Community world building

[Falconius]

Well I was thinking about that, I think that every dungeon would require at least one entrance, but not necessarily more. They could include a surface entrance or not. Everyone would have to include a common scale, which I guess (though it's a scale that bothers me to no end) would be 5 foot increments. Not sure it we should stick to a common pixel per increment or not, maybe Redrobes has requirements in that area, I imagine it would make things easier. I don't think there should be any size requirements for the dungeons, they could be as small as a single room or as large as a person wants. If there needs to be linking sections to make it work I'd volunteer to do them, but I'm sure we can find others also willing to do so.

[Mouse]

I rather fancy having a go at a few variations on stairs. If you have a few different stair wells (with different numbers and angles of access) you could re-use them to link everything together.

If I made then with really long entrance corridors we (EDIT: we, meaning Red, could cut them up to act like hubs to join everything together)

Good idea? Bad idea?

[industrygothica]

It looks like I missed the window of activity
Everyone seems to have gone off, except you and me, Mouse.

I'm still here! I'm always here, because I have no life, with the exception of about 3-5 central time when I have to pick up the hoodlums from school. And maybe when I'm cooking dinner, or some other domestic task.

I rather fancy having a go at a few variations on stairs. If you have a few different stair wells (with different numbers and angles of access) you could re-use them to link everything together.

If I made then with really long entrance corridors we (EDIT: we, meaning Red, could cut them up to act like hubs to join everything together)

Good idea? Bad idea?

Some sort of connectors I think are a great idea. Straight ones, curved ones, T and Y junctions, split-level ones... that's all good stuff. Your example images are groovy.

A massive dungeon complex is a fabulous idea, IMO, but may take an immense ruleset to keep everything coordinated. However, if we could pull off some Undermountain style dungeon and get someone to write an adventure to go with it, we could distribute it on the DM's Guild with whatever proceeds going to support this site.

All that being said, a repository for a loose collection of subterranean encounter maps might also be something with merit. If they're all set to the same resolution and scale, you could puzzle them out like dungeon tiles with Mouse's connectors going any which way. If anyone's interested, we could distribute those maps on the DM's Guild as well.

All this is just me brainstorming and thinking while I type. I may re-read it all later and wonder just what in the H.E. Double Hockey-sticks I was thinking.

Alas, @J.Edward is the most correct in all of this: Gotta let more people weigh in. Can't do it all ourselves. Well, I guess we could, technically speaking, but it's hardly a community project with 5 people.


-IG

[Falconius]

I believe the idea was to do regions of other peoples Guild worlds? So for example you'd do a region of my 16 Duchies map and I'd map a region of Nahadua. Or that's how I understood it.

I was thinking it was more like a province in one of those countries.

As for the dungeon:

A massive dungeon complex is a fabulous idea, IMO, but may take an immense ruleset to keep everything coordinated. However, if we could pull off some Undermountain style dungeon and get someone to write an adventure to go with it, we could distribute it on the DM's Guild with whatever proceeds going to support this site.

Well as always I tend to prefer uncoordinated because it increases the variety and strangeness of things, like the Guild World for instance. And since the dungeon is somewhere in such a world it'd make sense for it to be... let's say multifaceted. If people want to go a more coordinated route though we could do that too, based on my experience here however, it's like trying to herd cats.

That's why I prefer to keep it to bare simple rules like (keep in mind these rules are only exemplar and based off of my preferences):

1. Dungeon requires at least one tunnel leading into it but no more than 2 per side.
-Edge/entrance tunnels must be 10ft across, (or 20ft across? or both options?)
-edge tunnels must leave the map at horizontal or vertical angles parallel to the edges of the document.
-edge tunnels must be at least 20ft apart from the wall of one to the wall of the other (tunnel edge to tunnel edge)

2. The maps must have a scale increment of 5ft
-doesn't necessarily require a grid, but if it had a grid it would be 5ft x 5ft

3. The maps may be of any size above a 20ftx20ft square (counted from the document edges)

4. There may be verticality in the dungeon but if a vertical floor has an edge tunnel that needs to go to the edge of a map
- this can include entrances above and below the dungeon [editors note: I'm not sure this is a viable idea at least not for linking them together its easier to lay everything out flat on one level]
- a dungeon may have a surface entrance/interaction as per the mappers wishes

5. The projection has to include a top down inclusion of the whole thing (or things in the case of multiple levels)

Alas, @J.Edward is the most correct in all of this: Gotta let more people weigh in. Can't do it all ourselves. Well, I guess we could, technically speaking, but it's hardly a community project with 5 people.

This is true to an extent, but also true is that people also like to join a thing once it's already set and started. Obviously though we should allow a few days for people to see the thread and participate with their ideas of what they'd like to see.

Sort of neutral junction pieces a bit like this - really simple stuff that's not going to jar with other people's work by being too brightly coloured.

Something like that is what I was thinking. Or it could be doorways off of a underdark highway, or both.

I think it would be cool if people made quite small maps of dungeon and finished a lot of them and made more than one bit. Then it offers more opportunity to put it together in interesting ways. Maybe people could post on a thread as to where some of the finished maps could be placed.

I was thinking about that, but I was also thinking that there would be a fair amount of size variety, so that ideally no one would have to make connecting pieces and you could use the smaller dungeons to link the larger ones together into one huge rats nest. Or people could also make "joining" dungeons that have two or three entrances on different edges and instead of generic filler pieces the joining dungeons could be used (and repeated if necessary). Of course no one would be limited to one dungeon so a person could make a plethora of smaller dungeons for you to scatter around.

For "joining dungeons" rules could be (again just and exemplar of my opinions):
1. Must include at least 2 entrance tunnels
-edges may only have one entrance
-edge tunnels/entrances must leave the map at right angles parallel to the document edges
-edge tunnels have to leave the map at either 10 ft across or 20 ft across.
2. Size must be at least 20ft square from map edge to map edge, and no bigger than (60 or 80 ft square?)

Edit: It took me so long to write this thing I got ninja'd twice...

[Falconius]

Well the reason I figured a requirement of only one entrance was because some people might have six or whatever, not all six needs to be linked up (we could just say unexplored on those tunnels etc.) but at least one of them does have to connect to the rest of the complex. Meaning that if a person only uses on entrance he can be tagged onto a person with many entrances or linking tunnels (whatever they should be called). If there is a shortage of entrances we/I could make a linking piece to fix that. Alternatively we could have a concept of an underway (underground highway) that these attach to if there is an entrance shortage.

Edit: Whoops I think this is a reply to a different post. I'm confused. I think I answered your earlier post twice Mouse, sorry.

Edit 2: Reply to #32, Yeah that's the sort of idea I was thinking of Mouse.

[Mouse]

I was thinking of giving Red a fighting chance of coming out of this without a major headache by giving him a set of junction images he can stick in as appropriate - a sort of universal part.

Dungeons with only one entrance would be more difficult to accommodate, but there's no reason why there can't be a sort of never-ending corridor piece done as the set of parts given to Red to sort of... push-fit everything together like one of those confounded tents with about a million straight bits and ten handy plastic corner junctions?

Sort of neutral junction pieces a bit like this - really simple stuff that's not going to jar with other people's work by being too brightly coloured.

[Voolf]

I am in for the dungeon. Sooner or later we have to make a sewage system to our people there.

[Mouse]

I think this may be evolving separately from the City, Voolf, but there's no reason we can't also do an underground to Guild City as well - people could choose which project to donate their work to, or draw one specifically to fit under a certain building or set of buildings on one of the Guild maps...

[J.Edward]

before you two try to plan this out [Mouse and Falconius],
we will have to let some more people weigh in on what they wanna do.

I have some sewers and underground started for the city of Guild,
but I am not sure I will bring them into this thing, depending on how it plays out.
Might just do new ones.

[Mouse]

Sorry John

Got a bit carried away thinking out loud.

I have to go to bed soon with a nice hot toddy, so that's all from me tonight