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I've been going through this thread slowly and really enjoying it. Aldantefax, your posts have really helped me to begin organizing my thoughts and putting a more solid foundation of what I've been doing with random creation. Recently I've been designing my own megadungeon as an artistic outlet, focusing mainly on map creation so far. The random generation of floor plans from dice rolls has really been holding my interest and keeping the designs fresh. I prefer to draw maps by hand on graph paper and then stylize them instead of using digital resources. I don't have any plans to use this dungeon in any games but I may eventually copy the maps digitally just for fun. So far I've used the random generator from the D&D 1e, 5e dungeon masters guide, and the Dungeon Builders Guidebook from 2e. The difference between the generated dungeon is different enough that I may utilize those differences as "stages" of the dungeon. Do you have any recommendations for any other random dungeon generators? Preferably ones that just list tables like the ones I listed. I'm not particularly interested in ones that will give a whole floor plan at once because the most interesting part of the whole process for me is discovering the dungeon as I roll. So far I've been throwing around a few ideas for why this megadungeon even exists and why the layers are here if I ever actually use this. The reason for the existence of the dungeon is secondary right now though. Just a few ideas: Player characters are dead and this is a proving ground for their souls prior to going to the true afterlife The dungeon was built by a king whose wealth came from the attached gold mine, maybe they kept digging for more gold and wanted stages for each mine level. Something about a crazy wizard.. The players are slaves in an evil society that uses the dungeon as a game to torture slaves for society's enjoyment. As an aside, the random generation of ideas has been incredibly helpful for my creativity. I get bogged down with a blank slate at the beginning and end up giving up before I start. I've used it for basically every aspect of the D&D games I've been playing. I started by creating characters entirely by dice rolls and then filling in backstories that make sense based on the major ideas given by the rolls. The World Builders Guide from 2e D&D has been my favorite book so far, it gives a method for randomly generating an entire world from the global level down to dungeons and towns. Nothing I've done so far has been as satisfying as generating a world and taking a section of it down to the local regional area.
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Feb 4, 2021 15:43
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Thank you for the book recommendations, they were exactly what I was looking for. The Tome of Adventure Design, in particular, seems like a goldmine of ideas. I have taken a look at geomorphs that have been provided with different books I've read and they help me get a good feel for how a certain terrain might look on a map. Most of the geomorphs I've seen have been quite large though so I usually limit using them to avoid repetition and boredom when I copy them. I was planning on the inhabitants making changes to the dungeon as I begin to populate the levels. I was going to roll different monster types or groups of monsters for a particular "strata" of the dungeon and make changes based on what I think they would do. The idea of the dungeon existing as its own entity with its own conscious is very interesting and would allow the dungeon to become fluid, and I may have to begin using that once I get a few more layers deep. Now I need to think about what goals a dungeon itself could have? Killing and eating adventurers Containing a threat below Expanding itself as a parasite on the planet it was created on Maximize the number of people living in it Amassing wealth or worshippers who consider the dungeon itself a god Edit: The idea of the dungeon becoming a character itself and not just a setting is something I'm going to have to explore now. gurragadon fucked around with this message at 19:32 on Feb 4, 2021 |
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Feb 4, 2021 19:29
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Maxwell Lord posted:Hi I was linked to this thread in GenChat and am digging it up again. The World Builders Guidebook (from 2e D&D right?) is so good. It's what got me into generating everything using tables and then getting into making a megadungeon to populate below it. Which way did you work through the book, local to world or world to local? If you like to generate a big world to populate first, I recommend using How to Host a Dungeon. It's a solo game where you create a large-scale dungeon and its ecology with dice rolls. It's a little clunky and it took me a couple tries to get something I liked but I use what a generated as my megadungeon.  This is the result I was most satisfied with, and I use it as my megadungeon world map. I also wrote out a history of major events during the creation of my megadungeon so various factions exist with pre-existing enemies in the dungeon itself. I can now work on various parts of the dungeon when I want and having different environments keeps me from getting bored. I've been using this for several years and come back to it every once in a while. I like having the mega dungeon world map from How to Host a Dungeon because it allows me to keep the same dungeon but use multiple systems. I started in 5e D&D and now use Pathfinder 2e.
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May 12, 2024 18:25
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