Nice. Back in the day TSR had a set of Geomorphs they sold for quick dungeon making. I've made myself a set. I wish they'd developed the concept a bit more though.
I like what you have put together here. This is a smooth, streamlined system for generating a dungeon on the fly.
My only quibble is that I just don't like doing this unless it is absolutely necessary. I prefer to have most of the "explorable" area mapped out in advance, and keyed with at least bullet points. I like to foreshadow changes in the dungeon, encounters, or traps, which is much easier to do when (at least) the basics have been created and pre-plotted.
One of the things missing from my current solo-dungeon crawl campaign is a custom wandering monster table that can be used even while generating the dungeon as I go.
There are some great articles on "overloaded" encounter tables with all sorts of variables for monster encounters, and I believe these types of different encounter types add a lot of flavor and immersion to the dungeon experience.
I really like the room cards idea! I might have to make a deck and try it next time I run an appendix A dungeon! Maybe add another deck for rough room contents.
What I currently do for speeding up Appendix A dungeons is roll 6 differently colored d20s and 1d100 all at once. I know the order of the dice based on the colors (in my case red, yellow, green, blue, purple, black), and use that to quickly read the tables since that is almost always enough d20s to generate a room, and the d100 will select the monster if there is one.
With a little practice you can get very fast at it.
Thank you! I do love Nethalas as a resource, even if the core gameplay isn’t my favorite. I found it to be inspiring and perfect for what I needed in my IRL game.
Glad you liked the article! Nethalas is an interesting game. Its gameplay loop is more new school than I prefer these days, but its generative mechanics are pretty easy to adapt to what you want.
Nice. Back in the day TSR had a set of Geomorphs they sold for quick dungeon making. I've made myself a set. I wish they'd developed the concept a bit more though.
TIL about dungeon geomorphs.
I like what you have put together here. This is a smooth, streamlined system for generating a dungeon on the fly.
My only quibble is that I just don't like doing this unless it is absolutely necessary. I prefer to have most of the "explorable" area mapped out in advance, and keyed with at least bullet points. I like to foreshadow changes in the dungeon, encounters, or traps, which is much easier to do when (at least) the basics have been created and pre-plotted.
One of the things missing from my current solo-dungeon crawl campaign is a custom wandering monster table that can be used even while generating the dungeon as I go.
There are some great articles on "overloaded" encounter tables with all sorts of variables for monster encounters, and I believe these types of different encounter types add a lot of flavor and immersion to the dungeon experience.
I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops!
This is so cool!
Glad you like the idea!
I really like the room cards idea! I might have to make a deck and try it next time I run an appendix A dungeon! Maybe add another deck for rough room contents.
What I currently do for speeding up Appendix A dungeons is roll 6 differently colored d20s and 1d100 all at once. I know the order of the dice based on the colors (in my case red, yellow, green, blue, purple, black), and use that to quickly read the tables since that is almost always enough d20s to generate a room, and the d100 will select the monster if there is one.
With a little practice you can get very fast at it.
Color coding dice for specific rolls is something I’ve only just started dabbling with. That’s smart to use it to quickly parse a table.
Interesting way of doing that.
I’ll remember this when I’m rewriting some of my adventures in the service tunnels - this randomness sounds great!
I hope it helps!
Great article. I will have to check out Ker Nathalas since it appears to be a good resource.
Thank you! I do love Nethalas as a resource, even if the core gameplay isn’t my favorite. I found it to be inspiring and perfect for what I needed in my IRL game.
Great read - I'll definitely be checking out Ker Nathalas, sounds like a great resource!
Glad you liked the article! Nethalas is an interesting game. Its gameplay loop is more new school than I prefer these days, but its generative mechanics are pretty easy to adapt to what you want.