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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Imaculata" data-source="post: 7023392" data-attributes="member: 6801286">I completely agree.I think all of those are perfectly sound reasons why an empty room might still be meaningful. -Maybe you want to give your players a room to retreat to?-Maybe you want to just establish a bit of mood with the empty room?-Maybe the empty room builds up suspense?-Maybe the empty room may end up not being empty at a later point?To me it is always a question of 'what am I trying to accomplish?' If I want my two branching paths to carry some weight, then maybe I should leave out the three additional paths next to them, because it might diminish that experience?Maybe I want to include an empty room, because it serves as a sort of hub, or entrance? A location that feels safe, that the players can retreat to? (I'm reminded here of the main hallway from resident evil 1). I often have empty rooms in my dungeons, when there are multiple routes to explore. One could argue that this makes them not empty at all, since they serve to present the players with a choice.Maybe the room still serves a narrative purpose? The room may be empty of monsters, but is it completely empty of furniture too? If its not, then maybe that can be its purpose. Maybe the chamber before the cave where the dragon sleeps, is an empty room filled with bones. A warning to the players, and a means of building suspense.But what I don't want, is for my players to wander into a room or corridor, and there's literally nothing there. Like its literally just there to fill out the map. And sometimes the lay out of a dungeon becomes more interesting, when you decide that one of the corridors has collapsed.To give an example, the Tomb of the Pirate Queens, from my 3rd edition pirate campaign:[ATTACH]81100[/ATTACH]I've highlighted some details with brightly colored labels. First of all, the theme of this dungeon is water. Specifically, water currents. The players are constantly at risk of losing their footing, or pushing upwards against a strong current. The white arrows indicate the direction of the water currents.Immediately from the entrance at the bottom, you can see that it is a mostly empty room, that branches off into three directions. But one of those directions is blocked by a heavy door, which can only be opened with a lever in the room to the left. Conveniently, this is also where the clue to the big puzzle is located. There is also an ambush here, and the players will have to fight. They may discover a secret passage here, or they might not.If they go right and then up instead, they'll eventually encounter the puzzle at the top right, for which they may or may not have encountered the clue. They'll also need to fight. In this area of the dungeon, a lot of rooms are flooded, and the water current is a real problem.In the center of the dungeon is the hub. It is a massive chamber with balconies on either side. But access to the balcony on the right is blocked by a collapsed ceiling. Resourceful players will be able to make their way up there anyway. Either by taking the long way around, or by climbing, or by using magic. This chamber is called the map room. It has an interesting lay out, a large door that the players cannot open yet, and a map drawn on the ceiling (which is important to the plot, not to the dungeon). In a small side room is a broken wheel that should open the giant double doors to the Hall of Legends, but its broken now, so the players will have to find another way inside.To the left of the map room is a very large room, designed to present an intense battle that makes full use of water and height differences. The players will want to stay high and dry, while they are being assaulted by threats that rise from the water and march up the stairs. Again, the same secret passage can be discovered here, which gives access to a wheel to open the flood gate. This eventually leads the players to their goal, the Hall of Legends. In the top right is an interesting and optional section, leading up to the Hall of Dragons. There's a puzzle here, and some jump checks across a collapsed bridge, before the players can access this optional goal. The players can also reach the Hall of Dragons by swimming through flooded rooms in the bottom right, but this is made difficult due to the strong current, and thus most players will choose not to do this.As you can probably tell, this dungeon is small in size, and has plenty of rooms and corridors that are empty of monsters. But I tried to have multiple paths, and make every path have a unique lay out and flavor. I thought about what the dungeon may have looked like when it was initially constructed, and then collapsed various tunnels to make the lay out more exciting to explore.</blockquote>

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