Dungeon Density, again

I recently got hold of two volumes of the Central Casting series of sourcebooks. Some of you might know about these books. Once again it's Paul Jaquays name on the cover. That happens fairly often when I buy game books, for some reasons.

Apart from the ones about fleshing our your character by rolling on a boat load of tables, there's one volume about designing dungeons. Quite interesting considering the qualities Paul have as a dungeon designer, I think.

In the beginning of the Central Casting: Dungeons book, there's a table about dungeon density. I have written about this before, and I think it's worth visiting that subject again in light of what CC:D have to say on the matter.

Looking at the Dungeon Density Table, you will find a lot of different ratings for density. Comparing most of the dungeons published by TSR and other companies, I think they could be classified as "loose-very loose". This is not a scientific verification of everything published, but a general feeling I have. Considering that the densities on the table have a very wide range I wonder why I have gotten that general feeling.

In the megadungeon thread on Dragonsfoot.org forums, many pictures where posted of dungeon maps people had drawn. My impressions of those where that they where pretty dense affairs.

Personally I've found that if I try to fill up every blank area of graph paper, I usually create things which look exciting, but when scrutinized closely they only have one entry point and one exit. Apparently my maps often become linear, and without some empty spaces it's harder for me to detect and remedy that problem. It would be very interesting to hear some input on how different designers handle that.

While I realize this is very much based on my personal impressions of a limited set of data, I still wonder if I'm not onto something.

Why is it that so many published dungeons are fairly "airy", while so many designers at home seem to prefer the dense, involved and convoluted maps? Is this a sign of the tournament dungeon proliferation among published TSR products?

How to draw dungeons, density and linearity

Taking a look at the very intriguing post by Lord Kilgore at his blog, I was thinking on my latest attempts at drawing dungeons.

I have been drawing while planning, meticulously thinking of how things fit, designing choke points and god knows what. Surprisingly often I feel dissatisfied with the result and never finish them. Very often I draw like crazy and suddenly realize I have made one long corridor with rooms or twists along the line, i.e. a very linear adventure.

So, how much space does people actually have in their dungeons? I have found that if I start by drawing rooms and then try to connect them with corridors, or if I just tries to cram oddities in every open space on the paper I get very different dungeons. I still haven't found a good balance of spontaneity and planning yet. Lord Kilgore's post made me think of that again.

What works? What effect does the "dense" dungeon have in play, and how easy is it to "make sense" of a dungeon like that? Imagine a dungeon like, say, Stonehell, where different dungeon levels have different creatures which live in different sections. Can you make that work in a "dense" dungeon? I find some people draw like that naturally, and I wonder why. Maybe I have something to learn. It looks interesting.

The thing with dense dungeons is that I wonder if it's really that fun to play in such a twisted environment. Mapping it must be quite a challenge, and I wonder how many players are that into mapping.

One of these days I have to just try it out, I guess.

Roads go ever ever on..

I just posted about the end of the first chapter of my campaign of T&T. It felt a bit sad, but also satisfying to close the book. What would come of this? Today I was down at one of our FLGSs, and peeked in on the AD&D2 game there which I due to time conflicts couldn't participate in. Playing were two of my T&T players, and the DM was another. I sat in and listened a bit, chuckling and participating in the groans or sounds of merriment when someone fumbled or rolled a natural twenty. As I walked around the table, peeking at the character sheets I noticed that one of "my players" had graph paper in front of her. It was a lull in the action and I asked what she was mapping. Guess if it made me happy so hear her say that she wasn't mapping the adventure they were playing, but she was cleaning up the map of her own T&T dungeon! Hearing that made me feel like becoming a parent for the second time this summer!

How to succeed at adventuring according to Gary Gygax

I just looked through my copy of the 1st ed PHB. In it are described some tips on how to be successful at adventuring. Apart from the importance of having an objective, is also mentioned that having two maps is the key to success. One map could get destroyed by a fire ball, or some other environmental hazard. It brought home to me the idea that the player's map is not just a help for the player's memory, but also an object in the game. The advice is actually something I recognize from the first place I read it, in the Swedish game Drakar & Demoner. Back then I thought it odd that it said that the DM should destroy the physical map his players had drawn if the in game map was destroyed. I really wonder how common it ever was for gamers to actually do that. A very special kind of immersion, indeed.

To Craft Dungeon of Voorand part II

I have been thinking a bit about how to make an interesting dungeon again. One thing I really wanted to make a key feature of my campaign, was for it to be player driven. A sue way to snap the suspension of disbelief for me is to have the world "know" the level of the players and only throw "scaled challenges" at them. They key is to have enough open doors to let the players choose what they want to do. When I look at my dungeon maps I think they are way to limited. If I truly want the players to be able to choose what to explore there has to be a lot of possibilities to move up and down! From now on when I have nothing better to put in, sitting at the graph paper with pencil in hand, I will put in a stairway. How much is good enough? Looking over some old maps, like the maps of Blackmoor castle, you'll see stairways all over the place! Tossing out some numbers I'm thinking that out of ten stairways on a level, at least three should go to the next lower/upper level and four going to stuff way deeper down. Maybe the key here is for the players to encounter a serious temptation, or choice, to go on deeper at least once a game session. I don't think the density of stairs and the possibilities of movement up and down have been investigated much in the discussions online about dungeon design. It would be interesting to know what people think of this. Please let me know if you have any links to discussions like that. For now I have been preparing stuff for my players to explore on level two, three, four and five. If that's not enough I don't know what is!

The One-Page Dungeon Contest ended, and now some self scrutiny

UPDATE! THE DEADLINE IS EXTENDED! New deadline is May 21st at 8:00 AM Eastern Standard Time (US)

The time is up, folks! I was thinking a lot about this contest, and as I was sketching more of the third level of my Dungeon of Voorand, I realized that I probably wouldn't be making it.

Much have been said about dungeon design, and many words of praise have been heaped upon the one-page template. For some it seems to work like a catalyst for the imagination, but apparently not for me. Now, it's not just the 30 x 30 one page limitation that hinders me. Frankly, I think I have understood some of the limitations of my own attitude toward game mastering and crafting adventures.

I began my career behind the screen mostly by chance. We had decided a couple of friends to share game mastering duties, but since I started I kind of got stuck at it. One thing which have struck me as I've read about other people's campaigns, is that the classic campaign which is home grown from character generation and onward, is not really my thing.

While the idea of creating a world is interesting, I have always worked mostly from "canned" adventures and settings. Laziness aside, I think the reason it has worked well for me is because I am fairly good at adapting stuff and wing it, if I have a starting point! I am better at patching together a "story" of adventure and exploration from a pre-packaged adventure and the meanderings and wild goose chases that players let themselves get carried away by, than preparing stuff whole cloth. I'm not creative if I have to be original, but if I get to take all that buzz around in my head from other sources and just throw it all against the wall and see what sticks, I usually pick fairly sticky stuff.

I sat there with a 30 x 30 grid and wondered what I should do. Having started a few chambers and corridors I realized that if I just connected those by 10 feet passages I would have a dungeon that's as good looking at a map of downtown Toronto, or a chessboard. It's obvious that I create my dungeons in a different way. Now I'm getting curious how!

When I think back to how I've done my megadungeon, I've basically taken all the kind of weird shit I've ever read of, and just thrown them together. Dungeon ecology really isn't my thing, since I don't have the ability to focus on more than one room at a time! Maybe it would be a good idea to get some grasp of how ones creativity works. I've read many times of writer's block, and this small contest have given me new insights about how I write and design. Scary, and hopefully useful later on. Maybe it's something worth thinking about for you, dear reader? If you one day sit there with a 30 x 30 grid and don't know what to put down, it might help to know by what process it used to work.

Playing the Dungeon of Voorand - The lure of liches

Today's game was interesting. It was not very heavy on fighting, none at all in fact, but the threat of it hung in there all the time. I dangled the carrot while wielding a big stick.

They decided to stay on level two a while longer, since they knew now that it was far bigger than previously thought. Going down through a "back door", they avoided paying for their entrance. A while back they encountered a bunch of scalykin (a term from our playtest of Vincent Bakers Storming the Wizard's Tower, basically kobolds) and bargained for passage down the stairs to level two. They now have few free passes and they decided to take another route this time.

Down at level two, they went mapping some areas formerly explored and found some interesting stuff. This is where the design of the dungeon becomes interesting. I have drawn two corridors on parallel, and as they go east-west they are connected by passages going north-south. In between those were a space where I fit a bunch of small rooms, all with wooden doors. Basically it was a bunch of "a maze of twisty passages, all alike", but more interesting. Now, they were empty (since I actually try to keep a decent amount of the dungeon open for improvisation) but the doors were interesting. I had planned it so that if you were mapping carefully you would at last notice that the last room was bordering one of the parallel corridors, and the door in that wall couldn't lead to those since there was no door on the other side. One way doors, and false doors, are things I use sparingly but it was my homage to Rob Kuntz and Gary Gygax. For some reason one way doors or false doors for me is a Kuntz thing. I really have to study more of Rob's dungeons one of those days. Suggestions welcome.

Well, they mapped closely, and realized that this was a dead end. What I really liked, though, was that one player decided to bash it with with warhammer to prove a point. Intelligent playing to map and realize it was a dead end, and a sense for when brute force is just plain fun.

They main event for the night, though, was the tomb. I had decided to place not only a jungle environment, a magic shop and a tavern on this level, but also a tomb of a high level wizard/knight. They entered it, scouted around and looked really longingly at the skeletal guardians of the tomb, sitting in their niches with rotting robes bedecked by jewelry and crowns of silver and items of magic. Two things were really fun here. One of my players was really torn. He would have loved to plunder the magical riches, but his fear of fighting powerful undead was tangible. Seeing the player and the character become one, roleplaying at its best, was the kind of sweet moment of indecision which makes it so fun to be the DM. I was very curious myself what this could lead to! I was as much in the dark as they! Throw in some cool stuff and watch the players run with it. I love it.

The second thing was more gritty. In the tomb there was this altar, a magical Rubik's Cube, which was set up to refold itself and open up a small compartment when someone put an offering on the table. In a moment which sits up there with some of the most hilarious and funny stuff I've read in campaign journals, one of my players decided to - wait for it - sit! on the altar! So, it folder into itself while he was sitting on it. I had never imagined anything like that to happen, and had to scramble for an idea of what would happen when an altar was chewing on someones arse! The poor dwarf was castrated and the he not only managed to roll 2,1 on his SPD save, but also roll a 6,6 (spite, of course) on damage inflicted! The image of his misery and the clash of mental images people got from him with a squeaky voice and the full dwarven bearded manliness caused a -10 CHA reduction. He is at 1 CHA right now. Poor sod.

So, they feared undead more that they were greedy, and after s short peek down some stairways to another level, they got back to town and got their 200 AP for surviving 2nd level! They did defuse a couple of other traps as well, and talked somewhat to some other delvers they found but for me the Tomb was the funniest.

So, once again the idea of exploring as central part of the game was proving fruitful for fun. Also, the idea of weird and unscaled encounters proved it's worth. Seeing delvers really fear undead brings back to me the image of Conan, followed by wolves and seeking shelter in a cave which turns out to be an ancient tomb filled with creepy feeling. Sword and sorcery at its most atmospheric. I love this game!

Playing the Dungeon of Voorand - Falling down some stairs

Tonight's game was a bit shorter than usual, partly because I'm home alone with my daughter and she wasn't to keen on the idea of going to a game store and watch daddy play a game. I did manage to convince her and it was a game this week! I do think having a regular game make a whole lot of difference.

Last time we played they had found some very twisty passages, and broken down a wall to get to some monsters. Now they decided to go exploring a bit, and that caused them to remark on how the dungeon seemed to grow all the time. I felt really satisfied by that. They sat there and looked at their maps and I got to hear them say that there was obviously some stuff over here and how those investigations shaped their exploration. The Megadungeon really works! While I still think the parts of the dungeon they have explored are kind of to square, I think it might be a good idea to start out soft. I continuously develop the dungeon and I do indeed grow it as they go along for a slightly more "organic" feel. Apparently they now not only plan from expectations build from their mapping and exploration, they also have realized that this is not such a small place after all. Now they are thinking of going back and see if there's more stuff on level one!

So, they found a pool of water, with undecipherable mystic powers. Canteens filled they moved on and after some shenanigans managed to have one character fall down the stairs turned slide and then did a rescue operation to get a 900 lbs (at least!) centaur PC up from level four before he got eaten by a grue. Much fun was had. Croaking frogs caused the players to visibly turn paler. Good stuff. You did it, Dave (and Amityville Mike).

Now I have to go and actually map up some of that level four!

To craft the Dungeon of Voorand, Part I

In my last post I talked about the Dave Arneson memorial adventure we played. I also alluded to my megadungeon The Dungeon of Voorand, which is the place where my players take their character hunting for riches and glory. What I will write about in a short series of posts, is the reasons I have for starting that dungeon, and how and why it's designed the way it is. Fasten your seat belts. Here we go.

Actually, the idea of me running a dungeon based game seemed more than a little far fetched not that many years ago. I started gaming ages ago, with the attitiude that dungeon crawling was just a hack & slash puerile phase wich was beneth me. I was better, more sophisticated, than that! The heights of arrogance that so marks a teenager. Oh well. Much later I had become jaded with the “sophisticated” games I ha d been playing, and after reading some play reports I finally started my own dungeon delve. How that went, and how I did it, is a tale for a later date. Now I'll focus on this specific way of delving, namely megadungeons.

Those of you who keep up with the discussions at Dragonsfoot, or the Knights & Knaves Alehouse or read some of the many old school blogs, might have heard it all before. But since I'm running a T&T game I'll repeat some of the discussions some since the T&T tradition is a bit different from the D&D one. T&T have long been supported more by solo adventuring than the classic GM led way of gaming. Make no mistake though, one of the first megadungeons was for T&T!

A megadungeon is a dungeon that's big. It's supposed to feel vast, multilevelled and encompas the whole of the playing experience. It's a setting of it's own. You don't “clear out” a megadungeon, it breeds new creatures and wonders to explore. The way I see it, the focus is on the exploring. For more really interesting discussions about the care of and feeding of megadungeons I refer to the links above.

So, how have I then tried to accomplish this feel in the Dungeon of Voorand? Well, I started with the idea of a big mountain, a volcano, under which the ancient and powerful goblin god Voorand lair. He is my persona in the game, and the source of mischief and entertainment. I decided to imagine an insanely powerful goblin wizard bored with age and with all the traits of goblins magnified by his power and unstable mind. So, the dunegon would be what have been called a “fun house” dungeon, as fitting with the insane patron. I had some cool ideas and I started to put them to paper.

Pretty soon it became clear that I draw maps with very boring and straight lines, and with plain doors and square rooms, unless I force myself to be adventurous. I knew that on level one I wanted to have a tribe of hyenakin, and a tribe of scalykin and that they were enemies. I also included a bunch of uruks, and a big hulking troll obsessed with cleanliness. Having drawn their lairs and some utility rooms around them, I connected them with fairly straight lines. Now for my first warning. If your dungeon looks like a very sparse tree with a main trunk and some branches you have done the same error I did. Don't do that.

After a session it was clear that this was way to linear, and also way to small! I had put down a few entrances to lower levels on the first map, and now I drew a few rooms on a new paper and then lined up the papers so I could see how the entrance exited in a specific square of my graph paper. From that square I now had to line it up with my new rooms, which naturally made it less linear! I also put in a few stairs from the other parts of level two I had detailed, which now went up to other parts of level one! Of course they sometimes showed up in fairly cramped places when I lined graph paper, which forced me to be creative.

Now you might ask why I did this? What's the point? The point is that in this more convoluted environment, mapping became more involved. It made my players look at their map and wonder “how does that fit together? Shouldn't there be a room beyond there as well, where there's a blank spot?” Wonder indeed, when they suddenly start to see the tunnels themselves as something worth exploring, just like that thread of twine they used to follow through more story and storytelling based games. They were seeking adventure, and not me spoon feeding it to them.

So, the attitude I started with was to make the dungeon the story, the mystery. Thus the exploration became the main theme! After a few months of play I think this way of playing is something very refreshing and cool for me. Naturally the game system I'm using also helps in shaping the game. In the next part of this series I'm going to talk about that, and how Tunnels & Troll made my dungeon suck less.
May you always roll doubles!