Graph Paper Games

Even if I didn’t just love the name, Super Galactic Dreadnought is a fun blog that shows off a wide variety of hobby interests, much like my own past-times.  Recently its author, Desert Scribe, decided as a sort of solo venture to come up with nine dungeon levels, using the old original B/X D&D rules for random dungeon encounters.  Or rather, he just decided to populate them, leaving the trivialities of a graph paper map to a later date. It’s a fascinating bit of reverse engineering, and I thought I’d copy the process here.  Basically, every level has roughly sixty rooms, with one-third being occupied.  So using the random generator charts for dungeons, you come up with twenty encounters.  You then look at the encounters to see if there are patterns or obvious alliances between the creatures, and then sub-divide the entire lot into factions, plus the odd roaming monster or vermin.  Once you understand the “big picture” you can build the dungeon aroun...

For almost a year I've been slowly adding pieces to a modular dungeon.  This is actually the third or fourth modular dungeon I have built in the past decade or so using Hirst Arts blocks, but none of my previous creations made it with me when I moved to my new home almost a year ago.  Thus, I started another, using a technique I had been considering for a while, namely using the mini-walls from the "Stone Arch Mold" (#88) and the "Cracked Floor Tiles Mold" (#203).  These two molds work together to made a fairly simple but effective layout.  The walls of the dungeon are represented without blocking view on the table.  The downside comes with flexibility--when you have a "dungeon tile" layout you can put the door anywhere in the room you like.  But that's the sacrifice you have to make with a layout like this. Anyways, the terrain-building bug as struck again, and after cranking out a quick wargaming piece I thought I'd start adding to the Meg...

I said in the last post "how I'd structure my D&D Campaign (if I was still running one)."  Perhaps I should have said, "How I would structure my FRPG" campaign, because there's nothing to say that I'd use D&D if I was to shackle myself to the task of running a megadungeon.  There are some other options, with a lot to offer. First, there are all the OSR (Old School Renaissance) clones out there, e.g. Basic Fantasy , Swords and Wizardry, or  Labyrinth Lord .  OSR clones of early editions of D&D feature spartan stat lines for monsters, encourage exploration over "room cleaning", etc.  The downside is that you might not want to get too attached to your character, since in all likelihood he's going to die from a goblin's arrow to the throat. Second, there's Earthdawn , the second edition of which is for sale over at Half Price Books right now.  I honestly think Earthdawn got people believing they could do something differe...

Naturally, having yielded my responsibilities as DM, I now miss it.  One of things I wish I had done was construct the campaign around a mega-dungeon, rather than use episodic pre-generated adventures.  Part of my decision to use pre-writ adventures was because I was frankly unsure whether a group could develop out of this.  So I didn't want to commit a ton of time to a campaign only to see it fizzle, and I instead focused on painting miniatures that will never see a tabletop.  Sometimes my internal "logic" amazes me. Megadungeons have several appealing qualities.  First, they are extremely easy to organize and facilitate.  As many have pointed out, dungeons (mega or otherwise) are essentially narrative flow charts, with the decisions made in its exploration determining the course of the adventure.  Unless they are deliberately designed as such, they are nearly impossible to "railroad," although most of WotC's free Game Day adventures with their point...