Zeropoint Posted February 24, 2012 Report Share Posted February 24, 2012 So, I find that I might be running a Skype game for a couple of online friends in the near future, and I figure I'll need some dungeons. Unfortunately, I've got little experience with design, so I'm turning to the collective knowledge of Herodom for help. Basically, how big should a dungeon be? How many rooms constitutes a session's worth of gameplay? I figure that it'll depend at least partly on encounter density, too, so that's also an issue. What percentage of the rooms should have enemies? What should the balance of room to corridor be like? How much thought do I need to put into the functionality of the dungeon layout? I'm thinking that in the absence of other ideas, I'll use real life buildings for inspiration, but it seems like such things rarely resemble traditional fantasy game dungeons in layout. Am I overthinking things when I look at a dungeon and wonder who dug it, and why they built it like they did? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Miles Posted February 24, 2012 Report Share Posted February 24, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? Just go to the forums here- http://www.cartographersguild.com -and I'm sure you will find numerous suitable maps already drawn out, and even usable as battlemaps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted February 24, 2012 Report Share Posted February 24, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? If you want special names for your dungeon rooms, you can get something here Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninja-Bear Posted February 25, 2012 Report Share Posted February 25, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? I'm thinking that in the absence of other ideas, I'll use real life buildings for inspiration, but it seems like such things rarely resemble traditional fantasy game dungeons in layout. Am I overthinking things when I look at a dungeon and wonder who dug it, and why they built it like they did? I know Dnd gets made fun of this. But when I re-read works from Edgar Rice Burroughs (The Gods of Mars) and Robert E. Howard (The Hour of the Dragon), they have dungeons, galleries, pits, and the such with no discernable reasons, until the plot needs one. So for logic, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Heck in real life, some of the ancient buildings, we only have an educated guess to the exact nature of the building/room functions. Now if your using castles (Medieval), then maybe you would want to have a little more logic to it. I would start with maybe 8 rooms. At least one having a puzzle or trap of some sort. And for monsters, have some baseline or weaker monsters and some stronger ones statted out. So if one room, they blow through the monsters, then the next you can have them stronger or vise versa. One idea I had (and feel free to use it), was to have the PC investigate a ruined tower. (Its a possible hideout for outlaws) and upon discovery, they find that there is a tunnel in the dungeon of the tower which leads to subterrean caves. (The outlaws may have been killed, or join forces, or a third party). Perhaps the tower collapses and now the heros must search for a way out? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djkester Posted February 25, 2012 Report Share Posted February 25, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? Another source of inspiration for those just starting out is video games. Skyrim is one I'm drawing from. When converting from a video game to a table top RPG you can just run with ideas the video game can't for hopefully obvious production cost issues. Also another way to go is to find an old dnd module and convert it up for you hero game. Whatever you come up with I'm sure if you put some fights that are interesting creatures with good descriptions your players have fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Manic Typist Posted February 25, 2012 Report Share Posted February 25, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? I know I've seen a dungeon history/layout generator online..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Escafarc Posted February 25, 2012 Report Share Posted February 25, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? AD&D 1E DMG Appendix A Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AmadanNaBriona Posted February 25, 2012 Report Share Posted February 25, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? heh, this thread reminded me of a recent quote from Aaron Williams' webcomic Full Frontal Nerdity: "Think about every tomb we've ever broken into. When has it EVER been just a monument to someone's greatness instead of doing double duty as a CONTAINMENT UNIT for something that could destroy half the world?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IndianaJoe3 Posted February 25, 2012 Report Share Posted February 25, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? I know I've seen a dungeon history/layout generator online..... There's one at Donjon. If you prefer caves, there's one at Curufea. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midas Posted February 26, 2012 Report Share Posted February 26, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? Well, to build the best dungeons, a dwarf engineer and crew is the best. They are also the most expensive. Gobbos are a lot cheaper, and almost as good: You just have to expect a few secret doors and passages for their own personal use later to be installed. Oh. Try going to WOTC archives. They have free mini dungeons in one folder, and free floorplans and encounter areas in another. For example one free dungeon has iirc seven rooms, with a minor demon, rats, a giant spider, the big bad is a super-zombie or minor wight, and you encounter scouts from an invading army as a long term plot hook. The encounter areas are just a collection of rooms that you can decorate and populate. Also, at DriveThru, look for 0one products. They do encounter areas (pretty good ones) and Drivethru has some free samples. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
djkester Posted February 26, 2012 Report Share Posted February 26, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? "Think about every tomb we've ever broken into. When has it EVER been just a monument to someone's greatness instead of doing double duty as a CONTAINMENT UNIT for something that could destroy half the world?" I have done this several times and have planned yet another one of these. The players in my campaign will one day be very surprised when they break into a tomb and find a dead body. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barwickian Posted February 26, 2012 Report Share Posted February 26, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? I have done this several times and have planned yet another one of these. The players in my campaign will one day be very surprised when they break into a tomb and find a dead body. They'll assume it's undead. I would. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninja-Bear Posted February 27, 2012 Report Share Posted February 27, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? They'll assume it's undead. I would. I've used that to my advantage once. the skeleton stirred alittle, and after the characters reacted, it turned out to be a rat in the bones. Priceless! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hawknight Posted February 27, 2012 Report Share Posted February 27, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? If your going to make a dungeon/cavern up, I recommend buying a bunch of Skeletonkey Games E-Adventure Tiles. They have a ton of different types and most if not all can be used with each other type (I.E. Volcanic Caves can be crossed over with Flooded Caves and attached to Temple of the Spider Queen) A great investment for a ton of different maps. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nolgroth Posted February 27, 2012 Report Share Posted February 27, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? So, I find that I might be running a Skype game for a couple of online friends in the near future, and I figure I'll need some dungeons. Unfortunately, I've got little experience with design, so I'm turning to the collective knowledge of Herodom for help. Basically, how big should a dungeon be? How many rooms constitutes a session's worth of gameplay? I figure that it'll depend at least partly on encounter density, too, so that's also an issue. What percentage of the rooms should have enemies? What should the balance of room to corridor be like? How much thought do I need to put into the functionality of the dungeon layout? I'm thinking that in the absence of other ideas, I'll use real life buildings for inspiration, but it seems like such things rarely resemble traditional fantasy game dungeons in layout. Am I overthinking things when I look at a dungeon and wonder who dug it, and why they built it like they did? Assuming your Skype game is going to use some sort of Virtual Table Top (Fantasy Grounds, MapTool, OpenRPG), I would expect that the addition of voice would speed things up so that, once you got past the technical glitches and familiarizing yourself with your tools, it should not take much longer to run that a face-to-face game. With whatever system you use, there should be automated dice functions available to speed up that aspect. Brilliant Helm is working on one for Fantasy Grounds, Heroman made one for OpenRPG and I built one for MapTool. If you are simply using webcams and real dice, I don't see much of a problem there either. So how long does it take you to run a dungeon in a ftf game? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ockham's Spoon Posted February 27, 2012 Report Share Posted February 27, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? You might also check out http://campaignwiki.org/wiki/DungeonMaps/One_Page_Dungeon which has a wide variety of dungeons summarized in one page (they run a contest each year). The brevity means nothing is fleshed out, but it has some nice maps and great ideas. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Obvious Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? The One Page Dungeons can be hit-or-miss, but when they hit, they're generally pretty evocative, original, and/or amusing. I recommend downloading the compiled map PDFs rather than downloading each dungeon separately. It's easier to go through them that way. If you decide that you only really like one or two of them, you can always delete the compilation and download the individual maps you like. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Zeropoint Posted February 28, 2012 Author Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? At this point I'm thinking that a dungeon consisting of about a dozen rooms, with four to six encounters including the "boss", would be adequate for an evening's adventuring, especially if there's stuff to be done before going in and after coming out. I'm thinking something along the lines of giant rats in the sewers . . . after all, rats are the traditional starting enemy. That would give me some tunnels and rooms to wander through, with escalating encounters of more/bigger/tricked-out rats, until things end up in a forgotten temple to some kind of thematically appropriate power, where some crazy beggar has wandered in and started using the artifacts to raise an army of rats. In a twist ending, after defeating the super-rats that have just been created, the players will discover that self-styled King or Queen of Rats has no combat abilities . . . how that goes down will be up to the players. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninja-Bear Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? Zeropoint, funny that you mentioned Giant Rats because (after my initial post with you) I was working on a one-shot for my brother and I too am going to use Giant Rats. I'm not sure if to use them as independants or I was thinking of using them more as guard dogs and having a goblin as a handler. And I also considered having the evil elf maybe transform into one. DnD (at one time) had wererats as monsters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Drohem Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? Can't go wrong with the dungeon staple of Giant Rats! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Midas Posted February 28, 2012 Report Share Posted February 28, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? At this point I'm thinking that a dungeon consisting of about a dozen rooms' date=' with four to six encounters including the "boss", would be adequate for an evening's adventuring, especially if there's stuff to be done before going in and after coming out.[/quote'] While I'm on broadband, I'll push it again : http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/oa/20050329a Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Killer Shrike Posted February 29, 2012 Report Share Posted February 29, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? See if you can scrounge up a copy of this old gem: AD&D 2nd Edition Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide. On the other hand if you don't want to work at it or just want a giant dungeon romp, out of the box, and don't care so much about the whys and wherefores....see if you can find a copy of the World's Largest Dungeon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ninja-Bear Posted March 1, 2012 Report Share Posted March 1, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? If you are setting the adventure in the sewers, perhaps you might want to think of using lizard men as either extra monsters, or maybe a third party. I have an idea of why the party wants to go down in the sewers. Perhaps the rats have stolen a church relic, which is shinny. None of the other people are brave enough to go down there. Mind you the relic doesn't have to be magical at all. We know that rats like shinny stuff, that''s why they took it. The local prince won't risk his men in the sewers. Perhaps one or more in the party would like to offer to go for this noble deed, or maybe they just want to get paid. I fjyou have lizard men, that could explain why there are traps down there. And if the party isn't doing well, then you could have them in the background, i.e traces of them and traps but no physical confrontation. Or perhaps the lizards want the shinny object too. One room, or tunnel, could be slippery and a failed rolled means somebody is going for a swim. (I gotta say for some reason this idea has me churning out ideas left and right-hope you don't mind) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ockham's Spoon Posted March 1, 2012 Report Share Posted March 1, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? Lizard men are good, but if you already have giant rats, the intelligent denizens of the sewers laying the traps might also be were-rats which are always fun. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Captain Obvious Posted March 1, 2012 Report Share Posted March 1, 2012 Re: Dungeons, suitable for crawling or delving? I never liked wererats. Ratmen, on the other hand, would work. EDIT: IMO, of course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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