RDG: Placing Rooms

in the previous article I wrote about how to place tunnels or passageways in a megadungeon first, using leximorphs – “geomorphs” made out of letters in a word – and placing the rooms after the passages are defined. The steps, in summary, were:

1. Roll a d20 and a d6 at the same time.
2. Spell out the numeral rolled on the d20.
3. The d6 roll is the number of letters to use.
4. The dot pattern is the position of each letter, starting at the top and moving clockwise.
5. The orientation of the d6 – diagonal, vertical, or horizontal dots – is the orientation of the letters.
6. Write letters so that they touch each other.
7. Roll d8 for ruins, d12 for tombs, or d20 for mazes and consult previous table.
8. If a passageway continues into a new subzone, repeat from the beginning.

For step number 7, however, it would be more appropriate to roll the d8, d12, or d20 along with a d6. If the first dice rolled is a number higher than 2, the d6 can be ignored. Otherwise, it will indicate either what’s behind a door or doorway, or the arrangement of a cluster of rooms or doorways.

Let’s take the first case: you are rolling a d20 and a d6 simultaneously to determine what is at the end of a tunnel in a warren or maze. If the d20 result is a 1 or 2, then the dots on the d6 show us the shape of what is behind the door:

1. Dead end (a 10x10 “room”, completely empty.)
2. Passageway.
3. Passageway.
4. Square room, 40x40.
5. Square room, 50x50.
6. Rectangular room, 40x60 or 60x40.

Again, the position of the dots for any roll above 1 tell us the orientation of the passageway or room. Passages can lead straight ahead, diagonally left or right, or form a “T” with the tunnel that connects to them. Either the walls or the corners of square rooms will be aligned with the compass directions. The long sides of rectangular rooms can be aligned N/S, E/W, or offset 45 degrees from one of those directions. The size of a room or passageway in any given direction will shrink to fit the space actually available on the map. If a passageway deadends next to an area that is already mapped, or if a room shares a wall with an existing room or corridor, players can check for secret doors to find a shortcut.

In a tomb or ruins arrangement, the d6 does not represent a single room, but a cluster of doors or rooms:

• If the d6 is a 1, there’s only one door or doorway; roll another d6 and interpret it exactly as you would for a maze, using the table above.
• If the roll is odd (3 or 5,) there is one door that leads to a 50x50 room. The center dot on the die represents that room, with other dots representing positions of doors (either side of the room for a 3; one door per wall, near the corners, for a 5.)
• If the roll is even (2 or 4,) the passageway runs between one or two pairs of doors.
• If the roll is a 6, the passageway runs between three pairs of doors OR there is a single door with a 60x40 room, depending on the orientation of the d6. In the latter case, the short walls have one door each, while the wall opposite the entrance has three doors.

For each door indicated, roll a d6 to determine what is actually behind the door, using the table above. If you are using this as a solo RDG, don’t roll the d6 for a given door until you open the door. For every room except the 10x10 result, you would use the random room types and stocking methods appropriate to the zone (I haven’t detailed these yet.) The 10x10 room is the only truly empty room and is meant to be a “gotcha” (“Dammit, we wasted time getting through this door?”) However, resourceful players can use these rooms as makeshift supply rooms or jail cells.

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