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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lanefan" data-source="post: 7899990" data-attributes="member: 29398">I completely agree with your notes re Symmetry, Flat Dungeons, and Linear Progression - all well said.But we diverge a bit on these:This sound to me like the "no empty rooms" design philosophy, with which I disagree heartily. Empty rooms can be used for many things: to heighten tension, or to provide a potentially safe base, or to slow a group down while they search, etc. Long hallways ditto, though unless there's a defensive reason they should go fairly directly from one place to another.If the dungeon hasn't been altered much since it was originally made for whatever purpose, then this is all true.  But the underlying premise behind many dungeons is that the PCs aren't dealing with the original occupants of the place, and subsequent occupants have made many changes, alterations, and additions - leading in the end to something that wholistically seems to be a chaotic mess.An example appears on [USER=6801845]@Oofta[/USER] 's map below: it's obvious areas 23 and 24 are a later tack-on, done by some burrowing creature or other, and weren't part of the dungeon as originally built. (which also means that bit being a dead end makes perfect sense)In spread-out areas like this map, what you say makes some sense; but where rooms are close together such as in a typical building then the most efficient use of space is adjoining square or hexagonal spaces, with square being by far the easier to construct. (also, for when it matters, the Dig spell takes out a 10x10 cube)In fact, I'd say there's a quite reasonable amount of non-square areas on this map.I absolutely agree about dead ends and "dendritic" design being poor, but that it could cause players to potentially skip content is to me a feature, not a bug. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />The other missing element here is multiple entry/exit points to outside: the only way in-out is through room 1.A clearly-missed opportunity here, given that this dungeon seems to be on three distinct vertical levels.  Mapping's a bitch when things overlay, but what happens if you take areas 13-21 and move them south while taking areas 22-34 and move them north, such that areas 1, 21 and 22 more or less line up vertically.  Throw in some vertical accesses (with at least one stairway that goes direct from the lowest level to the highest), and connect a few rooms directly where they happen to line up, and this could be on to something.</blockquote>

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