roguelike megadungeon: a review
Some history behind this
During #dungeon23 I used the previous version, Roguelike Dungeon, an awful lot when I needed new ideas. It's a minimalist kit that prints onto a Pocketfold and has procedures to roll up a dungeon with rooms and contents, based loosely around the B/X random room stocking procedure procedures, in that contents are based on 1d6 - 1-2 empty, 3-4 monster, 5 special, 6 trap. Roguelike Dungeon adds to this by having d6 tables for each of those categories, plus one for treasure, and a mechanic for adding and positioning the rooms.
While usually the supplied tables weren't quite what I was thinking of, I immediately realised that this was super hackable and I could just change or replace the entries to produce a dungeon themed however I wanted. I thought the underlying system was really solid and gave me usable layouts. I posted a few times on Discord about it and the author got in touch, we chatted a bit about it.
During #hex24 I heard that there was a new version that was greatly expanded, called Roguelike Megadungeon (which I'm going to call RMD here as opposed to RD), and would I like to playtest it, and of course I agreed. So you'll see "Ordinal" in the credits. I don't have any financial interest in the project, I just liked the original and I like the latest version as well.
What is Roguelike Megadungeon? What does it do?
RMD expands on the basic procedure from RD in several different directions to let you procedurally create game content. The core of it is still that basic d6 roll, 1-2/3-4/5/6, but it's applied in various different contexts. In addition, RMD as a publication is way larger and more detailed than RD - it has art and detailed layout. (IMO there's no reason to get RD now unless you are curious.)
The RMD book itself puts most emphasis on
I'm used to this from RD so I see it more as an expansion of the original procedures. The new aspects for me are those listed under "The campaign dungeon" in the index
- region map
- factions
- streets and buildings
- and particularly relationship maps
A note on using procedurally created content
Before I start on the individual sections, it's important to emphasise that just because you roll a thing, doesn't mean you have to use it. I find it a handy mental exercise to try to stick to what I've rolled as much as possible, but I will absolutely re-interpret results in the context of other results, and if I don't like something I'll just change it. These are prompts. The sign of efficiency in a procedural system is how rarely you have to abandon a prompt due to it being useless, and I find with RMD that's pretty rare.
Creating dungeons
The basic procedure in RMD is to lay out rooms first. You roll d6s for location on a 6x6 grid, room size, type of room (as above: empty/monster/special/trap), actual details of that room, and whether there's treasure or not. As standard this will create rooms in 6x6 blocks, each with six rooms. During #dungeon23 I tinkered with using different dice - using d8s for location and size for instance, and doing 7 rooms for a week. All of these layouts can be linked together to make larger dungeons.
The important aspect is the "actual details of that room" and that's where the pre-written tables come in. Based on the theme of that area of the dungeon, there are d6 tables for each of "Empty", "Monster", "Trap", and "Special", with an extra one for "Treasure". RMD comes with twelve example themes, ranging from "Haunted ruins" to "Hell". You could use these straight up and get something nice, but for me, they're really good examples of how you might write your own tables. In general I find that this is the biggest value of RMD for me - it has a framework for generation that lets me tweak the details and produce a personalised result.
In a megadungeon context, different floors/areas can have different themes, and you could mix them together by rolling some results on tables for different themes.
This is a reliable and familiar procedure that works really well IME. While individual subtypes of room can crop up repeatedly on a d6 roll, to me that just means I have to think how this room is going to reflect that differently to the last one. If "Dwarf Skeletons" comes up more than once in a "Haunted ruins" theme, those dwarf skeletons are going to be doing something different the second plus time. How do they relate to the previous set? How do they relate to other details that I've generated?
"The campaign dungeon"
I'm actually not a big dungeon person and I started playtesting this during my #hex24 when I'd already run through the dungeon creation system anyway, so I paid most attention to the extra parts in this chapter.
Region map
This works similarly to dungeon generation in that you populate the map with points of interest (centres of zones) and then see what they are. Again, there is a dice drop method, though
To create a region map, drop thirty-six d6s onto a sheet of paper.
was a bit much for me.
Each point of interest is again rolled with the usual d6 boundaries - in this case, 1-2 Terrain, 3-4 Perilous Zone, 5 Faction, 6 Settlement - and there's one example set of tables, plus treasure. I would have liked to see a broader range of themed options, but as above, it's not hard to make your own.
In practice there are so many procedural hexcrawl generators that go into more detail that I never used this much for #hex24, but I think it's important to have the various different scales of environment reflected.
Factions around town
This will generate a geographical faction map for an area, as usual on a 6x6 grid, with a central point that's innocent, likely to provoke an encounter, intrinsically hazardous, or "special", with the "treasure" flag indicating something of particular value to a party. Again, I'd like to see more examples, but the set here are decent.
Streets and buildings
I'm not sure this was in the version I playtested, or possibly I just never used it, but this will populate an area with points of social interest - characters, locations, events, group meetings, and treasure corresponds to something of benefit to a party as per "factions around town". I get the feeling that this is supposed to be for quite micro and transient situations rather than as deep background - maybe "the PCs go to a fair, who and what is there" rather than you prep this a long time beforehand.
Relationship maps
OK now this is the stuff. This is what really sold me on RMD over RD.
It's right at the back and only two pages, but this is one of the best plot development systems I've seen. Faction systems are everywhere but they tend to rest on you somehow working out what the factions are and how they relate to each other beforehand. This will actually help you do that initial part.
Here is an example that I rolled up using the system: pink squares are characters, orange circles are groups, cyan triangles are locations (there are also pentagons for situations but I didn't get any here). As with other maps, everything is placed on a 6x6 grid.
Crucially though every connection between any of these can be rolled, and there are tables for relationships between the different types, so here the high-ranking sadistic priest is the chosen one of the first set of evangelist pilgrims, and the powerful magic user founded (initiated) the rare resource cultivation.
I found the spatial placement really interesting to work with - I used it as a proxy for connection and social distance. In this map for instance the rare resource cultivation is a long way from everything else (maybe out of sight/out of mind, or something happening in the future) and the second set of evangelist pilgrims are a little separated from the main social fuss (maybe newcomers still to make an impact).
Generally though this is one of the only systems I know that actually generates these factions and connections, which is why I found it so useful for setting up plots. If anything you can get a relationship map that's too complex from this - I restricted relationship rolls to one or two per node.
Conclusion/so yeah anyway why would I get this?
RMD takes the core empty/monster/trap/special roll from B/X - a sound underlying concept that's been used many times elsewhere, e.g. Bite-Sized Dungeons - and really works it. The dungeon creation system is both more complete in this version and also adaptable (I think the multiple themes here increase the adaptability by providing examples) and the supplementary campaign systems take the concept even further, with as I've said the big win IMO being relationship mapping.
I can definitely recommend RMD if you've have an interest in procedural generation systems like Sandbox Generator - if you like those you'll like this. But I would also say that the new edition is a good clear diving-in point for anyone who's wondered about these systems or thought "oh god do I have to write a whole damn dungeon yet again".
Final link to the itch page where you can get it