Castile de Zela (my 2014 1PD Entry)

Here it is --

Thank you to all the folks who gave me ideas!

I think I used them all except one (Sorry Dave!)  I just couldn't figure out how to describe it in such as short format!  (I still want to hear the idea for the future...)

Click here or the picture to download the file.

Iron GM One Page Dungeon -- A call for inspiration!

I had an idea this morning about my (hopeful) 1PD entry for this year.  Much like the "Iron Chef" doesn't know what ingredients she'll get, I thought it might be fun to ask for a series of random elements that I can try to incorporate into my 1PD entry.

So, here's the plan --

Roll 1d6 using the widget below:

Now, remember your number and go to this Google Form:

Choose the category you determined randomly, give me your idea and then hit "Submit."

Many thanks in advance for your ideas!

If I get enough input (and enough variety,) I may try to make a "One Page Sandbox," a mini setting with an adventure, a home base, some NPCs, etc. Let's see what happens!

[1PD] Tesseract Prison of the Putrescent Lord

A bunch of really great folks volunteered to put together a multi-level megadungeon from a series of seven one-page dungeons.  The megadungeon is called "The Watery Palace of the Ooze Behemoth" and I look forward to pulling all seven levels together into a single PDF to share here.

Level 5 "The Pearly Spiral of Endless Hunger" can be found here at the Tower of the Archmage.  Thanks for participating David!

Other folks also participated, but I don't think they've shared their levels yet!  :)

My level is presented below.

You can download my level as a PDF here.

One-Page Dungeon Megadungeon

The 2012 One Page Dungeon Contest has been announced and I'm planning to enter again.  You should too!

Last night, I had an idea that I thought I would run past all of you, my intrepid readers.

What if we collaborated on our 1PDs to make a multi-1PD Megadungeon?

Inspired by the likes of Stonehell, I thought we could each create a quadrant of a level, based on a 3x3 or 4x4 set of geomorphs...

You wouldn't NEED to use geomorphs, but your quadrant should be "geomorph compatible" so that our sections could link together...  Each contributor would be randomly designated with a level number, let's say 1, 2 or 3 (maybe more if more people are interested) and a quadrant NE, NW, SE, SW...

Then, each of us would create a theme, maybe creating a suitably evocative name using Matt Finch's Tome of Adventure Design...

Finally, each of us would create and share two "links" from your section of the dungeon to another section.  One link would connect to the same level and another link would connect to a deeper/upper level.  Here's a raw sketch that helps me envision what I mean...

A simple example might be a locked door on your level that can only be opened by a key found one level down in another author's quadrant.  Make sense?

Anyway, is anyone interested in collaborating on this?  If so, please drop me an email at wilmanric at gmail.  Put "1PD-Megadungeon" in the subject if you would be so kind...  I'm happy to coordinate all the random interconnections and I'll mock up a nicer 3D map that shows how all of our levels interconnect.  :)

If I could get a "dirty dozen" of us together, we could make the first three levels with ease!  

I hope to hear from a few of you!  I think it would be a very cool project!!

Creativity is HARD!

I use the Google A LOT. At work, at home, for fun, for necessity -- I use it all the time. I can scarcely remember a time when it wasn't available for use.

Well, I was looking for stuff - game stuff - and I stumbled upon Microlite74, which I wrote about in a previous post.

At the same time, I stumbled upon "One Page Dungeons." Fantastic!

I have said to my colleagues at work that any idea, that's any good, can be expressed on a single page of paper. One side of that paper is best (8.5"x11"), but I'll settle for both sides in a pinch.

Suffice to say that this concept of a "One Page Dungeon" resonates with me. I wasn't always this way, but when I run an RPG, I like to improvise. A 1PD (my new abbreviation) is a great shorthand for me. It's a framework and (I believe) it's all I'll need to write up to prepare for an adventure. Here's one of many links you can find. Here's another.

So, this weekend I took on the task of building a 1PD for myself.

The first part of my experience was creating an "old school" blue dungeon map for my document. I used GIMP to pull it together and this great tutorial. It took a long time, but that was mostly due to my rusty skills using GIMP. After awhile, I had it down.

Next, I exported the map as a .jpg and dragged it into a 1PD Word template.

That's when things really got challenging.

How can you have writers block when all you need to write is one page?

I slogged through creating this 1PD for a good part of Saturday and even in to Sunday morning. After a brief nap on Sunday, I got up with some fresh ideas and I finished the thing off.

No, you can't see it. Yet. I need to unleash it on my grandson during spring break.

Mwah ah ahhhhh. :)