A Brief Guide To Making A Well Rounded D&D Dungeon
Dungeons are essential to D&D as it is the first world in the title. But what is a dungeon? Simply put, it is a self-contained, often enclosed, space including several encounters that players are incentivized to delve into and brave the dangers of in search of loot, experience, and potential story beats. As a new or veteran Dungeon Master, making your own custom dungeon may be a daunting task; however, you are in the right place as today we will start by breaking down all the essential parts of a dungeon and finish with how to tie it all together into a cohesive whole.
Choose Your Genre
First, you need a genre or theme idea for your dungeon. The genre goes deeper than just simple set dressing and choosing underwater, cave, or sewer. Every dungeon should tell a story, and it's up to you to decide how to convey it. Are you trying to scare your players? Tell a story of epic heroism? Teach a lesson on how it's naughty to be a murder hobo and that jail is hard to escape? Regardless of your chosen genre, it's imperative to know what kind of emotion you want to draw out of the players and how to capture it. Some examples of dungeon genres and the hallmarks that go with them include:
Horror: Undead, Liches, Spooky Stalking Monsters, Unknowable Truths, and Abandoned Ruins
High Fantasy: Castles, City Streets, Dragon Lairs, Dangerous Lands, and Caves Infested With Monsters
Cyberpunk: Corporate Headquarters, Neon Lit Streets, and Operating Factories Where OSHA Would Have A Field Day
Fairytales: Haunted Hedge Mazes, Trick Forests, Elven Ruins, An Old Witch's Hut, And Drug Trip-Fueled Fairy Courts
For our example dungeon, we will do a mixture of high fantasy and horror, where the players will encounter the undead within a dangerous land and eventually delve into an ancient elven ruin.
Decide On Your Antagonist
While it is tempting to call them enemies or monsters to the players, the inhabitants of your dungeon should be considered antagonists, as they may not be directly opposed to the players. Dungeons and Dragons has a vast menagerie of monsters, villains, and antagonists that can inhabit called your dungeon home. Before moving on in this section, research the various creatures, factions, species, and themes accompanying them, or create one yourself. As a rule of thumb, I like to choose a boss (the leader of the dungeon and its inhabitants) first, although not all dungeons will have a leader, and can be the lair of a foul beast that lurks in the dark or a gauntlet of traps protecting a hidden treasure. Furthermore, the inhabitants of a dungeon need not all be aligned against the party. You can always spice things up by adding some neutral or outright helpful non-player characters (NPCs) to the setting.
Within our undead-infested elven ruin, we will have an undead black dragon lord over a small army of rotting zombies and skeletons, with a few restless spirits thrown in for good measure.
Make It Story Appropriate
Having a dungeon for a dungeon's sake can be fun, especially if you are playing a one-off game or testing out characters. However, if you plan on a greater overarching narrative, the dungeon should be appropriate for your story. When your players are going through a gritty, skeleton-infested moor ruled over by an undead dragon, having your dungeon be a well-manned fortress filled with ooze monsters will likely not strike the same tone your players expect.
To properly set the scene for a dungeon, first, give it a history. Even if the dungeon is a brand-new construction in the world, it should have a backstory. Ask yourself why the ruins were abandoned and who lived here before the undead dragon took it over. Perhaps the dragon discovered the undying lands of the elves and, seeking immortality, made itself into an immortal lich through a foul magical ritual, sacrificing the population of this once-thriving castle and then raising them as its undead thralls.
Select Your Encounters
Encounters are the parts of the dungeon that your players will interact with. These can be things like battles against hostile creatures but can also include the following:
Traps That Sting Like A Wasp: Traps are a staple of dungeon craft, and no good lich dragon lord would keep their lair unguarded. Pit traps, impassable doors, and moats filled with poisonous fumes can all make great traps that will dissuade intruders.
Social Encounters For The Butterflies: D&D is a role-playing game, and a dungeon need not be a combat and trap-filled headache. Social encounters with the antagonists or otherwise can allow the more roleplay-inclined players to flex their skills and make something other than attack rolls. Perhaps one of the restless spirits has maintained its sanity for several hundred years and has a vendetta against the dragon, aligning itself with the party to conquer the dragon lord before passing on.
Puzzles To Bamboozle: Puzzles in D&D are a complex topic in and of themselves, and we will go more in-depth on how to design one in a later article. Simply put, a puzzle is any challenge that combat cannot solve alone. Puzzles can manifest as a sealed door that only opens when the correct phrase is spoken aloud. Like Gandalf speaking friend and entering, the clues can be scattered around the area, or a friendly NPC can offer some insight and slowly feed clues to the party.
Combat For The Killers: Of course, RPGs, fifth edition D&D especially, have several mechanics for running combat between the players and the DM, and it can be highly cathartic to decapitate some zombies. However, don't make your combat encounters a simple room full of enemies who attack sight. Give your players options and some freedom on how to approach a combat encounter. Your undead-infested castle may have some collapsed walls, offering sneaky spots for the rogue to hide out, along with a section of unstable roof that can be destroyed from a distance and dropped on the heads of a dozen well-placed skeletons. The more tools you give your players, the more they can be creative and make a memorable story you could never have planned for.
The Finale: The only essential encounter in a dungeon is the finale, and it can be any type of encounter. This is your climax and should be the encounter that all the others have been building to, and it is often a battle or conversation with the boss of the dungeon. However, some more creative and fun finales include things like a trap that sets the entire dungeon on a timer before it collapses or a puzzle that uses several other previous puzzle answers to figure it out. This is where you want to ratchet the tension up to eleven and act as the final test for the players and their characters.
Have Some Treasure
No one wants to slog through a zombie-infested hellscape and slay a mighty dragon without any incentive or payoff. Yet, treasure is more than just gold and magic items, although those are awesome, it can be a beloved NPC that was captured by the boss, a McGuffin that moves forward the plot, or several tomes of lore that allude to a greater and more powerful threat coming in the future. Be creative with your treasure and listen to your players on what they want, then reward them for conquering your gauntlet and coming out alive. Treasure doesn't have to just be at the back of the dungeon, as sprinkling in small trinkets or little rewards for creative players can help push them toward the end in search of greater riches.
Map It Out
Whether planning to use a physical map and miniatures to represent the players and monsters or not, you should always start with a rough sketch of your dungeon. A simple dungeon only needs three things to get started: a beginning, middle, and end. The beginning is your entrance and the possible roadblocks or traps that defend it. The middle is where the meat of your dungeon exists, along with all the encounters, save the finale. The end is the final room of the dungeon, often where the boss resides and where the players will discover the treasure. Map out the dungeon and add some dead ends, multiple pathways, and optional encounters to pad it out and make the place feel like an actual location within your fictional location.
The dragon's ruin has its walls and ceilings primarily intact, with the bulk of the dungeon taking place beneath the ground in tunnels that were once a chapel for the elven residents of the castle. It features several abandoned quarters, and the boss's lair exists within the underground vault wherein an ancient holy relic, now corrupted, was once stored by the abbot of the chapel.
Lay The Hook
Finally, lay the hook for the players. They will never be incentivized to explore your finely crafted dungeon if they aren't given a good reason to do so. Even if the hook is as simple as the promise of a rare magical item, it can be enough to drive the players into braving the depths. However, the best hooks are those that are personal to the characters themselves, as some quest or knowledge they seek.
