Tips for Running Large Dungeons with Complex Maps in D&D 

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"Hey, idiot! This is why everything takes so long! Remember the dungeon we're in?" "Ha ha ha ha...What dungeon?" The barbarian's had some good punch lines, but that one takes the cake.

Protip fpr the minmap/hud: Draw it out ahead of time and then cut it up into each room. Hand your players a new room when they enter it and let them piece the map together. It'll give them the feeling of building their own map and easily track their progression. I'd honestly recommend doing this for smaller dungeons too.

When my group "found the stars to the 2nd level" during a dungeon crawl, the DM just asked us to ignore it for now, and come back to it later. No one had a problem with that, and we just continued to explore the 1st level.

You could always print out the maps instead of drawing them if you want to save time during the session. I use black pieces of card to cover areas they haven't been yet.

You must be reading my campaign notes. My players are currently in my version of Undermountain, and about to hit a big, sprawling cavern layer with many directions to go. You're always posting the content I need when I need it.

Digital dnd works for the second part as well, you can have all your monsters and traps on the dm layer, and brief notes, at least on roll20

Welcome to the dungeon, we got fun and games, Learn to navigate, my friend, or you'll feel some pain! There is some treasure here you'll find, when you get in deep You'll bag it up, and turn to leave, then you'll all say (BLEEP!!) In the dungeon, welcome to my dungeon! Watch me lower your......HP, P...P! Uh, uh..wanna hear your healer scream! You know where you are? You're in the trapped room, baby! You're gonna diiiiiie!! Welcome to the dungeon, take it room by room If you want that shiny stuff, you're gonna face your doom! And you got a very strong pally, with plenty of AC But it won't mean a thing, 'cause the rust monster's free! In the dungeon, runnin' through my dungeon! I,I...I'm going for TKP! (...I had too much fun writing this!)

If you are going to run a large dungeon devide it up it several parts with their own stories and themes that eventually feed back into an overarching theme and story

In the early editions of the game, "The Mapper" was an important role in the party. We stuck to that as a hard and fast "Rule" for weeks, probably even months, when I first started playing... It was only when my dungeon developed a "cave system" level that I decided that it was not going to work. The whole "the dungeon opens into a 30 feet by 30 feet square room, with a door in the middle of the north and east walls..." stuff was OK, even if there was often discrepancy over "the tunnel leads 40 feet at which point it turns to the left," type descriptions. ("So... is it 40 feet long with the turn starting 30' down the left wall, or 50 feet long with the tunnel turning at the 40 feet mark???") Caverns was a whole new level of crazy... Me: "The tunnel curves back by about... er 30 degrees... then narrows to about 5 feet for about 6 feet before twisting back round to the left in a sort of... horseshoe shape that's about 40 feet in total, broadening out again to about 10 feet...." Mapper: "I quit! You can take this map, roll it tight and shove it up..." I've been drawing maps ever since. I like to spend time playing the game...

Prep 5 to 7ish rooms, and a few corridors that connect them. Then just kinda fudge it and have the players encounter them in the order you want them to. Works well with a sprawling maze or caverns, adjust the connecting corridors,tunnel ect to the size and shape needed, inthe end all paths lead to the final room and then the "stairs" to the next level. behind the screen that's where the magic happens :)

I'm with you on the problems of large dungeons, 1 thing I've done in the past is if the players find the stairs down I drop them into a random room on the same dungeon floor and use that as the "next level". The players don't know the difference and I don't have as much wasted prep. The other thing I've done is take that big dungeon and split it up. Different sections can be different floors or whole new dungeons they travel to get to. For the description I go into more detail on the general dungeon look, feel, smell, sounds when they enter and that sets up the mundane travel portions for them, I then do 2 or 3 sensory descriptors for each room IF they're different from the general ones I mentioned upon entering.

My thought process: If I can't fit it on one sheet of graph paper, it's really not worthwhile

I homebrewed my own mega dungeon and found the best way was to set up zones (normally 4) for each level With each level having its feel and each zone adding something to it the players never got bored and the regular shift in terrain and description kept them on edge

I’ve had a group draw the map as I describe it on a graph paper with great results. I will say they are player of the 80s so maybe a bit more used to that style.

I made myself the party map drawer for the first big dungeon when we started playing online after COVID. Our DM would describe it to me as we went, and I'd draw it out at my house in notebook paper to help give the party direction. I was to cheap to buy grid paper. After we'd clear a level, he would show us the whole map on his shared screen. It was cool to see how close or far I came to the real map.

I dont know how I never thought of a mini map! Great idea!

This is precisely why I find homebrew easier than modules, though I like large-ish (not gargantuan) dungeons and so do those I play with.

We used to make the players do the player map. Yes, the player map often had issues. We explained it as the PCs not laying out the 10 ft pole and actually measuring as they went and thus there was significant error. If the players didn't map, I didn't draw it for them. they had to explore their way back out. I ran a true random generation dungeon, rolling dice for the passages and rooms. The players didn't map and I didn't either. They turned around to try going out and I said: "It seems that 40 ft behind you the passage has been blocked. They had no way to get around it so they had to keep going until they found stairs up 3 levels, by random generation rolls. They never failed to map again.

Thank you! I’ve dm’d a few times, but I’m running my first full home brew campaign. I had no idea how to navigate the map with the players. This was exactly what I needed

I'm preparing for my first session of Pathfinder in a week or two and your videos have been immensely helpful. Many thanks!

Love your thoughts on this, mate. I'm glad I've run through Lost mine of the Phandelver as a player, as I'm going through it as a DM. That wave echo cave can be big and I think it will take a lot of sessions of 3-4 hours. Good tips, thanks champ

Some modules can have really lengthy dungeons, so this helps a lot. I realized the levels of Dungeon of the Mad Mage take too long, so my solution is to remove small encounters that aren’t important to the story. Yeah, there’ll be a lot of empty space, but I can always fill that empty space with descriptions to hint at things to come instead of having another nuisance combat.

But Luke… Great video, love to hear your advice on all things DM. Anyway when you mentioned highlighting parts of the adventure I literally said out loud “I do that!” Monsters, traps treasure secret doors, development, tactics, descriptions I think are important…they all get there own color. Additionally, I’ll breeze through an adventure once about three weeks before running it, then read it again following the map one week before so I have a pretty good IDEA of what’s going on. Keep the videos coming!!

That last bit of advise is very useful.

Great advice here! been watching your vids off and on, but now finding myself watching more and more. Loving the effort and can see the love you have for the craft of being a DM. Side note: The only time I run a big (not nearly as big as most modules) dungeon, will be the final dungeon of a story arc. Even then there are a maximum of 10 encounters (not all of which are combat of course). Most dungeons I run have had 5 - 6 encounters. If there isn't a main big boss fight coming at the end of a dungeon (and they're just there to grab an artifact/captive/dog whistle/whatever) it can start to become a drag if you push too much on them. No one wants to be stuck in a B-plot dungeon for more than 2 sessions. People got stuff to sell and merchants to threaten. Anyway rant over. Again, loving the vids!

Thats why I like Mike's full detail color maps... i can visually describe it and if I forget just using the drawing can run it.

R20 is really useful for large dungeons. One thing I keep doing is adding text on the GM layer (only I can see) on each room, it makes sure I don't forget important details nor have to look up trap damage/DC

I finally read all of "The Curse of Strahd". OMG... So much to remember! I don't know how you DMs do it, but more power to you!

This is awesome, thanks!

one extra tip i have to give is that if you want to run a large dungeon, dont just fill it with monsters, traps and treasures, try to include narrative, plot proggression, discovery and different kinds of interactions that progress or expand the story and the game world

Great stuff friend 👏 👍

I love your channel I have been watching it a lot getting refreshers now that two of my daughters want to learn how to play.

Some additional suggestions: -Even if you're playing in person, use a VTT with fog of war. Yeah everyone may be looking at their laptops or tablets, but it's just so much easier than coping with old skool mapping (and if you must do that, don't worry too much about inaccuracies). You can also fog of war areas they haven't visited in a while, representing the fact that things may have changed. -Consolidate encounters that have a bunch of monsters dispersed in penny packets. You can just have them show up as reinforcements over the course of a few rounds in a more dramatic encounter that feels dynamic and meaningful, not just a bunch of chumps that are segmented into rooms. -Don't have everything appear on the same scale. For example, have a different set of connected rooms with a more abstract set of pathways among them. That way you don't have to have a giant map that encompasses everything. On a VTT, you have four more detailed rooms with planned, interesting encounters and can have an overview map to allow the PCs to move around. -Cull rooms from the map. Back in the old days, you just didn't want to leave any part of the graph paper empty. That stuff was precious! But now, no, leave some of the rooms in the fog of war and just nuke them. Or make them empty and let the PCs know quickly that they're empty. (Empty rooms aren't totally useless, they might be used by the PCs or monsters later.) -Keep track of time in an abstract way. I'm thinking of how to do this but one way would be to have searching a room take 10 minutes. Then resolve it with rolls. No need to RP every room out! -A bit of out of character "friendly advice from the DM" can help keep the PCs from going into areas that aren't totally worked out or which will kill the PCs. You can also have walls or the like there. -Don't sweat the small stuff. If you forget some monsters or treasure, just put it somewhere else or drop it.

As someone who very frequently runs large dungeons, my number one tip is take your modules and throw them in the garbage.

I don’t run modules but Homebrew dungeons and world. Good ideas though, good video. Yes the DM has to prepare.

I'm running Rappan Athuk right now... thank you so much for this vid :)

Glad to see another video

Phew, thought I was going crazy reading Against The Giants too. Had the exact same thoughts on how many repetetive monsters there were, plus how complex the map was. I can't imagine trying to remember all those rooms and encounters at the table.

I really like making dungeons complicated, keeps my players on their toes. But, even though I have different themed dungeons galore, I focus more on Roleplay.

I remember when we played Labyrinth of Madness and our DM made us draw the map and try to describe what we had to do in each room. So much fun...

Can someone tell me why this channel doesn't have as many subs as the big DM channels. I don't understand. This channel is gold, so glad I found it

This is an amazing video I plan to reference a few times. The main reason I need this is for a homebrewed campaign I’ll be running. Some of the later game areas are going to be decently large (one is an underground cave network that leads to a gate the players have to reach, and the other will be a labyrinthine cube of sorts, with various earthy terrains inside (so deserts, mountains, hills and fields), as it will br the elemental plane of earth in my campaign. Ambitious second option there, which id my big reason for needing this video. I’ll probably try to simplify it slightly, so that it’s still a labyrinth of sorts, but it’s only like that because of the soze of each “terrain room”. But it’ll be far from boring, as, just like the other three elemental planes, I’ll likey make random rolls to determine if something will jump out after the players. Since it’s earth, it’ll be various earth based elementals and monsters. Giant scorpion-taurs (monsterous all around), minotaurs, large beasts. That kind of thing. Each plane will also end with a fight against an immortal/semi-immortal(as in, self-reincarnating) guardian creature too, protecting a relic given by their makers. Most dungeons are going to be a max of 2-3 floors, each with no more than 5 rooms though, to try and limit it the sizes to only 1-2 sessions of exploration, unless the players seem insistent to study it thoroughly. Then there might be secret areas as well

I’ve had to run a large dungeon before and let me tell you, it was a HUGE pain in the butt! It was 2 levels with 50+ rooms and it was non-linear!! While I was running it, I was biting my fingernails hoping my players wouldn’t find the stairs too quickly! I had to read through both levels, plan everything out, choose which monsters would be where, and flesh the whole thing out! It took me several days to do it. I think large dungeons should be left to more experienced DMs

I have only been playing D&D slightly less than a year, and DMing since Jan. (preparing to DM since November 19). I learned basics as a player, and then read and watched vids to learn the game fairly well. Of course, always learning more :P Anyways, I went right to a homebrew adventure, world, etc., for our campaign. I just can't imagine doing it any other way for myself. This video really highlights some of the reasons I chose to do this. Love it. Maybe one day I'll try a module, but as it stands, I just don't see the point if we're all having a blast.

In my current campaign, I have self-built everything in the world. I have about 35 years of experience to lean on, so that helps, as does having a lot of notes on a laptop to refer to. Anyway, About a year or so ago, I ran a huge scenario for the party that was a cavern/dungeon/former Dwarven city delved into a lone mountain. They were chasing an elder vampire who had several months to stock and set the place with minions and traps. Like you, I made the maps on graph paper and wrote copious notes on the maps for all 12 (?) levels of the complex. Each level was a different mini-boss in charge of a group of underground baddies (one level was a group of underground halflings who wanted nothing to do with the fight, once the party showed they were tough enough to have a shot at killing the big-bad). Each map had a stat block sheet (chart in a word document) for me to track damage done and the attacks and abilities of the NPCs. The loot was a single sheet of paper with a loot block per enemy group or notable bad guy, with the boss vampire's loot being most of the items. - It took my players eleven 5-8 hour sessions of play (we chat and sidetrack a lot, so actual play time varies) to get to and defeat the boss vampire. They had a blast, even the player whose dwarf died to the boss vampire. - - - I don't do big dungeons often, as that one took weeks to put together. Most of the time I run one or two session crawls that I don't even prep for.

For large dungeons, there are some interesting options for cutting things down for easier use. One of them is to cut down from the full map into more of a chart with major areas and which ones are linked to each other and go from there along with distances. If the players veer off, if it's not a combat area, well, it's not normally run on a grid unless it's a puzzle that requires it or some traps. Having a basic marching order for the players works quite well for both dealing with metagaming issues in party formations, it also lets you set up ambushes as well. Having a few other areas that can be entered along the way marked out expands it. One of the adventures that inspired me to do that actually involved the idea of using the minotaur in a maze scenario for low level players and adding things to it. I ended up making about a dozen actual tiles (with a few of some). At first, I'd actually tried mapping the entire maze for my own use, which I decided was a bit to complex and harder to keep track of since I wanted to have the party stumbling around and have ways of getting the party disoriented (plus the maze could shift on them), though I'd, at first, tried to map the entire thing out and was tearing my hair out about it until I realized that I could easily simplify it. Basically, I had planned encounters in some areas along with some random minotaur skirmishes in a foggy maze where it would be using hit and run tactics to hit and fade back into the maze. Basically, each group of the players (after they split up) would essentially have two dice rolled (In this one, a D10 and a D4). On the 1 and 10 of the D10, it was a special room set where it was more interesting, specific locations such as the sealed entrance to the maze, the minotaurs lair, or a healing spring they might be able to recover a bit with, having 4 different locations for each of the D4 rolls. For a 2-9, it was more generic sections of the maze where I had 4 versions of the same "tile" such as a right turn, a T Intersection, a longer straight, or a four way intersection. Now, at first those were all identical, though that changed as the game continued and things happened such as the npcs that went in with them getting brutally slaughtered there, sometimes right in front of them, and signs being left of it that they might stumble onto again later on, and there were some crude traps both the players were setting along with a few more nerve wracking than actually dangerous ones the beast was setting for them after they started it. Which version of the tile was determined by the D4 and I'd left room in my notes to mark any differences that tile had as I continued. The minotaur didn't really need to have me roll for where it went, though I rolled anyway half the time just to keep up tension in the party... I probably should have printed more of the generic tiles I'd created because a few times, it had three or four versions of the same room type there but not the same one and I had to improvise it. I also had a chart of events that were largely random for things happening that the players might need to deal with such as hearing an npc run into the monster, that npc panicking, or even the beast roaring somewhere in the mists along with a few random things that might be there from previous people to find their way into it such as some trinkets and ruined clothes from a part of a skeleton, a potion dropped as someone scrambled away, something written in blood that's now dried on the stones they're walking on, or other things. The atmosphere let it be creepy and disorienting since there wasn't an easy way to retrace their steps... I loved the idea and continued breaking down a few dungeons into it that were on the larger size unless it's one where every room matters

This is the best video I have seen from yo. It is REALLY good. I skipped the skit, but the advice is sound.

Our party is currently at level 10. When they were level 5, I had them run a FULL SCALE version of "The Sunken Temple" from World of Warcraft. It was MASSIVE. It took them a 3-4 weeks of sessions to make it through, but they did OK. Then, I had this BRILLIANT plan to use "Dawn of the Overmind", only running it backwards, and re-engineering it from the lowest levels up. It was even bigger than Sunken Temple, but it was also a way to wrap part of the plot around one of the party members specifically, and they'd have a guide as well to help them out. Two things happened: 1. table drama, 2. never wrap an entire arc around a player. The character's player.....left the table. Long story, won't go into it, but he never came back. My ENTIRE campaign arc was wrapped around it, and as such, as they worked their way out, now without a guide (who had no point without that character there), they wandered. A lot. Six. MONTHS of game time. For a single dungeon. "Stop running large dungeons." Lesson learned. This group does NOT do dungeon crawls well. We don't do that any more.

Great topic today

What I do with big dungeons is print out the map and laminate it. The. You can shade in the whole thing with dry erase markers and erase it bit by bit as the adventurers work through it! If they take a long rest and don’t have someone with keen mind I’ll even re-shade some areas as they forget where they were

My group wants me to run Dungeon of the Mad Mage for them, so we start it in a few weeks. Thanks for the video!

I will say, I had a situation once where my players were navigating a maze. The first turn or two I simply described “you come to a T intersection, what do you do?”. My one player rolled his eyes and said “what, no map?”, so I asked if he had a cartography set. He did, so I passive aggressively tossed a pencil and blank graph paper towards him and said “cool, you’re the map”. It was really awesome watching him draw almost identically the maze I had in front of me and label certain parts/rooms/cave ins with his own nicknames. Obviously not for everyone, but don’t underestimate your players!

Yeah, I'm in the boat of "print the entire map". I just divide it up by rooms, cut up some pages and tape them to others to keep rooms together. Then print the entire thing onto a normal piece of paper to show the sheer size difference. When they get to another room/hallway, I place down another part of the map. Digital maps are amazing when playing online as long as you get them right. But the most important part is preparation which is hard.

Geat video and tip! Personally, I love running super crazy, complex, and over the top dungeons! Got to have some Diablo 1 inspiration in there!

I've never ran a premade module (I always make stuff myself), and I make tons of notes to never look at those. It's like... an exercise to figure stuff out and then I just never look at my notes besides names and stuff. But it lends to moments where I've forgotten something without realising and then it's just a mess :D

I don't know how well it will work, but on my first DM, to simplify the dungeon map and conceptualizations, I'm actually having it take place at a large hotel and convention center that exists in the real world. It's a large sprawling complex, but it maxes out at 6 floors, 5 of which are identical. Each floor progresses in difficulty and moves the story along, but the players will be able to go anywhere they want (plot permitting), so instead of attacking the hotel, they can single out the convention center, or the water park. It's a zombie themed urban fantasy. They are at the hotel and convention center where there is an anime/comic convention and the characters are motivated to "save con". There is quite a lot more to it than just killing zombies though, and the ground floor of everything is the most difficult area. So in order to get anywhere near the objectives, the players will have to reach higher levels (or the roof) from outside first, and work their way down. There are other puzzles and challenges they can single out on the ground floor and outside as CR1 though. But their risks and rewards will be proportional. I'm not sure how many sessions this will drag on though, it's my first time playing DnD at all, and I am DM, and it's a homebrew. Wish me luck!

I make my own terrain. I have a lot of modular tiles and I place the tiles down as they enter the area. This has solved my problem. I am currently running The Forge of Fury in Yawning Portal and I recently finished Sunless Citadel. Love your videos and thank you because I have become a much better DM.

I'm running Wave Eco Cave tomorrow - I've got the map in roll20, shaded for DM and I'm gonna have a second monitor with the players view up so I can reveal piece by piece as they decide where to go. I've also got the monster tokens in place so when they enter the rooms they're ready to roll

When I ran Mad Mage, my players made it to the stairs of level 1 without encountering anything. They took all the right turns to not explore any rooms off the path to the stairs. They ignored the revenant dude in the hole. They only went into two rooms on the second level and took the stairs to Saurgoth. I wanted to push them into a river IRL.

When I played D&D on my Commodore 64 computer (late 80’s early 90’s) there were mazes and mines that were very easy to get lost in because graphics were poor and everything looked the same. Because the area was so big I resorted to drawing maps that only included intersections and rooms and stairs. Excluding length of passage and shape of room altogether. Every room was a box with a line coming out for each passage out. Very hard to explain but it made for compact map making where you could find your way back because each place where there was a choice on direction, you knew what choices you made.

I am first-time-dm'ing, and i usually draw out the dungeon theyre going to visit in it's entirety, and then cut out the different rooms/areas not visible, and then lay it out in front of them as they enter, it gives a real "You've unlocked a new area" feeling to the entire thing while keeping the flow going and not revealing too much of the possible dungeon size and layout from the start, takes about 1h prep time, but that's 1h saved that would be spread during a playsession.

I've been doing everything in Zoom so I've been putting the maps in Microsoft Publisher, creating tokens with pictures and sharing my screen with sections blacked out and zoomed in. Its been working well so far.

Use index cards. Draw a small version of the room on one side with any needed info on the other. When the players enter that room you can place it down next to the other cards where the room would be located. At the end of the night take a picture of how the layout is.

What I do is take a high resolution photo of any maps and then use photo editor to crop the maps into small sections for which I write brief descriptions and save the to use on my tablet. Once this is done, I can run the adventure and just pull up the map section and corresponding text no matter where the players go in the dungeon. It takes quite a bit of prep up front, but pays off when running the dungeon.

I am new dm started with Hoard of the Dragon Queen and also purchased Dungeon of the Mad Mage, level five in HOTDQ lands you in Waterdeep at the right level for DOTMM. I gave the players a choice to delve or continue. I may try my own adventures to break up 23 levels of dungeon. (Edit) They just got to Waterdeep tonight.Perfect timing on this video.

I've been running a campaign using nothing but the dungeons in Tales from the Yawning Portal and as you know they are all pretty much large dungeons. I've established with my players this aspect many times - that this campaign is about dungeon crawling with the story being loosely fitted around tying the dungeons together. The fact we have been using VTT's has helped massively - roll20 initially but have recently moved to Foundry. I can imagine doing it without a VTT could be very difficult. Currently preparing the map(s) for Dead in Thay and boy oh boy is that a LARGE dungeon. All in all my players seem to be enjoying things so far - currently nearing the end of Hidden Shrine of Tamoachan.

One benefit of describing the dungeon and letting the players map it out is that you can make sure that the halls and rooms are not at perfect 90 degree angles and eventually the players, even with a map can get lost and this can really build the tension of the dungeon, especially if the party is forced to split up or run in a direction that is not yet mapped.

If I run premade modules with big dungeons, I just simplify the dungeons to things that are relevant to the plot. Hitting dead ends or clearing rooms with no definite progression to the party's goals can be tiring. I tend to combine rooms too. For example, maybe there's a forge with an encounter, and there's a barracks with a magic weapon hidden under the bedsheets. I just put the magic item in the forge and scrap the barracks.

I use a an overhead projector transparency to trace the map so far and lay it on a blank graph paper sheet for scale.

If you have the digital versions on Dnd and beyond make a copy of the player versions of the map and put them into GIMP. Change the pixel per inch to a single tile this will resize the map for minis, then export as Jpeg or PNG onto a flash drive and take to staples or kinkos w/e and they can print it as well as laminate it for poster size. You can then cover the hallways with black construction for fog of war or cut out each room and puzzle piece it during a campain just mark the back for its room number.

I actually started creating more variety in kind of medium sized dungeons. One dungeon I have coming up has only two enemies until the final boss, and both can be defeated or passed up by creative means. The rest of the dungeon is puzzles and traps intended to get players thinking. One room is a cursed treasure room where touching the treasure starts turning you to gold while touching it, and a dragon guarding it that mainly throws piles of coins to eventually add them to it’s collection (the condition can be cured, but that means using up valuable spell slots). The dragon can be avoided by not touching the treasure, but if it is woken up the players can try running out of the room. The only other time enemies could show up is if they try to rest.

Tips for mega dungeons: I am currently DMing Dubeon of the Mad Mage. I have tested different ways for the map and ended with using a screen. Either you may use an iPad or a PC. Use any free drawing software (FireAlpaca for me), having the map as the base layer. Then you add a grey layer as fog of war atop of it and just erase it as players go. Saving the file saves fog of war between sessions and makes everything super smooth to run. If you have any questions about how to easily run mega dungeons it is just to message me, through trial and error I have now become okay at it.

I used to struggle with running Undermountain, until a friend of mine, who runs AD&D, asked me why I draw the dungeon map. I didn't understand him and he explained that in older editions players used to draw the maps for themselves and the DM would only draw a room on the battlemap in case of a fight or sometimes difficult puzzles. That made our game way better. Players feel like they are exploring a vast system, they make notes and sketches, sometimes during the short rests they declare that they make a map and I show them the parts they had explored

I had this idea while watching your video is maybe try to separate out dungeon into somewhat more distinguishable areas. Maybe this will be more easy for outside areas like making buildings with multiple rooms and when the players are done with one building they can go to the next. In a dungeon maybe there could be one or two easily distinguishable entry ways into another part of the dungeon that has multiple rooms and so on. I also have difficulty with this and plan on maybe trying to make a way to use roll20 map at the table.

I use my Desktop CPU and many many folders to run large dungeons. Currently runnign Dungeon of the Mad Mage. I make one little folder for each noteworthy room. and fill that folder full of monster pics and location art I pull off Pintrest. I narrate the groups exploration of the dungeon skimming over unimportant drudging to get to the more interesting room or encounter the group heads towards then I pull up monster pics for the group to look at and engage with, without explanation. It was hilarious seeing my group find a Mezoloth (fiendish bug monster) and think It was a thri-kreen this completely changed there approach to dealing with that creature. Also Dungeon of the Mad mage is full or portals I count around 30 unique magic portals. So Now I have 30 pics of magic gates I have for the players to look at. and now with a visual que each time then stumble upon a gate the players tend to remember how to activate each individual gate. and then they can remember to ask for these gates when they return to a floor of the dungeon they have already explored. It makes for getting around this massive maze much easier. when I can skim over pointless travel.

Throwing another method here for others to consider. 1. Get an unlabelled map for players 2. Make a copy of it with numbers for DM 3. Have your players explore by rolling dice and the DM referencing their table of where the players get to 4. (Optional) unveil parts of the map as they roll and discover them It’s a quick way to dungeon crawlers and gives players more chances to roll dice/feel a part of the crawl instead of waiting for the DM to sort themselves out and lay everything out for them. Example: a mine leads down into a set of caverns in the Underdark. Roll a d4 to determine where you wander to (a svirfneblin settlement, the lair of a shadow dragon, the entrance of a duergar kingdom, a massive cavern glittering to your torch light with shining ores above a still spooky lake) Lastly: this method allows for fudging that their “roll” leads where they need to get to within the reasonable amount of time you have left in your session or campaign timeline

Keys. Not just standard locks but magical items that can unlock the next area. Or switches, leavers.. etc. This way you can segment the larger dungeons.

For large dungeons, combining strategies are key. One thing I like to do is draw out the map in front of everybody on a piece of paper as time goes on, and when on of the major combats comes along, I roll out a mat. I don't do this for every combat because fighting in corridors with wandering monsters doesn't warrant the need for a mat, but the big rooms with the big bad guys and lots of details like a pit of acid or moving floors coming up from underneath the players will have me prepare a mat for them even a few minutes before people start arriving at the game. For small dungeons that can fit on my mat by themselves, I don't find it too much of an issue to draw out the dungeon on that mat (though I need to make sure it will all fit before I do this). Also, giving the players reasons to go back to previous dungeons or places they've been makes preparation way easier, but this only works if a world has been developed and players have been playing in it for a while. I don't believe my players mind if they have to go to a dungeon they've been to already if it's only a hop, skip and a jump away and they get to explore a new corridor they previously haven't been able to go to.

The biggest issue I have with larger dungeons is if there is the possibility of people in 1 area being able to respond to noise/combat in another area. (IE You are in area 25, but there is a note in area 34 that states those people could be reinforcements to area 25 if sounds of combat are heard - THESE NOTES SHOULD POINT BOTH WAYS! There should be a note in 25 stating there is assistance in 34 if needed). Then there is an issue of having the party leave without finishing and returning after a period of time ... the area (most likely) would not remain stagnant and restock in some way and if there are intelligent beings in the area, they may "beef up" security now that they realize there was a weakness in the early areas near the entrance.

For running larger dungeons, it is probably best to make a smaller dungeon seem bigger due to its puzzle complexity rather than its combat or navigation complexity. I took a 6-8 room dungeon and had it last for about three sessions because of the puzzles I put in. The hub room gave them access to four doors, of which only two could be accessed. The others were blocked with locks using the same key. (Party didn't know that.) They needed to find the key to unlock the rest of the dungeon, but still went into the rooms to solve puzzles and collect McGuffins. After they collected a couple McGuffins, they went into a corridor that wrapped around the dungeon ala Resident Evil where they found the key and got access to remaining rooms and McGuffins. The question of "Do the players have to do the backtracking themselves?" came up and the answer was "no." Each of the rooms were solitary rooms, with the exception of the winding corridor. What I'm saying here is that you could think of a large dungeon as a Resident Evil mansion or the RPD Station where the game takes place solely in a singular location that has many locks and keys, but there are only certain sections you can visit in any given time. In the RE2 remake for example: You move mainly through the west wing until you solve a number of puzzles that gain you access to the secret passage to a boss, then you need to mainly move through a combination of the basement and east wings to gain access to the sewers. After that, the sewers is its own section, but still has a number of connections to the previous areas via elevators. (Similar to a Metroid game.) Having a rather large dungeon, but unlocking it slowly and forcing the players to focus in on one section of the dungeon rather than giving them complete access to the entire thing is a helpful way to keep the work on the DM low, keep the game moving, and keep the party contained in a singular area. This probably would work for strongholds, temples, mansions, and castles. Caves and ruins may be a little more difficult, unless you put up barriers like ironwood walls that need rust powder in order to weaken enough to break through, or magical gates that remained sealed despite the rest of a ruin decaying around it. However, the good news is, is that it works for most dungeons.

I've ran many large dungeons over the years. In 5e I've only ran Sunless Citadel with my players currently climbing up the mountain towards Forge of Fury. 1. having players draw the map. It really depends on how strict you want to stick to it. Most of the rooms and corridors is being narrated and described. With the smaller and less important encounters done in theater of the mind. One of my current players is someone who has taken the quest hook of drawing maps for future archaeological endevours. He can draw a corridor, a room and it'll be rough indications for the players more then me as the DM. Since I got my own little version behind the screen. It isn't frustrating at all. Unless you expect strict 1 on 1 copies from what the DM describes and the PC draws. The drawing is more a vague reference. Just as players mapped along as they played the oldschool games such as Bards Tale and such. It simply varies per group I guess. Will it give them a sense of size and where they're at? If they're engaged and immersed it will convey the sense of size and being somewhat lost fairly well. Maybe even feeling a bit of having chewed of more than they can handle. Which aids in making some encounters feel bigger and more epic. 2. Repetitive Descriptors In the case of Sunless Citadel. I experienced more an issue of repetitive descriptions, because areas often felt the same. Made out of the same stone, with the same fungi casting the same glow and atmosphere. For new players I love to run this adventure. Gradually introducing fog of war, showing not all monsters have to be fought and killed, goblins and hobgoblins fighting differently from one another. With hobgoblins even showing that you can try to disarm enemies. Not even mentioning the cool Fire Snake fights on the second level. Forge of Fury offers a lot of variety in many ways thankfully. Showing that this is an important aspect to have in large dungeons, such as the Mad Mage etc. Each floor is different. The first being a gauntlet vs an onslaught of orcs. Glitterhame with tons of diamonds and gems in the cavernous ceiling that shine as if they're countless little stars. And various different enemies to boot. Leading into a more stronghold area where duergar and undead are holed up. It can be tricky with the multiple angles from which the PC's can decide to enter and leave. Or get split up should one fall down a hole into a wild stream of water. Getting dragged away on a floor below the rest of the PC's. 3. Modifying Modules Never, EVER, have I run a module straight from the book. They always require "work" to some degree. Whether to fix issues or inconsistencies from the module itself. Or make it fit in your own setting and possible over-arching campaign. On top of that I'm luckily blessed with a great memory. Combining that with turning the module into your own thing really helps in running it. First I read the entire module from front to back and get an overall impression of the atmosphere, enemies, what the dungeon is about and meant to do as well as the bad guy at the end. It is really easy to remember a troglodyte warren which will smell horribly with a group of duergar spies robbing caskets a bit further from there. With a Xorn social encounter/chase with possible darkmantles that'll drop on top of the PC's to connect those two areas. So what if you forget a few minor details like a Stirge Nest somewhere in a side cavern. Once you make the modifications to make the module your own, you'll remember the areas/rooms well enough by the time you run it. No need to read out those artificially sounding blocks that describe each room. Giving the descriptions needed without laying down a map or drawing it all out. That said I still went to Multi-copy to print out each map on multiple 1 square meter sized sheets. But that's because it just looks cool hehe. 4. The slog This is the only real problem that I see with large dungeons. And it varies greatly on the group at the table and what kind of game they want. For the current campaign I've used the Citadel only as a tutorial to gradually introduce new mechanics and playstyles. Forge of Fury will be the last large dungeon crawl that I expect to run for quite some time for them. Once in a while a dungeoncrawl can be nice to break up the change of pace. Wouldn't want to have it frequently, because then it would indeed get really dull. Now what I miss with a lot of recaps I read is the journey to a dungeon. Almost no one seems to play out the journey and just makes it a quick montage to the dungeon entrance. While the environments and build up during the journey can drastically increase player investment. Meaning they're more committed to sit through the slog, because they really want that friggin' hag dead. Her taunts and torments where roots and vines tried to pull the PC's under water etc made it personal.

1. Convert them to smaller dungeons. lol Make a section of 12 rooms into 2-3 large rooms. 2. EVERY room must provide the players with access to information or a key to a lock. Good treasure is always hidden in an optional area. If it doesn't serve one of those purposes, remove it. You need 2-3 combats before the BBEG to drain them of some resources to make the fight memorable. Modern times has a room or space for everything. Olden times people slept in the same room as the sheep! A village lodge where the elders hung out on a daily basis and a bunch of one-room huts for families.

Although it does not have complex maps, I10 House on Gryphon Hill is a complex Module. What makes it complicated is that it has too many things to keep track of, including the weather! Right now working on a video to review it, but I wish I picked an easier module to review.

I like taking inspiration from larger dungeons to make my own, smaller ones.

Been playing RPGs since the 1st Ed DMG was printed, high school if I dare date myself that way. With that out of the way, I love MegaDungeons. Slog? No way! If done right, that is. I design in factions, or different control groups at various locations to "war" with one another and provide variety to the players. A dungeon has it's own ecology after all. I try to have a theme in mind, such as figuring out where the surface-raiding goblin band came from, or to chase down slavers headed to the Underdark with a prize and winning their way past the factions is how they reach the goals. There's always multiple entrances so that the players can escape and rest up or sell off loot. They are also modular in a sense so that if they get bored and wander off somewhere else, I can drop in the unused parts for another dungeon. VTT has made this easy. I'd love to play in a great MegaDungeon, but sadly, nobody I know wants to run one. Dungeon Hack was one of my favourite video games back in the day. Paizo has something of the kind in Pathfinder: Kingmaker, though the Tenebrous Depths gets very repetitive with monsters and just gives them new powers on new levels instead of making each unique.

Im running Tomb of Annihilation. And im still trying to figure out the best way to handle it once the players get to the giant multi level tomb itself. Im thinking of just getting large battle mats and drawing it out, one for each floor so we can swap them out if they go up and down floors. Or maybe using regular size mats and just drawing the whole thing in half scale and using smaller pieces to represent player placement then just draw a normal sized map for a room during battles. The main problem is that traps are everywhere in this tomb and player positioning is extremely important so I want them to be able to show where they are all standing at all times.

Hi Luke, couldn’t agree more with your points in this video. Got a question for ya though: have you ever tinkered with editing large published dungeons? Like simply deleting whole sections, moving things around, etc? If so, what are your thoughts on that?

Waterdeep is in Forgotten Realms, G1, G2, G3 etc. were in Greyhawk. Different decades.

I’ve actually ran into the problem that some maps on Roll20 are so large that it will fail to reload if I swap to another tab and back

This advice completely changes the game. I wouldn't call it "Dungeons & Dragons" if players are never at risk to lose their way in the dungeon by giving them accurate maps.

I personally LOVED Against the Giants. I played in it and DMed it so many times,,,I always homebrew . Best Mod ever IMO !

I love my warlock tiles, no drawing, everyone knows where everything is...I build rooms and hallways and set them down as they explore the dungeon.... next I'm going to try to set them up so they can connect in different ways so I don't have to keep rebuilding them...takes more than one set to make a decent size dungeon though. I probably don't have enough tiles to do dungeon of the mad mage or anything, but I tend toward homebrew and the dungeon size is limited to how many tiles I have and I have enough to fill the table so that's enough

weeelll, if your party is getting bored, you might want to give em some npcs to talk to, maybe a giant that is not so angry and preffered to talk, a forging room where sound is so loud they gain advantage on stealth roll while at x feet of a giant, maybe a fellow adventurer that sneaked in, there are many options.

Honestly, I feel that having a good theme of monsters is far better than random mishmash for the sake of variety. Yes repetition sucks if you do it the wrong way, but it's amazing when done in such a way that the players get to learn the tactics and become good at fighting a certain type of enemy. But yes, huge dungeons is a chore, the idea of having to prep Castle Ravenloft is kinda putting me off from running CoS at the moment. Over 80 areas x_x

I'm preperaing Castle Ravenloft from Curse of Strahd. 85 rooms, 10 maps for diffirent layers. As it's an actual castle, not a dungeon with 1-2 stairs to a next floor, players can visit any rooms in quite any order. At least we are playing in roll20, so it's manageable. But it will be real challenge. It will probably be the only time, when I make a such mega-dungeon, but Castle Ravenloft is too iconic to be skipped.

This video gives me flashbacks to Strahds castle.

Have you tried splitting up the "Large" dungeon into sections (1/4 or 1/5 sized) and using a "door" or "archway" that is labled that tells what that section is ("Kitchen-Dinning area", "Sleeping Quarters", "Throne room and Courtyards"). This can cover not only the smaller rooms of that type but also many of the other rooms nearby and the connecting corridors. This might give your players a chance to "skip" the area if they feel it is not worth exploring. Alternatively, just "rewrite" the Map. Identify which rooms and interesting places you want or are needed, and just redraw a map that connects these spots to simplify (this can let you cut out a lot of "repetition, and large sections of endless hallways or extraneous rooms. Also you can combine rooms to get the loot/items into a smaller space rather than spread all over) Just some thoughts.

My only tip for running a large dungeon is to either make every room interesting so the players aren't bored or have things that go off after a certain number of rooms gets explored (it doesn't matter which rooms) and these things allow easy access to the next level or allows the players to skip several levels, making it feel like they figured out a shortcut.

Honestly, I think part of the fun is having the player's map not be 100% accurate as without tools and time anything they drew would never be precise. It is simply a way for them to try and remember where they've been, so it works as long as they aren't missing whole doors and passages.