Yep, if you can't figure that out it might be best to go for undeads or golems as your theme. I have done that a few times when I first designed the something cool but when looking on it, I just couldn't see how something could survive in there. Skeletons does not eat after all. :)
@@LadyLunarSatine Well, not with goblins, they eat trash.... But we all heard the story about the DM who put a globe of annihilation down a hole and TPKed his entire party with it. I am more worried where the smoke go then how they put out fires if they use fires in a cave or similar. I mean a bucket of water puts out the fire fine but have they constructed a chimney for a cave? Anyways, a trash room is always nice, you can put in a gleaming trinket and the players will crawl through all the trash, smelling like (insert disgusting thing here) when they roll for spot hidden. "Wow, a ring worth 20 gold" and the entire party wont be let into town until they bathed in the cold river. ;) I might be slightly evil.
I know it'd be more for the second part, but I remember playing a session in 2300 where we boarded an abandoned ship from an alien species. The airlock into the ship was kinda trapped by design. Due to how they saw colors, red was their color for safe and green was the danger color. So as we approached the airlock it was pressurized, but looked safe to open. It was just a small detail that helped to show the former owners were different from us.
Now that is good stuff. It reinforces the alien mindset of the designers and undermines any sense of familiarity while serving as a nice (ha) opener to knock the rust off the group and get them to either focus or freak out. That is elegant design.
I run an ancient aliens Pathfinder campaign, and one of the aliens has red as the "good" color and yellow as the "bad" one. Similar effects. Any little weird thing like that can give the players a sense of, well, alienness.
There was that and one other, I believe, that REALLY dove deep into the details and had lots of cool pictures. It wasn't until I started organizing my notes for the video that it even occurred to me just how many dwarven towns and cities I've done over the years.
Seth I would like to say that I will be trying my hand as a keeper for the haunting this Saturday. I'm very exited and thank you for introducing me to Call you Cthulhu
Secret doors are the best. I have very fond memories of a private school I attended that was in an old mansion that had a hidden staircase. It opened to a closet on the upper floor. Old houses sometimes have servant's quarters/wings that might be a bit concealed to allow unobtrusive movement.
They also had things like doors that just lead to outside or a sudden drop inside or outside for people trying to steal from them to fall down, Iam not kidding and didn’t believe it till I saw it personally. I saw still working ones and sealed one. Went to a very old Catholic school that had a house for nuns to live in next to it, there was a under ground tunnel system with a pit that lead to who knows where and ways to get into the walls and fake roof and so much I didn’t even get a real look at. To top it off the old nuns house supposedly had a sister decided to “hang out” about 80-100 years prior to my time there. There was also a fallout shelter that connected to the public school next door and some of the houses had those and escape routes built into them. If anyone gets a chance to check out old plantation houses in the south, some still have servant quarters and all the rest still they are not only educational but this weird hybrid of industry and a place people really lived their lives in and such a departure from todays way of life that they can give map makers a great perspective on things. Old buildings are cool :D
@15:15 When Seth was describing reuse of the giant bronze doors, I saw one door suspended over a fire and used as a giant hibachi grill. Kobolds loudly running around prepping meals and delivering provisions in and out of the chamber.
@@grzegorzmajewski. there isn’t just one ‘bronze’ there are different alloys with differing melt characteristics. So in a fantasy campaign there could easily be a bronze alloy with some alternative elements added with a higher melt and deformation point? I wouldn’t let something so prosaic as the melting point of bronze Eliminate a cool scene if there is any way around it.
That shot of the 2nd edition catacombs guide brought back a sudden flush of memories for me. I gave TSR a LOT of my money back in the day... well my parent's money.
35:53 Honest, I played in a game back in the 80s where the DM described the dungeon as being made of cyclopean masonry and one of the other players (never having heard the term, which I admit is idiomatic) asked what he meant. The DM responded, absolutely deadpan, by telling him that every single giant block of stone had a single staring eye carved on it. Rest of the table broke up laughing, leaving the guy who'd asked totally confused until we explained the joke. On the rare occasions we get together to game these days we've all been working those stones into things, been going on for decades now - even the guy whose question started the gag.
Solid gold as always. Over the last couple years I've been running a campaign centred arround a knightly order that hid the parts of a powerful magical device in effectively "Dungeon Safes". First defence was no one knew they existed, but if you can locate them, then you have to find a way in, and through to the vault. Had a great time working out linear dungeons with traps and bad guys who could be there through a long time, so elementals, automatons, undead, that sort of thing, but also making the challenges simple to bypass if you know how, but deadly if not, so the Knights could get through to the vault, but intruders would likely die trying. Players have had a blast, and I had great fun designing them too!
On the topic of secret doors, the question is why have a secret door in the first place? In real construction secret doors served one of two purposes. The most common was that residents of manors didn't want to see servants--the secret doors were a system by which servants could fulfill their roles without being seen. Second, quick escape. You wanted a way out (either of the structure or of rooms) that your enemies weren't aware of. Either way they weren't random, they served a purpose. This can help determine secret door placement. If you're in a "dungeon" that was once intended as a residence, you could have secret doors to various high-status rooms in tucked-away areas allowing easy access if you can identify them. If it's meant as a more sinister location having means of escape can be justified--the people building it wanted to have a way out in case things went wrong.
One of the things I enjoy doing when I forget and make a secret door essential to a dungeon is to have the characters catch a denizen using that door we're going down what appears to be a dead end Passage
I am currently running the pathinder 2e adventure path Abomination Vaults. One of the main features is an indestructible lighthouse artifact that extends down through all 9 underground levels above a shrine to an outer god. When the players find that circular room it gives them a refrence point for whete they are in this place.
Here's a like and a comment for the algorythm. Also thanks for the quality content, Seth, you're the man. Also the ork and the demon and the cthulhu god - everything GM has to be :D
A few years ago my sisters got me a book called "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" by Keith Ammann. Great book with great ideas on how encounters with different monsters might work in a dungeon or which dungeon types work with which monsters in which ways. Highly recommended.
I would have given anything to have been your friend in high-school and college. You seem like you would've been the best dm. Me and my brother grew up on a farm, and he led me through many dungeons as a child, most of which he made up as we went. He had a wonderful imagination, just like you. Thanks for doing what you do.
In case anyone hadn't come across it yet, I'd also recommend the book "Image of the City". It's a short urban planning study/survey, and how people's spatial mental map building-blocks are paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks.
30:20 Y'know, I kind of like the idea of a dungeon where some or all of the 3D features make no sense once the PCs have seen enough of the dungeon. If it leads them to go back and poke at them to try to figure out what's going on - well, that's when they find the space-warped areas the dungeon builder created for this place and all the interesting stuff inside them. I had one dungeon back in the 70s where one of the hallways gradually got smaller as you walked north along it, shrinking you as you moved so it wasn't obvious, with a whole dead-end complex of teeny, tiny rooms at the end of it. When you eventually left the place going south embiggened you to normal, but you'd eventually wind up on the far side of the whole setup and your map would make it look like the tiny complex couldn't possibly have been where the map says it is.
Not the same, but how about a dungeon where some of the features make no sense by design, a' la the Winchester Mystery House. Doors to empty air, staircases that just end, not by some grand design but because the builder was barking mad.
In regards to habitation needs, N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God has animated zombies that operate a pump to keep the swamp-based dungeon from flooding.
I had a pair of skeletons watching a pond with small amphibians on the inlet side of one complex’ water supply. If the critters went belly-up one skeleton was to pull a lever shunting the stream off to a drain, and the other one was to go sound an alarm.
Underground, water flowing through the earth accumulates. Getting rid of or controlling that water is a big part mining engineering. Flooded tunnels offer HUGE opportunities for underwater adventures. Uncorking backed up drain systems could be the key to wiping out powerful enemies, and weather above ground can impact game play as rainwater seeps through the rock/earth to inundate those below
Resources for ideas: ancient Egyptian tomb complexes, De Re Metallica by Agricola (illustrated treatise on mining from 16th century,) The Pyrotechnia by Vannoccio Birunguccio; also, salt mines from the mountains around Salzburg.
I agree. Even when Seth is talking about stuff I do all the time he always has a hidden gem (or 6) about the theory behind it. This video being an excellent example
Back in 3rd edition D&D, I bought the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. It was more of a supplement that had rules for PCs to buy and build their own stronghold. The book was a game changer for me. I was making all of the dungeon mistakes Seth talked about, not thinking 3 dimensionally with my dungeon design and not thinking logically about the dungeon layout. The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook really opened my eyes to the fact that strongholds and dungeons populated by humanoids should have enough rooms and beds for them all to sleep in and what not. My mind was just stuck in this sort of video game mentality where I mostly made linear dungeons with no thinking behind them.
Fantastic work, Seth! These "common sense" construction foci always seemed important to me, but I also thought I was being too nerdy & detail-obsessed. Thanks for the validation, friend! Dungeons have to make some kinda sense.
Speaking of social ecology one of my favorite dungeons, Return to White Plume Mountain, puts a whole ecology in white plume mountaun like the aftermath of the first adventurers wrecking things.
In designing a structure/dungeon, I like to consider how the denizens travel through it. Sure, it may be "neat" to have hidden, locked or trapped doors every other room but imagine how it would feel if there was a band of bandits spending their days there. Before a week was out they would start propping the doors open and disarming the traps rather than spend 20 minutes getting from the commissary to the lavatory. Think of a security building... it has secure locks at the entrances and between floors and at offices, sensitive rooms and labs but the rest of any given floor is generally open access.
I'm currently playing Shadowrun and in that it's really important to know that in the corporate bugdet useability, looks and even Fengshui come before security. And that a security device should not damage the building because buildings are expensive.
I'm about to build a big temple dungeon, thus couldn't have come at a better time. Excellent advice, especially with the "make sure things that live here could actually live here" type advice.
I always make sure to include storage, sleeping quarters, and latrines into every dungeon I make. At least the ones that were once or currently meant to be inhabited. They create verisimilitude, provide places for PCs to hide or obtain equipment, and they fill up dungeon space. If there's a conspicuously vacant patch in the dungeon map between rooms, stick a latrine in there.
Thanks, Seth. I literally just saw a video where you said you're a badass dungeon designer. I think it was the first episode of the Modern Mythos podcast. I may be wrong. But I'm really looking forward to seeing this all play out. I love all your videos and I'm excited to read your books
Temporary walls or obstructions made of trash; barriers or choke points created by collapses. Natural threats and dangers like flooding, collapsing cielings, cold or high winds. Pathways with features like very steep stairs, slippery ramps, or one way trips due to spikes like a car park. It's fun to bring the environment to life. :)
Funhouse dungeons! I once made a monster mash just for a laugh, but to also fit a story. It was an overgrown villa located in a tropical caldera. A normal villa, but inside was a strange array of creatures. Giant scorpion that was too big for the door to the room. Wild beasts. Animated Candlesticks even. All very confusing to the party. It was funhouse because I did just randomly select everything... as experiments being done by a sorcerer who was hiding out there.
Seth! Thank you for all you do. Probably one of my favorite UA-camrs - thank you very much for your traveller series; by a long shot, it's the best explanation of traveller rules on YT!
I always felt that Arx Fatalis was a great introduction to dungeon design by presenting a whole open world withing a network of tunnels and dungeons. Where ever there's an outpost, there's a few hints at the ecology of the place, though in a very small scale. Playing it at several points of my life did wonders for my imagination when coming up with dungeons in TTRPG:s. And sure, I'm aware Ultima Underworld already introduced many of the stuff Arx did, but this was my foray into the genre.
I usually start by figuring out the original purpose of the dungeon and then what happened since if anything. Sometimes I am a bit inspired by real places, like the Catacombs under Paris or the tomb of King Tut, that way I can be inspired by real floorplans and photographs (makes good handouts, we all love those). Once that is done I sketch out a very basic idea and then I finalize the build in either my Dvarven forged tiles or tiles (I use either tiles from Descent or Shadows of Brimstone, or sometimes I find some online and print them out), it depends a bit on the aesthetics I am going for. If there is less then 10 rooms I usually use Dwarven forged but for the massive multi layered dungeon it isn't worth the work of setting it up and putting all the tiles back after the game. I sometimes mix it up and have a couple of important rooms in full 3D (I could also add a single unimportant room in 3D just to mess with the players, but I rarely do that since if overused it loses it's impact). I tend to make a lot of changes during that last stage since when I actually puzzle out the entire thing I can what looks good and what might look good on paper but wont look as great when the players will see it. It might also run into some tiles that just look too good with the other stuff not to use. The 3D tiles do add a lot, like when the players can see that suddenly a room or corridor is a natural cave in an otherwise built dungeon, you know, show don't tell. Okay, I might have a bit of too much junk so my process might be depending a bit on that (hey, all that stuff was expensive, I bloody well is going to use it). I also really like visual aides while others might be more of the "theater of the mind" types. What I pick also depends a bit on where we are playing, if we are playing at my house I can spend a long time setting up everything before the game, if we play somewhere else I can't exactly spend hours building a perfect dungeon so then I either use very basic Descent tiles or I print out each room and corridors on my color laser printer. Drivethrough RPG have some nice tiles cheap, others can just be find free on the net and a little Microsoft paint can be used to edit and puzzle things out (including shrinking everything for the DM map). Of course it all depends on your own style, my dungeons is usually more focused on puzzles and traps the players need to figure out, if it is just monster encounters I rarely use 3D tiles like for a goblin lair or something like that. I do enjoy seeing the look on a new players face when they see a full 3D dungeon though, but remember to either cover up what they can't see yet (some cloth or cardboard does the work nicely, back cloth is a bonus) or to set each room or smaller sections on a magnetized board so you can bring out each new areas to reveal to the players as they discover it, it just makes things way more exciting then if you show them the entire map at the start, With Descent times or printed rooms I just have them sorted in a way so I quickly can set them up during play, don't let the players wait longer then a minute, preferably less then 30 seconds so the action keeps going. Anyways, that is my process but I think each game master have their own way of doing things and that is kinda the charm with RPGs. It is always worth to check out how other GMs do things but find your own style that works best for you and your players. Also, I don't play super often which allows me far more prep time then someone playing 2 sessions (or more) each week. If you want something super complex and don't have the time it might be a good idea to not use dungeons too often, mix in pre made modules or run another game with less preparation time by the side.
The infravision-based mosaic would also make a great puzzle where the players would have to line up different sections based on the heat each material gives off.
That's something that sounds cool, but isn't something to use for random groups or trying a generally published story unless you also add alternatives to accessing it. It also varies depending upon the edition in how it works... But it does remind me of the customized paint job that Ooryl used for his X-Wing in the Bacta War, for most species it just looked that color of glow in the dark stuff with the greenish yellow off white, if you could see ultra-violet, however, it looked neat.
"Marty, you aren't thinking 4th dimensionally!" is what I heard when Seth was talking about needing to think in 3 dimensions when it comes to planning your room layouts lol.
My favorite dungeon concept I ever ran was when my players were following clues to learn about a warlord who had campaigned across the world centuries before. They found a small island where a tribe, knowing the warlord was coming, built an underground bunker full of traps and choke points to try to hold him off. When he arrived and saw how dug in they were, he collapsed the entrance and simply waited for them to starve to death. So the players were left to push through all the traps and vengeful spirits of dead warriors left behind, but the whole thing had an air that, this tribe was full of brave men who were denied the final stand they deserved, so fighting them was less about killing spooky undead and more about giving honor back to people who had theirs stolen. Once the party had learned the stories of the people there, the entire structure let out a final gasp, like it had been holding itself up until someone came and set right the things that had happened there, and it crumbled around them. After they escaped, they looked back and realized that any trace of the civilization was gone forever and vowed to keep the tribe alive in their memories. It was a fun, exciting adventure but also had an emotional core that is often lacking from fight-y trap-y dungeon runs.
I'm impressed not only that you have so much to say, but that you bothered to 'illustrate' so much of your video with examples. Finding images and splicing them in really adds a great deal to your vids, as opposed to just being a talking head. Kudos.
Very well done sir! Well done! I love the part of the old Catacombs guide where it talks about constructing an example castle complete with events. After an event floods the land one stone giant looks to his son and says " and that's why you don't build a castle in a swamp!" For some reason, that just captured my imagination and made the whole thing feel like a real story.
A lot of good points made; two of which I would single out for particular attention… Leave space for empty space. Not only might that include storage rooms which could provide the PCs with a reasonably secure place to camp; but it should also mean bypasses, particularly if there are “puzzle” elements to the layout (not just puzzle rooms). I recently acquired the first adventure of the Dungeon magazine Scales of War campaign, which makes a big thing of the “puzzle” of finding all of the hostages - except they’re all basically out in the open in spaces the party have to transit through anyway… low traffic routes to these locations, where the players could sneak around recovering the hostages (even only some of them) would have added a lot to the game and made talking to the hostages far more valuable. Telegraph information somehow; if there’s a kissing maiden trap ahead then describe the weird stains on the walls, a rock fall trap? Cracked flagstones and so forth… don’t make the players search for traps in every square of your dungeon; don’t make them search every wall for secret doors… because if you don’t offer them some hints, they are quite capable of going back to basics and tapping everything with a ten foot pole - you won’t enjoy it, they won’t enjoy it and everyone will get frustrated. How you telegraph the information is up to you; if the secondary treasure chamber is behind the secret door then perhaps you keep it very subtle and behind a roll (or passive perception) and some Last Crusade style billowing cobwebs are all you give them, a hint that there’s something to search for. If the boss’s chambers and an insight into the story is the prize then maybe one of the fire-dogs is more worn and polished than the other. If half the dungeon is locked up behind it then perhaps grooves worn into the floor where ropes have been used over and over again, an anchor point in a nearby wall, almost everything short of a neon sign… Of course if you and your players are trying to recapture the days of ten foot poles then ignore all that - if they walk into a kissing maiden in that sort of game then it’s on them.
This video gave me such a cool idea. A dungeon where when the heroes are exploring it the entrance caves in, thus blocking out the only source of incoming air. The players have to play against the dungeon but also the clock because if they don't find a way out of the dungeon fast enough they suffocate.
Don't forget on your dungeons to have a good entrance for Scott Brown real estate agents to burst through. Though, more seriously, I would add to enjoy the joys of species impact upon design. An Aarakocra palace or an aquatic fortress raised out of water may be very demanding on coming up with mobility solutions. An abandoned giants' castle could be taken over by an entire metropolis of gnomes. Poison immune creatures may position their structures near naturally occurring gases and siphon them through rooms or use radioactive building materials. While a dungeon in space or the plane of air or water may not be anchored to anything and have no clear orientation between top or bottom.
Is he really? Seems like it's been about two-three per month like it has been for ages now. He's pretty steady really, usually something drops every 10-15 days, once in a while a bit longer. It's one of the things I like about his channel - reliable output but it never feels forced to me. With some creators you can really tell when they're just meeting a deadline, even if it's a personally imposed one.
The moment i saw the playtime with ~40minutes and felt surge of good feelings thinking:"Yes, this is gonna be good." I love watching p&p GM's rambling about the things they love and espessially from Seth.
I ran an adventure once where we opened with the players already having the map to the dungeon, whiched they'd bought off a shady guy in a tavern miles back, but they needed to actually get to the dungeon. There were several sessions of adventuring in the wilderness and the towns along the way where they had to fight or outrun other adventuring parties that had also learned of this dungeon and wanted the treasure all for themselves. Finally, finally, when they got to the dungeon, or at least where the map said the dungeon was, there was nothing. No dungeon. The map was fake. Shady guy had scammed them and every other adventuring party for miles. And that's how the campaign opened, with them now hunting down the guy who conned them.
18:15 OOOH! Maybe that "open pit" underwater is actually a shaft to a lower level! It acts as a trap AND an egress to another area. I know I've seen that in some old school module but it's a great possibility.. This is a great video and I'm looking forward to part 2. I had created a campaign where the PCs were adventurers in a "new world" expedition. A sage/cartographer hired them, among other parties, to help survey a valley. It started with an overworld hike where they simply had to get to peaks on the mountains and map what they found on the way. They'd start discovering small caves with pueblo style dwellings, but some had entrances to the underground. Long story short, the PCs eventually find out the entire mountain range is actually an enormous space ark that landed here millennia ago, which explained the bizarre monsters and led to the discovery of old "magic" technology.
Thank you, Seth. A very, very useful video and just on time, too. May i ask if you're planning to do the similar series/video about the world building?
Useful questions. What is the source of fresh air? What is the source of fresh water? What is the source of fresh food? What is the source of illumination? How much of the above do they have in storage? Where does each creature sleep? What does each creature do during the day?
One of the reasons I love using Dungeondraft for this sort of thing is because it makes thinking vertically easier for me. I can overlay two floors to make sure the rooms fit into a scheme logically.
I once made a dungeon where the main room had a mural with three dragons on it. One had a gem in its eye and the other two had an empty socket. There were two doors on each side, filled with undead, constructs, and traps. Each were one way halls full of challenges with different gems at the end (players knew exactly what to do with them too). Was a simple design but one of the most memorable dungeons I ever made.
One book that i sometimes fall back to is the old 1993 book 'Dungeons' from Central Casting. Pretty obscure and hard to find, but absolutely worth it. See it's not just a book to generate random dungeons, but also to create a random backstory for it. It also offers a few blank spots. traps, monsters and treasure are just tiered (ABCD etc) so you can still slot level apropriate content into your dungeon.
My first dungeon was a cave with 5 rooms, 1 hidden room and one cliff that could be scaled inside. It was partially natural and partially made by magic, so the entrance and 3 of the chambers were natural and served the necromancer in the cave in ways that were convenient, like putting the failed experiments in one big chamber to wander around and ward off intruders, a smaller chamber to throw bodies and parts that hadn't animated properly which had rot grubs in among the rotting meat, or the final chamber of the natural cave which had a second passage carved into the back, leading to the first artificial chamber, which was the lab and boss chamber. The final one was a smaller sleeping quarter hidden by an illusionary terrain orb, which housed the preserved body of his dead love. She.. didn't love him back but.. he was still trying to bring her back
Thank you so much Seth! I loved it. I have thought many times about these things, the realism, air-shafts and pulley driven elevators, and sometimes my players appreciated it. Sincerely, Alicia from Sweden
For the Layout, I use random Generators to get Quantity fast, then rearange the tiles to make sense as a whole. This way I get a dungeon fast AND consistent.
8:30 Like in "Slice of Death", when the party approaches the dungeon, and the thief says he's going to sleep inside and the others are like, no, we'll sleep in the forest where it's safe. The thief says yeah, but the dungeon has a 5' entrance, so the only things in there are that size.
@@theminerboy5694 Those utter bastards. Next thing you know, they will acquire the skill to walk softly. DM - "Surprise Round!" Us - "What? But we were listening!"
Seth, as the game designer for DarK SkY (Fel-Dark Entertainment) I have been using your advice on many of the designs and ideas i used. How to frame my modules, how to style them and how to explain their purpose to the director and actors. I deeply appreciate all your work for our community (RPGs) and consider u a silent partner. Love your work brother- just honoring you here. Keep on shining.
I’m way too afraid to even try to GM a game so I’ll never need the information in this video. However, Seth is entertaining so I’m still gonna watch. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 👍🏻 🥇
Now... There is a problem in learning too much theory: The more you learn the more aware you become of even more you need to learn first! For GM-ing I will say. If you have played a few times, and thus have a vague idea of the basics of GM-ing, then do it! - Before you get to know so much that you are hampered by your knowledge.
Another little detail to remember: underground chambers will most likely have arched or vaulted ceilings because it's more architecturally sound in supporting the literal tons of earth and rock above them. Flat ceilings are more prone to cave-ins (unless they're properly supported, of course).
I like the idea of traps that no longer work, because why would they operate perfectly in an uninhabited setting after centuries, but they can still serve as a nice moment of false alarm for the characters.
I came to think of a couple of examples, not from tabletop RPGs but from video games. One of my favourite "endgame" activities in any video game so far is "Underground" in the Division. It's a procedurally generated map with three main "battlegrounds" or major encounters. Each one features an activity, such as "start the generator" or "rescue the civilians", which you must perform while under attack from one of the game's enemy factions. In the last encounter, the final wave of enemies features a boss fight. The main arenas are tied together by passages which may be empty, or populated by smaller groups of enemies, and may feature traps/hazards. The whole activity takes place underground, as the name suggests, but the rooms and passages are not just subway tunnels. They are taken from a reasonably large selection of environments, such as maintenance tunnels, partially collapsed buildings, sewers etc. etc. You'll have to run the activity a lot of times before it starts getting repetitive. For the most part, you will be up against only one of the enemy factions, i.e. they will be featuring in the main encounters. However, there's always a chance that you will run into one or more of the other factions, but at no point did I get a "monster mash" feeling. I never wondered "What the eff are _these_ guys doing here?" One thing I really like is that there is a little bit of story to it. A very thin veneer of story, sure, but you are informed from the start that "Somebody sabotaged the generators" or "This gang leader has been terrorizing survivors" and each of the main encounters then support this idea in one way or another. Compare this with the recent game "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands", and the "Chaos Chamber" activity. It is also procedurally generated from a batch of different maps, but there is absolutely no coherent connection between them, and they are populated by a massive monster mashup. It doesn't really have any significant features other than lots of things to shoot, and since enemies simply rush you from start to finish there's not even any tactics to consider. It becomes repetitive almost instantly, which isn't helped by the fact that it's pretty much the _only_ endgame activity available. So in other words: how to do it versus how not to do it. (Edit: Holy Cannoli, there are _spiders_ who keep _frogs_ as pets?!? I'm not sure I even wanted to learn about this. Speaking of "want to know", Clown Nursery. Do I even...? Also, the garbage disposal creature in Star Wars is called a Dianoga.) By the way, _lack_ of ventilation can cause an environmental hazard in a dungeon. Just see what happens if the adventurers walk into a pocket of firedamp with a torch in their hands, or into a pocket of blackdamp for that matter. Not all denizens of a dungeon are affected equally by these hazards. Robots and undead creatures usually don't breathe, for example.
@@andrewgreenwood9068 Yeah, I knew it was an Elder Scrolls game, but I had to look up when it came out. I have _not_ played it. Procedurally generated content, be it maps or anything else, is only ever as good as the procedure responsible for generating it. 1996 was pretty early for a game to rely on it to such an extent.
@@andrewgreenwood9068 By the way, I was actually thinking about Skyrim dungeons while watching this video. A lot of them are very well made. I particularly like how they tend to be built like fully functional buildings first, and then have some passages collapsed to create a "labyrinth" without _looking_ like one - just like what Seth talked about.
Your guidelines for creating a dungeon are the same as mine. If there is an encounter in a dungeon, there needs to be a reason why it's there. I did a Mummy’s Tomb dungeon for a 5e one-shot, heavily based on actual Egyptian tombs. Most *living* monsters wouldn't work - this tomb had just been discovered, nothing inside should be able to survive. However, my solution was the inspiration from the Egyptians mummifying animals, including big cats. So I took the stats for a cheetah and templated it to be Mummified. So when two large Mummified Cheetahs appeared after being awoken by a trap, my players were caught off-guard. They loved it because it was a monster that they had *never* encountered before, and it presented a good challenge for them. It was also incredibly on theme AND there was a reason for them to be there.
"But what do they eat" is one of those key questions from writing advice that game masters/developers can learn a lot from.
Yep, if you can't figure that out it might be best to go for undeads or golems as your theme. I have done that a few times when I first designed the something cool but when looking on it, I just couldn't see how something could survive in there. Skeletons does not eat after all. :)
"how are fires put out?" and "where does the trash go?" are also important
@@LadyLunarSatine Well, not with goblins, they eat trash.... But we all heard the story about the DM who put a globe of annihilation down a hole and TPKed his entire party with it.
I am more worried where the smoke go then how they put out fires if they use fires in a cave or similar. I mean a bucket of water puts out the fire fine but have they constructed a chimney for a cave?
Anyways, a trash room is always nice, you can put in a gleaming trinket and the players will crawl through all the trash, smelling like (insert disgusting thing here) when they roll for spot hidden. "Wow, a ring worth 20 gold" and the entire party wont be let into town until they bathed in the cold river. ;)
I might be slightly evil.
🍄 🍻 🍯 🐶
I know it'd be more for the second part, but I remember playing a session in 2300 where we boarded an abandoned ship from an alien species. The airlock into the ship was kinda trapped by design. Due to how they saw colors, red was their color for safe and green was the danger color. So as we approached the airlock it was pressurized, but looked safe to open. It was just a small detail that helped to show the former owners were different from us.
Now that is good stuff. It reinforces the alien mindset of the designers and undermines any sense of familiarity while serving as a nice (ha) opener to knock the rust off the group and get them to either focus or freak out. That is elegant design.
I run an ancient aliens Pathfinder campaign, and one of the aliens has red as the "good" color and yellow as the "bad" one. Similar effects. Any little weird thing like that can give the players a sense of, well, alienness.
That's just mean. But great!
But I'm red / green colorblind so... Haha
A trick so great they included it in Dr. Strange, Multiverse of Madness. 😃 You were a visionary
The last time I played 2300AD was by GDW.
I thought I was the only person who knew about "Kingdom of the Dwarves". That books forever informed the depictions of dwarves in my campaigns.
There was that and one other, I believe, that REALLY dove deep into the details and had lots of cool pictures. It wasn't until I started organizing my notes for the video that it even occurred to me just how many dwarven towns and cities I've done over the years.
@@foo3234 it is not a D&D book
Really great book from my college years.
Seth I would like to say that I will be trying my hand as a keeper for the haunting this Saturday. I'm very exited and thank you for introducing me to Call you Cthulhu
Best of luck with the game. I hope you all enjoy it is much as we have.
Good luck mate. You can do this!!! Have a blast !!!!
Good luck. It is a great game.
Have a ton of fun!!!
Thanks guys
Secret doors are the best. I have very fond memories of a private school I attended that was in an old mansion that had a hidden staircase. It opened to a closet on the upper floor. Old houses sometimes have servant's quarters/wings that might be a bit concealed to allow unobtrusive movement.
good point!
They also had things like doors that just lead to outside or a sudden drop inside or outside for people trying to steal from them to fall down, Iam not kidding and didn’t believe it till I saw it personally. I saw still working ones and sealed one.
Went to a very old Catholic school that had a house for nuns to live in next to it, there was a under ground tunnel system with a pit that lead to who knows where and ways to get into the walls and fake roof and so much I didn’t even get a real look at. To top it off the old nuns house supposedly had a sister decided to “hang out” about 80-100 years prior to my time there. There was also a fallout shelter that connected to the public school next door and some of the houses had those and escape routes built into them.
If anyone gets a chance to check out old plantation houses in the south, some still have servant quarters and all the rest still they are not only educational but this weird hybrid of industry and a place people really lived their lives in and such a departure from todays way of life that they can give map makers a great perspective on things.
Old buildings are cool :D
@15:15 When Seth was describing reuse of the giant bronze doors, I saw one door suspended over a fire and used as a giant hibachi grill. Kobolds loudly running around prepping meals and delivering provisions in and out of the chamber.
😂 might have to steal that, it’s awesome! God bless you :)
Fantastic
Won't work. Bronze has a low melting point. Way to low to be held over fire and keep shape.
@@grzegorzmajewski. magic bronze then.
@@grzegorzmajewski. there isn’t just one ‘bronze’ there are different alloys with differing melt characteristics. So in a fantasy campaign there could easily be a bronze alloy with some alternative elements added with a higher melt and deformation point? I wouldn’t let something so prosaic as the melting point of bronze Eliminate a cool scene if there is any way around it.
I can't help but click when you post because you have gotten me back into table top RPGs. My kids know DnD because of you, keep up the great work.
That shot of the 2nd edition catacombs guide brought back a sudden flush of memories for me. I gave TSR a LOT of my money back in the day... well my parent's money.
That’s the beauty of rpgs once you’ve got the basics and you’ve no money it forces you to be more creative or become a better shoplifter
35:53 Honest, I played in a game back in the 80s where the DM described the dungeon as being made of cyclopean masonry and one of the other players (never having heard the term, which I admit is idiomatic) asked what he meant. The DM responded, absolutely deadpan, by telling him that every single giant block of stone had a single staring eye carved on it.
Rest of the table broke up laughing, leaving the guy who'd asked totally confused until we explained the joke. On the rare occasions we get together to game these days we've all been working those stones into things, been going on for decades now - even the guy whose question started the gag.
Solid gold as always.
Over the last couple years I've been running a campaign centred arround a knightly order that hid the parts of a powerful magical device in effectively "Dungeon Safes". First defence was no one knew they existed, but if you can locate them, then you have to find a way in, and through to the vault.
Had a great time working out linear dungeons with traps and bad guys who could be there through a long time, so elementals, automatons, undead, that sort of thing, but also making the challenges simple to bypass if you know how, but deadly if not, so the Knights could get through to the vault, but intruders would likely die trying.
Players have had a blast, and I had great fun designing them too!
On the topic of secret doors, the question is why have a secret door in the first place? In real construction secret doors served one of two purposes. The most common was that residents of manors didn't want to see servants--the secret doors were a system by which servants could fulfill their roles without being seen. Second, quick escape. You wanted a way out (either of the structure or of rooms) that your enemies weren't aware of. Either way they weren't random, they served a purpose.
This can help determine secret door placement. If you're in a "dungeon" that was once intended as a residence, you could have secret doors to various high-status rooms in tucked-away areas allowing easy access if you can identify them. If it's meant as a more sinister location having means of escape can be justified--the people building it wanted to have a way out in case things went wrong.
With the room checklist at 34:48 I was very much expecting to see Seth list latrines. Clown nursery was a complete surprise
Yeah, that was a nice little Easter Egg :)
@@grindsaur oh, what does it reference? went over my head
@@otakuofmine I don't think it was a reference to anything particular - but it was a fun little gem for the observant viewers.
One of the things I enjoy doing when I forget and make a secret door essential to a dungeon is to have the characters catch a denizen using that door we're going down what appears to be a dead end Passage
I am currently running the pathinder 2e adventure path Abomination Vaults. One of the main features is an indestructible lighthouse artifact that extends down through all 9 underground levels above a shrine to an outer god. When the players find that circular room it gives them a refrence point for whete they are in this place.
Abomination Vaults is SO GOOD!! The only mega dungeon that I find intriguing all the way through!
Here's a like and a comment for the algorythm. Also thanks for the quality content, Seth, you're the man. Also the ork and the demon and the cthulhu god - everything GM has to be :D
A few years ago my sisters got me a book called "The Monsters Know What They're Doing" by Keith Ammann. Great book with great ideas on how encounters with different monsters might work in a dungeon or which dungeon types work with which monsters in which ways. Highly recommended.
this was food for thought i must say, your videos usually are
I would have given anything to have been your friend in high-school and college. You seem like you would've been the best dm. Me and my brother grew up on a farm, and he led me through many dungeons as a child, most of which he made up as we went. He had a wonderful imagination, just like you. Thanks for doing what you do.
In case anyone hadn't come across it yet, I'd also recommend the book "Image of the City". It's a short urban planning study/survey, and how people's spatial mental map building-blocks are paths, edges, districts, nodes, and landmarks.
It’s a great day when a long form Seth video is upload
30:20 Y'know, I kind of like the idea of a dungeon where some or all of the 3D features make no sense once the PCs have seen enough of the dungeon. If it leads them to go back and poke at them to try to figure out what's going on - well, that's when they find the space-warped areas the dungeon builder created for this place and all the interesting stuff inside them. I had one dungeon back in the 70s where one of the hallways gradually got smaller as you walked north along it, shrinking you as you moved so it wasn't obvious, with a whole dead-end complex of teeny, tiny rooms at the end of it. When you eventually left the place going south embiggened you to normal, but you'd eventually wind up on the far side of the whole setup and your map would make it look like the tiny complex couldn't possibly have been where the map says it is.
Not the same, but how about a dungeon where some of the features make no sense by design, a' la the Winchester Mystery House.
Doors to empty air, staircases that just end, not by some grand design but because the builder was barking mad.
In regards to habitation needs, N1 Against the Cult of the Reptile God has animated zombies that operate a pump to keep the swamp-based dungeon from flooding.
I had a pair of skeletons watching a pond with small amphibians on the inlet side of one complex’ water supply.
If the critters went belly-up one skeleton was to pull a lever shunting the stream off to a drain, and the other one was to go sound an alarm.
Underground, water flowing through the earth accumulates. Getting rid of or controlling that water is a big part mining engineering. Flooded tunnels offer HUGE opportunities for underwater adventures. Uncorking backed up drain systems could be the key to wiping out powerful enemies, and weather above ground can impact game play as rainwater seeps through the rock/earth to inundate those below
Resources for ideas: ancient Egyptian tomb complexes, De Re Metallica by Agricola (illustrated treatise on mining from 16th century,) The Pyrotechnia by Vannoccio Birunguccio; also, salt mines from the mountains around Salzburg.
I've drawn a lot of dungeons since 1977, and learned much of what you covered, yet still picked up some good points from your video. Thanks Seth.
No other channel has been so responsible in shaping me into the dm I am today, thank you Seth for your wealth of knowledge. Keep on keepin’ on!
I agree. Even when Seth is talking about stuff I do all the time he always has a hidden gem (or 6) about the theory behind it.
This video being an excellent example
Same. Seth and DungeonCraft are the reason I've started running games at conventions.
I usually just go with whatever feels fun. Like Krampus' castle, which my players will going through later this month as they fight to save Christams.
34:53 Clown Nursery - what do I win?
Back in 3rd edition D&D, I bought the Stronghold Builder's Guidebook. It was more of a supplement that had rules for PCs to buy and build their own stronghold. The book was a game changer for me. I was making all of the dungeon mistakes Seth talked about, not thinking 3 dimensionally with my dungeon design and not thinking logically about the dungeon layout. The Stronghold Builder's Guidebook really opened my eyes to the fact that strongholds and dungeons populated by humanoids should have enough rooms and beds for them all to sleep in and what not. My mind was just stuck in this sort of video game mentality where I mostly made linear dungeons with no thinking behind them.
Fantastic work, Seth!
These "common sense" construction foci always seemed important to me, but I also thought I was being too nerdy & detail-obsessed. Thanks for the validation, friend! Dungeons have to make some kinda sense.
Speaking of social ecology one of my favorite dungeons, Return to White Plume Mountain, puts a whole ecology in white plume mountaun like the aftermath of the first adventurers wrecking things.
In designing a structure/dungeon, I like to consider how the denizens travel through it. Sure, it may be "neat" to have hidden, locked or trapped doors every other room but imagine how it would feel if there was a band of bandits spending their days there. Before a week was out they would start propping the doors open and disarming the traps rather than spend 20 minutes getting from the commissary to the lavatory. Think of a security building... it has secure locks at the entrances and between floors and at offices, sensitive rooms and labs but the rest of any given floor is generally open access.
I'm currently playing Shadowrun and in that it's really important to know that in the corporate bugdet useability, looks and even Fengshui come before security. And that a security device should not damage the building because buildings are expensive.
I'm about to build a big temple dungeon, thus couldn't have come at a better time.
Excellent advice, especially with the "make sure things that live here could actually live here" type advice.
I always make sure to include storage, sleeping quarters, and latrines into every dungeon I make. At least the ones that were once or currently meant to be inhabited. They create verisimilitude, provide places for PCs to hide or obtain equipment, and they fill up dungeon space. If there's a conspicuously vacant patch in the dungeon map between rooms, stick a latrine in there.
Thanks, Seth. I literally just saw a video where you said you're a badass dungeon designer. I think it was the first episode of the Modern Mythos podcast. I may be wrong. But I'm really looking forward to seeing this all play out. I love all your videos and I'm excited to read your books
YESSSSSS!!!! I’ve wanted this video forever!!
Temporary walls or obstructions made of trash; barriers or choke points created by collapses. Natural threats and dangers like flooding, collapsing cielings, cold or high winds. Pathways with features like very steep stairs, slippery ramps, or one way trips due to spikes like a car park. It's fun to bring the environment to life. :)
Never have I ever thought a random book I picked up at a second hand store would be mentioned by a creator I've watched for years!
There's so much inspiration in this video alone, it feels more like a worldbuilding video than a dungeon video.
Funhouse dungeons! I once made a monster mash just for a laugh, but to also fit a story. It was an overgrown villa located in a tropical caldera. A normal villa, but inside was a strange array of creatures. Giant scorpion that was too big for the door to the room. Wild beasts. Animated Candlesticks even. All very confusing to the party.
It was funhouse because I did just randomly select everything... as experiments being done by a sorcerer who was hiding out there.
Seth! Thank you for all you do. Probably one of my favorite UA-camrs - thank you very much for your traveller series; by a long shot, it's the best explanation of traveller rules on YT!
Probably?
Agreed! Watching the Traveller videos were the reason I bought the game. Such a great system
I always did forget about the clown nurseries, thanks for the tip!! 🙏
nice, my easy click of the day. seth doing excellent seth things.
I've been playing RPGs since 1979...and still found this not just entertaining but informative as well!
24-part series! GO!
😁
I always felt that Arx Fatalis was a great introduction to dungeon design by presenting a whole open world withing a network of tunnels and dungeons. Where ever there's an outpost, there's a few hints at the ecology of the place, though in a very small scale. Playing it at several points of my life did wonders for my imagination when coming up with dungeons in TTRPG:s.
And sure, I'm aware Ultima Underworld already introduced many of the stuff Arx did, but this was my foray into the genre.
I usually start by figuring out the original purpose of the dungeon and then what happened since if anything. Sometimes I am a bit inspired by real places, like the Catacombs under Paris or the tomb of King Tut, that way I can be inspired by real floorplans and photographs (makes good handouts, we all love those).
Once that is done I sketch out a very basic idea and then I finalize the build in either my Dvarven forged tiles or tiles (I use either tiles from Descent or Shadows of Brimstone, or sometimes I find some online and print them out), it depends a bit on the aesthetics I am going for. If there is less then 10 rooms I usually use Dwarven forged but for the massive multi layered dungeon it isn't worth the work of setting it up and putting all the tiles back after the game. I sometimes mix it up and have a couple of important rooms in full 3D (I could also add a single unimportant room in 3D just to mess with the players, but I rarely do that since if overused it loses it's impact).
I tend to make a lot of changes during that last stage since when I actually puzzle out the entire thing I can what looks good and what might look good on paper but wont look as great when the players will see it. It might also run into some tiles that just look too good with the other stuff not to use.
The 3D tiles do add a lot, like when the players can see that suddenly a room or corridor is a natural cave in an otherwise built dungeon, you know, show don't tell.
Okay, I might have a bit of too much junk so my process might be depending a bit on that (hey, all that stuff was expensive, I bloody well is going to use it). I also really like visual aides while others might be more of the "theater of the mind" types. What I pick also depends a bit on where we are playing, if we are playing at my house I can spend a long time setting up everything before the game, if we play somewhere else I can't exactly spend hours building a perfect dungeon so then I either use very basic Descent tiles or I print out each room and corridors on my color laser printer.
Drivethrough RPG have some nice tiles cheap, others can just be find free on the net and a little Microsoft paint can be used to edit and puzzle things out (including shrinking everything for the DM map).
Of course it all depends on your own style, my dungeons is usually more focused on puzzles and traps the players need to figure out, if it is just monster encounters I rarely use 3D tiles like for a goblin lair or something like that.
I do enjoy seeing the look on a new players face when they see a full 3D dungeon though, but remember to either cover up what they can't see yet (some cloth or cardboard does the work nicely, back cloth is a bonus) or to set each room or smaller sections on a magnetized board so you can bring out each new areas to reveal to the players as they discover it, it just makes things way more exciting then if you show them the entire map at the start,
With Descent times or printed rooms I just have them sorted in a way so I quickly can set them up during play, don't let the players wait longer then a minute, preferably less then 30 seconds so the action keeps going.
Anyways, that is my process but I think each game master have their own way of doing things and that is kinda the charm with RPGs. It is always worth to check out how other GMs do things but find your own style that works best for you and your players. Also, I don't play super often which allows me far more prep time then someone playing 2 sessions (or more) each week. If you want something super complex and don't have the time it might be a good idea to not use dungeons too often, mix in pre made modules or run another game with less preparation time by the side.
GMing an OSR-like (Forbidden Lands) after not playing pen and paper rpgs for 15 years, this topic is right up my alley.
A man of culture I see.
@@nosotrosloslobosestamosreg4115Of course, I read it in the original Swedish as well Slumpmöte med en Järndrake, anyone??
@@BanjoSick Tur eeva okalotoinä pä uinat 🤣
As a DM who's been running games and Doodling dungeons for a couple decades, I learned a ton! What a great video!
The infravision-based mosaic would also make a great puzzle where the players would have to line up different sections based on the heat each material gives off.
That's something that sounds cool, but isn't something to use for random groups or trying a generally published story unless you also add alternatives to accessing it. It also varies depending upon the edition in how it works...
But it does remind me of the customized paint job that Ooryl used for his X-Wing in the Bacta War, for most species it just looked that color of glow in the dark stuff with the greenish yellow off white, if you could see ultra-violet, however, it looked neat.
Clear and concise, with great information and suggestions! Looking fwd. to part 2 already!
Was the Pit Trap Secret Door in the Tomb of Horror's 😂😂
"Marty, you aren't thinking 4th dimensionally!" is what I heard when Seth was talking about needing to think in 3 dimensions when it comes to planning your room layouts lol.
I rarely run dungeons, but watching this has me hankering to design and run one.
My favorite dungeon concept I ever ran was when my players were following clues to learn about a warlord who had campaigned across the world centuries before. They found a small island where a tribe, knowing the warlord was coming, built an underground bunker full of traps and choke points to try to hold him off.
When he arrived and saw how dug in they were, he collapsed the entrance and simply waited for them to starve to death. So the players were left to push through all the traps and vengeful spirits of dead warriors left behind, but the whole thing had an air that, this tribe was full of brave men who were denied the final stand they deserved, so fighting them was less about killing spooky undead and more about giving honor back to people who had theirs stolen.
Once the party had learned the stories of the people there, the entire structure let out a final gasp, like it had been holding itself up until someone came and set right the things that had happened there, and it crumbled around them. After they escaped, they looked back and realized that any trace of the civilization was gone forever and vowed to keep the tribe alive in their memories.
It was a fun, exciting adventure but also had an emotional core that is often lacking from fight-y trap-y dungeon runs.
I'm impressed not only that you have so much to say, but that you bothered to 'illustrate' so much of your video with examples. Finding images and splicing them in really adds a great deal to your vids, as opposed to just being a talking head. Kudos.
Very well done sir! Well done!
I love the part of the old Catacombs guide where it talks about constructing an example castle complete with events. After an event floods the land one stone giant looks to his son and says " and that's why you don't build a castle in a swamp!" For some reason, that just captured my imagination and made the whole thing feel like a real story.
Thank you being my favorite RPG content creator. Love the books also. Looking forward to the next part in the series.
Clown nursery! Of course! That's why my dungeons suck-because I always forget to put in a clown nursery! Thanks, Seth!
A lot of good points made; two of which I would single out for particular attention…
Leave space for empty space. Not only might that include storage rooms which could provide the PCs with a reasonably secure place to camp; but it should also mean bypasses, particularly if there are “puzzle” elements to the layout (not just puzzle rooms). I recently acquired the first adventure of the Dungeon magazine Scales of War campaign, which makes a big thing of the “puzzle” of finding all of the hostages - except they’re all basically out in the open in spaces the party have to transit through anyway… low traffic routes to these locations, where the players could sneak around recovering the hostages (even only some of them) would have added a lot to the game and made talking to the hostages far more valuable.
Telegraph information somehow; if there’s a kissing maiden trap ahead then describe the weird stains on the walls, a rock fall trap? Cracked flagstones and so forth… don’t make the players search for traps in every square of your dungeon; don’t make them search every wall for secret doors… because if you don’t offer them some hints, they are quite capable of going back to basics and tapping everything with a ten foot pole - you won’t enjoy it, they won’t enjoy it and everyone will get frustrated. How you telegraph the information is up to you; if the secondary treasure chamber is behind the secret door then perhaps you keep it very subtle and behind a roll (or passive perception) and some Last Crusade style billowing cobwebs are all you give them, a hint that there’s something to search for. If the boss’s chambers and an insight into the story is the prize then maybe one of the fire-dogs is more worn and polished than the other. If half the dungeon is locked up behind it then perhaps grooves worn into the floor where ropes have been used over and over again, an anchor point in a nearby wall, almost everything short of a neon sign… Of course if you and your players are trying to recapture the days of ten foot poles then ignore all that - if they walk into a kissing maiden in that sort of game then it’s on them.
Great video. Glad there's another coming up
This video gave me such a cool idea. A dungeon where when the heroes are exploring it the entrance caves in, thus blocking out the only source of incoming air. The players have to play against the dungeon but also the clock because if they don't find a way out of the dungeon fast enough they suffocate.
Don't forget on your dungeons to have a good entrance for Scott Brown real estate agents to burst through.
Though, more seriously, I would add to enjoy the joys of species impact upon design. An Aarakocra palace or an aquatic fortress raised out of water may be very demanding on coming up with mobility solutions. An abandoned giants' castle could be taken over by an entire metropolis of gnomes. Poison immune creatures may position their structures near naturally occurring gases and siphon them through rooms or use radioactive building materials. While a dungeon in space or the plane of air or water may not be anchored to anything and have no clear orientation between top or bottom.
12 Hours ago, I didn't need this. After watching the video, I needed this!
Man you are doing so many videos recently. Holy cow!
Is he really? Seems like it's been about two-three per month like it has been for ages now. He's pretty steady really, usually something drops every 10-15 days, once in a while a bit longer. It's one of the things I like about his channel - reliable output but it never feels forced to me. With some creators you can really tell when they're just meeting a deadline, even if it's a personally imposed one.
The moment i saw the playtime with ~40minutes and felt surge of good feelings thinking:"Yes, this is gonna be good." I love watching p&p GM's rambling about the things they love and espessially from Seth.
I ran an adventure once where we opened with the players already having the map to the dungeon, whiched they'd bought off a shady guy in a tavern miles back, but they needed to actually get to the dungeon. There were several sessions of adventuring in the wilderness and the towns along the way where they had to fight or outrun other adventuring parties that had also learned of this dungeon and wanted the treasure all for themselves.
Finally, finally, when they got to the dungeon, or at least where the map said the dungeon was, there was nothing. No dungeon. The map was fake. Shady guy had scammed them and every other adventuring party for miles.
And that's how the campaign opened, with them now hunting down the guy who conned them.
18:15 OOOH! Maybe that "open pit" underwater is actually a shaft to a lower level! It acts as a trap AND an egress to another area. I know I've seen that in some old school module but it's a great possibility..
This is a great video and I'm looking forward to part 2.
I had created a campaign where the PCs were adventurers in a "new world" expedition. A sage/cartographer hired them, among other parties, to help survey a valley. It started with an overworld hike where they simply had to get to peaks on the mountains and map what they found on the way. They'd start discovering small caves with pueblo style dwellings, but some had entrances to the underground. Long story short, the PCs eventually find out the entire mountain range is actually an enormous space ark that landed here millennia ago, which explained the bizarre monsters and led to the discovery of old "magic" technology.
After watching I'm very excited for part 2 and potential future parts
Please, i beg you, make em as loooong as possible! I just cant enough 🥰
A dungeon is the story. Build the dungeon to tell the story. Build it in the same way one builds the story.
I love making theme dungeons. Flipping through monster manuals and deciding what fits the vibe of the dungeon.
Thank you, Seth. A very, very useful video and just on time, too.
May i ask if you're planning to do the similar series/video about the world building?
Did a dungeon dive one shot for thanksgiving. Really wish this was out while I was working on it haha! Great job as always seth! Keep it up!
Useful questions.
What is the source of fresh air?
What is the source of fresh water?
What is the source of fresh food?
What is the source of illumination?
How much of the above do they have in storage?
Where does each creature sleep?
What does each creature do during the day?
Wow... a Seth masterpiece.
Trying my hand at DM'ing in the near future so this video was super helpful
One of the reasons I love using Dungeondraft for this sort of thing is because it makes thinking vertically easier for me. I can overlay two floors to make sure the rooms fit into a scheme logically.
Great video Seth! Thanks for making this.
That's what my dungeon was missing: the clown nursery!
Of course! It's so easy to see now in hindsight
As far as multiple entry/exit points go, if a dungeon's intent is to be a fortress or a prison, a single, well-fortified point makes sense.
I once made a dungeon where the main room had a mural with three dragons on it. One had a gem in its eye and the other two had an empty socket. There were two doors on each side, filled with undead, constructs, and traps. Each were one way halls full of challenges with different gems at the end (players knew exactly what to do with them too). Was a simple design but one of the most memorable dungeons I ever made.
"Clown Nursery"??? Officially the creepiest dungeon room ever.
One book that i sometimes fall back to is the old 1993 book 'Dungeons' from Central Casting. Pretty obscure and hard to find, but absolutely worth it. See it's not just a book to generate random dungeons, but also to create a random backstory for it. It also offers a few blank spots. traps, monsters and treasure are just tiered (ABCD etc) so you can still slot level apropriate content into your dungeon.
My first dungeon was a cave with 5 rooms, 1 hidden room and one cliff that could be scaled inside. It was partially natural and partially made by magic, so the entrance and 3 of the chambers were natural and served the necromancer in the cave in ways that were convenient, like putting the failed experiments in one big chamber to wander around and ward off intruders, a smaller chamber to throw bodies and parts that hadn't animated properly which had rot grubs in among the rotting meat, or the final chamber of the natural cave which had a second passage carved into the back, leading to the first artificial chamber, which was the lab and boss chamber. The final one was a smaller sleeping quarter hidden by an illusionary terrain orb, which housed the preserved body of his dead love. She.. didn't love him back but.. he was still trying to bring her back
Catacomb Guide from 2nd AD&D is invaluable, good one
Thank you so much Seth! I loved it. I have thought many times about these things, the realism, air-shafts and pulley driven elevators, and sometimes my players appreciated it.
Sincerely,
Alicia from Sweden
For the Layout, I use random Generators to get Quantity fast, then rearange the tiles to make sense as a whole. This way I get a dungeon fast AND consistent.
No wonder Jeff was intimidated by your dungeon design! Wowzers Bowsers!! I'll need to rewatch this a few times and take detailed notes.
Very interesting document. Thanks for sharing.
I used that map you gave us. Particularly the multi-level version with the balcony and secret door. Players enjoyed the adventure.
8:30 Like in "Slice of Death", when the party approaches the dungeon, and the thief says he's going to sleep inside and the others are like, no, we'll sleep in the forest where it's safe. The thief says yeah, but the dungeon has a 5' entrance, so the only things in there are that size.
What if the monsters know how to crouch though?
@@theminerboy5694 Those utter bastards. Next thing you know, they will acquire the skill to walk softly.
DM - "Surprise Round!"
Us - "What? But we were listening!"
Seth, as the game designer for DarK SkY (Fel-Dark Entertainment) I have been using your advice on many of the designs and ideas i used. How to frame my modules, how to style them and how to explain their purpose to the director and actors. I deeply appreciate all your work for our community (RPGs) and consider u a silent partner. Love your work brother- just honoring you here. Keep on shining.
Always good to see the contents !!! Cheers !
I’m way too afraid to even try to GM a game so I’ll never need the information in this video. However, Seth is entertaining so I’m still gonna watch. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 👍🏻 🥇
Now... There is a problem in learning too much theory: The more you learn the more aware you become of even more you need to learn first!
For GM-ing I will say. If you have played a few times, and thus have a vague idea of the basics of GM-ing, then do it! - Before you get to know so much that you are hampered by your knowledge.
Thank you!
Excellent - sometimes it just helps to passively listen to ideas like these and riff off it. Really helpful. Thanks.
Another little detail to remember: underground chambers will most likely have arched or vaulted ceilings because it's more architecturally sound in supporting the literal tons of earth and rock above them. Flat ceilings are more prone to cave-ins (unless they're properly supported, of course).
I like the idea of traps that no longer work, because why would they operate perfectly in an uninhabited setting after centuries, but they can still serve as a nice moment of false alarm for the characters.
I came to think of a couple of examples, not from tabletop RPGs but from video games.
One of my favourite "endgame" activities in any video game so far is "Underground" in the Division.
It's a procedurally generated map with three main "battlegrounds" or major encounters. Each one features an activity, such as "start the generator" or "rescue the civilians", which you must perform while under attack from one of the game's enemy factions.
In the last encounter, the final wave of enemies features a boss fight.
The main arenas are tied together by passages which may be empty, or populated by smaller groups of enemies, and may feature traps/hazards.
The whole activity takes place underground, as the name suggests, but the rooms and passages are not just subway tunnels. They are taken from a reasonably large selection of environments, such as maintenance tunnels, partially collapsed buildings, sewers etc. etc. You'll have to run the activity a lot of times before it starts getting repetitive.
For the most part, you will be up against only one of the enemy factions, i.e. they will be featuring in the main encounters. However, there's always a chance that you will run into one or more of the other factions, but at no point did I get a "monster mash" feeling. I never wondered "What the eff are _these_ guys doing here?"
One thing I really like is that there is a little bit of story to it. A very thin veneer of story, sure, but you are informed from the start that "Somebody sabotaged the generators" or "This gang leader has been terrorizing survivors" and each of the main encounters then support this idea in one way or another.
Compare this with the recent game "Tiny Tina's Wonderlands", and the "Chaos Chamber" activity.
It is also procedurally generated from a batch of different maps, but there is absolutely no coherent connection between them, and they are populated by a massive monster mashup. It doesn't really have any significant features other than lots of things to shoot, and since enemies simply rush you from start to finish there's not even any tactics to consider.
It becomes repetitive almost instantly, which isn't helped by the fact that it's pretty much the _only_ endgame activity available.
So in other words: how to do it versus how not to do it.
(Edit: Holy Cannoli, there are _spiders_ who keep _frogs_ as pets?!? I'm not sure I even wanted to learn about this.
Speaking of "want to know", Clown Nursery. Do I even...?
Also, the garbage disposal creature in Star Wars is called a Dianoga.)
By the way, _lack_ of ventilation can cause an environmental hazard in a dungeon. Just see what happens if the adventurers walk into a pocket of firedamp with a torch in their hands, or into a pocket of blackdamp for that matter.
Not all denizens of a dungeon are affected equally by these hazards. Robots and undead creatures usually don't breathe, for example.
I was thinking of dagerfall and how it breaks every rule of dungeon design mentioned here. Man I hate that games dungeons.
@@andrewgreenwood9068 I don't think I've ever played Daggerfall, but that doesn't sound very appealing.
@@patrikhjorth3291 it is the game 3 games before Skyrim. Unlike Skyrim it has entirely procedurally generated dungeons.
@@andrewgreenwood9068 Yeah, I knew it was an Elder Scrolls game, but I had to look up when it came out. I have _not_ played it.
Procedurally generated content, be it maps or anything else, is only ever as good as the procedure responsible for generating it. 1996 was pretty early for a game to rely on it to such an extent.
@@andrewgreenwood9068 By the way, I was actually thinking about Skyrim dungeons while watching this video. A lot of them are very well made. I particularly like how they tend to be built like fully functional buildings first, and then have some passages collapsed to create a "labyrinth" without _looking_ like one - just like what Seth talked about.
Your guidelines for creating a dungeon are the same as mine. If there is an encounter in a dungeon, there needs to be a reason why it's there.
I did a Mummy’s Tomb dungeon for a 5e one-shot, heavily based on actual Egyptian tombs. Most *living* monsters wouldn't work - this tomb had just been discovered, nothing inside should be able to survive.
However, my solution was the inspiration from the Egyptians mummifying animals, including big cats. So I took the stats for a cheetah and templated it to be Mummified. So when two large Mummified Cheetahs appeared after being awoken by a trap, my players were caught off-guard. They loved it because it was a monster that they had *never* encountered before, and it presented a good challenge for them. It was also incredibly on theme AND there was a reason for them to be there.