Anyone ever try a map from the side instead of top down?

[Drelua]

Like a sidescrolling video game, original Mario for example. I'm considering running an adventure where the villain manages to sort of re-aim a teleport spell cast on the party so they land in a dungeon. After a few encounters, they might find a way out, but they have to do a lot of climbing with limited supplies. I thought running this bit like a sidescroller could be interesting, but I'm not sure how well that would work, and I don't have a tonne of GMing experience. So I was wondering, has anyone tried this, or do you have any thoughts on it? Thanks.

[legomaster00156]

It's interesting, but I've never seen it done myself.

[johnbragg]

It's interesting, but I've never seen it done myself.

....I like it though. Lots of climbing. very different tactical layout.

[Kurald Galain]

Yes, I've done it on a couple of battle maps. It works pretty well, most players intuitively understand it.

[Palanan]

I can't quite visualize what you're describing here. How would this be different from an ordinary dungeon?

The closest I can think is something my first 3.5 DM threw at our group, in which he tried to adapt snakes-and-ladders to the dungeon environment. It involved a lot of climbing up and down, but it ended up being extremely confusing in play.

If that's what you're going for, some kind of iso map might be the best way to express the three-dimensional relationships.

[Knaight]

I've seen that depiction used for mines and similar before (that and skyscrapers, but those are relatively unlikely to show up), where it makes a lot of sense. You still need the top down map for the combat system though.

[johnbragg]

I can't quite visualize what you're describing here. How would this be different from an ordinary dungeon?

Instead of most rooms having exits on some combination of north, south, east, west, they open up, down, forward, back. If the dungeon has multiple "levels", the levels are alongside each other rather than stacked on top of each other.


The closest I can think is something my first 3.5 DM threw at our group, in which he tried to adapt snakes-and-ladders to the dungeon environment. It involved a lot of climbing up and down, but it ended up being extremely confusing in play.

In my head, the actual dungeon rooms were still horizontal.


If that's what you're going for, some kind of iso map might be the best way to express the three-dimensional relationships.

Or just be lazy about that part and not use a lot of diagonals.

[Palanan]

Originally Posted by johnbragg
Instead of most rooms having exits on some combination of north, south, east, west, they open up, down, forward, back.

With you so far….


Originally Posted by johnbragg
If the dungeon has multiple "levels", the levels are alongside each other rather than stacked on top of each other.

…but I can’t make any sense of this, especially when I try to reconcile it with your first sentence.

I’ve never played Mario anything, so I don’t have the same common reference as other folks in the thread.

[Drelua]

Good to hear it's worked for a couple people. I'm thinking it would be a fairly confined space, either a crack opened up in the stone so the walls aren't too far apart, or it's just a relatively smooth wall with narrow platforms built onto it, probably some of them broke. Wouldn't be much of a third dimension that way. They'll be low level, so they won't have the skills to go straight up the wall. As long as someone takes acrobatics and climb, they should be able to help everyone up after them.

For people that are having a hard time figuring out what we're talking about, original Samus would be another example, although Spelunky was what gave me the idea. The original version's free to download if you're interested, and don't mind dying in all kinds of ridiculous ways. In the remastered version, I've died when a monkey threw me at bees :smalleek:

Actually, here's a more straightforward example; imagine an encounter's taking place on a fire escape, probably a chase, and you're looking at it from the side. Put that on a grid, and there you go.

[johnbragg]

Instead of most rooms having exits on some combination of north, south, east, west, they open up, down, forward, back.


With you so far….


If the dungeon has multiple "levels", the levels are alongside each other rather than stacked on top of each other.


…but I can’t make any sense of this, especially when I try to reconcile it with your first sentence.


Ok. You walk into a passageway that leads into the first room of the dungeon, and you go up and down and forward and back and fight a bunch of goblins and skeletons and zombies, clearing out about a dozen rooms all of which have at least one up/down/forward/back doorway. ("Level" one.)

In two or three of the rooms, there is a door to the left. If you take that door, you enter another set of rooms where you can go up and down and forward and back--and fight gnolls and an ogre and ghouls and dire wolves and a minotaur. ("Level" two.)

One of those rooms has a passageway that goes to the left. It leads to a set of rooms (again up down forward back) where you'll find a beholder and a troll and a hill giant and a vampire. ("Level" three)

[Nibbens]

I've done this with two maps before - one that signified elevation, another that signified distance (the normal d&d map). It wound up being very confusing for the players.

Doing high level stuff now, and almost every encounter takes place with arial elevation at some point. I'd suggest just using some physical reference to keep the heights of each character on the battle map - like a dice or poker chip to signify elevation and keep the number in feet written somewhere (or make each player keep track of his or her own elevation).

[Drelua]

Yeah, I wouldn't want to try having two separate maps, that would be annoying having to move your miniature twice. I'd just have one map, because their goal's going to be to get up and out of the dungeon, and they'll be on a reasonably two dimensional surface, so it should be fine. The only hard part I can see is that I'd have to design the map to have a reasonable amount of difficulty without being too hard for them to make the jumps. I'll probably aim for about DC 15 most of the time, maybe throw in the odd DC 20 when there's a platform for them to land on so they don't go all the way down, or encourage them to tie a rope around the guy doing the jump so everyone can hold on in case the fall

[Deophaun]

Vertical maps are not uncommon
https://i.imgur.com/VPxqRXb.png
They're just not battlemaps.

The thing about platformers is that they are about memorization, timing, and skill. These things do not translate well to TTRPGs.

[Drelua]

Wow, I completely forgot I had seen maps like this on a larger scale. I even ran Emerald Spire about a year ago, that has a map of the whole 16 level dungeon. It's true that the platforming won't really translate, but it should be a unique challenge for them I hope. Now I just have to get them to figure out what to play...

[Catarang]

I'm worried how this would work at low levels. Levels 1-3 would be tough because not many people are going to be good at climbing, especially cross class, and there aren't many ways to get flying unless everyone is playing some winged race or spending a good deal of their WBL on it. I fear this would hinder your attempts at introducing that second dimension to the game, and end up with only the single dimension of length.