D&D 5E Tools for dungeon design

[Bladecoder]

Hi, what tools or resources do you use when you are designing an adventure or dungeon? Anything applies from websites to the source books.

ps: I am thinking of doing a poll later on the most common choices so choose carefully.

 

[Imaculata]

There's a pretty big difference between designing an adventure and a dungeon. And more than likely the dungeon is part of an adventure.

For designing an adventure, all I use is Word, along with a bit of Googling, because I often do some research. I also try to find pictures that represent the locations and characters I'm writing about.

For dungeons I use Photoshop.

 

[Bladecoder]

Okay, then I will single it down to dungeons.

What do you use to design dungeons?

 

[Schmoe]

Search for the thread here on ENWorld titled "The Shadow in the Flame" by [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]. Not only is the thread itself a great discussion of dungeon design principles, it also has tons of links to online resources on dungeon design.

 

[GMforPowergamers]

I use masterplan (it was made for 4e) for most of my game work

 

[Quickleaf]

Hi, what tools or resources do you use when you are designing an adventure or dungeon? Anything applies from websites to the source books.

ps: I am thinking of doing a poll later on the most common choices so choose carefully.

Search for the thread here on ENWorld titled "The Shadow in the Flame" by [MENTION=20323]Quickleaf[/MENTION]. Not only is the thread itself a great discussion of dungeon design principles, it also has tons of links to online resources on dungeon design.

Thanks for the callout [MENTION=913]Schmoe[/MENTION]. Link is in my signature.

That approach is pretty intensive. Sometimes I throw together a dungeon or convert one from another adventure with less time to prep. In those cases, my go-to tools include:

• Random tables: Ultimate Toolbox, 5e DMG & AD&D DMG (terrific random table resources), ENWorld's O.G.R.E. (I under-appreciated this resource right here on ENWorld for years).
• Mapping: Dungeon Painter (great tile-based mapper), and just discovered Tiamat (another tile-based mapper using SkeletonKey Games products), often I end up using pen-and-paper too, sometimes Roll20 for its mapping features – though generally that means buying a map pack from their store, rarely Photoshop (which I reserve for maps meant for-publication due to time investment).
• Generators: Donjon has an amazing host of resources, Kobold Fight Club when I need/want to double check encounter maths.
• Templates: my own Mac OSX Pages template – I tried all the Photoshop/InDesign/githhub/Homebrewery offerings (many of which can be found on D&D Reddit IIRC), and while they can emulate the style used in the PHB/MM/DMG, I found them tedious, time-intensive, and limiting. For example, I vastly sped up my workflow by creating my Pages template with text box monster stat blocks that I could easily edit.

 

[Sacrosanct]

Creative process: Living dungeon. Make things work in a mini ecology for the most part if a natural dungeon. If a built dungeon, make it make sense in structure (not like the random stuff that was AD&D lol). Inhabitants make sense as to what is in there, how they interact, etc. Again, pretty much the opposite of AD&D (which makes me feel dirty just typing that because AD&D was my favorite edition)

Tools: I use photoshop mostly. But also use campaign cartographer (I actually use many of the icons in CC placed directly into photoshop, and never actually open CC). For a really easy tool that is also very quick, I will use the map maker program in the old AD&D 2e Core Rules CD ROM. Still a great and useful program even 20 years later.

*Edit* Here are some examples. The first upper left one was done in Core Rules, only about 5 minutes to do that. All of the other ones were done in photoshop solely.

 

[iserith]

There are so many dungeons already created and posted on the internet that I never find I need to design one myself. So I'll just grab a map that I think will work for what I'm going for and then fill in the content. Chiefly I will design dungeons that are higher on combat and exploration challenges and lower on social interaction challenges.

 

[Oofta]

Occasionally I'll download something from the web. For example I recently wanted to have a haunted house, so I did a quick search and found something that worked.

But in general I use a piece of paper for an overview and make it up as I go along. I may sketch out a few set pieces (sometimes using grid paper) just to keep straight in my mind what's where and to have a quick reference for my players. For example, if the ruins are an old castle, I'll map where the guard towers are and whatnot.

I used to do detailed dungeon layouts (using either grid or Campaign Cartographer) but I found it didn't really matter. If I have a general idea of who's where, what the general layout is and I go from there. I simply find it easier to say "Bob the Bugbear controls a section of the dungeon and has an uneasy truce with Kob the Kobold" and then jot down some general ideas of how the ruins look different.

In this scenario I'm not going to do anything with the bugbear section of the dungeon other than overall setting and tone. The kobolds? For those I may do a quick sketch of some areas but I'm just as likely to jot down notes about traps, tunnels so narrow only a small creature can get through and so on.

Then again, my adventures tend to be rather free-form where I'm planning factions and events, not set pieces for people to encounter. I'd rather spend my time thinking about what Bob the Bugbear's motivations are and if I can breath more life into him than stats on a page than designing a floor plan. In the bugbear and kobold scenario the group may never actually be under threat when fighting them if they somehow manage to get the two groups fighting each other, so why bother?

 

[LordEntrails]

Campaign Cartographer, Word (own templates), Google, MM, DMG, Volos, my imagination.