Have a Dungeon! Drawing and Encounter Design
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 4 ก.ย. 2024
- Frostfury Mine Dungeon Map - www.wasd20.net/...
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Things that can make dungeons more interesting:
1. An alternate entrance... especially one that rewards the players in some way. Maybe they could've found the hidden chamber easier if they found the hidden entrance first.
2. Branching paths that provide more choices. This dungeon is rather linear... which makes it easier to control the story but limits players options. Choke points are one way to balance the branching pathways. So your dungeon ends up with 3 or so sections... each section has branches that provide options... yet the choke points between sections allow the story to still build toward the boss. Does that make sense?
3. Allies or informants add more roleplay. You said the players tried to talk to the spider. So that's a good sign that your players are looking for noncombat solutions. Some modestly intelligent creatures who live in this mine and avoid the two-headed Ogre add roleplay options. Kobolds, Troglodytes or Myconids would be great. If the party has a forest gnome or druid you could add a family of ferrets... these ferrets might not be smart enough for a conversation... but they could convey that there's a large two-headed creature lurking about.
Anyway... those are 3 things I highly recommend: alternate entrance, player choices, non-combat options.
Great comment! I absolutely agree with all of this. Thanks for the input!
Great additions. Would never have thought about ferrets
This is a really clever video idea. Even if you’re not going to use the map, watching another person’s creative process really gets your ideas going.
Great video. I've not played D&D for years but I do remember reading a great article on dungeon design and the key from it was "it has to make sense". So in the dungeon above, the spider is not going to catch much by sitting at the back of an abandoned cave and waiting for something to blunder into its webs. Given the age of the dwarves it somehow caught in its web it should have starved years ago. It would be better off having the spider use the room as a lair - with an alternative entrance to the outside world (which the players may spot - and if one of them crawls down the hole to investigate....). The players would notice large webs in the trees nearby and also notice a lack of wildlife in the area. Inside the mine,. the entrance to the room would be blocked off with all the old wood in the corner (as the giant wants to eat and sleep in peace and knows the spider is there). If the players move the wood to enter the room it makes noise - alerting the spider. Leading into the room the spider may have spun several webs across the entrance (to protect itself from the giant) which the players may get stuck in as they enter. Once in and having killed the spider, they'll find the dwarf skeletons, armour, weapons etc, - alongside animal bones and freshly wrapped deer, boar etc. that the spider is hoarding.
There is a mega gap in the market for dungeon design walkthroughs like this. I've been wondering when somebody would finally do it.
Great job and thank you!
"had no idea what to do with it, but I just add stuff"
I never skip the drawing part, love to see how it comes to life!
dope this is exactly what I needed. gonna run it for higher level player so gonna add more spicy stuff but was looking for a mine encounter and was too lazy to create one so I salute you :)
BTW i used this in my game and it went amazing!
Here are some tips on Hard Rock Gold Mining that can help with future designs:1. Several methods can be used, but Room & Pillar are probably best for D&D games2. Gold is often found with other metals (copper, silver, etc.)3. The Ore Body can be large veins of quartz laced with precious metals4. Gold mining has been traced back at least 7,000 years in history5. Mines have been dug as deep as 2 miles, and the temperature is uncomfortably hot at that depth
I will add that all mines create piles of discarded rock, which are tell tale signs of a mine entrance...made Lost Mines of Phandelver a trick to convince players why it was never found till now. Also ore-processing, smelting, and item creation usually takes place outside of the mine, as heated rocks cause cave-ins; Fantasy mines would do well to address these things if they are on the inside.
Hello, great video! What I would add... an npc captured by the ogre to get some roleplaying going. The npc could be anything from important to the plot (lost dwarven noble, ghost hunter etc) or just a commoner that got unlucky with the ogre (a hunter, halfling mushroom collector etc). Always fun with "friendly encounters" in a dungeon to break it up.
I really like this map. Particularly the laughing ghost. Gonna steal that! What I think the dungeon is missing though would be dead ends. Most real life mines have a ton of dead ends due to continuous searching for resources, so that's one aspect of it.
Hi @WASD20. Great adventure. I played D&D as a kid but have just got back into it - 40 years later! - as a dad introducing his son to the game. This was the FIRST adventure I DMed for him - it's just him and me at the moment - and he loved it. I was a bit rusty in places - and playing with rules that are significantly different from those back in the late '70s - but your tutorial video really helped. We played fast and loose with the rules - I didn't want to kill off his two characters and thus his interest in the game - but watching your tutorial gave me enough leeway to adapt and be flexible through our one-hour session. Many thanks. I will be following your site and YT channel with interest. Cheers.
looking forward to viewing another of these adventure walkthroughs, with a forest map, taverns, desert, mountainous area, swamp etc..(different terrains with new challenges)
Cheers
Thanks! All great ideas.
Love the background noises/music. Reminds me of Runehammer :)
Hi Nate! TH-cam's suggested videos listed this video, and not 2 days ago I was adding an NPC in my starting port city who asks the heroes to explore the abandoned mine in the nearby foothills!!
This map is perfect, but I will go ahead and add my own monsters and maybe a magical weapon in the Ogre area. I tend to give my players consumables, but by about 3rd level I like to make sure 1 or 2 of my players are using a rechargeable wand or a minor magical sword/axe.
Cool video. Gets my mind turning.
Something I might do......
As the PCs retrieve the tome a loud voice of an ogre comes from the passage to the west. The PCs can exit by way of the easily spotted secrete shaft passage, (to outside or deeper into the mine), or stay and fight. A comrade of the 2headed ogre has returned with a captured dwarf. He sees his failed friend and hurls the bound dwarf to the side. If the PCs haven't retrieved the wand of animate dead, perhaps the 2nd ogre picks it up and uses it on his buddy. With victory the PCs can glean more information from the dwarf npc as he had been sent to investigate but was detected and was captured while trying to escape. He may have information on Vadic as well as who may be able to help with the tome. Maybe he's a Frostfury.
This may be a bigger challange than you want to give PCs, (weaken it-use orcs), but it should fill session time.
Thanks for sharing, fun.
16:29 LOL...love the Voice over, with the Frost fury Ghost LMAO 😄
I enjoyed watching the creative process on this map and your description of the session! Thanks for another great video Nate!
Thanks! This really got my mind going, after watching this video I got an idea, and whipped up a dungeon! And I think it is cool, if I say so myself.
I love that you stuck with a grid but smoothed out the edges to make it looks all natural like. Plus the details on the items within were really neat and easy to interpret (as in, you know exactly what they are with much ambiguity)
Thank you for posting this map. I found it to be a perfect map for a low level adventure I started. I am using it as a dwarven mine that was attacked by kobolds, who took a bunch of dwarves prisoner. One of the dwarves escaped to the nearby town, collapsing unconscious only after he said, "They attacked us... they took it... don't let them have it!" My players are tasked with finding out what happened to the dwarves. I changed up the encounters some to fit my story, but I love the map. This game is over facetime and done by theater of the mind, so simpler maps are a must.
Great! Glad you found it useful. :)
Table with rotten food looks like a DJ with his lights ready for a disco wedding !
Still a nice map =)
Haha! I like that idea better. Let's go with that. Should be fun. XD
What can make an old mine better? Make it haunted, of course (and not just by the friendly Dwarven ghost)! I would have added things like a room with a heavy, wooden door which, if they listen at, can hear moaning, shuffling, scratching, etc... Opening the door would reveal the noises to come from some zombie Dwarves. Since the PCs are levels 2-4, I would have put a +1 battle axe (or a pair of +1 hand axes) and a +1 shield on the weapons rack. A pair of Drelb (so you have what essentially are Wraiths for the haunting, ghostly monsters while getting around the double level drain that can kill 1st and 2nd level characters with a hit and 4th level characters with 2) that haunt the mine as wandering monsters would be a great addition. Some giant bats are great in a mine as well. The giant spider can be a great thing if you get creative with it. As soon as you mentioned your PCs talking to it I thought "I would have the spider talk with them". The spider could be helpful. Perhaps it's the vessel and physical manifestation of a spirit that likes to speak in riddles and could hint at the hidden mine shaft and how to access it. I would make the hidden shaft lead to a much more sizable and more high-powered level. It would easily take 2 gaming sessions to win, and would definitely level up everybody. It's hidden for a reason and a very obvious reason would be that it's where the big jackpot of gold, gems (whatever they mine there) and treasure are. The territorial spirits of the Frostfury family can haunt the level or, even better, levels, as undead of the PCs' level. Since Dwarves are experts at mining and masonry, it gives you the great and easy way to add some ingenious traps, secret doors, passages, and rooms. Some types of special Karyatid Columns are good monsters to line the long corridor which leads to a huge, ornate door (trapped, ofc) that opens into the crypt of some noble member of the Dwarven clan. He wakes up as some kind of undead Berserker, the main boss monster. That's probably how I would run that if I wanted it to be a module
Hi Nate, I don't play D&D but I love your videos. In my group, we play a really simplistic pen and paper system and I (as DM) create the adventures. I learned so much from you in terms of creating a worldmap or dungeon and encounter design!
Thanks a lot! Greetings from Germany
What is the name of that game you are playing?
Just found this video just now I'm interested in playing d&d so I'm watching as many videos as I can, critical roll is awesome way of just getting the flow of a game and downloading apps and the rule books the works 😊 I'm really nerding out over d&d 🤓 thanks for making videos
Thanks. Welcome to the world’s greatest hobby. Now get playing! :D
Same dude! Ive only played two sessions but binging everything on youtube, reading up on as much as I can and even already making my own dungeons!
The same for me (a year later). Hopefully this lockdown won't stop me from learning and playing.
Your mine is missing... a mine.
There are no adits, declines, shafts, drifts, stations, arrangements for drainage or ventilation.
The workings are too large, with no timbering (or faced with stone/brick).
No spoil, back fill... and for some reason a temple instead of all the missing mine stuff.
Pls could you do more of these,there really fun to watch 🤩❤️
If you add a piece of 40 grit sandpaper under the paper then color in an inch or so of the edges it add a lot of texture in no time.
I’ll have to try that!
You had me at Giant Spider. Tell me more about that character.
I started DMing this september and was going to need a dungeon map for one the next sessions, guess I'll copy this one, change a few things and see how it goes
This kind of very practical, concrete demonstration is very useful and inspiring. A few questions: Would it bother you if the players ignored the left and right passages and went straight down the main passage? Would you then move the spider to the main passage to maintain a certain intended level of ‘substance’ and challenge? Or do you have techniques for nudging characters to choose the side passages first?
It occurs to me that the final chamber could have a shaft (for light, ventilation etc) providing a shortcut-exit to the surface, but this could be connected to the spider’s lair. Then, if they didn’t deal with the spider early on, that choice can come back and ‘bite’ them later.
Excellent work as always! I always look forward to new maps and tutorials, especially the Mappening! Keep up the good work!
Cool, I'd also add notes for sounds and smells.... where does the ogre go poop? dung is a great clue for the players. It's a lot of fun adding "sounds" to the experience, even if you are just mimicking them with your mouth.
I love this. :)
Definitely a map for the DM’s eyes only. A Character’s Copy shouldn’t have so many details.
I would sometimes run off basic copies of maps if the campaign allowed player’s characters to purchase or find one.
Mazes are also really fun to run players through, they just take longer to navigate.
This is awesome! Thank you for sharing your creative process. Nice map.
Ooooh that drawing makes me squiggly with ideas!!!! :D
I found this video very helpful! I drew a few maps of my own in this style. Thanks nate.
Great! Thanks for watching.
More "dungeons" in Dungeons and Dragons? Heck yes, I dig it. :) Awesome map and thank you for sharing the ideas and story!
12:55 I would of gathered up the webbing ( 7:50 spider web *🕸🕷🕸* ) and made a rope bridge outta of it, to get over across the *Pit Trap* LMAO
I like having spell traps that are activated when a person will read them out loud lol it gets them every time.... Like on a door, that says," To open say bam." Then without checking the door to see if its unlocked and would open they will read it out loud to the other players or say bam. Lol
Youre a good artist
He starts talking at 4:30 :D
Seeing you draw the two-headed ogre (isn't that an Ettin?) made me burst out laughing; it is just such a characterful looking image.
I found out later that my miniature was an Ettin. I saw it and it immediately reminded me of the ogres from Warcraft II.
@@WASD20 What is an Ettin, if not a two-headed ogre? :D
20:01 It would be cool, if their were pressure triggers for traps for pits, wall spikes, resin glue traps...Killer vines...female cave sirens that lure to weaken players....cave art that players must decipher for health...etc
fun format, Zee :)
I would also add some minions for the boss and an alarm system for them, maybe a gong, bell etc...
Really good work on this and by the way love the channel and hope to see more on map making.
Very impressive. I still do it "Old School," meaning pencil and graph paper!
Peace.
your ideas were wonderful
Thanks!
The ogre's bed looks like it could also be a giant toe if need be. What's the CR of a giant toe?
Lovely map, I'd like to have heard some of your thoughts as you were creating the larger structure/shape of it though.
Cool. I will definitely keep that in mind for future videos like this. Feedback appreciated!
Great music!
Love your videos, this is another really helpful one from you, thank you.
I probably over-prep...
I'm doing a year of designing a campaign setting with several possible adventures, s the players can pretty much go sandbox when they are "set free" in town.
Awesome as always
To me, it's missing some mine traits and details like ore (Hell, even throw in a couple of gems here and there for some extra pocket change), the wood beams holding up the cavernous structure (minor detail, the straightness and angularity of some of the halls is rather mine-like so that could fall under theater of the mind instead of visual), among a few other things.
Overall, I like this video. I might be taking it and making an expanded edition for my group. They're higher level and a much different group of players. lol
Great input. Thanks!
Decent map,
But I think the main thing you didn't think of was when you drew the map was "Is this a realistic situation ?"
Basic things, .... The "pit trap", bad placement, no person living inside the cave could walk past it without going to a hassle each time. So trap is not realistic and would not be placed like that because it would cause tremendous problems for daily use = Bad design.
So trap should be placed in a way, that the people living in the place can get past the trap for daily use without a lot of hassle. So placing the trap inside the "cart room" instead, so the trap is in the shortest way so people can easily fall into it, but give the adventures some eye-catching details after a roll, you notice that whoever walks/lives here does not walk the shortest path for some reason...
Map layout of the entire map...
I can understand you made the "S shape" tunnels on the map to fit the paper, sure that understandable, but a mine would most likely never be like that, especially if its a ore mine, Mines are often long paths and occasionally rooms.
And you mention the secret room, since after all its a mine and should be larger than this.
Once again, Think how it would be used daily. One does not make a hidden path into a daily working area... Not logical.
Ofc unless we talking about some area that there are often "other people" and they need to hide something but in a mine, not likely to need to have secret room for something as a mining operation.
A secret room where they hide the gold ore they have mined, sure why not, but you were talking about the mining operation shaft continue further down...
But couldn't the trap be set by creatures that repurposed the previously abandoned mine?
@@mateusz3844 no, because In the video he said that the ogre used the room near the entrance to eat and sleep
2:06 Wouldn't the flame be goning opposite the air direction (from the exit way) ?? ..unless it was a painting on the surface ?
I enjoyed watching the process of this map dungeon. cool 😎 👍
The flame symbol in the middle of the last room is actually carved in stone. Sorry I didn’t make that clearer. :)
Great piece, thx Nate
AMAZING art and video,did you use miniatures and did the players see the map
I always give the '""final Boss " a way to escape if things turn bad
You could of had it be an ettin instead of a 2 headed ogre. Since ettins actually HAVE 2 heads. And just weakened it to around however strong you had the ogre. But overall, nifty.
I think a things are for me now, i might have added more to do with that stream.
Awesome video. Have you done a series on how to draw dungeon elements?
I somehow arrived at the name Vatik for my campaign's villain totally independently of this video. I don't even remember where I got it.
Your "two-headed ogre" mini-- are you sure it's not an ettin?
Could be a warcraft mini!
Upon doing some research, it is definitely an Ettin. But my mind immediately went to Warcraft 2 ogres, so that’s what I did with it. Made for a very fun character to role-play. :)
@@WASD20 It's amazing to roleplay Ettins with different personalities (each head talks and thinks differently) and clever PCs will make them fight to make the combat easier, since they're CR 4 I think
Nate ! I wish u were my Dungeon Master :)
This could be in a WoTC book. Good stuff.
Well, thanks!
I'm kinda late to this video, but does anyone know the specific sizes of pen used for each different aspect of the dungeon? It's clear that a larger size was used for the walls, but what specific size was it? And for the text?
add weal tracks that you can notice with stone cunning
250ft draw bridge "an elf can see 240 with a bulls eye"
so the group will not see the main entrance
have the cart tracks stop at that point
if they miss the main entrance they will go to the lower level under the draw bridge
fill with FUNgoids, Ooz, assassin vines, bat swarms
add piles of dead (no need for undead) make several patches of sand and gravel mixed with stone floors
add several easy to see trap holes with an easy to see secret door in the trap holes
this is to get the group to think they found the entrance
this is actually the real trap
another door will be found 300 feet from the secret door
the trap hole will be filled with sand or gravel after opening the door sealing them in (a giant stone works to)
this part is the true dungeon the place were players go to die
you find other NPCs who have ben trapped for years (make them as insane as you wish)
add a gang of cannibals/ mad doctor who mutilates patients
you know, creepy shit
players will figure out this was the wrong way into the dwarven mine and try to head back
make sure you remind them of the wagon tracks and that they have yet to see a wagon when heading back
door behind draw bridge opens vertically and leads into a room (the parlay room)
room has a ballista behind a peep hole and has other holes on the walls that crossbows can shoot from
you find an elevator that is big enough to lift or drop a wagon deeper in
elevator is powered by hand or ox/bison from another room
congrats you are now past the front door
make the inside however you wish (preferably comfy and livable) fill with dwarves doing dwarf things
players be like th-cam.com/video/hYMLbBG1dOg/w-d-xo.html
will respect you more
city life in this deadly world will become more believable
Hey Nate, I have a question regarding the spider part. Do you cover those parts of map (with another shert of paper) that haven't been discovered yet by the players? Because what is the surprise effect of a spider and what is the point in sending a point man if they can see the spider? I'm really new to these games so my question can be stupid. But still it makes me wonder. Thx for your feedback!
For this map, I would not have the spider printed out. In fact, for my patrons I made a DM reference copy with all the information and notes, and a printable or virtual Tabletop copy that has none of my notes or other spoiler bits for players.
So I would definitely recommend using this as a reference, but when you draw it out yourself don’t have that stuff on there. Also When I do pre-draw battle maps for use at my table I usually cover up unexplored parts with overlapping sheets of construction paper.
@@WASD20 thanks, I cover those parts as well. Have a good one!
Could work for a Hero Kids quest.
Absolutely!
What is that green thing that your using called??
My takeaway: Give players random stuff for them to mess with.
Do you have a link to those tiles?
I know this is a weird question to u guys, but...
what's the name of the pen u used?
I'm curious, do you show a version of this map directly to your players, or does it just guide you while playing via "theater of the mind"?
I draw it on my battlemat as I go, or sometime pre-draw it and cover it up with brown or black paper that I use to mimic "fog of war" type of effect.
What would you recommend for software for the mapping?
I use photoshop, but that’s because I really just want a drawing tool. Inkarnate, Wonderdraft, and Dungeondraft are actual mapping programs that are decent.
i mad it a dwarven mine were an oger got in and then the dwarfs he wished to eat made the enterense collapse and he was stuk in the mine.a child got in by mistake and the pc are looking for him. they can help the oger and free him or kill the oger to rescue the child
Bear in mind, A two headed Ogre is called an Ettin and is a different monster. No problem, But that may be your miniature.
I like checking out your dungeon designs I haven't seen no castle dungeons u have drawn would like to check those out u use yours for dungeon and dragon games I'm checking out different designs cause I'm designing my own game nothing for dungeons and dragons jus a game of my own game entirely, I haven't subcribed to your channel yet I'm going to thanks.