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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7396112" data-attributes="member: 29398">I also try to design as if living breathing people actually once lived there...but even then it's not that hard to come up with reasons for loops and interweaving: trap bypasses, secret exits, servants hallways vs. nobles hallways/stairs, etc.A good example of this - and not to pick on    [MENTION=50895]gamerprinter[/MENTION] but if he will insist on graciously putting his maps on here for us to analyze... <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> - is in the map in post 9 there would logically be a secret door right by the entrance at area 1, going north into the laboratory (area 11), so the owner or inhabitant of the place wouldn't have to go through the whole dungeon in order to go outside or return to his quarters.Agreed.  Never mind that the great treasure has only become greater over the years by the posthumous contributions from all those fallen adventurers. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Moria - the original megadungeon. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />The only time I've ever tried running a party into an abandoned Dwarven city was also the only time I've ever resorted to quasi-random dungeon design on the fly.  The place was so big - and the odds of the party seeing much of it so small (they were there on a specific mission) - that there was no point in my trying to map it all out ahead of time.  So instead I designed the secret passage through which they'd be entering (long story behind this) and other than a few key locations left the city to design itself as they went along.End result: playable, but not the best by any means.You can do both.Take L1 Secret of Bone Hill.  It's an old castle, partly ruined, with a dungeon complex beneath.  Because the castle is partly ruined there's about 4 or 5 different ways of getting into it; and there's also several different ways to access the dungeon complex below including from within the castle and from elsewhere, some hidden, others obvious.  And while parts of the dungeon are linear the various accesses provide vertical loops - the party doesn't have to come up where it went down.End result: I've played or run this adventure at least 4 different times, and it's never been the same twice.  And that's what I want from a module. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Lan-"your tomb example reminded me a bit of the old text-based Advent game: the stream, the dry stream bed, the grate..."-efan</blockquote>

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