Awesome vid Pally! Mapless dungeons are so under-rated, glad to see more folks using them! For any DMs finding themselves getting repeated rolls or having trouble improv-ing NPCs or monsters, I'd highly suggest one more table with Npc/Monster Reactions. Lots of new GMs think every new encounter has to be a fight, but sometimes Monsters just want a hug 😁
Was just about to ask the same thing! OSE has a solid reaction table, and I know Knave is FULL of random tables you could use to spice up your dungeons.
@nicholaswolfe86 Sure, I've got a bunch! My first choice would be Worlds Without Number, which has lots of great tables like the Wandering Encounters section with "What are they trying to do?". Maze Rats, Cairn, and Knave 1&2e are fantastic resources as well!
You can add more variety by using the location & event tables in C&S as well. Are you running a mapless dungeon in the Goldpine Forest region and keep rolling the same location and events, change things up and roll up one of d10 events/locations from that locations tables. Mix in some reaction rolls and possibilities are endless.
I can see what he's going for, but I think this would create so many more headaches for me. Designing a good random table is harder than laying out rooms on graph paper. If you're experienced and have done a lot of small dungeons I can see this being a time saver, but I just don't personally see it. forget it for anything large.
To each their own! I'm much more of a "words guys" and have trouble with spacial design so this method is actually 10x easier for me than traditional dungeon maps, but hey, whatever works best for you is what you should do!
Have you actually tried running it? I was skeptical at first, but in practice I have had alot of success and my table enjoys it quite a bit. I would have missed out on a great new addition to my GM toolbox if I had dismissed without trying it out.
@@Batterydennis Perhaps if you could tell me what made it work, or why it was an advantage you that would help me to understand. A small example of why I'm skepticle for my own GMing is because my players do things like trying to collapse dungeons, or break through walls, and generally cause a kind of havoc that depends on knowing the actual spacial relationships of objects.
@@Sensorium19 this is a great point that some people miss with creative players and flexible dungeoneering GMs. The way I would handle that would be to either advance them to the next room or area closer to their goal OR get them to a more dangerous area/go nowhere and attract the attention of an encounter! If you have difficulty trying to figure out which is which from the narrative established in the session so far, then roll a YES/NO die to determine if they progress or if they worsen their situation.
You know, sometimes I feel like I've got a grasp on things and there isn't much left that could drastically change how I do things. Then some young whippersnapper comes along and plops mapless dungeons in front of me and my world gets turned upside down. You sir are a witch. Up is down, black is white, cats and dogs living together. I need to do some serious thinking. Preferably in the dark with a glass of whiskey.
This idea is cool; I just feel like with using two separate D4 tables, getting the same result twice in a row seems very likely. I might make them D8 tables.
I use this method for when the players wander into unplanned locations. I generally break the exploration area into 3-4 areas, each with their own table. On double 4s, they move into the next area. I have a folder in obsidian with different areas premade, that I mix and match depending on what they found.
Heeeey Crown and Skull sounds pretty cool! One of the powerful things about rolling on tables is it usually lets me know what I actually want to do. I get a certain result and I'll think "Noooo, actually, it's this one."
I'm thinking about buying Crown & Skull, and trying to wrap my head around this mapless dungeon mechanic. Does the book have a bunch of different tables to roll from? Or am i supposed to make up the tables myself? Would really like to see this playout IRL.
Great video man! Using mapless dungeons can really add some nice variety as well. It is easy to get into design ruts where you create similar things over and over since that is how your brain works. Doing it this way and leaving it up to the fates can help you as a GM connect some things you may have not done before.
Exactly!! It's definitely kind of scary at first, and I had an entire session collapse once because I had a massive brain fart after a few random tables, but if you can take a deep breath and allow the synapses to connect, magic happens.
Know what that is? That's the Dragon's Lair approach to dungeon crawling. After every encounter another one is randomly chosen but you have to get through at least ten of them before Dirk is allowed into the Dragon's Lair.
You should also checkout The Location Crafter by Word Mill Games. It's in the same vein as the Mythic GM Emulator line of games and The Adventure Crafter. Then there was another called Basilisk for Mork Borg too.
Very cool! I've created one dungeon in a similar fashion and I've thought of this kind of method especially useful when characters are navigating a building, such as a mansion or a castle. What I used my take on this for was creating a few rooms characters might end up in while trying to find a prisoner in a city villa of a baddie. I created these rooms also using a good deal of randomization in that process and placed them i think on a d8 table.
