Dungeon layout, map flow and old school game design

[grodog]

I posted my spoiler-laden renditions of the Rob Kuntz's Maure Castle levels "The Statuary" (Dungeon 112) and "The Chambers of Antiquities" (Dungeon 124) @ http://www.greyhawkonline.com/grodog/temp/maure_castle_mapping_analysis-grodog.pdf

Digging into the diagrams for the Maure Castle levels shows them to be very different levels, in terms of how their maps are organized.

The Statuary

The Statuary appears to be, and is I think, pretty complex: the encounters are grouped toward the lower- and the right halves of the map, while the use of many secret doors prevents the quick detection of the level's interesting challenges. Compensating for this (and shown on the map as a blue path) are the footprints of Tomorast and his cronies, which may help to guide the PCs toward that foe (or serve as a deterrance tactic, if the PCs opt to explore areas that Tomorast hasn't frequented yet), as well as to one of the key nexus points on the map (where many secret doors and access points to other levels converge). (FWIW, the adventure doesn't detail the exact path to 117 taken by Tomorast, that's my artistic license showing). I don't think that The Statuary is quite as complex as B1 In Search of the Unknown, but that may be a matter of opinon; it's certainly in the same league, at the least. It also resembles the right half of D1 as Melan mapped it, but with even more access points to the large chambers, which creates many looping paths to and from various encounter areas. In addition, the secret doors really are gateways to discoveries (unlike in B1, where they mostly provide an alternate path to a location that can be reached through other means).

The Chambers of Antiquities

While the Chamber of Antiquities is certainly simpler than The Statuary, I think that the map for this level appears to be much simpler than it is. At first glance, it looks like a circular route, with side branches (like S2 White Plume Mountain), but Kuntz added many branches and side-tracks to the map, to the point that the PCs can in fact avoid the central area completely and access the west, north, and south branches (if they manage not to awaken the juggernaut). They thus have complete freedom to choose the order in which to tackle the level's challenges. Also interesting is the area within the large central chamber, which is almost like a mini B2 cave complex---PCs can choose to approach any of the encounter areas (I almost mapped it like a starburst, but thought that the fishbone skeleton better reflected the progression of the challenges as the room is crossed). A good level, given the vast number of options it makes available to PCs; I also think that this map provides a relatively simple mapping expericence, which would be a nice change of pace from The Statuary (which is also the only level that connects to this one, via a secret area, which makes the discovery of The Chambers of Antiquities level a reward in and of itself).

Melan mentioned that is may be possible for some maps to be too complex:

Generally, branching, complex maps offer many possibilities for decision making, but overly complicated maps do not: they just cause frustration.

I debated about whether or not The Statuary crossed that line, and I think it skirts it closely, but manages to stay within the realm of "not too frustrating." I'm curious to hear what other folks think, though (I haven't run any of the new MC levels yet, though I'm looking forward to doing so in the autumn).

I probably won't have time to map The Whispering Cairn and A Gathering of Winds until after this weekend, but I'll post here when I make them available too.

 

[grodog]

Some excellent discussion on Melan's mapping methreads appear over in a Dragonsfoot thread at http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18710&start=60

 

[grodog]

bumping for the current dungeon discussion thread "How dungeons have changed in Dungeons and Dragons."

edit - I'll also work-up a flowchart for the newest Maure Castle level over the holiday....

 

[Jack Colby]

Anyone feel like mapping-out Keep on the Shadowfell using this method?

 

[malacapricornis]

Means to get information to make meaningful choices rather then blind/random choices are important in the non-linear dungeons. The old school methods of hirelings, consulting with sages or demons, interrogations, communing with rocks and nature are all good methods.

Ultimately, in a game as opposed to a reality simulator where time and effort in preparation and play are limited resources, having a fun, entertaining, and for me appropriately challenging encounters are more important then the illusion of grand strategic choice.

You have to have cooperative players and a cooperative DM to have a rewarding game session. In essence, the players need to be good sports to hit the proper dungeon that was prepared to begin with. A whole world can be created and populated, much like Morrowind but like Morrowind most of the encounters will not be tuned for your players. Unless of course encounters are always tuned for your players which again brings up the illusion of choice. If you choose dungeon A or dungeon B and the results are approximately the same did you really have much choice.

If dungeon A was 6 levels lower then your party and dungeon B was 6 levels higher then your party then either choice is not going to be satisfying for your game time.

This, imo, is also applicable to the dungeons themselves. If you are going to level and gain magical items that put you ahead of the challenge of areas you have bypassed, backtracking is going to be relatively trivial. Nonlinearity is useful if clumped in clusters of encounters that can be tackled with appropriately leveled and equipped characters.

Again this is all a matter of taste. Some groups may like very well the free form worlds where intrigue, figuring out puzzles, and gathering clues about the world to make strategic decisions based on scouting and communing etc are important. It's not my taste as I feel that as a game it's more rewarding to me to be adventuring.

Now that said, my fondest gaming memories online seem to be the freeform nature of Ultima Online...

 

[Hussar]

This is, IMNSHO, one of the all time best threads on EnWorld.

Love it to pieces.

 

[Thunderfoot]

Melan - Incredible analysis!
I would like to say though that non-linear maps are sometimes more of a detriment than a asset. Unfortunately you stated that encounters were not he focus of the essay and that they were not part of our equation, however when designing a dungeon crawl, the purpose of the encounters may well dictate a more or less linear layout.

For instance, we have all seem the 'lair' layouts from the 70s & 80s that twist and turn and bob and weave, but think for a moment if your own house did that? What if you had to walk 30' down a corridor to your living room and then up a secret passage to get to your attic? Of in the case of a combined lair think if, for no reason you had to go through a circuitous route to go to the grocery store for no other reason than poor street design or city planning? Sure it happens, but even in the Medieval time period city plans were based on geometric patterns, usually squares or pentagons. It wasn't until these Medieval cities grew through the Dark Ages, the Renaissance and the Victorian eras did they begin to become entangled messes.

So, in some instances, overly complicated or even less than simple layout is a poor thing. You mentioned Village of Hommlet, my question for you is, if the 'Keep" encounter had been a huge layout, would it have made sense? The answer is no, the encounter was small by design and strictly a gateway for a larger adventure, the Keep was a building and therefore laid out as such to include the basement area. One can agree that the resulting Temple was much more sprawling and needed the 'exploration' you described. And though they were not originally released together, they were always meant to be part of the same plot-line.

I agree that poor design in a supposed 'free-form' dungeon is just inexcusable, but in an era where story-telling is as much a part of the game as the action, sometimes that small straight hallway is just what the doctor ordered.

Happy gaming and keep these great thought provoking articles coming.

 

[Melan]

Jack Colby, I would be interested in that. I have not made up my mind yet how 4e's "encounter zone" style dungeon creation philosophy fits in there. I am not even sure it is a relevant issue to my points, though.

Thunderfoot: you are of course right. In some cases, there are definite advantages to avoiding too sprawling maps; I think "lair" type dungeons can work well as a sequential or mostly sequential series of encounters. Maybe the Moathouse should be interpreted that way... although I'm still saying it would have benefited from a bit more layout complexity. It is a question of emphasis and degrees.

The issue of verisimilitude is either relevant to you or not. To me, it is not very relevant beyond the superficial. While "mediaeval" architecture might often have been simplistic, it is not necessarily a good model to emulate for all games; instead, we dwell on the stranger things... or at least buildings which are, as someone put it when discussing architecture for a 3d computer game "a pleasing jumble of basic elements". A building with hidden nooks, crannies, a secret staircase to the tower and a walled off section is more mysterious and more intriguing than a simple rectangular affair, and this is what counts. I do agree, though, that too much "noise" may not be so interesting. See this map for a good example of a dungeon which is very complicated, but wastes very little room on superfluous and empty space.

Last but not least, you can see the theory in action here (scroll down a bit). The Khosura undercity was consciously designed with these ideas on my mind. I think it was mostly successful in play, although not perfectly - of my players, some would have liked less mapping and wandering around and more concrete encounters. What I did realise is that the sparse key did not work so well for me and my group, and I improvised a lot in play to compensate.

 

[grodog]

Gabor---

Have you thought about analyzing the Mouths of Madness/The Store Rooms maps for Castle Zagyg: The Upper Works, by chance?

 

[Melan]

I do not have the product yet, but I am working on it. The shipping TLG is regularly using is a killer ($38.95!), and other outlets don't have the Upper Works in stock. Sigh.