The 1-Hour Dungeon

This is the third article in a series that exist. The others you can read below.

• Improv Night Featuring the Quantum Ogre
• Starting a Sandbox

Someone asked, how I actually prep a dungeon in under an hour so let me break down the process.

Some things to know before we start. I'm going for a dungeon that is playable in an hour, not a dungeon that wins awards. What constitutes enough is a fine line of prep and ability to fill in minor gaps during play.

0. Pick a Theme

2 min
This is optional, because an underground dungeon always works, but a theme can help shape future decisions.

1. Get a Map

4 min
Go to the amazing donjon.bin.sh site and generate a "Tiny" dungeon and select "None" for details. Or, do whatever you want.

2. Stock

10 min
There are two ways to do this using a stocking table:

1. Roll for the # of rooms and assign the results later
2. Roll for each room individually

I prefer #1, so you would take your stocking table and roll on it as many times as there are rooms.

For any Monster entry, go ahead and roll for the monsters, and their lair if you have that. If you have a lair you can either replace future monster entries with the lair ones or crowd more in. I recommend the first option.

Now, more than likely an idea has emerged based on the types of monsters, if there is a lair and whatnot. This may lead to more interesting ideas like what are they doing there, if there are factions, etc. Hold on to these thoughts.

Place those stock rolls in the rooms.

At this point you have a dungeon whose keys are simply: Empty, Treasure, Trap, Unique, and whatever monsters you rolled

3. Unique Rooms

15 min
These can be anything and take the longest because they're creative, but here's some ideas:

4. Traps

10 min
Traps stump folks but a good trap has a few ingredients:

• The effect
• The trigger
• Signs its there

Optionally you can have a sense of the mechanisms that the party can figure out to bypass or disarm it.

Trap types that are common are:

• Pits
• Spiked Pits
• Collapsing ceiling
• Darts
• Poison darts

Less common are magical traps, these would be based on a spell effect.

5. Treasure

5 min
If you have a treasure generator handy, just note what will be generated in the rooms where you placed treasure. Use the generator when the players get there.

A rule of thumb is some will be guarded by creatures, a little will be scattered, and some will be hidden.

Since most old school games have treasure as xp, you'll want to see if the total treasure value makes sense in terms of risk and reward.

6. Room descriptions

20 min
This step depends on your ability to improvise. I personally build a table for the theme and then roll over and over. Each entry I then put a few details to make that room type obvious.

The details don't have to be much, but they bring life into the dungeon and allow players to interact with the environment and get creative. Here's an example from a dungeon I'm currently running:

23. Baths

• Half dissolved Doppleganger in a tub. Green Slime hiding above.

7. Done?

There's always more to add, but when you're done you have a dungeon that should last at LEAST one session, likely 2-3 and has all the ingredients needed. This clocked in at around 1 hour and 11 minutes.

Details I didn't put in? Doors, smells, sounds, factions, patrols, or specific lore. This is a dungeon that works, its enough, and has everything it needs to be fun. You could shave the room time down if you're good with details on the fly. Just note what you improvised as you play.

My most recent dungeon is 2 floors and about 65 rooms total. It took me around 3 hours total to prep, and most of it was spent on room details. The rest is looking at the rolls like paint, stepping back, and painting with it, and it goes fast.