dungeon level sizes in 1974

[geoffrey]

'A good dungeon will have no less than a dozen levels down, with offshoot levels in addition, and new levels under construction..."Greyhawk Castle", for example, has over a dozen levels in succession downwards, more than that number branching from these, and not less than two new levels under construction at any given time.' (The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures, page. 4)

This puts me in mind of Bob Bledsaw's 28-level dungeon he had for the Lonely Mountain.

Consider the sample dungeon level given on pp. 4-5 of The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures. It has 8 numbered encounter areas as well as a further 9 areas labelled A through I, for a total of 17.

This relatively small dungeon level size makes dungeons with 27 or 28 levels more achievable for the harried referee. To make the math easier, let's bump those 17 rooms up to 18 and see how to stock them:

3 rooms have monsters with no treasure.
3 rooms have monsters with treasure.
3 rooms have treasure (but no monsters).

What about the other 9 rooms? Consider page 6 of TU&WA: "It is a good idea to thoughtfully place several of the most important treasures, with or without monsterous [sic] guardians, and then switch to a random determination for the balance of the level. Naturally, the more important treasures will consist of various magical items and large amounts of wealth in the form of gems and jewelry. Once these have been secreted in out-of-the-way locations, a random distribution using a six-sided die can be made as follows:"

Thus we see that "several" important treasures will be specially placed by the referee, in addition to the six treasures randomly distributed. Let's say several equals 3. These will be "with or without" monstrous guardians. Keep in mind that page 6 of TU&WA says that "As a general rule there will be far more uninhabited space on a level than there will be space occupied by monsters, human or otherwise." In light of that, let us say that only 1 of the important treasures will have a monstrous guardian. Now we have the following numbers:

3 rooms have monsters with no treasure.
4 rooms have monsters with treasure.
5 rooms have treasure (but no monsters).

That accounts for 12 out of the 18 rooms. What about the other 6? Many of these can be filled with tricks or traps, and the rest simply with interesting things (that are not monster, treasure, trick, or trap). Let us say three of each. We are left with:

3 rooms have monsters with no treasure.
4 rooms have monsters with treasure.
5 rooms have treasure (but no monsters).
3 rooms have tricks or traps.
3 rooms have interesting things that are not monsters, treasure, tricks, or traps.

There's your level. That is so much easier and faster than massive levels with 60 to 100+ areas. I can imagine making a dungeon with 27 or 28 levels if each level is as described here (which would give a total of about 500 areas). Compare that with levels averaging 60 areas, which would necessitate over 1,600 areas.

[Finarvyn]

I had a 1970's dungeon that was around 25-30 levels before the term "megadungeon" was ever invented, and it was a bunch of levels drawn out on regular 8 1/2 x 11" notebook paper. (And I might point out that many of my levels were pretty boring and unimaginative.) The Judges Guild dungeons that came with the JG subscription in the 1970's is on regular sized paper. The dungeons of castle Blackmoor in FFC looks like they were done on regular paper. I think that most of us did that kind of thing back then, size wise. The few times that we taped together bunches of pages we didn't bother to have depth but instead just had a huge area that was basically one level. It wasn't until much later that I ever saw anyone try to combine the two and have huge levels that were also stacked really deep.

And as far as filling rooms went, I usually planned a couple of interesting rooms per level and a bunch of semi-random monster rooms to eat up the rest of the empty space. A lot of my dungeon crawls were odd passages instead of just room after room of monsters to kill.

That's just my experience with dungeons back in the day. I'm sure others had different experiences with theirs.

[kent]

You can either analyse and replicate or originate and I am quite sure that it was intended by Gygax et al. that we originate. Gygax's modules are not like each other and yet the orthodoxy is to aim for pure imitation rather than to imagine your own environments.

[Deleted]

Each of Gary's levels was 1 or 2 pages of 8 1/2 x 11 graph paper at 6 squares to the inch.

The example in OWA is only a tiny fragment of a single level.

[Finarvyn]

Apr 9, 2014 15:29:20 GMT -6 kent said:

You can either analyse and replicate or originate and I am quite sure that it was intended by Gygax et al. that we originate. Gygax's modules are not like each other and yet the orthodoxy is to aim for pure imitation rather than to imagine your own environments.

Oh, I get that. The key is that most threads here are one of a few basic types:
(1) How did you do it in the day?
(2) If I do it this way, what goes wrong?
(3) Any suggestions on how to do it?

I was just sharing my experiences. I wouldn't expect every dungeon to be the same, otherwise things become boring.

[Deleted]

1) We grabbed graph paper and filled the sheets up with sh*t we thought would be fun.
2) Worst case, it is not fun.
3) Make up some sh*t you think will be fun. If not fun, make up different sh*t you think will be fun. Repeat until fun.

[flightcommander]

"Repeat until fun," words to live by

For what it's worth I've been infrequently working on a dungeon that's just one big long level. Open the notebook, start drawing, turn the page and continue the map. I'm sure I'm not the first to do that, so if that's you, let me know how it went.

[Deleted]

Don't know if he was the first, but Phil (Prof. M.A.R.) Barker used a sheet of 17 x 22 10 square/inch paper for the first level of the Jakallan underworld. It was freakin' immense.

[inkmeister]

I like the idea of smaller levels. One could have a great level of complexity just in the various linkages between levels, while having an approach conducive to every level having a unique theme or feel. For me, it feels less of a burden to plan out a smaller level, than to feel like I need to come up with a bunch of cool stuff appropriate for a first level. I like the idea. I also admit to wandering how representative the sample map is of a typical Gygax level. The geomorphs seem to indicate that the sample map is not typical at all, as well as some of the Gygax map images floating around on the net. Still, I like the small level concept. I've found (with some of the maps I've posted on this forum in the past), that the dense geo-morph style maps are very confusing for my players, and not a great deal of fun in play. I think simpler maps and smaller levels are more the ticket for my players.

As to being original versus being a copy-cat: I don't care if I'm copying others if I'm having fun, but I do think studying other people's ways is a good way to find one's own voice, as well as to get ideas for what can work well and what does not.

[Stormcrow]

If the geomorphs and images of Gary's maps are being studied by everyone to learn how to make dungeons, then it's time to do something completely different. You don't want players getting the hang of how your dungeon works!

[Deleted]

Apr 15, 2014 13:22:39 GMT -6 inkmeister said:

I like the idea of smaller levels. One could have a great level of complexity just in the various linkages between levels, while having an approach conducive to every level having a unique theme or feel. For me, it feels less of a burden to plan out a smaller level, than to feel like I need to come up with a bunch of cool stuff appropriate for a first level. I like the idea. I also admit to wandering how representative the sample map is of a typical Gygax level. The geomorphs seem to indicate that the sample map is not typical at all, as well as some of the Gygax map images floating around on the net. Still, I like the small level concept. I've found (with some of the maps I've posted on this forum in the past), that the dense geo-morph style maps are very confusing for my players, and not a great deal of fun in play. I think simpler maps and smaller levels are more the ticket for my players.

As to being original versus being a copy-cat: I don't care if I'm copying others if I'm having fun, but I do think studying other people's ways is a good way to find one's own voice, as well as to get ideas for what can work well and what does not.

Well, dungeon maps are supposed to be difficult to map and confusing, which is why the geomorphs are like that. As originally played the challenge of navigating with incomplete/incorrect information was part of the challenge/fun. YMMV.

But I do like the idea of many smaller levels. You could even have multiple Level 'n', for instance, and part of the challenge is how they're connected topographically. And just like the shape of a level might provide clues to the location of secret doors et al, the location of the parts of the level might give clues to where to find other levels, etc.

[benoist]

Apr 9, 2014 15:35:38 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Each of Gary's levels was 1 or 2 pages of 8 1/2 x 11 graph paper at 6 squares to the inch.

This. Ernie's maps look the same. Usually 1 page entirely filled, with not much negative space at all.

Like this map of Gary's:



Extracted from this picture:

[benoist]

I like to vary the sizes of my levels. Both small and large have their role to play in the exploration process, IMO. Variety is the spice of life. Now the Hobby Shop Dungeon maps are large, in part because it is the nature of the original, and also to provide the room to include small levels and extensions in between, at the referee's heart's content.

[tetramorph]

geoffrey, thanks for posting this. I realize from other posts that dungeon levels probably "ought" to be the gigantic ones we are used to. However, the main point of your post is freeing to me. It just helped me generate a quick dungeon without unbelievable labor. Thanks.

[tetramorph]

I just had another thought generated by this thread:

What if you decide on your carefully placed m&t, then roll up your random ones first, that is to say, before drawing the map of the dungeon?

That way, you can design the dungeon (18 or so rooms) to match what you designed and rolled up. I hate it when I roll up a giant in a 10X10 room. This avoids that and could build some really fantastical designs.

What do y'all think? Is that against the "spirit" of things? Against a "true" od&d feel?

I want to give it a try.

[Deleted]

I don't roll randomly for monsters in the dungeon usually, and if I got a giant in a 10 x 10 room I'd re roll.

In fact, I wouldn't roll for a 10 x 10 room, even if I were rolling for monsters.

[geoffrey]

Oct 11, 2014 13:24:58 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

What if you decide on your carefully placed m&t, then roll up your random ones first, that is to say, before drawing the map of the dungeon?

That way, you can design the dungeon (18 or so rooms) to match what you designed and rolled up. I hate it when I roll up a giant in a 10X10 room. This avoids that and could build some really fantastical designs.

What do y'all think? Is that against the "spirit" of things? Against a "true" od&d feel?

I love it. To quote from one of my favorite RPG books of all time: "If the creature's abilities suggest a certain environment, that environment should be present. A creature can drive the setting in this way." (from p. 27 of The Random Esoteric Creature Generator by James Edward Raggi IV)

[EdOWar]

Looking at the close up of the Gygax dungeon map, it appears that many of the rooms have the save number key (I count at least seven instances of '2' on the map). Is it safe to assume all those rooms had the same monster encounters? For instance, maybe the '2' area of the dungeon is where the orcs hang out, so each room had Xd6 orcs in them? Or am I interpreting that completely wrong?

[Merctime]

Oct 11, 2014 13:24:58 GMT -6 tetramorph said:

What if you decide on your carefully placed m&t, then roll up your random ones first, that is to say, before drawing the map of the dungeon?

That way, you can design the dungeon (18 or so rooms) to match what you designed and rolled up. I hate it when I roll up a giant in a 10X10 room. This avoids that and could build some really fantastical designs.

What do y'all think? Is that against the "spirit" of things? Against a "true" od&d feel?

I felt the need to mirror geoffrey on this one. I love this idea, too! It's precisely the sort of method I'm using for a dungeon I'm working on currently. The 'drawing-the-map-after' thing is really, really, helping out.

[aldarron]

The mother of all dungeons, Blackmoore has but 8 keyed rooms on level 1, and two or three unkeyed. Level three has 18 rooms, plus again two or three unkeyed. Other levels have over 50 rooms.

[tetramorph]

Gronan, right. I usually plan rooms too. I was just going with a.) the spirit of the OP, and b.) experimenting with how to make sense of the kind of randomly generated dungeons implicit in the rules. Right. Yes, I would reroll a giant in a 10X room. That is my point. The random monster generator in M&T is very unsatisfactory to me just exactly because of how often I feel like I need to reroll. Some 10X10 spaces have some nasty little things waiting in them. That said, you are right of course. I probably wouldn't even plan a 10X room. I was exaggerating to make a point. I hate how the inter webs doesn't convey tone very well.

Geoffrey, right. Thanks for getting the spirit of my post.

Merctime, I'd be curious to see what you come up with -- I mean especially in terms of how it influences your "architecture"!

Aldarron, rad point.

[blackbarn]

I tried this method, geoffrey, making a few sample levels using your formula. They turned out all right, but I found it hard to limit myself to that number of rooms and also make it a dungeon I was happy with visually and from an "interesting to explore" standpoint. I believe I did it, but it was difficult. You really have to think ahead and plan it out more than usual (or at least I did.) My normal freely-drawn dungeon levels will have about 30-40 or more rooms, so this is a real change. Interesting experiment though!

Tetramorph, I have tried that method, too, but I just don't find it as satisfying for the way I work. I think it's a valid approach, though, and does eliminate some issues with stocking it afterwards instead. Though you could always randomly generate your room contents and then assign those to where they make sense rather than limit yourself to rolling for each room specifically.