Generating Jaquaysed Dungeons (1.5)
TLDR
Use this generator to quickly generate a point crawl dungeon map. Keep reading for generating layouts by hand.
Problem
Awhile back, some dingus couldn't wrap his head around the standard drop dice dungeon method. Thus, he created his own procedure for drop dice dungeon generation, mixed with some classic Jaquays Design Principles.
While the idea was fine, in execution the procedure was a riddled mess with highlights such as:
- Wasting 15-30+ minutes on drawing a grid of triangles
- Constantly needing to do math for every possible path between rooms
- An common edge case where the key to a locked room generated in every possible room
(A) Solution
I mean, it's obvious isn't it? All we need to do is take the original procedure, better optimize it for meat compilers, and tweak how POIs are handled.
Also the author should probably make an automated version of the new generator for both user convenience and "easy" resume fodder.
Procedure
Room Placement
- Grab a desired amount dice; 10 are ideal for a 2-3 hour session
- Roll all dice onto a designated area
- For each die, draw a circle and write it's value
Initial Paths Pass
- Computers/Masochists: Create a Delaney Triangulation Grid from the Rooms to create an optimal mesh for the next few steps
- Don't worry about this step if you have no idea what that word salad means
- Choose any Room, and mark it as visited
- From any visited room, choose the next closest room, draw a path between them, and mark the new room as visited
- Exception: do not draw a path if it intersects w/ an existing path or the room is already visited
- Repeat until all rooms are visited
Initial Rooms Pass
- For each dead end:
- If even, mark the room with an Encounter (?) and a Treasure ($)
- The Highest Value Dead-end(s) are the "Goal" Room(s) (G)
- All remaining even valued rooms are an encounter (?)
Note:
- Fixed Encounters: You will always encounter someone/something here. Determine if friendly via your system's reaction roll/charisma save
- Random Encounters: Treat the same as your system of choice, but only for "empty rooms"
- Treasure: Something of value is located here (loot, magic item(s), etc)
- Goal: The presumed reason why you entered the dungeon/adventure site
- Examples include a McGuffin, the Big Bad, a massive pile of loot, or access to deeper inside the dungeon/adventure site
Extra Paths Pass
- Add room * (2/3) extra paths between furthest rooms (round down)
- Do not draw a path if it intersects w/ an existing path or a third room
- Do not draw a path to a room that already has 4 or more paths
Final Rooms Pass
- Mark 1 + (rooms / 10) (round down) of the lowest odd value rooms as Starting Rooms (St)
- Tiebreaker: room with the lowest sum value of neighbors
- Mark the smallest value room with the lowest value neighbors as the Main Starting Room (M)
- Any remaining odd value rooms that are dead ends contain Treasure ($)
Note:
- (Main) Start: Primary and most obvious entrance to the dungeon/adventure site
- Start: Secondary entrance to the dungeon/adventure site. Potentially hidden/sealed from the outside
Path Rewriting
- All paths between pairs of Starting Rooms and pairs of Goal Rooms are secret paths
- For each path between a Starting Room and a Goal Room:
- If the Goal Room is connects to a non Starting/Goal Room, use a secret path
- Otherwise, the path is (hard) locked, and requires a "Key" (K) elsewhere to open
- Place Keys in the highest value rooms w/out a Start/Goal
- For each remaining path, find the difference of their rooms' values. If the difference is:
- Odd: the path is normal
- Even: the path is trapped/hazardous
- 0: the path is (soft) locked or blocked in some way
Note:
- (Hard) Lock: any situation where a MacGuffin or a specific interaction is needed to progress (Lever, Bespoke/Special Key, 1st Grade Puzzle, etc.)
- (Soft) Lock: any situation that hinders progress or tests a character's skill (A literal locked door, large chasm, guardian, etc.)
- Hazards: Your standard traps, alarms, environmental hazards, etc. Should be at least partially foreshadowed to the player(s)
Dev Notes
Pros/Improvements:
- Faster to generate maps then previous version
- Avoids rare case where only 1-2 rooms have Goals + Encounters and/or Treasure
- The reworked Path Rewriting allows user to implement more of the twists from Cyclic Dungeon Generation
Flaws:
- Lock and Key patterns become rarer the more rooms there are
- Any Lock and Key patterns generated are simple at best; no nested Lock and Key structures
- Still requires some math for each path
Comments
Post a Comment