Where the hell are the home-grown dungeon creation tables?

Dr Rotwang! · June 17, 2007, 10:45:33 PM

You know, all the collections of tables for rolling up a dungeon at random, which SHOULD be online. Where are they? Why can't I find them?

I have this one, but my wife wants another one. And I'm crappin' out.

mearls · June 17, 2007, 10:49:27 PM

I think Jamis Buck had a dungeon generator, complete with map and random encounters. I'm not sure if it's still online, but I remember using it back around 2000 - 2001 or so.

Dr Rotwang! · June 17, 2007, 10:53:22 PM

I should've said -- not online apps, or software, or graphical thingie-do's. In this instance I refer to charts with numbers and results, like the one in Ye Olde AD&D 1st Ed. DMG sorta.

mearls · June 17, 2007, 10:59:53 PM

Gotcha. I can't think of any online, but there's a content generation system in the 3e DMG and a map system in the 1e DMG and another in the 3e Dragon Magazine Compendium.

So, yeah, uh, not really answering the question, but throwin' stuff out there.

There's this article for the D&D Miniatures Handbook:

http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/we/20030921a

Not sure how useful it'll be, but it's got Random and Dungeon in the title. I think it's pretty D&D-specific, though.

Settembrini · June 18, 2007, 12:27:07 AM

There´s some nifty tables in the 3.5 DMG. Are they closed content?

jdrakeh · June 18, 2007, 12:43:51 AM

AEG's "Toolbox" for D&D 3.0 (or 3.5, as tables aren't too system-specific) has a huge selection of random dungeon generation tables in it. Online, there's a free-press RPG called "Monsters and Mazes" by John Garwood that has a brief selection of dungeon creation tables, as does my own 2004 24-Hour PG entry "Roguelike" (heavily inspired by Garwood's game).

TheShadow · June 18, 2007, 01:18:20 AM

I've got a fairly good one for Tunnels & Trolls, no idea where I picked it up from though. PM me if you'd like me to email it to you.

TheShadow

J Arcane · June 18, 2007, 02:47:48 AM

Quote from: jdrakehAEG's "Toolbox" for D&D 3.0 (or 3.5, as tables aren't too system-specific) has a huge selection of random dungeon generation tables in it. Online, there's a free-press RPG called "Monsters and Mazes" by John Garwood that has a brief selection of dungeon creation tables, as does my own 2004 24-Hour PG entry "Roguelike" (heavily inspired by Garwood's game).

Monsters & Mazes is pure awesome.

Melan · June 18, 2007, 02:53:50 AM

Tables like that aren't exactly easy to do right. I know my attempts crashed and burned. That may explain why there aren't more around.

RPGPundit · June 18, 2007, 03:04:19 AM

The soon-to-be-released "Forward... to Adventure!" has an extensive set of dungeon-creation tables in the appendices, inspired by the Roguelike computer games (Rogue, Moria, Nethack). They're probably the part of the game I'm absolutely proudest of, since I had always felt that most published RPGs seriously lacked really GOOD random dungeon tables. The coolest were still the ones way back in the AD&D 1e DMG. I was so totally disappointed that the 3e DMG didn't have any.

RPGPundit

Settembrini · June 18, 2007, 03:07:19 AM

QuoteI was so totally disappointed that the 3e DMG didn't have any.

Is my 3.5 DMG so special? Doesn´t anyone notice the tables?
Am I imagining things?

Melan · June 18, 2007, 05:27:41 AM

Settembrini: there are tables for dungeon stocking, but there are none for mapping. The 1e DMG had those, and they were a hoot to just play around with (especially with a bit of added discretion). It also had better dungeon stocking tables than 3e.

1e>3e ==> e must be a negative value or sumthink.

Abyssal Maw · June 18, 2007, 05:49:34 AM

Hah, I wrote my own.

fatogre · June 18, 2007, 03:26:58 PM

Doc - you talking about things like the old Monster & Treasure Assortment for OD&D for stocking or the old Dungeon Geomorphs for semi-random dungeon creation?

Later

Abyssal Maw · June 18, 2007, 04:56:55 PM

Try the ones on this page:

http://www.geocities.com/~athorne/trolls/troll2.htm