Creating the Perfect Dungeon Map or Puzzle-Trap
As a Dungeon Master, one of the trickiest parts of running a game is creating maps and puzzles/traps. There are plenty of books out there with pre-made dungeons and trap ideas, but after a while, your players will know what to expect. So what can you do to keep your games fresh and original? Read on for some tips!
While WotC (Wizards of the Coast, the manufacturers of D&D and its component books and rules) provide plenty of visuals and inspiration for budding DMs, after a while you’ll simply run out of material. What’s more, if you’re running a game where some of the other players have read these books or run games themselves, the maps ‘n’ traps may be familiar to them. Of course, we never want our players to “meta-game” (bring out-of-game knowledge to their characters who would not know the same info), but it is difficult to forget the answer to a puzzle or riddle that you’ve seen or encountered before. Monsters are easy enough to tweak to keep players guessing in combat, but what about wholly-original dungeon maps and puzzles to stump your players?
We gotcha covered! As a veteran home-brewer of campaigns, I have made dozens of traps and puzzles, and crafted my own dungeons from absolutely scratch. It’s a real labor of love, but it never feels like work.
A map before all the bells and whistles are added in
Let’s start with dungeon-scaping:
I begin by thinking about the theme and general layout concept for my dungeon. Sometimes the players are simply railroaded through a single pathway, such as an underground cavern which only goes one way. Those are easy: just design each room in order, no big map needed. As the team encounters/enters the room, just have an idea of dimensions, obstacles, creature placement, and any other ambiance you wish to describe. I have two methods of room-generation: 1) dry-erase markers on a blank grid, with different colors to showcase things like doors, columns, in-room objects (tables, chairs, piles of rocks, trees), and/or 2) supplement with 3D environment effects or tiles, which are readily available at any game shop in large packs. You can use these two methods together, which I often do because drawing with marker lets you really make it however you want, while tiles and “set pieces” are great for accentuating the map and making it feel more alive.
If a more complex dungeon is in order, making a map for yourself as DM is crucial (you can even print it out and rip it up, giving it to players as they encounter map shreds around the dungeon…or don’t do that and make them draw it out themselves). I love Donjon, which aside from great resources like spell descriptions and magic items, has a RDG (Random Dungeon Generator). Just put in the parameters you want (how many staircases? what shape of dungeon? how big? how densely populated? what’s the theme?) and not only will they pop you out a lovely map like the one shown in this post (minus all my nifty Microsoft Paint add-ons), but they’ll even lay out simple traps, monsters, and other things populating the halls of your new death-trap!
Go back to your original dungeon concept; put yourself in the shoes of whomever designed the dungeon (if applicable). Is this a wizard’s keep where more magical traps would be found, or a hidden temple meant to keep away intruders? What is the purpose of the dungeon? Normally, dungeons fall into one of these categories: death trap (literally just meant to kill anyone who steps foot in), stronghold (fortress or castle usually occupied with NPC guards…living or undead), natural phenomena (like a cave, most likely to have a bunch of terrain-appropriate monsters), or vault (a temple or location with an important artifact/treasure/corpse). That should spark some ideas of what kinds of obstacles the dungeon-crafter would have in mind, and the layout. An occupied dungeon like a stronghold would likely have lots of branching hallways and rooms, to accommodate those who live/work there; maybe a kitchen, a study, etc. These present great role-playing opportunities, not just with potential denizens, but also things like pages of a diary giving clues to a puzzle later on. Also think about things like dead-ends, stairs (multi-level dungeons are the best), and hallways…Not all traps have to be in rooms! Surprise your party with a sliding staircase or random animated net hovering overhead!
No matter who or what populates your dungeon, the layout is necessary before proceeding with individual room populations and traps. I usually take the design offered by the RDG and photoshop extra hallways and dead-ends to fit my needs. Would there be lots of hallways leading to the same place, or is the path more linear? A cavern might have more of a labyrinthine feel, while a vault is generally more straightforward, with a clear end goal, but probably only one way out. I recently did my own take on the greatest game show of all time with a “Legends of the Hidden Temple” style dungeon, in which the players had to find 2 artifacts in separate areas, and then escape through the only entrance/exit before time ran out or they were captured by tribal guards! It was awesome, and forced me to expand my dungeon-scaping scope by thinking where best to place the artifacts such that my players would be more or less forced to visit most or all of the rooms. Nothing sucks more than spending hours designing a puzzle or trap, only to have your PCs pass it right by! I ended up with a 2-story dungeon, much like the Temple Run in LotHT, where they constantly had the choice to go up to the higher floor or drop down. This made for a lot of fun choices for the players, as opposed to a single entrance and exit to every room. And don’t be afraid to think outside the box. A dungeon doesn’t have to fit the mold of normalcy or even obey the laws of physics. “Living Dungeons” are a hoot; one where players enter from one location and are teleported to another, or the dungeon itself shifts rooms around every so often. My favorite recent design was based on an Aztec concept, and therefore I figured a clock design would be perfect. There were 12 rooms, all accessible via a central chamber, but the inner chamber rotated around, changing which room the PCs would land in. It confused the hell out of them, but once they figured out the gimmick, they realized how clever it was (pat pat)
Once the layout and overall design is complete, you’ll next have to populate your dungeon. We’ll explore more about how to make a challenging and original puzzle/trap in the next post, but some helpful hints to get you started include:
Vary up the rooms. Don’t include 4 monster encounters in a row, or things will grow stale fast. Mix in puzzles or Skill Challenges (more on those in a later post), or even “rest rooms” where PCs can just chill or heal up, maybe with a friendly satyr to get drunk with them before they go on to the next section. Just make sure all the rooms serve a purpose; as in, every room should be there for a reason (eg, a prison holding area in a castle dungeon, or a blood-filled kitchen in a vampire’s manor)
Speaking of NPCs, while monsters are fun and all, it’s often helpful to have some random humanoid creatures, both helpful and devious, to give the players someone to role-play with here and there. Maybe an old man claims to have been trapped there for years and warns them not to go into the room with all the cobwebs, then turns out to be a polymorphed Giant Spider waiting to pounce on the web-wrapped players! (Reverse Psychology works great in D&D; never underestimate a player’s desire to prove you wrong, only to fall right into your ploy…)
Secret passages are great ways to reward players. While the main path of the dungeon may be fairly obvious, try and include some hidden doors or magically-obscured passageways. You can give subtle clues, like “the rock here is strangely smooth”, to entice your players to investigate what may be a false wall with a cool treasure behind it, or an item which will help them later on. This not only makes them second-guess everything (which for a DM is the greatest thing you can hope for), but also rewards players for paying attention and interacting with the dungeon itself.
Decorate! Even an ancient tomb will have ripped-up tapestries or ancient carvings on the walls. If you’re like me, every dungeon has a story purpose, it’s not just there to be there. Hence, you can use things like statues or arcane runes for more than just encounters or obstacles; use them as story devices, giving your player information about both the dungeon and the world they’re in. Let them slowly piece things together, and maybe they’ll figure out the BBEG (Big Bad Evil Guy) running the joint!
Another great hook is to have an ongoing menace, like an unkillable creatures roaming the halls, menacing your PCs if they tarry too long in any one area. Have the creature make their entrance with a familiar sound or smell each time; “you once again hear the noise of metal scraping against rock, as you see iron claws reach around the corner yet again…” This will not only keep your players on their toes and raise dramatic tension, but it will also keep the game moving and force them not to spend too much time debating which way to go next (or take yet another short rest!)
Make sure the dungeon feels as organic as possible, and make sure all of the monsters and traps fit in thematically in some way. A subterranean-dwelling clan of duergars who hate sunlight would probably not find themselves in an exterior forest labyrinth during the daytime, for example. If you can, create puzzles/traps which work with the technology and culture of wherever the dungeon is located (eg, I did a Forbidden-Palace-Asian themed dungeon and included an entire room with paper walls and origami monsters, and another room where the answer was to create the image of a butterfly, the animal representing the region’s ruler Madame Butterfly). Not exactly rocket science, but those little details will make your dungeon feel more authentic.
The concept for this puzzle was an analog clock (this was my “Temple of Time”), where each room corresponded to a different time period based on where it fell on the above “clock”. The numbers above indicated the order the players would encounter each room.
I cannot stress this last part enough: make sure you as a DM have marked up the map as much as you need to in advance. Put a red X on your copy where monsters are located, or a gold star for treasures/magic items. Number your rooms, make directional arrows if you’re working with a labyrinthine setup, and draw/photoshop on any terrain reminders for when you draw each room out for the players. Have monster stat blocks on hand (or right them in short-hand in the edges of the page). This may sound silly, but don’t forget about DOORS! Have a legend/symbol for a door that is locked vs unlocked vs hidden/secret, and feel free to annotate the DC of the DEX or STR check needed to pick the lock or force the door open. The more notes you have all in one place, the easier it will be for you to reference something quickly, meaning less wait-time for your players. You’ll thank yourself later (and so will they).
…I’m realizing this is going to be way too long, so click over one more for my next post, all about Traps and Puzzles!
A fully fleshed-out dungeon, complete with room numbers, hallways configuration, puzzle reminders, basic drawings to remind me what each room was about, and monster placement (red Xs)