Using The AD&D DM's Guide When Designing Dungeons!

SHARK · January 10, 2024, 08:16:24 PM

Greetings!

Do you use the AD&D DM's Guide when designing dungeons for your campaigns?

I use one of my copies of this fantastic book all the time. It has been a mainstay and primary resource for me since forever. Gygax's writing and prose, of course, is always entertaining. I also make extensive use of the various tables for designing the dungeon, as well as adding additional details and weird notes.

Some of the random results from the tables can be a bit wacky, but I simply reroll or otherwise make adjustments as appropriate.

This book is really an excellent resource for any DM.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

Eric Diaz · January 10, 2024, 08:26:20 PM

I don't create my own dungeons anymore.

The DMG is a valuable resource for random dungeons - and I haven't seem it significantly improved anywhere - but random dungeons are, well, too random for my tastes, and I've grown to hate the "goblin then trap then skeleton for no apparent reason" type of dungeon.

Spinachcat · January 10, 2024, 08:29:00 PM

In the early days of the OSR, there was a great magazine called Fight On! which held a Dungeon Design contest. In honor of Gary Gygax, I designed a dungeon entirely by rolling on the AD&D DMG tables and then interpreted the results to create an entire storyline for the dungeon, its current occupants and its past history without altering the results of the rolls. I won a special Honorable Mention and my dungeon "The Badlands of the Bandit King" was published in Issue 8 (2010).

https://www.fightonmagazine.com/FOMag_Issue008.html

Steven Mitchell · January 10, 2024, 10:02:10 PM

I pull out that DMG occasionally and look through, but I don't roll on the tables much anymore. You could say I've internalized the tables to the point that when I throw a dungeon together, I'm kind of rolling in my head.

In the late 80's I wrote a program in BASIC on a Commodore 64 that would do a bunch of the rolls and print the results. I'd run that instead of rolling, and then draw it out on graph paper by hand.

Eric Diaz · January 11, 2024, 08:49:31 AM

Another possible opportunity - unless you like rolling dice - is that tables like that are easily automated.

There are sites out there that can generate an entire dungeon (or, more impressive, a full hexcrawl with a few dungeons included), in a couple of SECONDS.

[I'd like to see a site with automated AD&D tools, exactly as written in the DMG; I think it would be immensely useful. Let me know if this exists!]

However, I think giving the tables or the apps a "human touch", changing results so they can create a coherent place, is always important.

Valatar · January 11, 2024, 02:20:26 PM

I agree, the lack of an "ecosystem" in the random dungeons always bothered me. The things that actually live in the place ought to have opinions about their neighbors, barring mindless or animal-level intelligence creatures, and even in those instances they should probably be seeing each other as a threat or as food instead of just chilling out forty feet away from each other down a hallway and never interacting.

I · January 11, 2024, 02:45:14 PM

I designed a huge dungeon using it and then populated it, and even wrote room-by-room descriptions for it (in High Gygaxian, no less). But I never ran a group through it; it was strictly for my own entertainment. If the random results generated something that didn't make sense, I deliberately changed it, but mostly the maps were pretty random. The dungeon itself was random, but not the populating of it -- that was done with an eye towards "realism" or as close as possible, given the history of the place.

SHARK · January 13, 2024, 06:52:36 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on January 10, 2024, 08:29:00 PM
In the early days of the OSR, there was a great magazine called Fight On! which held a Dungeon Design contest. In honor of Gary Gygax, I designed a dungeon entirely by rolling on the AD&D DMG tables and then interpreted the results to create an entire storyline for the dungeon, its current occupants and its past history without altering the results of the rolls. I won a special Honorable Mention and my dungeon "The Badlands of the Bandit King" was published in Issue 8 (2010).

https://www.fightonmagazine.com/FOMag_Issue008.html

Greetings!

That is awesome, brother!

Congrats on that award, too!

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

SHARK · January 13, 2024, 06:56:26 PM

Quote from: I on January 11, 2024, 02:45:14 PM
I designed a huge dungeon using it and then populated it, and even wrote room-by-room descriptions for it (in High Gygaxian, no less). But I never ran a group through it; it was strictly for my own entertainment. If the random results generated something that didn't make sense, I deliberately changed it, but mostly the maps were pretty random. The dungeon itself was random, but not the populating of it -- that was done with an eye towards "realism" or as close as possible, given the history of the place.

Greetings!

"in High Gygaxian..." *Laughing* That's awesome. I love that!

Sitting down and making fully-fleshed out dungeon complexes like that can be such fun! I have also done that as a kind of "experimental laboratory" to set down unusual ideas, weird monsters, untested mechanics, spells, or magic items, as a kind of isolated and contained environment for including and using *whatever*. It has been a fun and useful process.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

JasperAK · January 14, 2024, 12:25:01 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on January 10, 2024, 08:29:00 PM
In the early days of the OSR, there was a great magazine called Fight On! which held a Dungeon Design contest. In honor of Gary Gygax, I designed a dungeon entirely by rolling on the AD&D DMG tables and then interpreted the results to create an entire storyline for the dungeon, its current occupants and its past history without altering the results of the rolls. I won a special Honorable Mention and my dungeon "The Badlands of the Bandit King" was published in Issue 8 (2010).

https://www.fightonmagazine.com/FOMag_Issue008.html

Unfortunately it doesn't appear that the pdf is available at the link. Is there anyway you could post a thumbnail or like of the map?

grodog · January 14, 2024, 10:20:05 PM

Quote from: Spinachcat on January 10, 2024, 08:29:00 PM
In the early days of the OSR, there was a great magazine called Fight On! which held a Dungeon Design contest. In honor of Gary Gygax, I designed a dungeon entirely by rolling on the AD&D DMG tables and then interpreted the results to create an entire storyline for the dungeon, its current occupants and its past history without altering the results of the rolls.

I did something similar with my columned halls level (the first of several), although I cleaned up the map initial design a bit.

This is the Appendix A map, straight:

and this is the reimagined map inspired by the initial map:

and the (mostly) final version, without the fill colored in:

I have some additional discussion about my drawing process at https://knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb3/viewtopic.php?f=28&t=13328 for the curious.

Allan.

grodog · January 14, 2024, 10:27:49 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 11, 2024, 08:49:31 AM
[I'd like to see a site with automated AD&D tools, exactly as written in the DMG; I think it would be immensely useful. Let me know if this exists!]

Wizardawn had some good 1e tools, that are now preserved over at the OSRIC portal at https://osricrpg.com/tools/index.php

Dungeon Robber was a flash game that exactly reproduced the Appendix A and C tables (it's actually what I played through to generate my initial map above). And Paul ported it over to HYML5 some time ago, so it works again now: https://www.blogofholding.com/dungeonrobber/

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 11, 2024, 08:49:31 AM
However, I think giving the tables or the apps a "human touch", changing results so they can create a coherent place, is always important.

Agreed completely.

Allan.

Eric Diaz · January 16, 2024, 08:38:35 AM

Quote from: grodog on January 14, 2024, 10:27:49 PM
Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 11, 2024, 08:49:31 AM
[I'd like to see a site with automated AD&D tools, exactly as written in the DMG; I think it would be immensely useful. Let me know if this exists!]

Wizardawn had some good 1e tools, that are now preserved over at the OSRIC portal at https://osricrpg.com/tools/index.php

Dungeon Robber was a flash game that exactly reproduced the Appendix A and C tables (it's actually what I played through to generate my initial map above). And Paul ported it over to HYML5 some time ago, so it works again now: https://www.blogofholding.com/dungeonrobber/

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 11, 2024, 08:49:31 AM
However, I think giving the tables or the apps a "human touch", changing results so they can create a coherent place, is always important.

Agreed completely.

Allan.

Neat! Thanks!

grodog · January 16, 2024, 11:46:02 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on January 16, 2024, 08:38:35 AM
Neat! Thanks!

You're welcome, happy to help!

Allan.

Opaopajr · January 17, 2024, 11:21:00 PM

It's a great conceptual tool to understand the 'problem->solution' relation dynamics as to "How and Why" the dungeon. But outside the first few DIY creations to understand the exercise, I find it faster to use online generators with adjustable parameters.

I'm lazy at times, I confess.