Go to Part 1

There is a temptation to think of the complexity arising from the Xandering Techniques as being inherently chaotic – a “funhouse dungeon” that doesn’t make any logical sense. But while that certainly can be true, the reality is that these techniques actually result in more realistic designs.

For example, consider the layout of my house. Ignoring windows (which effectively turn every room in the house into a potential point of entry), the Melan diagram looks like this:

I (tragically) don’t have much in the way of secret paths, sub-levels, or non-Euclidean spaces, but even in this simple structure we can see multiple midpoint entries and looping paths. I think if you take a moment to consider the architecture of the world around you, you’ll discover that linear paths are the exception and not the rule.

And yet how often do we see a D&D module featuring a giant mansion without any windows? (Because if there were windows, the PCs would be able to break through them and ruin the DM’s carefully orchestrated railroad.)

Nor is this effect limited to man-made structures. Consider, for example, this map of Robber Baron Cave, complete with hidden passages (click for a larger image):

It’s complex to the point of being virtually ungameable. (Although I take that as a challenge even as I type it.)

SIZE: My decidedly non-palatial house also makes the point that dungeons don’t have to be large in order to take advantage of xandering. For example, the map I designed for Darkwoods’ Secret only featured a dozen locations, but the flow of the dungeon looks like this:

This smaller scale actually highlights the gameplay impact of non-linear dungeon designs. It becomes very easy to see the many different ways in which the dungeon can be played: Can certain dangers be avoided? Will the PCs or the monsters determine the field of engagement? Where will reinforcements be coming from? What viable lines of defense can be held?

BEWARE THE SPRAWL: None of this, however, is to say that you should never use branching paths or create chokepoints for accessing the lower levels of the dungeon. (Any more than it is to say that every single means of egress should be secret or unusual.) It is merely to say that such features should be used to effect and not simply by default. Variety is the spice of dungeon design, after all.

It’s also important to realize that there really can be too much of a good thing: There is a point at which endless loops and countless connections within the dungeon result in meaningless choice instead of meaningful choice. In xandering your dungeon it’s important to beware this featureless sprawl of ever-looping corridors.

STRUCTURE IN THE DUNGEON: A comprehensive guide to effective dungeon design is beyond the scope of this essay, but there are a couple of useful barometers you can use in the process of xandering.

Difficult vs. Easy: Looking at your map, there should be areas of the dungeon which are difficult to reach and areas which are easy to reach. In saying this, I’m not specifically referring to isolated secret rooms (although there’s nothing wrong with those), but rather with large sections of the dungeon.

In making this assessment you are diagnosing whether you’ve made the dungeon too boring by making the choice of path through the dungeon irrelevant. You want the dungeon to benefit from being interconnected, but if everything in the dungeon trivially connects to everything else then navigation becomes meaningless.

Far vs. Near: Similarly, have the interconnections made your dungeon too shallow? Look at where the PCs will be entering the dungeon. There should be areas of the dungeon which feel far away from these entrances. If everything in the dungeon feels equidistant, break some of those connections or delve a little deeper in your design.

Note that “near” and “easy to reach” portions of the dungeon aren’t problems to be eliminated. What you’re looking for is an effective balance in the mix between all four of these design elements (difficult, easy, far, near).

LANDMARKS: Finally, the complexity of connections within a properly xandered dungeon can also leave the players feeling somewhat adrift. In some cases this can be taken advantage of. In other cases, it’s a problem that needs to be solved.

I started map development by literally copying and pasting a large chunk the Alpha Base ruins into one corner of the map. This established a particularly unique landmark in that corner. These large landmarks in skirmish maps help players immediately know where they are and let them navigate from point to point by in-game visual references. Ideally, each “corner” of any skirmish map is visually unique, and this was my design goal with Terminal Moraine.

Jennell Jaquays – Terminal Moraine Design Notes

Different context, but Jaquays provides the solution once again. In order to successfully navigate a dungeon, the players will need distinct, memorable landmarks to orient themselves.

If you’re designing a dungeon with lots of unique, interesting features, this problem will generally take care of itself: The players will glom on to whatever details particularly resonate with them, and use those details to guide themselves. On the other hand, it can never hurt to do another quick pass on your design and add in a few deliberate landmarks: A large bloodstain. A unique statue. A room of strange runes.

Of course, players may also provide their own landmarks: “Hey, it’s that ogre we killed last week. Awesome.”

On the other hand, you may also be able to use landmarks to mess with your players. Some landmarks could easily disappear. (An ogre’s corpse that gets dragged away by scavengers.) Those unreliable landmarks then open the question of how a missing landmark should be interpreted. (The runes are missing. Does that mean we’re in a different room? Or have the runes vanished?) And some landmarks which might seem unique could easily prove otherwise. (There’s the golden statue of a cyclops in a hexagonal room… but I thought that was on the other side of the complex. Did we get turned around?)

To flip it around one last time, particularly crafty DMs might be able to hide reliable navigation information into seemingly unreliable landmarks.

Next: Xandering the Keep on the Shadowfell

Go to Part 1

Let’s start by taking a look at some of the basic techniques you can use while creating non-linear dungeons.

Some of these techniques are designed to offer complex geographic relationships (out of which meaningful choices can naturally arise). Others are designed to confuse the mapping of the complex (or, even in a game dynamic without player mapping, to confound their general understanding of the complex). The point is not (necessarily) to create a maze-like environment, but rather to create an environment of sufficient complexity that the “hand of the author” and the underlying structure of the dungeon environment become obfuscated.

MULTIPLE ENTRANCES: Multiple entrances give the PCs an immediate strategic choice as they approach the dungeon complex. Hidden secondary entrances also reward exploration both inside and outside of the dungeon, allowing for favorable approaches and quick escapes. In terms of structure, multiple entrances effectively create an additional “loop” (see below) through the surface above the dungeon.

For example, consider the classic Stone Mountain dungeon from the 1977 D&D Basic Set, designed by Tom Moldvay and Tom Wham:

From the Holmes’ Basic Set (1977)

LOOPS: Branching paths in a dungeon allow for choice, but are still functionally linear in their design. (In practice, you will follow a branch to its end; backtrack; and then go down a different branch. But each branch still presents a linear experience.) Where things get interesting is when you grab a couple of those branches and hook them together into a loop. These loops are the basic building blocks for non-linear dungeons: They provide meaningful strategic and tactical choices; make exploration meaningful; and allow PCs to find alternative routes around or through potential threats.

MULTIPLE LEVEL CONNECTIONS: If there is only a single route leading to the next level of the dungeon the complexity of the current level is collapsed into a chokepoint. But if you introduce multiple connections between the dungeon levels you create a synergy between complex level designs. Just as you create new structural loops by including multiple entrances to the dungeon, each additional connection you draw between levels creates new looping paths through the dungeon.

DISCONTINUOUS LEVEL CONNECTIONS: In a linear design, the levels of a dungeon must proceed in their predetermined order: Level 1 leads to Level 2. Level 2 leads to Level 3. And Level 3 leads to Level 4.

But once you introduce multiple connections between levels, you are free to have some of those connections skip levels. For example, there might be an elevator on Level 1 that takes you down to Level 3. Or a hidden tunnel on Level 4 that takes you back to the surface a half mile away from the dungeon’s main entrance.

SECRET & UNUSUAL PATHS: These are fairly self-explanatory. They reward curiosity and exploration, and can also breathe fresh life into areas of the dungeon which have already been traversed.

One thing to note is that not every secret path needs to take the conventional form of a camouflaged doorway: Tunnels that have suffered cave-ins. Traps that drop you to lower levels. Archaic teleportation systems that must be decoded. Rope bridges that cross over caverns that can also be explored from below. A submerged bypass connecting two seemingly unrelated lakes.

And here, too, you benefit from the non-linear design of the xandered dungeon: Because there are other viable paths for the PCs to explore, you can include truly esoteric, unusual, and flavorful paths that may be missed by the unwary (and, therefore, appreciated all the more by those who do discover them).

SUB-LEVELS: The distinction between a “level” and a “sub-level” is somewhat arbitrary, but perhaps the defining characteristic of the sub-level is that it departs from the main “sequence” of the dungeon. It may be smaller than the other levels of the dungeon; it may be difficult to reach; or both. As such, sub-levels serve as boulevards of discovery or elaborate shortcuts (or both).

DIVIDED LEVELS: Similar to the concept of a sub-level is that of the divided level. While existing within the main “sequence” of the dungeon, a divided level cannot be completely traversed without going through the levels above or below it.

For example, on the second level of the dungeon one might find two staircases both leading down to the third level. But on the third level itself, there is no path which connects the two staircases. (Or, if there is such a path, it may be incredibly well hidden or difficult to traverse.)

NESTED DUNGEONS: Nested dungeons are sort of like sub-levels or divided levels on steroids. Imagine designing two separate and distinct dungeon complexes, but then linking them together at selected locations. (For example, consider the Lost Temple of the Gorgons and the Obsidian Caverns as both being fully developed dungeon complexes, each with multiple levels and sub-levels. You could nest the Lost Temple within the Obsidian Caverns by creating two links between the complexes: A long passage on the first level of the former might lead to the third level of the latter. And a teleportation pad on the sixth level of the latter might lead to the fifth level of the former.)

As a practical demonstration of this technique, consider Jaquays’ Dark Tower:

Both Set’s Tower and Mitra’s Tower are nested into the four primary levels of the dungeon.

MINOR ELEVATION SHIFTS: When the PCs come to a staircase they may naturally assume that they are going up or down to a new level of the dungeon. But by including minor elevation shifts within the topography of a single dungeon level you can confound their expectations. Here’s an example from the Temple of Elemental Evil by Gary Gygax and Frank Mentzer:

In addition to short stairways and misleading slopes, you can also include tunnels that loop under each other while technically remaining on the same “level” of the dungeon. It’s also important to “think vertically” within rooms as well.

These techniques aren’t just a matter of confusing the players’ mapping. You are disrupting their ability to intuit the organization of your maps by analyzing the reality of the game world. While maintaining clean and simple maps for your own use and reference, you are creating a world that not only seems more dynamic and complex, but actually is more dynamic and complex.

Basically, don’t fall into the trap of thinking that just because your map is two-dimensional that the world should be two-dimensional.

MIDPOINT ENTRY: I don’t think Jaquays ever used this technique, but you can complicate the players’ approach to the dungeon by creating immediate bilateral exploration. In other words, PCs entering a dungeon are usually only faced with one navigational question at the macro-level: “How do we get down to level 2?”
But if the PCs are instead entering in the middle of the dungeon – with levels above and below them – then they’re first faced with a tougher question: “Which way do we go?”

Note that this decision point is similar to the one faced by PCs who have “skipped” a level as a result of a discontinuous level connection. It is also similar to the situation faced by PCs who have taken advantage of a hidden entrance leading to a lower level of the dungeon. The distinction of the midpoint entry is that it is the expected, default entry point to the dungeon. (And in classic dungeon arrangements, where difficulty corresponds to dungeon level, the difficulty of the dungeon would increase in both directions away from the midpoint entry.)

NON-EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY: If you want to have some real fun, consider using non-Euclidean geometry. These Escher-inspired designs can result in counter-intuitive navigation and may even result in PCs moving between levels without realizing that it’s happened. For examples of non-Euclidean design, check out my work on FFG’s The Lost Hunt and the award-winning Halls of the Mad Mage.

EXTRADIMENSIONAL SPACES: Sections of a dungeon complex may lead into areas completely beyond the dungeon itself while still remaining intimately tied to the dungeon’s topography and/or experience. For example, Gary Gygax’s EX1 Dungeonland module detailed a Wonderland-inspired demi-plane that could be accessed deep below Castle Greyhawk. I’ve read about another DM incorporating the lost island of X1 The Isle of Dread as a similar demi-plane within their megadungeon complex.

While such excursions can certainly breathe a little air into a claustrophobic dungeon delve, I think it remains an open question where the distinction between an extradimensional space which “belongs” to the dungeon and a teleportation effect which simply takes the PCs out of the dungeon entirely actually lies. In practice, the line between the two is probably more a blur than a distinct demarcation.

Laying aside these broader questions, I include extradimensional spaces in the list of xandering techniques because they also allow you to super-impose multiple areas into a single geographic space.

Next: The Philosophy of Xandering

Since we’re going to be discussing the Caverns of Thracia extensively as part of the Xandering the Dungeon essays, I finally motivated myself to collect the campaign journal / exploration of OD&D that I wrote in early 2009 so that they could all be accessed through one handy link. Check it out:

Part 1: Character Creation
Part 2: The First Foray
Part 3: Death in the Ruins
Part 4: The Second Party
Part 5: The Final Foray
Part 6: The Second Session
Part 7: The Twin Travails of Thalmain
Part 8: The Massacre of Fire

UPDATE: The following posts also contain thrilling exploits from the dungeon:

The Intemperate Jungle
My Favorite Character Sheet

You might also want to check out the (Re-)Running the Megadungeon essays, which use a behind-the-scenes peek at this campaign as an example of how to properly run a megadungeon.

I believe that dungeons should always be heavily xandered.

…

Okay, it’s true. I’m just making up words now. Recently, though, I’ve been doing some deep dives into the earliest days of D&D. I’ve been reading and running the rules and adventures of those bygone days and discovering — or rediscovering — the amazing work of Arneson, Gygax, and the many, many others who were exploring the brave new world of roleplaying games. When it comes to xandering the dungeon, what I wanted was a word that capture the pioneering dungeon design of Blackmoor, Greyhawk, and, above all, Jennell Jaquays, who designed Caverns of Thracia, Dark Tower, Griffin Mountain, and a half dozen other old school classics for Judges Guild, Chaosium, Flying Buffalo, and TSR. Because a word for that didn’t exist yet, I felt compelled to create one.

This article originally coined a different term. Click here for an explanation.

I first started running Jaquays’ Caverns of Thracia last year. It inspired an entire campaign, and while exploring its depths with my players over the past several months I’ve often found myself ruminating on the mysteries of its labyrinths and trying to unravel why it’s such an utterly compelling and unforgettable adventure. Along the way, I’ve come to the conclusion that everyone should be more familiar with Jaquays’ amazing work, so let’s take a moment to dive deeper into her legendary career and also consider what makes a dungeon adventure like Caverns of Thracia different from many modern dungeon adventures.

After amazing work in tabletop RPGs, Jaquays transitioned into video game design, and in that latter capacity she recently wrote some essays on maps she designed for Halo Wars:

Memorable game maps spring from a melding of design intent and fortunate accidents.
Jennell Jaquays – Crevice Design Notes

That’s timeless advice, and a design ethos which extends beyond the RTS levels she helped design for Halo Wars and reaches back to her earliest work at Judges Guild.

And what Jaquays particularly excelled at in those early Judges Guild modules was non-linear dungeon design.

For example, in Caverns of Thracia Jaquays includes three separate entrances to the first level of the dungeon. And from Level 1 of the dungeon you will find two conventional paths and no less than eight unconventional or secret paths leading down to the lower levels. (And Level 2 is where things start getting really interesting.)

The result is a fantastically complex and dynamic environment: You can literally run dozens of groups through this module and every one of them will have a fresh and unique experience.

But there’s more value here than just recycling an old module: That same dynamic flexibility which allows multiple groups to have unique experiences also allows each individual group to chart their own course. In other words, it’s not just random chance that’s resulting in different groups having different experiences: Each group is actively making the dungeon their own. They can retreat, circle around, rush ahead, go back over old ground, poke around, sneak through, interrogate the locals for secret routes… The possibilities are endless because the environment isn’t forcing them along a pre-designed path. And throughout it all, the players are experiencing the thrill of truly exploring the dungeon complex.

By way of comparison, Keep on the Shadowfell, the introductory adventure for D&D 4th Edition, is an extremely linear dungeon:

(This diagram uses a method laid out by Melan in this post at ENWorld. You can also find a detailed explanation in How to Use a Melan Diagram.)

Some would argue that this sort of linear design is “easier to run”. But I don’t think that’s actually true to any appreciable degree. In practice, the complexity of a xandered dungeon emerges from the same simple structures that make up a linear dungeon: The room the PCs are currently in has one or more exits. What are they going to do in this room? Which exit are they going to take?

In a linear dungeon, the pseudo-choices the PCs make will lead them along a pre-designed, railroad-like route. In a xandered dungeon, on the other hand, the choices the PCs make will have a meaningful impact on how the adventure plays out, but the actual running of the adventure isn’t more complex as a result.

On the other hand, the railroad-like quality of the linear dungeon is not its only flaw. It eliminates true exploration (for the same reason that Lewis and Clark were explorers; whereas when I head down I-94 I am merely a driver). It can significantly inhibit the players’ ability to make meaningful strategic choices. It is, frankly speaking, less interesting and less fun.

So I’m going to use the Keep on the Shadowfell to show you how easy it is to xander your dungeons by making just a few simple, easy tweaks.

Go to Part 2

XANDERING THE DUNGEON
Part 2: Xandering Techniques
Part 3: The Philosophy of Xandering
Part 4: Xandering the Keep on the Shadowfell
Part 5: Xandering for Fun and Profit

Addendum: Dungeon Level Connections
Addendum: Xandering on the Small Scale
Addendum: How to Use a Melan Diagram
Dark Tower: Level Connections

Over the past few days quite a few people have sent me e-mails asking about Legends & Labyrinths, and it looks like my post from earlier today about working on a different project has prompted a fresh series of questions. I talked about this a little bit in the comments a few days ago, but I’ve decided to front page it for people to know what’s going on.

Here’s the situation:

The bulk of the rulebook is finished and is essentially functional. What isn’t done? Primarily the spell and monster lists. The monster creation system also needs to be tweaked some more. Also, final layout and (with layout) the SRS.

In other words, the game is in a completely playable state. (Since it’s 100% compatible with 3rd Edition, you can just use the spells and monsters from the SRD or existing core rulebooks.)

So why hasn’t the book been finished and published? Largely because the interior art portion of the project fell apart and I don’t have the budget to redo it properly. And I’m enough of a perfectionist that if I’m going to do it, then I’m going to do it right. Particularly if I’m expecting people to pay money for it.

Does this mean the project is dead? I hope not. I’ve got a couple of ideas about how to raise the funds for the interior art, and I’m hoping that I’ll be able to tell y’all something soon.

But the one resolution I’ve taken away from the clusterfuck that happened around L&L is that I’m not going to talk about a product until it is 100% done and ready to go. I do this work for love on a shoestring budget. And hearts and shoestrings both have a reputation for breaking.

So, once I have something concrete, you’ll be the first to know. And if I ever believe that L&L is never going to happen (which would depress me terribly), I’ll also let you know.

But beyond that, I hope you’ll all bear with me while I do my best to avoid doing a Harlan Ellison impression.