How should I go about designing dungeons, /tg/?

>>51465554
get the AD&D DMG. Go to the back to appendix A. Start rolling.

>>51465554
Don't be afraid to learn by using premade content for a while

>>51465554
Some dungeons are linear. This is fine if it suits the purpose.

A simple troll cave? It can be linear because all it needs to be is a cave.

A mine ought to have more structure - branching paths. It is made to explore a wide underground area.

Don't forget natural terrain. Sometimes your square mine breaches a cavern. Or an underground lake. Or maybe they don't.

Dungeons ought to suit their purpose.
A simple jail is just a few rooms with cells. A tyrant's dungeon is going to have cells, interrogation / torture rooms. Maybe a healing/medical area. If it is attached to a castle, then it should have a barracks, kitchen, arsenal, and other functional rooms. Each room should do something, or connect to other rooms. Dungeons like to have security checkpoints - think airlocks with locked gates - to ensure that one door doesn't open without the other.

My advice is to pick a function - meet that function - and then the details will fall into place.

When you have a dungeon - the best way for your PLAYERS to interact with it is to have MEANINGFUL CHOICES.

"You come to a crossroads, you can move North or South" <---- This is a BAD example. The players can make a choice - essentially at random. Why should they care north or south?
Give them information at Choice Points to make their decision.
Compare to
"You come to a crossroads, you can move North or South. To the south, the smell of bugbear fur grows stronger, and you see footprints heading to the north - small enough to be the princess's maybe." <---- This is a BETTER example.
Depending on their goal, they may be forewarned of danger of heading south - but if they are in a murderhobo mood, that may be what they want. If they are seeking the princess in a search and rescue - maybe that guides them.

For obstacles - try to have more than one solution? Locked door needs a key? Cool, but if they don't have that, maybe it can be battered open, or dismantled. Cave full of monsters? Could fight them?

>>51470234
Continuing

Maybe the monsters will accept a bribe.
Maybe the monsters will let you pass, if you fight the Other Monsters that harrass them occasionally.

Need to climb a cliff? Maybe there are nearby gryphons to charm. Or an explorer is nearby mapping the mountains and willing to sell ropes and climbing tackle. Having a single point of failure that doesn't accept substitutes will stall your game.

>>51465554
Don't make massive big sprawling places for non-combat places. videogames need a map for the blacksmith and the temple and the castle and the fields. You do not. Don't go nuts burning energy on a thing that the players won't look twice at. Be abstract with where they are and let their imagination and verbal description cover it

A special thing is have dynamic set pieces. Maybe a castle has a room with a winch in it. If the players operate the winch, maybe they raise or lower a drawbridge. Now the room has strategic value, because what if they enter over the bridge and someone reverses the bridge. They could be trapped. What about a magic room that activates a portal. Now you have an escape route - or a weak point if the portal summons foes. Maybe you could have Location based crowd control by dropping porticullis, or opening a pit trap that is too large to cross. (not as a trap, but as an obstacle that defines the borders of a combat perhaps.

Does your room have a chandelier for your swashbuckler to swing from? Maybe it needs one?
Is there a rope to cut to drop that Chandelier? Maybe it needs one.
Does that stable have a gate to open to let the horses out, and force a stampede? Maybe it needs one.
Think of ACTIONS that can occur in that location to SHIFT THINGS AROUND. Would the players do those actions? Enable them.

Does the party have a sneak / rogue? Put in shadowy areas where they can hide better.

Are your guards / monsters mobile? In a simple cave, they don't have to be, but in a military camp, or a castle dungeon, soldiers probably go on patrol. Orc war camps have sentries that move about. Thieves dens have people coming and going at odd hours, and maybe through unusual exits.

>>51465554
Does your dungeon have secret doors? Escape routes? Hideyholes or Panic rooms?

What about a hidden safe behind the decoy safe?

What about a cache of bodyguards in the next room with an illusionary wall between them and here. They see trouble, they storm out of "the wall" and get physical.

Traps should be an obstacle, but a measured threat. They should be "reasonably" detectable if the party has a trap finder. If they are NOT found, then they should be a hinderance, or a slight debuff, or a slight injury. Important, but not kill-character bad, or a massive drain on resources. Allow traps to be defeated by disabling them, or simply bypassing.

Have your monsters use their dungeon wisely. If you have a goblin camp - make them use their short size to their advantage. They will make low ceilings, and high tripwires - which they being small can dodge but they'll catch the medium size humans and elves. They might have foxholes (of their size) to hide in but are too small for Medium creatures to pursue easily (at least without getting pikes in their face)

Giants might have large houses. With stairs. Stairs that they can climb easily, but that human size adventurers have trouble on. Imagine a combat on those stairs.

Consider ways for battlezones to shift.
Too easy and need reinforcements? How can reinforcements get there? (There is a back door in the temple, some rooms and that's where the guards were")
Too hard? How can there be a strategic gain here? (There are many soldiers on the road, but if you retreat to the woods, the path narrows to a chokepoint)

Soldiers are coming down the road, but leaving the road becomes muddy, and the ground is soft - they'll have to leave their siege units behind.

>>51465554
Traps need not always be "Injury traps"

Think that traps need to be "trap you in a location traps" Think of the sliding stone door in Indiana Jones. This door doesn't trap you immediately, you have some rounds to react. . . Do you make a MEANINGFUL CHOICE to stay and fight, or do you scamper to the door while you still can?

Other good Traps --> Quicksand - it impedes you. Can be solved with teamwork and intelligence. Not immediately dangerous - you have some time to work it.

Nets - Locks up your melee people. Dirt cheap and believable - Temporary - but tactically important. Doubly so if the Net is attached to a rope/winch system, and now you have a dynamic chase/movement system.

Think of alternative means of motion. On a boat? You can climb the rigging to go up and down - but can you jump and slide down the sails? It's fancy - maybe it's good.

In an Inn? How plausible is it that someone can go out the window? Can they get on a roof? If they dive to the street, is there a convenient haycart to catch them? Enable the kind of actions you foresee going on in places.

>>51465554
https://1d4chan.org/wiki/Five_Room_Dungeon

If you've never designed a dungeon or you're relatively inexperienced in doing so then I strongly suggest you use that template for your first few efforts.

>>51466593

Alternately you can never go wrong following that anons advice. Even if you don't choose to run that kind of content you definitely need to read a bunch of it.

I would suggest writing up your dungeon according to the template that publishers use in modules as well, you'll learn a lot by doing that.

File: grid-portrait-letter-3-index.png (2KB, 281x364px) Image search: [Google]

2KB, 281x364px

all my best dungeons started with a pencil, a three-hour block of spare time, and this

>>51470388
>Nets - Locks up your melee people. Dirt cheap and believable - Temporary - but tactically important.

when i say go
be ready to throw

>>51465554
When I'm designing dungeons, I usually use the first rooms of the dungeon to introduce players to a bunch of rules/elements that all come together during a big climactic fight. So for one dungeon, I introduced a mechanic where fire elementals went after people doused in oil and pits hidden behind illusions, then in the climactic fight I brought both of those together where the players had to fight an undead king throwing glass jars full of oil at them while they dodged hidden pit traps.

>>51473505

>when i say go
>be ready to throw
kek'd