Fandomaniac
Level 4 Theurgist
I've come here to chew bubblegum and roll d20's and I'm all out of bubblegum.
Posts: 191
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Post by Fandomaniac on Jan 31, 2009 10:12:36 GMT -6
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sham
Level 6 Magician
Posts: 385
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Post by sham on Jan 31, 2009 22:56:25 GMT -6
Thanks Rob! Glad you are getting some mileage from the idea. I'd like to mention that Amityville Mike has also really embraced the concept, and is making great strides with his own dungeon: poleandrope.blogspot.com/I've got all of the PDF's for The Dismal Depths available at my blog under the "Shams' OD&D Stuff" section.
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Post by Zulgyan on Feb 1, 2009 0:02:16 GMT -6
I'm loving these and I'm feeling tempeted to convert my dungeon notes into these and share them. They quite fit the model in fact!
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Post by chgowiz on Feb 1, 2009 15:16:01 GMT -6
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Fandomaniac
Level 4 Theurgist
I've come here to chew bubblegum and roll d20's and I'm all out of bubblegum.
Posts: 191
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Post by Fandomaniac on Feb 1, 2009 15:34:07 GMT -6
You can get really creative with these and I'm finding this "less is more" approach matches my prefered method of refereeing. No more 30+ pages of game notes for me. Just a few of these, my adventure log and I'm done. I also love the the One-Page Wilderness Template. I hope more people jump on board with these and post them online for others to check out. Someone should start a One-Page Dungeon/Wilderness website showcasing these. That would be awesome!
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Post by amityvillemike on Feb 1, 2009 17:00:18 GMT -6
I'm having possibly an unhealthy amount of fun writing up a dungeon in this style. Doing each dungeon level in this manner is akin to eating potato chips: it's hard to stop with just one!
I found that that being able to focus on just a single 300' x 300' section of each dungeon level at a time cuts down on the sense of being overwhelmed by the huge size of the megadungeon, which was a problem for me from time to time. I like fleshing things out episodically, rather than in one go, which keeps me focused on what I'm doing at the moment and not thinking overmuch about the next level down. I trying very hard this year to cut down on any extraneous design work that doesn't concern the immediate goals and situation of the party, and this style helps keep my on track.
My only problem is that I like to inlcude a lot of random tables and other weirdness in my dungeon design, so I haven't been able to make my own work a pure One-Pager, sprawling out onto two pages for each quadrant. But that just shows the adaptability of this method of dungeon notation and is certainly better than my prior 30+ pages of typed notes for each dungeon level.
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Fandomaniac
Level 4 Theurgist
I've come here to chew bubblegum and roll d20's and I'm all out of bubblegum.
Posts: 191
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Post by Fandomaniac on Feb 1, 2009 19:06:58 GMT -6
Speaking of awesome dungeons, Amityville Mike, I've been visiting your blog daily eagerly waiting for the next Stonehell dungeon segment. If anyone hasn't seen Amityville Mike's dungeon, stop what you are doing, visit The Society of Torch, Pole and Rope and check it out.
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Post by jimlotfp on Feb 2, 2009 7:03:16 GMT -6
But that just shows the adaptability of this method of dungeon notation and is certainly better than my prior 30+ pages of typed notes for each dungeon level. Do you still have any of these?
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Post by amityvillemike on Feb 2, 2009 7:58:14 GMT -6
But that just shows the adaptability of this method of dungeon notation and is certainly better than my prior 30+ pages of typed notes for each dungeon level. Do you still have any of these? Some of them. The first two levels of of the Dungeon Formerly Known as Nameless run around 45 & 40 pp. each and I have bits and pieces of dungeons dating from before my return to the hobby, but those are not complete manuscripts.
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Post by amityvillemike on Feb 2, 2009 11:31:19 GMT -6
Speaking of awesome dungeons, Amityville Mike, I've been visiting your blog daily eagerly waiting for the next Stonehell dungeon segment. Thanks, Fandomaniac. The next installment's on the way. Look for it by week's end.
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Fandomaniac
Level 4 Theurgist
I've come here to chew bubblegum and roll d20's and I'm all out of bubblegum.
Posts: 191
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Post by Fandomaniac on Feb 2, 2009 19:42:59 GMT -6
Thanks, Fandomaniac. The next installment's on the way. Look for it by week's end. Thanks Amityville Mike, I'm looking forward to it.
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Post by Zulgyan on Feb 3, 2009 1:40:35 GMT -6
Sham's trap tables are a little gem no one should miss! Nice work! Will use!
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sham
Level 6 Magician
Posts: 385
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Post by sham on Feb 3, 2009 15:05:20 GMT -6
Thanks Zulgyan! Good to see you poking around these parts again.
I'm sending you a PM by the way!
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Fandomaniac
Level 4 Theurgist
I've come here to chew bubblegum and roll d20's and I'm all out of bubblegum.
Posts: 191
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Post by Fandomaniac on Feb 3, 2009 21:41:11 GMT -6
Sham's trap tables are a little gem no one should miss! Nice work! Will use! Yes, Sham/Dave's Trap Tables are very cool.
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Fandomaniac
Level 4 Theurgist
I've come here to chew bubblegum and roll d20's and I'm all out of bubblegum.
Posts: 191
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Post by Fandomaniac on Feb 7, 2009 10:27:49 GMT -6
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sham
Level 6 Magician
Posts: 385
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Post by sham on Feb 7, 2009 14:43:36 GMT -6
Thanks Fandomaniac. Glad you're enjoying the project thus far. I'll be adding more in the near future after some more pressing projects are wrapped up.
My 14 year old wants to play later today, so I'll be grabbing The Dismal Depths, Men & Magic and a handful of dice and doing some ol' fashioned dungeon crawling.
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Post by amityvillemike on Feb 7, 2009 23:32:27 GMT -6
Just as an FYI: Orbitfiles (which hosts both Sham and my own .pdfs of the dungeons) is having issues at the moment. They seem to have started at around 5 pm EST on Saturday and they're still having issues at 12:30 am this morning. Hopefully this will be resolved soon, but it's all on the host's end, so...
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2009 13:41:49 GMT -6
I think there is some amazing enthusisam about this project, but I'm a little confused -- is the key idea that a megadungeon can be broken up into smaller geomorphic chunks rather than one huge map?
In other words, what makes this different from just covering a dining room table with a huge map and working from there? Is it just the one-page-per-chunk model?
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Post by Random on Feb 8, 2009 21:41:05 GMT -6
I felt the need to exalt sham, and chgowiz too whenever I can. This is a nifty idea and I love the template. I saved a blank version (just the grid and section borders) to print out at my leisure. I hope it will help me organize myself better!
As a side note, I can only find 4 squares per inch graph paper, anywhere! So having something to print out with a nicer grid is always good.
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sham
Level 6 Magician
Posts: 385
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Post by sham on Feb 8, 2009 23:37:53 GMT -6
I think there is some amazing enthusisam about this project, but I'm a little confused -- is the key idea that a megadungeon can be broken up into smaller geomorphic chunks rather than one huge map? In other words, what makes this different from just covering a dining room table with a huge map and working from there? Is it just the one-page-per-chunk model? Your question kind of answers the why of it all. Using a huge map that covers a dining room table simply isn't handy while running a game. My idea was a single sheet that's extremely user friendly. No page flipping, no looking for wandering monsters tables, and a dead-easy restock table that can be used on the fly, with the map on the same page as the room descriptions. Actually designing and running these one-pagers has changed the way I play. It has forced me to pursue an economy of words in design, and it exercises my creative, ad lib side during play. If I could add a few more tables, I'd consider a trappings table, and possibly an events or mood table. Not having those makes me have to invent stuff on the spot even more, though. Essentially, you are correct in your take. My own project has the dungeon levels broken down into quadrants. There's nothing stopping you from making each page a level unto itself. In reality, each is a mini-level, despite the fact that they might be physically "on the same level". The one-page has also allowed me to create regions upon the same level, some with an obvious theme, others with an indeterminate theme. The Wandering Monster result has a 2in6 native check before rolling on the table itslef. The native check enforces the theme, and makes sense when using the restock table as it ensures the fact that the natives maintain control of the region to which they are attached. In game prep is where these things shine for me. I grab a handful of one-pagers, Men & Magic, and some dice. I've never been able to set-up and game so quickly before. It's just another way of drawing and organizing your dungeons.
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Post by dwayanu on Feb 9, 2009 3:52:49 GMT -6
I wrote here (bottom of page; see next page for more observations from Sham / Dave) : One led to the other. By "mapping the fill," I meant coming up first with interesting situations -- and then drawing a map appropriate to those. As a consequence: (A) The "key" was immediately relevant to a design process that went back and forth between writing those notes and drawing the map. (B) I found it less distracting to have just the relevant area before me at one time. It's like working with a "subsector" map in Traveller. A basic factor is that the "fill" is ultimately what's critical for adventure. A good proportion of nondescript rooms has merits, but there's little point to something like the huge maps in the Ruins of Undermountain set without likewise a good proportion of interesting encounters! For what it's worth, I use an "x, y" coordinate system for my maps. Thus, Level One's (-1, +1) is to the northwest of (0,0).
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Post by jimlotfp on Feb 9, 2009 4:06:16 GMT -6
Some of them. The first two levels of of the Dungeon Formerly Known as Nameless run around 45 & 40 pp. each and I have bits and pieces of dungeons dating from before my return to the hobby, but those are not complete manuscripts. Well don't sit on these.
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Post by dwayanu on Feb 9, 2009 8:41:41 GMT -6
One approach the templates facilitate is just to start "brainstorming" locations, then edit the result into a key. I had grown accustomed to doing that longhand, but using the word processor has proven speedier (and saves paper)! I can then print out the document and draw the map in the space provided. Having everything on one sheet is very convenient, and more fits with the compact grid and type.
One possible drawback is that one needs ink in the printer to get a hard copy, but foresight should take care of that.
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Post by amityvillemike on Feb 9, 2009 11:01:55 GMT -6
I'll echo a lot of what sham and dwayanu mentioned. I really took to this method for a few reasons. One is that I've been trying very hard for the last six months to try and pare down my dungeon notes from the bad habit of over-detailing I acquired, mostly thanks to reading published modules. I found that I was writing way too much (including the dreaded "boxed text") and that was beginning to eat away at my enjoyment of actually building the dungeon. Secondly, with the quadrant system, I can remain focused on a 300' x 300' section and not get overwhelmed with what I still have to stock on the rest of the level. It also gets me thinking about using certain themes or monsters as the central focus for each quarter of the dungeon, which I like doing, even when it doesn't quite work out as well as I had hoped. Lastly, I'm trying to let the dungeon grow more organically through play rather than through time spent away from the game table and at the design desk. I'd rather incorporate things made up on the fly after the game session than plot much of it out before hand and possible waste time on things that I won't need.
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Post by amityvillemike on Feb 9, 2009 11:03:27 GMT -6
Some of them. The first two levels of of the Dungeon Formerly Known as Nameless run around 45 & 40 pp. each and I have bits and pieces of dungeons dating from before my return to the hobby, but those are not complete manuscripts. Well don't sit on these. I've got pots cooking on the stove and have plans to start serving those meals as soon as I can.
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Post by Finarvyn on Feb 9, 2009 13:40:39 GMT -6
I tossed an exalt to both sham and chgowiz for this as well.
Sometimes it's the simple solutions that nobody else sees that define greatness. Well done!
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Post by dwayanu on Feb 10, 2009 2:51:52 GMT -6
I've run into a big problem with the templates: I cant get a second page! The text just gets cut off at the bottom of the first page. It doesn't run on to a second as I'd expect, and I can't insert a second page.
That's not a problem I've had otherwise with Open Office or Neo Office.
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Post by Random on Feb 10, 2009 9:01:29 GMT -6
I can't be bothered to fiddle with the templates. I just erased the text and printed off blank ones. I'm more creative with a pencil than with keys, so I can just turn over to the back when I run out of room.
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Post by amityvillemike on Feb 10, 2009 9:50:45 GMT -6
I've run into a big problem with the templates: I cant get a second page! The text just gets cut off at the bottom of the first page. It doesn't run on to a second as I'd expect, and I can't insert a second page. That's not a problem I've had otherwise with Open Office or Neo Office. dwayanu, I don't know if this helps, as I turned my One-Page template into a Two-Page template with MS Word and not Open Office, but the template was set up as a series of text boxes. If you contiue typing in the text box, the writing will continue past the border of the box and thus be hidden from view. This would also explain why it doesn't carry on to a second page automatically. I had to insert a new page in Word and create new text boxes to turn the template into a multi-page version. Again, I'm not sure how close Open Office is to Word when it comes to such bells & whistles as text boxes, but this might be the problem (and solution). If you're already aware of the text box situation, please excuse this suggestion. Chgowiz might have a better solution since he created the template, but I hope this might be of some help.
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Post by chgowiz on Feb 10, 2009 10:28:47 GMT -6
As Mike pointed out, the 'areas' on the sheet are text boxes. I tried using tables, but the translation didn't work out so well, and text boxes were the easiest. A text box is it's own entity and doesn't flow text like you might expect. Word won't make a second page.
You can create a second page in Word manually opening the document, hitting Ctrl Home to force the cursor to the page, and then hit ctrl-Enter. You'll have a second blank page that you can work with. You won't have the text boxes on the second page.
Word is hard for making 'forms'. It sees text as "flows" instead of discrete areas. Using the text boxes is a cheat, but then the text boxes don't flow with the text unless you jigger around with them.
The Open Office version works, as far as I can tell, much the same as the Word, except the text boxes are called "frames". I think the text boxes do not wrap, but I don't have OO in front of me right now.
I've used the second page idea, and have copy/pasted the text boxes/frames when I wanted to use both sides of a page (and when I have a duplex printer accessible).
If there's anything else I can do, let me know.
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