Gygax's GENIUS Dungeon Design Tips | 1975 Method

In 1975, dungeons were pure madness, so let's review an essay by Gary Gygax himself on his own mad methods of D&D dungeon design! ▶️ More below! ⏬

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00:00 Gary's lost dungeon master advice!
00:58 crucial context for Gygax's tips
02:55 my own book about dungeons :)
03:50 wild dungeon themes of 1975
06:13 when the dungeon is a maze
09:25 plan unusual monsters
10:14 Gary's first dungeon was INSANE...

#dnd #dungeonsanddragons #osr

[CommadoreGothnogDragonheart]

During our early 80s campaigns, Jerry was our cartographer, and to this day, even though I do everything on the computer, I find it nearly impossible to resist buying graph paper if I see it in a store. :)

[BanditsKeep]

A level filled with dragons really blows my mind. It makes you rethink what a level is - possibly an entrance into a hollow earth with its own “sun” we know Gygax liked Edgar Rice Burroughs.

[timothyenglert]

Was ready for a pun...
"After 50 rooms in the fire dungeon your players are burned out"

I loved the zooming in on Gary in the background.

[dimesonhiseyes]

Some advice I have absorbed over the years.

Number one. Make the dungeon tell a story.

Number two. Make every room have a point. Make every room tell a piece of the story. Make every room reveal a new piece of information the players need.

Number three. Monsters are not dumb. Monsters are predators. Fierce nasty predators. Make them act accordingly. Make the dungeon itself a hostile and forbidding place.

Number four. Don't put a gate in the dungeon that prevents the players from progressing if they don't accomplish a skill check/ task/ puzzle perfectly. Make it challenging but avoid bottle necks where the players just stare at each other in confusion because they don't understand what they have missed or what they need to do.

[JKevinCarrier]

I started playing D&D in the early '80s and yes, we had a "Mapper". It was a slow and tedious process, and we eventually stopped doing it. But in retrospect, it did lead to some funny arguments. "There can't be a corridor there, there's no room for it!" "Yes there is, the DM said the room was 30' wide north-to-south, not east-to-west!" And of course, many dungeons had features that were there deliberately to mess with the mappers, such as silent teleporters, sliding walls, etc. DMs were expected to be much more adversarial back then.

Another convention of the time was the "Caller" -- the player who would lead the party through the maze and sort of manage the exploration element of the game (once combat started, it was generally every man for himself). This was good in that it kept things focused, and you didn't have people shouting over each other or giving contradictory information to the DM. But it also meant that the non-Caller players were sort of taking the back seat, and not interacting with the DM directly as much. Even today, I find most groups have that one player who takes it upon themselves to try and keep things moving and the party on track when everyone else is wandering off on their own tangents, but it's no longer an official "job".

A lot of these conventions seem quaint or even ridiculous now, but you have to remember that Gygax and co. were literally spinning this game out of thin air. There were no precedents to look back on, everyone was flying by the seat of their pants.

[lancelotscart]

I started playing in 1977 (Holmes, later amped up with the 3 original supplements, articles, and then the AD&D manuals as they were released in 1977, '78, and '79), and we used a mapper! It was a lot of fun, and it certainly made things like looking for secret doors a little more strategic. Plus, it helped to distinguish the (relatively easier) mapping of constructed rooms and the (often confusing) mapping of natural caves & caverns.

[willmistretta]

A month back, I got to play through one of Gary's original unpublished Castle Greyhawk levels (circa 1975). In the living room of his old house in Lake Geneva, no less. And yes, there were mindbending magical tricks and traps meant to confuse navigation and deadly whimsy to spare. We survived, though, and the experience was amazing.

[leorblumenthal]

I started playing in 1990 with the Mentzer Red Box. We definitely used the "mapper" role, although our DM was kind enough to point out when we were getting the map completely wrong. I generally played with this style until circa 2004, when I joined a 3.5 game where the DM drew out the dungeon on a Chessex battlemat with wet-erase markers. Since then I haven't really played in many campaigns where the DM doesn't draw out the map, either on a dry erase battle mat, or provided to us via VTT.

[josephcarriveau]

Started playing in the 80s and we had a party mapper, usually me.

Literally never stopped to ask about the dimensions of each room or hallway because the method I learned when I got started was bubble mapping. You just make a flowchart, with bubbles for rooms and lines for hallways. It's much, much faster than trying to draw a square-accurate map *and* it makes it so when you get sent to faerie and have to deal with non-euclidean geometry in your dungeon, you're *still* equipped to map it out without making any changes to your method.

Trying to draw an accurate to the square map from descriptions is by far the worst way to go, followed by just having an official map that everybody can see, followed by the DM drawing the map as you go, followed by just revealing official map on a table.

[virrcraft]

I wish someone would make a reference to the DELVE book... ahh, if only it was in the video...

[justiceraminarman]

A timeless set of tips! One other tip that wasn't common in 1975—give the monsters something to do! I'm not such a proponent of realism that I think every dungeon needs a privy, but a bunch of goblins just waiting to attack the characters isn't as fun as ones that are having a feast, trying to tame an owlbear, or rehearsing a grating choral performance.

[JeremyLambright]

I love that you never missed an opportunity to plug your book. I don't know if it was meant to be a running gag throughout the video but I found it pretty hilarious. I am always interested in learning more about Gary and the origins of D&D, so thank you for this. I'll definitely be backing your book Bob, and I wish you great success on your Kickstarter campaign.

[paulfelix]

Using mappers
I started playing D&D in early Feb of 1977. We used mappers. Some people were better at it than others. Those folks often get 'stuck' mapping game after game, campaign after campaign. The same with the official note takers; some were just better and that became their personal role in the group. It helped forge the players into a more cohesive group, and sometimes afforded me some sidebar entertainment as they argued over details.

[NemoOhd]

Love the video as always.

I started with homes blue book basic and the truth is I've never really liked mega dungeons, monster condos, or spending half your game trying to make maps on graph paper. Thank you Gary for bringing us this game but thank you to the others who have moved us on to better adventure ideas. The only thing worse than some of Gary's early megadungeon ideas are the 4th edition tactical railroads with 4-5 scripted battle scenes.

[alantesser]

The Dwarven Mine! I remember an old Bob video about this location.

[tntori]

This is an awesome video. And I love the positive energy! Who need morning coffee when I have this! Thanks for sharing!

[itsteelworks]

I've enjoyed most aspects of being a DM, but far and away the most invested and engaged I've been has been when running the dungeon complex I built for the Dwarven Valley in Icewind Dale based on piecing together the small amount of material available in LoCS, RotFM, and a few companion pdfs

[bobbylind]

Gygax unfairly gets a lot of crap from the community. He knew how to entertain and how to challenge!

[Dunybrook]

Great video. We gave up on trying to make maps ourselves very quickly because they were always wrong.

[Fnordathoth]

Started playing in the late 70's with OD&D, there was always a mapper. It's now 2024, I DM an extremely homebrewed hybrid AD&D (1st&2nd edition with highly altered BECMI rules for Immortals'Gods') and there is still always a mapper when we're not using dungeon tiles (use of tiles is rare, and only for when a fairly precise field of view for combat is needed due to elevation, etc.)