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The Shadow in the Flame: A Workshop on Designing Dungeons, Monsters, and a Villain
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<blockquote data-quote="Quickleaf" data-source="post: 7027005" data-attributes="member: 20323"><p>There are a lot of questions new DMs (heck, and experienced DMs like me as well) have about how to approach writing an adventure, designing a dungeon, creating/converting a monster or NPC, and how to make this awesome imagined villain actually be awesome in the game. I want to offer my ideas on all of it, but with a focus on how it all works together in actual practice.</p><p></p><p>This thread merges a couple others, including <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?521541-First-time-making-a-quot-serious-quot-dungeon!-How-do-you-do-it&highlight=" target="_blank">First time making a serious dungeon</a> and <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?520853-Creating-The-Bonfire-Help-with-a-BBEG/page2" target="_blank">Creating The Bonfire Help with a BBEG</a>. However, the scope goes far beyond these.</p><p></p><p>Lastly, I'll add that I love hearing ideas and discussing my designs on ENWorld, so I am happy for whatever engagement this creates. This won't be structured like a normal article series or anything, more just me digging into the guts of my design process and sharing things as I create them.</p><p></p><p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7027005&viewfull=1#post7027005" target="_blank">Step 1: Honing the Idea & Brainstorming</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7027005&viewfull=1#post7027005" target="_blank">Step 2: Room Lists, 'Massing', and 'Adjacencies</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7027236&viewfull=1#post7027236" target="_blank">Step 3: Quests & Character Hooks</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7027854&viewfull=1#post7027854" target="_blank">Step 4: Verisimilitude & Foundational Questions</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7028100&viewfull=1#post7028100" target="_blank">Step 5: Making Monsters - Part 1: NPCs</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7028192&viewfull=1#post7028192" target="_blank">Step 5: Making Monsters - Part 2: Monster Variants</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7028818&viewfull=1#post7028818" target="_blank">Step 5: Making Monsters - Part 3: New & Converted Monsters</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7029171&viewfull=1#post7029171" target="_blank">Step 5: Making Monsters - Part 4: Hard-to-Convert Monsters</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain/page2&p=7029319&viewfull=1#post7029319" target="_blank">Step 5: Making Monsters - Part 5: Legendary Monsters / Villains</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain/page2&p=7036797&viewfull=1#post7036797" target="_blank">Step 6: Dungeon Mapping - Part 1: Iterative Design & Rough Maps</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain/page2&p=7144779&viewfull=1#post7144779" target="_blank">Step 6: Dungeon Mapping - Part 2: Hand Drawn Maps</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain/page2&p=7162749&viewfull=1#post7162749" target="_blank">Interlude: YouTube Design Chat, Audio Only</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain/page3&p=7164802&viewfull=1#post7164802" target="_blank">Step 6: Dungeon Mapping - Part 3: Sketches</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain/page3&p=7172797&viewfull=1#post7172797" target="_blank">Step 6: Dungeon Mapping - Part 4: Mapping in Three Dimensions</a></p><p></p><p>[USER=6801286]@Imaculata[/USER] is sharing a "sister" series called <a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?571954-Fire-and-Water-Designing-themed-dungeons&p=7189662#post7189662" target="_blank">Fire and Water: Designing Themed Dungeons</a>. Check it out!</p><p></p><p><strong>Master List of Resources</strong></p><p>[SPOILER=Master List of Resources]</p><p></p><p><strong>Blogs about Dungeons</strong></p><p><a href="https://bankuei.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/dungeons-theory-and-design/" target="_blank">Deeper in the Game</a> A 7-part article on dungeon design</p><p><a href="http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2011/03/30/the-architect-dm-on-dungeons/" target="_blank">Critical Hits</a> The Architect DM series</p><p><a href="http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2010/09/24/re-examining-the-dungeon-section-factions-and-fronts/" target="_blank">Critical Hits</a> Chatty DM's Re-examining the Dungeon</p><p><a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/02/old-school-dungeon-design-guidelines.html" target="_blank">Grognardia</a> Old School Dungeon Design Guidelines (taken with a grain of salt, and a good sense of humor)</p><p><a href="http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/p/megadungeon-design.html" target="_blank">Dungeon Fantastic</a> Megadungeon Design</p><p><a href="http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon" target="_blank">The Alexandrian: Jacquaying the Dungeon</a> Highly recommended 7-part series about mapping like famous Jennel Jacquays</p><p><a href="http://slyflourish.com/making_awesome_dungeons.html" target="_blank">Sly Flourish: Making Awesome Dungeons</a> follows Rodney Thompson's advice about making dungeons "familiar, functional, and fantastic"</p><p></p><p><strong>Fantasy Demographics</strong></p><p><a href="http://www.autarch.co/blog/demographics-heroism" target="_blank">Autarch's Adventurer Conqueror King</a> Alex has a blog post "The Demographics of Heroism" about assumptions of how rare individuals are leveled from 1st to 14th level.</p><p><a href="http://themagictreerpg.blogspot.com/2008/11/d-society-be-aware-of-demographics.html" target="_blank">The Magic Tree</a> Tanz deconstructs how many hypothetical NPCs would have "the hero stuff" and survive long enough to do something with their class levels.</p><p><a href="http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/37395/dd-character-levels-and-population-is-the-fifty-percent-rule-valid" target="_blank">The Fifty Percent Rule</a> MontyWild proposed a 50% rule for determining how many NPCs of a given level appear in a world. Not an unreasonable starting point.</p><p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/597t3i/dd_character_level_demographics/" target="_blank">D&D vs. USA Demographics</a> Fallencoder does an interesting comparison of adventurers to US armed forces personnel, coming up with probabilities of encounter an NPC of #th level in the world, and in a number of combats. Possibly flawed assumptions, but interesting nevertheless.</p><p></p><p><strong>Monster Design & Conversion</strong></p><p><a href="http://theangrygm.com/monster-building-201-the-dd-monster-dissection-lab/" target="_blank">AngryGM</a> has a good article covering 5th edition monster creation in detail, starting from the very basics</p><p><a href="https://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/DnD_Conversions_1.0.pdf" target="_blank">Official WotC Conversion Guide</a></p><p><a href="http://brentnewhall.com/games/1e5e.html" target="_blank">Brent Newhall's 1e-3e-5e Converter</a></p><p><a href="http://marklenser.com/5econverter/" target="_blank">Pathfinder to 5e Converter by [MENTION=6670944]Kryx[/MENTION]/Mark Lenser</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?358550-Equating-AD-amp-D-2e-XP-to-5th-edition-CR" target="_blank">Equating AD&D 2e XP to 5th edition CR (my thread on ENWorld)</a></p><p></p><p><strong>Villain & Legendary Monster Design</strong></p><p><a href="http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/vb" target="_blank">Villain Builder: 7 part series by Wolfgang Baur</a></p><p><a href="http://slyflourish.com/building_legendary_creatures.html" target="_blank">Sly Flourish: Building Legendary Creatures</a></p><p><a href="http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?482422-Secret-Planescape-Origin-of-Legendary-Solo-Monsters" target="_blank">Secret Planescape Origin of Legendary Solo Monsters (my ENWorld thread)</a></p><p></p><p><strong>Hand Drawn Mapping</strong></p><p><a href="https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/dysonize-your-dungeon/" target="_blank">Dyson's Dungeons Tutorials</a></p><p><a href="https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/the-key-to-all-this-madness/" target="_blank">Dyson's dungeon mapping symbol key</a></p><p><a href="http://burrowowl.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/map_key.jpg" target="_blank">DMG Mapping Symbols</a></p><p><a href="https://www.cartographersguild.com" target="_blank">Cartographer's Guild: A Forum for Cartography Enthusiasts</a></p><p></p><p><strong>Verticality in Dungeons</strong></p><p><a href="http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2011/07/13/the-architect-dm-give-it-some-height/" target="_blank">The Architect DM: Give It Some Height</a></p><p><a href="https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/maps/vertical-morphology/" target="_blank">Dyson's Dodecahedron: Vertical Morphology</a></p><p><s>strolen.com/viewing/Sanctum_of_Water Strolen's Citadel: Sanctum of Water</s> <em>I recently got an error message that strolen's site is not secure, so I've deactivated the link.</em></p><p>[/SPOILER]</p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><strong><span style="color: #B22222">Step 1: Honing the Idea & Brainstorming</span></strong></span></p><p>Ideas are dime a dozen. What really makes an idea interesting is how it's developed. So the first step is actually doing something with the idea.</p><p></p><p>What prompted me to post is a dungeon/adventure I'm working on called <em>Krak al-Mazhar: Citadel of the Shadow in the Flame</em>; in brief, it's the secret lair of The Brotherhood of True Flame (think: evil arcane society) built into the ridge of a caldera. It's designed for roughly 15th-16th level PCs.</p><p></p><p>Let's pause and ask "how did I get that number?"</p><p></p><p>Well, there are 3 reasons. First, it's for an Al-Qadim game I run and I anticipate the PCs being around that level when they confront the big bad evil guy (BBEG). Second, the adventure will feature a fair number of CR 3 undead (e.g. mummy archivists, Lawful Neutral wight "crypt servants", and an upgraded ghast called a "lesser ghul"); which is relevant to the 14th-level cleric's Destroy Undead (CR 3) feature. Third, 15-16th level spellcasters have access to 8th level spells like <em>antimagic field</em>, <em>dominate monster</em>, <em>glibness</em>, and <em>telepathy</em>; this adventure is designed with those sorts of capabilities in mind.</p><p></p><p>So without even meaning to, I've stumbled onto a design principle: <strong><em>If you have a level in mind for a dungeon/adventure, write to the capacities of PCs of that level. You may even want to design a bit first, and then go back and figure out what level it's suited for once your mind is clear of the initial stages of design.</em></strong></p><p></p><p>My first step was to brainstorm as much as I could about the dungeon/adventure, and to that end I used <a href="https://www.mindmeister.com/" target="_blank">Mindmeister</a> web-based mind-mapping.</p><p></p><p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/jivL3EA.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p>A few things stood out to me after I sat back and looked at my vision...</p><p></p><ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">This is going to be bigger than any dungeon I've ever made myself before. Not mega-dungeon big, but well, <strong>big</strong> (easily 30+ areas). I've read blogs, asked other DM friends & folks online, and thought back to features of the few awesome larger dungeons that I'd run (<em>Dragon Mountain</em>, <em>Tomb of Horrors</em>).</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">There is a lot of custom/homebrew content I am going to want to write. Both to support the feel I am going for (secretive sinister group of power-hungry mages), and because the options for tougher enemies in core D&D are limited.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I need to think about how the NPCs inhabit the dungeon and their motives and inner factions, in order to support the players in approaching the dungeon from multiple approaches.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Figuring out the map of this thing is going to require thinking & mapping in three dimensions.</li> </ul><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 15px"><strong><span style="color: #B22222">Step 2: Room Lists, 'Massing', and 'Adjacencies'</span></strong></span></p><p></p><p>My next step has been iterative, but is looking much better now than it was at the beginning. I've done this with notecards before, but in this case I opted to use Photoshop. I wrote down all the rooms I could think of. Then I gave them an approximate size in relation to each other – for example, I knew The Great Garden and the Tower of the Bonfire were going to be big areas with sub-areas within them. And lastly, I tried arranging them in a logical way (e.g. the Dungeons should lead to the Water Distillery, because that's where the Brotherhood drain the dead of their precious water -- remember they live in a hostile desert -- and prisoners had better be good for something).</p><p></p><p>This is still just a conceptual map, and still work-in-progress, but it starts to give a feel of the dungeon...</p><p></p><p><img src="http://i.imgur.com/fmm4LOy.png" alt="" class="fr-fic fr-dii fr-draggable " style="" /></p><p></p><p><strong>Resources: Blogs about Dungeons</strong></p><p><a href="https://bankuei.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/dungeons-theory-and-design/" target="_blank">Deeper in the Game</a> A 7-part article on dungeon design</p><p><a href="http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2011/03/30/the-architect-dm-on-dungeons/" target="_blank">Critical Hits</a> The Architect DM series</p><p><a href="http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2010/09/24/re-examining-the-dungeon-section-factions-and-fronts/" target="_blank">Critical Hits</a> Chatty DM's Re-examining the Dungeon</p><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tpRLEfKCTs" target="_blank">9 Dungeon Design Secrets</a> YouTube video from Ben at Questing Beast</p><p><a href="http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/02/old-school-dungeon-design-guidelines.html" target="_blank">Grognardia</a> Old School Dungeon Design Guidelines (taken with a grain of salt, and a good sense of humor)</p><p><a href="http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/p/megadungeon-design.html" target="_blank">Dungeon Fantastic</a> Megadungeon Design</p><p><a href="http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon" target="_blank">The Alexandrian: Jacquaying the Dungeon</a> Superb analysis of Jennell Jacquay's dungeon design to derive usable principles</p><p><a href="http://slyflourish.com/making_awesome_dungeons.html" target="_blank">Sly Flourish: Making Awesome Dungeons</a> follows Rodney Thompson's advice about making dungeons "familiar, functional, and fantastic"</p><p></p><p>One of my favorites from <a href="http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/2014/04/megadungeon-best-practices-xiii-from.html" target="_blank">Dungeon Fantastic</a> is <em>"Vary the theme by area."</em> This refers to a variety of entrances, monsters, verticality, themed areas, and challenge levels (and I'd extend it to challenge types).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Quickleaf, post: 7027005, member: 20323"] There are a lot of questions new DMs (heck, and experienced DMs like me as well) have about how to approach writing an adventure, designing a dungeon, creating/converting a monster or NPC, and how to make this awesome imagined villain actually be awesome in the game. I want to offer my ideas on all of it, but with a focus on how it all works together in actual practice. This thread merges a couple others, including [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?521541-First-time-making-a-quot-serious-quot-dungeon!-How-do-you-do-it&highlight=']First time making a serious dungeon[/URL] and [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?520853-Creating-The-Bonfire-Help-with-a-BBEG/page2']Creating The Bonfire Help with a BBEG[/URL]. However, the scope goes far beyond these. Lastly, I'll add that I love hearing ideas and discussing my designs on ENWorld, so I am happy for whatever engagement this creates. This won't be structured like a normal article series or anything, more just me digging into the guts of my design process and sharing things as I create them. [B]Table of Contents[/B] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7027005&viewfull=1#post7027005']Step 1: Honing the Idea & Brainstorming[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7027005&viewfull=1#post7027005']Step 2: Room Lists, 'Massing', and 'Adjacencies[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7027236&viewfull=1#post7027236']Step 3: Quests & Character Hooks[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7027854&viewfull=1#post7027854']Step 4: Verisimilitude & Foundational Questions[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7028100&viewfull=1#post7028100']Step 5: Making Monsters - Part 1: NPCs[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7028192&viewfull=1#post7028192']Step 5: Making Monsters - Part 2: Monster Variants[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7028818&viewfull=1#post7028818']Step 5: Making Monsters - Part 3: New & Converted Monsters[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain&p=7029171&viewfull=1#post7029171']Step 5: Making Monsters - Part 4: Hard-to-Convert Monsters[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain/page2&p=7029319&viewfull=1#post7029319']Step 5: Making Monsters - Part 5: Legendary Monsters / Villains[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain/page2&p=7036797&viewfull=1#post7036797']Step 6: Dungeon Mapping - Part 1: Iterative Design & Rough Maps[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain/page2&p=7144779&viewfull=1#post7144779']Step 6: Dungeon Mapping - Part 2: Hand Drawn Maps[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain/page2&p=7162749&viewfull=1#post7162749']Interlude: YouTube Design Chat, Audio Only[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain/page3&p=7164802&viewfull=1#post7164802']Step 6: Dungeon Mapping - Part 3: Sketches[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?524536-The-Shadow-in-the-Flame-A-Workshop-on-Designing-Dungeons-Monsters-and-a-Villain/page3&p=7172797&viewfull=1#post7172797']Step 6: Dungeon Mapping - Part 4: Mapping in Three Dimensions[/URL] [USER=6801286]@Imaculata[/USER] is sharing a "sister" series called [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?571954-Fire-and-Water-Designing-themed-dungeons&p=7189662#post7189662']Fire and Water: Designing Themed Dungeons[/URL]. Check it out! [B]Master List of Resources[/B] [SPOILER=Master List of Resources] [B]Blogs about Dungeons[/B] [URL='https://bankuei.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/dungeons-theory-and-design/']Deeper in the Game[/URL] A 7-part article on dungeon design [URL='http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2011/03/30/the-architect-dm-on-dungeons/']Critical Hits[/URL] The Architect DM series [URL='http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2010/09/24/re-examining-the-dungeon-section-factions-and-fronts/']Critical Hits[/URL] Chatty DM's Re-examining the Dungeon [URL='http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/02/old-school-dungeon-design-guidelines.html']Grognardia[/URL] Old School Dungeon Design Guidelines (taken with a grain of salt, and a good sense of humor) [URL='http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/p/megadungeon-design.html']Dungeon Fantastic[/URL] Megadungeon Design [URL='http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon']The Alexandrian: Jacquaying the Dungeon[/URL] Highly recommended 7-part series about mapping like famous Jennel Jacquays [URL='http://slyflourish.com/making_awesome_dungeons.html']Sly Flourish: Making Awesome Dungeons[/URL] follows Rodney Thompson's advice about making dungeons "familiar, functional, and fantastic" [B]Fantasy Demographics[/B] [URL='http://www.autarch.co/blog/demographics-heroism']Autarch's Adventurer Conqueror King[/URL] Alex has a blog post "The Demographics of Heroism" about assumptions of how rare individuals are leveled from 1st to 14th level. [URL='http://themagictreerpg.blogspot.com/2008/11/d-society-be-aware-of-demographics.html']The Magic Tree[/URL] Tanz deconstructs how many hypothetical NPCs would have "the hero stuff" and survive long enough to do something with their class levels. [URL='http://rpg.stackexchange.com/questions/37395/dd-character-levels-and-population-is-the-fifty-percent-rule-valid']The Fifty Percent Rule[/URL] MontyWild proposed a 50% rule for determining how many NPCs of a given level appear in a world. Not an unreasonable starting point. [URL='https://www.reddit.com/r/dndnext/comments/597t3i/dd_character_level_demographics/']D&D vs. USA Demographics[/URL] Fallencoder does an interesting comparison of adventurers to US armed forces personnel, coming up with probabilities of encounter an NPC of #th level in the world, and in a number of combats. Possibly flawed assumptions, but interesting nevertheless. [B]Monster Design & Conversion[/B] [URL='http://theangrygm.com/monster-building-201-the-dd-monster-dissection-lab/']AngryGM[/URL] has a good article covering 5th edition monster creation in detail, starting from the very basics [URL='https://media.wizards.com/2015/downloads/dnd/DnD_Conversions_1.0.pdf']Official WotC Conversion Guide[/URL] [URL='http://brentnewhall.com/games/1e5e.html']Brent Newhall's 1e-3e-5e Converter[/URL] [URL='http://marklenser.com/5econverter/']Pathfinder to 5e Converter by [MENTION=6670944]Kryx[/MENTION]/Mark Lenser[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?358550-Equating-AD-amp-D-2e-XP-to-5th-edition-CR']Equating AD&D 2e XP to 5th edition CR (my thread on ENWorld)[/URL] [B]Villain & Legendary Monster Design[/B] [URL='http://archive.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/arch/vb']Villain Builder: 7 part series by Wolfgang Baur[/URL] [URL='http://slyflourish.com/building_legendary_creatures.html']Sly Flourish: Building Legendary Creatures[/URL] [URL='http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?482422-Secret-Planescape-Origin-of-Legendary-Solo-Monsters']Secret Planescape Origin of Legendary Solo Monsters (my ENWorld thread)[/URL] [B]Hand Drawn Mapping[/B] [URL='https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2013/09/25/dysonize-your-dungeon/']Dyson's Dungeons Tutorials[/URL] [URL='https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/2013/12/23/the-key-to-all-this-madness/']Dyson's dungeon mapping symbol key[/URL] [URL='http://burrowowl.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/map_key.jpg']DMG Mapping Symbols[/URL] [URL='https://www.cartographersguild.com']Cartographer's Guild: A Forum for Cartography Enthusiasts[/URL] [B]Verticality in Dungeons[/B] [URL='http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2011/07/13/the-architect-dm-give-it-some-height/']The Architect DM: Give It Some Height[/URL] [URL='https://rpgcharacters.wordpress.com/maps/vertical-morphology/']Dyson's Dodecahedron: Vertical Morphology[/URL] [S]strolen.com/viewing/Sanctum_of_Water Strolen's Citadel: Sanctum of Water[/S] [I]I recently got an error message that strolen's site is not secure, so I've deactivated the link.[/I] [/SPOILER] [SIZE=4][B][COLOR=#B22222]Step 1: Honing the Idea & Brainstorming[/COLOR][/B][/SIZE] Ideas are dime a dozen. What really makes an idea interesting is how it's developed. So the first step is actually doing something with the idea. What prompted me to post is a dungeon/adventure I'm working on called [I]Krak al-Mazhar: Citadel of the Shadow in the Flame[/I]; in brief, it's the secret lair of The Brotherhood of True Flame (think: evil arcane society) built into the ridge of a caldera. It's designed for roughly 15th-16th level PCs. Let's pause and ask "how did I get that number?" Well, there are 3 reasons. First, it's for an Al-Qadim game I run and I anticipate the PCs being around that level when they confront the big bad evil guy (BBEG). Second, the adventure will feature a fair number of CR 3 undead (e.g. mummy archivists, Lawful Neutral wight "crypt servants", and an upgraded ghast called a "lesser ghul"); which is relevant to the 14th-level cleric's Destroy Undead (CR 3) feature. Third, 15-16th level spellcasters have access to 8th level spells like [I]antimagic field[/I], [I]dominate monster[/I], [I]glibness[/I], and [I]telepathy[/I]; this adventure is designed with those sorts of capabilities in mind. So without even meaning to, I've stumbled onto a design principle: [B][I]If you have a level in mind for a dungeon/adventure, write to the capacities of PCs of that level. You may even want to design a bit first, and then go back and figure out what level it's suited for once your mind is clear of the initial stages of design.[/I][/B] My first step was to brainstorm as much as I could about the dungeon/adventure, and to that end I used [URL='https://www.mindmeister.com/']Mindmeister[/URL] web-based mind-mapping. [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/jivL3EA.png[/IMG] A few things stood out to me after I sat back and looked at my vision... [LIST] [*]This is going to be bigger than any dungeon I've ever made myself before. Not mega-dungeon big, but well, [B]big[/B] (easily 30+ areas). I've read blogs, asked other DM friends & folks online, and thought back to features of the few awesome larger dungeons that I'd run ([I]Dragon Mountain[/I], [I]Tomb of Horrors[/I]). [*]There is a lot of custom/homebrew content I am going to want to write. Both to support the feel I am going for (secretive sinister group of power-hungry mages), and because the options for tougher enemies in core D&D are limited. [*]I need to think about how the NPCs inhabit the dungeon and their motives and inner factions, in order to support the players in approaching the dungeon from multiple approaches. [*]Figuring out the map of this thing is going to require thinking & mapping in three dimensions. [/LIST] [SIZE=4][B][COLOR=#B22222]Step 2: Room Lists, 'Massing', and 'Adjacencies'[/COLOR][/B][/SIZE] My next step has been iterative, but is looking much better now than it was at the beginning. I've done this with notecards before, but in this case I opted to use Photoshop. I wrote down all the rooms I could think of. Then I gave them an approximate size in relation to each other – for example, I knew The Great Garden and the Tower of the Bonfire were going to be big areas with sub-areas within them. And lastly, I tried arranging them in a logical way (e.g. the Dungeons should lead to the Water Distillery, because that's where the Brotherhood drain the dead of their precious water -- remember they live in a hostile desert -- and prisoners had better be good for something). This is still just a conceptual map, and still work-in-progress, but it starts to give a feel of the dungeon... [IMG]http://i.imgur.com/fmm4LOy.png[/IMG] [B]Resources: Blogs about Dungeons[/B] [URL='https://bankuei.wordpress.com/2014/07/16/dungeons-theory-and-design/']Deeper in the Game[/URL] A 7-part article on dungeon design [URL='http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2011/03/30/the-architect-dm-on-dungeons/']Critical Hits[/URL] The Architect DM series [URL='http://www.critical-hits.com/blog/2010/09/24/re-examining-the-dungeon-section-factions-and-fronts/']Critical Hits[/URL] Chatty DM's Re-examining the Dungeon [URL='https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tpRLEfKCTs']9 Dungeon Design Secrets[/URL] YouTube video from Ben at Questing Beast [URL='http://grognardia.blogspot.com/2009/02/old-school-dungeon-design-guidelines.html']Grognardia[/URL] Old School Dungeon Design Guidelines (taken with a grain of salt, and a good sense of humor) [URL='http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/p/megadungeon-design.html']Dungeon Fantastic[/URL] Megadungeon Design [URL='http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/13085/roleplaying-games/jaquaying-the-dungeon']The Alexandrian: Jacquaying the Dungeon[/URL] Superb analysis of Jennell Jacquay's dungeon design to derive usable principles [URL='http://slyflourish.com/making_awesome_dungeons.html']Sly Flourish: Making Awesome Dungeons[/URL] follows Rodney Thompson's advice about making dungeons "familiar, functional, and fantastic" One of my favorites from [URL='http://dungeonfantastic.blogspot.com/2014/04/megadungeon-best-practices-xiii-from.html']Dungeon Fantastic[/URL] is [I]"Vary the theme by area."[/I] This refers to a variety of entrances, monsters, verticality, themed areas, and challenge levels (and I'd extend it to challenge types). 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