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)
- Corridor, runs straight across the tile.
- Corridor, 90 degree turn
- Corridor, T-Junction
- Room
- Room
- 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.
Halfway Station 