Bastian Fan-Boards

When one is designing a small dungeon or short RP, one could use the 5-Room Dungeon design instead of having to plan an elaborate adventure.  The 5-Room Dungeon is more of a story-telling element that can be imagined as going through a short dungeon, like a mini-adventure in a campaign.  That is, the 5-room design can be applied to a bigger or smaller dungeon as well as non-dungeon locations or mechanics.  For the sake of the explanation, we'll pretend that this will be a standalone adventure.  

1. Entrance/Guardian - This room is the entrance of the dungeon, which serves as the transition from the normal world to this adventure so it is ideal to ready the setting here.  However, one may have to ask why people don't just go in (or out) so easily; the main reason would be a "guardian" to limit access to the place.  The guardian can range from patrols to refuging creatures, but it can also include other barriers like a key or perilous environment.

2. Puzzle/Challenge - While the previous room may have a fight, this room is more about using your wits.  Use this room to introduce a bit of dungeon lore, and you can use that to piece together clues to solve this room or chat with a NPC that'll open the way.  While the puzzle can apply pressure to the players, the non-combat approach should foster growth with the team.

3. Setback/Trick - This room has a twist to make the adventure a bit more complicated.  This twist can range from finding out the true purpose of this dungeon to weakening the players for the next room.  Please note that it would be bad manners to make the player feel guilty for their actions (ie if the earlier monsters were only protecting their young).

4. Boss/Climax - This is where you'll fight the bad guy of the dungeon, or more specifically, the fanciest battle in this dungeon as you'll start with a bit of roleplay to set the scene.  The boss knows this room better so they could unleash traps and backup, and reward the players with a bit more roleplay after the fight.

5. Reward/Revelation - Now, it's obvious that players would like to be rewarded after completing the dungeon, but this room can also reveal another twist that would lead them to the next part of their adventure.  And again, there's not really a reason to punish the players for completing the dungeon.

Here's an example of a 5-room dungeon with a pyramid: 1) There are signs that raiders already opened the tomb with a few waiting outside. 2) With the original path collapsed, you eventually translate the hieroglyphics and figure out that one of the nearby coffins has a keybearer for a locked passage. 3) The passage gases you into thinking that they are servants of the pharaoh...  4) The pharaoh wants to make you his concubines; the battle revolves around breaking out of this illusion and stopping the gas from reinfecting you.  5) Profit (with treasure from the tomb).

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Now, here are a few more things about the dungeon design.  First, the dungeon's layout does not have to be physically linear even though the 5-room dungeon sounds like everything is in order.  For instance, you enter a manor and can enter any of the four rooms, though one room will contain an item to invoke a spirit hiding in another room and so on.  And as mentioned earlier, there does not have to be 5 physical rooms for the 5-room dungeon, so it could be possible to combine the Setback room with the Boss and Reward room just as it is possible to have multiple Puzzle rooms.

How about an example featuring an asylum?

Entrance: You wind up in the middle of some strange underground asylum.

Room 1: A long corridor with padded rooms, with said rooms hiding a potential clue.
Room 2: A staff break room. You may wanna keep on your toes, but should you succeed, you may find another clue.
Room 3: A mess hall. You may find another clue here.

Exit: Achieved when you find the key based on the clues you fouind.

As for the layout, I'm thinking the general layout would be a + sign.

Ah, I was thinking of an asylum example too. Oh yeah, speaking of layouts, the next topic is the form of the dungeon.

So if you connect the five rooms in any way, you would get 21 shapes to work with. However, if you remove the shapes that contain any number of loops (connecting at least 3 rooms), you would have 3 shapes: the straight Path, the Arrow that splits at one end, and the Cross with four wings. And when you designate a room as an entrance to one of these shapes, you get 9 forms to work with. From a story-telling point of view, these 9 forms can determine how events will progress:

Railroad: By placing the entrance at one end of the Path, the storytelling is linear as you simply go forward from start to finish.

Moose: By placing the entrance at the second room of the Path, you have one room and a gauntlet. With this design, it is possible to make an element like Puzzle optional or you can preview the Reward before finding the Boss that holds the key.

V for Vendetta: The entrance is placed in the middle of the Path, so you have two equally short gauntlets. It's easy to have the Setback and Rewards at opposite ends (with a harder challenge serving as the Boss).

Cross: The entrance is placed in the center of the Cross. Generally, the entrance will act as a hub.

Paw: The entrance is placed at one end of the Cross, with the Puzzle room acting as a hub. The entrance wing can be used to practice a mechanic that will appear in the other wings.

Arrow: The entrance is placed at the "tip" of the Arrow that goes to 3 room. The entrance can act as a hub, with the "Boss" door blocking access to the Reward.

Fauchard Fork: The entrance is placed at one of the shorter ends of the Arrow. The Puzzle contains a fork, perhaps with the Setback on the other short end requiring you to face the Boss in the other fork.

Foglio's Snail: The entrance is placed on the longer end of the Arrow. The Setback is the fork, having to choose either Boss or Reward without knowing which is which.

Evil Mule: The entrance is placed between the long end and the splitting point of the Arrow. Like the Moose, the Puzzle could be optional, heading straight to the Setback.

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Of course, those are not the only ways to arrange the 5 Room Dungeons. Using a Hauchard Fork as an example, you enter the entrance and solved a puzzle, but then the Setback is that the floor collapses, sending you down to one of the other ends (either the short end to get back to the puzzle room or the long end which includes a boss so that you can resume the short trek to the rewards).

So remember when I mentioned loops? While you could physically connect these rooms for more exploration, I think that they can be used to represent an open space with multiple objectives. An example is in Granblue Fantasy Relink which utilizes the Paw: After going through the desert and finding a switch that opens the ruin, they enter an open field where they need to activate 3 more switches, each guarded by a mini-boss with the center of this area being a Boss/Reward.

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So how would you have the players progress through these rooms? If you let the player choose to visit any adjacent location, they can end up at the Boss/Reward without learning why there is even a Boss or Reward.

Well, one way would be to gate the additional paths until a "key" is found. For Flashlight's example, the door to the break room is a hard obstacle as that may require a keycard that one of the inmates has swiped in the previous wing, and the mess hall could be a softer obstacle since it is accessible but may lack an objective until the employee from the break room agrees to meet there for a discussion over a meal.

Another way is to include a reason for exploration. Zelda: Breath of the Wild does allow players to fight the final boss at the beginning of the game, but it also
encourages players to visit four areas in the story to defeat the Blights which in turn weakens the final boss.

I will say that, in a more complex scenario, there wouldn't be just one of these five-room dungeons, but rather multiple five-room dungeons. I feel there are three ways that this can be accomplished.

1. Traditional: In a dungeon, you would more than likely go down a flight of stairs. Essentially you're going up or down a floor to get to the next level.
2. Railroad: Like a railroad, you would go down a set path into the next level by traveling across from you. Usually the next level is represented by big doors that stand out from the rest of the doors.
3. Explorative: Similar to Railroad, but you get to choose how you wish to progress through the dungeon. Whichever path you take would be the next level. Backtracking is possible in some cases.

Well, the traditional dungeon would be part of the Travel-Town-Dungeon cycle. The exact order of that cycle varies, but essentially the Travel or Town serves as a break between dungeons.

Anyway, what you are trying to explaining leads into another type of dungeon called the Megadungeon, dungeons so big that they can be the campaigns themselves. Some fantasy animes like the current Dungeon Meshi and the older Danmachi and Sword Arts Online feature multi-level megadungeons serving as the setting with the goal in some of them.

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So first, let's talk about designing a megadungeon. The easiest way and the method used in most anime/game is giving each part a region. Some megadungeons are so big or so separated that each floor can have its own ecosystem. It's also possible that some NPCs can take over a floor whether they are floor guardians or warring factions, and through that they can also affect the floor's theme.

Another design of the dungeon is how to gate the contents. This is to ensure that players have the appropriate stats and abilities to get through that wing. Locks and switches are rather common, but when dealing with picklocks, it may be wise to introduce harder locks or present the keys when they learn that skills. Some parts are controlled more by the dungeon such as the flow of water that can flood and drain certain rooms. Sometimes, the best move is not to link every room together; some players may find a goal in the minimum/maximum amount of rooms in a connected grid, yet making a route with some branches can have the player reach the goal with a balanced run with only a few rooms added for choosing the wrong branch (and reaching the maximum number of rooms in very rare occassions).

And of course, it's ideal to have the players return to town every now and then. Rather than force them to return each time a checkpoint is reached, try to introduce them as a side quest (appraising artifacts or escorting a survivor).

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Since I was talking about 5-room dungeons in megadungeons earlier, this is what I mean:

-You have an overall "dungeon" that serves as the main layout of the megadungeon.
-Each "room" of the megadungeon is its own dungeon. Clearing the mini-dungeon will take some time.

Example A: A linear Megadungeon with each floor guarded by a boss. To reach the boss, players need to search sideways in each floor to find the keys. The first floor introduces you to this format but the second floor could introduce other obstacles besides enemies. Further treks means being able to skip the side sections. (ex: Mario 64's Peach's Castle and Abyss Cave). Think of this as a Railroad map with Crosses in each room.

Example B: A linear Megadungeon with some branches to get the treasures, but heading deeper mean taking the central path, with big bosses blocking each section. (ex: Kirby Superstar's Great Cave offensive). This is a Railroad Map with mostly Railroad sections.

Example C: A big door is sealed behind four seals. Each wing hosts a boss you have defeated and are decorated to resemble that boss's turf. (ex: Kirby's Dreamland's Dedede's Castle and Rogue Legacy's castle). In other words, a Cross map with either Railroads or Crosses in each adjoining rooms.

Let's look further into the town as that had been brought up numerously here. Let's say we apply the Five-Room Dungeon logic to the town itself. While this generally ignores NPC houses, this works quite well with important structures. However, the town would need to be treated differently from the dungeon itself. As such, I would set the five "rooms" of the town as such.

Town Hall/Castle: A central building where the ruling party resides. In a run-of-the-mill fantasy scenario, this is typically where the king or mayor entrusts you with the main quest.
Inn/Tavern: Typically this is where you sleep, talk with NPCs, or get side quests.
Item Shop: A standard item shop where you buy a variety of goods.
Armory: A place where you can get weapons or armor.
Church: A place where you can remove curses or revive fallen players.

Like the dungeon above, any layout arrangement works, although I personally think the most easily accessible layout is the wishbone.