A unexampled furore is sweep across tabletop RPG twitter , andgame designersandplayersare all getting in on planning # Dungeon23 – a commitment to create amegadungeonin 2023 by creating a newfangled way every single day . The premise is simple , but a clean page can often be the death of creativity . Here’show to get started , and how to stay motivated .
What is Dungeon23?
Dungeon23 is a daily writing recitation that is built around plot innovation . Every solar day the participant will contrive another room in a dungeon , and at the end of the week they will have a consummate level . The next calendar week start the process over until you have 52 keep levels . Sean McCoy ofTuesday Knight Games , the public press behind the award - winning TTRPG , Mothershipcreated the challenge almost on chance event , with a tweet about his newest project and an image of his notebook computer . But the indie TTRPG scene is nothing if not irritable and well swayed by a challenge , and McCoy ’s personal goal quickly gain traction across Twitter .
Megadungeon for 2023 . 12 levels . 365 rooms . One room a daylight . Keep it all in a journal . @LukeGearing let ’s do this.pic.twitter.com/tCVgh8i1MF
— 💭 Sean McCoy ( @seanmccoy)December 5 , 2022
Image: Wizards of the Coast
However , this is n’t a stern challenge – the ultimate end of # Dungeon23 is n’t to adhere to rule so as to definitely crank up out a megadungeon at the end of 2023 . The goal here is to compose a little bit every day , to seek to make something new , and to take exception yourself to be creative . As designer Vidita Voleti ( Bloodbeam Badlands ) mentioned on twitter , you could skip 100 days , just over 3 months , and still terminate up with a megadungeon of 250 rooms . The ethos of Dungeon23 is n’t that you must create something every day , it ’s that you make space for writing , even if it ’s a catch - up 60 minutes every Sunday .
There ’s another part of Dungeon23 that ’s slightly immerse under the lede , but should be obvious to anyone who ’s ever ply ( or really even played ) a dungeon nightcrawler – it does n’t have to be a dungeon . You could produce a city where each daytime is a house on the pulley-block , so every week you get a couple novel street , and at the end of the month you ’ve got a whole neck of the woods . DesignersZedeck Siew(A Thousand Thousand Islands ) andRichard Ruane(Barrow Keep ) are both create city with factions build into the design . I really look up to Siew ’s illustrative function , which has a bunch of simple depth , is deliberately contained by the premiss and still point Siew ’s own design esthetic as well as clearly present hallmarks of southeastern Asiatic architecture .
This is the material mantrap of Dungeon23 , and the trick to a tidy sum of daily writing exercises . The legerdemain is to make it fun for you , to make something that you are excited to create . It can be a dungeon , or a city , or a outer space place , a serial of inter - connectedm abandoned transportation scheme , an everlasting afterlife . Dungeon23 is what you make it .
Image:Zedeck Siew
How do you create your own Dungeon23?
Every day , hopefully . Jokes aside , the premise is middling dim-witted . Every day ( more or less ) , you create a ‘ way ’ in a dungeon , with peradventure a few hallways and doorway . force it . account what ’s in the room , but keep it short and perfumed . A sentence or two at most . If you want to tot environmental detail , baddie , loot , hidden passage , go forward . Just a few details are all that ’s postulate .
I recommend thinking beforehand about the kind of vibe you want – are you going for a Hellenic dungeon crawl ? Are you trying to make the sort of dungeons that will kill every venturer ( I have really loved design Death Dungeons ) , or are you trying to encourage geographic expedition . Do you want to make a keep at all ? The possibilities for this sort of design are really up to you , driven entirely but the sort of worlds and games that you ’re concerned in create .
biz interior designer Rue Dickey , for exercise , is creating “ Carnival23 , ” writing fair games , shop , attractions , and NPCs . Each week could be a different theme – one week for biz , one workweek for workshop , another for the more traditional map - drawing dungeon . in person , I ’m cogitate of creating my own Dungeon23 , and I ’ve always been really drawn to Appalachian themes and vaguely supernatural vibration ( I ’ve even written games about it ! ) , so a series of interconnected roar and track within the mountain might be the way I go about the challenge . The period here is to have playfulness with it .
From the Universal Studios amusement park.Image:Universal Studios Hollywood
McCoy offers some tip onhis substackfor Dungeon23 , but I think the most authoritative one is “ do n’t overthink it . ” Seriously .
What do you use?
you may apply whatever you desire ! Pandion Games is give rise a physical DungeonYear notebook , and has offered all the files digitally for free , but any notebook will do . Other designers are using weekly planning notebook computer that have the week on the left for blank / dot / gridiron pages on the ripe handwriting side for drawing the keep rooms . I would commend chance a notebook that has thick paper ( > 80 GSM ) to preclude ink bleeding through the Sir Frederick Handley Page , but this is utterly not necessary .
emphatically take off with using a pencil for the actual dungeon rooms until you finalize everything at the end of the hebdomad . Otherwise , break up up whatever pens you want and get go ! to boot , there are plenty of people who are doing this on their computing machine , using a word processor or even an excel spreadsheet . Kandi Jeanneis using World Anvil as a way to record their Dungeon23 labor , which take place in a next post apocalyptical Philadelphia .
I need some inspiration, what do I do?
There is nothing incorrect with creating a traditional keep , and frankly , if you get three week into # Dungeon23 and decide to switch it up , there is literally nothing stopping you from doing so . Maybe you decide to go for a sci - fi Martian terraforming colony , or you have a with child melodic theme for a slasher - theme college campus . The point here is to follow the fun , wherever that leads you .
I would recommend thinking about a theme and a locating and start work up from there . possibly jot down a few ‘ touchstones ’ or inspiration . you could apply ledger , movies , shows , pieces of art , music , or even other game that you want to habituate as a general vibration assay for your penning . Touchstones can also be adjective or flavour – what do you desire your players to find ? What do you want this dungeon to evoke ?
How about this ? Your # Dungeon23 is an armada of ships . Every calendar week is a new level of a ship , but ship can be one story , two , three … however many levels you call for it to be . Are you blend in pirate or working on a military outfit ? starship or watercraft ? Are you going for a waterworld Revelation or a Treasure Planet sci - fi sailing boat ? All it exact are a few interrogative and you ’ve got some key touchstones for your whole year . Or a calendar month , or two , or three , at least until you commute your brain and figure out a new set of levels you’re able to work on .
The details can be figured out later , when they add up to you . What ’s significant for Dungeon23 is that you do it . Even if you pass over days or you start over or you only get three months in , the end is to create something , to get one dance step further along than you used to be , and to develop your writing skills . It ’s about practice , not flawlessness .
Recommended games
To be honest , you do not have to identify a secret plan for your donjon , but if it helps when developing your estimation , go for it .
Into the Odd
Trophy Gold
Mothership
Troika
MÖRK BORG
Primal Quest
Recommended notebooks:
Rhodia Perpetual Diary
DungeonYearby Pandion ( thephysicaledition is about to be launch on Crowdfundr )
Hobonichi hebdomad
Worldbuilder ’s Noteboook
Dragon Eye Notebook by Loong Jian
Moleskine Weekly Planner
Dungeon alternatives
Do n’t desire to make a keep ? Great ! Here are some thought for a Dungeon23 that are still suit to a room / depot / item / blank space - a - mean solar day theme .
Space Station
A mega - prison house / panopticon ( I ’m thinking Bitch Planet )
A castle
A City
A forest / desert / ocean / swamp
A themepark
Megayacht / Cruise ship
A massive tree that accomplish to the stratosphere
Design resources
LoneArchivist ’s Dungeon23 asset pack
DuvelmanDice ’s megadungeon resources
Random Tableson Reddit
The Dungeon Architect ’s Workbook
The Alexandrianand Jaquaying the keep
Good luck , game professional , dungeoneers , and writers ! I ’ll see you all on the other side .
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