Making a Dungeon the Way WotC Intended | Using the DMG to Make a Random Dungeon

[@Piqipeg]

Imagine building an adventure doing this, but the players get to roll what comes... like they're trapped in a nightmare world/fey place where logic isn’t something that can be counted on. That could be pretty cool as a one-shot

[@samanham7394]

That's a sick as hell idea. We may end up stealing that lol...

[@TheErusPrime]

I was thinking the exact same thing.

[@justinmanley6003]

Excellent idea; love this!!

[@neonGliiitch]

I actually did this once. I was running a game based off Legend of Grimrock. The idea was that the party was flown to the top of a tower that was an ancient magical place. It had 200 floors to it but the floors kept randomly shifting. They were prisoners who if they made it down to the bottom floor and out the door the king would pardon them of their crimes. So I laid out some graph paper in front of them, opened to this section of the book, started asking for dice rolls and would tell them what the room was like while they mapped it. We used random monster tables and random dungeon room dressings to theme it all out and add gear and magical items. As well as places to rest and do other things. The rule was, a floor would stay the same as long as they were on it. Once they went to a new floor the PCs would hear the floors above and below shifting around, and if they went back we’d randomly generate the floor over again. Though the party never went back up a floor since their goal was to always go down and escape, but it honestly was a lot of fun. It was SLOOOOW for sure, but we sat around and chit chatted and stuff while we would figure the rooms out. So it wasn’t mind numbing. Not something I would suggest everyone try, but if you think your group can handle it then it’s a fun exercise.

[@James-hj5ov]

Basically, they had the same thing in the old AD&D Dungeon Master's guide. I spent many hours rolling random dungeons, just for fun. I had no life in high school.

[@samanham7394]

OOOoofff......Same

[@leonielson7138]

My advice for new DMs ... make a few random dungeons and stick them in the back of your notebook, just in case you're offline and need something.

[@samanham7394]

Definitely a good idea. I've definitely relied too much on the internet for DMing, then one time the morning of the session our internet went out. Made the last minute panic planning even more panicked lol

[@Nova_vant_harr]

That went fairly well i think. With the randomness of the construction i would either flavor it as the creation of a madman or a place that was conquered repeatedly and added onto by many people over its existence

[@aragon619]

When I'm in the mood I just make one or two dungeons. Always good to have a few on hand.

[@samanham7394]

I do that with a lot of content, like npc encounters and stuff, but I never thought about doing it with whole dungeons. A pretty good idea!

[@Bluecho4]

The advantage to building a completely random dungeon like this is that it takes the mental load off the DM for the actual building of the rough structure of the dungeon. Allowing them to focus on taking the raw results and modifying them to their purposes. When you have a blank piece of graph paper (or art program), the complete creative freedom can be paralyzing, and take way more work to decide how to proceed. Letting the random tables decide for you circumvents this problem. Freeing you to _make_ those results make sense, by embellishing or making new connections or breaking up larger spaces into a series of smaller ones. Not to mention deciding what the contents are. If you don't know where to begin, an arbitrary layout is as good as anything else.

[@samanham7394]

That's a really good point. Its really hard to start a project, and much easier to have a work in progress that you can say "This is what I like, and this is what I don't."

[@shadowmil]

From the DMG: "When generating passages and corridors, roll on the Passage table multiple times, extending the length and branches of any open passage on the map until you arrive at a door or chamber. Whenever you create a new passage, roll to determine its width. If the passage branches from another passage, roll a d12 on the Passage Width table. If it comes from a chamber, roll a d20 on that table, but the width of the passage must be at least 5 feet smaller than the longest dimension of the chamber." You're not supposed to roll on the passage width multiple times, only on the passage table.

[@samanham7394]

Ah, that would make sense. I think either way can work in different scenarios. I was imagining a cave or tomb where the thickness can vary more. But obviously keeping the thickness the same works better for buildings.

[@Bluecho4]

@@samanham7394 Or a cave, whose tunnels might widen or narrow randomly.

[@serimar]

It says if it comes from another passage to roll a d12 for width. If you never roll a new width for a new passage section you wouldnt have the d12 rule for width. Unless you only roll on the width if the passage takes a turn. You could interpret the instructions that way

[@deusaetheros7846]

@@serimar Some of the results in the passage table create branching-off passages (to left or right) as part of its own table, as it does for doors. The d12 roll would be for when you get such a result

[@austinmuse6029]

Searching for anything on the random dungeon tables, your video was the top result. Great commentary, easy to follow along with with the tables on the screen, and overall I thought it was a cool looking dungeon.

[@samanham7394]

Thanks! Like we said in the video, it works pretty well, its just horribly slow lol

[@lolly9804]

I tried rolling up the dungeon as the game was running. I'm a fairly fast drawer, and the dungeon was meant to be a dimensionally warped space. A highlight was the first time 15 min in when a passage turned around to bisect the entry tunnel. The party passed a check to realize that the two passages weren't merged in a euclidean fashion, so did their heads in.

[@tylersendral6387]

I just spent 6 hours the other morning rolling for a random dungeon using the dmg, plus rolling all the flavor items for room deacription... Wow

[@Darkwintre]

My thought it's located within a ruined settlement and descending a stairway to that first door on the left. Reveals a sewer aquaduct and this entire place is a maintenance facility to keep the sewer system operational and still works! Just add methane pockets, skeletons and a tribe of kobolds keeping the place operational then send in your PCs to mess it up!

[@caseyking5441]

I just stumbled upon this video. What program are you using to draw this dungeon?

[@gvanbooven]

Confession...dungeons in general bug the hell out of me. For verisimilitude, why would the group constructing a dungeon create long hallways with various rooms. That would take so many more humanoid hours to produce than rooms leading to another room. "Um, sir I know I'm just the contractor but can you help me understand why you want a 40 ft hallway north, that leads to another hallway east for 50 feet, then turns south into a room? I mean, you are the boss of course, but maybe there is a more rationale way to approach this."

[@zanrakey4140]

Typically the "long hallways leading to solitary rooms" kinds of dungeons would be naturally forming cave systems or perhaps mines. A large temple might have a mix of rooms that lead to other rooms and long hallways. Everything else would be as you have described.

[@Robocopster]

Why? Because it’s make believe. That’s the only reason why.

[@MattisCarlgren]

Mad wizards made weird dungeons in older versions of dnd

[@jaythescribe]

Committees designed them.

[@House_Of_Cards_]

Great video.

[@samanham7394]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed

[@StarlasAiko]

I don't randomly generate dungeons. I use the book, but most of things are chosen, not rolled. I skip the whole mapping part, choose the general purpose of the overall dungeon and choose from the respective room type tables what rooms the dungeon MUST have to make realistic sense. Then I add a D5 of additional optional rooms (either picking the table that makes most sense for the roll result or rolling a D10 to select the table). After I have all the rooms, I go back to the map drawing sections and roll on the table for the size of the rooms. With that, I have all the information I need to draw the map. Room arangement is acording to what makes sense, not going out of my way to make a confusing maze (unless the overall purpose is a Deathtrap, Maze or if the nature of the dungeon is a natural cave system. Finally, I fill the dungeon with furnishings, traps, monsters, story elements and loot according to the following sets of tables, again choosing what makes most sense and has to be there first, rolling only where it doesn't matter.

[@samanham7394]

That makes sense! Normally when we make dungeons, we don't actually randomly roll, and do pretty much what you described. Buuuut when you really don't want to put thought in, sometimes a purely random dungeon can work in a pinch lol.

[@alfredobelloni3258]

Would be nice having a site that would roll all this, in order. So you discover the dungeon as you go. That would be a true dungeon crawl, not even the master knows whats coming.

[@samanham7394]

I've heard a bit about systems that are designed around not having a true dm like that, the idea is pretty neat!

[@AcaTea]

Rolling passages is actually easier than you made it in the video. The DMG says that the width only needs to be rolled when a new passage is created, not when you are continuing one. Also, a passage cannot be wider than the passage it came from. So if a 5 ft passage has a new passage branch off of it, you don’t need to roll the width because can’t be more than 5ft.

[@williamchancellor1522]

What is that grid you were using? Is it a website?

[@samanham7394]

For the dungeon, we used this website: virtual-graph-paper.com/

[@Ch4imon]

nice piece of info! what program did you use to draw?

[@samanham7394]

For the dungeon, we used this website: virtual-graph-paper.com/

[@Ch4imon]

@@samanham7394 Thanks!

[@ThoroughbredofSin]

Looks like a classic Diablo layout to me.

[@johntheherbalistg8756]

The dungeon was dug out by kruthik, and later inhabited by kobolds, goblins, cultists or whatever

[@restinehuchukaiki5344]

12:24 it looks like a bong

[@jayteepodcast]

She sounds annoyed. I agree with her if you just prep all this before a game. It would be easier to roll 5 rooms before and then have them be connected.

[@samanham7394]

I, Sam (of sound mind and body), admit that I am almost always annoyed. As much as I love unpredictability and wild magic, I like dungeon layouts to make sense.

[@Darkwintre]

Where's the entrance?

[@samanham7394]

On the outside

[@pccleric]

At 12:13 you rolled 8675 lol..

[@samanham7394]

Lol when I was editing I noticed that, and the song was stuck in my head for the rest of the editing.

[@AngriArtists]

Did this back in the 80s. Its not that good you get some very weird stuff.