kill any monster or character in their path, and take any risk they are willing to take. Now they are no longer thinking about 'what the DM wanted them to do' and are instead weighing risk vs. reward and trying to exploit their surroundings.The dungeon consists of rooms and corridors which should be connected in a way that there are many options for traversal. A linear dungeon will not give the players a sense of agency because they have no options. 'Encounters' (rooms with monsters/traps/etc.) do not have to be strictly balanced. However, the deeper you go in the dungeon, the more dangerous it becomes and the more treasure can be found.There can be very powerful monsters lurking on a level, which the players could experience as a 'boss monsters', but should never be intended by the DM to be an 'end boss'. Any room in the dungeon should be skippable, and the DM should never verbally push the players to do what he wants.Playing the oldschool way will allow players to be real heroes because they have a choice.
>>94380711I start by thinking about what the structure was originally used for, then do 500-year timeskips, with each new resident changing something about it. Makes it feel a little less like "the builders finished construction and then sealed it away".
>>94407784Additionally, don't bother with a 'theme' or 'reason' why the dungeon is there. For your own sake, and not to bore the players, have the dungeon be thousands of years old with many different inhabitants owning it in that time. Think powerful wizards, armies of orcs, cultists, aliens, dwarves, etc. Each room (cluster) could have been built by a different owner. You can have hints relating to the different owners throughout the ages and rooms and treasures could be left behind by them. Again, predictability is boring. Of course in this way of playing the DM has to be completely fair and neutral. The players are in a chaotic environment and the only thing that they can rely on is your unbiased judgement as a DM and adherence to the dice.
>>94407846But what if your players aren't retarded enough to go on a walking tour of a completely incoherent murder basement in the hopes the dice give them more money than trouble?
>>94407846This is so stupid.It's so much better when players have a reason to give a shit about what they are doing. You sound like the world's most boring DM.
>>94408385Why would they give a shit about some story the DM just made up? I never understood this.
>>94408268This is the problem with new school D&D right? The DM has to be afraid that the player won't even enjoy the game on their own. Personally I stopped DM'ing for people who see the DM as their personal entertainment slave. Enjoy telling people to get off their phone at the table, though.
>>94408518I guess you're more into the mechanics of the game alone, then? A lot of people play ttrpgs at least in part for the role play. Having an immersive world, characters, and story are essential. It's not so much that the DM makes up a story to justify a dungeon's existence as that the dungeons makes sense in the world and you ether have a reason to venture in or there's a story revealed through the exploration.
>>94408551Yes I should've added that the characters the players use will be specifically created to delve in one particular (mega)dungeon. The players will be expecting their character to die sooner or later. The story becomes the story of the character going into the place no one dares to go and comes out rich and victorious. I'm not more into the mechanics of the game, the opposite, really. I don't want mechanics to be in the way of roleplaying and heroic behavior. I want them to be as simple as possible, so no marvel movie abilities on characters. The roleplay comes from the fact that the players know death is always nearby, and by roleplaying well (understanding your environment, asking questions, being cautious, thinking realistically, conversing well with monsters/characters) will allow them to keep their character alive. In this sense there is a real reason to roleplay well. Besides keeping your character alive it's also fun to roleplay a character's personality.
>>94408607What is the point of the endeavor if the character only exists for the dungeon? They'll have nothing to use the riches on and no reason to care about character deaths because there's no emotional investment in a narrative. Lack of a bigger world and story gives them a lot less to work with in terms of developing a personality. I really don't understand why you would limit things in such a way.
>>94408963ntayrt, but you both have very different conceptions of what a roleplaying game is and what one gets out of it. You are from the narrativist school of thought. You believe the ultimate goal of an RPG is to tell your story, and view the game as a cooperative storytelling experience. That's not to say you don't think fun rules are important, you just think they exist to support the enjoyment of telling the story of the world and each player. The megadungeon is not a good setting for your style, for exactly the reasons you describe.This anon is from the Gamist school of thought. He believes the ultimate goal of an RPG is to have a fun game to play, and views gameplay as the primary enjoyment of the game. That's not to say he doesn't think story is important, he just views a story as an emergent narrative that comes from impartial adjudication and interacting with the environment, rather than a collection of preplanned plots people engage in. The megadungeon is perfect for this anon's style, as it creates a chaotic and exciting location that can flexibly include interesting environments, enemies, allies, and competing factions, all of which support good emergent gameplay.You'll never see eye to eye on what a fun RPG is because you don't really have the same idea of an RPG.Also, Mythic Underworld style dungeons as tayrt describe always have a nearby town where you can sell wares and buy equipment. Otherwise many of the assumptions and systems necessary to support such a setting cannot exist. It's also almost never run in power-based RPGs like post 3e D&D, but equipment-based RPGs like older D&D and its various clones.
I always have a story about the place it feels nicer for me and my players. This one was a hidden temple for a small pacifist cult and have been abandonned for a while. Two brothers found it and have been using it since to kill people, locking them inside (1A) taking what they have on them (2A/2B), keeping the good stuff their then cutting them (3C1/2) with the tools and ustensils they got (D1/D2) and eating them in the old prayer room under the statue of the minor god carved there (4A). 3A and 3B are the garbage rooms, 3A is full so they moved to 3B to put the parts they don't want to eat. The smell is atrocious and flies are everywhere while you explore the place. You need both keys to open 4A one on each brother. My players visited the place with only one brother there cutting someone and avoided him because of sound inside 3C1 and walked all the way around but got stuck in the hallway at 4A door when the second brother got home. A lot of fun but missed the loot in D1/D2. And yes weird names for the rooms I want to be able to show it to my players if I need to.
>>94411456You hit the nail on the head with describing the two different views. I have experience with both modern "D&D" (pathfinder, 5e) and oldschool (OD&D). Playing 5e with coworkers was a lot of fun, and I made quirky characters with intricate backstories, but it was impossible to escape the feeling that it was all just play pretend. It's not D&D, and I don't understand why people who want to play pretend and do cooperative storytelling need a ruleset like D&D. Everything is dependent on what the DM makes up on the fly, and if you stray from his vision the game falls apart. In this sense it's fake and gay to me. The other anon asks why have a character that only exists for the dungeon? My counter question is why have a character that only exists for the DM's story? If you don't understand why its fun and exciting to risk a character's life for the purpose of glory and wealth, you are basically coming from the position of "why would I play this game at all?" If you don't want to control your character on your own and need to be led by a carrot on a stick, why would you play a game at all?
>>94412516This is a fundamentally lacking view of newer games.Two big missing elements:The DM doesn't have to have a strict vision for everything, especially not the future. It's arguably the case you can't fly against tone and theme (inventing the internet, etc), but your DM is a poor one if they make you follow rote story beats. The DM should have elements, questions to resolve, and so on but no required OUTCOMES. He knows ahead of time that Thunder Mountain will be important, but not why or when. He knows it's important to find out what happened to the crown prince, but it could be rescue or murder or betrayal and I guess we'll find out.The other big element your post is missing is that players want a driving goal, but "get treasure at demonstrably excessive risk" doesn't light their wick. Nor does it have to necessarily be "turn up and listen to daddy." Players who want a tale of revenge, or discovery, or self-discovery will see XP-for-Gold as a sideshow. If the dungeon contains some money, why get it there specifically. If the dungeon contains the last remaining copy of a sacred codex and that's the character's jam... you got a stew cooking. The player chose the character's drive, the DM wove that into the prep, and everyone's happy.
>>94412672NTAYRTThat's pbta style play to find out and flipping the world building on the players. its from before that but DW is where it became more formalized. I think anon was talking about a seemingly common phenomenon where someone runs 5E as if they should be running it with Dungeon World without really knowing that's an option. >but your DM is a poor one if they make you follow rote story beats>>94382616>>94384942>>94385561>>94387726>>94389233>>94408268looks like a common enough approach.
>>94412729You don't even have to get players to worldbuild, as long as they can character build with some ambition. But I maintain that "play to find out what happens" is probably the best part of DW. Frankly, it's probably the best six words in gaming.
>>94412672Very easy to say from the perspective of a player: "I want MY story to be told!" It's simply a case of rampant narcissism among players that think they are going to be playing a videogame 'but you can do anything you want'. See it from the perspective of the DM. How do you manage the very specific character goals of 4-5 players at a time? Do players just take turns for their characters story to unfold? Why would my character risk their life to find your ancestor's lost sword? Silly and childish, imo.
>>94412840I've found it really depends on the players, time frame and what sort of game you're going for. But there's a lot of good stuff to take from offloading some of the world building to the players and having elements of uncertainty on the DM side. I think what someone might be getting at is that it seems like most use of 5e for 5 beat story arc play would be better fulfilled by something like DW. See like this sort of problem >>94412841actually stops being a problem with PBTA. Its not my favourite way to run a game, but it takes care of the difficulties of story arc focused play. I think its one of those things where people don't want solutions they want to be mad, mixed in with brand recognition and inertia of DnD.
>>94412841I DO actually run my game like this, with four players.The summary is something like this.* You all need each other to accomplish your goals. You won't get far without a party around you.* "Fate has conspired to throw you together." (i.e. my random tables have entries relating to each of your side content types, and a given dungeon or encounter area will likely benefit more than one of you)* You can use each other's discoveries for your own purposes (I may have put this lethal poison down thinking of Player A's political machinations, but if Player B wants to use it to win his Grand Swordfighting Championship then so much the better)* Your nemeses are not selective. Player A's evil vizier can and will shut down the championship if seriously nettled. As such, you probably all want the party's goals met eventually (and those who have completed their life's work will probably find it threatened by the other uncompleted goals before long).* Small Goals Cause Chaos. If your life's work is to open and stock a small bakery (i.e. trivial) I'm going to have to make up the slack with additional unexpected problems, because there has to be something going on in the kingdom.And finally* There Is No Main Story. I gen up threats based on the players' preferences and those become the campaign's big moving parts. There's nothing more important to your characters than these roughly-exactly four goals.
>>94412891>I think its one of those things where people don't want solutions they want to be mad, mixed in with brand recognition and inertia of DnD.Truer words seldom spoken.
>>94380711how would you go about having a mapper at your table if your dungeon layout is more complex geometry wise? should the GM be drawing the map as you go along?playing OSE on foundry vtt
>>94411699Nobody for a comment or question? We are talking about dungeons design and not a single person posted one apart from >>94397206 and >>94397410 and they didn't get any feedback either.
>>94412974I take time to make my descriptions clear with cardinals and distances, then check their map if they seem confused or I feel like I'm not doing a good job of describing. If its a me problem I tend to help them out and draw it in. Seems about 50/50. Current party has 2 mappers which is sort of amusing to see. irl game though so its easier to just look and edit or scribble on a scrap paper.
>>94411699>>94413046Fine, it's a nice design.Solid floorplan, I don't understand the original builders insistence of symmetry - but it fits the adventure well.Did your players ever discover the secret door in 4a?
It depends on the system. When I'm playing the dungeon game or something similar, it typically goes like this:>Find main reason for the dungeon. Who or what is here and why>Design dungeon around the above so that it has some semblance of logic. If a big dragon lives here, it better have big tunnels or something that they can maneuver in>Add several rooms, paths and offshoots that have at least a little logical sense. Key the rooms on the map>Each room has a couple lines of text. A name, 2 or 3 adjectives and a sensory note. Then a list of notable interactablesAnd thats more or less it. Sometimes I have a sheet with information about the denizens and what they might do in certain circumstances. But I usually wing that element.For games like The One Ring, usually I just have a picture of the location and the key locations marked and noted like I do in the above dungeon. But I don't usually draw it out on a grid since it isnt that kind of game. I spend more time on the NPCs and details of each area (while having numerically less of them).
>>94413046Here, have a (you)>>94411699 is very lair with serial killers, not much to comment on. Sort of boring but ok. >>94397206 is an autist struggling with realism issues. There isn't much to say. Stop worrying about realism and accuracy from an omniscient perspective, add time and decay to account for randomization and accretions over time. Connect enough parts that they players will see some semblance of reason and they will be happy to puzzle out more, doesn't even have to be accurate. Seems like they're stuck on needing it to also be a battlemap with accurate chair placement and table settings so not a thing I have much to help with.>>94397410 is for his character's back story, given to the DM they wanted to be the first dungeon. Its already so far from what I would play or run I can't really get into it without saying they're fucked and retarded. Currently running pic related. Its from a module (Tomb of the Dragon Heart) with some modifications, added a surface layer and about 15 more rooms. Works well. Players are getting to one of the accesses to the second level so I have to get that together. Should be fun to start tomorrow. I'm wanting to add things from Veins of the Earth but level 2 isn't really deep enough but I might say fuck it and include a bit anyway.
>>94413210The cult was splitting men and women to each side to change into their ceremony clothes and do ablution before getting back together in 4A to face the goddess statue being "cleansed". Players didn't find the secret door no, it's an entrance/exit but didn't know about it or asked for it to the person who sent them there in the first place. >>94413236The group was sent from a very old member of the cult giving them an offer for the goddess unable to go their himself. They thought it was a delivery mission. But thanks
Which is the better design philosphy between these two, in your opinion>1. Every room is mapped and has descriptions, you read out each room as the players reach them.>2. Only important rooms where something is actively interactable are mapped. Brief description is used as the players pass through other areas to give scale
>>944133502. mapping empty areas is a waste of my time.
>>94397206>>94413046It's a very good map fragment, but it's not directly usable to me since lower right corner has clear height differences and I can't be arsed to make them make sense to me.On clutter and empty space:- keep the space empty, you can have running fights and hastily thrown up barricades.- enviromental hazards: low ceiling means no reach weapons (at least). Rainfall could flood the cavern or parts of it. Staircase could be a slippery waterfall.- dungeon dwellers coming up behind the adventurers, and setting up patrols, guards, traps, ambushes or barricades- have somebody/something dig/crash/blow their way in to already explored dungeonThat's all I've got.
>>94413350This is a weird false dichotomy and doesn't seem to understand the processes of either choice anyway. A keyed dungeon map is useful for a dungeon exploration game, combined with a variety of encounters, tricks, traps, specials and other things mixed in creating an unknown that has to be engaged with by the players to discover. This combines well with time/resource management, wandering monsters and combat-as-war that can take place over several engagements in different areas. There are no 'empty' spaces, but every space doesn't require an essay. Helps when the game design has fairly light stat blocks to keep prep load low. A point crawl or arc based narrative doesn't even need a map. The map will honestly get in the way because it will add inconsistencies on paper players can look at. Having the key notes, their encounters and a good cluster of tone words goes a long way. This works better for narrative based story games or if you're unfortunate enough to be running a series of arena fights linked together by a plot of some hackjobery. At least that way you don't have to map out all the fiddly cruft bullshit.
>>94413236Ooh, that's a nice map! I can make out the height differences almost instantly and make them make sense to me.Couple of questions: - What's that between #3 and #8?- Is somebody/thing supposed to be able to access #18? Is it a pit from upper level or something?
>>94413453Hmm. It is not really a dichotomy or at least not meant to be one; they are related, not opposite. The second option is not intended for a narrative experience, it has more to do with glossing over the rooms and tunnels in a large dungeon that have nothing notable going on, rather than ensuring the map on the DMs side is "accurate". Bullshitting the unimportant parts of the dungeon so to speak to make it bigger (ie to waste more time resources)
>>94413516Okay I think I get what you're going for. Honestly if its something you're going to be handwaving and glossing over asap I wouldn't have a map at all or a very abstracted point crawl with descriptions of the connections but as read aloud rather than features they can engage with. >the twisting caverns go on for miles of uninhabited cavesthen pivot directly to the things you are playing. Keep the players busy so they don't start poking at the other stuff and you end up having to make it up anyway, or flat out tell them >Dave, that's not part of the game, its just fluff None of this is where I end up though so I might be missing something.
>>94413458>3 & 8 is a grate portcullis sort of thing. I'd normally mark that with dots but they went with a squiggle. >18 Its supposed to be a hidden room players discover through mapping and tunnel into but I added some more direct hints when I modified the module. I think the adjacent flat walls of all the surrounding rooms are not a bad hint but its not enough. Its a cool module, very olde mythical feel.
Are any of the online dungeon generators worth a shit? Ideally I'd like something systemless but I can convert or add to it as needed.
>>94415298Dave's Mapper is kind of fun, just smashes together geomorphs. https://davesmapper.com/This one page dungeon maker is okay, not a thing I like as much but might be useful for some. https://watabou.itch.io/one-page-dungeon
>>94380711Loops, one way doors, hidden rooms.Specials like teleporters or specific rooms changing what they do once you progress further, side paths unlocking later on. „Generic doors“ that can either be forced or opened with generic keys that become a sort of ressource I also like switch rooms. Rooms where you need to go to in order to change the dungeon layout (unlock either section S or B, flood part C or D of the dungeon etc.) I usually have a lot of backtracking and my „puzzles“ are more about figuring out how to get from A to B rather than literal puzzles. I usually also include a bunch of non hostile NPCs (that can easily die) and different factions of monsters that hate each others guts.>pic relatedAn unkeyed map i cut into pieces and give out to my players once they cleared a section since they are too lazy to draw it themselves.This all only works by using turn tracking and random encounters of course
>>94413236To be clear the DM WANTED a map and I delivered based on what made sense for the story. It didn't have to be our first dungeon, but that's the way things were headed given the way the DM was setting things up.Yeah, we were fucked. Our DM had a few great characters with a great story instigating everything which we were pretty invested in, but was super fucking lazy. Every session they'd end up having us just fuck about and not accomplish jack shit because they never had any modules or well thought out encounters ready. I planned this with them well ahead of time in hopes they could do something with it, and they took three sessions of us being there and still not getting to clear the thing before they side tracked us and we had to temporarily abandon it. And then they quit over election drama.It was so frustrating. Doubly so since I actually really want to know how their damn story ends, and was really attached to our characters at that point. We were trying so hard to help the DM.
I wonder what kind of puzzles most of you use: how do you design them? What are you trying to test?
>>94399562>3 relevant rooms and a single boss where standardNobody tell the Kerestans.they were making zoomershit back in the late 70s.
>>94382616>raps are there to deplete resources. The goal of all encounter rooms are to make the characters weaker until they can get to the Boss or some other objective.lol, ok I cast Tiny Hut after every encounter and restore all our HP and spells.
>>94380787>I need to combine the Skeleton Finger with the Rusty Key in order to make the Skeleton KeyI am now 100% use this puzzle on my next dungeon
>>9438532450% are going to be empty
>>94418414D&D3e/4e/5e isn't the only game in existence with dungeonsalso I assume D&D players would just houserule the game-breaking spells out of existence
>>94416647That's a nice map of an underground city, I suppose.What's going on in the upper right in the blue area?Where the mapping stops; is that corridor going down or what?Also, has anyone gotten mapping to work nicely, as in gm describes and mapper draws?I know my maps as a mapper were horrible.
>>94418414>Implying I'm playing D&Dogshit
>>94418414Ha, nice try, faggot, but we are playing 4e, has it been 18 hours since your last long rest?Do you even have the ritual?No? Then get fucked, stop being a coward and get on with the work.Maybe if you all weren't so dumb, you wouldn't keep getting thrashed.
>>94418635This is literally another d20 system that is highly inspired by dnd. In fact I quite like it and even backed the ks, but at least I don't pretend it's a whole different system so that I can shit on dnd and act like a cool kid.Why do people have to act this way?
>>94418700D20 isn't the issue with D&D, Anon.
>>94418770> that is highly inspired by dnd
>>94418700it doesn't have tiny hut so at least that problem doesn't exist in italso am I remembering wrong or was this spell called "leomund's tiny hut"?When I googled it now it just says "tiny hut"
>>94418777Every single tabletop game ever made is highly inspired by D&D, Anon.
>>94419217Even Monopoly?
>>94418384>Most of the walls are just lines on paper.Nossir, I don't like that.
New day new map: Double secret entrance crypt with grave robbers digging into it to make some money.
>>94419217Myabe 30 years ago, because there are lots of recent rpg which are vastly different from dnd.SotWW is not one of them, and that's not even a conjecture: the author admittedly mixed dnd and wh to create it.
>>94418608The upper right area is actually a dead end but the red part of the upper right part is a huge hole that leads into a lower part of the dungeon, the top left part is another way down, one involves drinking poison , the other involves getting insulted by an NPC,I know which one my players will choose>>94418414Would be banned if my system had that shit, simple
>>94418608>>94420082Nvm the blue upper part is a secret passage, since I’m cutting this up I gotta make it non connecting or they’ll figure out something is up from looking at the map fragments
>>94420096>>94418608The keyed map is more ugly but shows it better
>>94420126Nice.Kudos to you making maps (and dungeons).
>>94419583It's more of a mini-necropolis than a simple crypt to me.Is this under a castle or a temple or something?
>>94421012Next to a large church (new one) built under the previous monument (destroyed today), historical figures of the church buried inside during special ceremony and protected by the active members of the church. D room for religious contemplation and prayers (room is full of chairs facing the middle of the room). Small "public" cemetary with lesser known monks and members of the church bottom left corner. Today it would be called catacombs but I was inspiered by the crypt of chartres so called it crypt.
Moar plz
>>943807115 room/node dungeon for a quick oneshot, larger dungeons I try to apply to broadly to abstract sections away into nodes and what game function they serve and then build layout up from there, with interconnecting the different nodes. I then build up rooms with simple old school tables to determine content of rooms that I am unsure about myself. I usually do bottom-up world building to gain a feel for what is cool as fuck and then I run it through multiple levels of decay backwards that would reach that point, to liven up the dungeon and give it history. Usually I think of each node with a dominant theme/species which interacts in specific ways with the other inhabitants. from that I then build a wandering monster table, key out the rooms (important to write down what the players see, feel, smell when entering, this can breathe live even into an empty room) and fill them with loot and monsters. then I create the rumor table and conditions on how to enter the dungeon.
>>94424749thats sounds clever as fuck, can you share an example?
You arrive on the scene. The strip mall has been blocked off and surrounded by squad cars. Frank's Games has the windows blacked out, looks like the perps taped comic books to the windows. The Cretacean and Mad Dash fill you in. C : "Three civilians inside the comic shop, one staff and two customers. We don't have a vision guy, but Faceoff has managed to replace one of the civs and is feeding us Intel. Five guys, rhinox, and looks like they've got implants. After market blasters too. Krokom tech, probably."Mad Dash adds, "They've issued demands, something about representation in media. I don't think they know how publishing works. The swat guys are setting up on the roofs, but they won't have a shot as long as the windows are covered, and not with hostages inside. How do you want to play this?"
>>94424795hmmm it actually has been a while since I've dmed, my stuff is on some old dusty hard drive currently, sorry. What specifically do you wanna know?
>>94424712New day new map. Water cave with crawling space and grave robbers linked to the Crypt to the north.
>>94425116can you show some of your maps?
>>94425621well, I don't have my larger campaign documents on me, they are in a hard drive in some box in my basement, but I did find some maps
wow, what a waste of a thread
>>94426246nobody asked you you faggot
>>94425511Neat geomorphs, but I can't make out the elevations of different caves.Counting the stairs up and down G seems to about entrance level - but going from the left-side loop G is the lowest elevation in the system: together with platform between D, E and F.About water:- B is half filled with water- G has a large pond on the right side of the map- H is half filled with water- D is half filled with water- is A filled with water? Because if it is, then, looking at stairs:- C should have water- D should have more water- platform between D, E and F should be flooded.Am I reading the map right?
>>94383565running a series of one shots in dragonbane with me and my friends. My next adventure is a half sunken mansion that belonged to an incredibly wealthy family who's riches went down with them. The adventurers will find out what happened to the family and how they made their money.my players only care about the finding riches part but will really enjoy the other stuff too.
>>94425822>>94426018>>94426027These are lairs to me. Neat especially the third one.>>94426051>>94426055>>94426065These look like actual dungeon floors.Third one is weird and wonderful.Second one is stupid with an indoor garden with a gazebo. I love it.I have questions about the first one in this set: what's going on in #12?
>>94426327*right. side. loop.Sorry, my bad.
>>94426327You are reading it right but it only has water up to your ankles and even if the elevation is changing into the cave where the water is coming from and inclination and depths of the room are not represented so I can just put water anywhere pretty much.
>>94426413oh the room is part of a severage system with grates on the western and eastern walls, going below the dungeon, if I remember correctly
>>94426479Nngh, that hurts me but fiiine.Oh, and another thing:you owe it to yourself to put some underwater shafts (pits) in those watery parts. That'll learn the players to bring that 10' pole.
>>94413236>is an autist struggling with realism issuesNoted. I guess I'm too stuck on the idea that every room needs to have a "reason to go there", and I worry about including places that are just empty and pointless. I need to find more creative and situational things to include inside some of these rooms, as the novelty of their existence can sometimes be enough to carry the experience.The reason it's so small-scale and in-depth is because I play online so I run the dungeons with tokens that are all to-scale with the game world.>>94413422>Running fights/ enemies using map layout to their advantage>Environmental hazards inherent to the architectureThese are very good pieces of advice that I hadn't considered before. Noted.>lower right corner has clear height differences and I can't be arsed to make them make sense to meIt's not conveyed very well in just the map but there's a rope bridge directly above the waterfall that leads to a stairwell upwards. It's a good 15 feet or so above the longer bridge across the chasm.Pic related is the full map of the related floor of the dungeon, which is split into three segments. There are three entrances to the far right
>>94418635You haven't left the D&D family of games.
>>94427307H is going pretty deep and will have "something" in the water too. I have 3 players at the table 2 out 3 can't swim the last one is in armor. The group is always scared of water for that reason, if the cave was sunken or really deep water part they wouldn't even enter it. One lost a character few months ago in a similar place with more water and the cave collapsed and splitted them, the one character alone couldn't swim his way back to the group. They are very cautions since, the campaign is very lethal, with traps, combats and exploration in general they have all the materials with them to explore "safely" but big and heavy bags on the back doesn't help in water. I can't draw well at all to really make it the way I want. The ground isn't flat at all, it's a cave with holes, water dripping from the ceiling, some mushrooms here and there etc. I wish I could draw better and make it look nice but I do "good" descriptions for my players so even without the map they are immersed. Maps are mostly for me anyway.
>>94380711
>>94429836>every room need a reason to be there They may have at one point or another but taking a dungeon through a few eras of build, collapse, invasion, repurpose and collapse again by different sorts of monsters, disasters and just time tends to allow for a variety of discrepancies to grow over the eons. I tend to enjoy rolling how a group could misinterpret or badly use parts of an older design they don't understand. The other anons pointing out the space doesn't have to be chocablock full of entertainment and things to do every minute either. Having a mix of less hectic areas and some more passive locations allows for down time, space to manoeuvre and also adds uncertainty to exploration where the players have to decide how to investigate vs their time, hp, light and other resources. I've found a few good sets of tables for details and dungeon stocking.
>>94429836This one might not be as relevant if you're not aiming at OSR but its still an interesting read. There's buckets of blogs with a lot of tables and ideas depending on how much detail you want. >Elf Maids & Octopi Sheer mass, so many fucking tables. Low detail terse but useful if you just need a nudge. >D4 Caltrops Many medium detail tables for fairly specific things but well fleshed out without getting in your way. >The Manse Sort of a crap shoot of a bunch of weirdly specific tables but when he's on they're great.
