Monday, October 24, 2011

Random Dungeons!

I had my first taste of Basic D&D as a player with the The Keep on the Borderlands, and I was ready to DM. First thing I needed was a dungeon. My first endeavor was the worst 10 levels of random denizens ever produced.

I soon discovered that endless dungeon crawls do not make for good campaigns, but as a DM you'll ALWAYS have the need for dungeon-like settings, sewers and other hidden lairs. Creating maps can be time consuming and dxContent is all about saving DMs time.

So, I'm excited to announce some new features to dxContent. I've added a host of functions for creating dungeons! (specifically man-made subteranean areas at this point). Check out the beta-random generator for trying out some of the future tools. These tools are still under development, but they are at a point now where useful output can be generated.

The core of these map generating tools are Tilesets. Tilesets are like puzzle pieces that when used in combination make a larger map. The first tileset has over 300 tiles and features doors, halls, ledges pits and open areas.

Here is a quick and dirty dungeon generated from choosing just a few options like height, width, number of stairways, etc.

The generator has a few flaws right now like creating some doorless rooms on the periphery of the map, and roomless areas with doorways, but every good concept has to start somewhere. I'll continue to refine, add tilesets, functions and features as the year wraps up. Let me know what you think.

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