The Twelve Room Dungeon

Making a Dungeon

Create twelve Rooms that encompass a variety of threats, hazards, and oddities. These rooms will act as “cards” that you can play or hold as the players advance.

Use these cards in an order that provides good momentum. If one room is a combat encounter, the next should be something different, like an obstacle. This provides good variety to the players and keeps them engaged.

After ~2 hours, direct the players to the finale (even if you have unused rooms).

Why Twelve?

It’s easier to remove material on the fly than it is to improvise. With twelve rooms, you are unlikely to run out of content. Any unused rooms can be stashed away for a future session.

Card Dungeon

Dungeon Rooms as Cards, Partial

Dungeon Rooms as Cards, Full

There are many systems for traversing a dungeon, ranging from “Theater of the Mind” to fully-fledged grid maps. My personal preference is the Card Dungeon.

  • Take a series of index cards and map them to the rooms in your dungeon.

  • As players explore, use face-down cards to show rooms that they haven’t been in yet.

  • Use a d4 or similar to mark their current location.

  • Flip cards up as the party determines what’s inside each room.

  • (Optional) Feel free to silently “cut out” rooms before the party gets to them if they’re moving slower than expected.

  • (Optional) Feel free to change the ordering of the rooms before players arrive to maintain good pacing.