I have the PDFs of AD&D 2nd Edition, and was perusing the DM Guide, but can't find the rules for creating a dungeon—or an adventure, even. There are rules for combat and encounters, but nothing to say, "Here is how you set up your first adventure. Step One..."

There isn't a sample adventure or dungeon as there is in the Basic editions and (I think) 1e. I know 1e has instructions for creating random dungeons (Appendix A, p. 169).

In the 2e "Dungeons & Dragons Adventure Game", there are instructions given for random dungeons for the DM to create after the three adventures are completed, but it looks like this was published in '99.

What did new 2e DMs do before that? Just use modules? I guess if one was already versed in dungeon creation using 1e, then figuring out how to do it in 2e wasn't a problem.

As a side complaint, while Moldvay and Mentzer had rules for creating dungeons, it did not offer any advice for mapping them out (not even randomly).

It's been a while since I've looked at the 2eDMG, but I don't remember that stuff being in there.  We just kind of winged it.  Like the Scientific Method, you just had to F around and find out what worked and what didn't.

Quote from: cavalier973 on April 26, 2023, 07:30:31 PM
I have the PDFs of AD&D 2nd Edition, and was perusing the DM Guide...

The 2e DMG was a sad, anemic, weak thing compared to the glory of the 1e DMG.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament on April 26, 2023, 09:07:02 PM

Quote from: cavalier973 on April 26, 2023, 07:30:31 PM
I have the PDFs of AD&D 2nd Edition, and was perusing the DM Guide...

The 2e DMG was a sad, anemic, weak thing compared to the glory of the 1e DMG.

Even the 4e DMG had rules for making random dungeons. It had a two-page spread of a tiled dungeon floor, that you could photocopy and laminate, or cut up into variously shaped dungeon tiles. Also, it was edition-specific, there was advice on how to build adventures, and how to turn a series of adventures into a campaign.

That stuff was in the Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16887/DMGR1-Campaign-Sourcebook-and-Catacomb-Guide-2e

It should have been in the DMG, but here we are.

Looking through my copy, it looks like it isn't there.  The only thing really relevant is a bit on treasure placement.

Honestly, it's never occurred to me that there ought to be rules for making a dungeon.  Guidelines and suggestions might be nice but rules?  Something that says the DM has to create a dungeon in a certain way?  No thanks.

Quote from: Mishihari on April 27, 2023, 01:59:39 AM
Looking through my copy, it looks like it isn't there.  The only thing really relevant is a bit on treasure placement.

Honestly, it's never occurred to me that there ought to be rules for making a dungeon.  Guidelines and suggestions might be nice but rules?  Something that says the DM has to create a dungeon in a certain way?  No thanks.

Well, the rules can be a set of guidelines and suggestions. I strongly think that the best place for a new DM to start is the "Hommlet" style of having a home base, and a dungeon to explore. Set up the framework. Once the GM has a feel for how to run a game, they can expand into overland exploration, hex crawls, city adventures, mysteries, etc, etc...

This brings me back to the 2nd time I ever played D&D, which was DM'ing 4th edition for two friends. Neither of them had played the game before, and I had only played a few hours of 3.5 edition prior to this day. In any case, I had them spawn in a town with two houses and a blacksmith, and the blacksmith had them go looking for a potion that was stolen. I put the potion on an inline cave along the sheer drop of a cliff into an ocean, somehow expecting them to get to the end of the map, see the ocean with the sheer cliff face and say, "I scale down the side". They were basically standing over it, it was the stupidest thing I could have come up with at the time.
I had no idea about dungeons at that time, since the 3.5 edition game that I had played prior to that was 100% verbal role-playing.

Funny stuff, being 16.

Quote from: Lidless_Eye on April 27, 2023, 06:20:53 AM
This brings me back to the 2nd time I ever played D&D, which was DM'ing 4th edition for two friends. Neither of them had played the game before, and I had only played a few hours of 3.5 edition prior to this day. In any case, I had them spawn in a town with two houses and a blacksmith, and the blacksmith had them go looking for a potion that was stolen. I put the potion on an inline cave along the sheer drop of a cliff into an ocean, somehow expecting them to get to the end of the map, see the ocean with the sheer cliff face and say, "I scale down the side". They were basically standing over it, it was the stupidest thing I could have come up with at the time.
I had no idea about dungeons at that time, since the 3.5 edition game that I had played prior to that was 100% verbal role-playing.

Funny stuff, being 16.

Funny, I wound up having the opposite problem. My players saw a massive chasm in an underground cave system and decided they were going to scale down it. The possibility hadn't even occurred to me. I tried to pull an encounter out of my ass. They all died. 4e was horrible for improvising anything that wasn't a set-piece encounter. Oops.

Quote from: cavalier973 on April 26, 2023, 07:30:31 PM
What did new 2e DMs do before that? Just use modules? I guess if one was already versed in dungeon creation using 1e, then figuring out how to do it in 2e wasn't a problem.

As someone who cut their teeth in 2e, we started by setting up railroads, really. I was twelve at the time, so the details have become a bit murky, but we ran some adventures vaguely based on Eye of the Beholder 2, which we had played, but not underground. It was basically an alternation of "here's a fight" "now here's some treasure." The following month I bought either the Ravenloft red box or the Forgotten Realms grey box, I don't remember which, but those had introductory adventures, which we promptly ignored. Still, we had good fun playing outside of the dungeons, in a more pointcrawl fashion (although the term didn't exist then).

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 26, 2023, 11:59:17 PM
That stuff was in the Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16887/DMGR1-Campaign-Sourcebook-and-Catacomb-Guide-2e

It should have been in the DMG, but here we are.

Yep, one of the best DM books from 2e.

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 26, 2023, 11:59:17 PM
That stuff was in the Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16887/DMGR1-Campaign-Sourcebook-and-Catacomb-Guide-2e

It should have been in the DMG, but here we are.

Ah, excellent!

How good is this book? Is it more geared to newbies, or can experienced DMs glean ideas from it?

Quote from: cavalier973 on April 27, 2023, 02:04:18 PM

Quote from: Ratman_tf on April 26, 2023, 11:59:17 PM
That stuff was in the Campaign Sourcebook and Catacomb Guide.

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/16887/DMGR1-Campaign-Sourcebook-and-Catacomb-Guide-2e

It should have been in the DMG, but here we are.

Ah, excellent!

How good is this book? Is it more geared to newbies, or can experienced DMs glean ideas from it?

Flipping through my copy just now, I'd say mostly new GMs. It's got the usual sections on running the game, making dungeons, etc. It's got the 2e "tone", and is a dramatic change from Gary's gallumphing treatise that is the 1st ed DMG.