Blogging Catch-up

I usually try to blog more often than this, but this past week I had to stay at work till 8:30 on 2 nights for parent-teacher conferences and so forth.   Today, however, I got a lot of hobby stuff done. 

Hall of Black Mirrors: I finished another D&D dungeon today.   A few months ago I had printed out a random dungeon called "Ebon Hall of Mirrors" from a website.  I liked the title, and put the dungeon on one of the maps for another adventure.  However, when I actually looked through the random output, I was pretty disappointed.   The map looked kind of awesome, but many of the rooom would be very difficult to describe in play.
        Also, there were like 100 rooms in the dungeon.   A great many of them were empty, apart from some noise or smell.  I find that a good dungeon level should have from 15 to 30 rooms, any less then there is no real choice or sense of exploration, it is in fact a lair rather than a dungeon.  Any more than 30 it becomes too daunting and the players feel that it can never be conquered or acheived.  If too many are empty it becomes less than exciting. 
      So, I modified the title to the Hall of Black Mirrors, whipped up a 20-room map and completely re-did the dungeon from scratch.  I must admit I've gotten to like the Campaign Mapper software  (a stripped-down version of Campaign Cartographer, made for the AD&D 2nd edtion core rules CD) for dungeons more and more.  I'd always used if for outdoors and towns, but it really makes making a dungeon level fast and easy.   About half the rooms have monsters, and all of them have something noticeable, something that might seem to be a monster, seem to be a treasure, or actually be a treasure.
      I also put in a magic item inspired by something from Knights of the Dinner Table.   Well, maybe the gang will end up in the Hall of Black Mirrors, maybe not.   They'll have plenty of choices on Sunday.

Miniatures:  my order from last week (Sorceresses, Cavemen, Bats and Snakes) came on Tuesday, and I got them all finished with painting today.  In box remains empty and up to date.

Adventure Leads:  last session I handed adventure leads out to individual members of the party.  I think this time I will create a single document and have them share the leads as a group.  It may be a bit more meta-gamey, but it may put the choices and options into better focus.