DMing With No Map!

Also: no reason you couldn't do much the same for wilderness encounters (it might even work better).

Ken St. Andre has a dungeon for T&T like that. It's a cubical matrix of spaces, and when you enter one he draws a card to see what's in it. There's always something usually both tricky and deadly, and probably some treasure (not such an issue, advancement-wise) for victorious survivors; the "empty" room of OD&D tradition is not in the mix.

You know, there's a lot to like with this notion.

Let me first address the OP's idea: Begin with detailed room descriptions (on index cards) aside: A+ for using index cards!. Rather than using a map, the referee uses these rooms in an abstract manner. Anything that boils the dungeon crawl experience down to a gameism is cool in my book. I'm almost to the point that I consider OD&D a board game by the way!

OK, this is almost the exact opposite of my one-page dungeon idea, which emphasizes the map, or dungeon lay-out, and minimizes the room descriptions. My idea being that the individual referee can insert the superfluous material (aka flavor).

Essentially, you are starting with a collection of ideas, or encounters, and running the game with these "vital instances" in mind. The rest is just dungeon crawl/exploration chaff.

As I said earlier, there's a lot to like about this idea.

What I would want to avoid, from a D&D standpoint, is the feel of a storybook mode, or railroading.

At some point I'd want to inject the empty room principle, just to keep it from being a string of encounters. On the other hand, D&D dungeon crawling boils down to just this.

Some blend of this concept, and random dungeon generation (whether through the 1e DMG style or other method) might make for the perfect adventure.

Thanks for posting this. You've made me stop and consider some aspects of the game.

I can envision a board game type dungeon crawl mechanic using the dice as destiny method to determine excatly what happens during the crawl, utilizing index cards and a player determined map.

shirt, it's like a game of DUNGEON! with game to game experience, an episodic campaign.

Something I've been trying to sort out for months, by the way.

Well, that's my take on it.

After my original post I realized that you could also have a dungeon map and use the cards as a random key. Just another way of randomly stocking the dungeon.

Kesher: your idea about the dungeon generation cards sounds cool. It reminds me a little bit of Warhammer Quest.

If you want to avoid any hint of "railroading" just shuffle the cards and pull them right off the top. If you still want a "boss" encounter then just leave that one out of the deck and have the players reach it whenever you feel like it--or when you notice the session is winding down.

That would be Gristlegrim, his personal dungeon (and what a kill-fest of legendarily epic proportions it is!), a floating cube a mile across. One of my characters had to serve some time in it as a Wandering Monster, after pleading rather pathetically for his life with the eponymous god who built the place.

Outlaw press have released a version of it: Scroll down a bit...

I agree with Sham in that gameism is A-okay! I have been looking at using the Barbarian Prince game from Dwarfstar for a campaign using a bunch of index cards inspired by the events in that game, some of the Warp Spawn card games as well as Atlas Games' Dungeoneer games.
Decks of index cards for wilderness events/encounters, dungeon rooms, monsters, rumors, etc. for the DM to draw from and use.

I am always amazed at how, if the DM randomly determines a few things for the players to interact with and then just sits back and listens, the players nearly always start drawing connections. Most of the DM's work can be done for him.

GristleGrim is online!

It's interesting to see how heavily T&T underscores the game aspect, and how fundamentally unconcerned with naturalism it is (judging from this example, anyhow).

"Is that a Dungeon in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

(Sorry, had to be done.)


This tracks with something I keep intending to do and haven't done yet. Dungeon in a box. Everything, dungeons, monsters, NPCs, etc. All on 3x5 cards in a file box.

Dungeon in a Box. I wish I'd patented it, or trademarked it, or something. But hey, now it's out there. Let's see what people do with it!

I almost do this now with Ulin-Uthor, except there IS a map. The map is not populated with monsters or filled with treasure, though. The permanent features of the dungeon are detailed, but the temporary ones are all written on 3x5 cards.

Prior to play I fill certain important areas, then simply use my version of the OD&D stocking method for monsters and treasure. All of that goes on a card and into the box. Each individual magic item has its own card, so the player can hold it (even potions).

For Wandering Monsters I have a large stack of index cards from which to blindly pull when one is called for.

Index cards are a wonderful thing. I like Coffee's idea a lot, and I really like the direction of the dungeon without a map idea. As I mentioned before I've had an old project which is meant to be an episodic random table based game, and this thread has helped me formulate more plans for that idea.

I use all sorts of things to generate maps at the table. Deathmaze, Citadel of Blood, Dungeoneer cards, random tables, etc.