Ideal Dungeon Size?

[hearts261]

Good afternoon,

I haven't abandoned my usual fantasy postings but wanted to pick the hiveminds brain a bit on this one.

I've started the process, as many do, of 3d printing some dungeon tiles and terrain for some upcoming dungeon crawl gaming I have planned. I have a bit of an idea of creating a system to randomly populate dungeon rooms based off size but it got me thinking. What is an ideal dungeon size for skirmish gaming?

Originally the plan I had was to separate rooms into small medium and large rooms of specific shapes and then using those layouts have a diagram for where to place monsters. This is super limiting obviously because what if you have unique room shapes in your dungeon?

I have a few rooms of various sizes and a few hallways now but after looking at various dungeon layouts across lead adventure (in particular one's like the one in Elbows' various fantasy threads) I'm less sure of how much I need and how much is a good amount.

This all leads me to a couple of questions.
1. What is the ideal size of a dungeon, whats an ideal room size? etc
2. What are some games that have rules for randomly generating a dungeon? So i can see if what I want is already out there and/or get ideas.

[fred]

I do think the rules you are using will play into this. At one end we all want as big a dungeon as we can fit on the table, but this has to be balanced by the peril level of the rules. If each room or corridor contains many monsters or traps, then the party won't be able to tackle many in a row.

I've used 4 against darkness rules slightly adapted to work with Pendraken's dungeon rooms and corridors. This worked pretty well - I used a custom card deck (pictures of each resin piece) to lay out the dungeon. Which gave a finite size, and seemed to give quite high variety even though there weren't that many different sizes and shapes of room. I'd guss this was around 25 pieces of terrain per level.

At the other end is a game like Mantic's Dungeon Saga where each level is just a few rooms - which can be quite complex layouts, on cardboard tiles. These levels were limited by the number of turns so the small layout worked fine.

I do think it depends on your rules, and how much you want the rules to setup the whole dungeon, or just to act as a guide and allow some discretion on details.

[Frugalmax]

I like this question! As perhaps doesn't need to be said, everyone will have their own preferences, so there's probably not an "ideal" size so much as "the best size for you and your group," but I'll share my experience anyway (apologies to anyone who has read an earlier version of this story in some other thread):

I think from when I was a kid the idea of a big dungeon covering the whole table was very appealing and sparked my imagination quite a bit, but with actual gameplay, I've found that the smaller the amount of table space needed and the fewer the tiles, the more fun it has actually been for us (this also helps avoid the curse of "generated dungeon leads to the Chasm of the Table's Edge").

For a randomly generated dungeon, the old Warhammer Quest Dungeon cards are handy, and you can find either scans of the originals, or homemade ones in various places (a shout out to Seb at the Eastern Empire blog for some great ones: https://www.eastern-empire.com/warhammer-quest-tiles/). There is a fun and exciting aspect to flipping over cards- the dungeon is there in front of you, but you have to discover it one card at a time.

That said, another option I've been toying with is the idea of a set of tables for generating the the dungeon. For example, you divide your supply of rooms into large, medium and small. When you pass through a new door, you roll 2D6. The table starts as:
-2-6 place a small room with D2 doors,
-7-10 place a medium room with D3 doors,
-11 place a large room with D4 doors,
-12 place the objective room (presuming you have an objective you're going for).

With each successive new door you pass through, you shift the table down one step, so the odds of hitting the objective room get higher- first needing a 12, then 11-12, then 10-12 and so on. You could also start with a result of 2 being a dead end room, and having those odds increase along with the odds of hitting the objective room, so after passing through five rooms you know you'll either hit a dead end room or the objective room (note that this doesn't mean the dungeon would only be five rooms- just that once it was five rooms you'd have a 50/50 chance of finding the objective room through every unexplored door, but if you rolled up many doors along the way you could still potentially have a lot of dead ends- and maybe never actually find the objective, which means you went in the wrong dungeon to start with!).

For game-mastered dungeons, I'd (re)share (again, sorry to any who have read this old yarn before) that the most fun dungeon I remember playing in only used three or four square tiles from Warhammer quest, representing the room the party was in, the one they came from, and any they could look into (we disregarded the specific art and said all rooms were basically identical except for the doors, monsters, 3D scenics, etc.). The dungeon was a maze inspired by "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Ecco, and it was up to the party to kind of map it out and figure out how to make it through. Using just a few tiles and having them disappear once you got two rooms away worked really well for a sense of potentially getting lost, and it kept the actual playing area nice and manageable.

Anyway, I'd love to hear others' thoughts! I've seen some beautiful, very large, dungeons- the "keep it smaller" advice is really just from my experience for my table/clean-up/keeping track, etc. Cheers!

[Elbows]

I think variety is good, and there are plenty of excellent ways to do dungeons to scale.

I think a table is a good idea, or the old Warhammer Quest method which was excellent - a finite number of cards, and if your passageway splits...you split the remaining deck, with an objective room shuffled into the bottom of the deck (last 2-3 cards if I recall).  I love that system.

My dungeon crawl which is likely getting a refresh at some point is not to the point where I figured out the correct size/shape of dungeons.  I think a ton of things matter in that regard:

1) How fast do models move?  If you move 3-4 spaces a turn, that's a vastly different dungeon from moving 6-8 spaces, etc.
2) How difficult is the game?  My game is notably difficult, so even one more room is a serious threat, .
3) If your game has levels and experience...are level'ed up characters better at surviving a lengthier dungeon?
4) What is the purpose of the dungeon?  Is it locating a random room (and are there numerous directions to go) or are you running through it and out the other side?
5) Do you want to re-use your dungeon as a mega-dungeon?  When I decide to run several games for my buddies we frequently build a larger dungeon so that we don't have to screw with it over 3-4 games.  We can start at various entrances and my little card deck means the dungeons are always different, etc.  If your game is variable like that, then making a big mega-dungeon is fun.

To me dungeon builds are important.  I'm using my game as an example, but I'd assume most dungeon crawl style games are similar: larger rooms benefit missile attacks, or faster models.  Some monsters take up a 2x2 space...so a gap of 1-space allows you to sneak around or past enemies.  Sometimes the dungeon drops off into a chasm and players or monsters can be pushed or thrown off the table into the dark.  If a certain room possesses a bad trait, say poisonous gas...it's a bigger deal in a larger room than a smaller room.

Another example is player choice/scenario, etc.  For instance one of my scenarios is simply finding the key to get out the other end of the dungeon.  Players can see where items are (one item is the 'Quest Item' = the key).  They may enter a room, and see one room to the left with no exit...but then three rooms to the right, leading to an exit (you always have to exit the dungeon to live!).  If the one room on the left has one item, but the rooms on the right have six items...does the group risk...ignoring the room on the left.  In my game rooms generate encounters/traps/trouble/etc.  So you want to avoid unnecessary exploration...but if you get to the end of the dungeon and you haven't found the key...you're basically screwed.

I also enjoy having dungeons which allow a few different paths to get to the same point, so players can try to flee monsters and make it through a different area.

Example of a simple starter dungeon for when I run demos:


Example of a dungeon when I'm having friends over and we're going to play 3-4 games and expect to level up and get crazy:

[Spinal Tap]

I put together some rules for my games, details in the link below. Hopefully this will give you some ideas for your project.


https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=145596.msg1861390#msg1861390

[has.been]

All of the above are good. It really is a question of what floats YOUR boat.
I would like to do a version of the tile game.
That is where the terrain (dungeon in this example) consists of a table full of tiles.
each tile to be one foot (30cms) square. The table LOOKS plausible, e.g. if a river leaves
tile '1' on the eastern side it flows onto tile '2' on the western side, BUT...
 the umpire has a map  and on that if player leaves tile '1' eastern side he may well
arrive on tile '7' , southern side. 
It takes a bit of work to set it up so that it still works, but I think it is worth it.

I have successfully used the system in Vietnam jungle games & Dark age raid games.
Very soon the players are lost. 
To be REALLY nasty, the umpire can have several maps. e.g. map one for the journey
down into the dragon's lair, and map two for when they try to get out. It does play
havoc with those players who like to map.
 

[hearts261]

Wow! Thank you everyone for taking the time to weigh in. It's given me a fair amount to think about. I think the biggest takeaway is "whatever fits your rules" which makes sense. I think I posed the question originally wondering if there was some sort of universal set of tiles that lots of other designs were based on. I've been printing out the cool files from Torch and Shield so far which are broken down into rooms and halls. Right now, what im thinking makes the most sense to at least try a game with, would be; rooms are divided into small medium large, and that ultimately determines the rest. That way players can effectively adapt their terrain to fit instead of trying to write to match the terrain thats most "common."

[ced1106]

3x3 and sometimes 2x2 are standard sizes for miniature skirmish games.

Avoid chokepoints. I don't recommend RPG and boardgame dungeon setups for miniature skirmish games.

You can always try a solo game to test out your dungeon.

[robh]

In my experience the "ideal" dungeon size is invariably just that bit larger than my 3d collection will allow 

[BeneathALeadMountain]

Have you looked at Advanced Heroquest and its dungeon generating system? It wasn’t perfect but was improved with the add-on “terror in the dark” and always worked well when I used it. Some quests or campaigns had predesigned dungeons that the DM had a map of but in the general game itself the dungeon was generated by player rolls as it was explored and it was the groups responsibility to map it. If this would be any use dm me and I’ll take some photos of the relevant pages for you to peruse.

Andrew
BeneathALeadMountain

[Hobgoblin]

As someone said above, Advanced Heroquest had a pretty good random dungeon generator, with the potential for stumbling upon preset locations too. You can probably find the rulebook/tables/tiles online.

The above-mentioned 4 Against Darkness is good too; when it came out, I had an idea (never executed) of making large cardboard dungeon tiles, with each square in 4AD a 3 x 3 grid on the table - so that there would be more room for manoeuvre.

That's a key consideration, I think. If you're running a skirmish game in a dungeon (or even an RPG with miniatures), it's usually best to have some very large rooms with lots of features, so that things don't end up too cramped. This is probably quite unrealistic: real-life subterranean complexes are typically cramped.

That's not to say that you can't have some narrow corridors and chokepoints too. But large chambers with, e.g., rows of columns or pillars, raised or lowered areas, staircases and lots of other features make for much more interesting skirmish situations than lots of small rooms.

It's good to have plenty of loops too, so that characters can sneak round the dungeon. But there's a consideration above movement too: if you're using a system in which movement per turn is fixed (i.e. 8" a turn), corridors and loops can get very boring. A push-your-luck system like Song of Blades is generally more exciting, as it allows characters to sometimes move unexpectedly fast.

In that regard, it's worth having a look at the simple but elegant dungeon rules in Frostgrave's Into the Breeding Pits, which allow characters to discover temporary secret passages, so that movement can be very unexpected.

Also, while random generation for dungeon exploration is great (which is why Advanced Heroquest and 4AD trump Descent and its ilk, in my view), having an entire dungeon laid out and rival groups fighting in it is lots of fun too. That's the approach that Frostgrave takes in Into the Breeding Pits, and I've used it in other games. The rationale can be just that "the parties have maps" - and of course, that doesn't preclude there being all sorts of unexpected nasties in the dungeon ...

[Freddy]

Good afternoon,

I haven't abandoned my usual fantasy postings but wanted to pick the hiveminds brain a bit on this one.

I've started the process, as many do, of 3d printing some dungeon tiles and terrain for some upcoming dungeon crawl gaming I have planned. I have a bit of an idea of creating a system to randomly populate dungeon rooms based off size but it got me thinking. What is an ideal dungeon size for skirmish gaming?

Originally the plan I had was to separate rooms into small medium and large rooms of specific shapes and then using those layouts have a diagram for where to place monsters. This is super limiting obviously because what if you have unique room shapes in your dungeon?

I have a few rooms of various sizes and a few hallways now but after looking at various dungeon layouts across lead adventure (in particular one's like the one in Elbows' various fantasy threads) I'm less sure of how much I need and how much is a good amount.

This all leads me to a couple of questions.
1. What is the ideal size of a dungeon, whats an ideal room size? etc
2. What are some games that have rules for randomly generating a dungeon? So i can see if what I want is already out there and/or get ideas.

(Bit late to the party, but who cares )
Game length is not about dungeon size, but more about enemy numbers.
This is an 5 min game of my 40k parsecs from Home ( yes, in campaigns it happens )


This (sorry, did not find better pics) 1/35 postapo dungeon featured 45 enemies (incl 2 underbosses and a final battle) and covered an entire dinner table, took 2-3 hrs to grind through.


I think random generation can be done based on your collection (33% of the rooms being special ones sound enough), the key is more the population: for populating the dungeon
-you either place all the enemies (having an enemy army for an army game is handy here)
-or you just place random encounter markers in every room, when you step on it you roll d6: on 1-3 it is mission objective, on 4-5 it is an enemy team (roughly 1/3 strength of the strength of your party), on 6 they are the underbosses, when you are out of them, it is the final boss. They not necessarily appear on the spot, you can scatter them with a scatter dice, distance based on the dungeon size they can appear 1-2 rooms farther. You can play here with the behaviour profiles of the enemies too, sometimes they run away from battle, but in these cases they run towards the next token, activating it, so possibly getting reinforcements.

For the loot, you either find it, or let the enemies drop it, its total number shall be roughly 1 per basic enemy (small or weak a-holes drop only on a 4+, big baddies drop more). I make 1/3 of them into "Ammo", which means one extra action for a figure (it is a 2 action/turn system). Use them cleverly, save some for the boss fights.

I always use a counter too, it is a pool of dice with always new ones added, one in every round automatically, the others based on the narrative: for zombies I add 1 for every loud shot, for regular soldiers I add 1 for every soldier in visual contact with the protagonists at the end of the turn. When it is above six (based on the narrative it can be a lot more, so play carefully) I roll all of them, and for each 6 a new basic enemy enters the dungeon from a random direction.

You can just have rolling dungeons: remove the dicovered tiles/rooms and add them on the other side newly populated. This way your dungeon can be any size. You can just draw a map to keep track where you are. Finally reaching the point where you can already see the Final Boss Room has a cool dramatic effect.

[Ultravanillasmurf]

One of the sections in Perilous Dark has random dungeons with pre-prepared tiles.
https://www.northstarfigures.com/prod.php?prod=14220

[hearts261]

Thanks again everyone for the input. This is the rough size of my layout so far. With the rules I'm using this took around 2 hours to traverse but to be honest thats a very rough estimate given the state of the rules.

It's hard to strike the line between "accessible" to everyone and "mega dungeon cool"

[Frugalmax]

Nice looking dungeons all around!

Here's another thought (potentially sacrilegious and rambling- read on at your own peril!) that has occurred to me (and though I've played dungeons like this, I haven't thoroughly tested it out, so take it as you will)- are corridors doing much for the game? It would certainly be more compact without them, but would it be as fun without them entirely, or only using them in specific, gaming-goal oriented, moments?

My thinking is that in games like Warhammer Quest, hallways or corridors generally only have one door at the opposite end, and they don't generate an event. This means from a game point of view, it's often some dead space, which can provide a respite/turns for healing, etc, but can also be a bit dull while also sprawling the game out.

In real life, generally a hallway is a way to access multiple rooms without having to pass through another room, so they usually have multiple doors coming off of them. From a game perspective, having choices of which way to go is always good, but if the hallway doesn't provide that, and a room could just as easily have multiple doors coming off it, why have it?

So a solution (in a procedurally generated dungeon) could be either not to have corridors, or to have corridors automatically be branching opportunities (ie, "the next room is a cooridor with D3 doors at the far end"), in which case you'd probably only one or two per dungeon.

Of course in a GM-designed dungeon, this doesn't apply, as you could have a long corridor providing an alternate secret passage, or full of traps, or what have you.

Anyway- I might give this a try next game night and see how it goes. Cheers!