Fix Boring Dungeon Walls

It’s what’s between rooms that’s the real puzzle.

Hola Game Master!

Before I draw on today’s mapping tips, please consider this my invitation to you to join us for RPT Map Week.

Draw, paint, thumbnail, click, sketch, or code a map based on a daily hook.

Today’s Map Hook: A Flooding Dungeon.

This is a free event meant to give us a break from real life so we can have more fun every day. If you like maps, feel free to swing by the RPT Discord and visit the #rpt-map-weeks channel to check out the shares and offer words of encouragement.

The last mapping event we hosted saw some awesome maps. I asked and received permission to use several for my Basilica campaign. There are some very creative, talented GMs out there!

I, for one, will be posting maps that look more like failed ink blot tests. It’s a butterfly. No, it’s a flower. Um, no, it’s level 5 of the dungeon, guys.

To celebrate RPT Map Week, I’ve got some mapping tips cued up for you, starting today with a quick architecture tip.

What’s Between the Rooms?

Take a moment now to consider the space you’re occupying.

It might be a room, vehicle, hallway.

What defines the boundaries of your space? Stop reading for a moment, get curious, and look around you.

What makes the room not a room? What physically represents outside the vehicle? What’s the difference between a hallway and a room?

When we draw maps, we’re really noting where one space ends and another begins.

We add walls, doors, and terrain changes. And then these often become boundaries to our encounters.

When we draw a line on grid paper, we tend to default to a standard 5-foot thick stone wall or typical drywall.

An opportunity I think we often miss is to detail, characterize, and make relevant that which separates the spaces on our maps.

If story emerges from gameplay, then the physical boundaries of your map should offer puzzles, ideas, and choices.

It’s Your Turn

Next time you draw a map, treat the boundaries themselves as living, breathing parts of each encounter.

To kickstart some ideas, roll or choose from the table below to define what physically separates the spaces in your next location.

d12 Encounter Boundaries

  1. The Murder Wall. The walls are hollow. Creatures and bots use them to move unseen and fast.
  2. One-Way Glass. Magical or alchemical transparency. PCs can see terrifying things in the next room, but can’t reach it until they solve a maze of corridors.
  3. Rushing Water. Real or engineered waterfalls, rivers, streams, or even water jets form barriers.
  4. Plants. Like my house is getting to be: plants form impenetrable, thorny, or entangling separators.
  5. Magnetic. Lodestone or magical effect ceaselessly draws metal weapons, armour, and gear towards the walls.
  6. Edges. Instead of walls, open spaces create gaps between places, sometimes presenting sudden vertical drops.
  7. Temperature. A blast of heat or cold that requires resources or effort to simply pass through, like stepping outside/inside in summer.
  8. Flesh & Bone. The dungeon is alive. The walls are organic and pulse and bleed. They might even listen.
  9. Twisting. The walls shift via magic or machinery.
  10. Tortured Souls. A wall of undead spirits or faces that wail, beg for release, or whisper secrets to those who pass through them.
  11. Illusion. It looks like a standard wall, but it’s actually thin paper, brain trick, or magical illusion.
  12. Solid. Change the state of one energy or object type to semi-solid, such as fire, feathers, or oil.

As you go about your day, get curious and look at your surroundings. What shape does your current physical space have? How do you enter and exit? Why were the walls built this way?

Cheers,
Johnn
roleplayingtips.com
https://discord.gg/6MxTRAqQ76

Have more fun at every game!

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