A random dungeon - Jon Roberts Style
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I don't do many dungeons - I don't seem to have the imagination or flair for them.
So i am setting myself a task of doing them in all the different styles.
This is the Jon Roberts Style. I cheated and used this generator - perhaps I might stir up the little grey cells (as Poirot would say) and do one without help
donjon; Random Dungeon Generator (bin.sh)
Comments
I totally understand that problem. From the GM point of view I don't really get random dungeons. I always want to know the reason WHY such a thing was built, why it's still there, why the traps should still work...
I somehow always feel like dungeons are made by this guy(s) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwu1rCjb1Fk
So I incorporate them seldom and only when there is plausible reason for why they are here with the very rare exception of some random happenstance every few years.
Interestingly, as a player I don't care about those things at all, I just want to battle some undead or other random monsters :D
But to your map: I don't think that's cheating at all. If there is no special reason why this dungeon should look a certain way, then random generators are a totally reasonable starting point and if they don't generate something really strange, you don't have to change the layout at all!
I totally understand that problem. From the GM point of view I don't really get random dungeons. I always want to know the reason WHY such a thing was built, why it's still there, why the traps should still work...
I agree. I always start with the reasons and motivation for the dungeon before I get into drawing the dungeon. I need the context to be able to make a proper dungeon. It needs to have a reason for being made in the first place, a reason for surviving since it was built, and a reason for the things and monsters within. I always try to imagine why the original builder would make things this way.
Actually, I definitely agree - but this is just a bit of fun, allows me to use a styel I haven't before, and gets me started on doing dungeons
Sure. Don't let us discourage you from having fun. I always enjoy seing what people come up with in the dungeon realm.
But it do get a bit easier to figure out how you are going to dress your dungeon if you decide on a somewhat logical purpose for it, it really helps the thought process.
Yes, I think so. The ones I have done - for the Atlas - i did think it out first. But I really want to try all the dungeon styles now, and my imagination part of my brain is temporarily atrophied.
I used to plan my dungeons out to the nth degree.
The I started to just put rooms in, and then decided how the passageways would connect them. Sometimes move a room. Sometimes not.
In both methods, I then added in small store rooms or side rooms. Or hidden passageways.
Odd, as I was having the discussion about using random designed dungeons with another colleague online only yesterday!
I started with purely random designs back in the mid-late '70s, because I had no ideas to work from otherwise, having only just seen the original D&D booklets for the first time. As those who've followed my Atlas maps especially will be aware, I'm still a great fan of random design mechanics to stimulate ideas, or sometimes to better work out why some things aren't working well enough otherwise.
The Donjon system's a fun one, and there are plenty of other generators to try out if you've a mind to.
I've long found that the two elements - creator/occupier and layout plan - go hand-in-hand, and can be used to modify one another along the way. Thus a random idea might spark-off something still more interesting that follows a more logical pathway, until you reach a point of ambivalence, when more randomness can be brought in once more.
The sole comment I'd make about the map here so far is the secret doors are all far too obvious. Move the actual door to the nearest flat (room) wall junction, not at the end of a short passageway (add a second door for the one into/out of Room 9, as the approach could be from either side, so one flush door in the 9 wall, the other in the corridor wall to the west).
Welcome to dungeon land! Personally, I find dungeons so much easier than overland and city maps; perhaps because there is a 'standard scale', i.e 1 sq = 5ft. If you start with that premise you can't go too far wrong.
The Watabou dungeon generator in my opinion is superior to the Donjon one but each to their own.
I agree - especially since Watabou has now brought out a Cave generator.
Cave Generator by watabou (itch.io)
I'll investigate. You can download it as an SVG, so you could then convert it to DXF. But they are so simple, that you may as well trace them.
At this point maybe we should all join his patreon and ask for an "export fcw" option :D