Dungeons & Megadungeons Archives

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8 Things Worth Starting a Dungeon War Over

Just picked up Level Up by Courtney Campbell. It’s a small book of tables on random topics. And the first table I started reading spawned an article idea. The table is titled “Top Ten Dungeon Resources” and has this description: Well, you’ve got a dungeon. And you’ve got all these factions. Apparently they all live […]

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 […]

Break Reality To Build Better Dungeon Maps

Constrain one thing to transform your dungeons. Hola Game Master! Continuing our celebration of RPT Map Week (make sure you swing by the #rpt-map-weeks channel on Discord to check out the daily hooks), I want to talk about the hidden rules dictating your map designs. How Architectural Constraints Affect Maps We often draw floor plans […]

A Great Isometric Point Crawl Map

Here’s a super Daggerheart point crawl map created by @muted and shared with the Roleplaying Tips community that I thought you might enjoy. From @muted: I am running a loop countdown (started on a location just outside of the dungeon – the Dig) and the dungeon is a collection of a few custom Daggerheart environments […]

How Do You Reveal Your Maps To Players?

Players can draw on my maps and on my table. And I love it. My group used to have a player assigned to drawing the map. I would describe things, player would struggle to make squiggles, party would still get lost. Then I tried simplifying my maps to make them easier to, er, map, which […]

The Writing On The Wall – Using Graffiti For Clues And Foreshadowing

I like graffiti. I got the idea of adding vandals to my dungeons from Barrowmaze Complete by Dr. Greg Gillespie. Buried under the several feet of tephra that surrounds Obsidian Invictus is a vast network of crypts built in a former age to service a Beast. And the characters have discovered the way in. It’s […]

Design First, Draw Second

5-Minute Megadungeon Maps. You have a great idea for a massive complex. But the thought of drawing every 10ft. corridor before you even know what goes where is so daunting that you never actually start. I’m faced with this proposition right now as I need to map the megadungeon for my Obsidian Invictus campaign. I […]

Dungeons in Modern Games

Running “dungeons” in any genre or setting. Roleplaying Tips GM Richmond grabbed my book, Logical Dungeon Design: Tactical Cartography, and sent me this note: Johnn, I have read the first chapter and part of the second. I don’t know how useful it will be for the game I am currently running, but I may be […]

Create Dynamic Dungeon Maps & Levels That Make Sense

Have you ever been running a dungeon crawl, feeling good, when suddenly a player asks a question that stops your dice cold? “Wait, why is there an ice room right next to a lava chamber?” “What do these monsters actually eat?” “Why are the ceilings only ten feet high if giants live here?” I call […]

Why Dungeon Maps Feel Fake – The Dungeon Timeline Method

How to make logical dungeon maps. Nonsensical maps were a major theme in the fantastic feedback I received from Monday’s request about your biggest pain point with dungeons: How to make dungeons make sense and believable? Most GMs think they need to design a dungeon for the adventure they are running right now. You sit […]

Designing Your Villain’s Vault

Where does your villain stash their cash? That’s the topic of a brand new weekly mapping challenge starting today on the Roleplaying Tips Discord called 5 Minute Map Fridays. Because villains need money to support their operation, lifestyle, and goals. And many settings only operate with physical currency, be it coins, bank notes, or other […]

A Book of Fantastic Dungeon Inspiration – Johnn’s Bookshelf

Over the last 50 years, I’ve amassed a collection of books useful for GMing that you probably won’t find in any game store. In this series, Johnn’s Bookshelf, I’ll be pulling these hidden gems off my shelves to share with you. The first book I want you to check out is small but packed with […]

CampaignCraft: Announcing My New Secret Weapon for Building & Launching Successful Campaigns

The secret weapon I wish I’d had in my first dozen campaigns… GMing long-term campaigns is hard. I’ve started dozens over the years. Some crashed. Some fizzled. And a few became legends. What made the difference? How I started. Big worlds. Big plots. Big prep. Those campaigns buckled under their own weight. The best ones […]

Ideas for Dungeon Ecosystems and NPCs

Roleplaying Tips GM Thomas P. shares some great ideas below in response to my recent believable dungeon ecology tips. (Note, I added the headings — those aren’t Thomas’s fault, haha.) Hi Johnn, I have been loving the deep dives you write and this one looking into creating believable dungeon ecologies. Your ideas about food chains […]

The Dungeon After-Party

In response to my Stir Up Encounters with Interesting Locations tips, RPT GM Michael W responded with some cool ideas on what happens after the PCs have cleared an area. Here are d4 things that might happen after the party has kicked down the door, killed the monster, taken its stuff, and moved on…. 1. […]

To Boldly Go Where NPCs Should Not

Why would you find people in the treacherous places where characters go? RPT GM Michael asks: One of my bigger challenges is to come up with friendly NPCs in hostile environments. Mostly why are they there and how is it conceivable and not an obvious plot device for lack of better words. Places adventurers go […]

Megadungeon Seed: The Ark of Beasts

In December 2022 I promoted the #Dungeon23 Challenge. It’s a great project you can start anytime, actually. I created a list of 20 megadungeon seeds. But, alas, I didn’t finish or polish the list, and then moved on. Well, on the weekend I rediscovered this document, and today I have one of the megadungeon seeds […]

Crafting an Exciting GM Boot Camp for Kids

An RPT GM asked me this morning to give feedback on a curriculum for a kids GM Boot Camp. I share my response below. I don’t know if the kids are young teenagers, younger, or older. I’ll assume around 12 years old. At that age, in my opinion (I never had kids), you want to […]

Turn Pit Traps from Pit Stops to Pit Tales

I have a sinking feeling that today’s tips might involve some puns. Don’t fall for them though! I’m going to drop a bunch of ideas to help change a classic trap from filler into great gameplay. No More Pit Bull I like pit traps. They work in any genre. They’re simple. Almost any foe can […]

Epic Tower Quest: A Campaign Seed With Strategy, Intrigue, and Adventure

RPT GM NecroFileMD shared their cool Campaign Seed with us over at Campaign Community. You might use this idea for a campaign, an adventure, or even some fascinating lore for your world. Here’s the Campaign Seed: I run a homebrew tower climber campaign based on 5E. A 100 floor tower has appeared in the center […]

d20 Ways To Hide A Golem

Dragon Magazine #139 offered great ways to hide a golem in a room. I love animated objects and golems as monsters. They need no air, water, or food, so make perfect dungeon foes. But if we serve up such obstacles and enemies the same way each time, it gets boring fast. So here are 20 […]

Unlock New Adventures: 5 Room Dungeons With a Twist

Today’s tips come in the form of a 13 minute video. When I sent out a recent invitation to my Master of the 5 Room Dungeon Workshop, several GMs responded that they didn’t like the method. Fair enough. There are many ways to craft an adventure! However, some readers mentioned that the five rooms get […]

How To Keep Dungeons Interesting – 5 Ways

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1223 How To Keep Dungeons Interesting – 5 Ways How do you make dungeon crawling perpetually interesting? This was a frequent tip request made in December’s Dungeon23 poll. I struggle with this too, whether it’s an endless series of rooms in a megadungeon, a series of 5 Room Dungeons, or just a […]

A Way To Make MegaDungeon Rooms Interesting (Have Your Dice Ready)

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1222 A Way To Make MegaDungeon Rooms Interesting An RPT GM asks: Facing the Dungeon23 challenge, I wonder how to come up with different rooms instead of falling into tired tropes or ending up with repetitive floors. My answer: roll for it! First, theme your megadungeon and its levels. Next, make yourself […]

Three MegaDungeon Tips

Roleplaying Tips Newsletter #1220 Three MegaDungeon Tips So, in the coming weeks I’ll be sharing some megadungeon tips and resources. These will be for any megadungeons, not just Dungeon23 stuff, to keep it as useful to as many RPT GMs as possible. And today I have three tips for you based on questions from RPT […]

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