the-nine-forms-of-the-five-room-dungeon

The Nine Forms of the Five Room

almost as long as RPGs themselves, and has

been enjoying a surge of popularity in the past

room dungeon. With so few, it’s very easy to

Roleplayingtips and Strolen back in 2007

resulted in almost 100 5 room dungeons, all of

which (to the best of my knowledge) make use

of a layout I like to call “The Railroad” ie: 5

most setups like those proposed by

. That makes a lot of sense because it’s meant to be simple,

five encounters. Frankly though, these

about it, just quantum ogre the whole

another and call it a day. This effectively

must be dealt with to succeed: destroying all traces of an evil group or

The major issue then is repetitiveness, since 5

room dungeons are a quick and easy fallback

They don’t have to be dungeons:

used as investigation trees, social networks, or

way they’re displayed is because I thought they

merely cosmetic changes, that doesn’t actually change the layout, but it

“Foglio’s Snail” can have it’s “eyes” rotated

around to make it look similar to “The Arrow”,

Levels can be added:

this week’s dungeon look distinct from last

amount of work you need to do, but creates

All of the nine basic setups are constructed with only two types of building blocks: The entryway and 4 hall + room pieces. There’s no

Secret passages can act as shortcuts or create

secret rooms. Alternate passageways that make

Nothing says that a sneaky GM can’t create a five room dungeon with six An example – The Cliffside Temple:

Using “The Moose” as the base, here’s a sample five-room dungeon

observation rooms that look down on the central chamber through small windows. A relic is located in the main chamber, as are several others in

existence of this secret room since it too overlooks the main chamber.