Putting the D in D&D: Dungeons

[Saelune]

Another D&D topic (though again, any relevant tabletop games included too).

This time I am curious about people's preferences surrounding dungeons. Not explicitly dank dark stone complexes, but any explorable dangerous event site.

For DM/GM: How do you use them? Do you use them even? Do you painstakingly create elaborate layouts or keep it vague? How do you set them up? How often do you do this?


For Players: Do you enjoy them? What do you enjoy about them? What dont you? Do you prefer moving pieces through set-up dungeons or only care about relevant rooms? Do you prefer to see the whole thing, as you explore, or just in your own head? Do you map it out yourself as you go?

And ofcourse any other things you might think is important.

For some background on this question, I started using clear wet-erase sheets to use over my game mat, so I can draw things on them without drawing on the mat, and can place and remove at will. So far just used them for certain notable battles (one in a destroyed town of bodies and undead, another a swampy battle against hagravens and their minions in the husk of a giant tree).

My next location is a ancient sunken Yuan-Ti temple, and I am unsure how to go about it. Not looking for specific suggestions, just want to hear other people's thoughts and methods for dungeons in general.

 

[CritialGaming]

Personally I have always hated the DM's that insist on using map paper, or model layouts. Because all that does is limit the experience.

I've had DM's that design the dungeon off the top of their head as the party explores and they are by far the most exciting experiences. When everything is spelled out on paper or model, there are no surprises, there are no twists (except monster types), and it gives the party too much in the way of planning because we can all see the entire set up.

When the dungeon master makes it up or at least keeps the design hidden, it adds exploration and surprise to the players. I mean obviously your party should know next to nothing about the layout of a dungeon they have never been in before. Notable exceptions are in cases of where your party finds a map.

 

[Saelune]

Personally I have always hated the DM's that insist on using map paper, or model layouts. Because all that does is limit the experience.

I've had DM's that design the dungeon off the top of their head as the party explores and they are by far the most exciting experiences. When everything is spelled out on paper or model, there are no surprises, there are no twists (except monster types), and it gives the party too much in the way of planning because we can all see the entire set up.

When the dungeon master makes it up or at least keeps the design hidden, it adds exploration and surprise to the players. I mean obviously your party should know next to nothing about the layout of a dungeon they have never been in before. Notable exceptions are in cases of where your party finds a map.

Thats part of why I got the sheets, so I could potentially draw the dungeon on them, and place each sheet down as they enter rooms and explore...and for space. 25x25 mat is not that big really.

 

[CritialGaming]

Personally I have always hated the DM's that insist on using map paper, or model layouts. Because all that does is limit the experience.

I've had DM's that design the dungeon off the top of their head as the party explores and they are by far the most exciting experiences. When everything is spelled out on paper or model, there are no surprises, there are no twists (except monster types), and it gives the party too much in the way of planning because we can all see the entire set up.

When the dungeon master makes it up or at least keeps the design hidden, it adds exploration and surprise to the players. I mean obviously your party should know next to nothing about the layout of a dungeon they have never been in before. Notable exceptions are in cases of where your party finds a map.

Thats part of why I got the sheets, so I could potentially draw the dungeon on them, and place each sheet down as they enter rooms and explore...and for space. 25x25 mat is not that big really.

I don't like that either though, because it eats up time in the play session. When you meet up for a D&D game with friends and you DM spends 2 hours breaking up the action by drawing on the map, I just hate it. I wanna play, not watch a map get drawn. That's me though, I know some people that enjoy it, but it really breaks flow imo.

 

[Saelune]

Personally I have always hated the DM's that insist on using map paper, or model layouts. Because all that does is limit the experience.

I've had DM's that design the dungeon off the top of their head as the party explores and they are by far the most exciting experiences. When everything is spelled out on paper or model, there are no surprises, there are no twists (except monster types), and it gives the party too much in the way of planning because we can all see the entire set up.

When the dungeon master makes it up or at least keeps the design hidden, it adds exploration and surprise to the players. I mean obviously your party should know next to nothing about the layout of a dungeon they have never been in before. Notable exceptions are in cases of where your party finds a map.

Thats part of why I got the sheets, so I could potentially draw the dungeon on them, and place each sheet down as they enter rooms and explore...and for space. 25x25 mat is not that big really.

I don't like that either though, because it eats up time in the play session. When you meet up for a D&D game with friends and you DM spends 2 hours breaking up the action by drawing on the map, I just hate it. I wanna play, not watch a map get drawn. That's me though, I know some people that enjoy it, but it really breaks flow imo.

The intent is to draw them before hand, like the days between sessions. Then the players open a door, then I place down the next area.

 

[CritialGaming]

That could work, everyone runs the game differently. Some like maps, some don't. I just happen to be one of those people that don't, I have a good enough memory to remember the dungeon as we go through.

 

[Saelune]

That could work, everyone runs the game differently. Some like maps, some don't. I just happen to be one of those people that don't, I have a good enough memory to remember the dungeon as we go through.

That is why I make these topics, to find out other preferences, styles, and methods.

 

[CritialGaming]

That could work, everyone runs the game differently. Some like maps, some don't. I just happen to be one of those people that don't, I have a good enough memory to remember the dungeon as we go through.

That is why I make these topics, to find out other preferences, styles, and methods.

Ironically I also love playing the stupidest ************ in the group! I purposefully get other team member's names wrong, and act like a moron, and it is the most fun ever. But in combat, I am a genius.

 

[CaitSeith]

I try to make the dungeons interesting to explore, but having a sense of an objective. For something quick and easy I use simple rooms that keep the players going in a specific direction, with little surprises. For interesting things I do things like combine obviously weak enemies with traps or challenging situations (surprise attack, a gap between the players and enemies with ranged attacks, etc).

Think of a goal to give to the players. Is it a big hidden treasure? Is it a rescue mission? Or once inside they are trapped after a cave-in or something blocks their entrance and they just have to escape the temple (with any loot they find)? And create the rooms as a build up to the goal.

If you are good at improvising, have a list of random encounters prepared for the dungeon. But try not to make each room a combat encounter. You can have temporarily safe hub areas or dead ends with secret passages.

Finally, expect the unexpected. Sometimes players will think on something you weren't prepared for (like you flooded the entrance so they can't go back, but they attempt to swim anyways).

 

[Saelune]

The title sounds too much like crappy sexual innuendo.

If I ever join a tabletop group, I would love to build Lego models of each location and character.

I like fun titles. It was supposed to be silly. If I ever make a topic specifically about Dragons, I will probably make reference to this topic's title somehow.

We considered using LEGOs as pieces, both for players and for building dungeons and what not. We never actually tried though. Would be a good excuse to buy tons of those Lord of the Ring LEGO sets.

 

[Kae]

I'm gonna be honest, combat is the part I enjoy the least of the D&D experience, so as a result unless it's a very puzzle and trap-heavy dungeon I'm probably not going to enjoy the dungeon much, anyway since my favorite parts of the experience are Role-Playing and investigation/mystery I do tend to make my characters very much focused on that aspect to the detriment of combat capabilities, as a result since I do purposefully make my characters not particularly good at combat and unless I come up with a really creative and unconventional way of handling combat it's highly unlikely that I'll enjoy it, there have even been instances when I choose to do nothing in my turn or I get away from combat to do other shit while people are fighting because I really don't enjoy it all that much, of course the fact that my characters tend to have a low constitution[footnote]While an extremely useful stat in the sense that much of your survivability depends on it being by health or CON saving throws, it's skill value is non-existent and is easily the least useful stat outside of combat, since I don't do much combat it's not really important to me to have a decent CON outside of concentration checks for spells which rarely happen outside of combat.[/footnote] and die really quickly in combat does not help either, regardless it's not much of an issue because the rest of my party is very much focused on combat, so being relatively useless in combat isn't a huge deal to my current gaming group, and while yes I tend to do a lot of the RP myself I rarely do it by myself and tend to push other players into involving themselves in the situation with me, often pushing them to do the most important task of the RP not because I can't do it, but because I'm not the party leader and I don't want to be the protagonist so I actively try to avoid the spotlight and downplay my role unless it's something that the character would be very much interested in.

But yeah, actually the Dungeons are often the part I enjoy the least, not necessarily because their bad it's just that the party I play with does not have the patience to let me do the part about them that I enjoy, they'll often move while I'm looking for traps or when I'm investigating clues inside the dungeon, often prompting fights that interrupt my actions, so while it mostly comes down to the party, I very much dislike Dungeons and just prepare for possibly a whole session of the part I enjoy the least of the game, I mean it's not like I don't understand them, it's annoying to have to wait around while somebody else does something but I'm afraid that's just how you play a Rogue optimally, you scout ahead and try to disable traps and spot enemies in order to plan a combat strategy, and well where there are riddles there's either an interesting story or sweet, sweet loot, why don't they want loot?

Fucking Barbarians and Fighters I tell ya, they don't let you do anything interesting because Fighters think they can do the Rogue/Bard's job while in heavy armor and Barbarians just hit shit.

Anyway I forgot the point mid-way, but as someone who prefers the mystery part of the Dungeon I feel like just Narrating works best, it allows the flow of the investigation and your imagination to flow a lot better than having a map does, although I will admit that some encounters do work better in a map, which leaves no room for misinterpretation of where you were during that fight.

 

[MrRaggaedeman]

I really enjoy roll20.com for that reason. Due to me moving a bunch of times in the recent years I could never find a somewhat reliable D&D group, so I made a habit of playing with a bunch of online friends via skype and roll20.com.
The good thing about it in terms of dungeon design is that you can enable fog of war for the players. You can fully design a huge dungeon and prepare lots of things in it, while the players don't see anything beyond the room they are in. It's really the best thing for both parties here.

I like having a real map. As a DM I always make a complete map of every dungeon and I always draw them in fractions on transparent sheets with dry erase marker, so that players never see a full dungeon from the start. For small dungeon I may just draw the whole ting while they explore or, to spice thing up, let them do the drawing.

As a player I pretty much wish that the DM handles maps in a similar fashion like I do. Never display the full map right at the start and atleast have a small sketch of the map handy to keep it consistent

 

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

As a DM, I've done both planned dungeons and improvised dungeons (random generation through tables or just total improvised randomness). Both work for me.
Planned dungeons get maps drawn beforehand, but initially we used to have a whiteboard we used to draw the map the players currently inhabited. I've also designed maps on the PC then printed them out in pieces and put them together on game day.

 

[Bobular]

We tend to do it were we only put down models and stuff when we get to the action and its only used as a rough guide of where things are relative to each other, we don't measure any distances accurately or anything like that

 

[pookie101]

i used to pre-plan them, making sure to tailor the dungeon to the party and something for each player that catered to their interests and the players strengths. it also helped to have a specific hook for a dungeon. in one of the most memorable for my group i used bog standard dungeon crawl and had the dungeon the site of a time spell gone wrong freezing areas in time during the middle of a siege.. yeah the pc's could grab that tempting treasure but touching it also breaks the time lock on the inhabitants who are still in battle

 

[The Wykydtron]

I'm gonna be honest, combat is the part I enjoy the least of the D&D experience, so as a result unless it's a very puzzle and trap-heavy dungeon I'm probably not going to enjoy the dungeon much, anyway since my favorite parts of the experience are Role-Playing and investigation/mystery I do tend to make my characters very much focused on that aspect to the detriment of combat capabilities, as a result since I do purposefully make my characters not particularly good at combat and unless I come up with a really creative and unconventional way of handling combat it's highly unlikely that I'll enjoy it, there have even been instances when I choose to do nothing in my turn or I get away from combat to do other shit while people are fighting because I really don't enjoy it all that much, of course the fact that my characters tend to have a low constitution[footnote]While an extremely useful stat in the sense that much of your survivability depends on it being by health or CON saving throws, it's skill value is non-existent and is easily the least useful stat outside of combat, since I don't do much combat it's not really important to me to have a decent CON outside of concentration checks for spells which rarely happen outside of combat.[/footnote] and die really quickly in combat does not help either, regardless it's not much of an issue because the rest of my party is very much focused on combat, so being relatively useless in combat isn't a huge deal to my current gaming group, and while yes I tend to do a lot of the RP myself I rarely do it by myself and tend to push other players into involving themselves in the situation with me, often pushing them to do the most important task of the RP not because I can't do it, but because I'm not the party leader and I don't want to be the protagonist so I actively try to avoid the spotlight and downplay my role unless it's something that the character would be very much interested in.

But yeah, actually the Dungeons are often the part I enjoy the least, not necessarily because their bad it's just that the party I play with does not have the patience to let me do the part about them that I enjoy, they'll often move while I'm looking for traps or when I'm investigating clues inside the dungeon, often prompting fights that interrupt my actions, so while it mostly comes down to the party, I very much dislike Dungeons and just prepare for possibly a whole session of the part I enjoy the least of the game, I mean it's not like I don't understand them, it's annoying to have to wait around while somebody else does something but I'm afraid that's just how you play a Rogue optimally, you scout ahead and try to disable traps and spot enemies in order to plan a combat strategy, and well where there are riddles there's either an interesting story or sweet, sweet loot, why don't they want loot?

Fucking Barbarians and Fighters I tell ya, they don't let you do anything interesting because Fighters think they can do the Rogue/Bard's job while in heavy armor and Barbarians just hit shit.

Anyway I forgot the point mid-way, but as someone who prefers the mystery part of the Dungeon I feel like just Narrating works best, it allows the flow of the investigation and your imagination to flow a lot better than having a map does, although I will admit that some encounters do work better in a map, which leaves no room for misinterpretation of where you were during that fight.

You like traps but not combat? The usual roll a save to not take xd6 damage type trap? I hate that stuff since it's basically forced damage unless your Rogue (if you have one) rolls well on his find trap roll (playing 3.5 so Passive Perception isn't a thing.) Yeah you can take a 10 if your modifier is high enough so any trap with a DC 20 or lower is automatically found but all the good traps have a DC 21+ in the book because WotC are dicks.

We tend to be alright with the not leaving someone behind when he's looking for stuff though, that's just a bad move. The one time I actually split from the party to check a corridor our fuckin' Bard opens a door and this high level undead wizard starts attacking. Takes me 3 rounds to even arrive cuz my character wouldn't run to get there since he assumes they're fine even when he hears Fireballs being dropped (thinks it was our Wizard not the other one) and our tank is dead already since I was playing the DPS class... We had access to Raise Dead so everything worked out in the end but still that was easily avoidable.


Anyway OT: I like maps both as player and DM but then I play on Roll20 so maps are really easy to make and swap between.

 

[barbzilla]

Personally I have always hated the DM's that insist on using map paper, or model layouts. Because all that does is limit the experience.

I've had DM's that design the dungeon off the top of their head as the party explores and they are by far the most exciting experiences. When everything is spelled out on paper or model, there are no surprises, there are no twists (except monster types), and it gives the party too much in the way of planning because we can all see the entire set up.

When the dungeon master makes it up or at least keeps the design hidden, it adds exploration and surprise to the players. I mean obviously your party should know next to nothing about the layout of a dungeon they have never been in before. Notable exceptions are in cases of where your party finds a map.

Thats part of why I got the sheets, so I could potentially draw the dungeon on them, and place each sheet down as they enter rooms and explore...and for space. 25x25 mat is not that big really.

I don't like that either though, because it eats up time in the play session. When you meet up for a D&D game with friends and you DM spends 2 hours breaking up the action by drawing on the map, I just hate it. I wanna play, not watch a map get drawn. That's me though, I know some people that enjoy it, but it really breaks flow imo.

The intent is to draw them before hand, like the days between sessions. Then the players open a door, then I place down the next area.

Even with this tactic, I think something is lost in the translation. If I wanted to play with miniatures, I would just play Star Wars Fleet Command or Warhammer 40k. I have always found that my imagination is going to far outpace anyone's drawing skills (or even pre-printed map sheets from a campaign book), and as such I usually prefer that style of play when i am a player. Now while I still prefer it as a DM, I am also open to the likes and needs of my players, and will set up a tabletop map if requested (though I will make them map it out as they enter the rooms, as I keep all of my dungeon maps inside of my DM's notebook on 8.5/11 paper that doesn't translate too well as a table top map unless you use a bb or something to designate player location).

All of that said, I don't actually use dungeons that often. I will for certain events or as a big finish, but for regular game-play I tend to focus on the actual role-playing part of the game. Most of my players (and myself), much prefer the role-play portion far more than we do the combat (though it is nice to break it up with a few scattered fights to keep it interesting and fun). I have even gone so far as to remove the dice from the equation as well (though I will roll a percentile behind the screen if I feel that chance is needed), though I don't recommend this with your atypical groups, you really need an experienced group with a solid imagination to pull it off and still have it be fun. It even ends up looking better in the player's mind since they are getting full details of what is transpiring instead of hit or miss, but a good DM still weaves a bit of story into the battles.

 

[Kyrian007]

I have a tendency to use only rough sketches (drawn on the fly) only when a perspective is needed to convey the action. It allows combat to happen more organically. Then again, I usually play modern or sci-fi settings. And that means gun combat and cover as opposed to hack and slash. But still, I allow for the ideas of my players to help sculpt the surroundings. They ask me, is there cover I can get to in an action or a turn... or they use passive skills and successes give them more options in their battle tactics. Something like that is hard to do if I have a grid all mapped out.

As an example one of my favorite GM's had our D&D group in a basement of a castle we had just managed to clear out. It was supposed to be a "eliminate an evil wizard... then come back" mission. Except we managed to clear the castle and had decided we were going to keep it. Not to rule anything, just to have an awesome castle to hang out in. Our GM didn't want us to own a castle, we were supposed to sneak around the defenses not clear and destroy all in our path (we weren't supposed to be powerful enough to manage it... we did get some really good dice rolls.) So in a room at the end of a narrow corridor in the basement our GM decided that there would be a Beholder. As we were being extremely cautious... our thief crept down the narrow hallway and silently opened the door a crack and saw the Beholder. And managed to shut the door and creep back to us silently. So we had a Beholder to deal with... something we were far too low level to manage. And then our leader asked... How narrow is that hallway? We got the dimensions from the grid map. So our leader had his character grab some parchment and a tack. He wrote a message on it and handed it to the thief to sneak back down the hall and tack it to the door. You see, the hallway was too narrow for the Beholder to leave the room. The sign simply said "Beholder... Do Not Enter." And the castle was ours.

 

[Chimpzy_v1legacy]

I generally design dungeons that fall into two broad types that both tie into the story in some way, but serve different purposes.

Quest Dungeons are what their name implies. They tie into a quest and advance the plot. They're usually short and have a difficulty ranging between easy and hard. They're the most open-ended and their conclusion can influence the story and setting to a great degree.

Challenge Dungeon are also self-explanatory. They're mostly long and very challenging, but offer good experience and excellent loot. High risk, high reward. They're more linear in that the party either overcomes the challenges within or doesn't, don't have influence on the world or story, but can expand the lore or a piece of extra information/gear useful to the party in the main plot. They're also always optional.

As for designing them, I usually start with a hook or theme. What kind of monsters, traps and puzzles? What loot? How does it tie into the lore (I run a homebrew setting with extensive lore). I often find inspiration for the themes in games like Zelda, Metroid and such.

The dungeon rooms themselves I design and draw in advance, but I purposefully leave the maps very rudimentary. Simple floorplans really, meant to give the players a general idea of the shape of rooms and the location of features like doors or furniture. Rooms come in two types: mandatory ones that form the essentials of the dungeon, and modular ones I can swap in or out as needed. I then compile these maps into a large overview map for DM use only, since that's where I note down the locations of traps, encounters, secrets and other notes.

You see, the hallway was too narrow for the Beholder to leave the room. The sign simply said "Beholder... Do Not Enter." And the castle was ours.

I kind of see a flaw with this plan. One of a Beholder's eye rays is Disintegrate. At will, each round as a free action. If it wanted, it could just gradually zap its way to freedom through the walls or ceiling, which it would probably do once enough time passes and it gets really hungry/figures out something is wrong topside.

At least, that's my DM take on it. A Beholder is too powerful and intelligent to simply deal with by hanging a sign. Not permanently anyway. Kind of wondering how that story played out in the long run, actually.