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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Authweight" data-source="post: 6475291" data-attributes="member: 6693417">I absolutely know what you're talking about. Here's what I recommend for designing dungeons (not a universal "this is how you do it," but rather a style that works well for me):1) Instead of thinking of dungeons as connected rooms, think of them as connected sections. Each section should have a number of rooms that go together conceptually and spatially. Instead of building encounters in rooms, build encounters that span whole sections of the dungeon, and have the enemies in each section react somewhat intelligently to the intruders. This means you can build relatively mundane areas of castle/cave/whatever that are still interesting and relevant as potential combat areas.2) Make each section interesting. If it's a fight, have something that can be used in a fight there. If you are just exploring, give them a reason to look around there beyond "well, maybe there's something here." If nothing else, give it an interesting description that helps convey tone, atmosphere, story details, or interesting lore. There should be no "pointless" areas of the dungeon. Think of each section as being a scene in a movie. Give the players a prompt for each scene - either something that happens to begin the action, or a detail that is immediately compelling for them to explore. Try not to just describe a bunch of stuff and then sit there and ask, "so what do you do now?" without being confident that your players will have an immediate response (unless your goal is to present a difficult situation and make them consider how they want to tackle it - in this case there should be a clear objective instead of a clear course of action. Really good dungeon design emphasizes these situations, but honestly you don't need to push these all the time).3) Don't bother with having the party map. Assume that the party has a good enough sense of direction to get back where it came from. They are professionals at this, after all. If the dungeon is truly vast, handwave travel and/or have them make checks to not get lost. 4) At all times, have in mind what the point of each area is. A point doesn't have to be big - it can be as simple as "establish a small detail to make the environment feel more real" - but keep this point in mind, because it should drive the way you run the scene at the table.</blockquote>

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