Frank Mentzer's Dungeon
Added 2020-01-20 22:32:42 +0000 UTCIn a series of posts about running D&D games in public, Frank Mentzer (of BECMI D&D fame, and with a lot of other D&D credits to his name) discussed the importance of having a “generic” dungeon ready to run and shared the one he has used 30+ times to date.
And he was cool with me redrawing the dungeon. The floor plan is established, and he has a general knowledge of what is in each branch of the dungeon, but final decisions are made on the fly during the game session so each session is catered to the players and time constraints of the event.
I won’t be reproducing his discussion on what is in each area, but here is the map he uses and on the site we also have a player-facing map to aid in exploration and mapping.
https://dysonlogos.blog/2020/01/20/mentzer-dungeon/
Comments
Often (DM's call if it isn't indicated) secret doors are quite visible from within the secret passage. For the centre-line secret doors, the southern set with 2 squares between them I would treat as a secret passage with obvious doors from inside the passage. But the set just north of that (which links to the temple chamber) I would have the north door be secret from both sides, and the south door be secret from the south, but obvious from the north. People coming from the south would find a "secret hiding space" instead of a passage (unless they find the second door), but people coming from the north would find a short secret passage with an obvious exit door ahead of them.
Dyson Logos
2020-01-23 18:01:35 +0000 UTCAhhh jeeese....thanks. I was looking at those all wrong. I’ve only every played 5e so some of these basic old school concepts are still foreign to me.
BreadBlood
2020-01-23 14:02:28 +0000 UTCSecret passages aren't very secret if you don't put secret doors at each end of them.
Dyson Logos
2020-01-23 07:01:22 +0000 UTCSecret doors behind secret doors? Any reason to do that instead of a single secret door? Besides just being tricky?
BreadBlood
2020-01-20 23:21:04 +0000 UTC
