Creating Dungeons The Easy Way!

Subscribe for weekly videos!

Follow me for daily updates on my Instagram and Twitter - @jpcoovert

[ebayyyyy]

10 Rooms
-Entrance
-Logical Location
-Environmental Complication
-Alternate Threat of Ally
-Helpful Information
-Secret Entrance/Exit
-Resource Drain
-Secret
-Big Battle/Final Conflict
-Reward, Revelation, or Plot Twist

[Skelemonyo]

Your dungeon design is very practical and easy to implement. Thank you.

[Joshuazx]

In the 5 Room Dungeon, a room does not need to mean a literal room. A room could be figurative and mean a section of the dungeon with many rooms with a single theme. Often, old school games had very long, deep dungeons and were meant for dungeon crawling. Each floor would have its own theme. Your five room dungeon could have five floors, with each floor representing a room of the 5 room dungeon, and each floor could have their own 5 room dungeon. Think about it like plotting 5 novels, then you go back and write each novel.

[Candyapplebone]

I’ve been making dungeons lately, and have been wondering what to put into the rooms. This really helps it make sense!

[aaaaaaaaooooooo]

I am loving this. It breaks things down into abstract steps like Campbell's "Hero's Journey" framework, except it's about dungeons. The steps each feel fundamental without being too limiting about what they can be, and as a whole they form a fun rewarding experience.

[irithylldragon]

a fun way to make every dungeon more interesting is to start by adding something that makes the whole dungeon different from the others when going *between* rooms
- a subterranean cave might have water hazards that slow the party's movement and hinders their stealth
- the tomb of a mummy lord might contain shifting halls and trick doors that result in the party becoming trapped or lost
- some ruins overtaken by the jungle might have various flora and fauna that serve as distractions to be cut down or avoided that the party might need to take risks against if they're on a time crunch

even a farm that the party are trying to sneak into can have hazards, such as animals that create noise if the party spooks them, or farmhands that are 'patrolling' just by sheer nature of their day-to-day tasks

like any good character or NPC, come into designing dungeons with an idea of how to give each one a personality and identity. just remember to design the dungeon itself with *and* against the party's motives and means: unless somewhere is not meant to be accessible by the party, there should always be a method for the party to figure out what to do- even if that means they will have to come back later

[CONTINGENCY_sys]

Never one way in or out, never just one path once inside, always things that move you forward and hold you back, there are things that can stop you in your tracks or propel you past certain points, ways to overthink and underthink, stories happening along with the players, stories happening without their involvement, and those that will reel them in. A dungeon is a interlocking concept of location, reasoning, surprise, victory/defeat, memorable moments, and a opportunity for heroic moments. The dungeon impacts not only the world but the players and characters that venture near and inside. Things that dwell inside dungeons may remain hidden from the worldspace. They may be the thing that can change a worldspace or character. They may even be the thing that can end it. You get to decide all the ways in which your space is explored. Always a pleasure to watch your vids JP and hang out with you in your digital world. You do good things.

[SanityCheckOfficial]

This post made me a fan. Awesome explanation of something I knew, but now I understand.

[spacelem]

I love the idea of the Logical Location. It may not do much mechanically speaking, but it really grounds the whole thing, and adds some life (instead of rooms just being there because of gaming purposes).

[jak_]

Newbie here and this really helped with narrowing down why my dungeon map felt so off. Thanks for the video.

[estebanrodriguez]

It's interesting, specially because dungeon design is something that the DMG currently lacks in a modern fashion. The 5 Room Dungeon is a tried and true method, yes probably you don't NEED 5 explicit rooms, it can have more... but it gets a bit predictable

[StinkerTheFirst]

I appreciate this video. Immediately prior to this one, I watched one that insisted more than 3 or rooms was a mistake and never to do it. Your video sounds just as reasonable as theirs.

[Tysto]

This is great. As soon as I heard about 5-room dungeons, I said great, but every 5-room dungeon should be 9 rooms, because there should be 4 empty rooms, as described in the early D&D DM material. Every room should be _interesting_ but only 60% of rooms need to be _challenging._

[gegegebebebe]

This is epic. I really need to make me a picture of that and put it into my gm binder, this is really great work. Thank you!

[dart]

I use the 5 room dungeon method all the time. The point is that it doesn't have to be exact 5 rooms. It could be 100 rooms, it is more about to fulfill the 5 goals.

Nevertheless to expand the method to fullfill your needs is always the right way. I do this most of the time and I will try to use your method in the next session. My prison with underground dungeon is big enough and the time magic aspect gives me a lot of freedom what will happen after the players solve the puzzle and maybe destroy the magic course that stopped the time for so many years. 😈

[pythonau]

I have an idea i got from a short story.

A woman is kidnapped by an evil wizard and the PCs want her back. In the story its a lone fighter who enters the dungeon under the wizards residence. He gets captured and taken to a cell deep under ground where he awaits torture and death.
He breaks out, spends what feels like hours going through dark passages, up and down stairways, until he exits in the wizards summoning room where he’s using his victims blood to summon a demon god thing. Theres a fight he wins.

The story details the summoning room, torture chambers, prison cells, a treasure vault and not much else. There are captives awaiting their fate and some guards.
The question is how many levels to build and how to make them interesting. The hero in the story had two encounters the one that got him captured and the final one. He spent hours walking around empty passages dodging traps, this would either be over very quickly or really boring.

I could make a few random levels populated with an assortment of creatures but that doesn’t feel right.

[sy]

For the number of rooms, you could roll 1d6+4 (5-10).

[HouseDM]

Hi JP! Just discovered your channel and I love this! Always felt the same way about the 5 room dungeon concept. Its great for new DM's who are learning how to run a dungeon crawl but what about those looking for something a bit more advanced? This is great. Earned a follow from me, cheers!

[phildicks]

Back in 1e The Lankhmar sourcebook they had an interesting way of Generating Urban dungeons. Parts of the city map were left blank. The DM would use a booklet included that had about 12-15 designed squares they could use as the area. This enabled each playthrough to be unique. I still use that mini book to randomly generate Urban enviroments for my players.

[damienfeymont]

Gonna be honest, this is one of the most helpful videoed I’ve come across on the creation of dungeons. Thank you.