The RANDOM dungeon.

[Summer-Knight925]

So if you own a copy of AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide then you know about appendix A: Random Dungeon generation.

Having seen this before but never really using it (due to the simple fact most of my dungeons have a certain history [old prison, catacombs, ect. ect.]) I finally used it. The Result?

OMFG

its a pretty good dungeon, I'm not even done with it (taking a break to get some air, food and watch the A's game) and it consits of 4 sub-levels and 1 surface level, traps (out the 'wazoo!') treasure and monsters and even a magic pool that (knowing my group) sends whoever takes a little swim in it is instantly teleported to the surface.

So...why post a thread?

This isn' just to brag (seriously)
but I wanted to know if anyone else uses random dungeon materials to generate a dungeon in their down time. If so, post something about it, maybe give a few tips to explain why the characters are in the random dungeon (so far there isn't really a story, so it could help) but yeah...I guess this is for you to counter-brag me, SO GET TO IT!

 

[the Jester]

All I'm gonna say is that I LOVE that appendix.

 

[Dice4Hire]

for real craziness, add +5 to +10 to every roll you make on that table.

It is a hell of a fun table though.

Can make a whole campaign there.

 

[Wik]

That appendix was my intro to D&D.

As I've mentioned before, I started playing because my dad didn't have a gaming group, and he roped yours truly (who was around five at the time) into playing. The two of us each had an adventurer, and we explored using that appendix. Lots of fun times were had - and we fled from many a monster.

If you run it during play, it can be a bit "kick in the door", but if you have time to combine it with the dungeon dressings table and don't mind fudging results, you can actually create some pretty interesting, if random, dungeons with it.

 

[Summer-Knight925]

Finished the basic map, 8 levels (1 is extra-dimensional, thanks to a magic pool of teleportation!) and the basic concept (thanks to a series of 'cave' rolls [rolled cave 4 TIMES IN A ROW!]) I now have a basic story

a dragon is using one of the pools (hidden in a forest) terrorizes a local village, the PCs investigate and follow the dragon (via looking up) to a clearing in the forest, finding the pool right as the dragon dives in.
the pcs enter the water and it was 'cursed' by the dragon and dumps them into a different (could be randomized if I wanted too) level and part of the dungeon.

Adventure begins, both escape and slay the dragon.

 

[Jhaelen]

but I wanted to know if anyone else uses random dungeon materials to generate a dungeon in their down time.

To be honest, I'm a sucker for creating random dungeons. Back in the days it was the only way I'd create dungeons. But that was before I realized I preferred dungeons to make sense.

I still enjoy creating them but I no longer use them in my games.

I also did something else: I used a slightly modified and simplified version of the random dungeon generation as a basis for a board game:
I used several decks of cards: one each for room contents, monsters, treasure, and traps.

The room deck was fixed, the other decks were built before play by referencing a table:
The number and type of cards varied with the dungeon level you wanted to use.

Finally, I used a stack of geomorph tiles to create the dungeon layout.

I didn't make any changes to the game characters, i.e. they were normal D&D pcs. All I did was clearly define the actions they could perform, e.g. searching a room, trying to disarm traps, etc.

It didn't see much play(testing) but it was a pretty cool exercise.

I was quite excited to see how WotC used the concept as the basis for their 'Castle Ravenloft' board game. Their version of "my" game is a lot simpler and arguably plays better, but it isn't as flexible as my framework was.

 

[Celebrim]

So if you own a copy of AD&D Dungeon Master's Guide then you know about appendix A: Random Dungeon generation.

Having seen this before but never really using it (due to the simple fact most of my dungeons have a certain history [old prison, catacombs, ect. ect.]) I finally used it. The Result?

OMFG

its a pretty good dungeon...

In my experience, it makes a better dungeon than about 90% of DMs can do on their own, and I certainly wish - looking back - that my first efforts to create a dungeon as a kid were using this as the basis of my imagination rather than what I did do. I could have learned the art of dungeon design so much faster using these tables as a starting point.

but I wanted to know if anyone else uses random dungeon materials to generate a dungeon in their down time. If so, post something about it, maybe give a few tips to explain why the characters are in the random dungeon (so far there isn't really a story, so it could help) but yeah...I guess this is for you to counter-brag me, SO GET TO IT!

I use to run a weekly open dungeon crawl at the FLGS. Initially I did these as the sort of minidungeons that I would use as interludes in my own campaigning, but they were taking 10-20 hours to prep. While I was doing this, I started generating a random dungeon using the DMG as a basis (because I was often using the tables to help inspire set design). After a few weeks, I burned out and decided to just bring my notes for the random dungeon. It was a smashing success with its vast crazy layout and wierd monsters (I expanded the lists of available monsters). Changes in my schedule forced me to drop it, but it really did feel to me something like it must have felt to run the original megadungeons. I could prep far far more material in a few hours than I could use, so the dungeon kept growing faster than it could be explored. Groups would arrive and then indicate where they'd like to journey down to based on their notes and memories. Group composition frequently changed, so there would be different targets depending on who had went where. I'd also started creating the basics of a plot line involving the dungeon as the prison demi-plane for a trapped abomination and the adventurers were being tricked into destroying the 12 locks that held the doors shut, thus creating some structure to the dungeon. I'd planned to create themed levels by using different lists of monsters. For example, one level was to be undead themed and heavily skewed to undead inhabitants, and another level was to be vermin themed and would make use heavily of the vermin template (rule set was 3e). Each level was to contain a boss monster consisting of the nastiest thing generated, and each boss I would assign as the guardian of one of the 'locks' which I was designing in a nonrandom fashion (the first was a massive grandfather clock).

All of that inspired by a essentially a RNG. It's essentially Nethack in book form.

Some tinkering is necessary to get the best results. The default table generates more passages and doors than you really need, so you have to pare away unnecessary or aestheticly displeasing corridor branching. You also have to decide how big to make each level and pare off any corridors that branch outside of the intended map space. Between pits, canyons, by-level rooms, chutes, stairs and waterfalls, close attention must be paid to the interconnections between levels as you map, as about 4-5 levels down you can end up in a very very tangled set of interconnections with upper and lower levels. While this is good, and what it teaches about proper use of 3D space is something almost anyone can learn from, you also have to make sure that you don't create purely MC Escher levels made of mostly staircases unless that's the intention. You'll need to decide when to go with the results and when rerolling might be a better idea. I tend to mostly go with the flow, and do my best to make sense of the randomness, but you do have to steer a little.

 

[malkav666]

The Dragon Compendium has a very good set of random dungeon generation tools. My group has used them several times to play test homebrew classes with a rotating DM. I am not sure if is against forum policy to link to products or not (if so please feel free to mod my post), but here is a link to the book in question:

http://paizo.com/dragon/products/books/v5748btpy7dxa


love,

malkav

 

[Summer-Knight925]

it's finished

8 levels
180 rooms
36 traps
58 monster encounters
magic teleportation pools
a dragon's hoard
and a unique magic sword.

Now the question really is, can a group of 4th levels handle this?

 

[Lord Crimson]

it's finished

8 levels
180 rooms
36 traps
58 monster encounters
magic teleportation pools
a dragon's hoard
and a unique magic sword.

Now the question really is, can a group of 4th levels handle this?

If not, then they don't deserve to call themselves adventurers!

I'm a long-time fan of the random dungeon generation appendix. Heck, since I was usually stuck DMing most of the time, it was some of the only times I got to just play AD&D rather than run it.