If you’ve missed the previous posts about a snowflake dungeon, you can find them here.
It’s silly, but I’ve been avoiding it for a while.
Look, learning new things is difficult. Yes, as someone who has been publishing adventures for a bit, I should have given this more thought before now. Hey, better late than never, right?
Dungeon keying. How is the information for an adventure displayed?
Thus far, I’ve honestly just kind of half-ass copied other adventures. It’s worked well enough. As I’ve been working on my snowflake dungeon, however, I’ve had to ask myself what information is important? And how do I want to display that?
The next step in my process is going to involve taking all my room information and putting it into a common format. In the past, I’ve just written directly into whatever format I was using, which was another reason I didn’t have to think about it. Now that I’m taking already existing rooms and standardizing them, I’ve really had to explore how I wanted that to look.
I started by reading this series of blog posts by The Alexandrian. I figured, why start from scratch?
After considering what I read and looking at a few other formats, I came up with the following.
SOUND of scurrying amidst the sacks of food, SCENTS of musk, stale urine, and slightly fermented apples
Large Prep Table: A dull kitchen knife (1d2) lays on top of the table. There are a few large pellets of rat droppings.
Various sacks of Food: Apples (some are starting to rot), cabbages, and grains. If disturbed, three Giant Rats will spring from their hiding places amidst them and attack.
Shelves of Jars and Bottles: Jars of fermented greens such as sauerkraut, canisters of dried herbs, jugs of olive oil and vinegar.
NORTH- a chill breeze comes through this door when open despite the lack of windows. SOUTH- A strong smell of malt wafts down this hallway.
Giant Rats
AC 7 [12] , HD 1/2 (2hp), Att 1 × bite (1d3 + disease), THAC0 19 [0], MV 120′ (40′), SV D12 W13 P14 B15 S16, M 8, AL Neutral, XP 5
Disease: Bite has a 1-in-20 chance of infecting the target (save versus poison). The disease has a 1-in-4 chance of being deadly (die in 1d6 days). Otherwise, the victim is sick and bedridden for one month.
Afraid of fire: Will flee fire.
Let’s talk about why I did what I did. First, I started with a title: The Pantry. I figured that’s good for general vibes. If I were to sum up the whole entry in five words or less, what would it say? That’s what goes here.
Next, under the title in Italic print is sensory things about the room. This is stuff that would be described to the players up front. I capitalized the difference senses for easier parsing. Not every sense will be used for every room – only those that are relevant.
Then we get into the bullet points. The headings in bold are things the PCs would easily see when entering the room. When coming into the pantry, they would see the long prep table, the various sacks of foods, the the shelves of jars and bottles. The text after the bold heading is what they’ll find if they interact with any of these things more closely. If they start looking at the jars and bottles, they’ll find the sauerkraut, olive oil, etc.
Things with stats seemed like they deserved special attention. That is why Giant Rats and the kitchen knife are red, bold, and italic. My hope is that this will allow the GM to quickly scan the text for threats and reward.
After that we have smaller italicized text. This section feels novel to me. This small section focuses on the sensory items coming from adjoining passages. If a PC listens at a door or they look down a hallway – are there clues to what is on the other side? This section governs the transition from one keyed area to the next without having to key inconsequential hallways and the like. I’m particularly curious what you all think of this.
After a little dividing line, we finish with any stats needed for this area. This is an attempt to keep book flipping to a minimum. No need to look up Giant Rats, they’re right here. I cut some of the Giant Rat information that would be found in the OSE stat block that wasn’t relevant. My goal is to keep this easy to run and not provide anything that isn’t helpful.
I’m about to start working all my rooms into this format, but before I do, I want to know – what would you change? What would you tweak? What is your favorite dungeon key format? Leave a comment below and let me know.
TAGS: Game Theory, GM Tips, Dungeons, Snowflake Dungeon
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Bones. So many bones. How many people have been buried here?
You find a rusty long sword and a small, golden vulture head worth 250 gp.
The sand here on the edge of the sacrificial ground is loose and looks recently churned.
The Vulture Priests are the enemy of knowledge and enlightenment. They seek to bring the eternal silence, the end of all things. Decay and obedience is their only god.
Armor Class 6 [13]
Hit Dice 1 (4hp)
Attacks 1 × Beak (1d4 or by weapon)
THAC0 19 [0]
Movement 120’ (40’)
Saving Throws D12 W13 P14 B15 S16 (1)
Morale 8 (11 when at their temple)
Alignment Lawful
XP 10
Number Appearing 2d4 (1d6 × 10)
Treasure Type D
Immune to the Divine: The spells and powers of clerics and paladins have no effect on them.
Weapons: They frequently use wickedly curved daggers, which they use for sacrificial purposes.
Soul Clouders: There is a 10% chance that any Vulture Priest can use the sleep spell once per day. The targets are still awake, but they are beset by such a deep depression that it has the same effect as sleep. They may only watch what unfurls around them.
