Thursday 22 August 2013

Quick and Dirty (Untested) Dungeon Mapper

1. Take a handful of dice - preferably a mix of d4s and d6s, although you can throw a d8 or two in if you are feeling daring.
2. Throw them on the table, not too violently.
3. The position of each dice is a cavern or chamber. Note the approximate positions on a piece of paper.
4. The number on each dice is the number of exits for the respective cavern or chamber.
5. The number on each dice plus the number of sides on the dice is the approximate number of squares covered by the chamber or cavern (or the approximate number of square yards). 
6. Draw tunnels as necessary, using dice faces as a rough guide - so if two dice have sides facing each other, draw a tunnel/doorway between those two faces, and so forth. 

6 comments:

  1. In my version you just draw rooms right around the dice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think there must be some way of getting all of the raw information you need for an entire game out of just rolling fistfuls of dice and extrapolating from the combination of the number of sides on the dice, the dice result, and the position of the dice. I'm obsessed with this.

      Delete
    2. I did stuff like this for a long time:
      It _can_ be done, (there is tons of information there in the dice) however since it isn't _actually_ a computer, using your human eyes to figure out and transcribe that information is not always the most efficient way to deal with it. Not necessarily even more efficient than just making something up or rerolling a lot of dice.
      -
      Here's an example:
      Let's say you wanted to generate a whole hexmap--you toss a handful of dice down and circle them--the type of die, color, number, position, and orientation of the dice all give you information, so that's 4-5 pieces of info per die.
      Then you record all 5 pieces of info for each loaction with a die and what do you have?
      Something abulafia could've done for you faster and with more variables.
      -
      So then when _do_ you use this?
      Well if there's a dungeon or something that needs to be generated in play with everyone watching where position is important. Like: what's the town where the villain's hiding set up like?
      Drop your dice, find your info fast.
      Why does it work--because _in that moment_ (not during prep_ dice are faster than the other tools.
      But in prep, extracting info from dice is no faster than rolling on a table a few times or anything else.

      Delete
  2. I think the Fighting Fantasy RPG used something similar.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You're correct Brian, Technique demonstrated in this old Fighting Fantasist post ....http://fightingfantasist.blogspot.com.au/2011/11/advanced-fighting-fantasy-random.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nice - that's actually probably better than mine.

      Delete