Review: Deal-a-Dungeon

The Deal-a-Dungeon starter set from Talisman Studios looked like a useful addition to my GM armoury, being aimed at creating a dungeon on the fly by dealing cards from a special deck.

As ever, I got the PDF download version, which weighs in at a chunky 40 MB for 37 full-colour pages.

Inside, I found two pages of instructions, 21 pages of dungeon tiles, and 12 pages of cards. The idea is to assemble the cards, shuffle, and draw to determine the next section of your dungeon. Once you know that, you lay the corresponding tiles on the table and off you go.

The dungeon tiles break down into four large areas, 16 x 16 squares (the D&D standard of 5′ to the square and 25/28mm figures is in force), and 32 small areas, 4 x 4 squares. These are a mixture of small rooms and corridors, mostly one square wide but occasionally two. There’s also a sheet of doors, stairs and other small miscellaneous tiles.

The large areas have subsections, either areas with particular terrain on them, or smaller rooms as part of a complex. You need to print out four sheets for each one, and assemble.

You can buy additional packs, each with a new large area and its associated card, to build up your deck. It would also be easy enough to add cards for treasure or encounters to the deck, giving you a complete dungeon generator.

All good enough at what it does, although the artwork is quite dark, in black and dark greens, and would be hard to make out in dim light. Certainly my usual practice of snapping a picture of the setup on my mobile phone when we call the session for the night wouldn’t produce a clear enough image.

However, it’s not for me. I prefer a set of room and corridor tiles which are all the same size, and use as much of the paper as possible. The smaller tiles typically used for corridors and stairs are easily disturbed, and harder to tessellate.

Rating: 3 out of 5.

Review: Unbound Adventures

Unbound Adventures is no. 11 in the series of One on One Adventures from Expeditious Retreat Press, . Its objective is to provide rules for play without a GM at all levels; it’s aimed at getting into the dungeon sharpish, killing things and taking their stuff. If you’re looking for a detailed backstory, lovingly-crafted NPCs and a tortuous plot, you’re in the wrong place.

As regular readers will know, I’m a sucker for solitaire dungeons and random dungeon mappers, so I couldn’t resist.

One thing that wasn’t clear to me until after I’d downloaded it was that it assumes you have access to the D&D v3.5 Players’ Handbook, Monster Manual, and Dungeon Master’s Guide. I do, so that is not an issue for me, but if you don’t and it would be an issue for you, be aware.

HOW IT WORKS

Player Characters begin together in a randomly-generated settlement. Each day they stay there, they have a chance of a random encounter. When they choose, they set out to a dungeon and explore it to achieve one of half-a-dozen different goals, after which they can return to the same settlement or travel to a new one.

If they successfully complete a series of expeditions (one of each type) while based in the same settlement, the inhabitants hold a feast in their honour and grant them a title such as the Defenders of Wyvelrod*. These expeditions can be in the same dungeon, or different ones.

Travelling to and from the dungeon might involve wilderness encounters. The dungeon layout is generated from a set of random tables, using the D&D v3.5 for monsters, traps, and treasure – except for single-character parties, which need lower-level challenges than the Rules As Written provide; for these, Unbound Adventures offers suitable monster and trap tables.

IF YOU DON’T HAVE D&D v3.5

You will need some means of randomly generating:

• Towns and town encounters.
• Monster encounters, both in dungeons and the wilderness.
• Traps.
• Treasure hoards and magic items.

CONCLUSION

Basically, this is a means of generating a random dungeon map, reminiscent to me of Advanced Heroquest in scope and approach. It’s serviceable for that purpose, but a little expensive considering how much else you need to provide, and the price point of competing products.

If you’re considering this, I’d recommend you look at The Other Game Company’s Dungeon Bash, which does a lot more of the heavy lifting for you.

 

* Wyvelrod is an actual village near which I used to work at one time. I really have to use that name at some point.

Dungeon Generators Update

I think I’ve realised why the dungeon generators posts are so popular. People aren’t looking for examples of the generators in use, pen and paper style; they’re looking for online or downloadable tools to generate dungeons for them.

Sorry, guys. I can be slow sometimes.

So, here are some links to those very things… I have limited the list to those which will create the dungeon for you, which excludes mapping tools where you draw your own, those which stock the dungeon without drawing a map of it, and computer games which generate dungeons (because you can never print them out).

I’ve been tracking this topic for about 10 years now, and generators disappear frequently, as copyright holders object, programmers update their code, and websites are abandoned. So, if you find one you like, use it while it’s there, and download an offline copy if you can.

GENERIC

Gozzy’s dungeon generator is system neutral, and creates some nice-looking maps. No dungeon stocking.

D&D 4E

Masterplan generates 4E dungeons using official D&D tiles, stocks it with or without your help, allows you to link dungeons and encounters into an ongoing story arc, provides tools to help the DM run skill challenges and combat, portable app so you can run it from a USB stick, has a Facebook page about updates, brings you beer and nachos. OK, I lied about the beer and nachos, but it’ll do pretty much everything else. The only downside is that for copyright reasons you have to enter monster stats before it will use them – they are not pre-loaded. This is the one I’d pick if I were still running 4E, and every so often I wonder if I could use it for other games.

Random dungeon generator for the iPad; I don’t have one, so I can only go by the screenshots, which look like it generates the dungeon and stocks it, but without details of the monsters.

Dungen – similar, but for Android cellphones.

D&D 3E, PATHFINDER

Jamis Buck’s dungeon generator. Draws and stocks the dungeon for you. Offline version used to be available, but I can’t find it any more. This was my go-to generator for the pickup games I used to run for my kids. Also hosted here.

WotC Mapper generates and stocks the dungeon for you, similar functionality to Jamis Buck’s one but slightly prettier layout.

Donjon dungeon generator: Generates and stocks the dungeon, allows download of DM and player maps.

HEROQUEST, ADVANCED HEROQUEST, WARHAMMER QUEST

I got nuthin’, sorry; couldn’t find a generator for any of these online. Possibly because the games themselves are essentially dungeon generators. If you know of one, I’d love to hear from you.

CODA

I guess that pretty much closes the topic for me, so no more dungeon generator posts for you! Go forth, and use these tools!

Review of Venture by 0One Games

IN A NUTSHELL

A dungeon crawl boardgame by 0One Games, essentially a re-imagining of the old Games Workshop/Milton Bradley favourite, HeroQuest. Available as a PDF download to print and assemble, or (hopefully soon) as a "proper" boardgame.

As in HeroQuest, a party of up to four adventurers enters a dungeon in each quest to achieve an objective.

WHAT’S IN THE DOWNLOAD

I went for the travelmate edition, which differs from the regular one in having counters rather than standees to cut out. (I plan to print them on big sticky labels, and stick them to foamcore board to make more durable components.)

This has 10 files in it, containing:

Boards: Venture has six boards, each 9" by 9" and split over two pages. These contain an entrance hall, a hall of pillars, and boards with one, two, three and four rooms on them, respectively. There are no corridors as such, probably because they’d make the layout too big; as it is, every piece of every tile is an encounter area. Doors, traps and furniture are represented by counters, so have no fixed positions on the boards. Each scenario uses 2-6 of these modular boards in a different configuration. The file also contains a Decks Board, where the four card decks needed for play are laid out.

Bonus Materials: This file is intended to be printed on heavier card stock, and assembled to form a box full of trays to store the other components. I’ll probably get a plastic box and some bags for that purpose. There is also a sheet of stickers to convert ordinary dice into the game’s special dice. More on those later.

Cards: Two files here, one with 14 pages of cards for equipment, expendables (such as potions), spells, events, and initiative, and one with the card backs. You could go nuts adding your own extra cards.

Counters: Two files again, one with markers for traps, lost hit points, and the disembodied spirits of the adventurers, and another with counters for heroes, monsters, doors and furniture. If you get the normal edition, the second one is replaced with standees for those items, which you can also buy separately if you change your mind. Or you could use all those miniatures you have lying around.

Evil Keeper’s Screen: Reference charts for the EK, which you assemble into a GM’s screen.

Hero and Monster Sheets: Cards for the four heroes (human barbarian, human thief, elven wizard, dwarven fighter) and the five ordinary monsters (orc, ogre, kobold, skeleton, zombie). The monster cards have summaries of their statistics, and the hero cards also have places to park counters for hit points lost, equipment, and spells cast. The boss monsters – death knight, evil mage, and chaos fighter – are handled differently as their statistics are variable.

Rulebook: 15 pages of rules, covering movement, combat and spells. The rules are boardgame-level, so you’ll have no trouble picking them up. Each figure’s statistics are defined as a number of dice; your Move score is how many squares you can move, and combat and spellcasting are resolved by dice rolls. Moves cannot be diagonal; attacks can only be diagonal if you have the right equipment.

Quest Sheets: Ten ready-to-play quests, each with a map layout, statistics for the Boss, traps and any non-standard rules. There are more quests free to download at 0One Games, and expansions for the game are starting to appear too.

LIKES AND DISLIKES

Liked:

• Heroes can’t be permanently killed by low-grade monsters; as in games like Guild Wars, being killed by one of these means your disembodied spirit has to move to a shrine and respawn.
• Heroes can rest to recover hit points.
• Each time the heroes rest, respawn, or find some treasure, the dungeon’s Boss gets stronger. This means that if they lose too many fights, or clean out the entire dungeon, the Boss can become undefeatable – and he CAN kill heroes permanently.
• The Evil Keeper lays out all the map tiles at the start of the game, but not the doors, monsters or furniture. The heroes thus know the extent and shape of the dungeon, but not how they’ll get into each corner, or what they will find there.
• Campaign mode, in which heroes can keep equipment from dungeon to dungeon… but the more they keep, the stronger the Boss gets.

Disliked:

• Each board is split over two sheets of paper; they have to be printed and assembled. I’ll get over it; if necessary I’ll recreate the boards and print them and the counters using "shrink to fit". So there.
• The custom dice. These are 6-sided dice of three different types, which grant a success 2, 3 or 4 times out of 6, respectively. This just feels clunky as a mechanic. It has the advantages of requiring almost no arithmetic (which would be needed for die roll modifiers) and fewer dice than if all of them had the same chance of success. I don’t like it, though.
• The quests don’t link together in an overall campaign. That was one of the best things about HeroQuest for me. Easy enough to fix, I suppose.

This looks like a serviceable enough game. My main interest was in using it as a source of additional dungeon tiles and scenarios for other games, so my slight disappointment in it is unjust, as that isn’t really what it’s designed for – 0One do a very snazzy line of dungeon tiles already. I can’t see a way to play it solo, but maybe it’s one for the holidays – I can play it with the family over Christmas.

This sort of dungeon crawl game has a lot of devotees, in the UK, USA and Europe, so I expect it to do well. I shall follow the expansions with interest.

Brass Dragons, January 987

This one’s for Rick Devonshire (Hi, Rick!): How to do a WHAA dungeon crawl without figures or terrain. This is a didactic post with very little in-character dialogue. At the bottom of the post is the final dungeon, just as I scribbled it during play; one 5mm square to the tabletop inch.

Visually, this approach is not very attractive, but it has advantages:

• It’s dirt cheap. The price of the rules and some dice, and you’re away.
• It’s extremely portable. Anywhere I have room to set out the rules and a pad of paper, and roll some dice, I can do this.
• You can make bigger dungeons than if you were using figures and terrain. Just use a smaller grid on the graph paper.
• I can stop at any time if interrupted, and pick up where I left off.

SETUP

I’ll use the Brass Dragons as the PCs (blue pen), and arbitrarily select undead as the opposition (red pen), although I could easily have diced for what they’re up against. I set W = 2”. The Dragons form up outside the entrance:

• Front rank: Johann, Gervaise
• Second rank: Ispitan, Gottfried
• Third rank: Beatrice
• Fourth rank: Sir Charles (grumbling about not being in the van), Jean-Paul

Blue numbers show where the characters are at the end of each exploration turn; red numbers show where PEFs and undead are at the end of the turns. “A”, “B”, “C” are the three PEFs, “S” = Sentry.

TURN 1

“Turn” for this report refers to “exploration turn”, with combat being detailed within that as necessary.

A roll of 2 on the Lair Entrance table (p. 59) tells me we start with a passageway. Further rolls in section 5 tell me it’s W wide and 4” long, with a left turn at the end. A roll on the Traps table (p. 58) shows there is no trap.

TURN 2

Same process as for turn 1, as this is another passageway around the bend. No traps yet, and the passage is as wide as before and 10” long, ending in a single door. A roll of 5 tells me it is locked; Gottfried to the fore, and he rolls 1, 3 vs Rep 5 to pass 2d6 and pick the lock. The Beyond the Door and Special tables (p. 61) and a roll of 1 on each, show me we have stairs down. A check on the Passageways table (p. 54) shows these are W wide and 7” long; because I’m running off the edge of the page, I decide they run off at a 90 degree angle.

TURN 3

Alas, as Johann steps through onto the stairs, he triggers a level 4 trap. He rolls 1, 2, 3, 5 vs Rep 4 and passes 3d6; the trap rolls 1, 2, 2, 5 vs Rep 4 and also passes 3d6. He is unharmed, but the trap remains dangerous. (If I were writing in character, I’d decide what the trap was at this point, but mechanically it doesn’t matter.)

Gottfried moves forwards as the party “specialist” (Rep 5) and I roll again to see if the trap springs a 6 means it does, and the trap randomly affects one explorer; that turns out to be Ispitan. The trap rolls 2, 2, 4, 5 and passes 3d6′; Ispitan rolls 1, 2, 2, 4, 5 and passes 5d6, disarming it as he has more successes.

The party descend to the second level.

TURN 4

At the foot of the stairs, they find a passageway 9” long and 2W wide. At the end are three doors, one on each side and one directly ahead. There is also a level 5 trap. It rolls 2, 2, 3, 3, 4 vs Rep 5 and passes 5d6. Johann, in the lead, rolls 1, 3, 5, 6 vs Rep 4 and passes 2d6. Johann is struck as if by a missile weapon of Rep 5 and Impact 5. I find the Firing Table in the Adventures QRS; Johann rolls 4d6 vs 3 (1, 2, 3, 6) and passes 3d6, while the trap rolls 3, 4, 4, 6, 6 and passes 3d6. As both scored the same number of successes, the trap misses him.

After rereading the trap rules several times, I decide this means it is disarmed.

The party quickly discuss their options and decide to try the east door. It’s locked, but Gottfried quickly deals with that. Alas, it proves to be a false door thanks to rolls on the tables on p. 61.

South door, then. This also submits to Gottfried’s lockpicks, and beyond lie stairs up to the first level. I’m certainly rolling a lot of specials today. These are not trapped, and end in an unlocked door.

TURN 5

Beyond the door is a chamber, 6W in area, with one other door in the west wall.

On finding the first chamber, I roll on p. 62 for the Lair Alertness. Rep 3, –1 because this is the first chamber, +0 because we have broken 0 doors down so far; 3, 6 vs Rep 2 is pass 0d6, so there are no sentries, but there may be occupants.

I set aside three PEFs, and roll 1d6 for each: 4, 5, 6. Since none of these is a “1”, none of them are in the first chamber.

The other door is locked, and this time Gottfried is unable to persuade it.

TURN 6

Knowing full well that breaking down the door increases the chance of encounters, the explorers backtrack down the stairs to the door they haven’t checked yet.

Gottfried has more luck with this. It opens onto a chamber, 12W in area, with one other door in the north wall. I roll 3, 3, 6 for the PEFs; as none of these are 1 or 2, there are no PEFs present.

(At this point, I have to pick up some visitors from the train station, so I put down the pens and graph paper. This is why I mark the end of turn positions; I can pick up where I left off, maybe days later.)

TURNS 7-14

(It is indeed several days before I can return to this skirmish. I open up my notebook, feeling smug, and carry on. I’ll speed up a bit, though, as you should have the idea by now.)

More stairs! No trap though. At the bottom is a left turn, just as well as otherwise I’d go off the page. We’re now underneath the original entrance corridor. A right turn next does take us off the page, so I resort to my usual stand-by of a cave-in blocking further progress.

Nothing else for it; back to Chamber 1 and break down the door. Ispitan mutters “Stand aside!” and breaks down the door by rolling 2d6 vs Rep (5), scoring 4, 5 and passing 2d6. A spell of mighty puissance, no doubt, since the door is now broken. Beyond is a wide corridor, at the end of which is a T junction. To the right, a short passage ending in a right turn (you can see I got the width wrong, but who cares?); that would end in a door, but it would be too complex to draw, so I make it a dead end. To the left from the T junction, a slightly longer passage ending in a door.

Beyond the door is chamber 3, which contains PEFs B and C (the room number counts as 5 now we have broken down a door). A couple of quick rolls on the tables on p. 54 reveal both PEFs are false alarms; the skeletons here are the plain vanilla, non-animated kind.

TURNS 15-18

It’s been pretty uneventful so far, hasn’t it? I decide Gottfried can take a Difficult challenge test on p. 64 to find a secret door in chambers 1 or 2, or the wide corridor from turns 11-13. The consequences of failure will be that he triggers a trap in each case, 50/50 for a level 4 or 5 trap. A Difficult test reduces his Rep by 2, so he is rolling against an effective Rep of 3. Corridor first; 3, 6 vs 3 is pass 1d6 – I opt to roll again, and get 1, 4. This would normally count as pass 1d6, but is reduced to pass 0d6 for the retry, meaning a trap is triggered. I roll 1d6, with 1-3 counting as a level 4 and 4-6 as a level 5 trap; level 4. The trap rolls 4, 5, 5, 6 and passes 1d6; Gottfried rolls 1, 2, 3, 3, 4 and passes 5d6, easily disarming it.

It’s the same story in chamber 2, except with a level 5 trap. The trap passes 5d6, Gottfried passes 4d6 and gets a Shield Die – a 6 – which negates one of the trap’s successes, so no harm done but the trap is still dangerous. The party misses a turn, composing itself.

In chamber 1, though, Gottfried finds a secret door. Beyond is chamber 4, which contains PEF A. This is the main body of the enemy forces; 1d6+6 gives a result of 12 on the “How many of them?” table, or 54 CV. I now dice on the Undead army list in the quick reference section until I get at least 54 CV of opposition. This proves to be 3 chariots, one of which is the Big Bad, 5 cavalry, 7 archers, and 24 infantry. Using the table on p. 10, I determine that the Big Bad has no particular advantages, just the usual ratings. They’ll probably be enough.

“Mummy!” cries Gervaise.

“Errm, no, actually,” says Ispitan. “Just skeletons… Oh, I see what you mean. That is rather a lot of skeletons, isn’t it?”

This is why dungeoneering parties are usually small.

TURN 19

Finally, a fight! Note that this is both good news, because we can hope to find loot now, and bad news, because now more PEFs will start turning up.

The two sides are well within 12” of each other, so a Test of Wills is in order. The skeletons have a Rep 3 leader, and Ispitan is Rep 5; but the skeletons are Undead, and so automatically pass 3d6, and inspire Terror, so Ispitan rolls –1d6 for that; he scores 1, 1, 6, 6 vs 3 and passes 2d6. The skeletons have passed one more d6, so test to charge. Since Undead always pass at least as many charge dice as their enemies, and Ispitan can choose how many dice he passes, he can’t pass more d6; he opts to score the same number of passes, so that as defender he can fire and cast, and then the skeletons will charge home.

Ispitan opts to cast Dazzle. He rolls 2, 2, 5, 5, 5 vs Rep (5) and passes 2d6; the skeletons resist, rolling 2, 4, 5 vs Rep (3) and passing 1d6. For the first time ever, Ispitan succeeds in casting a spell; the skeletons halt in place and can only defend using 1d6.

“Kill them! Quickly!” shouts Ispitan “Before they recover!”

“Are zey not already dead?” mutters Jean-Paul.

Nonetheless, the two crossbowmen open fire; Gervaise rolls 1, 2, 2, 4 vs Rep (4), and Jean-Paul rolls 1, 2, 3, 4 vs Rep (4); both pass 3d6. The skeletons, being dazzled, roll only 1d6 each; 1 and 6 vs Rep (3), so one passes 1d6 and the other 0d6. The crossbow’s impact of 7 at close range (less than 6”) easily pierces the skeleton’s AC of 2, and with rolls of 2 and 4 on the Firing Damage Table, both are Out Of the Fight. Two down, 37 to go.

Note that I don’t play melee exactly as in the rules; I resolve the entire combat by the first round of die rolls.

Sir Charles and Johann now wade into the fray, followed closely by Beatrice and Gottfried. It’s a big room, so I figure they can face off against three skeletons each – this is important, as in WHAA melee successes (probable this round) count against all figures in combat. (You’ll notice I haven’t needed to lay out figures or terrain yet, and I don’t plan to, either.)

Sir Charles, Rep 4, has sword and shield; Johann has Rep 4 and a halberd, but being a Star he ignores such constraints as fighting room. The skeletons each roll 1d6, as they are dazzled: 1, 1, 3, 1, 5, 5. Sir Charles rolls 1, 4, 6, 6 and passes 1d6; Johann rolls 4, 4, 4, 6 and passes 0d6. All are evenly matched, except for skeleton #4, which passed one more d6 than Johann; Johann is pushed back 1” and loses 1d6.

Beatrice is Rep 4 with a sword; Gottfried is Rep 5 with a dagger. Bea rolls 2, 3, 5, 5 and passes 2d6. Gottfried rolls 3, 4, 4, 6 and passes 1d6. Their 6 skeletons roll 4, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5. Bea renders two skeletons OOF and pushes one back; Gottfried pushes back all three of his. Two more down, 35 to go; but now things start getting more complex, as the skeletons have a chance to recover from being dazzled as per p. 30.

TURN 20

Activation dice appear for the first time. The party rolls 6, the skeletons 3; only the skeletons activate.

There are 35 skeleton figures left in the fight. On average luck, 25% of them (let’s say 9) will recover, 25% won’t, and 50% will roll again, of whom 25% will recover. I reckon that makes 13 skeletons active, and 22 still dazzled. However, those in melee already can defend themselves at full dice now, so for simplicity I’ll say those surviving 9 are the 9 who recovered, and all the others are dazzled. Those who are active and were pushed back close up again.

Melee is already in progress, so we repeat. I won’t bore you with the die rolls; Beatrice kills her third opponent; Gottfried drops one, but is rendered OOF by both the other two; Sir Charles holds his own against two, and pushes back a third; Johann pushes one back, holds his own against a second, and is struck a telling blow; his armour is pierced, and he is OOF. However, as a Star, Johann now takes a Hardiness test against his Hardiness of 3. He rolls 2, 3, 5; passes 2d6; and is merely startled.

(At this point I again draw proceedings to a close for the night.)

TURN 21

The activation dice are 5, 5; doubles, so another PEF appears on the map – we’ll call it “D” – in a random direction, 2d6” from the party. This implies a secret door in the north wall of the corridor where they appear.

TURNS 22-27

The melee continues in chamber 4, while PEF D closes in on them. We’ll gloss over the die rolls, as this is getting long enough.

Ispitan dazzles the skeletons again; Beatrice heals Gottfried; the crossbowmen drop another two, Johann rolls amazing dice and renders three skeletons OOF, Sir Charles disposes of another two at the cost of losing 2 Rep.

Then, PEF D barrels into the back of the party and starts laying into Ispitan – at least, until they resolve as a false alarm. Ispitan dazzles the survivors of PEF A for the third time, and everyone lays about them with a will, slaying 10 skeletons. Johann and Beatrice each lose another point of Rep (now on 2 and 3 respectively), though.

Ispitan continues to dazzle the foe – he’s on a roll here – and the others finish off the remaining infantry, and follow through into the cavalry, killing two.

More dazzling and hacking follow, reducing the enemy to two whole chariots and half a chariot, before the party fails to activate in turn 25, allowing the half chariot to recover – this one has had one of its two crewmen killed. However, Beatrice fights it to a standstill.

Ispitan’s luck finally runs out in turn 26, and he fails to dazzle the enemy, losing 1d6 from his spellcasting Rep into the bargain. However, the skeletons fail to activate, and by the end of the turn only one chariot crewman remains in a fit state to fight.

The lone remaining skeleton leaps on Gottfried, rightly discerning that he is the most dangerous thing within reach, but precisely because he is so dangerous, Gottfried demolishes him in short order.

Panting, sweating, and bleeding in roughly equal measure, the party look around them. Having cleared an occupied chamber, they can now check for loot, using the table on page 63. We get a modified roll of 6; some items of interest, but nothing special.

“Next time, “ says Johann, “I pick the dungeon.”

“Fair enough,” says Ispitan.

MAP

AFTERMATH

The fighters are pretty banged up, so the party withdraws in good order back to Acromerinth, and rolls for advancement, with the following results – changes marked in bold:

Name	Class	Rep	Hard	Weapon	AC	Move	Notes	SS	Align	CV
Ispitan*	Missile	5	3	Staff	2	8	Caster	7	TW	5
Johann*	Melee	4	4	Halberd	4	6	Warrior	4	FS	8
Gottfried	Melee	6	3	Dagger	2	8	Thief	3	RM	5
Sir Charles Atain	Mtd Melee	4	2	Spear, Sword	6	12	Elite Trained	2	SS	4
Beatrice	Melee	5	1	Sword	2	8	Healer	2	SS	1
Gervaise	Missile	5	1	Crossbow	2	8		2	SS	2
Jean-Paul	Missile	4	0	Crossbow	2	8		2	SS	2
Total										27

So, everyone except Johann is a bit richer, and most people have gained either Rep or Hardiness – except Johann, who gained neither, and Isiptan, who lost a point of Hardiness. Must’ve caught something in the tomb.

Halfway Station Dungeon Generator, Part 1

Inspired by the free building rules at THW’s website, I made up some quick and dirty dungeon generator rules in the same vein.

The dungeon is made of a grid of tiles; the default is a square, 9 tiles in a 3 x 3 format, but others are obviously possible. I plan to use 8″ x 8″ tiles, specifically the ones from the Fat Dragon Games Copper Dragon sets, but 6″ by 6″ is more popular.

Roll for each tile in the layout at the start of the trip, and slap them on the table – this gives the party more information than they would have in a “real” dungeon, but honestly, without knowing what’s in each room, it doesn’t help them that much.

Tile Type (1d6)

1. Corridor, runs straight across the tile.
2. Corridor, 90 degree turn
3. Corridor, T-Junction
4. Room
5. Room
6. Room

If several room tiles are adjacent, there is a 50% chance they are each part of one big room, and a 50% chance they are separate rooms, connected by doors. Anywhere a corridor intersects a room tile, there is a door.

Here’s a sample layout, drawn in Dungeon Crafter; it’s pretty basic, but good enough for my quick weekend evening dungeon crawls. On the table, this map would be about 2’ x 2’, which is too big for my desk (would need to use 6” x 6” tiles for that, or change to a 2 x 3 grid), but about the right size for my dining room table.

Of course, this still leaves us with the questions of dungeon dressing, monsters, treasure and NPCs; unless and until inspiration strikes, though, I shall use the rules I already have in WHAA, Dungeon Bash, Red Tide and others.

The Unexpected Popularity of Dungeon Generators

I’ve been looking at which posts are the most popular, and it turns out that one of the things readers of this blog are most interested in is the dungeon generator comparisons.

Now, while I play whatever I feel like, what I blog about may as well be what readers are interested in, so the comparisons will continue, and they shall now have their own category – so, if that’s what you’re looking for, you can go straight to them.

Dungeon Generator Comparison: Advanced Heroquest

This is an oldie but goodie… North at the top of the map; one square is 5 feet; S = secret door, visible from the side where the S is shown; W = wandering monster; rubble squares are a dead end, usually where I run out of room.

As I’m just using the basic rules, the only full set of matrices I have are the ones for the beginning quest, which means all the monsters are skaven. (I do wonder how the skaven manage to remain secret to the point of being considered a myth, you can’t move in a Warhammer World game system without tripping over one.)

Example dungeon generated using Advanced Heroquest

Key

1. A normal room. There is a hidden treasure cache of 60 gold crowns.
2. A hazard room, full of poison mould. No hidden treasure.
3. A lair, containing 4 skaven warriors, 2 skaven champions and a skaven sentry. They have 100 gc on their persons, and the room also has a treasure chest containing 10 feet or rope and 30 gc. If the lair hadn’t been generated as having doors, the sentry would override that and introduce a door, through which he could duck in search of reinforcements.
4. A quest room, containing 2 skaven warriors, 2 skaven champions and a skaven warlord. They have 120 gc on their persons, and the room also has a treasure chest with a screech bug (which can be used to kill bats encountered in hazard rooms) and 50 gc inside. In a proper game, this would also have some item vital to the success of the group’s quest. From this point on, the dungeon would be complete, except that AHQ allows the group to search any wall section (once) to find a secret door.
5. A normal room. No hidden treasure here.
6. A normal room. No hidden treasure.
7. This passageway would run into some other sections, and become a dead end; but to get to it we have descended one level, so it runs directly underneath them instead.
8. A normal room. There is a hidden treasure cache of 60 gc.
9. A normal room. No hidden treasure.
10. A quest room, occupied by 3 skaven champions and a skaven warlord. They have 120 gc on their persons, and guard a treasure chest which holds 150 gc.
11. A hazard room, split in two by a chasm (represented by the darker stripe of floor). On the far side (assuming you entered from room 10) are 3 skaven warriors, with their treasure chest, containing a Potion of Strength and 50 gc, and a further 50 gc on their persons.
12. A quest room containing 6 warriors, one sentry and one warlord. They are carrying 140 gc, and in the room with them is a treasure chest containing two flasks of Greek fire.
13. A normal room, with no hidden treasure.
14. A lair, with 6 warriors, one champion, and a warpfire thrower team (ouch). They have 80 gc on them, and a treasure chest which holds a magic helm (in AHQ it would grant +1 Toughness).
15. Another lair. This one has 4 warriors, 40 gc, and a chest containing 10 feet of rope and 30 gc.
16. A hazard room. In the middle is a grate, leading to another room directly below this one (not shown on the map).
17. A normal room, directly below 16. No hidden treasure.

Left to itself, the AHQ generator is prone to long, rambling sections of corridors leading nowhere, but by searching for secret doors you can make the room density pretty much whatever you want. The fact that everything comes in one or two standard sizes lends itself well to using dungeon tiles, which is the way the game was intended to be played. For me, it strikes just about the right level of complexity in room contents and dungeon dressing, especially if you add the optional rules from Terror in the Dark (which I didn’t in this dungeon).

Dungeon Generator Comparison: Dungeon Bash – Revisited

I don’t think the first example for Dungeon Bash was representative, so with an unexpected half hour spare tonight, I created another one. No monsters or mission tonight, just a more representative DB dungeon. I slightly misplaced rooms 10 and 11, but you get the idea. Rubble squares, as usual, show where I ran out of room.

Example Dungeon Created Using Dungeon Bash

Dungeon Generator Comparison: D&D4E

Number four in the series of random dungeons, using the dungeon generators from various games; this time, the 800 lb gorilla – D&D 4e.

The only key item requiring explanation is (4), which in each case represents a false door with a trap.

This generator is fast, simple, and easy to use. However, no monsters; the Game Master has to prepare a deck of monster cards or something similar to populate his dungeon with traps, treasure and vile beasts.

The map generated was more interesting than I expected, and I welcome the reduction in the number and type of dungeon trappings from D&D 3.5. By comparison with the other generators, this one creates very large rooms, which the Dungeon Master’s Guide explains is deliberate, to encourage more tactical play and use of the environment. Obviously, this means fewer chambers on any given piece of graph paper.

Example dungeon generated using D&D 4th edition

Actually, cracking open the DMG and reading a couple of Dungeon magazines has made me think about restarting a D&D game. I wonder if I could broaden out the rules for dungeons without a DM to a whole campaign somehow? I can’t be the only one who has thought of that. Time to hit the search engines…