I just saw THIS (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1940385271/dungeon-and-quest-generator) 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.
(https://rpgcharacters.files.wordpress.com/2009/07/hthad-map1.jpg)
Yeah, I thought of vertical dungeons too, which was a thing since Basic. (Probably earlier)
(https://4.bp.blogspot.com/_lpL870wV2A4/R2P-0mt4SVI/AAAAAAAABgw/13sCDkk4-as/s400/crossectionbdd81.jpg)
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 (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1940385271/dungeon-and-quest-generator) 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.
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/64/87/e7/6487e70efe8a37ac6a386965f7067ac7.jpg)
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...
Is it 2-dimensional? It looks 2-dimensional. Like a scrolling video game. If it were 3D I could see a use for it.
Quote from: Vile;1122951Is it 2-dimensional? It looks 2-dimensional. Like a scrolling video game. If it were 3D I could see a use for it.
It seems like its 2D but from reading over the notes it allmost seems like they are saying it can do layered networks of towers. Which would not be too hard anyhow really. Just work up say two or three sets and then link them into the 3rd axis.
My city of Arkhome (from my Last Sun DCC campaign, available on PDF as Arkhome (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/232150/RPGPundit-Presents-16-The-Great-City-of-Arkhome) & Arkhome II (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/234673/RPGPundit-Presents-20-The-Great-City-of-Arkhome-2)) is not a dungeon, but it is a huge city setting based on towers with interconnecting bridges, and the books have rules for generating random levels of the towers and also random contents of the caves and sewers surrounding the city.
Thinking about this more, it is very rare for me to do any dungeon or dungeon-like adventure without a strong vertical element. Even in the classic D&D style, I'm fond of chimneys, deep pits with a secret door at the bottom, vaulted chambers with balconies access normally from stairs in another room, etc. The vertical dungeon turns the tendency up to 11.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1123128Thinking about this more, it is very rare for me to do any dungeon or dungeon-like adventure without a strong vertical element. Even in the classic D&D style, I'm found of chimneys, deep pits with a secret door at the bottom, vaulted chambers with balconies access normally from stairs in another room, etc. The vertical dungeon turns the tendency up to 11.
I've recently run two adventures on a ship (different campaigns), and the multiple decks and action in the rigging added for some fun. Vertical "open-topped" battles with flying creatures and ranged attackers can be a lot of fun too (unless you have that one asshole in the group that "is 110% built for melee and can't do anything else").
Quote from: HappyDaze;1123130I've recently run two adventures on a ship (different campaigns), and the multiple decks and action in the rigging added for some fun. Vertical "open-topped" battles with flying creatures and ranged attackers can be a lot of fun too (unless you have that one asshole in the group that "is 110% built for melee and can't do anything else").
I suspect that would still be fun for the rest of the group. Possibly more fun.
Quote from: Bren;1123135I suspect that would still be fun for the rest of the group. Possibly more fun.
Yes. And it the all melee person isn't an asshole, it can even be fun for him, too. I've had it happen several times where the character was 95% melee, but might as well have been all melee in that fight. Sometimes the player can get pretty inventive about what they do.
Of course, it helps if the system you are playing has a means to get opponents down to the ground, if only briefly. Fantasy Hero worked great that way, in that the ranged characters immediately start going for stun/knock out results.
Here's a science fiction "vertical dungeon" (too big to post here)
https://www.wistedt.net/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/listening_post_pluto.png
Somebody built a very cool cardboard & brown bag vertical dungeon!
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DnCEwr6VAAAJnPB?format=jpg&name=large
Here's a very fun looking isometric stacked dungeon (I absolutely want to run this one!)
https://i.pinimg.com/474x/f8/51/50/f85150f1cebd9816d3d61415055b63a5--fantasy-world-fantasy-rpg.jpg
Here's one you can buy from Amazon for $30
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/61We8lWUpkL._SL1100_.jpg
https://www.amazon.com/Wargaming-Dungeons-Pathfinder-Warhammer-Tabletop/dp/B07TXN51C6
The first one works and is pretty much how Starbound plays. Or most any 2d adventure game like the oft mentioned Castlevania.
The second is just your standard 3d scaffolding terrain. Necromunda and a few other wargames make use of this.
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/8e/07/89/8e0789dcd004fbd468e1e3f3ae0ff84c.jpg)
And the 3rd is closer to the idea.
Coincidentally I just came across a related article in
Alarums & Excursions #15 (October 1976?) by one E. A. Thomas entitled
THE CASTLE OF CYLINDERS.
QuoteMy dungeon, still in the design stage is planned to remedy automatically many of the problems of straight D&D dungeons. As you can infer from the zine title, many of the rooms are apparently round.
On the first floor, most of the corridors are, shorter than usual, the rooms more numerous and varied and a high proportion of them are occupied. However, the monster selection on level one is limited to those with less than 4 hit dice, with the numbers encountered random from 1/2 to twice the party size. Other levels are appropriately scaled to pose a severe challenge but not an insuperable one to the right-strength party.
Lest anyone think a few high level characters would have a cakewalk, they haven't encountered the magical property of the cylinders. Many of the rooms sense the strength of the party by their total hit dice, levels and magical accoutrements with heavy weighting of the highest level characters present. This magical sensing device automatically activates the elevator properties of the rooms sinking the party to its proper level. The elevator does not return to the surface until the party has suffered a certain reduction in strength or at the end of a specified number of turns, whichever comes first. These, factors are not known exactly by the players.
For the foolhardy that wish a more severe challenge, there is the conveniently located one-way chute that descends one, two or three levels more than the level of the character that enters it. In the above manner, all parties can have an interesting encounter but nobody rapes my dungeon of treasure and magical items by tramping around below his capabilities. Likewise no low level party need fear meeting a Balrog unless he is stupid enough to enter the one-way chute.
Treasure and magical items are also scaled appropriately for the different dungeon levels. In general it is necessary to survive three or four successful adventures to acquire enough experience points to raise a character one level. The probability of reaching the next level in my dungeon with good play will be designed to be 60%.
Therefore only one out of 25 characters could be expected to over reach 6th level. And 6 out of 1,000 the 10th level. Of course, a superbly skillful player could improve those odds somewhat.
Encounters with intelligent and semi-intelligent monsters will be played on a tactical board with strict observance of movement limitations. One moron in our group who enjoys being chaotic will play the monsters under strict control of the DM.
Quote from: Vile;1123805Coincidentally I just came across a related article in Alarums & Excursions #15 (October 1976?) by one E. A. Thomas entitled THE CASTLE OF CYLINDERS.
Yuck. That dungeon is from the parts of old school that I try hard to stay away from.
Yeah sounds more like a death trap to toss condemned prisoners into rather than a dungeon.
Quote from: Omega;1123883Yeah sounds more like a death trap to toss condemned prisoners into rather than a dungeon.
You mean, like a dungeon?
Quote from: Vile;1123889You mean, like a dungeon?
Except dundeons tend to be beatable. You might lose a few adventurers to bad choices or bad luck. But the chance of death is not an ever escalating near certainty like described above. In a normal dungeon you can get through about any of them as long as are moderately careful and or really good at negotiating. Which seems an element the the described above lacks.
Try again please.
Quote from: Omega;1124002Quote from: Vile;1123889You mean, like a dungeon?
Try again please.
A dungeon is literally an underground prison cell. The reason adventures are said to take place in "dungeons" is precisely because of those demesne's resemblance to an inescapable prison.
Zalman got it.
Quote from: Vile;1124052Zalman failed it.
fixed that for you. :rolleyes:
Are you seriously trying to convince me that you don't know the meaning of the word "dungeon"?
Quote from: Vile;1123805Coincidentally I just came across a related article in Alarums & Excursions #15 (October 1976?) by one E. A. Thomas entitled THE CASTLE OF CYLINDERS.
I wonder if this was the first published concept of a dungeon which scales vs the PCs.
Quote from: Vile;1124062Are you seriously trying to convince me that you don't know the meaning of the word "dungeon"?
No. Im just not playing word games with you. Sorry. Try again.