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Message: <blockquote data-quote="rmcoen" data-source="post: 9820777" data-attributes="member: 6692404">I tend to make "real" places.  Actual locations that people would actually build - complete with bathrooms/latrines, and kitchens and eating areas - or natural locations that might exist (cave systems with the water that created them, for example).  This lets the PCs intuit some of the "design" based on what they know or (skill check) what their characters might know.  One memorable location was a pre-apocalyptic genetics lab they found preserved in a time bubble.  Administration offices up front, a couple conference rooms, a big cafeteria for the staff, a couple storerooms for food, public bathrooms, and then multiple labs and small areas in the back.  Plus the manager's office - complete with his own private bathroom.  When they found a codelocked door they needed to bypass, they thought about the location and went to the manager's office to get clearance.  When they realized their food had gone bad, they executed a raid on the cafeteria's supplies.I mention all this because... yeah, there were a lot of "hallway fights" and chokepoints.  (And a wonderful melee in the "multiple entrances" cafeteria.)  Not "good dungeon design", but understandable, and the PCs used what they knew to their advantage (including sealing off hallways with silence and sound bubble to prevent combat noise from drawing more foes).Set piece encounters require / benefit from specific designs, but in general, I want a "dungeon" to have (a) multiple paths, (b) cover / obstacles that both PCs and monsters must deal with, (c) terrain features that can be taken advantage of (like a ravine, lava, precariously balanced boulders, traps that can be found and used against their makers, etc.), and (d) believable / understandable opportunites for interaction between the residents of the location.(d) is my "answer" to "Random Encounters".  My encounters are never random... there are never "1d6 goblins" that show up 1/6th or 1/8th of the time.  The goblin recruitment camp specifically has 19 goblins in it - 2 of whom are leaders, 1 in the cook, 1 is the weird wizard, 2 are the wolf-trainers, and the rest are the recruits.  They have jobs, and will be at certain places at certain times because of it.  The two ogres are lazy, and are only found in their hut - except from 6 to 8 when the wizard forces them to patrol the woods (on a clockwise path that takes 2 hours).  There are always 2 dire wolves to the north and south of the camp; west is the mountain spire the leaders live in, and east is the main gate with two guards.  Training sessions occur at 10am and 3pm.  If the PCs assault the gate, the ogres come out of their hut in 3 rounds, while a runner heads into the spire to alert the leaders.  Etc. etc. etc.  The party decided to wait until the ogres went on patrol, ambushed them and the two wolves on that side quickly and efficiently, then slipped in the back where the pallisade met the mountain spire, and snuck into the cave system to assault the leaders without all the other goblins involved.  The cook managed to raise the alarm, so while the rest of the party was hunting leaders (and rescuing a couple dwarf prisoners), the paladin/sorcerer was guarding the entrance (using darkness and Blindfighting)...</blockquote>

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