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Heimdal
2007-02-06, 12:32 PM
Well, to be quick and frank: I am designing the final dungeon in my real life, home brew campaign, and I need help. I am trying to create a 3d maze... the whole deal, ladders, endless abysses... etc. Anyway, the problem is that this is beyond anything I've ever done before, and I need some tips, and maybe even some help.

Can anyone help someone in his time of need?

Saph
2007-02-06, 12:44 PM
Well, you could do all the work to design a full detailed 3D maze, using separate sheets of paper for each level, sketching in each corridor, using a reference system to refer to each room, maybe making a computer model or something to view it in three dimensions. Lots and lots of work, and the PCs will definitely have to map as they go along.

Or you can just design only the rooms you care about, ask the players to make Intelligence checks to navigate through the maze, and make up what happens when they fail.

I prefer the second option. It's much easier and lets you spend you time on the parts you actually care about, like the key rooms and the setting and enemies for the final battle.

- Saph

daggaz
2007-02-06, 01:22 PM
I prefer actually writing the maze out a) because it makes it easier to keep track of things when the PC's invariable get lost and wander in circles or backtrack etc.. and b) cuz I just LOVE designing areas.


A couple simple tricks for doing it on pen and paper:

1. Think of some of the more special rooms/areas you want to have in your dungeon. Make a list, do some rough map sketches, and when you have a good feel for it, draw these in first.

2. Using graph paper (duh), mark the up/down exits on your first floor, and then mark these same exits on the corresponding levels to which they connect to. When you get to that level, just 'connect the dots' so to say. This really helps if you want to make a good 3-D maze, tho it can still get tricky if you put a lot of up n down twists n turns into it.

3. If you are planning a one-path only maze (only one solution), then draw this path in first on all levels, making it as convoluted as need be. Fill in all the other twists n turns afterwards. Keep in mind to make a few of the turns into real long doozies, if you want it to be very challenging.

Person_Man
2007-02-06, 02:08 PM
I always make my mazes/dungeons have a purpose of some sort. Someone had to build it, and the layout should make sense for that purpose.

For example, it could be an abandoned sewer system from an ancient city. Such a system could be like a spoke an hub, with a large draining tank in the middle, and several main avenues heading to it. But some of the avenues are collapsed, so the PC's have to take side tunnels. And as the PC's progress through, other tunnels might collapse (if they use explosive magic against an enemy), and they might find secret passages (beneath the water line, or covered in mold) that would speed their passage to the middle.

Whatever you end up doing, make it have a pattern. Without a pattern or reasonable layout of some sort, players will just wander around lost and frustrated for hours.

Premier
2007-02-06, 02:22 PM
Think about all the pathways that can move the party in the 3rd dimension - there's a lot more to vertical movement than ladders and staircases. Here are a couple of ideas:

- Natural cavern systems in real life are often highly vertical, with lots of slopes and chutes.

- Two dungeon levels are "connected" in every single spot where the one above opens onto the one below. For example, if there's a balcony looking over a large, two-floors-tall hall below, that (and some rope or magic) gives the PCs to change levels.

- Natural caverns don't conveniently organize themselves into separate, completely horizontal "levels" divided by equal distances. You'll find lots of small slopes and the like, and the exact depth of every room's floor will be completely different. This variation might very well result in "half-levels", "quarter-levels" and the like, which will cause a great deal of consternation to the party mapper. (Which is a good thing. :) ) In some cases, artificial underground complexes can mimic the same effect. For example, you might have complex organized around several main staircases, which have small room complexes branching off at various intervals. You add some way of travelling directly from room complex to room complex, and when the party eventually reemerges onto one of the main staircases, they'll have a ball figuring out how far they actually travelled vertically.

- Highly vertical complexes are just ASKING for the option to have certain areas flooded or buried. Either by the players, or the inhabitants.

SpiderBrigade
2007-02-06, 02:25 PM
Ok, so this doesn't apply to the 3d maze, obviously, but in a 2d maze you always hear about that trick where you just follow the left-hand wall, and you will eventually get to the exit. Is it topologically possible to design a 2d maze where that doesn't work? Because that's one of those things that can get aggravating to a DM, if his players always use it.

Premier
2007-02-06, 02:30 PM
One: the method only gets you back to the point where you started putting your hand on the wall. If this wasn't right at the entrance/exit, then it doesn't necessarily get you to the exit.

Two: The one way to defeat the method in a 2D labyrinth is teleporters, or similar weird non-Eucledian gimmicks.

Three: Actually, there's a similar solution to 3D mazes as long as the maze only contains 3-way junctions (including stairs and such). A bit more complicated then just putting your hand on the wall, though.

Darrin
2007-02-06, 02:30 PM
Well, to be quick and frank: I am designing the final dungeon in my real life, home brew campaign, and I need help. I am trying to create a 3d maze... the whole deal, ladders, endless abysses... etc. Anyway, the problem is that this is beyond anything I've ever done before, and I need some tips, and maybe even some help.

Can anyone help someone in his time of need?

1) Well, the first thing that springs to mind is a hypercube, but that's a four-dimensional object, not necessarily 3D. It consists of 8 rooms linked in such a way so that they wrap around each other. Hard to map, and confusing for PCs and GMs alike.

2) The second thing that comes to mind is what daggaz suggests with the "one path" maze... there used to be a bunch of these on DikuMUDs where certain exits would be randomized. If you assume squarish rooms on a 2D grid, and you establish certain exits as being non-random, then the pattern to get out of the maze looks something like "N W S W". The original Legend of Zelda NES game had a similar puzzle. If the players pick a randomized exit, then you either send them back to the starting room or to a randomized room with all random exits. This is easier to create as a GM, as all you have to do is create some random rooms with various traps/challenges, and then just roll on a table to pick the next one or choose whichever would be interesting.

3) Sounds like you want something a bit more elaborate than a bunch of squarish rooms with a different monster/trap in each one. If that's the case, then design the solution first (Climb Ladder "D", take third pulley/zipline over bottomless chasm, pull lever to rotate multi-door roundabout two passages to the left, etc.), and build all the false paths/deadends around that. To a certain extent, you see a lot of older Gygaxian dungeons attempt something similar, and you also see some of the same tricks used to frustrate or mislead players. Archways/rooms that teleport to one or more "holding cells" to consolidate loose paths, passages that loop back to previous rooms, and so on.

Mewtarthio
2007-02-06, 02:36 PM
Ok, so this doesn't apply to the 3d maze, obviously, but in a 2d maze you always hear about that trick where you just follow the left-hand wall, and you will eventually get to the exit. Is it topologically possible to design a 2d maze where that doesn't work? Because that's one of those things that can get aggravating to a DM, if his players always use it.

Er, why? I do that in real life if I don't know where I'm going (in, say, a riot-proof dorm or something else maze-like). Whenever I play a video game with a maze-style area, I do that trick. It's a perfectly valid trick. If it's getting aggravating, put something nasty down the left-hand path.

I think there's some trick you can use, though. I recall wandering around the Archive level of Goldeneye for half an hour looking for Natalya, killing every guard inside and outside the building, and never finding her for some time. I forget how they did that, though. Maybe I just got confused by the level.

Jayabalard
2007-02-06, 02:45 PM
in a 2d maze, you can use either the left or the right handed method, and you'll eventually find the way out. it works well to consistently explore an area.

Once you start working in 3d, it's possible to put in infinite loops so that trick doesn't work. Same goes for teleporters and other magical tricks.

Personally, for dungeons and such I prefer Person Man's method; people don't generally make weird mazes just for the hell of it.

Premier
2007-02-06, 02:50 PM
By the way, this is not strictly about 3D dungeons, but this thread (http://www.knights-n-knaves.com/phpbb/viewtopic.php?t=168&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0) has a long and interesting discussion on dungeon design in general. So does this one (http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=168563), which concentrates on the issue of linear dungeons and why they're not interesting.

Indon
2007-02-06, 02:52 PM
Ok, so this doesn't apply to the 3d maze, obviously, but in a 2d maze you always hear about that trick where you just follow the left-hand wall, and you will eventually get to the exit. Is it topologically possible to design a 2d maze where that doesn't work? Because that's one of those things that can get aggravating to a DM, if his players always use it.

Yes, if your starting and ending locations are not both on the perimeter. If one or the other is in the middle of the maze, it's possible to design an 'isolated' series of walls which you can't get to by following the wall, and instead you'll just go around back to where you started eventually.

daggaz
2007-02-06, 02:52 PM
I agree with Person Man on this one, too. I always give my dungeons some flavor. It makes them more realistic, and it makes them easier to design by giving you ideas/constraints. Thinking about ecology (ie food sources, prey-predator relationships, tribal relationships, the powers that created it (magic/natural/animal) whatever..) is good for this kind of flavor.


For instance, I recently did a pretty simple troglodyte cavern (not much of a maze, but it did have different choices, some of which looped back around to older rooms.) If the players went right, they found more and more troglodytes, provided they stayed on the path that only produced trog encounters. Side paths gave other monsters (see next paragraph), which generally hinted they were going the wrong way.


To the left, they first found a troglodyte skeleton. In this room, a choker lay hidden up in the ceiling, waiting for a good chance to attack the rear guard. From here, they could hear a high pitched sound to the south, and a damp path to the north. They were trying to rescue a young elven girl from the trogs, but if they followed this sound, they find a dead end cavern with shrieker and violet fungus, respite with another fresher corpse, this time of a dwarven adventurer with some gear on him.


Taking the north path, they go through a waterfilled passageway and emerge in a large cavern littered with large grey fungus, heaps of troglodyte bones, and the empty molts of a giant centipede (who was hiding in the piles, along with some of his tiny brood).


Past this room, there is a hole in the floor which dropped down into another room, again with a couple trog skeletons. This time, a pair of cloakers are the culprits, feeding on the troglodytes foolish enough to try and venture into the unclaimed side of the cave, or perhaps stealing the quarry of the centipede as it dragged them back to its den.


From here, they could head back to a large waterfilled cavern, which they would arrive at if they had stayed to the right in the first place. Here are more trogs, it is the beginning of their controlled territory. But there is a hidden underwater passage, where a younger centipede has made a lair as well, also feeding on them.


If they could fight past the first line of troglodyte defense, another path led north from this waterfilled cavern, through several more lines of trog defenses and traps, until they final made it to the home cave of the tribe.


The trogs themselves, unable to clear out the entire cave, and also unable to find a better place to live, have made a habit of regular hunting forays into the wilderness outside, where they generally prey on anything they can take advantage of, hence the kidnapping (and subsequent eating of) the elvish girl. Yeah, my party didn't make it in time to rescue her.

SpiderBrigade
2007-02-06, 03:10 PM
Er, why? I do that in real life if I don't know where I'm going (in, say, a riot-proof dorm or something else maze-like). Whenever I play a video game with a maze-style area, I do that trick. It's a perfectly valid trick. If it's getting aggravating, put something nasty down the left-hand path.

I think there's some trick you can use, though. I recall wandering around the Archive level of Goldeneye for half an hour looking for Natalya, killing every guard inside and outside the building, and never finding her for some time. I forget how they did that, though. Maybe I just got confused by the level.
Yeah, I guess that came across more "OMG this technique works, I must put a stop to it!" than I really meant it to. More like something to keep it interesting so that maze-like things don't turn into "yawn, follow the left wall some more, evade traps, kill monsters, yawn." Something to keep players making active choices about which tunnels to go down, paying attention to clues to the way out, etc.

Person_Man
2007-02-06, 03:43 PM
Ok, so this doesn't apply to the 3d maze, obviously, but in a 2d maze you always hear about that trick where you just follow the left-hand wall, and you will eventually get to the exit. Is it topologically possible to design a 2d maze where that doesn't work? Because that's one of those things that can get aggravating to a DM, if his players always use it.

It's actually quite simple. You just need circular breaks - a left wall that continues all the way back to the original entrance. It's hard to describe, but simple to execute:

http://g.1asphost.com/someguyindc/maze.JPG
Now, this map is very simple. Anyone physically mapping it out would be able to figure out that they just need to head into the middle. But just following the left or the right hand side gets you nowhere.

Just make this map ten times as big (with 5 or 6 circular breaks), add in more rooms, multiple levels (each featuring their own circular breaks), a few gelatinous cubes to clean up the place, poor lighting, ambushes, secret doors, and a "beat the clock" element (we have to rescue the Princess before she is sacrificed to the Evil demons at midnight!) and you get yourself a cool maze that cannot be easily broken by the left wall rule.

And if you moved the end goal from the middle to some side room that’s not stumbled upon by following the left or right wall, you get a real challenge. But if you’re going to do all that, you should leave clues of some sort, like minions that the PC’s can defeat in combat. If the PC’s are smart, they’ll keep one alive and question him.

Also, it’s worth mentioning that many towers are specifically built with similar circular architecture, so that people on the inside can quickly get to the outer walls to defend the place, but that people on the outside trying to invade would have a hard time finding their way to the middle. So there's a rationale for why a castle might be built this way.

LotharBot
2007-02-06, 03:53 PM
You can always model a 3D dungeon off of something you actually have experience with... a building or cave system you've been in before, a level from a video game (Descent or similar), the McDonalds playplace, and so on.

If you happen to be good with a video game editor, you can actually physically build the dungeon, and then just move room to room within it on your PC based on what your players do. Put reminders in each room to let you know what sort of battle will take place.

Stormcrow
2007-02-06, 07:32 PM
I particularly like that one LotharBot.

There are "Random Dungeon Generators" out there that will map a dungeon to your specifications. I did one once for en eighth level party... three floors.

Worked out to contain 58 Monsters and 182,000GP worth of loot in the first floor. So be careful with those :P