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Dungeon Year Design Journal
Sep. 13th, 2024 08:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
yhleeThis is maybe off the beaten path, but I downloaded the Dungeon Year Design Journal [itch.io from Pandion Games, PDF is pay what you want, including free; the print version runs $17 or $38 depending on whether you get the smaller weekly condensed or larger daily one). (There are some pics of sample pages at the link.)
The premise of this is that you design a dungeon (or setting) one day at a time. For example, one day might be a dungeon "room," another might be an NPC, another might be an encounter table of sinister NPCs, another might be a table of potions. There are a few notes of guidance/encouragement, a tracking calendar where you can check off days (not tied to a specific year, just day/month), and a whole bunch of inspirational tables/oracles of prompts for when you get stuck! For example, there's one for steampunk, one for items, one for NPC personality traits, etc. These run off d66 (= you roll two six-sided dice, one for the tens digit and the other for the ones digit, giving you 11-16, 21-26, ..., 61-66).
I have been distracted by school and other things, but this is super cute and super fun! I did decide to keep things in a smol A6 notebook instead for portability but I love the concept. Picture of one of my entries, an NPC.
I was inspired to pick this up when I heard of it because in 8th grade I kind of did this! (During Algebra I class, in fact. Shhh.) I had a notebook and I just drew maps and listed keys and treasures and teleporter traps and things. I had so much fun. :) But of course you could do a cottagecore woodland setting or a gaslamp fantasy; it doesn't have to be an aggro hack-and-slash dungeon (and in fact the prompts encompass a range of genres/moods). I'm so excited to keep going!
The premise of this is that you design a dungeon (or setting) one day at a time. For example, one day might be a dungeon "room," another might be an NPC, another might be an encounter table of sinister NPCs, another might be a table of potions. There are a few notes of guidance/encouragement, a tracking calendar where you can check off days (not tied to a specific year, just day/month), and a whole bunch of inspirational tables/oracles of prompts for when you get stuck! For example, there's one for steampunk, one for items, one for NPC personality traits, etc. These run off d66 (= you roll two six-sided dice, one for the tens digit and the other for the ones digit, giving you 11-16, 21-26, ..., 61-66).
I have been distracted by school and other things, but this is super cute and super fun! I did decide to keep things in a smol A6 notebook instead for portability but I love the concept. Picture of one of my entries, an NPC.
I was inspired to pick this up when I heard of it because in 8th grade I kind of did this! (During Algebra I class, in fact. Shhh.) I had a notebook and I just drew maps and listed keys and treasures and teleporter traps and things. I had so much fun. :) But of course you could do a cottagecore woodland setting or a gaslamp fantasy; it doesn't have to be an aggro hack-and-slash dungeon (and in fact the prompts encompass a range of genres/moods). I'm so excited to keep going!
