Standard dungeons are places where many or even most of us cut our teeth on roleplaying games, blazing a trail through the bowels of the earth, battling strange creatures and looting their wealth for eldritch gains, but they present a few fundamental difficulties. Mapping is one, if the group aren't prepared to draw out each chamber and corridor they can quickly get confused, but not lost - which is itself another issue.

Getting lost underground should be a basic trope of dungeoneering, but it's almost impossible to do when explorers have a bird's-eye view of everything they've passed through.

None of which takes much away from the fun of dungeon exploring, thankfully! But let's take a different look at exploring dungeons with a few new ideas, and maybe even make it easier for the game master to run a low-accounting dungeon.

Don't worry about maps
In movies, books and other media we don't usually see every single step taken by heroes on a journey, we don't observe the trudge through hours, days or weeks of wilderness or caverns, that wouldn't be fun at all. So why is it needed in games? Instead we should divide up dungeons into unmapped regions (including up/down levels) and the GM can maintain a list of random encounters for each region, as well as a list of important locations which are mapped.

So for example a dungeon might have three regions:

• Upper Goblin Holds
• Haunted Labyrinth
• The Sump

Within each region might be one, three, ten or any number of pre-planned locations. For example, within the Upper Goblin Holds might be:

• The Undertents - goblin living quarters
• The Feasting Hall - a great cavern littered with carrion and a fighting pit in the middle
• The Slave Pits - bone cages containing a variety of creatures
• The Shaman's Crevice - potions, scrolls, unpleasant oddities
• The Bat Pens - filled with giant vampire bats

These are the only areas mapped in advance, although the GM may keep a few other maps handy just in case of encounters. Now you aren't grinding your way through a dungeon crawl, you're experiencing the highlights, and lowlights, which may include...

Getting Lost

Getting lost is a really important part of underground adventuring, along with simply navigating from place to place. As any caver will tell you, if you can get lost in a well-signposted big city or even a forest, you can certainly lose your way deep underground - in fact it can happen much more easily when the only directions you're sure of are up and down.

Underground Pathfinding or Dungeoneering as a skill is crucial here. This will partially determine the time it takes to get from place to place; if you know there's a Shaman's Crevice somewhere in the Goblin Holds, you can try to find it using this skill. If you fail, you get lost. Alternatively if you don't have a goal, the GM can simply roll or select a location on a successful navigation check.

Various other factors will also determine whether or not you reach your goal, such as the size of the region, whether the location has been hidden, how complicated the region is (natural caves are much harder to explore than say a wine cellar), whether you have a map or guide, and such environmental hazards as bad air. So, when exploring underground, roll on the following table:

1: Badly lost, -4 on the next roll (cumulative)
2-3: Lost, -2 on the next roll (cumulative)
4-7: Travelling, no modifier
8-9: On the right track, +2 on the next roll (cumulative)
10: Reach destination or important location!

Modifications might include:

• Fake or poor map: -1 to -3
• Average map: +2
• Good map: +4
• Trustworthy guide: +3
• Bad air, hungry, sick, tired, heavily burdened, wounded: -1 to -3
• Good roll on dungeoneering: +1
• Very good roll on dungeoneering: +2
• Excellent roll on dungeoneering: +3
• Being chased or chasing something: -2
• Simple dungeon layout (eg constructed tunnels): +1
• Twisty dungeon layout (eg labyrinth): -2
• Complicated natural cave system: -1 to -4
• Small region: +2
• Medium region: no modifier
• Large region: -1 to -3
• Very large region: -4 to -5
• Enormous region: -6 or more
• Destination (which may also include next region or exit) is hidden or obscured: -1 to -3
• Blind, in darkness: -6
• Spooked, panicked, suffering from insanity: -1 to -4

And there are many more possibilities like earthquakes and sliding down slimy chutes. Each roll should take about 1-3 hours, which is entirely up to the GM of course, and a random encounter can be rolled for as often as needed. In this approach to underground exploration, random encounters should also include locations, but less often perhaps than monsters. This can be tuned to suit the tone and flavour of the dungeon.

The GM should probably keep underground navigation rolls secret, and not inform the group whether or not they're doing well. Stealth checks can be incorporated into navigation as well, which might modify encounters.

It quickly becomes clear that tracking resources like food, water and above all else, light, is vital to getting out of the dungeon alive, because once a party has entered, finding their way out again needs a successful roll on the navigation table!

The GM can also make a blob-map of the dungeon, that is several blobs next to one another representing regions. That way the regions the group are physically able to access are known, and they won't skip over a region by accident. It's not neccessary since neighbouring regions can simply be added to location random encounters however. Some dungeons can be built specifically to channel intruders towards certain regions or locations, which should be reflected in random encounter tables.

So now we have the building blocks for any sized dungeon we like, covering hundreds of kilometers and/or thousands of levels if so desired, while still maintaining a coherent feel for the adventure. Next, we tie it all together with...

Underground Communities

The dangers of the deeps include getting lost, rockfalls, drowning and so on, as well as unintelligent monsters and wild animals, but there are often intelligent creatures living there too, and they've probably been there a lot longer than our intrepid adventurers! They're going to be aware of one another and each group will have relationships with the other groups, which can very much affect the progress of underground explorers.

The GM may wish to draw up a quick relationship table marking the attitude each community has to one another, and work that into the game - if two tribes of goblins are at war with one another, it may profit the explorers to intervene for one side.

As well as allying with underground tribes against other tribes, they can barter or trade for guidance or food and light, or even broker trade deals. Having friends in the deep can be a very good thing indeed!

It can add to the adventure in countless ways - a crafty goblin chief may offer tribute to invaders, but include a totem necklace that will draw and enrage the wights next door. A villain fleeing justice being hunted by the group may escape to his orcish allies in the nearby catacombs. The last remnants of a gang of hobgoblins killed by the party could track the group back to their home town when they leave and try to kill them in their sleep, and so on.

In addition, an important factor when dealing with underground communities is their response time. If the group attacks and defeats a party of goblins, but some get away, how long will it take until the entire goblin community is aware of these intruders and responds? This can be rated from -3 to +3, rolled on a 1d6 or 1d10, with the result being the number of navigation rolls it will take for the majority of them to become aware and take action.

So let's say the goblins have a -1 for their response time (quick). They roll a 4, -1 makes 3, so the group gets 3 navigation rolls before some sort of a response is mustered. This may be hostile, turning into running battles and impromptu traps, friendly, or even an evacuation depending on how the group dealt with creatures they met and various other factors.

Using these simple techniques it's possible for dungeon adventures to graduate beyond disconnected encounters and introduces themes and continuity to an already exciting aspect of roleplaying games, and can be applied to any genre really, so try them out and have fun!