You should have Jennell on the show! Jennell is still active in the industry, she's not just a figure from the distant past, and she's quite a lovely person.
An important concept of her style of design that more often than not gets over looked is that the dungeon tells a story. And because the 'dungeon' is NOT sequential the story has to be compartmentalized so no matter the order they explore the rooms the story segments reveal themselves.
I'm going totally from recall, but I think the Forge of Fury adventure might fit this model. There definitely were two entrances the players might use, an underground river, an alternate exit, dungeon levels that stacked irregularly, secret paths that players leveraged to create an ambush, an alternate entrance that the big bad could use. While the adventure as written doesn't necessarily exploit the cartographic layout, it doesnt require a clever DM to make it interesting.
The concept of the point crawl really takes me back to the days of text based adventure games like Zork. Implement that concept in a D&D game and you’ve got your point crawl. Who else remembers “You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here.”
Might you say an adventure location (hole in the ground or not) is "Jaquaysian"? For example, Dungeons of Drakkenheim is highly Jaquaysian, since it basically turns a ruined city into a megadungeon. You can enter in a lot of ways and most places are interconnected, but if you are fool enough to take advantage of that to push in too far or stay too long, you'll get crushed. As the PCs gain capabilities and complete missions, they can unlock a couple 'hideout' areas to rest in, so they don't necessarily need to return to the local village every night.
These are interesting concepts, which only now I've seen clearly shown out, even though I may have subconsciously applied them. Right now, for example, I'm running a SWADE scifi campaign and the first adventure is set in a space ship assaulted by space pirates. In this scenario, it was quite easy to think about the ship with these concepts: multiple elevators to go from one level to the others, maintenance corridors, secret corridors connected to the ship past (it's a civilian ship but used to be a military one), etc. On the other hand, when running D&D adventures I seem to apply them less frequently, expecially the loop back thing. Thanks for the video, I should write them in my list of "things to keep track of when creating adventures".
I came up with a design I call Schrödinger’s Adventure. In your example, they take the left Dwarven ruins entrance they find themselves in the abandoned mine dungeon. Take the right, fetid entrance and they are battling the lich. You can spring entire adventure scenes, hooks and elements into and out of existence as you see fit - and your players will think you had it planned that way all along! If you have a premade adventure that is missing a loop or elevation change, change it on the fly. Add the cave of magical light, the underground ominous lake etc.
Stumbled onto this for the first time today. It's worth noting that Justin Alexander is now calling this "XANDERING a Dungeon" as the publisher of his book "So You Want to Be a Game Master" instructed him to stop crediting other authors (for some reason) in his work. Unfortunately, this change took place *right after Jaquays' death* so it's been very, very controversial.
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You should have Jennell on the show! Jennell is still active in the industry, she's not just a figure from the distant past, and she's quite a lovely person.
That would be amazing
This is a fun idea! Or just in general Id like to see interviews of her, sly flourish seems like more of a solo show
An important concept of her style of design that more often than not gets over looked is that the dungeon tells a story. And because the 'dungeon' is NOT sequential the story has to be compartmentalized so no matter the order they explore the rooms the story segments reveal themselves.
You took the words right out of my mouth when you mentioned Dark Souls.
I like to use Jannelle Jaquays methods for flowchart adventures or campaigns too. Her methodology is useful for a ton of different design applications
Any chance you could share a link? :)
I'm going totally from recall, but I think the Forge of Fury adventure might fit this model. There definitely were two entrances the players might use, an underground river, an alternate exit, dungeon levels that stacked irregularly, secret paths that players leveraged to create an ambush, an alternate entrance that the big bad could use. While the adventure as written doesn't necessarily exploit the cartographic layout, it doesnt require a clever DM to make it interesting.
The concept of the point crawl really takes me back to the days of text based adventure games like Zork. Implement that concept in a D&D game and you’ve got your point crawl. Who else remembers “You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.
There is a small mailbox here.”
Might you say an adventure location (hole in the ground or not) is "Jaquaysian"?
For example, Dungeons of Drakkenheim is highly Jaquaysian, since it basically turns a ruined city into a megadungeon. You can enter in a lot of ways and most places are interconnected, but if you are fool enough to take advantage of that to push in too far or stay too long, you'll get crushed. As the PCs gain capabilities and complete missions, they can unlock a couple 'hideout' areas to rest in, so they don't necessarily need to return to the local village every night.
These are interesting concepts, which only now I've seen clearly shown out, even though I may have subconsciously applied them. Right now, for example, I'm running a SWADE scifi campaign and the first adventure is set in a space ship assaulted by space pirates. In this scenario, it was quite easy to think about the ship with these concepts: multiple elevators to go from one level to the others, maintenance corridors, secret corridors connected to the ship past (it's a civilian ship but used to be a military one), etc. On the other hand, when running D&D adventures I seem to apply them less frequently, expecially the loop back thing.
Thanks for the video, I should write them in my list of "things to keep track of when creating adventures".
Excellent Mike ty. I actually find this the hardest thing - having another go over Christmas
Thanks for the video, I enjoyed it!
I came up with a design I call Schrödinger’s Adventure. In your example, they take the left Dwarven ruins entrance they find themselves in the abandoned mine dungeon. Take the right, fetid entrance and they are battling the lich. You can spring entire adventure scenes, hooks and elements into and out of existence as you see fit - and your players will think you had it planned that way all along! If you have a premade adventure that is missing a loop or elevation change, change it on the fly. Add the cave of magical light, the underground ominous lake etc.
Dropping a comment for the algorythm:
Just looking at the Elden Ring map design you can spot these in abundance.
I wish I could like this video a hundred times
Awesome video, like always. Keep it up!
May I ask you which program are you using to keep notes?
I'm just feeding the algorithm, doing mind me
Stumbled onto this for the first time today. It's worth noting that Justin Alexander is now calling this "XANDERING a Dungeon" as the publisher of his book "So You Want to Be a Game Master" instructed him to stop crediting other authors (for some reason) in his work. Unfortunately, this change took place *right after Jaquays' death* so it's been very, very controversial.