Dungeon Tiles

[sean]

One of the most important pieces of the Eternal Dungeon is the dungeon itself.  The dungeon is comprised of a set of tiles.  Each tile is a square piece of game board with a part of a dungeon or other area drawn on it, with a 1" movement grid laid out on top.  The tiles are then laid out to build a complete a dungeon.  Each tile is named, and some tiles might have special rules listed in the rulebook regarding any special features of the tile.

The initial prototype tiles I've been working on are 11"x11", with a 1/2" border, making for a 10x10 movement grid.  The movement grid can be modified based on the terrain of the tiles; for example, in one tile with pools of water, characters will not be able to move over the water.  Some of the tiles I've sketched out so far include a chasm, a room with water pits, a few hallways, an arena, a throne room, and jail cell.

The middle two grid locations on each side of a tile are marked as potential door locations.  The idea is that a pre-written adventure can lay out the dungeon tiles in whatever pattern is desired, and place doors only along some adjacent edges.

One of the biggest features of Eternal Dungeon is the ability to randomly generate complete dungeons.  A dungeon size is determined by the players based on desired play time; the usual size will be 3x4, and the maximum supported size is likely to be either 4x4 or 4x5, depending on how many tiles we can include in the box.  The players randomly pick a tile and lay it down on an edge, and that is the first room of the dungeon.  For each dungeon room, the Dungeon Master rolls dice to determine which sides of the room have doors, and also rolls to determine the contents of the room, such as monsters and so on.  When a door is opened, a new tile is placed and its contents are rolled for.  This continues until the last tile is placed - this is the "boss room" that contains the dungeon's boss monster.

The specific mechanics of the random generation are still in drafting phase.  The biggest problem is overcoming the "short dungeon" situation.  With bad luck on the dice rolls, it might be possible to end up with a 4x3 dungeon that in reality only has several tiles placed before no more tiles can be placed due to where doors are randomly placed.