More random dungeon methodology
I wanted a way to knock up small random dungeons using my linking procedure but without going through the entirety of Appendix A to do it, so I decided to play around with a dice drop method.
The steps I went through were:
- Pick a number of dungeon rooms
- Drop that many d6s on a piece of paper
- Record the number shown on each d6 and where on the page it is. Use these results later to stock the rooms.
- Use the Chambers and Rooms Shapes and Size table from 1e Appendix A to make the size and shape of each room
- Use the Room Exits table from Appendix A to give each room exits
- Use my procedure to link rooms
1 -3: Dice Drop
I decided on an 8 room dungeon. I'd already made some decisions - I knew that I wanted the first room to be circular and to connect to the second room via a shaft. Other than that, I was open to randomness. You can see the pencil marks where I recorded each die where it landed.
The stocking table I wrote is a variant on the percentages found in OD&D Vol 3, weighted to produce guarded treasure more often than not. Since it's a straight d6 roll there's no curve but I'm fine with that.
| 1d6 | Result |
|---|---|
| 1 | Monster |
| 2 | Unguarded Treasure |
| 3-4 | Guarded treasure |
| 5 | Trick or Trap |
| 6 | Empty Room |
I ended up with these results:
- Monster
- Unguarded treasure
- Trick or trap
- Guarded treasure
- Unguarded treasure
- Guarded treasure
- Guarded treasure
- Trick or trap
4-5: Room Size and Exits
I decided on Rooms vs Chambers because I'm working with small paper and rooms are a little smaller than chambers in AD&D. The table looks like this:
| 1d20 | Shape and Area |
|---|---|
| 1-2 | Square, 10' x 10' |
| 3-4 | Square, 20' x 20' |
| 5-6 | Square, 30' x 30' |
| 7-8 | Square, 40' x 40' |
| 9-10 | Rectangular, 10' x 20' |
| 11-13 | Rectangular, 30' x 30' |
| 14-15 | Rectangular, 20' x 40' |
| 16-17 | Rectangular, 30' x 40' |
| 18-20 | Unusual shape or size |
Results of 18-20 use a sub-table that I can't be bothered to replicate here, but that's how I ended up with the large octagon you see on the map.
For exists I used Table V. C: Number of Exits and Table V. D: Exit Location. The exit location table includes results for "opposite wall" and "same wall" because it assumes you've already got an entrance, and so I just treated them as top and bottom walls respectively. Where I got a result of 0 exits I just used 1. I rolled a d6 for doors (1-3) or passages (4-6). 6: Link Rooms
Once I had my map I realised that I wasn't really interested in all the results from my linking procedure. I didn't want dungeon exits or links to other floors, for example. So I decided to just roll a d8 on each exit and make links, with the intention that any results of 1 would be false doors (because I already had my exits for 1 worked out). I ended up making an additional link between 4 and 1, which is going to be a collapsed entrance the party can dig out if they really want to. I might bury some treasure beneath the rubble.
Using this procedure I put together the dungeon you can see on this post in less time than it took me to write up the method. As with all of these things it's an experiment and it needs some refinement, but I'm pretty happy with it as a rapid method of creating an adventuring space.