I have two processes for dungeons: In one, I draw a map, then figure out what’s in it. In the other, I figure out what’s in it, and draw the dungeon to match those ideas.

The second is really hard, because I usually only have one or two ideas for a full dungeon level. So, I use this, based on the Old School Essentials random room stocking table, to help cue myself:

1. Empty
2. Empty
3. Empty
4. Monster
5. Monster
6. Trap
7. Empty
8. Monster
9. Empty
10. Trap
11. Empty
12. Monster

What is this and who cares? Basically, I’ll never have a dungeon level or area with less than six rooms, and I usually limit areas to a maximum of twelve. By filling this out from top to bottom, I basically get a nice variation of room types. I don’t include “Special” rooms because I like to put them in according to theme, and they’ll be one of the empty rooms.

So, I’ll label the rooms, and then decide what goes in them. I’ll arrange them later when I’m mapping, so this numbering isn’t necessarily in order of encounter at all. Use tarot cards or Magic: The Gathering Cards or a spark table or your world anchors to prompt your theme. I’ve decided this is a wee cursed chapel.

1. Empty: Vestibule
2. Empty: Chapel
3. Empty: Cave-in
4. Monster: Apse (Undead Priest)
5. Monster: Catacomb (Rock-Eater)
6. Trap: Catacomb (Roof collapse)
7. Empty: Scriptorium
8. Monster: Baptismal Font (Ghost-possessed water)

There is roughly 1/3 of a treasure in each room (again, this is extrapolated from the OSE random room stocking), which means an 8 room dungeon area has 2 1/3 treasures in it, and I’ll just decide where that’ll be thematically. For the extra third of a treasure, either I’ll stick something trinkety in or I’ll add it to the next dungeon area if that makes sense. The amount of treasure I put in something varies, but usually I’ll aim for about 200gp per dungeon room (but that’s spread out), which means a party of five levels up every 50 rooms or so. So for this one, I do this:

1. Empty: Vestibule
2. Empty: Chapel (Golden idol worth 200gp and antique, magically preserved tapestry depicting the Hind-Headed God of Septvictus worth 350gp)
3. Empty: Cave-in (buried under the cave-in is the body of an adventurer, bearing 150gp and wearing faintly glowing plate armour)
4. Monster: Apse (2d4 Undead Priests)
5. Monster: Catacomb (Rock-Eater, if carved open has 100gp in gold nuggets in its belly)
6. Trap: Catacomb (Roof collapse)
7. Empty: Scriptorium (if the library is searched, there are a dozen heavy tomes in excellent condition, each worth 100gp to a collector of religious texts)
8. Monster: Baptismal Font (Ghost-possessed water)

Now, I draw the dungeon area (I reiterate that this is usually a section or level of the larger dungeon, not the entirety of it — that’s why there are stairs in an unnumbered, empty catacomb):

If I’m doing this for my table I won’t do much more, I’ll just add key words to help descriptions pop, and say what other creature it acts like that already has stats (fungal, moist, crumbling and stats as bear). If I’m writing for publication, I’ll actually key it with pretty words and renumber it in a logical order, as this process will make me number things illogically and I intensely dislike that (you can see that above — the numbering doesn’t serve the internal logic of the dungeon without tweaking).

Anyway, that’s how I write a dungeon without rolling any dice.

Idle Cartulary