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D&D Dungeon Map Design: Good and Bad
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<blockquote data-quote="timbannock" data-source="post: 9813685" data-attributes="member: 17913"><p>Seconding all of this.</p><p></p><p>One great example is a lot of <em>Caverns of Thracia</em> (talk about going back to the founding and finding good examples!) where encounters are, by design, taking advantage of the map. There's an awesome one with a door to a refrigerator-room, there's fun hallway fights against guardians, and there are great open expanse encounters (several with vertical space taken into account, like the bridge on Level 1 and the river on Level 2).</p><p></p><p><em>Puzzle Dungeon: Seers Sanctum</em> and <em>Aberrant Reflections</em> has great moments of <em>Zelda</em>-style design: do a thing in one room, it opens up something in another section, then you gotta haul stuff back to close or reactivate something...or something entirely disconnected you didn't know before, but now have the knowledge for.</p><p></p><p>Dyson Logos has some great dungeon maps that have multiple levels and play with verticality a lot. Almost all of his maps take into account multiple pathways, too, so even his most "pedestrian" (or maybe "realistic") ones are still good starting designs. But his best stuff is truly stellar. There's a few megadungeon-y ones that are huge and do a great job playing with verticality, slides, stairwells, inaccessible-but-visible elements, and looping design. Obviously, a lot of the magic is in stocking those places well, but I think they serve as better inspiration than 98% of what you get in modules fully stocked. Plus Dyson does the occasional one-off that's truly bizarre, like his flying citadels and islands. That's the kind of stuff I wish was the norm in the big name adventures with all their incredible artwork budget, but instead we get mostly linear caves or square citadels.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="timbannock, post: 9813685, member: 17913"] Seconding all of this. One great example is a lot of [I]Caverns of Thracia[/I] (talk about going back to the founding and finding good examples!) where encounters are, by design, taking advantage of the map. There's an awesome one with a door to a refrigerator-room, there's fun hallway fights against guardians, and there are great open expanse encounters (several with vertical space taken into account, like the bridge on Level 1 and the river on Level 2). [I]Puzzle Dungeon: Seers Sanctum[/I] and [I]Aberrant Reflections[/I] has great moments of [I]Zelda[/I]-style design: do a thing in one room, it opens up something in another section, then you gotta haul stuff back to close or reactivate something...or something entirely disconnected you didn't know before, but now have the knowledge for. Dyson Logos has some great dungeon maps that have multiple levels and play with verticality a lot. Almost all of his maps take into account multiple pathways, too, so even his most "pedestrian" (or maybe "realistic") ones are still good starting designs. But his best stuff is truly stellar. There's a few megadungeon-y ones that are huge and do a great job playing with verticality, slides, stairwells, inaccessible-but-visible elements, and looping design. Obviously, a lot of the magic is in stocking those places well, but I think they serve as better inspiration than 98% of what you get in modules fully stocked. Plus Dyson does the occasional one-off that's truly bizarre, like his flying citadels and islands. That's the kind of stuff I wish was the norm in the big name adventures with all their incredible artwork budget, but instead we get mostly linear caves or square citadels. [/QUOTE]
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