Graphite Prime

What started out as a potential Act III for the module I'm working on has... expanded.

9 nearly full pages of old-school mega-mega-mega-dungeon. 

All created using the random tables on pages 170-172 of the AD&D 1st Edition Dungeon Masters Guide by Gary Gygax, published in 1979.

Why? Because drawing dungeons from just the scratch of my imagination has become kinda boring. 

I marked my entry point in the center of a page and simply went with whatever happened. It was linear at first, but it soon expanded; side passages upon side passages, straight, diagonal, parallel, intersections -- 4-ways, Xs, Ys, Ts, all leading to chambers and rooms of all shapes and sizes (it's implied but never explicitly stated that rooms have doors and chambers do not). These tables are designed to go on and on and on; there are occasional dead-ends, but if you don't consciously stop it, it probably will not stop (25% of periodic-checks introduce side passages and 50% of side passages introduce multiple side passages).

I wanted every passage to take you deeper down the rabbit-hole, so no looping was allowed until deeply forward for every path. Every new corridor goes underneath any room or passage it crosses, but eventually loops do occur, plenty of them. At times, it's like solving a puzzle; decisions have to made, to connect or not connect? Sometimes I beg for a dead-end and sometimes I have no choice but to place one and sometimes a loop is allowed. This place is wild. I get lost just looking at it. If players were mapping it, they'd fuck up quickly, just as they would if it were a real place.

This process also reinforces the notion of space; not every room will be occupied (could/should still be interesting though) and there are many long, twisting corridors. Noise wouldn't travel here very well, not clearly. Certainly you might hear echoes and clangs and screams, but they would haunt like distant nightmares. It's easy to see adventurers snooping about, even fighting, without disturbing much of anything at all. What about the goblins in the next room? With Gygax's system, chances are, there are no goblins in the next room. 

Eventually I came to the edge of the first page, all four edges, and thought, what the hell, let's keep going, and before long, it became clear that it would bleed over onto at least 9 pages. I configured entry points to align with Act III if I insanely go in that direction. Who am I kidding... 

Some thoughts...

Wandering Monsters are built in. That's right, on the main d20 "Periodic Check Table" a roll of 20 results in a wandering monster, not a check, an actual random monster right then and there. So, I put an X on the map, always in a corridor. Sometimes they occur in bunches. So, what if wandering monsters were always handled this way, and, is that a repeated occurrence or just a one time thing? Just thinking out loud; one time occurrence is obvious to me, unless something (a glyph?) is spawning creatures.

Stairs... come up plenty of times, but there's no way I'm doing levels below this monstrosity. So, I simply put stairs in the corridor -- almost always going down. Combined with the fact that new passages go under already drawn ones, the farther out you go, the deeper underground you are. It's shaped like an underground hill. This could be how danger (dungeon levels) is measured. Center page -- dungeon levels 1 and 2; 8 pages surrounding the center page -- dungeon levels 3 and 4; 16 pages surrounding that -- dungeon levels 5 and 6, etc. So danger equals distance from the center as opposed to levels straight down. 

Tricks/Traps come up as often as stairs and such; all in corridors. I've never been a fan of hallway traps because they're punitive and make the game an unfun slog. The players have no defense other than to check every 10' of the place. So whatever these turn out to be, there must be clues.

Special passageways... Rivers, caverns, chasms, streams, all come up periodically, but I've avoided all so far. I have a certain look in mind -- the cellar of Castle Dracula, complete with arched columns, vaulted ceilings, and at times, unfinished floors. I may add subterranean canals at some point, but I'll be damned if I taint this place with caverns.

After a few weeks, all 9 pages are nearly complete (much more complete than the pic I posted above) and it has a shit-ton of passages bleeding off in every possible direction. This implies a larger ring of 16 new pages for a total of 25. I would love to keep going until all natural dead-ends are met, but this could become comically large. So, is it now just a work of art? A curiosity? The odds of it stopping on its own are astronomically low. I wonder, what is the largest dungeon ever made using these tables? This is probably unknowable.
And then you must stock it!


Your mind would never imagine what these tables create.

Gary Gygax was a genius.

These are not like modern doors.

No knob to turn.

No door handle.

Often, the outside has a keyhole and nothing else.

Maybe an iron loop or rung to grab, but these are most likely used to pull the door shut when leaving; may double as knockers.

Hinges are on the inside.

They almost always open inward. 

On the inside are often multiple locking mechanisms beyond a possible keyhole: Latches that slide sideways, latches that slide into the floor and ceiling. Rungs for wooden beams to slide into. 

They are solid as fuck.

You are not hacking through these doors with your weapons.

It takes one full 10 minute turn per attempt to pick the lock which may include multiple latches and such. Two turns if a non-thief is somehow attempting. (My rule).

It could take one full turn before that to search for traps... or you could say that is part of the picking process, but still, two rolls, three, if you find and need to remove prior to picking. Whatever, one turn minimum for the whole process.

One full turn per attempt to open a stuck or heavy door.

Looking at the doors below, bashing them down seems ludicrous in many cases and of course should result in a mandatory and heightened wandering monster check.

It's hard to imagine hearing anything through them... that's why it's a special thief ability. And you're putting your ear to where the door meets the floor, not up against the door itself like you're trying to crack a safe. (Maybe while picking).

Attempting any of the above forfeits any hope of surprise. In fact, it should guarantee surprise against the PCs.

Simply opening the door should forfeit surprise. Imagine the noise.

Doors are obstacles.

Game on.

Been awhile...
Cool way to mix random spell determination with choice...
When you level up (or even at character creation) and are gaining new spells, you roll randomly to determine what spell(s) has turned up in your off-screen research (you're a wizard, you're always researching).
This requires random lists of all possible spells (by level) in whatever system you're using. You may have to make these yourself. (I have such disdain when spells are simply listed without the option of random determination; laziness).
After a spell is rolled and you want to learn it, you need to make a learning check. In AD&D 1E this would be a "chance to know spell" check. In 3.Path, it would be a spellcraft check. If you don't want to learn it, you can pass and roll again (you can only "pass" a number of times equal to your level). You may regret this, because that spell is lost to you until you randomly roll it again or find it in the wild. (Speaking of, if you have a scroll with a spell that you want to learn, you can skip the random roll and try to learn that spell instead. Failure means you didn't learn it and must roll randomly. Success means you learned it and the scroll is destroyed. Critical failures could get interesting, as could critical successes.)

• Spell Books are coveted because they contain a variety of spells you can choose from, thus bypassing random research. But learning rolls must still be made.

If you fail to learn a spell, you record that spell on a list of "spells being learned" and can try again the next time you gain a new spell of that level. This will probably be an easier roll as your skill/intelligence score should/could be higher. If not, a small bonus may be granted each time an attempt is made.
Success on your learning roll means that you've learned the spell, of course.

More flavor... How did you find the spell? (Roll this before you roll for the spell, as it might influence whether or not you choose to learn it).

1. Library Research.
2. Dream/Meditation.
3. Another Wizard. (This might cost you, perhaps 1,000 GP/spell level, but thanks to expert tutelage, this spell is always cast as one level higher).
4. Demon/Devil. (Could be a multitude of beings, but as I view magic as black...) Learning the spell from a demonic/devilish source could come with a price such as a contract, blood sacrifice, or physical/mental corruption: Horns, rotting flesh, scars, hooves, etc. (represented mechanically by stat loss), but, the spell is learned with greater potency; cast as 1d4 levels higher.

And just like that, Wizards are infinitely more interesting.