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Be Awesome At Dungeon Design (Augmented Edition) $5.95
Average Rating:4.1 / 5
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Be Awesome At Dungeon Design (Augmented Edition)
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Be Awesome At Dungeon Design (Augmented Edition)
Publisher: Raging Swan Press
by Jim B. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 01/09/2022 14:48:06

As other reviewers have noted, there's a lot of really solid advice on creating an engaging dungeon environment.

Chapter Five (The Dungeon's Ecology) offers a list of reasons to include some unoccupied rooms. I'll add one more: modularity. If you realize during play that you've overlooked something or that you really ought to add something (a crucial clue, a monster's lair, bathrooms for the denizens, etc.), you could easily repurpose a nearby unoccupied room. Several chapters could benefit from factoring in ways to make the dungeon modular and adaptable during play. Wandering monsters, for example. Use them to introduce crucial clues that the PCs have missed, or to give the PCs an easy, rewarding encounter if they're demoralized or a tough encounter if things have been too easy.

Precisely one chapter gives me heartburn: Chapter Nine, Creating the Illusion of Detail. You could just rename it "How to Waste Everyone's Time When You Haven't Prepared." In the first two sentences, it states a valid problem: when the PCs reach a part of the dungeon you haven't prepared. After that, the advice is problematic. The NPCs can deceive the PCs, but the GM should never deceive the players. Deliberately stalling them and wasting their time only because you haven't prepared is not the way I'd treat my players. Besides, the advice in Chapter Nine can easily backfire. If you put up extra encounters and barriers, you could make the PCs more interested in seeing what's beyond. If you give them an unbeatable monster, they might think you wouldn't do that to them, and then you have a TPK on your hands. How hard do you keep stalling them before they realize they've wasted their time? How much will they enjoy finding out that you gave them an unbeatable problem? You could kill the mood or erode trust. Chapter Nine isn't the illusion of detail. It's the deception that the PCs think they have a chance of going in a direction you don't want them to take.

There are two ways to keep the PCs out of areas you haven't prepared: Be straight with the players, or don't put temptation in their path.

Being straight with the players: "Let's take the action elsewhere. I'm not done with this part." Good players can accept that and move on. They'll appreciate that you didn't waste their time. Problem solved within seconds and you've reinforced trust. It's no worse than saying, "Let's break for pizza."

Refraining from temptation: Instead of putting up barriers and encounters that you hope will divert the PCs, put nothing there. Instead of a door they can't open protected by monsters they can't beat, make it a blank wall. Instead of a collapsed tunnel they might try to get through, there's no tunnel. They'll walk on by. Again, problem solved within seconds.



Rating:
[4 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Thank you, Jim, for taking the time to post your thoughts on Be Awesome. I am sorry chapter nine gave you heartburn! I can certainly see your point of view regards the illusion of detail. If/when I revise this book I will add in a section presenting your suggested solution to the problem of the characters eandering off in the "wrong" direction! Thanks again
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Be Awesome At Dungeon Design (Augmented Edition)
Publisher: Raging Swan Press
by MAR A. O. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 08/19/2019 13:49:14

I now use this guide to all my dungeon dessigns, not only I find more pleasure in them but also I got better feedback.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Thanks so much for this review. I’m delighted you find the book so useful. Good luck with your designs!
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Be Awesome At Dungeon Design (Augmented Edition)
Publisher: Raging Swan Press
by Sensible C. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 07/09/2019 03:31:39

I've read a lot of world design and dungeon design materials and this is now at the top of my list. I'm tired of dice rolls, battle mechanics, and statistics, and have changed my focus to puzzles, non combat challenges, and descriptions to run my games. Creighton B. lays this out concisely and the read was smooth, but as everyone pointed out, the pdf files have a lot of blank space, so just a heads up [This didn't bother me]. Creighton likes to use "empty" rooms and wandering monsters to build realistic dungeons, which I miss from the old days [I started role playing twenty two years ago], and mentions that the industry is too focused on their page count, rooms filled to the brim with encounters, and treasure hordes, than dramatic/fun stories that make sense for the players AND their characters. Overall I think this title is worth the three dollars I paid for it, and makes me think that amateur/private publishing is the way to go over AAA gaming [I fell in love with "Worlds Apart" and "Machhiato Monsters" after one read]. I'm tired of spending top dollar on name brand core books, when something like this SAYS everything they do, but without all those the pretty pictures and game statistics [How many times do I have to buy a fifty dollar core book to read basically the same stuff... again?].

Creighton B, Thanks for your hard work!



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Thank you, for this review. I'm delighted you fond the book useful. Good luck with your dungeon designs!
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Be Awesome At Dungeon Design (Augmented Edition)
Publisher: Raging Swan Press
by Thilo G. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 07/30/2018 04:13:40

An Endzeitgeist.com review

This massive book clocks in at 216 pages, 1 page front cover, 6 pages dedications, editorial, etc., 5 pages of advertisement, 2 pages of author bio, and almost 40 pages blank – these are at the end of a chapter, or on the flip-side of maps. Maps? Yep There are 5 sample b/w-maps included herein. This leaves us with about 150 pages of content. Why am I rounding down? Because some pages at the end of a chapter are 2/3 empty. This does not matter, though. Why? Because we get versions without the blanks, for both printer- and screen-version. These, btw., still clock in at a 188 page total.

Anyways, this looks like much, but this book is laid out to work as a book – it also comes with a .mobi version in addition to the by now, standard print and screen-versions we expect from Raging Swan Press.

What is this, then? It is the single most comprehensive and helpful dungeon design guide I have ever read.

We begin with simple tips for beginners, contemplations regarding the name and the often overlooked (cough Prison of Meneptah /cough) purpose of a dungeon. From there, we move to the ecology, note dressing (You should definitely have Raging Swan Press’ GM’s Miscellany: Dungeon Dressing by now – it’s not only a Top ten-winner, it is, regardless of system, my most used game book to this day…)…and then things become interesting.

We start taking in the details: The importance of the dungeon entrance and its physicality, tricks to create the illusion of detail, contemplations regarding dungeon types and the surrounding wilderness, a “Don’t do this..:”-list…oh, and what about a list of things modern dungeons don’t have enough of anymore? This list is NOT a grognardian tirade against new school design – it’s a well-reasoned and concise series of observations.

Beyond all of these, we also talk about wandering monsters (yes, including a couple of motivations…) and it should be noted at this point that this book also contains quite a bunch of dressing tables to jumpstart your dungeon-design brainstorm and fill in spaces. Not as many as in RSP’s dressing books, obviously…but yeah. It’s still a TON and more than you’d ever otherwise find.

Oh. And there is a special series of considerations applied to mega-dungeon design, from unusual ways to get in/out to logic and particular considerations, with a few examples, we move on to a dungeon design case study and a two-page, concise manifest of sorts that lists the handy principles that underlie good dungeon design in the most concise way I have seen them ever spelled out in any supplement.

We also btw. discuss two awesome dungeons. Funnily enough, I really, REALLY hated both of them. Moathouse and Forge of Fury, fyi. I know. Sacrilege, right? ;)

Okay, I insulted the moathouse. I better grab my boots before the torch-wielding pitchfork-mob arrives, so let’s end this quickly, shall we?

The book is laid out in a 1-column b/w-standard with a few b/w-artworks here and there.

As a reviewer, I really hate the lack of bookmarks. But honestly, this once, I can live with it.

Why? Because you should have this in print.

You see, Creighton Broadhurst’s tome is basically the textbook for the course to make captivating dungeons. If I taught dungeon design in university (Hej, even scientists may dream, right?) instead of my usual subjects, this book would be at the top of the required-reading bibliography.

This book doesn’t waste your time with useless blathering, is remarkably bereft of annoying opinionated author-egos trying to jam down their ideology down your throat:

Instead, we get a no-frills guideline to improve your dungeon-design skills. This should be required reading for game-designers. Wait…do tons of dressing count as “frills”?

Either way, this represents one of the best design-guidelines I have ever read. Yes. That good. It doesn’t dive into system-specific nit and grit, sure, but as a universal manual? Phenomenal.

My final verdict will clock in at 5 stars + seal of approval. Oh, and this is a candidate for my Top Ten of 2017. If your dungeons tend to fall flat, this can help you make them legendary.

Endzeitgeist out.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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Creator Reply:
Epic review. Thank you. I'm humbled.
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Epic review. Thank you. I'm humbled.
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