I just saw THIS on Kickstarter.

I'm sure the idea of a Vertical Dungeon has been done before, but I've never encountered it at the game table. I've seen cool pics like this one over the years, but never ran one.

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The idea from the Kickstarter is effectively that instead of Corridors connecting Rooms, Rooms are stacked and Rooms branch off creating new Towers. The end result is a bizarre and fantastical fantasy maze where up and down matter far more than left and right.

Has anyone done anything with this concept? How did it go?

My initial concern is how movement is handled between stacked rooms. Any thoughts?

Its a vertical maze. Doesnt look very impressive really.

I much prefer "How to Host a Dungeon" which creates a vertical dungeon env1ronment with a history.

Yeah, I thought of vertical dungeons too, which was a thing since Basic. (Probably earlier)



One of my last Starfinder adventures was based on these cross section dungeons. It was an abandoned Thasteron mine. I didn't do as much with the vertical-ness as I'd have liked. I'll have to give it another shot eventually.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1122318My initial concern is how movement is handled between stacked rooms. Any thoughts?

Ladders and stairs. ropes with grappling hooks maybe. Good opportunity to give the player-characters a chance to figure out solutions to vertical movement without stairs. They put levitation spells and flying abilities in the game, after all...

Quote from: Spinachcat;1122318I just saw THIS on Kickstarter.

I'm sure the idea of a Vertical Dungeon has been done before, but I've never encountered it at the game table. I've seen cool pics like this one over the years, but never ran one.

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The idea from the Kickstarter is effectively that instead of Corridors connecting Rooms, Rooms are stacked and Rooms branch off creating new Towers. The end result is a bizarre and fantastical fantasy maze where up and down matter far more than left and right.

Has anyone done anything with this concept? How did it go?

My initial concern is how movement is handled between stacked rooms. Any thoughts?

The Eberron city of Sharn is this concept on a massive scale (some of the "core towers" have 100' thick walls riddled with passages and both internal and external locations). I don't think they ever really mapped enough out for a defined adventure location, instead leaving up to DMs to make it their own.

How do you imagine a monster population would be different in Vertical Dungeon?

What else would need to be different?

Quote from: Spinachcat;1122374How do you imagine a monster population would be different in Vertical Dungeon?

What else would need to be different?

Nothing really. Its your standard dungeon crawl. Just with more stairs.

Or in some cases its a cavern crawl.

The usual assumption is that there are ways up and down and creatures either stay in their envorons or roam as usual. Its just sometimes not marked on the maps.

Otherwise treat is as a caving trip and you'll need climbing gear. Which means monsters and inhabitants without a means to traverse the steeper areas are stuck where they are.

You can also combine vertical and horizontal maps. Or even go isomorphic as was the rage briefly.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1122374How do you imagine a monster population would be different in Vertical Dungeon?

What else would need to be different?

I make a point of doing a vertical dungeon every now and then, and have since the mid 80's, when Dragon magazine had an adventure set in a giant tree.  (It had bugbears and, I think, drow.)  The most recent one I did was a twisted tower on top of a somewhat typical dungeon.  The main gimmick for the vertical part was that it was a coven of very non-standard hags (more neutral than evil) on top of a demonic stone that they were trying to keep sealed.  They had all kinds of birds that served as their spies.  The tower itself had one main door, then the secret passage into the warren below, and then the rest of the alternate routes involved flying or climbing.  

Since the adventure was intended for a group with limited flying ability, that created some interesting decisions.  Also some nasty falling traps that seemed more naturalistic than fantastic, once you accepted the premise of the place.  (That makes them more interesting as traps to me, since the players have a good chance of reasoning out where to look, instead of the fun house, "ha ha, you are screwed" version.)  Mainly, though, I like such dungeons because they make the lines of retreat a little more difficult for the players, while still leaving the option open.

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1122325Ladders and stairs. ropes with grappling hooks maybe. Good opportunity to give the player-characters a chance to figure out solutions to vertical movement without stairs. They put levitation spells and flying abilities in the game, after all...

Reminds me of when my group tried to start a run of Pathfinder's Mummy's Mask adventure path. My PC flubbed a DC 5 climb check and almost died getting into the first dungeon. Good times.

it's been done-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Tower_(module)

although the towers are actually buried in this making it a dungeon

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My first thought on this was Castlevania.

Quote from: ronwisegamgee;1122442My first thought on this was Castlevania.

Was going to mention that too.

One thing to keep in mind with vertical maps is that they are not necessarily just the one room shown. There can and likely will be side rooms. They just may not necessarily be occupied or important. Or the other approach. That these areas are fairly large. Especially in like How to Host a Fungeon the inderground areas represent vast caverns and subterrene cities.

Even the images alone make this thread worthwhile.

I've done something like this before.  Albeit on a basic level.

Basically I wanted to have a tower dungeon, but I realised that it was very linear.

So I joined two three towers with bridges in several places to allow some basic loops.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1122318My initial concern is how movement is handled between stacked rooms. Any thoughts?

Plenty of video games use this concept. It's not too difficult to convert to tabletop.

You don't want your branching paths to end in too many dead ends where the only way for the PC's to get back is down the way they came. Good dungeons should loop.
Your towers will be connected at their base, but you'll want to connect them in other ways too, whether that's through bridges/catwalks, rooftops, or plentiful access to feather fall or fly spells. For high-magic shenanigans, you might consider linking towers by invisible bridges.
I would give the towers windows that are barred from the inside. You might have a bit of challenge getting in if you try and climb up to them, but if you open the windows from the inside you gain a shortcut back down.

You know what I'm suddenly reminded of?

The Clocktower area from Dead Cells.

Now THAT might be worth some investigation...