6 Ways to Procedurally Generate Dungeons
Restore a sense of discovery and adventure to your solo or group games with these simple but effective dungeon creation tools.
Most of the time I don’t have time to prep for my gaming sessions. That has forced me to learn simple ways to procedurally generate dungeons. Whether I’m playing solo or with my family, a big part of the fun is the unfolding discoveries and dangers that emerge as you delve into ancient tombs or navigate frozen caverns.
Here are my favourite tools for procedurally generating dungeons that keep excitement and anticipation high for both myself and my players.
This amazing tool allows you to print up a randomized dungeon layout which can be used when you want a more clearly defined dungeon map. It’s not technically a procedurally generated dungeon, but I love being able to control the relative size of the dungeon and use the tags to provide a canvas upon which the dungeon can be populated according to its theme. I then use the D6 Yes/No Oracle or the D12 table from The Perilous Wilds (see below) to populate each room as I go.
The Theme and Domain cards from the Delve expansion to Ironsworn provide a rich, though more abstacted, experience. The game’s card combos provide features and dangers that are specific to each theme and domain, and are extremely helpful in procedurally generating a cohesive delve experience.
You can integrate these cards into any system by using the Delve the Depths move with a static +3 bonus (+4 if narratively advantaged or only +2 if narratively disadvantaged) and following the move’s instructions when securing a Strong Hit, Weak Hit (always consult the Wits table), and Miss.
This book offers a huge amount of system-neutral tools and tables to flesh out incredible and fantastic expeditions into the unknown. It include an amazing 1d12 dungeon table that allows you to generate a dungeon with common or unique rooms that are either empty, or contain a discovery or danger (or both!). Its Dungeon Discovery and Danger tables then allow you to imaginatively flesh out each rooms contents.
The “Yes/No/and/but” oracle
Popularized by Freeform Universal, this oracle might be the simplest tool you can use to procedurally generate a dungeon and its contents. It is a 1d6 roll that answers a closed, yes/no question in the following way:
6 “Yes, and…”5 “Yes”
4 “Yes, but…”
3 “No, but…”
2 “No”
1 “No, and…”
Applying this tool to dungeon generation is as easy as asking relevant yes/no questions and rolling (pun intended) with the oracle’s prompt.Example: “Are there any enemies present in this room?”
6 “Yes, and…they are incredibly powerful.”
5 “Yes…and they seem a relative match to you.”
4 “Yes, but…they are weak in strength or numbers”
3 “No, but…the room is trapped or another environmental danger is present.”
2 “No…the coast is clear!”
1 “No, and…there is something or someone valuable here!”
Pro Tip: You can also mess with the relative challenge provided by this oracle by rolling 2d6 and picking the highest number for a more lethal encounter, or rolling 2d6 and picking the lowest number for a less lethal encounter. I often play levelled dungeons, with lethality and risk increasing as you delve deeper…
Axebane’s Deck of Many Dungeons (DoMD)
This deck provides a very rewarding dungeon crawl experience. Slowly building the dungeon out provides a tactile and rewarding sense of exploration and discovery. I often combine the DoMD with the Yes/No/but/and oracle above to populate each dungeon section. Of course, you can just use the tables provided by the cards themselves). If you like an unfolding visual representation of your dungeon, the DoMD is an ideal tool.
Tricube Tales is my go-to rules-lite system. And their solo rules are an incredible resource. If I need some extra variety when it comes to populating my dungeons with threats, the solo rules tables for Tricube Tales provide lots of fodder. For dungeon crawls specifically, three tables provide 36 prompts each for Dungeon Denizens, Dungeon Features (i.e., discoveries), and Dungeon Events (i.e. dangers) respectively.
I’m sure there are many tools out there that support procedural dungeon generation, but I find myself needing ones that are cheap, easy-to-use, and effective. Each of these tools fit the bill, and have enhanced my gaming sessions by helping me feel like I’m participating in an unfolding adventure with twists and turns that take me by surprise.