Dungeon Master's Guide

after door and killing whatever lies beyond. But the
ebb and flow of power between groups in a dungeon
provides plenty of opportunities for more subtle
interaction. Dungeon denizens are used to striking
unlikely alliances, and adventurers are a wild card that
canny monsters seek to exploit.
Intelligent creatures in a dungeon have goals, whether
as simple as short-term survival or as ambitious
as claiming the entire dungeon as the first step in
founding an empire. Such creatures might approach
adventurers with an offer of alliance, hoping to prevent
the characters from laying waste to their lair and to
secure aid against their enemies. Bring the NPC leaders
of such groups to life as described in chapter 4, fleshing
out their personalities, goals, and ideals. Then use
those elements to shape a response to the arrival of
adventurers in their territory.
DUNGEON ECOLOGY
An inhabited dungeon has its own ecosystem. The
creatures that live there need to eat, drink, breathe, and
sleep, just as creatures in the wilderness do. Predators
need to be able to seek prey, and intelligent creatures
search for lairs offering the best combination of air,
food, water, and security. Keep these factors in mind
when designing a dungeon you want the players to
believe in. If a dungeon doesn't have some internal logic
to it, adventurers will find it difficult to make reasonable
decisions within that environment.
For example, characters who find a pool of fresh water
in a dungeon might make the logical assumption that
many of the creatures inhabiting the dungeon come to
that spot to drink. The adventurers might set an ambush
at the pool. Likewise, locked doors- or even doors that
require hands to open-can restrict the movement of
some creatures. If all the doors in a dungeon are closed,
the players might wonder how the carrion crawlers or
stirges they repeatedly encounter manage to survive.
ENCOUNTER DIFFICULTY
You might be inclined to increase the encounter
difficulty as the adventurers descend deeper into the
dungeon, as a way to keep the dungeon challenging as
the characters gain levels or to ratchet up the tension.
However, this approach can turn the dungeon into a
grind. A better approach is to include encountets of
varying difficulty throughout. The contrast between easy
and hard encounters, as well as simple and complex
encounters, encourages characters to vary their tactics
and keeps the encounters from seeming too similar.
MAPPING A DUNGEON
Every dungeon needs a map showing its layout.
The dungeon's location, creator, purpose, history,
and inhabitants should give you a starting point for
designing your dungeon map. If you need further
inspiration, you can find maps that have been made
freely available for use on the Internet, or even use a
map of a real-world location. Alternatively, you can
borrow a map from a published adventure or randomly
generate a dungeon complex using the tables presented
in appendix A.
A dungeon can range in size from a few chambers
in a ruined temple to a huge complex of rooms and
passages extending hundreds of feet in all directions.
The adventurers' goal often lies as far from the dungeon
entrance as possible, forcing characters to delve
deeper underground or push farther into the heart of
the complex.
A dungeon is most easily mapped on graph paper,
with each square on the paper representing an area of
10 feet by 10 feet. (If you play with miniatures on a grid,
you might prefer a scale where each square represents 5
feet, or you can subdivide your 10-foot grid into a 5-foot
grid when you draw your maps for combat.) When you
draw your map, keep the following points in mind:
Asymmetrical rooms and map layouts make a
dungeon less predictable.
Think in three dimensions. Stairs, ramps, platforms,
ledges, balconies, pits, and other changes of elevation
make a dungeon more interesting and make combat
encounters in those areas more challenging.
• Give the dungeon some wear and tear. Unless you
want to stress that the dungeon's builders were
extraordinarily skillful, collapsed passages can be
commonplace, cutting off formerly connected sections
of the dungeon from each other. Past earthquakes
might have opened chasms within a dungeon, splitting
rooms and corridors to make interesting obstacles.
Incorporate natural features into even a constructed
dungeon. An underground stream might run through
the middle of a dwarven stronghold, causing variation
in the shapes and sizes of rooms and necessitating
features such as bridges and drains.
• Add multiple entrances and exits. Nothing gives the
players a stronger sense of making real decisions than
having multiple ways to enter a dungeon.
Add secret doors and secret rooms to reward players
who take.the time to search for them.
If you need help creating a dungeon map from scratch,
see appendix A.
DUNGEON FEATURES
The atmosphere and physical characteristics of
dungeons vary as widely as their origins. An old crypt
might have stone walls and loose wooden doors, an odor
of decay, and no light other than what adventurers bring
with them. A volcanic lair might have smooth stone
walls hollowed out by past eruptions, doors of magically
reinforced brass, a smell of sulfur, and light provided by
jets of flame in every hall and room.
WALLS
Some dungeons have walls of masonry. Others have
walls of solid rock, hewn with tools to give them a
rough, chiseled look, or worn smooth by the passage of
water or lava. An aboveground dungeon might be made
of wood or composite materials.
Walls are sometimes adorned with murals, frescoes,
bas-reliefs, and lighting fixtures such as sconces or
torch brackets. A few even have secret doors built
into them.
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CHAPTER 5 I ADVENTURE ENVlRONMENTS