The Rule-Based Dungeon

I have more to do with modular dungeons and stencils but I want to take a little detour to think about what a dungeon location that changes based on certain rules might look like.  This seems risky because a) the rules might be hard for players to discover, and b) it might be really frustrating.  Let's see what we come up with anyway.

Okay, imagine a dungeon with set dimensions, maybe a page of graph paper or so that changes depending on the answer to certain logic statements.  Now we aren't randomly generating a dungeon here; if you make sure the same statements are triggered the dungeon should be exactly the same each time.  What do I mean?  How about, If a cleric is in the party then the Altar room will appear.  Or, if there are more than 2 in a party the stairs to the second level appear.

Who would build such a place?  I'm not sure, it might depend on what rules you set.  In some ways it seems very chaotic-- the shape of the dungeon shifting constantly-- but in others it is the definition of Law-- when these strictures are met the dungeon will always be a certain layout.

This reminds me of Vows, and those could be the rules that are involved, for example if no blood is shed in the dungeon then a fountain will appear.  But it also reminds me of fairy tales: On nights of a full moon there is a city in the bottom of the lake.  Actually the fairy tale route might be a good way to go because by telling players some of these rules ahead of time you might avoid our problems a and b above.  And that would make it more vow-like, because players would know what the rules were and hopefully they would be challenging or amusing rules to try and not break.  Hmm, yeah not very different from that oaths and vows post after all.  But what about coming from the other direction?  What dungeon features might be interesting to pop in and out of existence.

• Access.  In one example above I used stairs.  Doors, bridges, hatches, ladders, stairways to heaven, haha.
• Resource areas: altars, fountains, mushroom fields,
• Geological features: geysers, waterfalls, springs, rivers, pools, stalactites/mites

Hmm, this is seeming more local than I first imagined, but sort of like the invisible dungeon maybe this would be better in small doses.  It makes sense, that if rule knowledge is a potential problem for players you would want to limit the number of rules.  So instead of a whole dungeon that shifts around because of a variety of rules you have a relatively normal dungeon with a very special feature affected by some fairy tale like rule-- "the seven pools will only appear on moonlit nights when a virgin is near."

But maybe we're shutting down possibilities too early, let's backtrack and think of more, non-vow-like things that could trigger dungeon statements:

• I mentioned party #, party make-up, level, gender/age mixture, cultural/ethnic (only a true Women of the West will see the door)
• party gear- if they have magic items, familiars, relics
• time of year, season, weather, day/night, moon cycle
• Whether party uses light, is noisy, camps, eats/drinks in the dungeon
• Multiple visits-- whoa, that's a whole new idea-- the dungeon that shifts somehow with each visit

Now I'm reminded of the idea of "your true heart's desire" from fantasy.  A warrior sees a glorious battle, a mage is met with a vast library.   I could be very dream-like or heaven-like, in that it shifts based on who is there to experience it.  I especially like that idea for a solo adventure.  Imagine a hard to reach tower that players can quest to/enter when they are the only ones to show up on game night, but what is in it differs depending on who it is.  This might be strictly based on class or alignment tendencies, but if you wanted to get a little fancier, you could shape it to what you know about your player-- If Jane like puzzles and everyone else in the group hates them, it's a puzzle tower.  If Bob likes combat, he's like Bruce Lee in the Tower of Death.

What about contexts outside the gameworld itself?  This would be harder to trigger with busy schedules and such, but you might have a dungeon that only has certain features if you go there on the real Halloween.  Or, visit the dungeon on your birthday and the birthday fountain is there, or hah, the Flagon Wagon, travelling brew pub and eatery.  But now I'm drifting more into events than structures (like Santa Claus showing up in Narnia).

Back to how the dungeon might change.  I realize I focused above on what could be true or not, but what about continuums?  These also might change in the dungeon based on certain rules:

• ceiling height
• light level
• temperature
• water depth
• room dimensions
• creature population densities
• wind intensity
• sound/smell

Anyway, what do you think?  Have you shifted a dungeon on rules before?  What shifts might interest you as a player?

Serendipty XVI

When I go looking for pictures to make silhouettes I often don't find what I wanted . . . but something better!  These are all public domain pics, use 'em or lose 'em.  This post is dedicated to all you folks for the conversation.  Thank you.

I'm constantly on the look out for illustrations of a certain, similar style that I can use for NPC portraits.  This guy just became a rich prince leading a faction in Nidus' Animal Arena:

For your next dungeon: "It's a 30'x30' room, empty. Oh, except for the small statue in the corner bleeding."

A nice, multi-cave dungeon entrance (I think it was labelled as Virgil's tomb):

Talysman just posted about a Church from OBI Scrap book blog. Here is one from a similar book:

I love it. I can imagine it in a city supplement. You can find the book here.

The Visual Dungeon

I'm frustrated.  I have an idea for a way to illustrate dungeons but I just don't have the ability to pull it off.  Or at least I don't have the patience to try long enough so that I get better at it.

I think a lot of information can be conveyed on a map visually.  I'm not talking glossy, glitzy, colorful maps you want to frame.  Just isometric.  Something like this:

Although it could take advantage of height differences more, you can easily see that the entrance stairs lead up, see the slime is on the ceiling, see the water running just below floor level, see webs, see the broken coffins.

I know this idea isn't new, the example pic is from '79, but imagine the room contents were monster silhouettes and below the map you have a visual key-- no room numbers, no room letters-- just a spider silhouette with its stats that your eyes can quickly flick to.  Treasure items could be handled in a similar way, if not by silhouette, than by small image-- look below and the ring's magical power is right there next to its image.

Wandering monster chart could be just as simple, a set of silhouettes similar to the monsters in rooms.  If they duplicate a room monster you don't even have to add a new entry for stats, maybe just a new "# appearing" in the encounter chart.


I just can't draw the isometric part to my liking and my gimp skills always seem to be just shy of what I want to accomplish.  Pretty bad when you can't even produce a proof of concept.

I'm pretty bad at revising or even finishing things in general.  I know I've got a lot of unrealized posts here (like just yesterday).  I always hoped that ideas would be a valuable thing to share with a community but as I blog on I realize implementation is more valuable because it's just as hard as the initial idea if not more.  It's kind of a bummer because I always wanted to provide tools to help others make things, to provide the spark, the innovation, not just make products.  But the making is the hard part.

I think I need to take a break.

Update:
I apologize for the drama.  And I hope it didn't seem like I was fishing for compliments.  I went and had a super fun and funny D&D session on Friday, chilled a bit building some rail line in Minecraft and recharged my batteries.

As always, it's more complicated than I first lay out.  Some thoughts for me:

• Even if my ideas are sometimes too undeveloped to be usable in game, I enjoy the process of coming up with them, and
• I can't revise these, push them forward, and make them workable if I don't get at least a kernel of an idea down.  So, quit worrying about having a pristine professional product before sharing it (I know this but have to keep re-learning it).  And,
• It's not just about me (this is really interesting point for a Do It Yourselfer): someone else make take the idea and run with it in a direction I never saw, with an implementation better than I could have ever done. And,
• Hell, I probably enjoy the conversation more than the idea generation anyway, so even if an unworkable idea gets a bunch of comments saying how it won't work in your game, that's enjoyable for me.
• I do still need to try and explain the ideas enough so that people know what I'm getting at, and be willing to learn new stuff like drafting and more complicated photo editing.

 Thanks for all your comments. I'll soldier on and see if I can eventually make what I have in my head.

The Procedural Dungeon

Take the idea of index card geomorphs, geomorphs that are stencils, dungeons built by certain cultures, and I think you've got a recipe for quick, DIY dungeons with a sense of logic and history.

First, think of a culture that's left structures peppered around your game world.  Let's pick Dwarves.  Second, decide on some features their strongholds/outposts almost always have.  Let's say:

• cave fish pond
• barracks
• smithy
• ore storage
• smelting room with chimney
• throne room
• hidden gem storage
• secret emergency exit/bolt route

Now, decide on the most common design for each of these features-- and they can be tetronimo shaped as long as each fits on a single index card-- and cut them into stencils. I realize that step might be trickier than it sounds but am confident the gross features can be caught even if you have to hand draw in finer details.

Then you should be set for the next time players go off map or an encounter roll calls for creatures to be in lair.  You pull out your stack of stencils for Dwarven Outpost (you can keep different types bundled with rubberbands) roll dice, or shuffle and draw the cards, then trace them on your graph paper.  It might take a few minutes but you'll have a consistent dungeon with a map for your campaign folder.

If it works as I imagine players could learn things about these dungeons that would add a sense of verisimilitude to the imagined world:  "Wait, this looks to be a Dwarven outpost, they almost always have a secret gem room."  Or "These Dwarven outposts tend to have smelting rooms with chimneys, so we might find a small but definite exit to the surface there."

If the stencils work as I hope, the next design challenge would be to make sure all of your recurring dungeons have features that players would find interesting, like the examples above.  maybe cultists have libraries, outposts of the old magic-rich empire always have a brass head mounted somewhere, and tombs of the old empire tend to have map rooms with a diorama display of the surrounding countryside (and the location of more tombs).

(I plan to try to actually produce some of these but I'm currently house sitting for friends so it may be a while.)

Update: I had a hard time titling this, Procedural isn't right.  I think I probably should have called it Template dungeon (but that sounded kind of boring) . Oh, well. That makes me wonder what a true DIY procdeural dungeon would look like, too.

Three Furry Friends

I couldn't think of any more terrifying things, so I thought coming at it from the opposite direction might shake some things loose.  What's the opposite of terror?  Wonder?  Hmmm, maybe something more like that Awww sound when you see something really cute: 

Longtailed Bunny
This creature is plump and covered in warm fluffy fur.  It hops around a bit (but not so fast it would scare you) and eats grass in the sun.  It purrs when close to people friendly to you.

Barking Otters
Long and flexible, these critters frolic on dry land the way otters do in water.  Well, they'll actually do it in water too; they are all around playful. They are very sociable, thriving in groups of four, and are always excited to see you when you come back from the dungeon.  They only bark when there is a trap around.

Fuzzy Percher
This plump little ball of yellow feathers likes best to clamber around on a friendly shoulder.  It peeps every now and then (but not so much as to be annoying) to let you know it's still there and likes to nuzzle into the side of your neck closest to home.