D&D General #Dungeon23

[darjr]

There is a new design challenge, kind of like nanowrimo, called #dungeon23.

Design a megadungeon for 2023, one room a day.

I think this blog post and twitter post was the initial start of it.

#Dungeon23

A dungeon room a day for all of 2023.

seanmccoy.substack.com

Here are some recommendations from the blog post.

Don’t overthink it. Don’t make a grand plan, just sit down each day and focus on writing a good dungeon room.

Generators are your friend. The point isn’t to get stuck writing the perfect room, the point is to write a room. Randomize the monster, treasure, whatever items you need. Use “Tricks, Traps, and Empty Rooms,” by Courtney Campbell. There’s a billion d100 lists on Elfmaids & Octopi. Take rooms from dungeons you love. Just get the rooms down on paper.

If you can’t think of what to write that day just write “Empty Room,” see how easy that is?
365 rooms written like “3 orcs, 25 gold pieces.” is better than 5 rooms written like “In this beautiful hand carved obsidian room sit 3 orcs arguing over a dice game. 25gp sit on the table, each of them…” See what I’m getting at? The goal is the finish line. Just get to the finish line. Trust me.

There is even an itch.io resource page.

#Dungeon23 Resources

New & Improved!! duvelmandice.github.io dungeon23-resources A list of Resources for Building a Megadungeon for #dungeon23 itch.io: [[ https://itch.io/blog/462261/dungeon23-resources ]] github: [[ http...

itch.io

 

[darjr]

who's participating?

 

[Steel_Wind]

This is a really cool idea. Thanks for bringing it to our attention!

Let me think about this. Maybe I'm in?

I don't know how old we have to be before each of us at least entertains the idea of a "New Year's Resolution". At least an adult, right? Maybe early-to-mid 20s?

God knows that after 35+ years of New Years Resolutions that have been attempted and spectacularly failed -- this might just be the one I can actually keep!

 

[J.Quondam]

Sounds like fun, I might give this a shot! Not sure if/where I'd post my progress, but I did recently unearth a stack of spare notebooks that would be good for this. SO there's that.

 

[Steel_Wind]

Yeah, there's no way I will attempt to do this via notebook though. I map electronically and will make notes electronically. If I had to make handwritten notes, it would not take too long before enough weeks/months passed that I would no longer be able to read my own hand writing!

Electronic is how I create & play and has been for 12 years+. That will have to do. I can even dictate those on my cell-phone on my commute home for integration. This should be easy peasy! (Oh hi Hubris, my name is .Robert)

Okay - I'm in!

 

[J.Quondam]

Yeah, there's no way I will attempt to do this via notebook though. I map electronically and will make notes electronically. If I had to make handwritten notes, it would not take too long before enough weeks/months passed that I would no longer be able to read my own hand writing!

Electronic is how I create & play and has been for 12 years+. That will have to do. I can even dictate those on my cell-phone on my commute home for integration. This should be easy peasy! (Oh hi Hubris, my name is .Robert)

Okay - I'm in!

Yeah, i do everything electronically nowadays. I think this appeals to me as presented because it's on paper, so I'm going to try to do it analog just for grits and shiggles.
However.... I haven't actually handwritten anything of any length in... umm... 20+ years? So this could prove especially challenging for purely physical reasons as my withered monkeys claw relentlessly cramps around the pen.

 

[bedir than]

I'm probably going to do this as a point crawl since my world has less than 365 total dungeon rooms.

And I'll blog it, because I need to be better about blogging

 

[darjr]

 

[darjr]

 

[Steel_Wind]

Depends on how you see your medadungeon I suppose. Yes, there is the Old Skool Tegel Manor approach, or the "dig deeper" excavation of Undermountain or Castle Greyhawk.

I won't be doing those.

I prefer Greg Vaughan's "Scarwall Castle" approach (still the best fantasy castle map ever, imo). So in deference (and admiration) to Greg, I'm going with a Castle, Donjon and Towers (and a dungeon, storage level, and secret underground escape below grade). Mostly we build up -- and the castle can be filled with either human inhabitants -- or hauned/ruined/evil themed, as you may prefer.