My Dungeon Making Process

 

I’ve been making a lot of dungeons lately, because I really like to make old school dungeons, and the new tools make them easier to make and neato to run online.

Here’s the process I’ve been using;

Step 1:  I make a map of 1 level, usually 20-30 rooms, sometimes more.  I label stairs, corridors, and secret rooms, plus any special purpose rooms all in the key.  I have decided to stop putting marks for Secret Doors on the map, because they are visible, I just have rooms with no doors and explain the secret door in the room key.

Step 2:  after picking a dungeon level, I generate some random monsters using either the old D&D Monster/Treasure Assortments or the dungeon monster encounter tables I’ve made (expanding the ones in the Blueholme book considerably).  I like to have about 2/3 as many monsters as rooms.   Old Gary would have made it about 1/3, but while empty rooms are critical to have players not expect a monster in every single room.  However, 2/3 empty rooms gets to be snoresville.    If I had a definite theme in mind ahead of time, I'd likely pick the monsters from the lists instead.

Step 3:  I look at the monsters and try to deduce a theme, a story behind them being there.   For example, in the first level of Quellintan, I saw that there were quite a few Dwarves and Hobgoblins.  Most everything else were bugs and undead.   I came up with the Curse that kept these two groups in the dungeon.   I then adjusted the monster list, changing any orcs into hobgoblins and elves into dwarves, making the berserkers mercenaries of the dwarves.

Step 5:  I put the monsters on cards.  I found it’s better to have all the monster stats together rather than type them in as I go with the room keys. 

The Cards look like this:  (QU-3 stands for Quellintan, Upper, Card 3)

Encounter Card:    QU-3   7 Hobgoblins   AC 6, HD 1, Move 30, Thaco-19, LE DEX-11 , MOR- 17 Hand axe, SR-2, 1d6 damage   Hit Points:   3,   7,  7,  5   6,  2,  6

 

Step 6:  Then I place the monsters on the map.  Each room in the key I’ll now write a short description of its purpose and noteworthy features, then the Code (e.g. QU-3) for the monster card that’s in the room.  I try to keep factions (like dwarves or hobgoblins together) and try to come up with rationales for things being where they are.  If there’s monster that seems like a boss of a faction, I’ll make note of that and place him accordingly.

Step 7:  I then go through the key and scatter Chests, Sacks and Garbage in each room as befits its monster or position.   I tend to roll for treasure randomly, either using the old D&D monster/treasure assortments, or using my Random Dungeon Maker.  I must admit that regularizing “Dungeon Garbage” has been quite interesting.  I’ve always had the occasional pile of junk lying around, but it’s better when you know it’s going to be there and it’s sometimes good, but often bad.