Did this for my players just the other day. I let them draw a tile from a hat and place it how they liked, but kept the final destination a secret. Good way to ensure they come across enough interesting things along the way and gives me better control of how long the session goes for, and how much they do. Hit a bit of a bump in the road when what my players (and me) thought would be an escape route from a dangerous enemy ended up being a dead end, but with some very clever thinking from my players, they managed to escape without issue. It's not a perfect system sure, and I could definitely see it getting stale if used every session, but my players really enjoyed it, and of all the ways I've done some sort of maze or labyrinthine building, this is by far my favourite as a GM. This is something I'm going to do again for sure.
I really like this idea. I'm thinking of a variant where there are two decks of tiles to draw from: one is for the rooms and the other determines the random encounters and dungeon dressing. There could even be a third, much smaller, deck for special encounters - boss fights, big treasure, etc. and some of the encounter cards could just say, "Draw from the special encounter deck instead." I think it would be great for a quick one-shot adventure. I'll probably work on this this weekend.
I actually bought 3 of the D&D adventure board games, Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, and Legend of Drizzt, mostly because they are packed with tons of minis, but they also come with awesome dungeon tiles that lock together like puzzle pieces. I've since found that one great way to use these tiles is to shuffle a tile toward the end of the deck that you've marked in some way to tell you that the next tile is the End Tile where your big bad final encounter will take place. This way your players experience the random meandering dungeon, and then at a point you predetermined, but is a mystery to them, there is the end point you planted. My only compaint with those tiles is that they are sized for combat tiles, not large maps, so there is limited space on them, making them a poor choice for larger groups, and difficult to place cool terrain options.
I also use Ravenloft tiles. I agree they don't work super well for large battles, but for a crypt they work well with coffins and stuff. And as each room connects to the next you can have several rooms all work as the moving battlefield.
Iiiinteresting...I was always wondering, whether or not this type of Mechanic would work. I had a similar Idea, introducing my Friends to Call of Cthulhu through use of Pieces from the Boardgame "Betrayal at House on the Hill", that most of my friends actually really love to play. Basically using the random Tiles of the House to let the Players explore a Mansion, but using Call of Cthulhu Character sheets and such...maybe I should try that one day. Great, now I want to play Betrayal again...and Guild of Dungeoneering.
The mechanic works... usually. There's definitely some unpredictability to it since the players could possibly find the exit in 4 turns or 30. A GM might have to improvise a bit. We had a lot of fun with it. For structures like houses or castles, I'd use it in cases where the architect was insane or the PCs are insane. Maybe even usable in the Westchester House Call of Cthulhu scenario because that house is supposed to be crazy-weird with passages that go nowhere and sealed-off rooms. Or if some weird magic has taken hold of the place, like the chaotic influence of Azathoth were working on the mansion and that's why it's so weird and random.
Manti Core i know this is more for the poster Buuuuut Call of cthulhu does have bord games In particular mansions of madness fits Tho honestly since u have bahoth its kinda similar lol
One thing I can recommend is instead of handing out a player map of a building, such as a mansion etc., print it out onto card stock then cut them up by location. It becomes a jigsaw puzzle of the floor plan. Thus, you just lay down the card as the Keepr gives a description of what the players see as they enter. Make sure there's no "Keeper only" markings on, such as secret panel locations etc.
Awesome vid as always sir. There is a company that does this kind of idea called inkwell ideas. They also have dice version. I would make my players pull the dice out of a bag and roll them to make the map.
I do something similar for "genaric" dungeons. I took our Ravenloft board game and took the square grid cards and used them as the general tiles. It worked well.
I used to do similar with dice that have random directions, doors, stairs, traps, treasures.... I bought the set of dice in about 1982. Still have them. Back then the set didn't cost more than any normal D6's with spots. Someone is now selling similar custom dice for more than 10 times the cost of normal D6's and act as if its a new idea... I'm planning out D12's and D20's for the purpose and when I have them planned, I'll laser engrave blanks. I have the plans for D12's for PHB random character race, class and background. I call them "character creation inspiration dice" Some of the combos are hilarious, such as: Gnome Barbarian, Entertainer.
Seems like a good choice for a place called “the caverns of madness” or “the labyrinth of Lambure” or something. A magical place that shifts & changes. Dyson's Dodecahedron has some these tiles, by the way.
I am working on an RPG with this as a key concept for exploration and randomness. I intended for me to run the same game but have a completely different experience for each game. It also had the same thing for the overworld with locations and places on tiles that have their own tile set to have a real unique feel for every play. The setting was post apocalyptic so the players may play one time and go through a school the first time I run the story but the second time it may be a bombed out military bunker. Its a work in progress but the concept is super fun to play with.
I see the video and it makes me want to use the room tiles from the game Betrayal at House on the Hill to get the party divided and lost in a haunted house and maybe use the land tiles from Carcassonne for overland travel. Maybe use Carcassonne to randomly fill in a "hex" map if the party decides to leave the road.
This is similar to Gary Gygax's Dungeon geomorphs. I'm sure you can search it up. The geomorphs were used by DM's pre-game to create a dungeon. If you get a chance you should read the manual that came with them.
The game Shadows of Brimstone has awesome modular tiles that work like this. Less functional, but nicer looking, and the tiles are scaled for tactical combat, in full color and cardboard.
So some dead ends are secret passages cool. I like this card idea. Would be cool to use are a random incounter instead of an animal or monster they see a small hole and its a mini dungeon with maybe 3-10 cards to explore and have a small treasure or somthing in it.
Just a thought on wording: You started out using the phrase "players drawing cards", which through me for a loop. I took it as each player drawing on blank cards, possibly at the beginning of the session. As you went on, I realized you were, in fact, referring to a conventional geomorph/dungeonmorph game. But, now you have me thinking. (Now ya dun it!) 1000 Blank Index Cards: The RPG!
Yep. I bought it before it was cool. It comes pretty close to the idea. Actually, it's an idea that I've been working on for about half a decade. ICRPG has helped me move forward on it, although most of the concepts it uses have been around for some time. It uses them in different ways than I had thought of. I'll get it figured out, one of these days.
Good idea, I may use this in my final massive tower dungeon. The tower is maybe 3 miles wide, 8 to 12 miles tall. But each level is a dungeon in its own right... but not the sort of dungeon that actually fits on a draw mat. Plus the layers may reconfigure themselves at times. This method would work for that.
I love this! As someone who's interested in level design and enjoys drawing out random maps and mazes just for the fun of it, this is right up my alley!
There's tiles in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3E which are more areas, with a similar theme, but also a recent RPG by Runehammer games, called Index Card Roleplaying Game on drivethru, that uses area, event, and NPC cards which you might find interesting. It appears to be D&Dish with it's own rules system.
carcassonne, my thought exactly. I also thought about using Tikal - (Game of the Year 1999) where you have to excavate the ancient mayan ruin and unearth artifacts. Each Turn a player draws a random Tile from the Deck. Next he decides where to put it on the map. You can easily mix your favoured RPG into it. Maybe you have to pry the artifacts out of monster's hands, or your research awakens a great old one, who now torments you with his madness.
Very cool concept. I've done something slightly like this before and there was a scenario in Dungeon Magazine called The Shards of Day that did something like it, though not random. Now help me figure out how to use it in Call of Cthulhu!
These might be usable in the Call of Cthulhu scenario The Pale God. Now it it were a building, it could be done. Westchester House would work because that place makes no sense and is supposed to feel random and weird. But if there was some scenario where the PCs are insane and they have to do the mission while out of their minds you could do it and explain how the layout isn't really like that, but that's how they perceived it. Might be fun to do an "Escape The Asylum" type of game where you lay out halls and rooms at random as all the PCs are trying to do is just get to the front door. It might be possible to use in Missed Dues because Azathoth's presence is screwing with the building, but the description is how walls are growing longer and shorter and moving, so that's probably too fluid to use the geomorph tiles for.
That game wasn't Warlock's Cave, was it? This would make for a great GMless style game for one off games when you are missing a player or two from the regular game.
Hi Seth, thanks for this video. I'd definitely like to try this. On a different topic, you've reviewed a few different RPG games and I was wondering if you have played FFG's Genesys system and what your thoughts are. Sorry to hi-jack this video, but I didn't know where else I could ask that question.
I love the idea of using the cards. I'm wondering about scale though. Some of your cards have an entire castle or city on them. How did you manage to deal with jumping between encounters with enemies and the transversing from one tile to the next?
How do you feel about using tiles from the Mansions of Madness board games for maps in Call of Cthulhu? They're double sided, so you can't randomly generate anything, but they're nicely detailed, and could help with visualization.
I think for a special occasion game, they could be fun. (Maybe take those little Post-It notes and number each one, then have the players roll the number, could work for randomization) I think it would work great for The Westchester House because that house is supposed to feel crazy. But I'd never want it as a default mapping style just because it would limit me to only what rooms I have map tiles for.
Yeah, my GM Toolbox vids are pretty short and simple because I'm going over a tool to try. All the rest I like to bust out the costumes for a few chuckles.
A bit late to the game on this video, however I think this could be a useful way to play a solo dungeon/caverns crawl. Thanks for the video
As a game developer, I found this useful for my procedural generated level system, thank you
You aren't an ancestor of Jack the NPC's Traveller persona, are you?
@@clockworkpotato9892 lol
Did this for my players just the other day. I let them draw a tile from a hat and place it how they liked, but kept the final destination a secret. Good way to ensure they come across enough interesting things along the way and gives me better control of how long the session goes for, and how much they do.
Hit a bit of a bump in the road when what my players (and me) thought would be an escape route from a dangerous enemy ended up being a dead end, but with some very clever thinking from my players, they managed to escape without issue.
It's not a perfect system sure, and I could definitely see it getting stale if used every session, but my players really enjoyed it, and of all the ways I've done some sort of maze or labyrinthine building, this is by far my favourite as a GM. This is something I'm going to do again for sure.
I really like this idea. I'm thinking of a variant where there are two decks of tiles to draw from: one is for the rooms and the other determines the random encounters and dungeon dressing. There could even be a third, much smaller, deck for special encounters - boss fights, big treasure, etc. and some of the encounter cards could just say, "Draw from the special encounter deck instead."
I think it would be great for a quick one-shot adventure. I'll probably work on this this weekend.
I actually bought 3 of the D&D adventure board games, Castle Ravenloft, Wrath of Ashardalon, and Legend of Drizzt, mostly because they are packed with tons of minis, but they also come with awesome dungeon tiles that lock together like puzzle pieces.
I've since found that one great way to use these tiles is to shuffle a tile toward the end of the deck that you've marked in some way to tell you that the next tile is the End Tile where your big bad final encounter will take place.
This way your players experience the random meandering dungeon, and then at a point you predetermined, but is a mystery to them, there is the end point you planted.
My only compaint with those tiles is that they are sized for combat tiles, not large maps, so there is limited space on them, making them a poor choice for larger groups, and difficult to place cool terrain options.
I also use Ravenloft tiles. I agree they don't work super well for large battles, but for a crypt they work well with coffins and stuff. And as each room connects to the next you can have several rooms all work as the moving battlefield.
Iiiinteresting...I was always wondering, whether or not this type of Mechanic would work.
I had a similar Idea, introducing my Friends to Call of Cthulhu through use of Pieces from the Boardgame "Betrayal at House on the Hill", that most of my friends actually really love to play. Basically using the random Tiles of the House to let the Players explore a Mansion, but using Call of Cthulhu Character sheets and such...maybe I should try that one day.
Great, now I want to play Betrayal again...and Guild of Dungeoneering.
The mechanic works... usually. There's definitely some unpredictability to it since the players could possibly find the exit in 4 turns or 30. A GM might have to improvise a bit. We had a lot of fun with it.
For structures like houses or castles, I'd use it in cases where the architect was insane or the PCs are insane. Maybe even usable in the Westchester House Call of Cthulhu scenario because that house is supposed to be crazy-weird with passages that go nowhere and sealed-off rooms. Or if some weird magic has taken hold of the place, like the chaotic influence of Azathoth were working on the mansion and that's why it's so weird and random.
Manti Core i know this is more for the poster
Buuuuut
Call of cthulhu does have bord games
In particular mansions of madness fits
Tho honestly since u have bahoth its kinda similar lol
Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I'm going to add some tiles and run my players through a massive cave system.
Wow. I'm only a minute and thirty seconds into this video and I already love this idea. Definitely going to build my own set!
I like this. It will be a cool one shot or break from the normal game when to many players can't make it one night.
One thing I can recommend is instead of handing out a player map of a building, such as a mansion etc., print it out onto card stock then cut them up by location. It becomes a jigsaw puzzle of the floor plan. Thus, you just lay down the card as the Keepr gives a description of what the players see as they enter. Make sure there's no "Keeper only" markings on, such as secret panel locations etc.
I loved sorcerers cave; nice tip thanks Seth
Love this idea. Was a bit stuck with my underdark idea. Thanks for the inspiration
'This castle is a creature of Chaos. It may take many incarnations.'
Awesome vid as always sir. There is a company that does this kind of idea called inkwell ideas. They also have dice version. I would make my players pull the dice out of a bag and roll them to make the map.
I’ve been playing one of the board games this idea is based off, and I love this!!! I’m going to make up some of these cards!
I do something similar for "genaric" dungeons. I took our Ravenloft board game and took the square grid cards and used them as the general tiles. It worked well.
Playing Malifaux, and this would work fantastic for the rare mines than players choose to go into when I am not ready for that. Thanks.
I used to do similar with dice that have random directions, doors, stairs, traps, treasures....
I bought the set of dice in about 1982. Still have them. Back then the set didn't cost more than any normal D6's with spots.
Someone is now selling similar custom dice for more than 10 times the cost of normal D6's and act as if its a new idea...
I'm planning out D12's and D20's for the purpose and when I have them planned, I'll laser engrave blanks.
I have the plans for D12's for PHB random character race, class and background.
I call them "character creation inspiration dice" Some of the combos are hilarious, such as: Gnome Barbarian, Entertainer.
Great idea and implementation. Thank you!
Seems like a good choice for a place called “the caverns of madness” or “the labyrinth of Lambure” or something. A magical place that shifts & changes. Dyson's Dodecahedron has some these tiles, by the way.
I really like this video. I've been thinking of something like this for running "mega" dungeons.
I really dig this idea
Excellent idea Seth. I'll have to try it.
I am working on an RPG with this as a key concept for exploration and randomness. I intended for me to run the same game but have a completely different experience for each game. It also had the same thing for the overworld with locations and places on tiles that have their own tile set to have a real unique feel for every play. The setting was post apocalyptic so the players may play one time and go through a school the first time I run the story but the second time it may be a bombed out military bunker. Its a work in progress but the concept is super fun to play with.
I see the video and it makes me want to use the room tiles from the game Betrayal at House on the Hill to get the party divided and lost in a haunted house and maybe use the land tiles from Carcassonne for overland travel. Maybe use Carcassonne to randomly fill in a "hex" map if the party decides to leave the road.
This is similar to Gary Gygax's Dungeon geomorphs. I'm sure you can search it up. The geomorphs were used by DM's pre-game to create a dungeon. If you get a chance you should read the manual that came with them.
The game Shadows of Brimstone has awesome modular tiles that work like this. Less functional, but nicer looking, and the tiles are scaled for tactical combat, in full color and cardboard.
So some dead ends are secret passages cool. I like this card idea. Would be cool to use are a random incounter instead of an animal or monster they see a small hole and its a mini dungeon with maybe 3-10 cards to explore and have a small treasure or somthing in it.
Just a thought on wording: You started out using the phrase "players drawing cards", which through me for a loop. I took it as each player drawing on blank cards, possibly at the beginning of the session. As you went on, I realized you were, in fact, referring to a conventional geomorph/dungeonmorph game. But, now you have me thinking. (Now ya dun it!)
1000 Blank Index Cards: The RPG!
ICRPG (Index Card RPG) does exist. See the UA-cam channel: Runehammer / Drunkens and Dragons for more information.
Yep. I bought it before it was cool. It comes pretty close to the idea.
Actually, it's an idea that I've been working on for about half a decade. ICRPG has helped me move forward on it, although most of the concepts it uses have been around for some time. It uses them in different ways than I had thought of. I'll get it figured out, one of these days.
Good idea, I may use this in my final massive tower dungeon. The tower is maybe 3 miles wide, 8 to 12 miles tall. But each level is a dungeon in its own right... but not the sort of dungeon that actually fits on a draw mat. Plus the layers may reconfigure themselves at times. This method would work for that.
I love this! As someone who's interested in level design and enjoys drawing out random maps and mazes just for the fun of it, this is right up my alley!
There's tiles in Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3E which are more areas, with a similar theme, but also a recent RPG by Runehammer games, called Index Card Roleplaying Game on drivethru, that uses area, event, and NPC cards which you might find interesting. It appears to be D&Dish with it's own rules system.
donjon & gozzys have random map mapking tools and you can make these 22x22 graph paper random caves or dungeons things to it too
Thats awesome I'll have to make some for my friends and me to play with.
What a really cool idea. Thanks for sharing that 👏🏻
Combined with a random encounter and treasure table this would be a great way to whip a game out on the fly.
A great idea, I suppose a similar system could be devised for outlining scenario plots, ‘chase scene’, ‘NPC encounter’, ‘combat’ etc
Its just like carcassonne
Dhyrim Jasper I was thinking that too :)
carcassonne, my thought exactly. I also thought about using Tikal - (Game of the Year 1999) where you have to excavate the ancient mayan ruin and unearth artifacts.
Each Turn a player draws a random Tile from the Deck. Next he decides where to put it on the map.
You can easily mix your favoured RPG into it. Maybe you have to pry the artifacts out of monster's hands, or your research awakens a great old one, who now torments you with his madness.
Ooh, this just inspired me to make a Sunless Sea/Fallen London campaign for CoC
Ivan Crespo Gomez nice, I’m running a cyberpunk campaign but I made the underzee a location in the world but steam plunked it up
Interesting idea, maybe I'll try that one day for the Dark Rift dungeon of my Skies of Arcadia campaign.
Cool idea I just download the tiles, I think I will try to make some improved ones with dungeon fog or inkarnate
Brilliant
so carcassonne?
Very cool concept. I've done something slightly like this before and there was a scenario in Dungeon Magazine called The Shards of Day that did something like it, though not random. Now help me figure out how to use it in Call of Cthulhu!
These might be usable in the Call of Cthulhu scenario The Pale God. Now it it were a building, it could be done. Westchester House would work because that place makes no sense and is supposed to feel random and weird. But if there was some scenario where the PCs are insane and they have to do the mission while out of their minds you could do it and explain how the layout isn't really like that, but that's how they perceived it. Might be fun to do an "Escape The Asylum" type of game where you lay out halls and rooms at random as all the PCs are trying to do is just get to the front door.
It might be possible to use in Missed Dues because Azathoth's presence is screwing with the building, but the description is how walls are growing longer and shorter and moving, so that's probably too fluid to use the geomorph tiles for.
That game wasn't Warlock's Cave, was it?
This would make for a great GMless style game for one off games when you are missing a player or two from the regular game.
Hi Seth, thanks for this video. I'd definitely like to try this. On a different topic, you've reviewed a few different RPG games and I was wondering if you have played FFG's Genesys system and what your thoughts are. Sorry to hi-jack this video, but I didn't know where else I could ask that question.
Hi Joe. Never played Genesys.
I love the idea of using the cards. I'm wondering about scale though. Some of your cards have an entire castle or city on them. How did you manage to deal with jumping between encounters with enemies and the transversing from one tile to the next?
How do you feel about using tiles from the Mansions of Madness board games for maps in Call of Cthulhu? They're double sided, so you can't randomly generate anything, but they're nicely detailed, and could help with visualization.
I think for a special occasion game, they could be fun. (Maybe take those little Post-It notes and number each one, then have the players roll the number, could work for randomization) I think it would work great for The Westchester House because that house is supposed to feel crazy. But I'd never want it as a default mapping style just because it would limit me to only what rooms I have map tiles for.
Guess who is going to be making more vaults in my fallout RPG
Was the board game labyrinth?
Was the inspiration game Saboteur, by chance?
Dungeon Quest
Saboteur or Carcassonne?
Geomorphs.
no side character this video? blasphemy! otherwise this was a really cool video I will definitaly try and do this in the future!
Yeah, my GM Toolbox vids are pretty short and simple because I'm going over a tool to try. All the rest I like to bust out the costumes for a few chuckles.
Dungeonquest. B-)