Linear Five Room Dungeon
So I've read about these "five room dungeons" on the internet and how fun they are. The articles said something about what those rooms should be but let's ignore that. Too complicated. And since players are simple creatures we should make it as easy for them as possible. Let's make it a linear five room dungeon. Thus we'll end up with something like this:
Entrance (#0) ---> Room (#1) ---> Room (#2) ---> Room (#3) ---> Room (#4) ---> Room (#5)
Dungeon could be dressed as natural caves, mines, sewers, tombs or whatever strikes your fancy. The important thing is that rooms have to be separated by fairly lengthy corridors. You can scale them to your liking but for purposes of this example we'll go with corridors, that require about ten minute walk to traverse.
Entering the dungeon and walking down the corridor for ten minutes will lead them to the first room (#1). There they'll find... uh... something interesting. Let's leave that for later. More importantly the room is going to have two corridors leading out of it. One will be the one players just came from and one will lead further, into the second room (#2). Simple enough right?
Entering the second room (#2) they'll see the room has three corridors leading out of it. One will be the one they just came from, one will lead further, into the third room (#3) and... wait a second! Weren't we making linear dungeon? Don't worry. We can still salvage it. Let's just loop the third corridor so that it'll lead back to the entrance (#0). More specifically it'll look exactly as if they backtracked to the entrance from the first room (#1). Yea good old Euclid is not going to be happy we're merging two three dimensional spaces into one but we'll have to do it to save the dungeon.
Anyway... as they move further down, into the third room (#3), they'll see there are four corridors exiting it. One they came from, one leading to the fourth room (#4) and... come on now! Let's see. We could always plug another one back to the entrance (#0). You never know when you'll have to leave the dungeon in hurry. And the last one we could link back to the first room (#1). Phew. That should do it.
Coming to the fourth room, they'll discover it has five exits. One they came from, one leading to the fifth and final room (#5) and... ugh! Right. Let's link them to the entrance (#0), the first room (#1) and the second room (#2). Moving on!
Finally they'll arrive to the very furthest room inside the dungeon, the fifth room (#5). Just think about all the cool stuff that could be in there! And it has five exits... as well? One goes back to where they came from and the others go to the entrance (#0) and one to each of the remaining rooms (#1, #2, #3).
Well... at least this will make moving around the dungeon simpler. Say they enter, walk for ten minutes arriving to the first room (#1). Maybe they go further into the second room (#2) which takes them another ten minutes. Say they are pretty beaten up after that and want to head out. Easy enough, let's just backtrack. They go back to the first room (#1) and it takes them just over fifty minutes to get there... oh no. I knew playing around with non-euclidean spaces was a bad idea...
Enough with the theatrics. To maintain some semblance of brevity, here is the list of how long it takes to get from any specific room to any other specific room (if they have connection in that direction):
#0 ---> #1 = 10 minutes
#1 ---> #0 = 60 minutes
#1 ---> #2 = 10 minutes
#2 ---> #0 = 60 minutes
#2 ---> #1 = 50 minutes
#2 ---> #3 = 10 minutes
#3 ---> #0 = 60 minutes
#3 ---> #1 = 50 minutes
#3 ---> #2 = 40 minutes
#3 ---> #4 = 10 minutes
#4 ---> #0 = 60 minutes
#4 ---> #1 = 50 minutes
#4 ---> #2 = 40 minutes
#4 ---> #3 = 30 minutes
#4 ---> #5 = 10 minutes
#5 ---> #0 = 60 minutes
#5 ---> #1 = 50 minutes
#5 ---> #2 = 40 minutes
#5 ---> #3 = 30 minutes
#5 ---> #4 = 20 minutes
What is the story behind this nonsensical dungeon? Who knows... Maybe it's a natural time-space anomaly. Maybe it's a result of powerful spell going awry. Maybe it's beholder lair. Maybe it was built by a mad mage.
As I said you can scale the corridors between rooms as much as you want, as long as you can't see from one room to the other. Would be weird if you could see the entrance from all rooms... You can also replace room with entire sections of more or less normal dungeon.
What happens if players start to split up and use silly things like balls of never-ending golden yarn to help them find their way, inevitably starting to create temporal and spacial anomalies? Honestly I haven't thought that far. I mean, I haven't even thought about what to actually put in the bloody dungeon. Maybe introducing too many paradoxes into the system powers up magical fields in the area, eventually zapping pesky players who cause them. Maybe the whole place will start collapsing in on itself. Maybe couple slaads tear through the, now paper thin, fabric of planar reality.
The rough idea is that the dungeon is easier to enter than it is to exit. Especially if players get lost. The idea might or might not beenstolen from inspired by: this article .
Entrance (#0) ---> Room (#1) ---> Room (#2) ---> Room (#3) ---> Room (#4) ---> Room (#5)
Dungeon could be dressed as natural caves, mines, sewers, tombs or whatever strikes your fancy. The important thing is that rooms have to be separated by fairly lengthy corridors. You can scale them to your liking but for purposes of this example we'll go with corridors, that require about ten minute walk to traverse.
Entering the dungeon and walking down the corridor for ten minutes will lead them to the first room (#1). There they'll find... uh... something interesting. Let's leave that for later. More importantly the room is going to have two corridors leading out of it. One will be the one players just came from and one will lead further, into the second room (#2). Simple enough right?
Entering the second room (#2) they'll see the room has three corridors leading out of it. One will be the one they just came from, one will lead further, into the third room (#3) and... wait a second! Weren't we making linear dungeon? Don't worry. We can still salvage it. Let's just loop the third corridor so that it'll lead back to the entrance (#0). More specifically it'll look exactly as if they backtracked to the entrance from the first room (#1). Yea good old Euclid is not going to be happy we're merging two three dimensional spaces into one but we'll have to do it to save the dungeon.
Anyway... as they move further down, into the third room (#3), they'll see there are four corridors exiting it. One they came from, one leading to the fourth room (#4) and... come on now! Let's see. We could always plug another one back to the entrance (#0). You never know when you'll have to leave the dungeon in hurry. And the last one we could link back to the first room (#1). Phew. That should do it.
Coming to the fourth room, they'll discover it has five exits. One they came from, one leading to the fifth and final room (#5) and... ugh! Right. Let's link them to the entrance (#0), the first room (#1) and the second room (#2). Moving on!
Finally they'll arrive to the very furthest room inside the dungeon, the fifth room (#5). Just think about all the cool stuff that could be in there! And it has five exits... as well? One goes back to where they came from and the others go to the entrance (#0) and one to each of the remaining rooms (#1, #2, #3).
Well... at least this will make moving around the dungeon simpler. Say they enter, walk for ten minutes arriving to the first room (#1). Maybe they go further into the second room (#2) which takes them another ten minutes. Say they are pretty beaten up after that and want to head out. Easy enough, let's just backtrack. They go back to the first room (#1) and it takes them just over fifty minutes to get there... oh no. I knew playing around with non-euclidean spaces was a bad idea...
Enough with the theatrics. To maintain some semblance of brevity, here is the list of how long it takes to get from any specific room to any other specific room (if they have connection in that direction):
#0 ---> #1 = 10 minutes
#1 ---> #0 = 60 minutes
#1 ---> #2 = 10 minutes
#2 ---> #0 = 60 minutes
#2 ---> #1 = 50 minutes
#2 ---> #3 = 10 minutes
#3 ---> #0 = 60 minutes
#3 ---> #1 = 50 minutes
#3 ---> #2 = 40 minutes
#3 ---> #4 = 10 minutes
#4 ---> #0 = 60 minutes
#4 ---> #1 = 50 minutes
#4 ---> #2 = 40 minutes
#4 ---> #3 = 30 minutes
#4 ---> #5 = 10 minutes
#5 ---> #0 = 60 minutes
#5 ---> #1 = 50 minutes
#5 ---> #2 = 40 minutes
#5 ---> #3 = 30 minutes
#5 ---> #4 = 20 minutes
What is the story behind this nonsensical dungeon? Who knows... Maybe it's a natural time-space anomaly. Maybe it's a result of powerful spell going awry. Maybe it's beholder lair. Maybe it was built by a mad mage.
As I said you can scale the corridors between rooms as much as you want, as long as you can't see from one room to the other. Would be weird if you could see the entrance from all rooms... You can also replace room with entire sections of more or less normal dungeon.
What happens if players start to split up and use silly things like balls of never-ending golden yarn to help them find their way, inevitably starting to create temporal and spacial anomalies? Honestly I haven't thought that far. I mean, I haven't even thought about what to actually put in the bloody dungeon. Maybe introducing too many paradoxes into the system powers up magical fields in the area, eventually zapping pesky players who cause them. Maybe the whole place will start collapsing in on itself. Maybe couple slaads tear through the, now paper thin, fabric of planar reality.
The rough idea is that the dungeon is easier to enter than it is to exit. Especially if players get lost. The idea might or might not been
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