Based on the mapping threads here, that opinion seems to cut across editions too: many older AD&D players said that they never mapped then and don't map now either. If the players aren't interested in mapping any kind of dungeon environment, is it even possible to employ more complex dungeon building techiniques successfully?
where each X represents an encounter, trap, NPC or otherwise noteworthy location. You can make the connections between the X's as twisty or straightforward as you like.
I care a great deal more that the maps layout make sense than whether it is looping or linear. If the 'dungeon' is a dwarfen mine then it is likely to be branching, with galleries and shafts leading back to a few entrances. If it is a dwarfen underground highway then darn straight it is going to be linear, while if it is a dwarfen stronghold it will contain loops so that the defenders can reinforce one another (and a good deal of it will be above ground, to control an area).
And for what it is worth I liked the Village in VoH at least as much as the moathouse, and used it as a setting for a large number of adventures aside from the main theme of the adventure.
Sure. You just abstract the map into a graph, like Melan did, and wing the actual in-play descriptions. Like this: [image snipped]
where each X represents an encounter, trap, NPC or otherwise noteworthy location. You can make the connections between the X's as twisty or straightforward as you like.
Sorry, I need to elaborate more hong: certainly players can map simply without needing to create maps that are exact replicas of the DM's map; but, if players aren't even interested in creating trailing-style maps during play (like the one you made), then does that basically defeat the purpose of freeform dungeons?
With a slight delay, here are my replies and comments on points raised by posters up to #47.
***
1. Two approaches to dungeon design
One already useful result from the thread is that I am now able to coherently formulate a thought on the purpose of dungeons which had been germinating in my mind for some time. There seems to be a split in the game fandom on this subject, and accordingly, it polarises discussion. First, there are those who identify dungeons as a vehicle for plot-based play. These people also tend to have fewer problems with linear dungeon layout, or even prefer it to other types. Their preferences are probably better served by a dungeon with a definite beginning, a definite finish and a sequence of encounters, which, when strung together, builds a narrative (or something to that extent). In this game form, the layout or structure of a dungeon doesn’t matter too much. As a provocative statement, I will risk drawing flames by saying that
a) there is no overwhelming need in this case to even have a dungeon map – as a DM, you could direct the game with statements like „having defeated the mildly annoying tarnisher monster, you press onward, and after bypassing some side passages, you enter the court of the lich-vampire. You see a marble fountain spraying six sorts of coloured liquid before a great bronze portal. (etc.)” I am not convinced all players otherwise accustomed to plot-based adventuring would take well to this - as Eric Noah noted, players like their illusion of choice - but taken to the extreme conclusions, that is what linear design is: focusing on a predetermined sequence of encounters.
b) this form of adventure isn’t a real dungeon in the classic sense. For one, it has zero explorative element. What it is instead is a set-piece, a backdrop to set plot-based adventures in. This is in stark contrast to the dungeon as originally imagined - a place to adventure in. That kind of dungeon has no plot - this kind doesn’t have place. Naturally, I am writing about absolutes, when there is ample room in between.
It is interesting to note how this interpretation of dungeons has influenced game design since the early 80s, so much so that it is considered to be synonymous with it. Even the designers of Sunless Citadel and Forge of Fury, who admittedly wanted to showcase 3e’s „return to the dungeon” aspect, chose this form which is demonstrably different from the comparatively non-linear introductory modules like Keep on the Borderlands or In Search of the Unknown. It seems to me that today’s dungeons aren’t the spiritual successors of this form - instead, they can trace their ancestry to tournament modules like Slave Pits of the Undercity or even Tomb of Horrors. Tournament modules are understandably more linear than others, because they need to standardize the flow of play for comparative purposes (post-tourney appraisal). I also suspect they are associated with less designer guilt, because, after all, a dungeon without a „real purpose” is „dumb”.
The second approach is treating dungeons as an environment the players can explore. Although there may as well be some nebulous main objective („Humanoids are raiding the countryside. Kill ’em and take their stuff.”), there is a single reason for the existence of the dungeon in the campaign: to allow exploration in a reasonably freeform environment. In theory, the dungeon is only „finished” when the players tire of it or exploit its adventuring potential. The sequence of play may emerge from goals set by the party or spontaneously. (As an interesting observation from personal experience, the game session seems to often have a buildup, peak and denouement even in such unregulated cases - due to the simple phenomenon that as players exhaust their resources due to attrition, every successive encounter poses more risk of loss, and eventually, one comes which severely taxes the party and may lead to exceptional successes or spectacular failures.) This style is arguably better served - or outright requires - more complex and more extensive maps. In fact, unlike in the other one, negotiating the hostile environment is in itself an element of play. I also posted my OP in a thread on Dragonsfoot, and Evreaux made a very insightful comment to this effect, far better than I could:
I think a key design principle behind good dungeon design (one foregrounded in your comments and largely missed in the conversation on your post at EnWorld) is that the dungeon itself should be at least as much an obstacle--and entertainment--as any monsters or traps. Shifting walls, one-way secret doors, hidden regions of the dungeon, intricate layouts, all of these features and more are designed to keep the place itself challenging, above and beyond the encounters. This is whence came Gary's caution in the adventuring section of the PHB that if PCs are cut off, their goal should immediately become finding a way back out, regardless of what they had been seeking previously. When tackling an adventure, the dungeon must be addressed first, monsters second. Otherwise, your PC will die deep in the ground, loaded with treasure and unable to get back out. This is why your second two options tend to be better dungeon design (at least, for my money) than the linear ones; they stress the dungeon itself as an opponent, rather than just being an interstate highway with exits at monster rooms. Dungeon design should ideally be the adventuring values of the place expressed formally.
There seem to be two questions that need to be addressed here. First, what are meaningful choices? Hussar (among others) wrote:
I suppose the question comes down to: Does turning left or right at random equal a meaningful choice? In a non-linear dungeon, you have little or no information upon which to base a choice. It's all about exploration and filling in the map. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But, I question whether that is somehow a more meaningful choice than in a linear dungeon where you have a pretty good idea of which way will lead to some sort of resolution.
Ironically, I originally had a lengthy paragraph about this question in the original post, but ended up cutting most of it because I thought it would have made the article too long. Oh well. Meaningful choices may be identified on multiple levels of decision making. Rounser already touched upon them, but here they are again. On the simplest level, not all choices are meaningful. At a nondescript intersection, you may as well flip a coin or follow the golden rule („left hand on the wall”). A DM could provide some information with descriptive hints: a charnel stench to the right, scattered equipment to the left - or use „intersections” which inherently require a meaningful choice (do we take the twisting chimney to a lower level or do we use the marble stairway that is decorated with skulls?). In many cases, this is impossible. But even in a theoretical information-poor dungeon where individual branches are nondescript, choices become meaningful on the strategic level where the goal is managing a whole expedition. For instance, the following questions may come up: „Do we delve deep into the dungeon or stay near the entrance and cover more territory?”
„Do we use the shortcut where random encounters are very common, or do we go through that abandoned level we don’t know fully yet?
„How far are we going to go? Do we undertake higher risks for a higher probability of rewards?”
etc.
As an example, when I was running Necromancer’s Tomb of Abysthor module (which I consider a dungeon with a very good layout), the players eventually realized that every time they left the dungeon to recover, their opponents, the cultists Orcus would organize ambushes, try to block certain routes and prepare for their next assault, and that these assaults were progressively getting more and more brutal. It was an interesting dilemma for sure - and it encouraged them to explore further, look for alternate entrances and so forth. The suitably complex structure of the dungeon made this kind of choice possible.
The second question is: how do encounters fit into the map? Some posters seem to have come to the incorrect conclusion that a complex layout means
a) a lot of frustrating mapping puzzles
b) that interesting rooms will be few and far between.
Neither problem is an inherent feature of a well constructed dungeon. It is also possible that certain mapping puzzles are fun if not overdone - they are no different from any other dungeon type encounter like getting across a pit or avoiding a mechanical trap. As Ourph correctly remarked, most of them can be treated as a single unit of the dungeon. In the OP, I can easily point to multiple examples: the complicated minotaur maze in Keep on the Borderlands is represented by a crosslike structure (you can essentially get to the minotaur, a fire beetle lair or a secret door that leads to the bugbear chieftain’s hideout), and the room maze in In Search of the Unknown is essentially a straight line, because it eventually leads you to the same destination no matter where you go in it. Some mapping puzzles are of course frustrating. I file numerous mazes under this category, such as the minotaur maze in Lost Caverns of Tsojcanth or Borderlands (I am presently preparing to write up one of my minotaur mazes as a free adventure so there will be one that doesn’t suck ).
It is also not definite that a big, complex dungeon will be miles upon miles of empty space with the occasional encounter. In fact, Paul Jaquays proves in his excellent dungeons (Dark Tower, Caverns of Thracia, Realm of the Slime God) that this is far from the truth: the secret is simply putting a lot of good encounters into your dungeon. Bob Bledsaw’s Tegel Manor is another example of a dungeon module where most rooms have an interesting encounter, and the dungeon layout is 100% perfect (coincidentally, I wrote the revised version for Necromancer Games, so I had to become very familiar with how it works - it works very well indeed).
The obvious downside to this approach is that such a dungeon becomes time-consuming to design. That is a real problem with no optimal solution. Iron regime proposed making a map and plopping down encounters as the players explored it. While I wouldn’t advocate this solution as perfect, I remember having a lot of fun this way when I was fourteen and I was running Ruins of Undermountain with nothing but the maps, dice and my imagination. Today, I’d rather be a bit „uneconomical” in my design and let unexploited encounters or even mini-adventures return at a later date, possibly in another campaign. Of course, in a dungeon which accommodates multiple forays and there is no definite end to adventuring, it is more likely that the PCs will stay around and explore unknown sections. And there are some things which remain mysteries - for example, in Rappan Athuk, there is a
hidden tomb on the „purple worms” level which none of Bill Webb and Clark Peterson’s PCs found under 25+years.
Occasionally, that is no problem either.
***
On to specific comments.
Hussar:
One thing to add though. If you always go for highly complex set ups, then there is a risk of the party being paralysed by choices. If they know that the maps are going to be looping, with lots of secret doors and what not, then they are going to start acting on that - taking time to search every square inch, going back to the same spot time and again - that sort of thing.
Once in a while, that might be a good thing, but, for every adventure to follow that track, I'm not so sure. Sometimes that pirate smugglers cave is just a series of four chambers with access to the sea. It doesn't make much sense for every adventure to be so complex.
Yes. That’s why I usually consider it wise to put secrets where their discovery is not due to painstaking searching, but observing your map, examining a natural or man-made feature, or following a hint/rumor/map. As for the second point, I use a lot of small dungeons too, but consider them a part of wilderness adventuring. These should be probably be called „lairs” to differentiate them from the real deal.
Erik Mona:
This is a fascinating post, in part because I wrestled with some of these same issues when writing "The Whispering Cairn," the Age of Worms Adventure Path kick-off module from Dungeon #124. The Cairn is a much smaller dungeon than many of the ones analyzed in Melan's thought-provoking post, but in order to make it more than just a simple dungeon crawl, I put a lockout mechanism in the dungeon and forced the players to leave the cairn midway through and go on a seemingly unrelated mini-quest. I'm very curious what Melan thinks of that type of encounter setup, and how he might incorporate it into his visual model.
Keeping in mind that I am unfamiliar with Whispering Cairn, my guess would be to insert this detour into the flowchart, even though such „lockouts” tend to make linear design even more linear. There is nothing preventing it. I am ambivalent about these sorts of plot devices; for example, I think a similar element hurt the final dungeon in EGG’s otherwise excellent Necropolis mega-adventure by breaking the flow of exploration. But I don’t know, maybe it works in Cairn.
As an aside, Melan, how dare you call the moathouse dungeon crayfish a more interesting encounter than Lareth the Beautiful? The cleric's staff of striking alone is enough to fell one character in a single round. The encounter has always been very fun when I've run it.
Lareth never impressed me that much. However, I have a high opinion of giant crayfish, giant frogs (most assuredly!), rust monsters, gelatinous cubes, green slime and similar squiggly horrors. They emphasize the whimsical and weird aspect of the game, and are an important part of its character. In fact, they are part of what makes D&D a non-generic fantasy game (along with Vancian magic, a decidedly materialistic worldview, etc.). But this is a subject for another thread...
The town itself is no more boring than places like Orlane or Restenford
Also boring. Not boring: City State of the Invincible Overlord, Modron, Lankhmar, the Keep.
Settembrini: very good observations! You should post more.
Ourph: likewise, that’s some very good stuff.
meleeguy:
The maps in FoF is what drew me to the module in the first place. B&W, but beautiful nonetheless. There is an asthetic component to maps that is important to me, and I find sidelong impressions of the DMs maps usually makes me think "wow, that guy went to alot of trouble for this", and that adds to the experience.
I have also been a lifelong fan of maps, from before I was roleplaying. My dad had a book with maps of caves in them... that had to do something with me getting into dungeoneering. WRT Forge of Fury’s maps, I was initially very impressed by them, but after a while, I realized that they just weren’t as good as my initial impressions made them seem. The art is very good, though, and I don’t think they are „dangerously bad” in any case.
As I'm sure your aware, all of this touches on graphing theory which is just more fun with numbers. I'm thinking of trying to get copies of some of the other maps you reference as a result of your post and my appreciation of good maps.
Actually, the images were (indirectly and distantly) inspired by my job - I am a regional economist, and really like abstract, graphical models of economic geography.
As for getting good maps, I highly recommend anything Paul Jaquays did (Necromancer Games recently re-released Caverns of Thracia, which is a good start), but there is no way his maps are getting graphed. Simply too complex - Paul's use of the third dimension is unparalleled in game design.
Sure. You just abstract the map into a graph, like Melan did, and wing the actual in-play descriptions. Like this:
[snip]
where each X represents an encounter, trap, NPC or otherwise noteworthy location. You can make the connections between the X's as twisty or straightforward as you like.
Precisely. I know players who have done this successfully.
grodog said:
(BTW Melan, the Greyhawk Castle maps just arrived on Thursday: I'd be curious to see your flow chart analysis of the top map image from the GH dungeon, or the big Judges Guild maps we linked to in Quasqueton's GC thread, or Wheggi's fabulous Quilt Dungeon map @ http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/php...opic.php?t=1153). I'm not sure that the really complex, larger maps would be very easy to flow, which is why I imagine you stuck to the 1 sheet maps from modules?).
I chose the one-sheet maps because they weren't too complicated and because the thread was intended to make a point and demonstrate a general principle. I would love to chart some of the more complex maps I have, but it would be a much harder thing to do. I will see what I can do with the Sunstone Caverns, though - that's yet another map deserving of praise.
Personally, being a tactics and terrain guy I like complexity in my maps and battle locations - but not just for the sake of complexity - what is there has to make sense.
I totally agree as a player. As a dm, I do like complex maps, but perhaps I let a little too much logic into things, and am forced to question why they would make passages that circle around, with secret doors, and traps about. If I can answer those questions in the sense of the adventure, or its backstory, then I use complexity.
However, most of the time, logic wins out, and complexity is thrown out in favor of utility (from the perspective of the dungeon's builders.) I always seek some sort of middle ground, if I can.
BTW, thanks, Melan, for the analysis, research, and discussion (and inevitably, idea,) sparking!
Nice work Melan, but you sprinkled too much personal opinion in there for its own good. It's asking for argument rather than discussion.
Linear dungeons are not inherently better or worse than "all over the place" dungeons. As you note, there are examples of well-loved classic dungeons using all the various mapping styles. (People often overlook the vast diversity of classic adventure modules.)
Linear style is better for "mission" adventures, and "all over the place" style is better for "exploration" adventures. A party can have both kinds (and others) during a full campaign. If every dungeon was linear, or if every dungeon was "all over the place", it would get pretty boring to me.
What I dislike about linear dungeons is when there is no way for the inhabitants to get around -- like how do the rear creatures get past the front creatures? (This is what I hate about White Plume Mountain.) What I dislike about "all over the place" dungeons is lots of anticlimatic deadends or mazes. (This is what I hate about In Search of the Unknown.) Both styles can have their flaws, just as both styles have their benefits.
The adventure I'm running for my D&D group right now is a linear dungeon leading to a "all over the place" dungeon. It is a pyramid (entrance at the top) that leads them down through a series of encounters in a linear style, and then opens up to a prison where they have plenty of choices for direction -- some routes loop back around, but some are deadend branches
I have to defend Melan on this 'personal opinion' thing. It's only fair that he states his biases up front. I think it's fine to state opinions as such, especially when they are so eloquently defended!
Your post also has personal opinions, Qasquetron. I'd love to see a post from you, supporting them with as much data and analysis as Melan has given us. Perhaps a thread on how to run a linear dungeon without railroading?
I think the map should fit the adventure, but that said, I prefer complex maps to linear ones in most cases because they offer more opportunities for meaningful player choices.
I always create much more material than I actually use, and I don't plan "stories" that require the players to choose from a limited set of options in order to hit plot points along the way, so there's no issue of "wasted" work or players "missing" something.
I think that linear dungeons are sometimes actually simply "encounter areas" in a less-linear setting, and I also think that linear (i.e., simple) dungeons are sometimes necessary because of realism. The lair of the Bonewardens (i.e., Dragonskull Dungeon), IMC, was fairly linear because of the nature of its builders. OTOH, my mega-dungeon (The Dungeon of Thale) back in 2e days allowed my players the joy of locating new spots and hidden areas -- and this was a big draw to the dungeon. (I had several groups in the same campaign, and they competed to locate new areas first...)
Your post also has personal opinions, Qasquetron. I'd love to see a post from you, supporting them with as much data and analysis as Melan has given us. Perhaps a thread on how to run a linear dungeon without railroading?
First off, my name is "Quasqueton" (name taken from the classic BD&D adventure In Search of the Unknown).
Of course my post has personal opinions, it was a post of my opinion of the data he presented. The "support" for my opinion is the data right in the opening post. I don't think I said anything in opposition to, or contradictory to the data Melan provided. But I did state my opinion in opposition to and contradictory to the opinion Melan provided.
He looks at the data and sees one side of the subject, and I look at the data and see several sides of the subject.
And I didn't say that his having a personal opinion, or even stating his personal opinion was bad. I said:
Nice work Melan, but you sprinkled too much personal opinion in there for its own good. It's asking for argument rather than discussion.
Presenting data as support for one's opinion tends to invite argument over the opinion. Presenting data straight, as is, invites discussion of the data.
Perhaps a thread on how to run a linear dungeon without railroading?
How can you run a linear dungeon without railroading? Run it like you would anything else. Railroading is a phenomenon that has nothing at all to do with linear dungeons.
Meaningful choices may be identified on multiple levels of decision making. Rounser already touched upon them, but here they are again. On the simplest level, not all choices are meaningful. At a nondescript intersection, you may as well flip a coin or follow the golden rule („left hand on the wall”). A DM could provide some information with descriptive hints: a charnel stench to the right, scattered equipment to the left - or use „intersections” which inherently require a meaningful choice (do we take the twisting chimney to a lower level or do we use the marble stairway that is decorated with skulls?). In many cases, this is impossible. But even in a theoretical information-poor dungeon where individual branches are nondescript, choices become meaningful on the strategic level where the goal is managing a whole expedition. For instance, the following questions may come up:
