Chapter 3 of the Tome of Adventure Design is all about dungeons, and it’s huge. Somewhere around 230 pages. I split it into two videos. This first one covers everything you figure out before you draw a single room: why there’s a clock ticking, why the party cares, what makes the place memorable, what happened there, and how the players learn about it.

This is part 3 of 5 in my Tome of Adventure Design series.

Race against time

Something should keep the adventure moving. I rolled five options:

• The characters will be discovered or identified soon, so they have to hit their objective fast
• The reward only pays out if they finish by a deadline
• The enemies get reinforcements as the adventure goes on
• Living expenses are high. Rent’s due Wednesday, so this had better be done by Tuesday.
• A prisoner will be killed by kidnappers, maybe someone the party cares about

Motivation

More reasons for the characters to show up: a new form of movement like swimming, flying, or teleporting (which ties right back into the travel rewards from chapter 1), deeds to a ship or a castle, cash from a patron, a bonus to certain saving throws, and a permit that lets them travel through a restricted area.

Terrain and tactical challenges

These tables are about skill challenges more than fights, and the results are just a couple of words on purpose. I got drop into, reach into, find, detach properly, and climb down to. Drop into what? A pit, a pool, the volcano of Mount Doom? Detach properly makes me think of a gem that has to come out of a statue the right way, or else. The short prompts leave the details to you.

The tactical situations table gives the party ways to gain an edge in a fight or a challenge. Mine were an area where you need magic or gear to breathe (great if the party can breathe and the enemies can’t), an area where useful things appear and disappear, a dangerous shortcut to the high ground, a spot that ends the encounter if you reach it, and a room full of barrels that could start a chain of explosions.

The book also has solid advice on keeping encounters varied (a few skeletons are fine, room after room of them isn’t) and on designing maps that aren’t just room A to room B to room C.

Challenges to the character sheet

Most challenges should test the players’ creativity, not the numbers on their sheets. Every so often, though, it’s fun to aim at the sheet directly. I rolled an ability check, like a lodestone effect that forces Strength checks or Constitution checks against fatigue, and a random selection, where someone in the party has to pick a door, draw a card, or roll to find out what happens.

Why is this place dangerous?

Now we get into the dungeon itself. The book separates small lairs from megadungeons like Undermountain or the Emerald Spire, then gives you three columns to roll for why a place became dangerous and when. My five:

• Poisons were used after contact with sinister beings, one year ago. Hello again, poison elemental from chapter 2.
• Construction was done for magical research, 100 years ago. That fits the wizard and the archaeological dig from chapter 1.
• The place was sealed off during a dispute between powerful beings, 10 years ago
• The inhabitants split into two groups over a strange belief, one year ago
• The inhabitants were changed by promises from a powerful being, one month ago. That lines up with the villain handing out demonic gifts.

Capsule backstories

Capsule backstories cover one room or area instead of the whole dungeon, and they come in two flavors: item-based and person-based. My favorite item results were a clue that disappeared mysteriously 10 years ago, a letter that exposes someone living under a false identity, and a sealed container with a noble family’s crest that set off a tragedy 100 years ago.

On the person side, I got a noble who used the place for training until a surprising message arrived, a secret assassin hiding evidence here, a well-known wizard who used it as a hideout during gladiatorial fights, and a judge of secret laws whose identity changed here a year ago. A few of those clearly belong together.

There’s also a table for what a room was built for, what it’s used for now, and who changed it. My best one: training rooms turned into a courtroom by a demon and its evil spellcaster minion, where disputes get settled by combat.

Clues and handouts

Clues should be spread across the whole adventure, covering both the big plot and what’s happening right now. I rolled five:

• A clue built into the architecture, like the staff-and-amulet floor map in Raiders of the Lost Ark
• Leftovers of a battle: bodies, broken weapons, scorch marks from a fireball
• A shared vision where each character sees the location of a treasure through someone else’s eyes, probably sent by a ghost or a cursed spellcaster who can’t get it themselves
• Journal notes answering a status report from minions who are behind schedule, tucked in with mining rights to a nearby area
• A letter to a religious leader from someone believed dead, explaining how to avoid a certain monster

Confession: that journal clue is a crutch of mine. When I need to hand the party information fast, I reach for a diary. I’m working on it.

Magical symbols

The last tables build magical symbols step by step. Start with a shape or a letter, change it (flip it, mirror it, stack it), then add a finishing touch like a dot or a spiral. I got things like a sideways triangle with a dot, two mirrored Js joined by a line, and a doubled M. Swap the English letters for Greek, Elder Futhark, or Phoenician and one symbol can become a whole family of related sigils to scatter across your handouts.

The chapter wraps this section with codes, ciphers, and riddles, then moves into drawing the dungeon map. That’s the next video.

Video chapters

• 00:00 Introduction
• 00:47 Creative process
• 03:07 Race against time
• 05:05 Motivational elements
• 06:14 Terrain and tactical challenges
• 08:42 Tactical situations
• 12:01 Challenges to the character sheet
• 13:50 Dungeon adventure design
• 14:47 Backstory: why is this dangerous?
• 17:38 Item-based capsule backstories
• 19:21 Person-based capsule backstories
• 22:23 Recent use backstories
• 24:21 Clues
• 30:39 Magical symbols
• 35:43 Wrap-up

Get the book

Tome of Adventure Design (Revised) by Matt Finch is available as a PDF on DriveThruRPG, or in hardcover and PDF straight from Mythmere Games.

The DriveThruRPG link is an affiliate link. If you buy through it, I get a small reward at no extra cost to you.

The rest of the series

• Previous: Chapter 2: Random monsters
• Next: Chapter 3, part 2: Mapping the dungeon
• All parts in order: Tome of Adventure Design series guide

Until next time, roll well, my friends.