CoD:DungeonGeneration
Cave of Dangers is a Random Dungeon - that is, the dungeon is created mostly or completely by the artifice of random numbers and looking up results on tables. It is the epitome of "I'm pretty lazy and I don't feel like making a game for the players today". However, Random Dungeons can create some of the best stories due to the unexpectedness of what can be encountered due to the randomness factor. However, comparing to 1st Edition AD&D to 4th Edition D&D, there are several things to take note of.
Contents
Dungeons and Dragons, 4th Edition
- larger spaces for fighting.
- doesn't have as much rolling on the tables.
- expects some "work" out of the DM other than drawing out the map.
- dungeons are designed to give the characters 1 level per 8-10 rooms in a given dungeon level.
- has 30 levels instead of 20, allowing for a larger random dungeon.
Advanced Dungeons and Dragons, 1st Edition
- has a much more robust random dungeon generation method.
- allows for turns at different angles than 90 degrees.
- can generate "out of depth" encounters.
- can generate more rooms and terrain features from the tables.
- had Magic Pools. Hell yeah.
- trap tables were much more lethal to low-level players.
- rooms were, on the whole, much smaller.
To that end, there requires a little bit of tweaking for random dungeon generation which I will periodically tweak and update here.
Room Generation
For the most part even the smallest rooms in 4th edition are actually quite large in real life terms. They are typically at least 30' x 30' large (6 x 6 squares), presumably because of the way combat works in 4th edition. Now that there are much more tactical options, it becomes important to ensure that players have enough space in order to maneuver. An encounter idea may restrict the movements of the players, of course, but in an average battle there should be enough room for both players and monsters to move around somewhat freely (subject to circumstance).
To this end, if the party cannot fit into a room (7 squares total in the room), the room is discarded. This means the classic "You are in a 10' x 10' room" has to go out the window, however special encounters may invite special types of rooms to be generated, such as very big or very small rooms.
Corridor Generation
In order to get from one room to another (and thus one encounter to another) the rooms have to be connected in some meaningful fashion that allows the players to go to and from the room respectably freely. The corridor generation rules from AD&D 1e are excellent for corridor generation because of the special passageways and varying corridor width that is presented, which can breathe a breath of fresh air to encounters. Certain large corridors will end up looking very similar to a room or chamber rather than an actual corridor, but who cares - it's a goddamn corridor.
Special Room Generation
Put something here about creating special types of rooms. These rooms should have features that are basically totally wacky but would otherwise belong in a dungeon. For example:
- Dungeon Shops
- Temple Rooms
- Trap Operation Room
- Teleportation Room
- Generic Living Room
- Cabaret Room
- Ballroom (Wizardry 5, bro)
Treasure Generation
Treasure is procedurally generated from the player wish lists as well as the default parcel tables presented in the 4th Edition DMG. Once magic items have been disbursed, they are removed from the parcel list.
- 10% chance of loot rolling over into the next encounter
- For a party of seven, there are 12 parcels to be randomly selected from (1d12)
- In the event a parcel has multiple selections, the parcel is randomly chosen from those selections.
Types of Encounters
Depending on the encounter there may be more or less parcels available to the party.
- Commander and Troops: 10% chance of extra parcel
- Wolf pack: 30% chance of no parcel
- Dragon's Den: 50% chance of extra parcel
- Battlefield control: 10% chance of no parcel
- Double line: 10% chance of no parcel
Any encounter which has an extra parcel or no parcel will be factored into the overall parcel disbursement. As stated in the DMG, the players should receive approximately a set amount of parcels per level amounting to so much in physical wealth and also in magical items.
- Easy difficulty: +30% chance of no parcel
- Standard difficulty: Standard parcel generation
- Hard difficulty: +30% chance of extra parcel
This is to reflect the thoughts in the DMG where weaker encounters should have inferior or no treasure, and that incredibly risky encounters have suitable awards. This follows the old adage of "Great risk, great rewards" - however, because the encounters are randomly generated, there is no way to determine who has or does not have loot.
Half Parcels
A thought that springs to mind involves awarding "half parcels" for easy encounters to ensure that the players have some incentive to go through them aside from just the experience award rather than just passing the encounter by.
