If old school D&D is your thing, I heartily recommend Dragonsfoot as the premier source for such things.  The forums there are fantastic, marred occasionally by anti-d20 whining, but excellent nonetheless.  In the middle of a lengthy thread about megadungeon construction I found the single best analysis of dungeon map design I have ever seen:

http://www.dragonsfoot.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=18710&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=35

If you ever do dungeon crawls in your games, do yourself a favor and follow that link.

Holy cow, that post and analysis is genius! While I don't always think it's bad to have a focused/linear dungeon, he has layed out a great reasoning for making dungeons more complex and how that relates to fun through exploration.

Take for instance his break down for the Caves of Chaos:


He goes on to talk about how the separate entrances with some hidden links gives some exploratory opportunities despite the basic layout of caves without the links. He doesn't go right out and say it, but this makes for a great introductory dungeon dive adventure. For people completely new to this type of game they have a relatively painless way to interact with the environment with these small, seemingly discrete dungeons. At the same time, they could easy stumble upon a secret door which kicks in a 'wow!' factor as they discover that there is more to explore than originally thought.

Great link, I never have time to check out Dragonsfoot.

The shallow but broad layout of the Caves of Chaos is one of its great appeals.  Some kids with a short attention span and an hour to kill can whip up characters and explore on of the caves without worrying too much about being accidentally trapped inside.

That was a great discussion (it gets more interesting later when he talks about dungeons being by definition non-linear and weird). And I think he nails what is awesome about dungeons- if the map is truly non-linear, players are motivated to 'explore the map' in a way that they don't do with a linear dungeon. I remember many adventures where the party was determined to 'map out that one area we haven't been to yet', or 'lets see if we can find a way down to the third level".

I think I'm going to register over there.

Quote from: Abyssal Mawit gets more interesting later when he talks about dungeons being by definition non-linear and weird

I totally agree with that approach.  Let me bust out a line I once dropped on EN World:

There is nothing inherently wrong with random, jumbled-up dungeons that make little sense. How the hobby came to a contrary conclusion is beyond me. A good dungeon has a certain sense of dreamlike irrationality. That's what gives it the inherent danger, the mystique, the edge it has. A descent into a dungeon should involve the PCs symbolically plunging into the collective unconsciousness of the world, a place where nightmares take life and wonders are beheld. I find it unseemly to try to impose a draconian sense of purpose or ecology on such phantasmagorical wonderlands. Sometimes it's okay that the ki-rin in room 23 lives in relative peace with the succubi in room 24.

Thanks for the link, never would have seen it otherwise.

I've seen this before over at ENWorld, the one problem I have with none liner dungeons is as a GM you can end up doing a lot of work that the players then never bother to explore.

His assessment of the Sunless Citadel is a little unfair as well as it doesn't illustrate that the players have to back up to visit the Crypts, since the door is impossible to get past at first. His own illustration shows three circular routes, and several branches.

He then claims the Forge of Fury is liner, but his own maps show several circles and multiple branches. Sure there is a definate begining and end, but the stuff inbetween is pretty flexible.

The earlier classics he mentions could also be stretched out to give them an apparant liner look, or you could draw the Forge of Fury to look more circular.

Well, your'e right about doing a lot of work that nobody ever gets to see. But the plus side of that is: since it's persistent it sort of becomes an artifact of it's own. You can re-use the dungeon more than once-- each group maybe goes in and clears an area, but never sees the whole thing. And it isn't like running the same adventure over multiple times, it's just different groups exploring the same place at different times.  

 I remember having the same dungeon in the 80s for multiple groups.. They'd come in check a few areas out and leave, then I'd update what happens to the cleared area, and a few months later, another group would come through, check out some places.. etc.

I'm really in the mood to make a megadungeon now.

One of my fascinations from my earliest days of GMing was random dungeon generation.  Its why I included a whole series of tables for generating random dungeons in "Forward... to Adventure!".

I wonder if this set up, which is very interesting, could be used as the basis to create a new kind of system for random dungeon generation, one that made dungeons that were random, but much more structured than your standard "random dungeon"?

RPGPundit

It's an excellent posting, tha sums much of my love for old - school dungeons. Thanks, jrients.

He initially posted it to ENWorld, and I responed then.

To repeat what I said then, his essay, while interesting and insightful, implies that linear layouts are inplicitly bad. I disagree.

I think the thing to keep in mind about linear versus branching or looping design is this: with linear design, the flow of play is predictable (which has upsides and downsides.) The less linear you are, the more randomized the number and nature of the encounters is, and you get things like two different groups reporting entirely different experiences. Non-linearity essentially randomizes the number of encounters in the game.

This can be important if you are trying to manage your time. Nobody wants to be stuck in the middle of a dungeon on the last game before a vacation. On the other hand, I have no problems pulling out a nice branching/looping dungeon like Rappan Athuk or Undermountain if I am just interested in running a few encounters and kicking back with some friends, and am not really concerned about reaching a goal at the end.

THAT SAID, I use Undermountain in a fairly linear goal-oriented fashion fairly frequently, simply by providing maps and guides. So sometimes, the walls and corridors don't tell the whole story about the "linearity" of the experience.

Quote from: RPGPunditI wonder if this set up, which is very interesting, could be used as the basis to create a new kind of system for random dungeon generation, one that made dungeons that were random, but much more structured than your standard "random dungeon"?

That's a great idea.  It also sounds like the sort of thing for which some computer programmer should already have a solution.

QuoteThat's a great idea.  It also sounds like the sort of thing for which some computer programmer should already have a solution.

It all comes down to a portion of discreet mathematics, called "Graph theory" There are all kinds of measurements to describe a graph (dots and connecting lines aka nodes and vertices), and they are used for car navigation.

There are many pragrams who generate graphs with specific parameters. You`d only have to Hijack them, and transfer them to nice graphics. Gimme €1000, and I`ll do it!:cool:

Still, there should be freeware graphgenerators, I'll investigate...