jgsugden
Legend
Let's say you're the type of DM who is building a homebrew dungeon for your PCs to explore. You want it to cover about 12 to 20 hours of exploration, and you're building it for 7th or 8th level PCs. GENERALLY SPEAKING: How do you go about it? What considerations do you focus on? I'm not asking you to design a dungeon here - I'm asking you to think about the things you consider when building the dungeon.
Here are some examples of things I think about when building the dungeon:
1.) Where did the space come from? Is it a natural cavern, a ruined fortress, or a crashed spelljammer? Why is it there, and who has been in the space before?
2.) Is it navigable? When the PCs are inside of it, does the space make sense for combats and exploration? A huge battle in a 5' wide corridor is a unique challenge if done right, but is usually just a boring disaster. Am I selecting a design that will both make sense for the story of the location and make the location a fun place for the PCs to explore?
3.) What makes the location(s) interesting places to be?What unusual features of the entire location, or of specific locations within the larger location, will be interesting for the PCs to encounter? Is there anti-gravity? Is there quicksand? Is there radiation? Brown mold? Green Slime? Temporal distortion? Portals to the Feywild or Shadowfell? Are there monsters that distort their environment like dragons?
4.) What is the story about how the current residents arrived there, and what is their history?Did they all come together? Did they come in phases? Was there conflict between them? How are they still cohabitating?
5.) What can beings in one area sense about other areas?If the PCs engage in combat in the entrance, what can beings in other rooms hear, smell, or otherwise sense? How will that impact them? It usually is not great to have an entire complex of 'bad guys' gang tackle the PCs at once ... is that what would happen naturally if the PCs launch a fireball/thunderwave in the first room? What logical things can I introduce that would reduce the chances of something like that taking place? Should I introduce them?
Here are some examples of things I think about when building the dungeon:
1.) Where did the space come from? Is it a natural cavern, a ruined fortress, or a crashed spelljammer? Why is it there, and who has been in the space before?
2.) Is it navigable? When the PCs are inside of it, does the space make sense for combats and exploration? A huge battle in a 5' wide corridor is a unique challenge if done right, but is usually just a boring disaster. Am I selecting a design that will both make sense for the story of the location and make the location a fun place for the PCs to explore?
3.) What makes the location(s) interesting places to be?What unusual features of the entire location, or of specific locations within the larger location, will be interesting for the PCs to encounter? Is there anti-gravity? Is there quicksand? Is there radiation? Brown mold? Green Slime? Temporal distortion? Portals to the Feywild or Shadowfell? Are there monsters that distort their environment like dragons?
4.) What is the story about how the current residents arrived there, and what is their history?Did they all come together? Did they come in phases? Was there conflict between them? How are they still cohabitating?
5.) What can beings in one area sense about other areas?If the PCs engage in combat in the entrance, what can beings in other rooms hear, smell, or otherwise sense? How will that impact them? It usually is not great to have an entire complex of 'bad guys' gang tackle the PCs at once ... is that what would happen naturally if the PCs launch a fireball/thunderwave in the first room? What logical things can I introduce that would reduce the chances of something like that taking place? Should I introduce them?
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