Dungeon Layout Concepts and Rhetorical Questions

1. Understand how challenges and rewards interact with room layout.
   • A deathtrap in a chokepoint of the dungeon makes dealing with the trap necessary for progress. Is this a crucial obstacle or a permanent hindrance?
   • Loops allow the party to approach a challenge from a different angle. What might be in the room that needs a new perspective?
   • Branches allow interchangeable exploration of rooms. Should the room contents be interchangeable?
2. Interconnectivity promotes exploration and keeps players hooked.
   • Locks and keys (not necessarily literal) are enticing as they show you rooms, implicitly or explicitly. What might be worth locking up?
   • NPCs may give information about the dungeon - what information might be smart to give?
   • Fragmented items gives hints to another part. What is so dangerous it needed breaking?
3. Secrets are tweaked by their degree of concealment, but hints don't give answers.
   • A gap in a map suggests a hidden room, but only suggests. When should a gap hide a secret?
   • Knowing there is a secret doesn't tell you the secret. What hints don't give away the answer?
   • Is there anything that can't be secret?
4. Traps are permanent tools.
   • Anything might set off a trap. Who in the dungeon knows about it?
   • A party sometimes needs to use violence to progress. Should a deathtrap be disabled?
   • Traps may harm, but they may do other things as well. What would be worth the damage?
5. Deeper levels means tougher challenges.
   • When are shortcuts too deeper levels cheapening the increased difficulty?
   • When is being in over your head fun?
   • How much choice in difficulty should the party have?
6. Breaking preconceptions is frustrating during and rewarding after.
   • Learning a pattern of "left doors trapped, right doors locked" is fun. How many ways are there to subvert that pattern?
   • Players get comfy with rumors if they know them to be true. What NPCs might lie?
   • The deadliest traps are not the ones that do the most damage, but the most surprising. What easy traps would set up easy preconceptions for a party?

Context

As a fun little exercise, I decided to make a dungeon according to the loose procedures in the OD&D original booklets. In this, room layout and traps are completely open to referee discretion, while monster stocking and treasure is mostly randomized. This made me realize: I need to think hard about the layout of the two free elements, rooms and traps. The 6 points listed above (room layout, interconnectivity, secrets, traps, leveling, and preconceptions) are are tools to be deployed in dungeon design to keep the exploration going.

I wrote this as salient points I've considered in my progress on the journey. I think the dungeon will be done soon.

Other Resources:

• So You Want to Build a Dungeon?
• Dungeon Checklist