D&D General D&D Dungeon Map Design: Good and Bad

[EzekielRaiden]

I love dungeons. Yes I do.

Probably the biggest addition you can make to dungeon design is verticality. So many dungeon maps are flat. It doesn't take much to make a dungeon so much more interesting when you add a bit some verticality. One of the best examples of this is from Lost Mines of Phandelver. The first dungeon - The Cragmaw Gobins Hideout - is absolutely fantastic for this. Multiple paths, and lots and lots of verticality. That encounter with the bridge across the path is just such so much fun.

This model really brings it to life:

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Having fought this particular battle, yes, I do think physical multi-level terrain would bring it to life quite well, though your efforts to make it have depth in Fantasy Grounds were most admirable.

I will say I'm surprised to not see your gripes about the maps in Out of the Abyss, which I fully agree with your assessments of. They're awful, and a masterclass in how NOT to design maps for an adventure path.

 

[Hussar]

I will say I'm surprised to not see your gripes about the maps in Out of the Abyss, which I fully agree with your assessments of. They're awful, and a masterclass in how NOT to design maps for an adventure path.

Heh. Now yes. There's a GREAT point. The OOTA maps are truly attrocious. FAR, FAR too large. Like, pointlessly large. Take the Whorlstone Caverns (and if you don't think I have to be REALLY careful whenever I type that...)

Now, as far as map design goes, it's fantastic. Those tiny tunnels are accessible if you partake of certain mushrooms that will shrink you down to small or tiny size. The line that is drawn on teh map is the route of the baddie you are chasing through these tunnels. There's tons of verticality in the map as well and lots of really interesting hazards and whatnot. Fantastic stuff.

Until you notice that scale. One square is TWENTY FIVE FEET. Put it this way. Other than a couple of encounters, there is only four or five baddies in any given location and most are less. 1b, to the south of the entrance, has two baddies in it and it's a 100x100 chamber. It's ludicrous. I got lucky and a very talented cartographer that I saw on Reddit had resized the maps and fiddled with it a bit to make it work so much better:

Which is nicely shrunk down to 5 foot squares. Same map, but, much, MUCH better designed.

 

[Reynard]

I thought we might look at a map (that I think is a really good design) just as a way to discuss some specifics:

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Depths of the Ashen Throne

The Ashen Throne is a dungeon near the Cindermaw – an ancient volcanic caldera. A geothermally heated subterranean river carves through winding corridors, pooling in eerie grottoes that glow with phosphorescent fungi. Scattered throughout are crystalline veins and a lone, pulsing amethyst shard rumored to guide or mislead those who seek it.

Centuries ago, an elementalist named Vaerush carved the labyrinth to tap the earth’s ley lines and amplify their divinatory magic. After Vaerush vanished, a cult of echo-sprinters – spirits bound to the structure’s resonant geometry – claimed the site as their sanctum. Over time, kobold miners tunnelled in, drawn by whispers of untold wealth – reshaping passages and trapping unwary intruders.

Recently the Ashen Throne became home to a half dozen small groups of kobolds led by “Compass-Claw” Skik, who hoards sparkling gemstones; echo-sprinter spirits that replay sounds from the labyrinth’s past; a water weird named Currifold who is jealous of any who dirty its subterranean river; and a set of crystal living statues that guard the massive amethyst shard.

Now a renowned cartographer is hiring adventurers – they have heard that there are a series of maps that lead to the amethyst chamber in the Ashen Throne… but they are carved into the ruins of several structures around the Cindermaw. The cartographer wants copies of these maps, and for the adventurers to follow said maps to retrieve the amethyst shard (not realizing exactly how big that shard is).

The actual design of this map was purely an exercise to fill a 16 x 9 inch page – the same ratio as a standard TV or monitor. Why? WALLPAPER! I currently use “The Halls of Geryon” as my desktop, but it gets cut off on the right and left sides. So I drew this (and another one I’m posting later this month) as potential replacements. As a display piece, it has a few “easter eggs”, the most obvious one being the compass rose appearing as an actual part of the structure.

As such, there are 4k and 1080p versions of the map for download at the blog post.

The 1200 dpi versions of the map were drawn at a scale of 300 pixels per square and are 19,200 x 10,800 pixels in size (64 x 36 squares). To use this with a VTT you would need to resize the squares to either 70 pixels (for 5′ squares) or 140 pixels (for the recommended 10′ squares) – so resizing it to either 4,480 x 2,520 or 8,960 x 5,040 respectively.

Depths of the Ashen Throne

Depths of the Ashen Throne (Painted – 300 dpi) The Ashen Throne is a dungeon near the Cindermaw – an ancient volcanic caldera. A geothermally heated subterranean river carves through wi…

dysonlogos.blog

This is, of course, a map by @Dyson Logos from his thread where he shares many, many great maps.

I like this one for a few reasons, but most because it has a LOT of paths to explore the dungeon. In addition, there are some terrain variations, including the river and a small cavern section. All that plus one of my favorite thing about Dyson's work: the map is full of inspirational details. You can look at that map and not read a word about what Dyson thinks should be in it, but still have a flood of cool ideas for what to do with all the details.

If there is anything I do not like about this map is that I feel like it needs a few more secret doors and hidden chambers and zone.

What are your thoughts on this map, and how it matches (or doesn't) your map preferences?

 

[Hussar]

My only issue with that map, if the squares are meant to be 5 foot squares, there would be far, far too many combats or encounters where half the party couldn't do anything. Fighting in tight corridors is fun in fiction but boring as heck in gaming.

1 square as 10 feet? Yup, that'll work. Lots of verticality, lots of different terrains and many, many paths.

 

[Mannahnin]

My only issue with that map, if the squares are meant to be 5 foot squares, there would be far, far too many combats or encounters where half the party couldn't do anything. Fighting in tight corridors is fun in fiction but boring as heck in gaming.

1 square as 10 feet? Yup, that'll work. Lots of verticality, lots of different terrains and many, many paths.

Agreed. Thankfully most of his are designed to be a 10' square map scale.

 

[Mannahnin]

I hate 10 foot scale dungeon maps and always redraw them at 5 feet, so that it will be easier to produce portions of it on the fly using a wet erase battle mat. (Though I understand why 10 foot squares makes the most sense for print products given space limitations)

My groups have used 5 foot squares since 1996-ish.

My groups started using a 5' grid (though usually hexes) in the 90s too, during 2nd ed. We were happy with how battlemats cut down on confusion and arguments about positioning.

I think we would need to use a 10-ft map scale in order to get larger chambers because these maps are likely* to be confined to a 8.5 x 11 inch piece of paper with a quarter inch grid.

* Likely.

Yes, I think space is one of the big factors. When I ran Graphite Prime's Praise the Fallen for a convention game and a couple of home games, I deliberately used a 10' square map scale so I could JUST fit the main dungeon map onto a 34" x 48" Chessex megamat and draw it for the players as we went. If I used a 5' = 1" scale the map would be four times as big.

Instead of using individual minis on the map I used a counter to indicate the whole party's position. We had minis to the side to show marching formation, and which we could use a little more abstractly to indicate who was engaged with whom during encounters. Now that I'm older and more skilled as a DM, I'm able to establish a better rapport of trust with my players than we could manage as adolescents 30 years ago, so we can get away with being a little more loose about tactical movement.

 

[Koloth]

I dunno, I wish! It seems like there's a lot more going on in a small space than most dungeons you see (just going by the map, ignoring the excellent stocking). I mean, how many dungeons these days have a secret door to room ration of 2:3?

At that time, secret doors, and traps, were all the rage. If a room or corridor didn't have one or the other, players often suspected that something was missed and spent a bunch of time looking for the probably, non existing secret door and/or trap. That map is perfectly normal for the time period. Thankfully, modern styles use a lot less of both traps and secret doors. Well, most of the time, anyway.

Most of the groups I played with then used what we called SOP, Standard Operating Procedures. The GM would note down all of the character's various trap, secret door, loot, dungeon weirdness, and such finding abilities. Any time the players said "We are SOPing the area", the GM makes a few rolls and provides the result. Doesn't take much real life time even if the characters just spent 15 minutes in that 10' square area.

As for the large maps and battle maps, I will use a large one for drawing out the entire dungeon, using whatever scale and level of detail makes sense. Sometimes even a simple node and path map. Then use a smaller one for tactical encounters. When the encounter is over, erase the small map and resume dungeon exploring. Can also use things like the Loke Book of <xyz> Maps for the tactical encounters. Have used flat TV/monitor screens for the tactical maps.

 

[Reynard]

My only issue with that map, if the squares are meant to be 5 foot squares, there would be far, far too many combats or encounters where half the party couldn't do anything. Fighting in tight corridors is fun in fiction but boring as heck in gaming.

1 square as 10 feet? Yup, that'll work. Lots of verticality, lots of different terrains and many, many paths.

I agree, and pretty much assume all DL maps are 10' squares unless explicitly noted otherwise. he is designing his maps from an old school perspective, after all, and many (like this one) don't make much sense as 5' squares.