Modular Danger Room

I love pictograms and symbols and trying to convey meaning in its simplest form.  And I always loved the idea of the danger room for heroes, because, well it's a lot like exploring a dungeon-- you don't know what to expect.  Also, you can play it solo.

I think Zak posted a random danger room generator in the last few months.  I know I made one for DC Heroes years ago, but I'd have to dig it out because I don't remember anything about that attempt.  Anyway, what if you took the hexagonal geomorphs I've been posting, throw in a plethora of cool hazard symbols:

and make a modular danger room:

This time when a trigger fires, heroes have a specific hazard to negotiate.  Lasers, poison gas, acid, magnetic fields.  I know it should probably be a bit more specific than the damaging energy type for the danger room hazard, but maybe you could devise symbols to represent turrets, walls, robots and the like.  Instead of treasure heroes might need to get flags or such.

Hexagonal Geomorph VI

Looks like some family visitors are going to postpone my screenprinting trials.  Frustrating, I'm afraid if I don't get this done in the next two weeks or so I might lay it by for a long time again (last time was two years).

Oh well, the good news is that all the planning and making these by hand made for churning digital versions out quite quickly.  I haven't even printed/cut/tested all these out yet.  Here are two more:

Which gets us to 12.  We have a funny shaped die to handle that.

One thing you might notice is that I am sticking to hexes that have to 3-6 sides used as viable exits.  This is for two reasons 1) aesthetically I didn't like the look of stranded island of dungeon, the little pockets that an unreachable one-side-accessible path would make, and 2) I was never able to figure out mathematically the increase in probability of ending the catacomb that each dead-end added to the tiles made, so I'm just going by intuiton here until I playtest these more to see how big a catacomb can get before you hit all deadends.

Another thought, I am torn between having a small set of pretty re-usable tiles and interesting, individualistic tiles.  For example tile 11 above could have a little room to the right instead of just the two loculi.

The problem is, the more unique you make one tile, the less useful it is a a generic part of a dungeon generator.  It becomes very recognizable instead of a something unknown to be explored.  I also have to remember these were meant to be used on the kitchen table, so you can't have too many.  Though, if you have a big selection you could choose your own "deck" before play, so to speak.

Hexagonal Geomorph V

These two are for Ohio Metal Militia.  It brings us to ten tiles which is quite convenient:

Hexagonal Geomorph IV

Okay, once I got more familiar with the program and got my layers all set up, the rest of the tiles rolled out pretty easily.  Here are tiles 4-8:

And here is a pdf with all 8 tiles if that's more convenient for you than fooling with the pngs.

My intent is to have 4 printed tiles with these on them back to back.  You can print them back to back for the same effect or just use a d8 to try them out.  You can use hex paper to record the catacomb you generate.  Just write Tile #, Face # with a little tick showing where the face connected.

I apologize if any of the triggers are wacky, I was just pulling these out of my derrière to get the prototype done.  I'd be happy to hear any feedback about how these work out for you, even if you ignore the whole trigger thing and just generate some catacombs.

Update: I fixed a couple little glitches.  And, you know what, here have the svgs too.  That way you can hide the layer with the triggers if they bug you or apply filters to make the walls more rough looking or whatever.

Update 2: Whoops, I had Tile 7 with a Even trigger and it has no even entrances. I fixed the png.   I'll have to fix that in the pdf later, I'm away from home now.

Hexagonal Geomorph III

Okay, I felt myself getting bogged down with trying to make the walls perfect, so I stopped that.  I went back to a more abstract, game-boardy look for now so I can just get enough done to play around with them (I know myself).

So, here is Tile 3:

and I redid the first two as well:

And here is a key to the trigger symbols:

Traps function like pits in old school D&D; 1-2 on a d6 and its triggered.  But the solo player can see them and decides whether to risk them.  Eventually I should make a little chart of trap type (didn't I do this in a post once?).

For the rest of the triggers, take the number of the face you exit a tile, and the number of the face you're entering and mash them together.  If that number is odd, the odd triggers fire, if it is something like 55, double triggers fire and double odd triggers.

Specials are rarer events, they might affect a whole tile like a cave in, or indicate that it's web-filled or something.  I will need to make a chart.   Actually, I eventually want specials to be unique tiles, like chapels, or large ponds or something.  But I mess with that only after I have enough standard tiles done.

Triggers only fire once, when you first enter a tile.  All triggers fire at once, so if you got two encounters . . . well, maybe they'll fight each other.  I know knowing where the treasure and monsters everywhere on the tile are is not realistic, but it seems the most streamlined way to do this so someone won't game the system.  I'm guessing you could easily graft on more complicated systems if you wanted.

Hexagonal Geomorph II

Here is another of the catacomb geomorphs.  I thickened the walls a bit.  I was initially thinking of keeping things as simple as possible and saving ink for those of you printing at home, but I added a gradient to try and give the solid stone some heft.   I don't know how this gradient will screenprint, I do have pretty fine screen.  I'll have to see. 

I don't know, looking at it as I post the pic, the gradient looks awful "computery," too clean and regular.  I wish I could get some kind of spatter going.  Why does it seem like this would be so much easier by hand?

Hexagonal Geomorph

I haven't been making as much progress as I wanted to.  Some bad news: somebody broke into my car and inexplicably stole my little screenprinting screen I made 2 years ago.  I was planning on making 2 bigger new screens anyway, but it would have been nice to have it to do little stuff and test things with.

Some good news: I just got three new ink colors in the mail yesterday.  Now I've got black and all 4 browns the company offers.

I have been trying to re-learn what I knew about Inkscape 2 years ago.  Spent several hours today.  Here is an idea of what I'm shooting for:

The grays will be a light brown, the blacks a dark brown, printed on canvas.  The game boardy spaces are meant to simplify movement for solo play.  I'm thinking 5' per space and per inch.  That would mean a 60' light source would just show you the tile-length as you enter it.

My question for you: do you like the way the walls look?  (I fractalized the lines and then distorted the result with "torn edge") I wonder if I should add some hatching.  I'm not really an artist and working with Inkscape is difficult for me, but I am determined to forge ahead.

My Grand Project

I spent hours of my youth rolling up characters, wizards and gnomes and thieves. Oh, how I longed to play them through some dungeon or explore tangled woods. I never seemed to be able to find people similarly inclined. I tried the random dungeon charts in the back of the 1e DMG, but they were so random as to be nonsensical to me. I played through every solo module and gamebook I could find, which were nice, but once you run through them, then what?

So about ten years ago I sat down to methodically devise a way to play solo D&D.

I had found a design textbook in the boxes of my father's college books out in our backyard shed. I was intrigued by the way it talked about combining the functional features of a product and this was the biggest influence on this project.

I took stock of all the things you needed to determine in play, e.g. monsters, treasure, hazards, and the map itself. I decided the map could determine some of this. [I think I'll need to post separately on the many iterations of prototypes I made, I just want to get something posted today.]

I had several breakthroughs and many setbacks. But eventually, my system worked out to being a 1) Catacomb, because I felt the smaller, more windy features would be easier to create than a typical dungeon, at least at first, and 2) It would be hexagonal, the largest regular polygon you can tile with, but also easy to use with the most common of dice, the d6.

Yes, yes, you might be thinking, there have been hexagonal geomorph systems before (there must have been, but I don't know of any personally [well, except the brief mention in the Dungeoneer's Survival Guide]). But what I think is cool about my system and may be useful to others is the way the map helps generate encounters.


Here's how: On the geomorph (that seems to be the term people would most understand, but is it a trademark?) above is a loculus, a place in the catacomb wall where a body has been sealed. Well, it was sealed, but that was centuries ago, perhaps it's been broken open and a spider lairs there now, perhaps the skeletal remains of its occupant still clutch a glowing dagger. In all the loculi of these geomorphs will be a two symbol code, the second designating Monster, Treasure and, maybe, Event. The first symbol is the key, and determines the likelihood of the second of triggering.

In play, you'll randomly determine the next hex and its location. For now, let's say you'll roll two differently colored d6. The first will indicate which of the six available hexes to lay down, and the second die will tell you which face aligns with the passage you are in. Those faces will generate a two digit number.

Now, back to our loculus, the first symbol will refer to the two digit number that your entrance to the hex generated. This symbol could reference Odd/Even, Double, Odd Double/Even Double, or a Specific Number.

If we have two tiles with all six sides accessible, the odds for the above categories work out to 50%, 16.7%, 8.3%, and 2.7%. This gives me, as a designer, a range of probabilities for things to trigger. Each tile will have different triggers, and each time you enter the tiles you'll be coming from different directions, so it will be impossible to game them, knowing which tiles have better treasure etc. It will be largely random.

Now the problem comes in, when the tiles don't have all 6 sides accessible. My example above cannot be entered from side 6 or 4. So the chances of an Even triggering are down to 25%, and the chances of Odd are up to 75%. Doubles, Specific Numbers are all affected. It would be easier to make the tiles all accessible on all six sides, but that makes the catacomb infinite, and I don't think we want that.

So, what this means, is I have a lot of work to do, hand choosing the triggers for each tile so that they trigger in appropriate ratios. First I have to finish making the tiles. And I'm having a bear of a time learning to make SVGs with Inkscape. Each step leads to new revisions. I've just decided, for example, that the hexes will be 6' across and that I will hand draw gameboard-like squares in the passages as above.

I have always intended to give the whole set of these away once I'm done, as downloadable SVGs (so you can edit them and resize them to your heart's content), but I think it would be cool if I could make something I might be able to sell in addition. Don't get me wrong, I don't think there is even a tiny market for something like this. But I guess I'm thinking of the product I would want if I weren't making it myself. I'd like to offer that to people and be able to cover costs.

Anyway, printing these tiles on paper will work, but I think having them printed on something more sturdy and durable would be even cooler. To that end, I began learning how to screenprint this summer! Who would have thought that all my thinking on this project with a little boost of excitement from the OSR would end up in me learning a completely different craft!?

Still learning, but I did produce a prototype that let's me know that this is possible. I can actually do this.


Disregard the hex grid there, I just wanted to see how fine a line the screenprint could produce. Fine indeed, it turns out. Also, the blemishes there resulted from me brushing on the emulsifier when I shouldn't have, so it will look better next time.