My Thirty-Minute Dungeon

Paper and Ink are not my preferred mediums.

 

Today I was intending to run a game, and then I did so. In the period between wanting to run the game and running it there transpired a series of mundane events which delayed my preparation work until only an hour remained. Then one of my players arrived an hour early.

By sequestering myself while the player looked over the rules and checked their email, I made a dungeon in thirty minutes. Instead of starting with a map, or a premise, or anything I could use to run the game, I made a sketch. The image of a sea-spire prison had been knocking around my skull for a while so I started there and tried to work out what would be a good fit. Sea-serpents are harder to draw then lampreys, so I decided to draw one of those instead. The dock was supposed to be stone, but it came out looking more like a pier, so I went with that. The light in the tower was drawn as on, so obviously the players would need to turn it off to drive the sea-thing away. Tiny choices like these added up until what could have been a more paint-by-numbers affair had some flair to it, with the players ripping apart rickety wooden stairs and luring guards into the spawning grounds of the dreaded sea-thing as they fought their way upwards. (The thingalings are incidentally what the spawn of the sea-thing are referred to as.)

Many years ago, I was introduced to the idea that limitations breed creativity. I believe it was by the youtuber Norespawns, who was discussing settlement building in Fallout 4 and 76. Instead of just writing a dungeon out like I would normally, I tried to start in a way that I am not especially familiar or skilled in. My corner-cutting choice to avoid doing a serpent's head led to one of my best monsters in years. (Any monster where I can use the word "Garbage disposal" to describe what it does to NPCs is a good monster indeed.) And while earlier I did say that there was no game use for the drawing itself, I was able to show it to the players to set the mood a little and give them an idea of what they were up against.

If you ever find yourself with only thirty minutes of game prep, then instead of rushing forward headlong I might suggest you sketch something instead. But only if you're not a very good artist.