Bawylie
A very OK person
Original poster: @Bawylie
Bawylie said:One thing I do when playing is extemporaneously design small dungeons. They're not throw-aways, but they might hold key items on a long fetch-trade quest or just be some small home for an enticement.
The structure of a budget dungeon is simple.
1.) It must have a purpose or theme that's apparent by looking at it. (Church, aquatic, warehouse, etc).
2.) it has 3 areas or rooms (no more).
3.) One room has a hazard or trap capable of tpk
4.) One room has a trash encounter (even-level or lower).
5.) one room has a set piece encounter with a twist. (Often a choice between two mutually exclusive desireables or between two undesirables or the assumption of one desirable with an unavoidable undesirable).
I've done this for a barn, a ship, a wayside shrine, caves, a forest, lots of stuff.
The trick is to kind of under-think it. Just get an overall idea for the theme and structure and then one idea each for the 3 areas.
But, clever as I am (very), I can usually only come up with one idea at a time. So I want to see what you make out of a budget dungeon. I will shamelessly steal any ideas you put forth for future games. Please take 5 minutes and show me a budget dungeon. And remember, the "quality" comes from the speed at which you can think it up: these are not epic adventure settings - they're 5 minutes of work for 25 minutes of play.
-Brad
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