Dungeons Part 6: Layout Plans

Step on in this Mega dungeon project is going to be some general planning. Firstly I'm going to make a plan of the themes and content of each dungeon level, this is just going to be something rough in Ms paint to help me organise my ideas a bit.

Starting with this as my base.

Starting from the top, the Surface level will either be a smaller dungeon of itself or just a general description of the surroundings and the dungeon entrance, I'm going to leave this unplanned for now until I have a good idea of what's in the first level. Thinking about what sort of transitions from level to level and how the levels interact with one another helps tie the dungeon together as a coherent whole, my plan is to have each level have access to different resources each controlled by a different faction. The faction are weary of an all out war for fear of loosing access to a vital resource required for their survival.

After a bit of thinking I ended up with this.

So the different factions I have thought up so far are; The slavers lead by a flesh warping vivimancer, The leather skins lead by a dazzling illusionist, the pickers lead by a cruel necromancer and to round out the factions a slave rebellion lead by a scarred miner.

Though each of the faction leaders will have a lair on a different level to one another, their agents should be found on all levels in some way as well as being on each levels random encounter table. Though the factions are stuck in a cold war skirmishes and sabotage between factions should be common. Wearing the clothes  and symbols of a faction will be enough to pass by their guards and most workers, some orderlies will spot a slave or guard out of place though.

The first level of the dungeon will have a central market surrounded by other areas serving different functions.

My current mock up of the lvl 1 layout

Each of the areas shown on the mock up can be expanded to be around 2-4 rooms each, which will quickly fill out into an expansive complex. to traverse from one area to another there will be a network of corridors, aqueducts and ventilation shafts.

Most corridors and rooms in this dungeon will be unlit except for those that see frequent use, those lit will be illuminated by oil lanterns or candles produced elsewhere in the dungeon. I'm planning on having some fire beetles or oil beetles on the second level.

Let me know what you think of the plans so far, i will begin work on mapping and stocking the first level fairly soon so should have something to show by the end of the week.

M.C.

Dungeon part 5: Mega Dungeon Initial Idea.

So over the month of March, I am planning on creating a mega dungeon and writing out my design process here on this blog. This is largely what the last dungeon posts have been building towards, as I wanted to talk about the more theoretical side of dungeon making, to show what basis I am coming from when building a dungeon. I will upload the full keyed dungeon at the end of the month and I will be trying to make most of the maps on Dungeon Scrawl https://probabletrain.itch.io/dungeon-scrawl, so its pretty to look at.

I'm going to aim to do at least 3 level with 20-40 rooms per level. In terms of inspiration I wanted to do something based off the adventure The Lost City as well as the story "The Lords of Quarmall" by Frits Leiber, both of theses focuses heavily on human factions in a subterranean city and I feel is a great basis for faction play and role play.

For the system I'm going to be using Swords and Wizardry complete, and I will be levelling to around character levels 1-5. Since I am using a system that uses gold for XP, there will be a conscious effort to include more than enough gold and treasure items to appropriately level up over the Course of the dungeon.

I will be using the basic structure of the B/X dungeon stocking tables to determine the main content of a room, this table could be summarised as 1/3 Empty, 1/3 monster and 1/3 tricks or traps I like using this table because I think it gives a good spread of different types of encounters.

The starting hooks could be multiple things. Either the dungeon is a site that outside forces wish to infiltrate or the players are captured or hired by one of the internal factions. The addition of magical knowledge among the inhabitants could add to either possibility, this knowledge developed separate from the outside world may be an object of envy for a number of powerful wizards, or a means of trapping the party in the first place. Magic users also add a number of possibilities to the environment within the dungeon, illusions to hide secrets from rivals, magic traps to deter intruders and spells that improve the conditions in certain parts of the dungeon are all possibilities. It might also be an idea to group the factions based on what style of magic they prefer.

I'm probably going to write the next post in this series fairly soon and hopefully keep regular posts over the next mouth.

M.C.

Hex crawling and Sandboxing: Its possible.

I see a lot of confusion over two aspects of D&D, Travel and Sandbox gameplay. In terms of travel its mostly people newer to D&D who may have some assumptions about how D&D travel should work, They find the dissonance between these assumptions and the mechanics jarring and believe that the mechanics are broken hence why I made my previous blog post "Travel in D&D isn't Broken"

https://mazecaretaker.blogspot.com/2022/01/travel-in-d-isnt-broken.html

If I had to sum up what the assumption is its "The journey is just as important as the Destination" D&D is in many ways not Journey focused but Location focused. The game isn't about the journey to the fortress of five sides, its about the Tyrannical Sorcerer amassing an army in his labyrinthine Stronghold called the fortress of five sides. 

In the 5e D&D games I've played this tends to be inversed, locations are small and under developed and travel is so central that there are entire sessions dedicated to simply moving from one area to another. Now its worth stating that this is not the result of 5e mechanics, 5e travel mechanics are the same they have always been its simply a result of play style.

So lets briefly look at 5e's travel mechanics and discuss it a bit, firstly you travel a number of miles per hour or day depending on the speed your traveling. The Normal travel speed is 3miles per hour and 24miles per day, there's a slower speed that allows for stealth or a faster speed that reduces passive perception. The base speed you choose to move at is then modified by the terrain your moving over, over dense forest or jungle, swamps and rocky uneven ground you move at half speed and over maintained roads you move at double speed. It is recommend that you use hex maps to help run travel as each hex 

A lot of complaints I've heard about 5e travel is that its "Just a bunch of skill rolls" yes that's the point... they are abstractions to speed up play, all 3 of the skill checks Tracking, Navigation and Forage reducing the lose of certain resources be it time, food or water. There is no need to make this more complex and the same goes for the rest of travel, it works as intended and allows for fast adjudication of time passing and resource expenditure.

So Sandboxes, a sandbox is an area where the players are free to explore and travel in any direction or way they see fit. This is largely intimidating for DM's it seems like a lot to prep, but the truth is you are focusing on prepping certain things and improvising that which you comfortably can. This is where the location based gameplay I mentioned earlier can help, by focusing on prepping locations such as a town or dungeon and worrying less on the in between you can break you prep down into manageable chunks, it is not your job to worry about how the PC's get to a location only what that locations layout and content.

Improvisation is a useful skill for DM's, it takes a bit to build up the confidence and skill to improvise and I would recommend starting with small things like NPC dialogue or some dungeon dressing. As you go start trying to improvise more and more, the goal is not to make it so you prep nothing but instead that you are able to adapt to the players action and be confident in your ability to deal with the unexpected. Creating tools to help with improvisation can help I generally use name tables and reaction rolls during play, again its about prepping what you need to prep and improvising what you can.

I hope this post was helpful in some way, I enjoy talking about these subjects a lot and will touch on them again in the future.

M.C.

Dungeons Part 4: Themes and Factions

So one of the initial stages of planning a dungeon is coming up with what the dungeon is and what monsters inhabit it, this can help inform other parts of the dungeon such as traps, layout and treasure.

The Theme of the dungeon usually starts with its original purpose, the standard options you see a lot of are tombs, temples and forts of some kind. More unusual options will stand out more and can add a lot of variety to a dungeon crawl with elements that aren't usual to the standard dungeon types.

Regardless the original purpose of the dungeon is important for creating the layout and inbuilt features of the dungeon and on top of theses features made by the original builders of the dungeon, the current inhabitants may make modifications to theses pre existing features or make brand new owns. This for example may take the form of a cannel network used to transport materials in a dwarven city that becomes the home of a band of subterranean pirate goblins or a ventilation system to supply air deeper into the dungeon that has become the nest for a pack of giant rats. Think about what creatures might be able to make tools to tunnel through stone and how they may modify the dungeon to suit them more, either in terms of space or function.  

In terms of factions, having a single faction for a small to medium dungeon works fine. But when building something larger adding in conflicting factions can make the dungeon exploration more dynamic. I think the best example of this I have seen in a dungeon is in The Lost City, in this dungeon there are 4-5 factions depending on how you look at things. There are the local mask wearing inhabitants, which contain within them three factions of priests of separate gods, and a group of hobgoblins that seem to have recently entered the dungeon based on the dead hobgoblin propping open the entrance to the city itself. Since 3-4 of these groups can be friendly or at least neutral to the party depending on multiple factors, it gives plenty of opportunity for roleplaying and a chance to form an alliance with one or more of the factions. Understanding how the different factions coexist or conflict is important to resolving character interaction.

A good way to organize both dungeon features and factions is to break the whole dungeon down into different areas(each roughly around 5-10 rooms in size), each with different common features and factions, for example a half submerged ruin may have a group of goblins living in the parts above water while some sort of fish men lair in the submerged area, the two groups may conflict over the local fish supply and other resources but would be perfectly content avoiding outright war (at least as long as there numbers are relatively equal and neither side has a clear advantage).

If your looking for a good source of inspiration for dungeon themes i would recommend checking out the Ruin tables in Worlds Without Number, these tables are available in the free version which can be found here: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/348809/Worlds-Without-Number-Free-Edition?term=Worlds+Without+number

M.C.

Mass combat in D&D and OSR

Lets be honest D&D is a power fantasy... And it always has been. The type of power fantasy may change but in essence it has always been a power fantasy. And what is more of a power fantasy than being the general of your own army, D&D had its roots in wargaming and many times have there been attempts at combining the two. From the original Chainmail system that was used for the combat engine of original D&D to the two systems TSR developed "Battle System" and "Warmachine" and even some OSR system and supplements that include mass combat such as Adventurer conquer kings and Strongholds and Followers. So I think there is a group to which such things appeal, Personally I have a background in Warhammer fantasy and 40k so combining two of my hobbies does appeal to me in some way.

So how exactly can Mass combat be done? this can be case of how abstract you want to be, the different sides are between an abstract calculation where you add a bunch of modifiers to a dice roll and then get a result that determines how the combat went and on the other end you have something closer to a wargame with units that you move about and make attacks with. There are plenty of middle ground too between to adjust to you or your groups tastes.

The abstraction method works best for concluding large scale battles quickly and clearly, and would be well suited for siege warfare and other types of non conventual warfare, this is the method used by the Warmachine system or Adventurer conquer king,

The Wargame method would be be better for skirmishes and small scale battles, the sort of things that would happen if you have a few dozen mercenary's escorting your adventuring party and roll up a 40-50 orc warband on the wilderness encounter table, simply organize the forces into units of 10 pool their hit points and attacks and then run them as one creature. Systems like Swords and Wizardry have rules for this method.

So is a Hybrid system the best approach? since both methods excel at different aspects of warfare and at different stages of the game then could using a wargame approach to simplify large groups of allies and enemy's, and then a simple calculation for large scale wars and sieges. This is probably the approach I am going to try in the near future(hopefully some of the games I'm running reach this point.) Finally there are some stuff I would recommend for 0a taste of this style of play both free pdf's, First Adventure Conquer Kings Autarch Domains at war which is an example of the first method and second Swords and Wizardry Complete which has a simple mass combat rule that is what I highlight in the second method.

ACK Domains At War; https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/113499/ACKS-Domains-at-War-Free-Starter-Edition?manufacturers_id=4277

Swords and Wizardry Complete:https://www.froggodgames.com/product/swords-wizardry-complete-rulebook/

Let me know what you think about this subject, Any systems you like to use for mass combat I would be interested in discussing it.

M.C.

Dungeons part 3: Dungeon generators I have used.

Dungeon Generators are a useful tool for jogging your imagination, I sometimes find it useful just to have a random room size or just to have a random room type to work with. The key to using Dungeon generators is to modify the results towards something a bit more coherent, a lot of corridors created by generators will be too long and twisting so these are defiantly something to be aware of when building dungeons. So here are some generators I have used in the past, I generally consider them to all provide the most basic part of any dungeon generator which is the room and corridor generation. 

1.5e DMG's Appendix A:Random Dungeons, This is a decent one to start with, its suited for small to medium dungeons(which i consider about 10 rooms) one thing I would caution that in the stocking section of this generator you have a 50% chance to have a monster in that room, Personally I prefer to have a 1/3 chance of monsters. This generator has some decent dungeon dressing tables though the tricks table could do with being a bit larger.

2. Table Fables 2 By Madeline Hale, This is probably the most economical option on this list and probably the simplest, for what it is I like it a lot, again this is a good option for small to medium dungeons. Its a very useful tool for just getting some room sizes and I enjoy the Notabilities & Peculiarities table (my favourite option is when the dungeon is in a farmers field and so is infested with sheep)

3.OldSkull Dungeon Generator by Kent David Kelly, This is what I've currently been fiddling around with, an expansive series of tables though it does sometimes refer back to other books in the Classic dungeon design guide series so may not be a complete product on its own, The complexity of these tables can get a bit unwieldy at time.

4.Tome of Adventure Design By Frog God Games, This is a great book for all kinds of random tables and the dungeon creation table is no difference. instead of rolling corridors for this generator you roll for layout of a Dungeon Area, number of rooms in a section and then the room sizes, the exact way things are laid out is up to you .You are guaranteed to have a Special room in every Dungeon Area, these are much larger and often unusually shaped room, in terms of size this generator works better for larger dungeons though it really depends how many Dungeon areas you string together.

I might try putting together my own dungeon tables in a later blog post I think it would be a good exercise, let me know what you think of dungeon generators or if there's any you would recommend.

The most controversial B/X Clone: Lamentations of the flame princess.

As I mentioned in the previous article Lamentations of the flame princess was a massively influential system in the OSR, At its core it is a version of B/X D&D with some house rules (which are pretty good house rules mind you) so why is it controversial? well it has transgressive material, an edgy creator and MAJOR DRAMA.

So before we start its worth giving a bit of a content warning: WARNING LOTFP PRODUCTS TENDS TO CONTAIN DARK THEMES, SENSETIVE TOPICS, NUDITY AND GORE, THIS IS NOT SUTIED TO SENSETIVE READERS.

So with that out the way, lets get on with the review. Lamentations of the flame princess(or Lotfp from now on) was created by James Raggie the 3rd, a man who loves to court controversy and push the bounds of what is considered acceptable(to the point that he regularly plays chicken with what he can sell on Drive thru rpg), James has been in many controversies over the years from fighting against the satanic panic (even after it is long dead and buried) by putting in edgy satanic stuff in his adventures(and publishing a book on using satanic rituals in the running of ttrpg's) to involvement with other controversial people and of course the content of his adventures (very edgy).

Firstly its worth talking about some of the design philosophy of lamentations. Firstly Lotfp calls itself weird fantasy, this is a part of the weird fiction genre, a genre that is defined by the reinterpretation of classical monsters or use of transgressive material, this genre includes subgenres such as cosmic horror, Swords and Sorcery and Weird Science etc. Lotfp doesn't believe in the standard, it doesn't have a magic item list or a monster manual, it advises if you uses monsters outside of the mundane that you only use them once to keep the mystery and that most of the time you keep the game grounded, how grounded? well the implied setting that has formed for Lotfp is a historical setting, with a silver standard currency and black powder weapons (that take a accurate amount of time to load)

The Ability score modifiers are the standard B/X spread of -3 to +3, standard 3d6 ability score generation with a house rule that you reroll the set if the total of all the ability modifiers added together is less than 0. there are a hit point minimum for first level based on class, only fighters improve their to hit bonus and that includes the dwarf and elf race as class options(this seems a big deal but its worth noting that practically nothing goes beyond AC 18 in Lotfp). Alignment is a thing but is only really there to determine the results of being targeted by certain spells or magic items (you also don't have a choice most of the time a cleric is always lawful and a magic user is always chaotic etc).

Classes are the standard B/X affair; Cleric, fighter, magic user, Thief(or specialist as its know in Lotfp)  dwarf, elf and halfling. There is some flair with the execution and house rules, clerics get spells at first level, but turn undead instead of being a class feature is a spell on the cleric spell list. Fighters get the before mentioned to hit bonus increase, Magic users get d6 hit dice at first level, Specialist uses d6 for skills and can chose where to focuses their skill increase(including sneak attack) and gets hit dice changed to a d6 too. Dwarves get d10 hit dice, additional encumbrance points, a d6 architect skill that starts at a 3in6 chance, a +1 to their con modifier and they are the only class that gets to add their con bonus to their hp gains each level after 9th (which is huge and probably makes them my favourite version of the dwarf in any fantasy game), Elf's get the standard magic while also being able to cast one handed, they get a search check that starts at a 2in6 and a reduction in surprise chance (down to a 1in6 chance). Lastly halflings get a +1 to their dex bonus, a +1 to ac when not surprised, a 5in6 stealth skill and a bush craft skill that starts at a 3in6 chance.

The equipment lists are some of the best I've ever seen, it has all the standard stuff plus extras that add to the feel of the game. Stuff like man catchers and Garrote's added to the weapon list, Silver weapons having a 1 in 10 chance to break whenever they are used and the lists of black powder weapons in the appendix of the book, these additions add a very dark fantasy tone to the generic fantasy B/X rules. And that's just the weapons portion of the equipment lists, other great additions is the two costs for everything, a rural cost and a urban cost, the list of services from travel and posting to lodging and the list of vehicles and livestock, these tables add so much info about the setting while barely being a paragraph between them. 

There are simple rules for a wide range of occurrences such as foraging and hunting, disease and aging, drugs and alcohol consumption, poison and starvation and even sleep deprivation(i have seen at least one monster ability that can rob you of the ability to sleep before so a useful rule to have you never know) one of the most interesting abstractions are the language rules, where instead of having a list of languages for the players to know you have a chance to understand a language the first time you hear it. 

Encumbrance uses a point based system to simplify carry weight. wearing heavy armour gives encumbrance point,  carrying over sized items or weapons add a point and having certain number of items gives points. These points then translate into your encumbrance status and movement speed. It is worth noting at this point that classes in Lotfp doesn't limit what weapons or armour you can use but your encumbrance can prevent you using magic and some skills. This section also has rules for mounts and pack animal encumbrance and movement which uses the same point based system as the player characters do.

There are then some rules for maritime travel and combat, an expansive section on hirelings (including rules on slave ownership which fits the historical setting) and section on property and finance (with some great abstractions to reduce the number crunching a bit). I appreciate these sorts of thing as it gives more for you to spend your silver on.

Combat is what you would usually expect, there are some house rules such as parrying, aiming and firing into melee etc. but largely the house rules are there to answer common questions that come up playing B/X.

Magic in Lotfp gets interesting, house rules on recharging magic staffs, laboratory's and some more rules on spell scrolls and research etc, but the spell list has been revamped to remove or change certain spells and add entirely new spells. Much of the spells removed are direct damage or resurrection spells and much of the changes or new spells have odd or unpredictable results, such as Duo-Dimension that makes a target 2d or the well loved summon spell that summons a random entity from the outer planes(the creatures summoned range largely in form or effect), a lot of this reflects the more dangerous and unreliable nature of magic in  swords and sorcery or dark fantasy fiction.

Lotfp is one of my favourite B/X derived systems though its not for everyone, I felt the need to look over the system again given the recent new releases. In terms of good adventure and supplements for Lotfp, I would recommend watching/reading some reviews first as quality and content varies wildly.

Links to the Core books,

Player book: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/115059/LotFP-Rules--Magic-Free-Version?manufacturers_id=2795

Referee book: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/148012/LotFP-Referee-Book-old-Grindhouse-Edition?manufacturers_id=2795

M.C.

What even is the OSR? part 1: how did we get here?

The OSR (or old school rules? old school revival or old school renaissance) is a loosely collected group (or Groups more accurately) of people dedicated to making systems and adventure inspired by "Old School play", so a lot to define and explain in some way.

I think any explanation of the OSR needs to start with a brief history lesson, so this pulled from what I have read and heard is how the OSR formed and evolved. So first off is AD&D, people loved AD&D, some people loved AD&D so much that they kept playing it when AD&D 2e came out, they loved it so much that even when the company that made AD&D went out of business they kept playing. This was fine and all but time is a harsh mistress (doubly so to well used gaming books) and these dedicated AD&D players had a need for new AD&D books, But getting new prints of a discontinued ttrpg is hard, especially when a new company has the IP (Note this was before the OGL).

the solution was OSRIC (or the Old School System Reference Index Compilation) due to copy right not applying to rules, it was perfectly legal to copy over the rules from AD&D as long as you wrote it in your own words or had slight modifications. And it was a success, people tried similar things with B/X and OD&D, making systems such as Labyrinth lord and Swords and Wizardry. With an influx of systems and players some started to make adventures and supplements for these retro clones as well as increased discussion about old school D&D design and play.

Thus concludes the first generation of the OSR (we have 3 more to go), next came the innovators who made their own systems based on these older editions of D&D but with their own creators flare, this is where we would place systems like Adventure conqueror king, Swords and Wizardry Complete and Basic fantasy role plating game, these systems try to keep more to the spirit of old school D&D while simplifying or abstracting some rules and adding additional systems for others. 

Now there is one system that should probably be mentioned before discussing the 3rd generation OSR as it could be seen as the progenitor to much of the 3rd generation, and that system is Lamentations of the flame princess, this is a B/X derived game that had some very interesting and innovative design concepts, stuff like  only fighters getting to hit bonus increases, Item slots (foreshadowing) and not having a monster manual, needless to say it was very bold, very edgy and very controversial (and still is) all in all I quite like Lotfp but the supplemental and third party stuff is a mixed bag some great adventures too(and some horrible ones), it had quite grand ideals and was once a titan in the OSR.

3rd generation OSR, where as before the OSR was dominated by systems that contain all the standard sub systems and rules you would expect for D&D, 3rd generation D&D is dominated by minimalist systems, these systems are something you could pick up and run in the same afternoon. Stuff like Into the Odd very high concept and innovative. Systems start to have more abstractions than concrete rules or number crunching, instead of tracking resources you started having resource die, instead of calculating weight in pounds or coins you have item slots, some systems start to drop GM advice sections or substantial magic item or monster sections or books.

So what is 4th generation OSR? well you in it, a continuation of the trends shown above, the OSR is dominated currently by the titans of Morkborg, OSE and DCC(which just always does its own thing), just look at the amount of third party material out there for these systems. Layout and design is king in this generation (as some would claim at the cost of substance) many systems practice abstractions without knowledge of the original system these abstractions replaced. In fact from talking to many OSR veterans there seems to be a shared sentiment that much of the 4th generation (or NuOsr) lacks much of the knowledge of older editions that the first and second generation had. This is most blatant in dungeon design with concepts being talked about a lot but the understanding of what they mean is lost, something like Hall of the Bloodking for OSE has corridor loops (that encompass a single room and takes like 2-3 exploration turns to complete a circuit of) faction play (where each faction owns one or two rooms) and generally reads like a bite sized version of Castle Ravenloft. 

Once again most of this is based off second hand accounts and blogposts, some inaccuracy's are to be expected, if your looking for a more in-depth history of the OSR I would recommend the Simulacrum blog's a historical look at the OSR series

https://osrsimulacrum.blogspot.com/.

since this ended up being a lot longer than I expected I'm going to do a second part of this series trying to nail down some definitions for some terms that are loosely defined or without definition entirely.

M.C.

Dungeons: part 2, Dungeon Inspiration and recommended reading,

Inspiration for a dungeon comes from many places and having a mix of elements inspired from different things can help make a dungeon varied. I generally like to start with what major monsters live in a dungeon when designing it so to me good dungeon inspiration and good monster inspiration are the same. For example if the monster was the original creator of the dungeon part of it might be made to benefit their species and disadvantage others, such as covers for pit traps that can bear the weight of a kobold but not a larger creature, or large vertical shafts for something like a Drow that utilises giant spiders to traverse their caverns. These features can also allow different characters to shine in their area of expertise, such as a wizards utility magic allowing for you to traverse an otherwise impossible obstacle, or a thief's ability to climb or find traps.

A lot of dungeons from fantasy fiction are great for inspiring dungeon content or themes, but usually don't detail out the layout of the dungeons too heavily for obvious reasons (it not being the most entertaining reading). Video games on the other hand allow you to explore expansive dungeons and can display a wide range of layouts. Not all of these are the best, games like Skyrim tend to have highly linier layouts, but never the less video game levels are closest in terms of design concerns to D&D dungeons. My personal recommendation is the first part of the original dark souls game, it has so many interconnected locations with varied designs and is a great example of a type of mega dungeon.

In terms of books on dungeons I would recommend the Classic Dungeon Design Guide series by Kent David Kelly. It is a rather in-depth series that runs you through the different stages of dungeon design, from developing a concept and planning the floors/sections to adding in dungeon dressing and traps from a wide range of random tables (including some d1000 tables) as well as a dungeon generator book. This series is most useful for larger dungeons especially mega dungeons, you might find some useful information for smaller dungeons. I have used this book series in the past to help design a dungeon for a west march game I was a part of, and I can say I was pretty satisfied with the results.

Amazon link:https://www.amazon.co.uk/kindle-dbs/entity/author/B004AO4O36?_encoding=UTF8&node=492564011&offset=0&pageSize=12&searchAlias=stripbooks&sort=author-sidecar-rank&page=1&langFilter=default#formatSelectorHeader

Drive thru RPG link:https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/7178/Kent-David-Kelly?term=kent+david+ke

Let me know what inspiration or tools you use I am always looking for a good dungeon generator.

M.C.

Dungeons: part 1, place in the world

Dungeons are a corner stone of early level play in many editions of D&D and OSR systems, I think that a understanding of dungeon design and techniques can benefit a DM.

Firstly dungeons are an example of location based play, not all locations are dungeons but all dungeons are locations. Part of this is a dungeon usually has a map, this helps with a lot of dungeon crawling procedures that relies on time and distance to operate smoothly. Size is a matter of needs at the end of the day, as part of a hex crawl smaller dungeons and locations can be useful as travel adjudication and decision making takes up a suitable portion of play. Common small dungeons and locations encountered in a hex crawl may be monster lairs and camps, having some maps of these ready made are a good idea before starting a hex-crawl. More moderately sized dungeons around 10-12 rooms are usually want you want for something to last a few sessions, and mega dungeons usually have infinite rooms, mega dungeons are either a site that can be returned to over and over again with other dungeons and adventures in-between or almost the entirety of the campaign.

Trying to tie the dungeon into the wider world is important for immersion and creating the feeling of a living virtual world, many module dungeons don't do this as part of the limitations of modules and there are exceptions but bare in mind that some tweaking may be beneficial expressly if the dungeon is meant to last more than one or two sessions of play and if it is meant to be a location the players go back to repeatably. One way in which a dungeon can be tied into the wider world is due to a piece of loot sometimes found in OSR system's treasure tables, treasure maps!, these are self explanatory its a set of directions or an image of a location with the promise of even more treasure, this can generate its own adventure depending how far away or how hidden/guarded the treasure is, having some sort of distinctive landmark be described or shown on a map can help the players find the treasure easier.

Next time ill talk a bit about inspiration and books I have found useful in building dungeons.

M.C.