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Xaosseed
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After seeing it praised on the purple OSR discord, along with the note that the original blog was lost to the internet wastes, I thought it might be useful to unearth and try out "Zero to Complete Dungeon Generation, Waffle-Style" - now only findable on the internet archive.
The steps of the 'Waffle-style' method are:
Step 1 – Concept Shopping - vibes, mechanics, themes - pick 10-20
Step 2 – Monster Shopping - choose level, list 1-6 monsters
Step 3 – Rough Layout - 5-10 rooms in rough layout
Step 4 – Stocking the Rooms
Step 5 – Revisions
Step 6 – Keying the Dungeon
Since I found myself caught short without a wizards tower to hand - and my hexcrawl players apparent eagerness to intrude on them - I decided to use this to run one up; after giving it a first run through it became apparent this is more involved than table-based random generators and I repurposed that tower for the Lizard Kings game and did a further round of adaptation.
Step 1 – Concept Shopping
Here I wanted a wizards tower, a pile of hazards, some slice of dangerous history.
The next layer of 'vibes & themes' were world specific ones to situate it locally and integrate it into the greater campaign.
Step 3 – Rough Layout
The core step that worked for me here was forcing the Jayquaysing and then working backwards a - double loop up the tower - running potentially three times through the same place but seperated by stepping sideways through non-euclidean weirdness
Five levels and a basement below - with each level having three versions - the reality accessible by the front door and two parallels.
Step 4 – Stocking the Rooms
I boxed out the diagram to spot the locations I needed to stock - each level x 3 and the stairwell, entry and two basement areas - dungeon and storage.
Waffles mod of Moldvay Basic - I unified the type and treasure table here into a single % roll
Rolling the place up and suddenly some funny patterns emerged - there was only one monster per 'slice' - each of the 'realities' of the tower had their own monster and there were tons of 'spoor' rolls. Suddenly a story begins to emerge of a tower that had three loosely associated realities, where each has one monstrous inhabitant but they all keep tripping over signs of the others but never quite finding them.
I rolled up the many treasure hordes - all guarded but quite lucrative all told. This fits a narrative of an un-looted tower that has fallen into disrepair.
There were a couple of specials rooms which I picked as an illusion of the wizard gloating at newcomers in the entryway to give a hint of the wizardy nonsense ahead, followed by gravity nonsense in the stairwell. The last special I decided as kobold reality warpers who actually know what is going on.
Step 2 – Monster Shopping
Reading what I rolled up I had one 'loop' with a monster and lots and lots of spoor but little else. Next a monster and lots of traps. Finally a monster with empty rooms. Put these all together and I figured what I had was in one side-reality there was a basilisk and lots of petrified victims, in one side-reality there was a gelatinous cube and everything else was swept clean. Finally there was a group of kobold tinkerers hunkered down behind layers of traps.
I decided that the kobold traps were mostly shunts - repurposed 'transfer' doors from the original wizard that now dumped people into the sections to deal with the other monsters.
Step 5 – Revisions
The whole thing already made a nicely coherent package for me. It needs a detail pass - room dressing, general flavour - and at this point I decided to switch what world it was located in. The kobolds become the long-abandoned skeleton crew of the tower and the 'room flavour' is achieved by doing a first pass of 'what the old owners originally intended for the space' and then 'what has happened during its decline' - with elements like:
lizard folk habitation
odd shrines for heat worshipers,
stone murals, other long-life records for a deep time culture
commemorations of the glory of the expansion
hazards from the collapse, things potentially upended
replacement/repairs of things with different materials
new things and consumables from the nearby plateau
fixtures from the deep heartlands
jungle-break in / natures return
Step 6 – Keying the Dungeon
The next step is to go room-by-room, add the room descriptions and in particular what are the hints they might get from next rooms as they stand in any particular place.
Entry - Defensible entry - path along cliff-face, gloating illusory wizard - magnificently bedecked lizardman appears in a sunbeam.
Stairwell - Black tiled cylinder, gravity pulls towards the walls, except where the tiles are cracked (save or fall a short way to working tiles)
Core-1 - Principle basking hall (salons/occasions) - large system orrery in the middle of the hall, walk around it to find yourself in the other sections. furnishings are tiled cupboards, comfy stones, stone shelves with textile art and fragrant wood boxes
Core-2 - Cleaning - picking birds, nibbling fish and mud-baths - a chirping, chattering aviary with busy pool. A trip-wire by the entry deactivates the vents and gas bubbling through the mud baths swiftly builds up. First the birds fall silent, then it will ignite.
Core-3 - Sleeping area - kobolds will be found here if not previously encounted, armed with sharp polearms and glass globes of poison gas. These sleeping niches are correctly sized for them but overcrowded now.
Core-4 - Food stores - haphazardly stacked boxes have carefully teetering poison glass globes.
Core-5 - Kitchens - oil-filled drains and carefully rigged fire-pans criss cross the kitchen floor. Dangling herbs and aging game obscure vision past near-distance. Jars with 200gp and 300cp are perched on shelves, the communal treasure.
Dungeon - Locked up ravenous beast - a trip wire just beyond the stairs down shuts the stairwell door and opens the dungeon door, releasing a hungry giant baboon.
Storage - Dissassembled traps - shelves of trap parts, oils, wires and spikes
Outer-1 - External-only rooms - client cubbys - client cubbys - rotted to bits shelves and seats; abandoned reagent market, broken potsherds - everything behind them filthy, outside is scrubbed, vinegary smell off clean bones
Outer-2 - Atrium for receiving (social), great murals - clean, stone tiles, deeply worn wood fixtures
Outer-3 - Office for receiving (business) - everything worn down to bare stone; shelves of scrolls with only soapstone end caps remaining, a few scrolls in corroded copper tubes remain, household accounts and an arcane treaties on planet-hopping
Outer-4 - Shrine for worship - thick grime around the shrine heated by sun-heated water
Outer-5 - Dining area (informal) - beneath open roof furniture is scoured wood. Piles of bird bones collected along with 4 gems and 800 coppers in the rain-catchment basin. The still waters here are a digesting gelatinous cube
Alt-1 - Heat-trap for egg-nursery - broken shells and clawmarks are distinctly non-lizardfolk
Alt-2 - Internal drained areas for rain - pools open to sky - here the basilisk is basking in the sun warmed water
Alt-3 - Ancestral niches - funerary mummies have been pulled down and scavenged, are petrified in aspects of surprise
Alt-4 - Dressing niche with Polishing brushes - scattered blue stony scales where the basilist has been rubbing against the racked brushes
Alt-5 - Solar-furnaces - sun glares off the polished obsidian mirrors set around the edge of the room. Petrified birds are scattered broken on the floor.
Wrap up of using Waffles Methodology
While not a strictly orthodox application of Waffles Method (not monster lead), rearranging the pieces got me great results.
I had tried it before in a more orthodox way and it sort of stalled out on me because I find locking things down with monsters too early does not help me, I do better figuring out what the random collection of things I have rolled up means.
Players encountering it ended up moving up the 'Outer' layer getting spooked by the emptiness before diverting to the 'Core' layer and getting in a fight with the kobolds in the kitchen, then getting boxed in by the gelatinous cube coming in behind them. After fighting their way out they decamped to recover and may venture back in, a good result.
All told, not a 'quick' method for dungeon generation it does give good, consistent results and the coherency that gets baked in sets you up well for answering the random ideas players come up with.
Continue reading...
The steps of the 'Waffle-style' method are:
Step 1 – Concept Shopping - vibes, mechanics, themes - pick 10-20
Step 2 – Monster Shopping - choose level, list 1-6 monsters
Step 3 – Rough Layout - 5-10 rooms in rough layout
Step 4 – Stocking the Rooms
Step 5 – Revisions
Step 6 – Keying the Dungeon
Since I found myself caught short without a wizards tower to hand - and my hexcrawl players apparent eagerness to intrude on them - I decided to use this to run one up; after giving it a first run through it became apparent this is more involved than table-based random generators and I repurposed that tower for the Lizard Kings game and did a further round of adaptation.
Step 1 – Concept Shopping
Here I wanted a wizards tower, a pile of hazards, some slice of dangerous history.
The next layer of 'vibes & themes' were world specific ones to situate it locally and integrate it into the greater campaign.
- first were the facts of its old owners - lizard folk from long ago, heat worshipers, with a deep time culture, who would have set this place up as part of an expansion into new lands in pursuit of new opportunities
- second were the facts of its current state - partially collapsed down a great escarpment, at the border between the quasi-abandoned old plateau colonial reaches and the deep heartlands, the devouring jungle returning to it, existing in a semi-mothballed state by a skeleton crew
Step 3 – Rough Layout
The core step that worked for me here was forcing the Jayquaysing and then working backwards a - double loop up the tower - running potentially three times through the same place but seperated by stepping sideways through non-euclidean weirdness
Five levels and a basement below - with each level having three versions - the reality accessible by the front door and two parallels.
Step 4 – Stocking the Rooms
I boxed out the diagram to spot the locations I needed to stock - each level x 3 and the stairwell, entry and two basement areas - dungeon and storage.
Waffles mod of Moldvay Basic - I unified the type and treasure table here into a single % roll
| Room content | ||
|---|---|---|
| Monster + Treasure | 1 | 17 |
| Monster only | 18 | 33 |
| Spoors + Treasure | 34 | 36 |
| Spoors only | 37 | 50 |
| Trap + Treasure | 51 | 56 |
| Trap only | 57 | 67 |
| Special | 68 | 83 |
| Empty plus Treasure | 84 | 86 |
| Empty only | 87 | 100 |
Rolling the place up and suddenly some funny patterns emerged - there was only one monster per 'slice' - each of the 'realities' of the tower had their own monster and there were tons of 'spoor' rolls. Suddenly a story begins to emerge of a tower that had three loosely associated realities, where each has one monstrous inhabitant but they all keep tripping over signs of the others but never quite finding them.
| Room | Roll |
|---|---|
| Core-1 | Monster & Treasure |
| Core-2 | Trap & Treasure |
| Core-3 | Special |
| Core-4 | Trap & Treasure |
| Core-5 | Trap & Treasure |
| Entry | Special |
| Stairwell | Special |
| Dungeon | Trap |
| Storage | Spoor |
| Outer-1 | Spoor |
| Outer-2 | Empty |
| Outer-3 | Empty |
| Outer-4 | Spoor |
| Outer-5 | Monster & Treasure |
| Alt-1 | Spoor |
| Alt-2 | Monster & Treasure |
| Alt-3 | Spoor |
| Alt-4 | Spoor |
| Alt-5 | Spoor |
I rolled up the many treasure hordes - all guarded but quite lucrative all told. This fits a narrative of an un-looted tower that has fallen into disrepair.
There were a couple of specials rooms which I picked as an illusion of the wizard gloating at newcomers in the entryway to give a hint of the wizardy nonsense ahead, followed by gravity nonsense in the stairwell. The last special I decided as kobold reality warpers who actually know what is going on.
Step 2 – Monster Shopping
Reading what I rolled up I had one 'loop' with a monster and lots and lots of spoor but little else. Next a monster and lots of traps. Finally a monster with empty rooms. Put these all together and I figured what I had was in one side-reality there was a basilisk and lots of petrified victims, in one side-reality there was a gelatinous cube and everything else was swept clean. Finally there was a group of kobold tinkerers hunkered down behind layers of traps.
I decided that the kobold traps were mostly shunts - repurposed 'transfer' doors from the original wizard that now dumped people into the sections to deal with the other monsters.
Step 5 – Revisions
The whole thing already made a nicely coherent package for me. It needs a detail pass - room dressing, general flavour - and at this point I decided to switch what world it was located in. The kobolds become the long-abandoned skeleton crew of the tower and the 'room flavour' is achieved by doing a first pass of 'what the old owners originally intended for the space' and then 'what has happened during its decline' - with elements like:
lizard folk habitation
odd shrines for heat worshipers,
stone murals, other long-life records for a deep time culture
commemorations of the glory of the expansion
hazards from the collapse, things potentially upended
replacement/repairs of things with different materials
new things and consumables from the nearby plateau
fixtures from the deep heartlands
jungle-break in / natures return
Step 6 – Keying the Dungeon
The next step is to go room-by-room, add the room descriptions and in particular what are the hints they might get from next rooms as they stand in any particular place.
Entry - Defensible entry - path along cliff-face, gloating illusory wizard - magnificently bedecked lizardman appears in a sunbeam.
Stairwell - Black tiled cylinder, gravity pulls towards the walls, except where the tiles are cracked (save or fall a short way to working tiles)
Core-1 - Principle basking hall (salons/occasions) - large system orrery in the middle of the hall, walk around it to find yourself in the other sections. furnishings are tiled cupboards, comfy stones, stone shelves with textile art and fragrant wood boxes
Core-2 - Cleaning - picking birds, nibbling fish and mud-baths - a chirping, chattering aviary with busy pool. A trip-wire by the entry deactivates the vents and gas bubbling through the mud baths swiftly builds up. First the birds fall silent, then it will ignite.
Core-3 - Sleeping area - kobolds will be found here if not previously encounted, armed with sharp polearms and glass globes of poison gas. These sleeping niches are correctly sized for them but overcrowded now.
Core-4 - Food stores - haphazardly stacked boxes have carefully teetering poison glass globes.
Core-5 - Kitchens - oil-filled drains and carefully rigged fire-pans criss cross the kitchen floor. Dangling herbs and aging game obscure vision past near-distance. Jars with 200gp and 300cp are perched on shelves, the communal treasure.
Dungeon - Locked up ravenous beast - a trip wire just beyond the stairs down shuts the stairwell door and opens the dungeon door, releasing a hungry giant baboon.
Storage - Dissassembled traps - shelves of trap parts, oils, wires and spikes
Outer-1 - External-only rooms - client cubbys - client cubbys - rotted to bits shelves and seats; abandoned reagent market, broken potsherds - everything behind them filthy, outside is scrubbed, vinegary smell off clean bones
Outer-2 - Atrium for receiving (social), great murals - clean, stone tiles, deeply worn wood fixtures
Outer-3 - Office for receiving (business) - everything worn down to bare stone; shelves of scrolls with only soapstone end caps remaining, a few scrolls in corroded copper tubes remain, household accounts and an arcane treaties on planet-hopping
Outer-4 - Shrine for worship - thick grime around the shrine heated by sun-heated water
Outer-5 - Dining area (informal) - beneath open roof furniture is scoured wood. Piles of bird bones collected along with 4 gems and 800 coppers in the rain-catchment basin. The still waters here are a digesting gelatinous cube
Alt-1 - Heat-trap for egg-nursery - broken shells and clawmarks are distinctly non-lizardfolk
Alt-2 - Internal drained areas for rain - pools open to sky - here the basilisk is basking in the sun warmed water
Alt-3 - Ancestral niches - funerary mummies have been pulled down and scavenged, are petrified in aspects of surprise
Alt-4 - Dressing niche with Polishing brushes - scattered blue stony scales where the basilist has been rubbing against the racked brushes
Alt-5 - Solar-furnaces - sun glares off the polished obsidian mirrors set around the edge of the room. Petrified birds are scattered broken on the floor.
Wrap up of using Waffles Methodology
While not a strictly orthodox application of Waffles Method (not monster lead), rearranging the pieces got me great results.
I had tried it before in a more orthodox way and it sort of stalled out on me because I find locking things down with monsters too early does not help me, I do better figuring out what the random collection of things I have rolled up means.
Players encountering it ended up moving up the 'Outer' layer getting spooked by the emptiness before diverting to the 'Core' layer and getting in a fight with the kobolds in the kitchen, then getting boxed in by the gelatinous cube coming in behind them. After fighting their way out they decamped to recover and may venture back in, a good result.
All told, not a 'quick' method for dungeon generation it does give good, consistent results and the coherency that gets baked in sets you up well for answering the random ideas players come up with.
Continue reading...