D&D General Preparing dungeons without knowing the setting or campaign

[BookTenTiger]

At some point in the next few months I'm going to be starting a new campaign. When I start a new campaign, I like to create the setting collaboratively with the players, and even come up with campaign and adventure arcs together.

(I know this isn't everyone's cup of tea, but collaboration like this is my favorite way to run D&D!)

One of the challenges is that this is going to be a busy school year for me. So in terms of adventure planning, I'm just not going to have a ton of prep time.

I'm going to have some free time this week so I'm thinking of designing a few "blank" dungeons that I could plug into whatever adventures I want to run.

The question is, what should I preplan in a dungeon if I don't know what style of campaign, setting, or adventure it's going to be used in?

I figure drawing maps is the most basic of what I could do. I could also design each dungeon around a different generic goal: a collect-the-keys dungeon, a find-three-objects dungeon, a defeat-the-big-bad dungeon.

I don't want to populate the dungeons with specific monsters because I don't know if the characters will be exploring an all-human setting, or a Greek Myths setting, or a Lord of the Rings setting... But could I put in some generic enemy names like "low level guards" or "at-level stealth strikers" or "high-level beast"?

What are your thoughts? How would you go about designing dungeons without knowing what kind of campaign or setting they will be used in? How detailed would you get?

 

[Theory of Games]

If you want to design an adventure with your players, seems like you should be asking them these questions (?)

I'm old-school, so players have their characters and the GM has everything else (setting & campaign). But you don't need a setting to design a dungeon. Take a look at the AD&D 1st edition Dungeon Master's Guide: it has rules for creating dungeons and stocking them with traps, monsters and treasure

 

[Tonguez]

Are you familiar with 5-room dungeons?
I lke them as a nice little tool to guide quick dungeon design. Just remember that 'room' is a scene so can be anything - a city street, a cluster of buildings, a forest, a stage in a negotiation. The Thematic entrance is where you load in your genre and setting clues. Also the diversion at room/scene 3 means it doesnt have to be just 5 - you can add more side rooms to keep the PCs occupied before they get to the climax.

1 Thematic Entrance with Guardian or 'Lock'
2 Puzzle/Skill/Roleplay Challenge
3 trick, trap, or diversion
4 Climax, Boss Battle
5 Reward and Plot twist

 

[aco175]

With limited time, I would likely look to steal maps from places online. Other stuff like towns and NPCs and such could also be found. Maybe plan on the initial 3 sets of options and then on another three for around 3rd level. If you think you can ties some threads between them, then that would also be a good spend of time.

 

[MNblockhead]

I've run low-prep games with more collaborative world building. I tried using tools like Cityographer and Dungeonographer (now both replaced with all-in-one Worldographer). I found Cityographer to be great to generate villages and towns on the fly. It would generate settlements on the fly with details on the inhabitants, store proprietors and goods sold, etc. It worked well and you could customize the text files for name, species, goods, etc. randomization. I could create a village or town on the fly, in-game. But I never liked it for larger settlements like cities and or any more important locations. It was best for situations where the players say, we go to the nearest village to buy supplies. Yeah, you can just improvise this, but often hooks would develop through role play and it allowed me to flesh out area maps.

I never liked dungeonographer or any randomized dungeon generator.

I instead built up a very large collection of digital battlemaps and digital NPC tokens. I was using MapTool at the time with a horizontal display. Players would use miniatures for the PCs. I organized and named the files in such a way that I could search and pull up a map and apply fog of war in less time than I've ever been able to draw something out on the Chessex map. Similarly search and dropping tokens for NPCs was much quicker than selecting and placing miniatures on the fly.

For cities, I either just used various city books that fit the area of adventure. I also used Vornhem: The Complete City Kit. A small book with very clever mechanics for running adventure in a large city with little to no prep. I didn't know about the controversy surrounding the author at the time.

The one thing, however, that I've always needed to start with is an area or world map.

My recommended approach for a low prep, collaborative game would be:

1. Even if you play in person, consider using a digital display. Put in the time to build up a large collection of battlemaps and NPC tokens up front. It take time up front, but then you play for years with little session prep.

2. Select a world map that you like that has not words on it. At session Zero, discuss what kind of world they would like. Decide together generally, in broad strokes, what the different areas of the world are like, where they would like to start, and fill in some more details of the immediate surrounding area of the starting location. Then make the characters.

3. Jot down a few ideas regarding adventure hooks and important NPCs for the first session. Nothing too detailed.

4. Each session take very brief notes on what the party did and ideas for new plotlines, developments for existing plot lines, and some potential scenarios for the next session that hook into the last.

I didn't find it to difficult to improvise quests, hooks, and tying in plot lines. These grow organically. But we like to play with battlemaps and minis rather than TotM for combat. Spending the money for a horizontal display was well worth the cost. I spent just under $600, but that is because I had a custom case built for it. You can do it for far less. I've seen people lay normal TVs flat, face up, mabe on wood blocks to keep it stable and cheap peice of plexiglass lain on top to protect the screen. Digital signage displays, especially those designed for face-up or table display, may be a better bet but you'll spend 400-600 on those.

But even at $600, I would have to spend much more than that on miniatures etc. I've tried low-cost solutions like just scribbling onto a Chessex and print paper tokens and punching them out with a 1" punch, but all of that just adds to prep time.

If you are playing on line, that makes things easier but you have to be aware of the VTT-time trap. You want one that makes it easier to pull up a map and tokens and apply fog of war quickly. Foundry is a no-go on this IME. Fantasy Ground works very well, both for in person and online games. Roll20 makes it pretty easy with battle maps, kinda drag and drop, but I'm not sure how well it works with dropping tokens. MapTool was by far the best for in-person low-prep play, but isn't worth the hassle for online play.

 

[aco175]

Do you really have no idea where the campaign is going to go or be? I like the idea of creating things with the players and seeing what develops, but not having a few ideas to choose from would not be my thing. I see why you want a start on things, but no skeleton to hang some meat on makes it hard. I tend to go to the players with a few ideas on what I would want to run and let them all choose and then we could develop some things.

I guess it is easy to reskin monsters to fit and with the new rules of generic monsters such as bandits and thugs, they could be any monster with plug and play.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Do you really have no idea where the campaign is going to go or be? I like the idea of creating things with the players and seeing what develops, but not having a few ideas to choose from would not be my thing. I see why you want a start on things, but no skeleton to hang some meat on makes it hard. I tend to go to the players with a few ideas on what I would want to run and let them all choose and then we could develop some things.

I guess it is easy to reskin monsters to fit and with the new rules of generic monsters such as bandits and thugs, they could be any monster with plug and play.

I love going in with a blank slate! It gets my creative fires burning.

When I start a new campaign with a new group, I go through a questionnaire with them (inspired by Ironsworn) in which we decide the feel, environments, deadliness, and common opponents of a setting. I even have them help design the first adventure.

Then I use their backgrounds and that initial conversation to create new adventures.

What I would love to do is to create some drop-in template dungeons that I could easily populate with enemies and themes based on what the players have decided on.