The 5-Room Dungeon

[Theo R Cwithin]

Oh yeah. It is, in fact, my start point for most dungeons.

Ditto. I've found that the 5-room model, plus setup and related RP usually neatly fits into a typical (4-6 hour) gaming session. Moreover, I find it to be a good size for a single "act" of a larger adventure. So, frex, an adventure intended to last 3 sessions can be readily built by connecting 3 smaller "5-room dungeons".

I don't always hold exactly to John Fourr's formula, but it is a really nice way to organize thoughts & break down big ideas into manageable chunks, while keeping all your bases covered. Yeah, I'm a fan

 

[Pbartender]

Looked at a certain way, it is simply an adaptation of the traditional "dramatic arc" structure in the plot of a 5 act play to the location-based exploration of a dungeon.

1. Exposition (introducing the adventure hook, NPCs and locations; beginning the adventure)
2. Conflict (encountering puzzles and enemies, interacting with NPCs, performing investigations, introducing plots complications)
3. Climax (major plot twist that changes the fortunes of the heroes for better or worse)
4. Resolution (the major plot point and conflict with the enemy is resolved for better or worse)
5. Dénouement (a final exposition exploring the resulting situation caused by the resolution)

 

[jdrakeh]

Yep. I've designed one for TWERPS, but it could easily be used with any fantasy system. It's here, in the first issue of my aborted fanzine. It was intended to serve as a jumping off point for a fantasy campaign.

 

[Haltherrion]

Has anyone developed a dungeon along these lines? Was it literally a five-room dungeon, and if not, how did you cloak how many actual "sites" were in the dungeon?

Seems to be a good formalization of a small dungeon.

While I never stepped back to formalize it as a method, sprawling dungeons are an exception for me. Most of my dungeons are small 1-5 rooms/chambers.

That seems to be a large enough setting for what I want to run underground. It also seems in-line with the sort of underground structures that one would find in most of my underground encounters, since they tend to be substructures of a tower, temple or the like. In most cases, those would only be so big, they are a lot of work to build.

 

[Mistwell]

Seems like a lot of War of the Burning Sky follows this model.

 

[Klaus]

5-Room Dungeon can easily be seen as the 5-Encounter Session.

Yoinked!

 

[Wycen]

I once tried the 5 room dungeon idea. Unfortunately it was for a high level game and I did not anticipate the party would force cage/permanency the bad guy in the middle of town. I could not adapt the to the situation, so my effort was wasted. I never got another opportunity to use that particular set of rooms, partly because the game died.

I like the idea of using 5 room dungeon levels, but I'm not sure how many of these would be good to stack on top of each other.