I've seen lots of really horrible maps in my years of playing D&D. Crap, I myself have probably made 90% of those really awful maps myself. I myself, myself. Yeah I did it, I'm bad
too, I'm not perfect. anyway today, we'll be
talking about the 10 things all D&D maps should have and why. Number one, the map should
make architectural sense Have you ever seen those
old school dungeon maps that have a bunch of random rooms connected by a bunch of random corridors? You know, the ones that
look like hot sloppy mess and leave you wondering, who in the world would have ever built something like this and why? By the way, random dungeon
map generator programs often give you maps like
this, for what its worth. Okay, so maybe there are some
crazy creatures out there that might possibly build
structures like this, but probably not that many. Nonsensical maps should be
the exception, not the norm. Most creatures that have the ability and skill to build structures, also have the sense to
design them with a purpose and in such a way that they
make architectural sense. So no random corridors that bend and weave all over the map and only serve to connect
the same three rooms . unless there is a very good
reason they were made that way! This also means all the
rooms should have a purpose. Even if kobolds took over a dungeon originally made by dwarves, the kobolds will have purposes
for the various rooms, even if they are different, from what the dwarves used them for. Remember to keep your
adventure theme in mind as you make the map. Is it a temple? A fortification? A castle? Great, that will heavily influence how you design you map and the
various rooms you'll include. And consider the material from which the dungeon is constructed. Castles might use lots of stone, but a tavern is likely to be mostly wood. Just, just be careful making
anything out of wood in D&D because the very first thing your payers are gonna wanna do, it set it on fire and burn it down. You know they will. Don't look at me like that, its true. Okay that's fair, setting things on fire. But Luke, what about natural caverns under the ground and stuff. They won't necessarily
make architectural sense, now will they? Yeah, thanks genius. Obviously natural formations
are the exception, though their inhabitants will still have assigned a purpose
to the rooms and areas. By the way, in case you
haven't caught on yet, when I say "dungeon" map, I really mean a map for any
location-based adventure. So it might be a tavern, the sewers under the tavern, a cave system in the side of a mountain, a castle, or the literal
dungeon beneath the castle. I refer to these in general as dungeon maps for ease of reference. Number 2, The map should
have multiple Entrances This is pretty simple folks. Give your players some options for how to enter the dungeon. At least two ways in is
good, more is better. But be careful not to
overwhelm them with choices, lest they spend the next two hours at the game table trying to
decide how to enter the dungeon! I was in a game like that a little bit, where , oh we go here,
here, here, here, where? How should we get into this place? And I'm just like , guys, lets just pick one it
probably doesn't matter . so we just picked one, and guess what? It didn't matter. Ahhh, it kinda did but whatever. It got us moving is the point. And on that note, the different entrances should have pros and cons. If you go in through the front gates, you'll have to fight the mob
of fire giants guarding them, but you won't have to worrying about dealing with them later. However, if you go in
through the volcano's mouth, you can bypass the fire giants. But you'll have to deal
with the hazardous descent and risk the fire giant swarming on you later in the
dungeon if they are alerted. Number three, the map should be Non-Linear Holy crap, please, for the love of all that is holy, do not design a dungeon
map that is 100% linear. (exhales) That is, a map that only
has one path to be followed, with no options about
which way to go or not go. That's just bad. I actually saw a dungeon map like this and I was like holy crap, what a boring way to force an adventure
down players' throats. When players are exploring a dungeon, they should have choices
about which way to go, which rooms to check out first, which rooms to ignore. That sort of thing. This makes the adventure
far more interesting, and gives the players meaningful choices instead of just railroading them down the one and only path
through the dungeon map. I'm sorry I get animated about this. I'm gonna go meditate for a little bit i'll be back in a second. By the way, (laughs) if you'd like to play in a D&D game with me as your dungeon master, you should check out my Patreon. Every month I run a D&D one-shot game and I pick the players from my patrons. And I swear I would never create a lame linear map
just to mess with you. Cause I might. (Laugh) Anyway, my players also get Lair Magazine every month which is full of DM resources such as new monsters,
traps, random tables, and fifth-edition adventures
complete with maps designed for use on virtual tabletops. There, there's a beautiful
little link down below, dm lair patreon. All right I gotta calm down. Number 4, the map should have ceilings . Right now somebody is like, Luke, you are quite possibly the dumbest person I've
ever met on the internet. Of course, a dungeon has ceilings! Okay, fair enough, fair enough. Let me clarify then. The dungeon should have ceilings of an appropriate height. Does that help? A corridor that is five feet wide probably doesn't have a
ceiling that is 20 feet high. It might in some
circumstances but usually not. And a room that is 40 feet by 40 feet probably doesn't have a
ceiling that is 10 feet high, unless there is a good reason for it. Okay, Luke, so the point is
architectural realism then? Yes, kind of, but no. There's a deeper reason. Realistic ceilings create
necessary constraints for game play. You know that wizard who always wants to polymorph into a t-rex? Well, it's had to do that in a dungeon designed for
medium-sized creatures unless he wants to be squeezed all the time and suffer the negative consequences of that. And your party of
beautiful, wonderful players who all created flying races so they could just basically
fly above the bad guys, dump barrels of oil all over them, and sets them on fire? Well that fire gets really hot for them when the ceilings are
only 10 or 15 feet high, now doesn't it? Okay, so the point is to
crap on players' fun then? No, I didn't say that. It's to create realistic
constraints for game play. Rewind as I said it realistic
constraints for game play, Ceilings and rooms and
corridors are the reason that is often far easier
for a dungeon master to run adventures indoors than
outdoors in the wilderness. They provide constraints that players need to use their noggins to work around. If you know what I'm talking about, runs with adventures outdoor where there is tons of space
everything's wide open, and then run some indoors and dungeons and you'll see what I'm talking about. There is a reason that majority of modules
that are made for the game and may have the games that are run happen in dungeon or
location based events. There's a lot of really
good things going on there . Number 5, the map should
have interesting features Bare rooms with nothing in them? Really? Is that all you got? Put things in those rooms that are consistent with the architectural
design of the dungeon and the theme of the adventure. Now sure, many of those contents will be your standard run of the mill tables, chairs, beds, and whatnot. However, some of the contents should be really cool things your players can explore and poke at. A flying fortress should somewhere have the control mechanisms
that could cause it to crash to the earth . The secret temple to the god of death should somewhere have
a room full of skulls that live on still in undeath and can reveal information to the players if they ask the right questions. I don't know? Use your imagination. That's why you become
a game master, right? Oh, no one else would be the game master and you got volun-told to do it. Okay, yeah , probably don't
have anything for you then. You're probably just screwed then. Just pack it in. Pack it in and go home. No don't do that, no don't do that, lots of people get volun-told that become game masters, even though they kinda don't want to and then they go on and
they actually like doing it. So , you'll be okay,
just stick it through . yeah, we'll help you just
you know subscribe and like. (laughs) number six, the map should
have secret doors and areas. But Luke, every map? Like every single mam must
have secret doors and areas? Okay, look, if you're
going to twist everything I say to the extreme, obviously you'll be able to
find holes in everything. So lets just calm down, shall we? Anyway, secret doors
and areas are something you should strongly consider
for your dungeon maps. Why? Because it reinforces
the exploration pillar of D&D and rewards players who poke around the dungeon and try to find secrets and mysteries. When the rogue searches
four rooms for secret doors, comes up empty each time, but then on the fifth
room finds a secret door , well, that's a huge win for that player and they feel great about
finding the secret door. And then, obviously, you
should have something cool, interesting, and rewarding be
located in that secret area. Oh yeah, now's the time where I remind you to give
this video a thumbs up and to leave a comment for
the algorithm down below. But no pressure. Like, only do it if you really want to. I mean, it's not like YouTube is going to shut my channel
down if you don't do it. Come on, it's easy! Just click the stupid. (music) Number seven, the maps should
use elevation and 3D thinking. The earth is not flat, just in case you haven't heard. I mean of course, unless
you're a flat-earther. I mean, in that case, I guess
the earth is flat for you. What's true for you is true for you, but not necessarily for the rest of us. That is how that saying goes, right? Anyway, the point here is to use elevation when designing a dungeon map. Have some areas be higher
or lower than others. They can be connected by
stairs or ladders or ramps, just as long as it makes
architectural sense based on the creatures who
constructed the dungeon and the purpose for which they made it. There might be ledges
along the sides of a cavern and a pit in the center of it. A castle throne room has elevated galleries to either side and a raised dais. Dais, dais I don't know somebody yell at me how
to I say that word, anyway That sort of thing. Elevation, 3D thinking its good. Number eight, the maps should
have light sources or not. This is easy. (chuckles) I hope its easy. When designing your map, decide what the light sources are and where they are located. Of course, some creatures
might not use many or any light sources and that's fair. just make sure you consider it. Number nine, the map should be designed with interesting encounters
and combats in mind. What you don't want to do, my dear realism-focused game master, which is probably,
probably my fault is forget that when you're making
a map your real goal is to have a place where a
fun adventure can take place. And key elements of most adventures are encounters and combats. So, when you're designing the map, make sure you build it accordingly. For instance, imagine a narrow corridor with several secret
passages connecting to it along its length. That would make for a wonderful encounter with kobolds popping out, shooting the PCs with crossbows, and then disappearing once again. Or a large room whose walls
are covered with paintings, And each painting serves as a looky hole for secret areas where a beholder lurks. Then, as the group makes
their way through the room, the beholder is zapping
them with its eye rays from behind the paintings. Number ten, the map should have doors. (laughs) And right now, someone is swearing at me through their phone or computer screen, Holy crap, Luke, this is the entire reason I clicked on your stupid thumbnail, and you wait until number 10
to actually talk about it? what can I say? I'm sorry? I'm a sleezy, sleezy jerk. Please leave your angry comment below, yeah, yeah leave your
angry comment down below and my complaint department will review them and take appropriate action. By the way, Sunny, that's you. So, uh, yeah, get to work. Anyway, why should dungeons have doors? We've talked before about exploration being one of the pillars of the game, right? And the importance of it? Yeah, I think you got me by now. Well, a dungeon without doors is a dungeon rip for disaster, that is, the potential for a large part of the exploration element of the adventure being robbed from your players. You see, when there are doors, there is mystery and drama. What lies behind the door? Should we open it? Well, there are three doors, which should we go through first? But when there aren't doors , something like this might happen the druid turns into a spider, crawls along the ceiling, and scouts out the entire dungeon over the course of the next half hour. All the other players do jack diddly squat but watch as the druid plays the game and takes away all the
mystery, drama, and suspense of what might lie ahead
of them in the dungeon. Or the wizard casts arcane
eye and does the same. Now, what you might be saying especially if you've been
that druid or wizard. Is that that's the optimal thing to do. That's what a group of
professional adventures should do. That's the realistic thing to do scout the dungeon out so they can then make the best decisions about where to go and in what order. And I 100% agree with you. It is the most optimal thing to do, it probably is what a group of professional adventurers would do. But, listen carefully it's
not good for game play. Why? Because players who love exploration, who want the mystery and suspense, just lost out on it all. They now know almost
everything there is to know about the dungeon, and the rest of the game session is going to lack its
luster and shine for them. Realism is not the end all be all, folks. We aren't running fantasy simulators, we're running fantasy games. So, placing simple doors or other appropriate
obstacles in the dungeon that requires players
to interact with them, to reveal what lies behind, will help preserve the
exploration pillar in the game. Number eleven, the map should have floors. Wohoo , a bonus tip! Number eleven! Don't get too excited. I just figured that if one tip was for the
dungeon to have ceilings that another should be
for it to have floors. That only makes sense, right?
Or maybe there are no floors? Click on the screen now or the link down below to
become DM Lair Patreon, play D&D with me, and get an issue of Lair
Magazine every month! You could also watch another
video if you want, I suppose. And until next time, put doors
in your dungeons, people! And optionally floors.
