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Wish I saw this when I first started DMing, just before Covid, lol. My druid turned into a spider several times during LMoP to scout the dungeons. Of course, that's what the party all voted to do.
I still have fond memories of playing in a one shot where the dm made the map in minecraft of all things and made screenshots of it from above to use as the dungeon map
I had a friend at Uni who drew almost all of her dungeon maps based on Egyptian tombs. We should have noticed earlier. She was a history major, with an emphasis on Egyptology.
A few of my friends wanted to try D&D and me being an experienced DM, I ran a dungeon crawl as a oneshot and they asked to continue the campaign after the dungeon. Now one of the players in this was an architect and commended me for making a dungeon that architecturally made a lot of sense, all the players had fun and this campaign is still running today
Ceilings are very fun, I once ran a kobald dungeon where they lowered the ceilings of all the corridors to 5ft high, that way they could still stand up and fight effectively but all my players had to crawl or crouch it made going from room to room a lot scarier
This is so simple, normal and yet underused. This also gives small characters a moment to shine. Forward gnome fighters, rock on ranger halflings, and beware of the mighty barbarian halfling (also known as the cannibal!)
yea. When my player learned of such a dungeon, she refused to enter it altogether - instead she erected a fake shrine to a gnome god, and when the kobolds attacked it, she followed them through the mountains to find the less trapped back entrance
I loved the "Is Luke arguing with himself again comment?", Very self-aware, good jobs y'all! Also, I was totally that druid this weekend. I turned into a green anole lizard and climbed up into the fortress. I scouted out one room which took about 20 minutes. I looked back at the players and I said, "Should I do another room? I feel like I'm taking up a lot of play time." I was really happy with the other players response! They were basically just like, "Well, this info is going to come in handy later, but, how about one more room and then you come back?" I'd hate to take away my friends' fun and was glad they communicated with me that night. :)
"I turn into a spider and scout the dungeon by crawling on the ceiling!" "Cool, roll initiative." "Wait what?" "There's a gecko. It has surprise. Aaaand, you're lunch."
To add to your point, Natural formations will still have a certain logic to them. For example, a cavern created by running water will likely be more smooth than one formed from tectonic activity.
There are, of course, exceptions to each of these. for example, The Tomb of Horrors has only one way in, and is pretty much linear. Because it's a death gauntlet designed by an evil Lich who wants tomb robbers to run into every single trap.
Yeah, I was thinking about how also temples might have trials that make a path that’s somewhat linear, but it makes sense if the creators of the temple only wanted those that can complete all the trials to get a special treasure at the end.
"Maybe there are no floors." Luke, you have earned an Inspiration Point, and from now on the only safe way to walk through my next dungeon will be to jump from pit trap to pit trap to bonfire, "lest the ground drop out beneath thee and thou art consumed by the void below." :thumbsup:
I liked the idea of the whole dungeon floor being held up by a necromancers skeletons so any pressure on the floor tiles and you fall right through into a pit of skeletons
Or you know, its under construction/renovation so the floors are just the floor joices. Thats both very difficult terrain, and an opportunity for verticality as depending on how many floors are just joices you can shoot arrows/spells, stab spears, ect and jump/fall through or climb around (with difficulty). Or your enemies are a flying race so why not have areas that are intended for flight to use that feature or to keep filthy grounded races away.
I recently started being the DM and my first map was linear, but that was mostly because I had never been the DM before. For anyone just starting, it may be useful to have your first dungeon go without some of these tips until you get a better hold on how to DM
I did a cave in WV once where if you wanted to get past the entrance into the deeper part, you had to go way down this steep slope where it got real tight, and was prone to flooding and deep, thick mud mixed with clay. OR, since it was only about three feet wide, you could shimmy across the top. This saved a ton of time, but at its deepest there were times the drop was almost fifty feet below you.
Wyrmberg in the colour of magic would be good inspiration for area like that, they had rings hammered into the roof of their upside-down mountain and hooked boots to be able to walk upside down on them
This is the best DM advice channel out there, you help me in a though time. Thanks Luke, I want to be the DM cuz of you, I use all(most) of your advice
Secret room has a pair of fossils. I took the root fossil. I knew you would ask if I didn't tell you. I'm second thought, everyone ask anyway. Comments are good for the RUclips algorithm.
Honestly, I'd love to see an "Infinity Train" type dungeon. It'd be pretty linear, but each train cart would be so vastly different. I think that's the only time you could use a linear map.
I did this once, but it was a tower that was made of ancient advanced technology. Each floor was a completely unique setting with weird creatures that used different tactics, different hazards, and obstacles to prevent the battlefields from being "big open area." Amazing what you can do with a 300ft diameter circle.
@@thomaspoteete4119I’m going to be a dm for the first time and I had a temple/dungeon just like this in mind. Each floor being a trial to overcome, but very different on each floor. Glad to see others have done this successfully.
I recall a beautiful moment where a player asked a DM "where do they poo" DM had no idea what was happening. As far as choices go i get it, but i think at level 1 breaking into a tomb type dungeon which is mostly linear is probably best for newer players to avoid the decision paralysis you mentioned. I've seen 10 minute discussions about the virtues of two opposite doors previously.
I remember an old Knights of the Dinner Table comic where the DM was making sure that the dungeon had features like a restroom since he knew his players expected that kind of logistical realism to living dungeon design.
I never forget to put toilets in my dungeons, but one time a player asked me where the smoke of the campfires/kitchen goes. Well, there must be some small holes in the ceiling I guess...
I have only recently discovered you and have to say: I am impressed by how good your videos are! The perfect mix between entertaining and educational. Thank you for your content!
Their is the dungeon core trope Some dungeons are created by Malicious artifact entities As they kill more explorers they grow in size and become even more dangerous
Or even just have a wing of the castle/mansion under renovation so the flooring is torn up so only the joices and beams are left to stand on. This creates difficult terrain (half movement speed unless you want an acrobatics check), grants mobility through the floor both up and down (with checks to see if you make it or fall and get hurt), lets you attack through the floor with various weapons like spears, bows, spell, and some might have disadvantage as swinging sword or axe. Technically you could end up destroying a large part of the floor (say the dumb wizard used fireball, or a barb smashed a bunch of joices) making it harder to reach that door you need to go through.
For the point of the multiple entrances to a dungeon - My DM when we first started playing four years ago. He had a crumbled entrance into a closet that led to the room which the big bad was in. I failed the Dex save to get over the wall and crumbled it making a huge noise. By the time we got into the room the whole dungeon was on top of us. For the point to not having a flat earth.... I made my world flat and the characters love it! So, yeah, take that Luke. LOL. Thanks for the great video! So glad to be a patron of this awesome channel and group!
A "flat" world can still be a "thick" world with plenty of room for changes in elevation... ;) Also, presumably if a flat world is like a really thick pancake then gravity will pull things on top of the pancake down and things on the bottom of the pancake up, and you can have a top-side setting and a bottom-side setting with very little contact between them... Could be like two sides of a coin. You could even use a coin for inspiration. "Hey, does this main continent kinda look like a head?"
I understand the points but some of my most enjoyable dungeons were just a random dungeon that made no sense. Back in 1977 I don't think anyone really thought about dungeons that made sense we would just draw many rooms and halls and fill them with monsters and stuff. Ah the good old days. Anyway Todays crowd does seem to want something that makes more sense, but I know I fall in to the old school a lot of time and just build randomly and then later try to make it fit. Also sometimes Liner can be perspective lot of time there really is only one path but there can be alternate ways to get there that could kill you if you make the wrong choice. Thanks for the Video.
Yeah, I think it's ok to have a dungeon be constrained at the end so you can make it more dramatic. Find 2 "keys" to open the last wing but have surplus amount of keys can reward decisions during exploration while at the same time making sure that the few encounters you work extra hard on are in the game. You don't want to tell your players where you put the most work in so they should definitely go to the dining hall, and your players don't want to miss the ghost hour extravaganza in favor of having 6 identical encounters with 2 mimics in a room.
Architectural purpose and non-linear design are big ones for me. I was particularly inspired by an article at the Alexandrian where he reimagined the Keep on the Shadowfell. So now, if I run a published adventure I tweak the dungeon to be sure to include multiple points of entry, break up points that are highly linear by adding hallways, and including multiple points to access other levels of the dungeon - even ones that sometimes skip some levels. My players sometimes give me grief about doors, but I agree with you that they add drama, provide choices/options, and also may allow for points of refuge/retreat. Many of these seem obvious but they're easy to overlook or forget about when designing your own dungeons. Nice work! P.S. Seeing dragon lairs with 5 or 10ft wide halls cracks me up, especially if there is no obvious external entrance for him to use to quickly escape from. Sure it could squeeze, but what dragon wants the humiliation of having to squeeze through his hallways.
Man! All the mistakes I made when I started back in early days of the hobby. I made those crazy dungeon maps. Then I learned. I am still amazed that some dungeons still make these mistakes. Luke, these were all good points.
Hi! I just started a game, as the voluntold GM. With ONE session of unsuccessful game play like 4 years ago as the only experience. I'm so glad I found this channel, and if you suddenly see all your likes/watch numbers go up, its because I'm watching them over and over and over and... Thank you!!!
I got two dungeons made from a random generator.. and the purpose of the dungeon is to be labyrinthian in nature... so it works for me XD I did design purposed rooms for my more special locations
Love all that points! Greatly agree! Especially i love the part about how people confuse making it realistic, dangerous and complicates (so not everything can be done all the time etc.) with "ruining your players fun". I don't know why but it often seems that players should be able to do whatever they want, however they what and it has to work or else it "is not fun" even if every spark of logic, realism, physics, etc. is against it. Sadly i once designed a very linear dungeon like "it's one way with some rooms to explore left and right" because it was ment to be played in less then 4 hours in one evening. My group still needed 3 whole evenings to escape from it (they where kept hostage inside) and somehow where not able realise it's that easy. But they also tried to fight much too highlevel monsters guarding the rooms instead of run away and take them as a reason to hurry up. I just assume a dungeon with multiple entrances and ways would've took them a whole month to solve and it's very likely they died by trying so...🤷♂
The first dungeon map I’ve made, is a mine that was taken over by Kobalts. One of the most interesting ideas I came up with is not far into the mine they’ll come across the room where they’ll actually get a jump on a few Kobalts because they’re too busy using pickaxes on a specific spot of the wall. If the players decide to see what was so important they can actually discovered that if they themselves decide to finish their work say an hour long, they will actually open a passage that bypasses a decent chunk of the mine.
A few things riffing on your excellent points: I tend to give characters with Perception expertise the ability to "passively" detect secret doors. The check is +5 DC to find it, but I'll often just say "Louvin Lightfinger should make a Perception Check" and say "you see some strange cracks in the wall, with a slight outline". This helps push the game forward as well as reward that PC. Quite honestly I wish expertise had been more like that than just a roll bonus boost, as it would have kept bounded accuracy more intact but made characters with Expertise qualitatively better. Ceilings really make a difference, especially for flying creatures. (I wish for winged creatures they'd made them Large for movement purposes or something like that, which would have been a nice disadvantage for fliers like aaracokcra.) I also do things like narrow corridors, difficult terrain, etc. All of these things help characters who have movement abilities. In an outdoors environment, trees, clouds, and the like can definitely help with that. Doors help a ton so that Arcane Eye is still useful but it leaves some spots harder to deal with. The Arcane Eye then helps push things along by showing lots of the map, but not all of it. It gives the PC who has it a good reward but doesn't gut the PCs who are invested in other methods of exploration.
Well, after designing and running my first proper dungeon this past Friday, I can safely say... I hit a _few_ of these. Each room did have a purpose, if in some cases a minimal one. There was one secret room with hints to the puzzles accessed by a breakable wall, although that was admittedly the only deviation from the otherwise linear path (a winding path through a series of rooms that basically formed the shape of a Legend of Zelda rupee). The first battle arena had three raised platforms for three of the five Kenkus inside to shoot from, although the other rooms were lacking in notable features save for the secret room having a table (upon which rested a candle, which was itself the hint to Puzzle 1's riddle, and a piece of parchment with a vague hint to the second puzzle's solution.) I didn't specify the height of the ceilings, although it wasn't strictly necessary, and I did have specified doors to each room. Even before watching this, I was kicking myself for not coming up with environmental features in Battle 2, since I'd gambled on more than the two confirmed players to show up (lesson learned), and they seriously needed a leg up against the giant crocodile even after I heavily nerfed its damage output.
I always draw out my maps in pencil on graph paper before committing them to dry erase on a full size dungeon map. This allows me to consider architectural layout, optional paths, functionality, traps, doors, etc... in small scale before going full 5'×5' squares in marker.
Essential rooms for the original occupants (and current) to live in ex: Latrines, kitchen, washing, bath, laundry, garbage disposal, airflow, water, food storage, general storage. And an easy way for those who dwell there to get around (such as a way to disarm traps or an easy to walk safe path that can be memorized, etc.) If people live there they need to be able to comfortable LIVE in the location! Obvious exception A wizards tower and the wizard has/had prestidigitation does not need : bathroom, latrine OR laundry as they do ALL that with the cantrip! Probably still has a chamber pot the clean with presto however!
Right! These are often ignored or forgotten, likely waved off, but these add to the verisimilitude. The need for these things vary depending on the purpose of the dungeon and who created it. Fun stuff to think about.
I made a linear dungeon once, and railroaded them into it, BUT it made sense thematically. It was an escape room. There was a bunch of challenges they needed to complete, and along the way they also found puzzles and boxes etc and the puzzles provided keys or codes to unlock the boxes (those were all real btw, and the players had to actually solve them) My favourite was the room that you could see into from the outside, but as soon as you went in, you were blinded. When they worked out that the person in the room had to be directed by someone outside of the room, I had them get up and actually do it irl
One thing I love to do with elevation - is turn the map sideways! Instead of top down view of the map try a side view of the map like super mario brothers type side view. This allows the players to climb up and down. Great for huge tall things or deep cave exploration.
These are such good tips. I ran an adventure I made that took place in an old mansion built over a natural cave system. My players went in through a window instead of the door, avoiding the alarms that would have gone off purely by chance. And since the place was inhabited by a cult that worshipped a succubus, a lot of adult things happened. The players barely fought anything for the first half of the adventure, but it was fun for everyone. All the little details made it work: even restrooms and a pretty elaborate bath. And a gelatinous trap where hilarity ensued. So, fellow DMs, make things that make sense, add details that keep it interesting, and let the players have fun. A game is about what you can do, but when there are no limits, there is no fun.
I love making dungeons. I would also add, try to think of your dungeon in 3 dimensions. Can you hear what's up above or down below? A puzzle can have a solution that you do something above that affects another directly below. Sometimes an above room can overlook a room below. On the ceiling, you may be able to design a chandelier that can be triggered to drop on players or monsters. A weakened floor may lead to a room below or reveal a secret area if broken. Dungeons should be 3 dimensional.
I don't want to add an angry comment. 🙂 This is a great video with a tone of great advice. I am still new to being the DM but thought as tip 13: The ceiling of one room can be the floor of another - one of the players wants to break through or uses an ability which affects another part of the dungeon. So another tip could be: add changes to the dungeon which can be caused by the players?
Seriously, you would be a wonderful teacher, teaching interesting (and sometimes not so much) stuff in a very funny and comedian way, making it very enjoyable. Thanks very much (=
I built a 6 floor dwarf fortress. Apart from the first floor, there were multiple ways to go up and down levels. They had to backtrack plenty of times (intended) to go get keys and such. It was a golem and siege weapon factory, with a service elevator to move equipment from the forges on the bottom level (lava, free forges and materials), to the workshop floors. Barracks up on the top level. It was made from an old mining camp and smelting facility that had been abandoned due to some earthquakes, and repurposed into a fortress/factory by the duergar who inhabited it.
Didn't you have a video not long ago that said the Dungeon master didn't have to make sense? Besides that, great video. Btw, arcane eye and transforming into spiders to scout the area are great but you can allow for mixing those tactics and having open paths for part of the dungeon and doors in other parts.
Toilets. Unless inhabitants lack digestive system. Use otyughs or gelatinous cubes for a more fantasy cleanup. Stone walls should be thicc. No more dungeons with "this line is the wall". Use real medieval castles as reference. Windows. Use outdoor lighting for indoor lighting. Bonus: Can also be used to enter or exit a room. And for defenestrations. Love that word.
When I ran my first dungeon, the part was 3/4 new players. To make it easier on all of us, this first dungeon was linear, and set up as a series of trials and a guide that led them through. In the last room, the treasure room, the guide closed the door and revealed himself to be a wight and attacked them
I hope you at least gave them some clues to that beforehand. I had an NPC that ran away and was wanted by the local black dragon, the players track the NPC down and found he hired a guide. The guide was going to lead him into the dungeon they were looking for (everyone was lost and needed a map). Players took the NPC to the black dragon to pay for him trespassing on her swamp and brutally murdered him... She didn't react. She then offers the players again to lead them to the place and she knows when the place can actually open up (during low tide unless you want to swim in, so periodically the entrance is covered with rushing water) and she knew all these things about it like she's been there. Later in the dungeon the players are setting off all these traps and shes cooking in the back still as a guide and not participating in combat. When they ask her for info inside the dungeon suddenly she's out of info to give and was never here before.. (place was considered to have a grand library, so they'd likely find a map here). I specifically kept changing her story because she was a Yaun ti, trying to lure them into their poison trap infested dungeon to be easy prey and pickings... And that was easy as pie because they never cared to remember the details nor bring them up. Many traps inside, many including closed chests... Like hmmm why are there so many chests around in perfect view all booby trapped??? I have one player who didn't play in that game but could've and I'm very certain he would've picked up on the ever changing story and excuses. It's actually very hard to trick him and not cause he's a veteran or anything or he expects cliches at every corner but because he pays attention and questions things openly. Recently had an ogre found looking at a dead dwarf, upset that it's dead. The players spoke giant and talked with him. Ogre said a nearby fire giant is in bed of dwarves to work the volcanic forge and he gets a whole cute per dwarf he brings in but he's not allowed to eat the dwarves. Now I didn't think on this but I'm sure the fact it's an ogre looking for dwarves and not dwarves advertising the opportunity tipped him off that the dwarves possibly aren't able to leave. He's 100% on point, they're being kept as serfs, maybe slaves. There's much more benefit if you drop hints now and again for them. Doesn't need to be complex but still
@@elgatochurro the wight wore a cloak, but was described as very pale and wrinkled. He also had first hand knowledge of the man who gathered the treasure, which happened about 200 years prior
I had an evil Sorcerer/Cleric of Auril and my group created a guild called the Argent Legion (original, I know). The group was mostly good or neutral and we were working together to stop Tiamat at the time. I started out helping the group as a guide through the Icewind Dale and realising she could use them to push her own agenda of ensuring the world was prepared for Auril's coming, along with the eternal winter she was adamant would follow. So... I started building a secret temple to Auril beneath my bedchambers in our guild hall. The guild hall was in the middle of Neverwinter. I would use silence to cover any noise and I would repair the hole in my floor using Wall of Stone. Over time, (around 6 months in real life over each downtime session, or using my cultists when not) I expanded the dungeon beneath our very guild halls, in exactly the same manner that you see in those old-time maps lol. I have used the character since and while she's among my favourites, I intend at some point to run an adaptation of Rime of the Frostmaiden which came out towards the end of the campaign we were playing. In that, I would adapt it to base it from Neverwinter and focus on the dungeon from beneath the guild halls. The group will play as members of the same guild and have to thwart my old character and end her plans to essentially bring about the end of days. That would include 'finding' the temple, which no one knows exists.
I remember reading Keith Amman's How to defend your lair and being struck by something akin to: "Why would kobolds not build a lair with 5-6ft ceilings?". It just made sense! And then it becomes a challenge normal-sized players have to fight through.
At 53 years old I've been DMing since 1982 and my favorite thing to do is break tropes. Terrasque at levels 1 to 3, fighting dragons at level 4, r/n at lvl 5 headed into underdark literally kidnapped by dueggar and railroaded into a drow prison and made to smootg the walls along the tunnels made by purple worms. Oops. ZARGON! I SMASH TROPES, YOU LAZY SLEAZY TWERP. GOOD VID, NICE TIPS FOR GREEN LEAVES. KEEP IT UP! CHEERS,
actually a one-way in dungeon can work if done right I once designed a Snake Temple (Ohm / Chult Style) with 4-5 rooms straight in, with statues (some made of beautiful marble, a lot of them stone) with exits to other rooms blocked of by a gigantic stone snake (a gigantic one, Harry Potter Basilisk style) at the end of the last room, a Medusa waited for the players, after they killed her, all stone statues awakened, slipped away and they had to go to the rest of the dungeon, exploring different rooms with traps and the risk of the snake people that came back to life ambushing them at any moment with the final confrontation being the giant Basilisk that destroyed their exit after coming back to life earlier
While I generally create maps that are good at keeping players on point, I also tend to give a plethora of options for them to explore. Mostly, it depends on the players stance through the dungeons. If it's a sweep and clean group, you need more linear and fewer choices, or the dungeon becomes a long slog through the baddies. If they are more on point, and searching for the right path, choke points, and bolt holes for long rests, they get more choices to augment the play of the search. Blind passages, dead ends, connecting passages to other caverns or entrances to the underdark, and sometimes a back door out. Don't be afraid to let your players get hopelessly lost in the caverns and need to backtrack a day or two. Some passages can even be one way due to natural challenges, but the greatest thing to build in is fun. 9:28 and just as a side note, my game world IS flat... doesn't mean the dungeons have to be.
You're right bacon is delicious! Today I realized most dungeons must be built structures when I'm thinking Dungeons equal Caves and caverns. Not sure where I got that impression since I've actually played the game!
I always make sure to include a kitchen, sleeping quarters, latrines and a cellar in my dungeon meant to be used (be it repurposed or originally owned) by social creatures. It give the players a sense of really exploring / sneaking in the foe’s base. Also, an armoury for civilised races. No one other than the guards is spending one’s day in full armour at “home”.
I am a new DM and I don't really have much experience as a player, but I think is worth volunteering even without the experience and I just want to tha k you for all your great advice, I try to make notes of all the tips you keep giving ❤❤❤
I was that druid, and my DM wasn't stoked I found the shortest route through his sewer maze by wild shaping into a squirrel, rolled well on a nature check to determine direction by looking at the sun through a sewer gate and heading to the west chamber in a few minutes.
Sometimes a long twisty passage joining two rooms makes a lot of sense. Hezekiah's Tunnel in Jerusalem was built from opposite ends and met in the middle. As it gets closer to the meeting the diggers started adding zigzags so that they would be more likely to connect.
One puzzle I really like to have that encourages lateral thought and rewards the extra curious is that the players encounter an old crumbly fountain. On top is what was once a beautiful woman holding a sword. The sword is pointed at a wall and while the statue is damaged, the statue isn't in pieces. If the players check that spot the sword is pointed to, they find a treasure trove, a few rather valuable but minor magic items, but a rather decent amount of gold and gems. But the prize is the sword, it can be removed from the statue and has a stronger enchantment than any of the treasures in the secret room. I often make it the woman in the statue as an intelligent dancing sword that was once human.
last night, the rogue tried to close and lock the huge double doors to separate them from some cloud giants, but he wasn't strong enough to push the doors shut, so someone else came to help, and he was seen, and then one of them got pushed back just enough into the room across the hall from those double doors to activate the golems pretending to be statues, triggering a second encounter on top of the first. good times.
I started up a campaign a month ago and these are all valid points. Secret doors/hidden areas. We had so much fun with these recently. Had a shifting room/crypt filling with poison gas that depended on finding a secret control panel to escape. This was the final room of the dungeon, after a few other secret doors. And it all made sense as to why. Linear dungeons. This is tricky to avoid because sometimes it makes sense to have to explore your way through several areas before you find the right way towards the next scene. Along the way, the story/theme unfolds and leads to some sort of climax. Not a fan of stumbling upon the climax of that dungeon in the 3rd room out of 20, then the rest, which is build up, becomes cheap. So this can be difficult. And plays into the general layout/construction of the area being explored - sure it all has to make sense, but building towards some kind of climactic scene should be a thing. It's a big balance of rewarding exploration vs endgame. Doors and elevation changes are great additions. Hell, elevation changes are incredibly satisfying elements. Lots of skills and spells are there waiting to be justified just because of some Archer on a 30' cliff or a chest is underwater in some 60' pit type area.
Two 'dungeons' I designed which break the cardinal rules: 1. Nine chasms. Dead LINEAR, with the only player choices being "do you want to try & cross the corroded bridge & enter the abandoned mine?" (for example). Basically, 9 set locations all in a line. No problem. Players loved it. 2. Gauntlet of the Naked Brotherhood. Players captured by a large sect of crazy religious fanatics, & sent through a small but deadly maze with NO CEILING. Sheer walls, topped with spikes & other obstacles prevent the PCs from climbing out (apart from a couple of secret locations where it might be possible), & meant that the crazy monks could watch the proceedings, & even throw down taunts, garbage, stones etc in certain sections. PCs generated extra entertainment by occasionally attacking the monks with ranged weapons & spells. What a HOOT! 😂
One call-out I would make: A lot of dungeons, tombs, temples, etc., are unplanned. That is, they're built one room at a time. When they need to expand, they choose a wall, start digging, and then build a new room. The new room might have different types of bricks, different types of wood, etc. The time between the first room and the last room being built might have been hundreds of years. You even see this in modern homes. Whole sections are added onto the home, with no architectural consistency at all. Given that, random rooms here and there would make sense.
I'm actually running a game that's all about a dessert world full of ruined cities, tombs, and natural caverns for the party to explore. For the moment they have yet to reach their first dungeon proper, but I was already able to use elevation as a feature on a wilderness random encounter. They traveled through a ravine and got ambushed by a giant vulture who tried to take off with one of their pack mules. The vulture naturally just dive bombed and then tried to fly away with the donkey, and the party had to react quickly to bring it down before it flew out of reach. The tabaxi rogue scrambled up the ravine's slope (difficult terrain so it was half movement but they could do it with the doubled movement from feline agility) in order to drop down on the vulture and knock it back down to the ground for the party to pummel it to death. The donkey still died unfortunately but at least this way they were able to butcher it for extra rations and recover their gear rather than losing everything outright.
Forgot something: Bathrooms. Chamberpots, dump-chutes, whatever. All creatures eat, and all creatures excrete. This ties into the whole 'make it make sense' thing, but any space where creatures live or spend a lot of time has to have basic needs met. Either a food source, food storage, or both. A method of disposing of waste. A method of heating and/or cooling Storage for dry goods like blankets, clothe, spare building materials. Dwarf, elf, goblin, dragon, anything and everything needs these things.
If your players are investigating and are about to enter a building or tower, etc, fill your windows with glass and cover them with shutters or curtains. This is the door thing, to stop fliers from mapping and discovering everything before entering. Leave a couple accessible if you want to direct player scouting there. The players can feel good about discovering something early, and you stop them from compromising all of the secrets.
This is one of my favorite DM Lair videos ever! You seemed to really be having fun filming this one, and leaving in a lot of those moments of self-commentary (and editor commentary) only made this THAT much better! Awesome job team! I enjoyed every second! Keep it up! (Floors in dungeons are overrated...)
I ran a party through the tunnels in and under a mountain which was called "The Mountain of Waters" because it was a the source of a sizable river. There were a pair of cave worms tunneling through the upper regions, eating birds that foolishly nested in the rock face. Next was a defiled dwarven temple and burial complex that had been taken over by a necromantically talented vampire serving the main boss. In the region of the complex housing goblins, about 3/4 of the chambers were set aside for the goblins' fungus farms and fishing pool. In the lower region that used to be a dwarven palace the orcs there had defaces the dwarven art, and used a former sitting room as the trade station between their weapon crafters and the goblins' farmers. They also had a hidden access to other underground regions, but the party never found that. Below that was a massive closed cenote-type cave with the spring at the bottom, and in a massive stalagmite in the middle of that spring was the magically carved home of a master vampire who was the overlord of all of the races above. The master vampire had, as gatekeepers, a vampire troll and a water-dwelling dragon. - It took my party nine sessions to get through the place, and two of them barely survived, their main cleric taking an herbally-induced long rest as he was carried on the back of one of the warriors for the descent to the vampire troll.
The dungeon needs doors to block Wizard's Arcane Eye... Have you ever met the duo Wizard Arcane Eye/Other spellcaster Mage Hand ? I did, and i was very happy to remind them Mage Hand is a cantrip with limitations 🤣
Honestly I don't see the big deal. The spell gets you information for a 4th level slot. So what? I don't know why so many DMs are super stingy with information. It's like if a player uses tools to spot the ambush, they suddenly get all upset.
@@taragnor it's a question of measure. Spotting an ambush or scouting a couple rooms is good of course, i dont mind rewarding them for caution... But when someone tries abusing it by like, saying they could clean the whole dungeon without even stepping a foot in it. Or they start to never interact with anything directly to use spells for the most mundane basic stuff. It can slow the game or make it less fun for others. That's why i don't completrly refuse the method. But i just remind the extent of what they can really do with it compared to what sometimes someone will want to. Hoping that cleared up ^^
I have a oneshot planned for my group, they are to escort a prisoner to a special locale to be interrogated, on their way they rest in an old in, build by dwarves and littered with steam pipes (the dwarves used hot springs to heat and pump water through pipes in an arctic climate) now the pipes are derelict and only carry warm air. Turns out an Oblex made his home right here where its warm and nice, ate all the staff and manages the house from the shadows. Using pipes and openings to hide his tentacless and a cover of herbs to hide his smell because "the hot air from the baths carries a nasty sulfur we like to dampen" and the party has to make it through the night and maybe next day without being eaten. I also changed the slimeboi so he can detach his copies for a short while, 1-5 minutes so he can kind of interact stealthily and reach every space, though his facsimiles start dropping at the half way point if not connected. I really hope they bite the plothooks and weird behaviour, I noticed how the roleplaying and talking to npc's was more interesting to them than the most combat encounters.
Yes, floors. Irregular stone of a natural cave, pebbles, dirt, dust, mud (which shows footprints), tiles or blocks with grooves between them, sloping, wooden planks, rough stone left by miners just seeking ore, etc. etc. OR carefully smoothed and leveled for the ball bearing people.
I thought tip 11 was for multiple levels in the dungeon that players need to work their way up/down as they go deeper. This angry post is for you, Al Gorythm!
"Maybe there are no floors" NOW YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION, SIR! lol Imagine that, just a dungeon where everything is dangling above just an abyss... *This gives me an idea.*
I expected things like food prep, sleeping quarters, latrines, food storage, ventilation and water supplies. How about workshops? Even monsters need logistics.
In the fifth edition game I am in we have an awakened spider named webster. When we come to a door if there's a big enough gap for Webster to go through and check out the room for us, we have him do just that.
The dungeon without floor. A cave with super speedy running water with flow that ended near the entrance in a grove in the stone that goes even deeper in the earth and don't seem to have space for air. The party have a underground river as floor, impossible to walk on and swim in it. 10 to 15 ft. height, lair of everything that decided to live there. I can hear the players cursing already. Hihi
Doors being the encounter has become an inside joke in my group. I was running a dungeon with a door that was rusted shut. There was another way into the room they were approaching, but to get through that way they had to fight a band of orcs, which they didn't want to do. So they spend the next twenty minutes trying to get through this DC 12 Strength Check door. The rogue tried to pick the lock, rolled a 1. The Barbarian rolled an 8. The fighter rolled a 6. Finally the Bard remembered she had a crowbar the whole time and they finally got through the door. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. Everytime we come to a locked door, my players ask, "is this the encounter?"
I wish you talked a little more about floors. They are also important. Is it a sand pit that you can throw in the face of your enemies? A dirt floor the druid could burrow through? Creaking floorboards making it hard to stealth? A chasm you need to cross? A rotting floor that might give way any moment? An uneven rocky floor that is difficult terrain? Or is it a boring, nondescript floor?
In a world where shapeshifting and magic floating eyes exist, the residents will design countermeasures sometimes. Like doors. Or spiders that eat other spiders. Guard dogs that are trained to bark at things. There can be a sweet spot between nerfing an ability, and letting the ability be the only useful approach.
glyph of warding on doorway. door swings open. hits glyph. sleep or other favorite malicious spell leading into a trap. use home alone for inspiration.
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Maybe the floor is lava! Or pine cones. Mwhahaha!
@@johnhansen4794 Pine cones that explode into lava when stepped on?
@@MonkeyJedi99 Realistic architecture, yet non-linear... yeah.
Wish I saw this when I first started DMing, just before Covid, lol.
My druid turned into a spider several times during LMoP to scout the dungeons.
Of course, that's what the party all voted to do.
@@johnhansen4794 NO NOT PINECONES
I still have fond memories of playing in a one shot where the dm made the map in minecraft of all things and made screenshots of it from above to use as the dungeon map
This is actually really smart and I think I might have to do this at some point.
especially if you use mods like bibliocraft or something to add more object/furniture to the scene
I've done this for my game before
This reminds me of my current game I'm running where I'm using RimWorld to build and populate dungeon maps!
I used modded minecraft and did this for some kids. I essentially built Undermountain in Minecraft
I had a friend at Uni who drew almost all of her dungeon maps based on Egyptian tombs.
We should have noticed earlier.
She was a history major, with an emphasis on Egyptology.
How was it?
Yesh that's good idea
History majors make great dms
A few of my friends wanted to try D&D and me being an experienced DM, I ran a dungeon crawl as a oneshot and they asked to continue the campaign after the dungeon. Now one of the players in this was an architect and commended me for making a dungeon that architecturally made a lot of sense, all the players had fun and this campaign is still running today
Ceilings are very fun, I once ran a kobald dungeon where they lowered the ceilings of all the corridors to 5ft high, that way they could still stand up and fight effectively but all my players had to crawl or crouch it made going from room to room a lot scarier
This is so simple, normal and yet underused. This also gives small characters a moment to shine. Forward gnome fighters, rock on ranger halflings, and beware of the mighty barbarian halfling (also known as the cannibal!)
Yep, any space made by short creatures for their own use should have this
yea. When my player learned of such a dungeon, she refused to enter it altogether - instead she erected a fake shrine to a gnome god, and when the kobolds attacked it, she followed them through the mountains to find the less trapped back entrance
That and it gives the wizards a good use for the "Reduce" part of enlarge/reduce.....
@@marcusc9931 how did that turn out? Because that’s freaking great roleplay right there
I loved the "Is Luke arguing with himself again comment?", Very self-aware, good jobs y'all!
Also, I was totally that druid this weekend. I turned into a green anole lizard and climbed up into the fortress. I scouted out one room which took about 20 minutes. I looked back at the players and I said, "Should I do another room? I feel like I'm taking up a lot of play time." I was really happy with the other players response! They were basically just like, "Well, this info is going to come in handy later, but, how about one more room and then you come back?" I'd hate to take away my friends' fun and was glad they communicated with me that night. :)
That's the mark of a great player: making sure the other players are having fun, too! :D
"I turn into a spider and scout the dungeon by crawling on the ceiling!" "Cool, roll initiative." "Wait what?" "There's a gecko. It has surprise. Aaaand, you're lunch."
You got a good laugh out of me lol
To add to your point, Natural formations will still have a certain logic to them. For example, a cavern created by running water will likely be more smooth than one formed from tectonic activity.
There are, of course, exceptions to each of these. for example, The Tomb of Horrors has only one way in, and is pretty much linear. Because it's a death gauntlet designed by an evil Lich who wants tomb robbers to run into every single trap.
Acerak knows best
Yeah, I was thinking about how also temples might have trials that make a path that’s somewhat linear, but it makes sense if the creators of the temple only wanted those that can complete all the trials to get a special treasure at the end.
I dunno if I'd use the ToH as an example of good dungeon design. It's a miserable adventure to play through.
@@taragnor Didn't say it was a good design, just that it was an exception to the "Multiple paths" bit.
"Maybe there are no floors." Luke, you have earned an Inspiration Point, and from now on the only safe way to walk through my next dungeon will be to jump from pit trap to pit trap to bonfire, "lest the ground drop out beneath thee and thou art consumed by the void below." :thumbsup:
I liked the idea of the whole dungeon floor being held up by a necromancers skeletons so any pressure on the floor tiles and you fall right through into a pit of skeletons
The warlock big bad was late on his payments, so his patron repo'd his floors. Now all his minions are walking around on the pipes.
Or you know, its under construction/renovation so the floors are just the floor joices. Thats both very difficult terrain, and an opportunity for verticality as depending on how many floors are just joices you can shoot arrows/spells, stab spears, ect and jump/fall through or climb around (with difficulty).
Or your enemies are a flying race so why not have areas that are intended for flight to use that feature or to keep filthy grounded races away.
Flying creatures don't need floors.
Did happen: the floor is lava!
I recently started being the DM and my first map was linear, but that was mostly because I had never been the DM before. For anyone just starting, it may be useful to have your first dungeon go without some of these tips until you get a better hold on how to DM
This has inspired me to make a dungeon that actually doesn't have a floor at all, and see how the PCs tackle that obstacle. Thanks!
Sounds like a great opportunity to use the climbing kit
genius! :D
I did a cave in WV once where if you wanted to get past the entrance into the deeper part, you had to go way down this steep slope where it got real tight, and was prone to flooding and deep, thick mud mixed with clay. OR, since it was only about three feet wide, you could shimmy across the top. This saved a ton of time, but at its deepest there were times the drop was almost fifty feet below you.
Beholder lair
Wyrmberg in the colour of magic would be good inspiration for area like that, they had rings hammered into the roof of their upside-down mountain and hooked boots to be able to walk upside down on them
This is the best DM advice channel out there, you help me in a though time. Thanks Luke, I want to be the DM cuz of you, I use all(most) of your advice
Algorithmic upvote because more people should be watching this channel.
Secret room has a pair of fossils. I took the root fossil. I knew you would ask if I didn't tell you. I'm second thought, everyone ask anyway. Comments are good for the RUclips algorithm.
I too like this video channel. Engagement!
Bump , agreed
Honestly, I'd love to see an "Infinity Train" type dungeon. It'd be pretty linear, but each train cart would be so vastly different. I think that's the only time you could use a linear map.
I did this once, but it was a tower that was made of ancient advanced technology. Each floor was a completely unique setting with weird creatures that used different tactics, different hazards, and obstacles to prevent the battlefields from being "big open area." Amazing what you can do with a 300ft diameter circle.
@@thomaspoteete4119I’m going to be a dm for the first time and I had a temple/dungeon just like this in mind. Each floor being a trial to overcome, but very different on each floor. Glad to see others have done this successfully.
I absolutely love the get into the meat of the video right away. I hope people appreciate the change!
I recall a beautiful moment where a player asked a DM "where do they poo"
DM had no idea what was happening.
As far as choices go i get it, but i think at level 1 breaking into a tomb type dungeon which is mostly linear is probably best for newer players to avoid the decision paralysis you mentioned. I've seen 10 minute discussions about the virtues of two opposite doors previously.
Tip Number 12:
Make A Loo (OR More) For The Bad Guys!🤣
No, provide options, side paths, dead ends and traps.
Give them a feeling of REAL DND that they won't get elsewhere
I remember an old Knights of the Dinner Table comic where the DM was making sure that the dungeon had features like a restroom since he knew his players expected that kind of logistical realism to living dungeon design.
I never forget to put toilets in my dungeons, but one time a player asked me where the smoke of the campfires/kitchen goes. Well, there must be some small holes in the ceiling I guess...
@@Merkorion nice when your players are concerned about goblin health and carbon monoxide poisoning
I have only recently discovered you and have to say: I am impressed by how good your videos are! The perfect mix between entertaining and educational. Thank you for your content!
Their is the dungeon core trope
Some dungeons are created by Malicious artifact entities
As they kill more explorers they grow in size and become even more dangerous
Love your videos. Just got back into being a dm so I've been rewatching a lot of stuff to refresh myself.
A dungeon without floors could be a neat way to make something specifically for the party of all flying races.
Or an interesting challenge for a party with no fly speed at all. Would hardly need any monsters.
Spiders
Wouldn't matter, and no
floating platforms are a thing
Or even just have a wing of the castle/mansion under renovation so the flooring is torn up so only the joices and beams are left to stand on. This creates difficult terrain (half movement speed unless you want an acrobatics check), grants mobility through the floor both up and down (with checks to see if you make it or fall and get hurt), lets you attack through the floor with various weapons like spears, bows, spell, and some might have disadvantage as swinging sword or axe.
Technically you could end up destroying a large part of the floor (say the dumb wizard used fireball, or a barb smashed a bunch of joices) making it harder to reach that door you need to go through.
My, my, someone was cranky today - he he. One thing that should have been included was dungeons should follow a theme; makes the game better.
For the point of the multiple entrances to a dungeon
- My DM when we first started playing four years ago. He had a crumbled entrance into a closet that led to the room which the big bad was in. I failed the Dex save to get over the wall and crumbled it making a huge noise. By the time we got into the room the whole dungeon was on top of us.
For the point to not having a flat earth.... I made my world flat and the characters love it! So, yeah, take that Luke. LOL.
Thanks for the great video! So glad to be a patron of this awesome channel and group!
A "flat" world can still be a "thick" world with plenty of room for changes in elevation... ;)
Also, presumably if a flat world is like a really thick pancake then gravity will pull things on top of the pancake down and things on the bottom of the pancake up, and you can have a top-side setting and a bottom-side setting with very little contact between them...
Could be like two sides of a coin. You could even use a coin for inspiration. "Hey, does this main continent kinda look like a head?"
That was fun to watch. I really like the be realistic but don't forget the unrealistic stuff that makes it fun attitude. Makes sense to me.
I understand the points but some of my most enjoyable dungeons were just a random dungeon that made no sense. Back in 1977 I don't think anyone really thought about dungeons that made sense we would just draw many rooms and halls and fill them with monsters and stuff. Ah the good old days. Anyway Todays crowd does seem to want something that makes more sense, but I know I fall in to the old school a lot of time and just build randomly and then later try to make it fit. Also sometimes Liner can be perspective lot of time there really is only one path but there can be alternate ways to get there that could kill you if you make the wrong choice. Thanks for the Video.
I feel this
Yeah, I think it's ok to have a dungeon be constrained at the end so you can make it more dramatic. Find 2 "keys" to open the last wing but have surplus amount of keys can reward decisions during exploration while at the same time making sure that the few encounters you work extra hard on are in the game. You don't want to tell your players where you put the most work in so they should definitely go to the dining hall, and your players don't want to miss the ghost hour extravaganza in favor of having 6 identical encounters with 2 mimics in a room.
Nothing wrong with a good ol' funhouse dungeon!
Architectural purpose and non-linear design are big ones for me. I was particularly inspired by an article at the Alexandrian where he reimagined the Keep on the Shadowfell. So now, if I run a published adventure I tweak the dungeon to be sure to include multiple points of entry, break up points that are highly linear by adding hallways, and including multiple points to access other levels of the dungeon - even ones that sometimes skip some levels. My players sometimes give me grief about doors, but I agree with you that they add drama, provide choices/options, and also may allow for points of refuge/retreat. Many of these seem obvious but they're easy to overlook or forget about when designing your own dungeons. Nice work!
P.S. Seeing dragon lairs with 5 or 10ft wide halls cracks me up, especially if there is no obvious external entrance for him to use to quickly escape from. Sure it could squeeze, but what dragon wants the humiliation of having to squeeze through his hallways.
THE FLOOR IS LAVA.
Creating a compelling map is something I am trying to improve on, so this was a great video for me. Thanks!
Man! All the mistakes I made when I started back in early days of the hobby. I made those crazy dungeon maps. Then I learned. I am still amazed that some dungeons still make these mistakes. Luke, these were all good points.
Hi! I just started a game, as the voluntold GM. With ONE session of unsuccessful game play like 4 years ago as the only experience. I'm so glad I found this channel, and if you suddenly see all your likes/watch numbers go up, its because I'm watching them over and over and over and...
Thank you!!!
Awesome, happy to be able to help!!!
7:07 Ah, YES. BEAR ROOMS! I hear you loud and clear, stuff the rooms with bears.
I got two dungeons made from a random generator..
and the purpose of the dungeon is to be labyrinthian in nature...
so it works for me XD
I did design purposed rooms for my more special locations
Love all that points! Greatly agree!
Especially i love the part about how people confuse making it realistic, dangerous and complicates (so not everything can be done all the time etc.) with "ruining your players fun".
I don't know why but it often seems that players should be able to do whatever they want, however they what and it has to work or else it "is not fun" even if every spark of logic, realism, physics, etc. is against it.
Sadly i once designed a very linear dungeon like "it's one way with some rooms to explore left and right" because it was ment to be played in less then 4 hours in one evening.
My group still needed 3 whole evenings to escape from it (they where kept hostage inside) and somehow where not able realise it's that easy. But they also tried to fight much too highlevel monsters guarding the rooms instead of run away and take them as a reason to hurry up.
I just assume a dungeon with multiple entrances and ways would've took them a whole month to solve and it's very likely they died by trying so...🤷♂
It has been too many years since I have played D&D. I used to sit for hours making maps. So great to see this video.
The first dungeon map I’ve made, is a mine that was taken over by Kobalts. One of the most interesting ideas I came up with is not far into the mine they’ll come across the room where they’ll actually get a jump on a few Kobalts because they’re too busy using pickaxes on a specific spot of the wall. If the players decide to see what was so important they can actually discovered that if they themselves decide to finish their work say an hour long, they will actually open a passage that bypasses a decent chunk of the mine.
Really good!
This is not my first video that I've seen from you, but it is the one that made me like and subscribe. Nice job.
Fantastic reminders. Keep up the great work.
A few things riffing on your excellent points:
I tend to give characters with Perception expertise the ability to "passively" detect secret doors. The check is +5 DC to find it, but I'll often just say "Louvin Lightfinger should make a Perception Check" and say "you see some strange cracks in the wall, with a slight outline". This helps push the game forward as well as reward that PC. Quite honestly I wish expertise had been more like that than just a roll bonus boost, as it would have kept bounded accuracy more intact but made characters with Expertise qualitatively better.
Ceilings really make a difference, especially for flying creatures. (I wish for winged creatures they'd made them Large for movement purposes or something like that, which would have been a nice disadvantage for fliers like aaracokcra.) I also do things like narrow corridors, difficult terrain, etc. All of these things help characters who have movement abilities. In an outdoors environment, trees, clouds, and the like can definitely help with that.
Doors help a ton so that Arcane Eye is still useful but it leaves some spots harder to deal with. The Arcane Eye then helps push things along by showing lots of the map, but not all of it. It gives the PC who has it a good reward but doesn't gut the PCs who are invested in other methods of exploration.
Well, after designing and running my first proper dungeon this past Friday, I can safely say... I hit a _few_ of these. Each room did have a purpose, if in some cases a minimal one. There was one secret room with hints to the puzzles accessed by a breakable wall, although that was admittedly the only deviation from the otherwise linear path (a winding path through a series of rooms that basically formed the shape of a Legend of Zelda rupee). The first battle arena had three raised platforms for three of the five Kenkus inside to shoot from, although the other rooms were lacking in notable features save for the secret room having a table (upon which rested a candle, which was itself the hint to Puzzle 1's riddle, and a piece of parchment with a vague hint to the second puzzle's solution.) I didn't specify the height of the ceilings, although it wasn't strictly necessary, and I did have specified doors to each room. Even before watching this, I was kicking myself for not coming up with environmental features in Battle 2, since I'd gambled on more than the two confirmed players to show up (lesson learned), and they seriously needed a leg up against the giant crocodile even after I heavily nerfed its damage output.
Parallel mirrors that shows the whole party but one random character
Is a great feature
Love the advice. I frequently have to redo the old school maps to give players a challenge and a choice or just make the dungeon fun.
I always draw out my maps in pencil on graph paper before committing them to dry erase on a full size dungeon map. This allows me to consider architectural layout, optional paths, functionality, traps, doors, etc... in small scale before going full 5'×5' squares in marker.
Yep, time to make a dungeon with no floors now.
I kinda want to make a dungeon with no floors now too
Or maybe the floor is riddled with explosives >:)
The floor is lava
Essential rooms for the original occupants (and current) to live in ex: Latrines, kitchen, washing, bath, laundry, garbage disposal, airflow, water, food storage, general storage.
And an easy way for those who dwell there to get around (such as a way to disarm traps or an easy to walk safe path that can be memorized, etc.)
If people live there they need to be able to comfortable LIVE in the location!
Obvious exception A wizards tower and the wizard has/had prestidigitation does not need : bathroom, latrine OR laundry as they do ALL that with the cantrip! Probably still has a chamber pot the clean with presto however!
Right! These are often ignored or forgotten, likely waved off, but these add to the verisimilitude. The need for these things vary depending on the purpose of the dungeon and who created it. Fun stuff to think about.
I made a linear dungeon once, and railroaded them into it,
BUT it made sense thematically. It was an escape room. There was a bunch of challenges they needed to complete, and along the way they also found puzzles and boxes etc and the puzzles provided keys or codes to unlock the boxes (those were all real btw, and the players had to actually solve them)
My favourite was the room that you could see into from the outside, but as soon as you went in, you were blinded. When they worked out that the person in the room had to be directed by someone outside of the room, I had them get up and actually do it irl
One thing I love to do with elevation - is turn the map sideways! Instead of top down view of the map try a side view of the map like super mario brothers type side view. This allows the players to climb up and down. Great for huge tall things or deep cave exploration.
I did this last session. It really gives the feel of diving into the underdark. I told the players it was a Castevania level.
These are such good tips. I ran an adventure I made that took place in an old mansion built over a natural cave system. My players went in through a window instead of the door, avoiding the alarms that would have gone off purely by chance. And since the place was inhabited by a cult that worshipped a succubus, a lot of adult things happened. The players barely fought anything for the first half of the adventure, but it was fun for everyone. All the little details made it work: even restrooms and a pretty elaborate bath. And a gelatinous trap where hilarity ensued.
So, fellow DMs, make things that make sense, add details that keep it interesting, and let the players have fun. A game is about what you can do, but when there are no limits, there is no fun.
I love making dungeons. I would also add, try to think of your dungeon in 3 dimensions. Can you hear what's up above or down below? A puzzle can have a solution that you do something above that affects another directly below. Sometimes an above room can overlook a room below. On the ceiling, you may be able to design a chandelier that can be triggered to drop on players or monsters. A weakened floor may lead to a room below or reveal a secret area if broken. Dungeons should be 3 dimensional.
I don't want to add an angry comment. 🙂 This is a great video with a tone of great advice. I am still new to being the DM but thought as tip 13: The ceiling of one room can be the floor of another - one of the players wants to break through or uses an ability which affects another part of the dungeon. So another tip could be: add changes to the dungeon which can be caused by the players?
Seriously, you would be a wonderful teacher, teaching interesting (and sometimes not so much) stuff in a very funny and comedian way, making it very enjoyable. Thanks very much (=
I built a 6 floor dwarf fortress. Apart from the first floor, there were multiple ways to go up and down levels. They had to backtrack plenty of times (intended) to go get keys and such.
It was a golem and siege weapon factory, with a service elevator to move equipment from the forges on the bottom level (lava, free forges and materials), to the workshop floors. Barracks up on the top level. It was made from an old mining camp and smelting facility that had been abandoned due to some earthquakes, and repurposed into a fortress/factory by the duergar who inhabited it.
Didn't you have a video not long ago that said the Dungeon master didn't have to make sense? Besides that, great video.
Btw, arcane eye and transforming into spiders to scout the area are great but you can allow for mixing those tactics and having open paths for part of the dungeon and doors in other parts.
13:07 doors don't prevent it either. A spider can go under or between cracks in doors.
Toilets. Unless inhabitants lack digestive system. Use otyughs or gelatinous cubes for a more fantasy cleanup.
Stone walls should be thicc. No more dungeons with "this line is the wall". Use real medieval castles as reference.
Windows. Use outdoor lighting for indoor lighting. Bonus: Can also be used to enter or exit a room. And for defenestrations. Love that word.
When I ran my first dungeon, the part was 3/4 new players. To make it easier on all of us, this first dungeon was linear, and set up as a series of trials and a guide that led them through. In the last room, the treasure room, the guide closed the door and revealed himself to be a wight and attacked them
I hope you at least gave them some clues to that beforehand.
I had an NPC that ran away and was wanted by the local black dragon, the players track the NPC down and found he hired a guide. The guide was going to lead him into the dungeon they were looking for (everyone was lost and needed a map).
Players took the NPC to the black dragon to pay for him trespassing on her swamp and brutally murdered him... She didn't react.
She then offers the players again to lead them to the place and she knows when the place can actually open up (during low tide unless you want to swim in, so periodically the entrance is covered with rushing water) and she knew all these things about it like she's been there.
Later in the dungeon the players are setting off all these traps and shes cooking in the back still as a guide and not participating in combat. When they ask her for info inside the dungeon suddenly she's out of info to give and was never here before.. (place was considered to have a grand library, so they'd likely find a map here).
I specifically kept changing her story because she was a Yaun ti, trying to lure them into their poison trap infested dungeon to be easy prey and pickings... And that was easy as pie because they never cared to remember the details nor bring them up. Many traps inside, many including closed chests... Like hmmm why are there so many chests around in perfect view all booby trapped???
I have one player who didn't play in that game but could've and I'm very certain he would've picked up on the ever changing story and excuses. It's actually very hard to trick him and not cause he's a veteran or anything or he expects cliches at every corner but because he pays attention and questions things openly.
Recently had an ogre found looking at a dead dwarf, upset that it's dead. The players spoke giant and talked with him. Ogre said a nearby fire giant is in bed of dwarves to work the volcanic forge and he gets a whole cute per dwarf he brings in but he's not allowed to eat the dwarves. Now I didn't think on this but I'm sure the fact it's an ogre looking for dwarves and not dwarves advertising the opportunity tipped him off that the dwarves possibly aren't able to leave. He's 100% on point, they're being kept as serfs, maybe slaves.
There's much more benefit if you drop hints now and again for them. Doesn't need to be complex but still
@@elgatochurro the wight wore a cloak, but was described as very pale and wrinkled. He also had first hand knowledge of the man who gathered the treasure, which happened about 200 years prior
Just starting as a DM and Luke's videos have been so helpful in helping me construct my ideas in a way that's engaging for the players :)
Thank you for all the tips. Definitely helps me as a new volen-told DM.
I had an evil Sorcerer/Cleric of Auril and my group created a guild called the Argent Legion (original, I know). The group was mostly good or neutral and we were working together to stop Tiamat at the time. I started out helping the group as a guide through the Icewind Dale and realising she could use them to push her own agenda of ensuring the world was prepared for Auril's coming, along with the eternal winter she was adamant would follow.
So... I started building a secret temple to Auril beneath my bedchambers in our guild hall. The guild hall was in the middle of Neverwinter. I would use silence to cover any noise and I would repair the hole in my floor using Wall of Stone. Over time, (around 6 months in real life over each downtime session, or using my cultists when not) I expanded the dungeon beneath our very guild halls, in exactly the same manner that you see in those old-time maps lol.
I have used the character since and while she's among my favourites, I intend at some point to run an adaptation of Rime of the Frostmaiden which came out towards the end of the campaign we were playing. In that, I would adapt it to base it from Neverwinter and focus on the dungeon from beneath the guild halls. The group will play as members of the same guild and have to thwart my old character and end her plans to essentially bring about the end of days. That would include 'finding' the temple, which no one knows exists.
I remember reading Keith Amman's How to defend your lair and being struck by something akin to: "Why would kobolds not build a lair with 5-6ft ceilings?". It just made sense! And then it becomes a challenge normal-sized players have to fight through.
At 53 years old I've been DMing since 1982 and my favorite thing to do is break tropes. Terrasque at levels 1 to 3, fighting dragons at level 4, r/n at lvl 5 headed into underdark literally kidnapped by dueggar and railroaded into a drow prison and made to smootg the walls along the tunnels made by purple worms. Oops. ZARGON! I SMASH TROPES, YOU LAZY SLEAZY TWERP. GOOD VID, NICE TIPS FOR GREEN LEAVES. KEEP IT UP! CHEERS,
actually a one-way in dungeon can work if done right
I once designed a Snake Temple (Ohm / Chult Style) with 4-5 rooms straight in, with statues (some made of beautiful marble, a lot of them stone) with exits to other rooms blocked of by a gigantic stone snake (a gigantic one, Harry Potter Basilisk style) at the end of the last room, a Medusa waited for the players, after they killed her, all stone statues awakened, slipped away and they had to go to the rest of the dungeon, exploring different rooms with traps and the risk of the snake people that came back to life ambushing them at any moment
with the final confrontation being the giant Basilisk that destroyed their exit after coming back to life earlier
Love your videos. Informative and humorous. Good content sir.
While I generally create maps that are good at keeping players on point, I also tend to give a plethora of options for them to explore. Mostly, it depends on the players stance through the dungeons.
If it's a sweep and clean group, you need more linear and fewer choices, or the dungeon becomes a long slog through the baddies. If they are more on point, and searching for the right path, choke points, and bolt holes for long rests, they get more choices to augment the play of the search.
Blind passages, dead ends, connecting passages to other caverns or entrances to the underdark, and sometimes a back door out. Don't be afraid to let your players get hopelessly lost in the caverns and need to backtrack a day or two. Some passages can even be one way due to natural challenges, but the greatest thing to build in is fun.
9:28 and just as a side note, my game world IS flat... doesn't mean the dungeons have to be.
You're right bacon is delicious! Today I realized most dungeons must be built structures when I'm thinking Dungeons equal Caves and caverns. Not sure where I got that impression since I've actually played the game!
I always make sure to include a kitchen, sleeping quarters, latrines and a cellar in my dungeon meant to be used (be it repurposed or originally owned) by social creatures. It give the players a sense of really exploring / sneaking in the foe’s base.
Also, an armoury for civilised races. No one other than the guards is spending one’s day in full armour at “home”.
I am a new DM and I don't really have much experience as a player, but I think is worth volunteering even without the experience and I just want to tha k you for all your great advice, I try to make notes of all the tips you keep giving ❤❤❤
My current dungeon is a space hulk. huge ships mushed together. so doors are a must, seals off sections to avoid hullbreaches
I was that druid, and my DM wasn't stoked I found the shortest route through his sewer maze by wild shaping into a squirrel, rolled well on a nature check to determine direction by looking at the sun through a sewer gate and heading to the west chamber in a few minutes.
Sometimes a long twisty passage joining two rooms makes a lot of sense. Hezekiah's Tunnel in Jerusalem was built from opposite ends and met in the middle. As it gets closer to the meeting the diggers started adding zigzags so that they would be more likely to connect.
I'm guessing they weren't dwarves, J.
One puzzle I really like to have that encourages lateral thought and rewards the extra curious is that the players encounter an old crumbly fountain. On top is what was once a beautiful woman holding a sword. The sword is pointed at a wall and while the statue is damaged, the statue isn't in pieces. If the players check that spot the sword is pointed to, they find a treasure trove, a few rather valuable but minor magic items, but a rather decent amount of gold and gems. But the prize is the sword, it can be removed from the statue and has a stronger enchantment than any of the treasures in the secret room. I often make it the woman in the statue as an intelligent dancing sword that was once human.
Nice to see someone still rocking the solo left earring. Dope shirt too.
last night, the rogue tried to close and lock the huge double doors to separate them from some cloud giants, but he wasn't strong enough to push the doors shut, so someone else came to help, and he was seen, and then one of them got pushed back just enough into the room across the hall from those double doors to activate the golems pretending to be statues, triggering a second encounter on top of the first. good times.
I started up a campaign a month ago and these are all valid points.
Secret doors/hidden areas. We had so much fun with these recently. Had a shifting room/crypt filling with poison gas that depended on finding a secret control panel to escape. This was the final room of the dungeon, after a few other secret doors. And it all made sense as to why.
Linear dungeons. This is tricky to avoid because sometimes it makes sense to have to explore your way through several areas before you find the right way towards the next scene. Along the way, the story/theme unfolds and leads to some sort of climax. Not a fan of stumbling upon the climax of that dungeon in the 3rd room out of 20, then the rest, which is build up, becomes cheap. So this can be difficult. And plays into the general layout/construction of the area being explored - sure it all has to make sense, but building towards some kind of climactic scene should be a thing. It's a big balance of rewarding exploration vs endgame.
Doors and elevation changes are great additions. Hell, elevation changes are incredibly satisfying elements. Lots of skills and spells are there waiting to be justified just because of some Archer on a 30' cliff or a chest is underwater in some 60' pit type area.
Two 'dungeons' I designed which break the cardinal rules:
1. Nine chasms. Dead LINEAR, with the only player choices being "do you want to try & cross the corroded bridge & enter the abandoned mine?" (for example). Basically, 9 set locations all in a line. No problem. Players loved it.
2. Gauntlet of the Naked Brotherhood. Players captured by a large sect of crazy religious fanatics, & sent through a small but deadly maze with NO CEILING. Sheer walls, topped with spikes & other obstacles prevent the PCs from climbing out (apart from a couple of secret locations where it might be possible), & meant that the crazy monks could watch the proceedings, & even throw down taunts, garbage, stones etc in certain sections. PCs generated extra entertainment by occasionally attacking the monks with ranged weapons & spells. What a HOOT! 😂
I love how you just begin giving me the information rather than having an intro and playing a theme that I need to skip.
wait, where's the skit
Please leave an angry comment about the lack of a skit and we'll have Sunny make one for you.
One call-out I would make: A lot of dungeons, tombs, temples, etc., are unplanned. That is, they're built one room at a time. When they need to expand, they choose a wall, start digging, and then build a new room. The new room might have different types of bricks, different types of wood, etc. The time between the first room and the last room being built might have been hundreds of years.
You even see this in modern homes. Whole sections are added onto the home, with no architectural consistency at all.
Given that, random rooms here and there would make sense.
I'm actually running a game that's all about a dessert world full of ruined cities, tombs, and natural caverns for the party to explore. For the moment they have yet to reach their first dungeon proper, but I was already able to use elevation as a feature on a wilderness random encounter. They traveled through a ravine and got ambushed by a giant vulture who tried to take off with one of their pack mules. The vulture naturally just dive bombed and then tried to fly away with the donkey, and the party had to react quickly to bring it down before it flew out of reach. The tabaxi rogue scrambled up the ravine's slope (difficult terrain so it was half movement but they could do it with the doubled movement from feline agility) in order to drop down on the vulture and knock it back down to the ground for the party to pummel it to death. The donkey still died unfortunately but at least this way they were able to butcher it for extra rations and recover their gear rather than losing everything outright.
Forgot something: Bathrooms. Chamberpots, dump-chutes, whatever.
All creatures eat, and all creatures excrete. This ties into the whole 'make it make sense' thing, but any space where creatures live or spend a lot of time has to have basic needs met.
Either a food source, food storage, or both.
A method of disposing of waste.
A method of heating and/or cooling
Storage for dry goods like blankets, clothe, spare building materials.
Dwarf, elf, goblin, dragon, anything and everything needs these things.
I was voluntold to leave a comment for the RUclips algorithm gods, and I think I kinda enjoyed it.
If your players are investigating and are about to enter a building or tower, etc, fill your windows with glass and cover them with shutters or curtains. This is the door thing, to stop fliers from mapping and discovering everything before entering. Leave a couple accessible if you want to direct player scouting there. The players can feel good about discovering something early, and you stop them from compromising all of the secrets.
This is one of my favorite DM Lair videos ever! You seemed to really be having fun filming this one, and leaving in a lot of those moments of self-commentary (and editor commentary) only made this THAT much better! Awesome job team! I enjoyed every second! Keep it up! (Floors in dungeons are overrated...)
Thanks! 😀
Kids these days have it so easy, back in advanced dungeons and dragons we were thankful for a map of any kind. Then a player had to actually draw it.
I ran a party through the tunnels in and under a mountain which was called "The Mountain of Waters" because it was a the source of a sizable river.
There were a pair of cave worms tunneling through the upper regions, eating birds that foolishly nested in the rock face.
Next was a defiled dwarven temple and burial complex that had been taken over by a necromantically talented vampire serving the main boss.
In the region of the complex housing goblins, about 3/4 of the chambers were set aside for the goblins' fungus farms and fishing pool.
In the lower region that used to be a dwarven palace the orcs there had defaces the dwarven art, and used a former sitting room as the trade station between their weapon crafters and the goblins' farmers. They also had a hidden access to other underground regions, but the party never found that.
Below that was a massive closed cenote-type cave with the spring at the bottom, and in a massive stalagmite in the middle of that spring was the magically carved home of a master vampire who was the overlord of all of the races above.
The master vampire had, as gatekeepers, a vampire troll and a water-dwelling dragon.
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It took my party nine sessions to get through the place, and two of them barely survived, their main cleric taking an herbally-induced long rest as he was carried on the back of one of the warriors for the descent to the vampire troll.
The dungeon needs doors to block Wizard's Arcane Eye...
Have you ever met the duo Wizard Arcane Eye/Other spellcaster Mage Hand ? I did, and i was very happy to remind them Mage Hand is a cantrip with limitations 🤣
Honestly I don't see the big deal. The spell gets you information for a 4th level slot. So what? I don't know why so many DMs are super stingy with information. It's like if a player uses tools to spot the ambush, they suddenly get all upset.
@@taragnor it's a question of measure. Spotting an ambush or scouting a couple rooms is good of course, i dont mind rewarding them for caution... But when someone tries abusing it by like, saying they could clean the whole dungeon without even stepping a foot in it. Or they start to never interact with anything directly to use spells for the most mundane basic stuff. It can slow the game or make it less fun for others.
That's why i don't completrly refuse the method. But i just remind the extent of what they can really do with it compared to what sometimes someone will want to.
Hoping that cleared up ^^
Every dm/gm should watch this episode every 6-9 months
I have a oneshot planned for my group, they are to escort a prisoner to a special locale to be interrogated, on their way they rest in an old in, build by dwarves and littered with steam pipes (the dwarves used hot springs to heat and pump water through pipes in an arctic climate) now the pipes are derelict and only carry warm air.
Turns out an Oblex made his home right here where its warm and nice, ate all the staff and manages the house from the shadows. Using pipes and openings to hide his tentacless and a cover of herbs to hide his smell because "the hot air from the baths carries a nasty sulfur we like to dampen" and the party has to make it through the night and maybe next day without being eaten.
I also changed the slimeboi so he can detach his copies for a short while, 1-5 minutes so he can kind of interact stealthily and reach every space, though his facsimiles start dropping at the half way point if not connected. I really hope they bite the plothooks and weird behaviour, I noticed how the roleplaying and talking to npc's was more interesting to them than the most combat encounters.
Yes, floors. Irregular stone of a natural cave, pebbles, dirt, dust, mud (which shows footprints), tiles or blocks with grooves between them, sloping, wooden planks, rough stone left by miners just seeking ore, etc. etc. OR carefully smoothed and leveled for the ball bearing people.
I thought tip 11 was for multiple levels in the dungeon that players need to work their way up/down as they go deeper. This angry post is for you, Al Gorythm!
You obviously haven’t heard of the Hackney Mole-Man, he randomly dug tunnels under his East London house 😂
"Maybe there are no floors"
NOW YOU HAVE MY ATTENTION, SIR! lol
Imagine that, just a dungeon where everything is dangling above just an abyss... *This gives me an idea.*
I feel like the trend of weirdly designed maps of odd corridors with off-shoot rooms began with inspiration from Egyptian tomb layouts, but gone wild.
I expected things like food prep, sleeping quarters, latrines, food storage, ventilation and water supplies. How about workshops? Even monsters need logistics.
In the fifth edition game I am in we have an awakened spider named webster. When we come to a door if there's a big enough gap for Webster to go through and check out the room for us, we have him do just that.
The dungeon without floor. A cave with super speedy running water with flow that ended near the entrance in a grove in the stone that goes even deeper in the earth and don't seem to have space for air.
The party have a underground river as floor, impossible to walk on and swim in it. 10 to 15 ft. height, lair of everything that decided to live there.
I can hear the players cursing already. Hihi
Doors being the encounter has become an inside joke in my group. I was running a dungeon with a door that was rusted shut. There was another way into the room they were approaching, but to get through that way they had to fight a band of orcs, which they didn't want to do. So they spend the next twenty minutes trying to get through this DC 12 Strength Check door. The rogue tried to pick the lock, rolled a 1. The Barbarian rolled an 8. The fighter rolled a 6. Finally the Bard remembered she had a crowbar the whole time and they finally got through the door. Everyone was laughing and having a good time. Everytime we come to a locked door, my players ask, "is this the encounter?"
I wish you talked a little more about floors. They are also important. Is it a sand pit that you can throw in the face of your enemies? A dirt floor the druid could burrow through? Creaking floorboards making it hard to stealth? A chasm you need to cross? A rotting floor that might give way any moment? An uneven rocky floor that is difficult terrain?
Or is it a boring, nondescript floor?
In a world where shapeshifting and magic floating eyes exist, the residents will design countermeasures sometimes. Like doors. Or spiders that eat other spiders. Guard dogs that are trained to bark at things. There can be a sweet spot between nerfing an ability, and letting the ability be the only useful approach.
glyph of warding on doorway. door swings open. hits glyph. sleep or other favorite malicious spell leading into a trap. use home alone for inspiration.
thanks for the way you bring humor to your stuff!
My pleasure! glad you enjoy it! :D