Comments on: Adventure Design 101: Dungeons That Live

By: TheLemming

TheLemming — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 14:27:17 +0000

An excellent posting, something that is just too often overlooked. I think the general notion of a “dungeon” is too often misunderstood for catacombs without live, instead of understanding it just as a special living area for creatures.
Thanks a lot for sharing, I’ll definitely recommend this one.

By: The Last Rogue

The Last Rogue — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:43:37 +0000

Just adding to the chorus of "Solid Stuff." The inclusion of 'personality' to a dungeon and its inhabitants can really hammer home an adventure or story arc for the players. There is a lot of advice about making dungeons stand-out by including cool terrain, underwater levels, room dressings, and history, but what you present here is just as useful, and often understated. Nice stuff. The Last Rogue´s last blog post: Picked Pockets #2 (Rogue’s Top Ten Monsters - Pt. 1)

By: Scott

Scott — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 05:56:36 +0000

@Joshua: I’d agree about the old wandering encounter tables. Personally, though, I never had much use for those, for two reasons. First, I just prefer to plan out all of my encounters. (Which does have its weaknesses as well as its strengths, but I’m used to them.) Second, I like to keep my games relatively light on combat, and adding random wandering encounters runs counter to that.

That’s not to say that my players don’t run into patrolling guards, animals out hunting, or other parties of adventurers wandering through seeking to plunder the same treasure, but when those are present, I know they’re there. I’m not rolling them on a table. Maybe it’s a fine distinction, but I do feel there’s a difference.

By: Wimwick

Wimwick — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 20:15:18 +0000

Great advice. I like the idea of having some of the NPCs on some sort of a schedule. I'm going to see if I can work that into an upcoming module that will be released at Dungeon's Master. Afterall there is nothing worse that being told "There are five orcs in a room, in the middle of the room there is a chest." Your article talks about some great ways to make dungeons interesting and vibrant. Thanks for sharing and I look forward to more from you. Wimwick´s last blog post: Skill Challenge: Information Gamble

By: Joshua

Joshua — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:33:25 +0000

Good advice, but while it makes perfect sense that creatures keyed to a particular location are doing something in that location besides waiting for the PCs (unless it's some kind of lurking predator that logically is spending its time waiting for prey), I think most old school random encounter charts were used to cover creatures moving from place to place (as wandering monster charts). You won't find goblins playing cards in the middle of a hallway or as you spend a bunch of time trying to search; they come across you because they're traveling within the dungeon. Keyed locations often did say things like 1d6 Orcs gambling, or 1 Goblin High Priest, 2 Acolytes, and 1d10 worshipers praying to a statue, at least in the better modules. It was also common (iirc) for them to indicate that if you encounter and defeat a particular thing on the random encounter table, it won't be found at map location X. Naturally, you wouldn't see that sort of thing in the generic random encounter charts in the rule books, which could lead to the impression that the creatures on them just popped in and out of existence according to the dictates of the rolls. If you wanted to add something to random encounters you could include a purpose to their travels: "1d6 Orcs returning from a raid, divide 1d6 HP damage among them, but they have an +2d6 gold", "2d4 goblins running pell-mell; they are automatically surprised, but begin at range 0", "1d6 Hobgoblins warily patrolling." Another nice touch would be to add an entry for Roll Twice and encounter both, with the GM deciding how they are interacting. Joshua´s last blog post: Sure, Why Not?

By: Wyatt

Wyatt — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 16:14:03 +0000

Whenever I run a published module (background: I HATE published modules) and there's a stray group of mooks with no behavior written, I just have them sitting around reading the module when the PCs go in, as a metajoke. Unfortunately the module is written in whatever language the PCs don't speak. Wyatt´s last blog post: Adventure-Writing Layout

By: RPG Ike

RPG Ike — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 15:55:24 +0000

Thanks for this. Just some really solid advice that's always good to hear, and it's good to put a process to making your dungeon inhabitants breathe. I always try to do these little things to spice things up, usually stemming from asking what the critters are doing in this adventure site at all, but I don't necessarily ask what they're doing right at that moment. It's just good to keep in mind. I'm putting together an azer stronghold in a floating island hovering above the astral sea (I have no idea if that's really even possible with the way the 4E cosmology is set up, but whatever). I'll be certain to use your advice as I continue design. RPG Ike´s last blog post: 5 Uses for Pogs at the Gaming Table